Blood on the Horizon (Battletech SI)

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Thirty-One: War Machine
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation February 21st, 3007

"How in the hell did you make that work?" I asked the scientists on the Jackwagon that we had brought with us. "There's no way you should be able to fit a working factory into this thing and still have it churning out what we need…"

"Well, we had experience with the Argo's systems and refitting this machinery is actually easier than the Argo's systems." Adamina Rogers replied. "We'll be able to put out the pilot suits and more Mithril at a rate of five or so a day as long as we get the materials."

"You're fucking insane." I replied. "And I love it. I'm going to need ya'll to churn out as many of them as possible and then move over to the designated zone."

"Why Colonel?" She asked. "Is there something that happened?"

"McCarron's Armored Cavalry just hit New Valencia and the Wolf's Dragoons there." I replied. "They may have a regiment swing by in order to check on the forces here."

"Oh…" She replied, her mouth hanging open for a minute. "I'll get to work on those suits now."

She hurried back into the Jackwagon in a big hurry and I turned to Sheppard who was next to me.

"So, we have to prepare to potentially hold this planet against one of the biggest merc groups in the Inner Sphere." Sheppard shrugged Nonchalantly. "I hope we have one hell of a plan." he turned and looked me square in the eye. "We're going to need every sneaky and underhanded trick in the book if the Big Mac decides to put a regiment here." He got serious.

"Well…. I have an idea, but it might not sound all that good out loud…" I said.

"Well, if it's stupid and it works." Sheppard repeated the age old saying.

"Then it isn't stupid." I finished.

"So, we're going to need the Marines and some of the Infantry for this." I said. "And we may have to sacrifice those three shiny Unions we just stole."

"You're gonna use the Unions to support Strider and Wardog aren't you?" Sheppard asked.

"I'm going to send the Unions out on what will look like a suicide run." I said flat out. "They're going to go in and shred everything they can get into their firing envelope. Our people in Mithril can survive in Vacuum long enough for the Leopard's to come pick them up. They have a minimum of three hours of air before you tie in extra tanks we can have in the center of the Unions." I said.

"Even if we lose the Unions, they were never ours in the first place." Sheppard agreed, "If we can manage to thin out even a battalion, we'll have lowered the firepower they can bring to bear."

"Exactly." I said. " We'll have to workshop it and only let Volunteers go, but if we can limit the Big Mac to two Battalions against what we have here, we can at the very least hold them down until we can get some reinforcements here."

"Wait," Sheppard said. "I've got something similar, and we'll still need the volunteers along with some really good math, but if it works, we should be able to do a lot more than just bring them down to parity."

He stopped and grinned the grin of a genius or madman. I wasn't quite sure which.

"We'll have a little under a month if we do this right." Sheppard said. "Let's make the most of it."

March 1st, 3007

The Jabberwocky and Daedelus industrial mechs we had brought with us were a literal Godsend. We had built what was quickly turning into a Castle Brian in Miniature. We had our Partisan Tank coordinating the fixed defenses we had stolen from Macbeth and the Capellan base with its targeting computer and had our main combat Dropships under that umbrella while the Buccaneers, Mule, and the Messenger were going to be hidden on one of the other continents. . We had our Tanks dug in, and areas where 'Mechs could be used as QRF's set up. Our Mithril suits had paid off here as well, by being able to keep the Industrial mechs stocked with whatever resources they needed.

While all of the construction had been going on, some of our Dropship engineers had been going over the Fusiliers Unions and making them look like they had sustained damage, and Staff Sergeant Rook had even put system restrictions to sell the act even further. When we got word from one of the Federated Sun's worlds that the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry had split off from the rest of the unit, we knew that they had more than likely been diverted to check out what had happened to the Fusiliers that had been stationed here.

I had been pitching in where I could, but most of my days had been spent deep in planning. If we were going to defeat one of the premier Mercenary units of the Inner Sphere then we were going to need to play dirty. We had gotten word that the Wolf's Dragoons had damaged some of the 2nd but not enough to make that much of a difference to a unit like ours.

Sheppard had been training mech pilots with McKay and Lamb for the past week. While everyone got basic piloting and gunnery training, we were going to need every machine in this fight that we had.

Our techs had gotten some crazy ideas that we had taken to implementing as well. Their bright idea was to have some of the Cappie's mechs and our own be powered down and to have them look like we hadn't gotten to salvaging them yet. They would wait until the opportune moment to ambush and the rest of our forces would be covered in fake scratches, and messed up looking tanks.

All sorts of nasty things laid in wait for the Big Mac, but none were going to be as destructive as the culmination of mine and Sheppard's combined plan.

Authors note: If anyone has an idea that hasn't been considered yet, it may end up a part of the lunch menu next chapter... Let me know what you think we set up...

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Two: For the Glory
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 4th, 3007

"Marksman!" I called out over the assembled battalion. "I know that all of you have been working hard. And I thank you for it. We turned a hill and some dirt into a fortress to be proud of." I stopped talking to take in their reactions. "We are almost certain to be hit by at least one regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry if not more. They may outmass us, but we're gonna tear them to shreds." I paused and gave a massive grin. "How do you eat a Big Mac?" I asked.

"One bite at a time!" The entire Battalion responded. That having been said repeatedly over the last month.

"We're gonna eliminate the aura of superiority the Big Mac has for the rest of eternity." I said. "Volunteers, board your dropships." I told the ones who had volunteered for the crazy mission that Sheppard and I had put together over the past month. "Battalion!" I called, and the entire Battalion came to parade rest. "Attention, Present Arms!" The entire Battalion turned and saluted as they boarded the Fusiliers unions.

After the Unions launched, the battalion dispersed back to their work sites. We still had a lot of prep to do.

April 13th, 3007

Empty space rippled as a trio of Invaders appeared at the jump point of the Tybalt system. After a second of orientation, nine Dropships detached and started burning for the lone habitable planet that the system was named after. Two Overlord dropships lead a pack of seven Union's, meaning that if they made landfall, that the Marksman were going to have to deal with a hundred and fifty six 'mechs at the minimum. But, Captain Sheppard and Colonel Hull schemed for weeks, coming up with a plan, a plan that was about to be executed.

"This is Captain Xang of the Lothar's Fusiliers, we have been reduced to a company of 'mechs and are retreating back to Capellan space." One of the trio of unions in Fusilier's colors and IFF codes said as they neared the group of Dropships beginning the nine day burn for the planet. "Permission to use your Jumpships to regroup with the rest of our regiment?"

"This is Colonel Lear of the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry, you may not use our dropships. Instead, you may burn towards Tybalt with us as we reclaim this planet." The CO of the regiment said. His fleet of dropships slowed down so as to allow the trio of Unions to get in formation.

"Moving into formation Colonel, we're eager for some payback on these Marksman Bastards." The captain responded as they moved into the position indicated. "Thanks for the opportunity."

After remaining in position for couple of days, all hell broke loose. The trio of Unions that the Marksman had commandeered started laying into the dropships nearest them, targeting their drives, and laying into every single dropship that was in range. One of the unions, the one closest to the two Overlords, crippled the drive on said dropship and managed to wound a union before slowing down due to enemy fire and dropping out of the fight, spewing oxygen and fuel.

The second one, managed to ram itself into the Union next to it, sending the two of them careening into a third and spinning off uncontrollably into the abyss. The third just assisted the other two before being damaged enough to cause it to drop, powering down and simulating complete reactor failure.

All in all, the Big Mac lost an Overlord, and two Union dropships, with damage spread throughout the rest of the dropship fleet. After slowing down to make sure there weren't any other surprises, and picking up survivors from the lifeboats, the Big Mac's second regiment continued on towards Tybalt. They had been punched in the face, and now they wanted payback.

April 21st, 3007

"How much are we going to lose?" Major Marcus Barton, the now acting CO of the second regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry asked. "Sir, we're going to be able to get your people on the ground, but I don't expect to be able to lift off again." The tech sighed, "They just caused too much damage, and we don't have the spare parts with us to fix it unless we are able to get help from the rest of the Confederation."

"Well, get us on the ground first, we'll do the rest," Barton said, seething with rage. "We got sucker punched but we'll win this fight in the end."

The group of dropships made landfall uncontested, some of them landing to never be able to take off again. The spaceport was empty, and so was the entire area, as the second moved off of their dropships and formed into their lances, they noticed burn marks and holes towards the factory district of the city.

"Second Battalion, I want you to head over to the factory district and check it out, it looks like a fight took place there recently." Major Barton ordered the Battalion that had suffered the least amount of losses. "Copy that sir, moving to investigate." The CO of the battalion responded and his 'mech companies started to move over in that direction.

"First Battalion…" Barton started to say and then stopped himself. First Battalion was gone, only a few of them had made it out on the lifeboats when the Overlord lost atmospheric pressure. "Third Battalion, I saw what looked like an armored outpost on the pictures we took on our way in, us, Fourth Battalion, and what is left of Fifth will head in that direction.

I hated having to play dead. We had arrayed our 'mechs in ways and created scorch marks and false armor damage so as to look like a major fight had happened in the factory district. And we also had a couple of Archers at other points in the city sighted in on the entrance so that the enemy couldn't escape once we engaged. I was leading this ambush in my Warhammer, while Sheppard was back in his Marauder at the mock Brian Outpost we had built.

I had all of the Enforcers, the Quickdraw, our Black Knight, and the rest of the heavy mechs that we had taken off of the Fusiliers hands involved in this ambush. We had an overstrength company of 'mechs here and a jammer that we had set up to prevent their comms from getting out. Hidden on the rooftops were Captain Paige's company of Infantry, ready to leap onto cockpits and take out whatever they needed to.

Watching as a BattleMaster and Cyclops made their way into the factory district, I felt my armpits start to sweat. We would need every scrap of luck that we had ever had in order to survive this. As soon as the last 'mech crossed into the perimeter we had set, Captain Paige flipped the ECM suite we had hidden in one of the industrial buildings on and we powered our reactors up. As soon as I had power to my weapons systems, I brought both of my PPC's to bear on the Battlemaster in front of me, striking his left shoulder at the same time both of the Enforcers hit him with their AC/10s. I used the advanced computer in my Royal Warhammer to coordinate with our mechs and had Captain Paige and her troops start to jump onto what mechs they could.

I leaned out of the way as an AC/10 from the Cyclops thundered towards me. Snap firing a PPC at his leg before turning and hammering the Battlemaster I was dueling with a brace of lasers and SRM's. Armor melted off of the Battlemaster as I kept up a flurry of weapons, not caring if people could tell that I was running cooler than a Warhammer should. Ducking under a set of SRM's, I let the Enforcers continue to take on the now wounded Battlemaster before moving towards the Cyclops that was trying to shred the Quickdraw in our unit. Not caring that my Mech didn't have hands, I slid into the Cyclops, sweeping the legs out from underneath them while they were trying to target one of my people. Leaning over the now downed 'mech, I stepped on the cockpit and moved on. I didn't have time for grandiose gestures, mine and my peoples lives were on the line.

While I was taking the point on the mech forces, Paige and her Mithril clad infantry had dropped onto a good ten or so mechs. Some of her people had satchel charges that they stuck to the cockpit before using their jump jets to get away before the explosion, and some of her people just pried open the cockpit door and threw grenades in. The Colonel wasn't picky as long as the enemy died.

Along with the mechs that her infantry were dealing with personally, some of her combat engineers had buried long metal tubes in the ground and placed explosives on the bottom of the tubes. They had then filled the tubes with debris, and all sorts of vicious things that would cause damage to a mech. The Black Knight of the group had lured a lance of lighter mechs into position over said tubes before her engineers blew them. Watching the legs get completely blown off of a lance of 'mechs was a glorious thing but their job wasn't done yet.

One of the enemy Battalion had been trying to nail down the building that the ECM was coming from and when he had figured it out, he crashed his Banshee into it repeatedly, trying to bring down the building and to get the assistance that his Battalion would need in order to survive. Unfortunately for the Second Battalion of McCarron's armored cavalry, they couldn't get the help they needed. And because their comms were jammed, they weren't even able to surrender…

Sheppard sat in his Marauder, enjoying the coolness of his new pilot's suit of Mithril. He got to be in charge of the Outpost, and he knew that he was going to have to hold out against a much larger force. Fortunately, Captain Rose had dug in and gotten the artillery sighted in on the few places that any enemy could approach from. Using the Daedelus and Jabberwocky industrialmechs, they had been able to create artificial choke points, and because of the Partisan Directed fixed gun emplacements, no one could attack via the air. And on top of that, there were quite a few traps set for the Big Mac as they tried to advance on the Marksman's new homemade Brian Outpost.

Major Barton was pissed, first they had lost all contact with Second Battalion, then, he had lost a lance of Heavy mechs to a makeshift minefield and a flurry of LRM fire that no one knew where it came from. This slowed his regiment down and gave the enemy time to prepare.

"Anyone got an estimate on how far out the outpost is?" Barton asked his recon lance.

"Yes sir, we'll reach the clearing in two clicks." The lance of Bugmechs being lead by a Firestarter replied.

Barton kicked his Atlas up to its top speed of 54 km/h. "Big Mac!" he called on the radio, "Let's make these bastards pay."

"Fuck!" Sheppard exclaimed to himself as the full array of the enemy showed itself around the outpost. "That is a lot of metal." He muttered.

The Big Mac forces charged, seeing as the fixed defenses were being focused against air assets in particular. Sheppard and his lighter mech forces opened fire at their maximum range. Sheppard alternated his PPC's at targets of opportunity while the Toro's and Griffins focused fire on one mech at a time. Unfortunately, there was just too much of a mass differential, and the assault lances crashed into and through the gates that they had set up. The arty had softened some of them up, and the armored battalion had helped, but there were just too many big mechs.

Sheppard slagged the cockpit of a Quickdraw, and then turned to see an Atlas kick the rest of the gate down and break one of his Toro's with its AC/20. It followed that up by wrecking the PPC of a Griffin with its Medium Lasers and SRM's. Sheppard backed his Marauder up, firing his AC/5 and medium lasers as fast as they could cycle. But then the Atlas turned it's attention to Sheppard's Marauder, seeing as it was the biggest mech it could find in the area. It wrecked his left hand PPC and Laser with its AC/20 and stripped armor away from his torso and legs with its medium lasers. Sheppard backed away, trying to generate range for his remaining PPC but it wasn't enough. One more AC/20 tore its way through his Gyro and he blacked out as his mech struck the ground.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Three: Aftermath
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 21st, 3007

"It has been a really long day." I thought to myself as I moved my Warhammer towards the outpost we had set up. I had managed to get a fireteam of Heavies that still were mobile and could fight, but we were hurting. Thanks to the pilot suits, we didn't lose any of our pilots, but we didn't have the time to salvage before going to help Sheppard.

After the ambush that had shattered a Battalion of the 2nd Mac, I had sent Captain Paige and her company to take the enemy Dropships. I wanted them stuck here with us until we had bled them dry.

"Marksmen, give me your overall status and ammo reserves." I told the fireteam moving with me.

"Marksmen Two, Armor is yellow across the board, no ammo here, I'm a laser boat."

"Marksmen Three, Armor green, I've got enough ammo for three volleys and then I'm down to lasers."

"Marksmen Four, I'm exposed in some areas but have enough ammo for ten volleys.

"Marksman Five, I'm limping, but my ammo reserves are good."

"Marksman Six, I'm missing an arm, but ammo reserves are good."

While we made our way to the outpost, I got in contact with the one fireteam that had made it out of the outpost and the LRM carriers we had left in the city. It was an eclectic mix of Mechs and vehicles, almost all of us were damaged in some way, and the LRM Carriers were the only things undamaged. Put together, we had almost a full company of forces.

Hailing the Dropships that we had, I redirected them to land in the Industrial district. I needed the downed 'Mechs' up and running again so that we could finish off the rest of the 2nd Mac.

After navigating the city, we came out of the woods onto what looked like a scene out of a Peter Jackson film. Leading up to the outpost we had built, there were heavy and assault mechs lying in craters from artillery and LRM fire. It looked like Sheppard had at the very least put up a decent fight. Staying at maximum range, we just kept an eye on them. We hadn't left any repair facilities for them to use, and they would have to break for their dropships if they wanted to make repairs or resupply on munitions.

And we would stand in their path. If they took long enough, the automated repair bays that we had on some of the dropships would have the mechs that we had taken out earlier back in service and ready to chew on some more of the 2nd Mac.

And so, we waited. I stood there in my now blackened and damaged Warhammer, just watching. Waiting for confirmation from Paige that we had taken their dropships, waiting for the 2nd Mac to try and talk to us. We just waited. After a couple of hours, there came a comm from our outpost.

"This is Major Barton of the second regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry." He said. "To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking to?"

"This is Colonel Mark Hull of the Marksman." I replied. "Is there something you wanted to say?" I taunted.

"We broke your base here. And we're going to break you." Barton replied. "After we're done with you, the Marksman won't even be a name on the MRB's board. It'll be like you never existed."

I waited as he ranted angrily for a little while longer. "You done?" I asked. "Because I'm not here to talk right now."

Sheppard slowly regained Consciousness, he moved, turned and looked around his cockpit. His Mithril was intact, and there weren't any enemies trying to break into his 'mech, so he assumed they thought that he was dead.

"Fuck!" His leg was pinned underneath a massive layer of his broken cockpit. Looking down, he saw that his Marauder had fallen face first over one of the tunnels that they had dug for the Infantry to use to move back and forth. Seeing rubble shift, he made sure that Peterson's infantry saw him and remained quiet when they got there to remove him.

After freeing his leg, Sheppard used the two Infantrymen's aid to limp into the tunnel.

"Set him down right here." One of the medics assigned to Peterson's company directed the two of them. "He's not in critical condition so he'll have to wait a bit."

The Infantry company had made it into the tunnels without being seen by the 2nd Mac. And they had collapsed the tunnel entrances in a way that made them look impenetrable. While the 2nd Mac had been taking stock of the outpost, Peterson's company had been going and retrieving the pilots and tankers from their destroyed vehicles and sneaking them back into the tunnels to render medical aid.

"This is Captain Paige." I heard over my Comms systems. "We captured the enemy dropships, and we have word that our people in space have been recovered."

I jolted awake at that. "Did we get any word back from Davion Command on who they were sending?"

We had sent an HPG as soon as we got word that the 2nd Mac was probably on their way. And had been waiting on a response ever since.

"No sir, and I did send someone to check with Comstar and see if there was a response." She said.

"Sir, I'm going to task the VTOL's to keep an eye on the enemy. You and the people with you should come back here for repair and refit." Paige said.

"Copy that." I responded. "We'll remain on task until they show up."

April 24th, 3007

Having automated repair bays working alongside good Astechs felt like cheating sometimes. In two days, we had repaired a third of the Battalion we had taken out and put pilots into them along with repairing a good chunk of our heavy forces. I had been on standby in my Warhammer since it had been reskinned with armor and my SRM's refilled.

Our Leopards that had retrieved the people from the Unions had made landfall a couple of hours ago and everyone was trying to rest before we were pushed by either the 2nd Mac, or reinforcements showed up. The 2nd Mac had taken the outpost we had made and were using any of their mechs that had hands to get it at least partly functional again. We knew that they didn't have any repair facilities available so they were going to have to make do with stripping things from the fallen mechs in the area.

April 25th, 3007

"This is Colonel Jaime Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons." Echoed through an open channel on my comms system.

MarkWarrior · May 16, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Four: Vengeance
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 25th, 3007

"Alright people, we have a couple of hours before the Wolf's Dragoons make landfall." I briefed the mechs and artillery I had with me. "I want the 2nd Mac dead and gone before they get here."

I was leading the mechs we had managed to get back up and running to the outpost. We were going to bait the 2nd Mac into a rage and throw our arty along with the LRM carriers at them from range. In order to do this though, I was going to need to expose myself. As we neared the clearing, I began broadcasting on an open channel.

"This is Colonel Hull, I broke your assault battalion, and I'm going to shatter you before the Dragoons get a chance to pick at your corpse." I called out, walking out in my Warhammer challenging them. "You a coward Barton? Or just scared?" I taunted, watching as an Atlas was doing the little things that indicated what a pilot might do via the linked neurohelmet.

The Atlas clenched and unclenched its fists before moving forward at its maximum speed. "This is Major Barton, I'm going to crush you beneath my Atlas' boots and wear your Warhammer as a cape!"

We both circled around the open field pocketed with craters and shattered mechs and vehicles. I wasn't concerned about facing Barton, he was angry and I was cool, I was freshly armored up, and he had visible damage to parts of his Atlas. While I might despise these sorts of duels on a personal level, I couldn't deny that it was going to be necessary in order to make sure that the Dragoons didn't get the credit for our work.

As soon as we were both in the field facing each other, I began throwing PPC fire at his AC/20, I needed that weapon out of commision if I wanted to win this fight. At this point, it didn't even matter if people could tell that my mech was a Royal variant with Freezers. I kept up a rate of fire with my PPC's as I closed in that would have melted a regular mech. I knew I was going to be paying the price with my Warhammers myomer muscles later, but this fight was the fight for Tybalt. As soon as I was in range and knew that the AC/20 was down, I dropped my Warhammer into what looked like a baseball slide, coming around at the rear armor and worrying it with some SRM's and medium lasers before peeling off again.

Barton spun around and let loose with a brace of medium lasers, smiling a shark-like grin as he watched them converge on one of the PPC's that had been melting armor off of his Atlas.

He then closed in and began to try and hammer the lighter mech with his Atlas' fists. Laughing to himself as one of them connected and shattered armor on the left shoulder that he spat some SRM's at.

Barton had been angry originally, but now he was in the zone, he had the heavier mech; one that was built for this kind of fight, even without the AC/20 that normally came with it. And he was still congratulating himself when the Warhammer lashed out with a kick that tore his knee actuator off of his mech.

I had been dodging fire for too long, some of the lasers had come dangerously close to my cockpit. I had been worrying the Atlas in several different places, making sure to make it look like I was spreading out the damage when really I had focused my Machine guns on his right knee, and as I kept harassing the Atlas, I noticed when the actuator had begun to spark, Seeing that I had this one chance, I threw my Warhammer forward, heedless of any shots that might strike me and kicked the Atlas' knee.

The Atlas knee actuator groaned for a minute before it buckled and fell to pieces. Barton fought to stand on one foot and maintain balance, but he was already crashing to the ground. I walked up, placed one foot on his mech and pointed my remaining PPC directly at his cockpit. At this range it wouldn't be able to fire, but it would still kill Barton.

"Surrender." I said over the open comms. "Or don't. I don't give a damn either way."

"Stand down." Barton coughed over the comms. "We surrender."

With that, the remaining 2nd Mac powered down and popped their hatches. When the surrender order had been followed, my Mithril clad infantryman that had been in the tunnels below came out, one platoon saw to it that the wounded were taken our dropships, while the rest of them took custody of what was left of the 2nd regiment of McCarron's armored cavalry.

April 26th, 3007
"We don't need you, Colonel Wolf." I said to the man across the table from me. "We held this world and took out a third of the Big Mac."

"We're only asking to take part in salvage operations." Wolf replied.

"I. Do Not. Care." I enunciated each word. "My people did what yours couldn't, and unless Ian or Hanse Davion show up to politely ask otherwise I'm going to continue making this my business."

"Colonel Hull, be reasonable about this, you've got wounded and don't have the manpower to use this amount of equipment." Colonel Jaime Wolf continued to push.

"I just fought off a reinforced regiment with a battalion and shattered it." I said firmly, "You and all of your equipment do not scare me. Now fuck off unless you have a Davion that you can pull out of your ass."

Right as I said this, Ian Davion walked into the room. He had a metal bowl in his hands and he sat at the table between me and Wolf before reaching into the bowl.

"No, please continue." The First Prince said as he munched on some popcorn. "It's just starting to get interesting."

"Prince Davion." Both myself and Wolf made to stand up and greet him.

"Sit down." Ian said, and so we did. "Now, what seems to be the issue here?"

" I want to take both Overlords and one of the Unions as my salvage rights. I'm willing to cede pretty much everything else, but Colonel Wolf here, thinks that my unit can't maintain an Overlord for long." I said. "I also want the mechs that were still on the Overlord that's in space." I folded my arms. "The two of you can debate any other salvage you find aside from my company's mechs."

"That's all?" the First Prince raised an eyebrow. "Done, are there any other issues?"

"None sir." I said, shaking my head. "As long as the scheduled meeting takes place tomorrow I'll be set."

April 28th, 3007

"Sheppard!" I greeted as he used a wheelchair to leave the medbay, assisted by his Girlfriend Sergeant Erika Lamb. "How's the leg?"

"It sucks." He replied, and then his face turned solemn. "Rose didn't make it though."

"Damn." I said. "I thought she looked fine."

"She was supposed to be fine, but apparently she didn't tell anyone that she had broken a rib in time. She bled out internally." Sheppard replied.

There were a host of us with injuries, both minor like the torn ligaments and sprained ankles, and major, like Captain Petersons eye, or Sheppards now missing leg. We were currently waiting for Dunham to show up with the Argo and the advanced medical facilities there. Until then, we had commandeered one of the civilian hospitals and were going to be using it for now.

May 1st, 3007

"We are the luckiest people in the Inner Sphere." Jewel observed to Bruce as they conducted a damage and repair assessment of the Overlord in the void. "There's only one panel we'll need to replace in order to get this thing able to be moved to a shipyard for further repairs." She held up her 'Noteputer to show Bruce the section she was referring to.

"Must have been a golden BB." Bruce said. "I'll get the details sorted and we'll start working in an hour."

On Tybalt…

"So…" Ian Davion sat across from me in my Office on the Messenger. "You're willing to license these to us for manufacture?" He gestured to the Mithril plans in front of him."

"Yes we are." I said. "We also have licenses worked out with the Concordat and TTI."

"Hmm." He stroked his chin. "You have partial ownership in a factory or two on Taurus, correct?"

"Yessir." I replied. "We're trying to make some extra income."

"Well, I'll look over the contract, but I'm giving you a solid yes on that." He chuckled. "Those battleRoms you showed me proved their worth."

"Understood." I made to stand up and he waved me to sit down again.

"What do you want?" The First Prince's normal smile turned serious. "I can give you almost anything you want for accomplishing what you just did. A landhold, a planet?" He paused. "What is it that you truly desire?"

I almost answered, and then paused to think. "Give me a year and a half, three Mules, and two Mammoths." I smirked. "When I get back, I want Kentares."

Silence reigned in the room for a good five minutes before the First Prince responded. "Kentares?" He asked. "You're sure you want Kentares?" you could hear the surprise in his voice.

"Yes sir, give me what I just asked for as a bonus, and I'll come back ready and willing to get to work."

"Done." He stood up and shook my hand. "And I'll do one better." he grinned. "I'll give your people the priority for repairs on the Overlords and one of the Invaders to carry them to New Avalon for you."

MarkWarrior · May 18, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Five: Achievement unlocked…
Tybalt, Federated Suns May 5th, 3007

"You want to work for us?" I asked the redhead sitting in front of me. "You've already got a decent paycheck with the Dragoons, why come work for us?" I paused. "We don't really do things the way the rest of the Inner Sphere does."

"I know," She replied. "I just want to get a glimpse of what a smaller company might look like." She then smirked at me. "And, it's not every day you watch a Warhammer drop an Atlas."

"Alright, you're hired provisionally," I said. "We'll put you through our basic after we get to a different world and settle down for a bit." I stood up from my desk and shook her hand.

"See you Colonel." She said, and glided away.

I just facepalmed after my door slid shut. "Why does this keep happening to me?" I asked Sheppard who was seated next to me in his wheelchair.

Sheppard had just grabbed his 'Noteputer 'and started hitting it against his forehead again and again. "He's an idiot Jack. But he's our idiot." He kept repeating until I snapped him out of it.

"You with us Jack?" I asked, making sure that his injuries weren't flaring up.

"Huh?" He stopped and realized what he was doing. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Alright then," I said. "We've got to meet up WIth Dunham and Frye along with our gear. I'm planning on sending Jewel and Paige with the Overlords to get them repaired before we head over towards the periphery."

"Sounds good." He responded. "Where we going to set up shop in the meantime?"

"I was thinking a return to Pierce was in order." I responded. "They should be fine with us renting out some facilities to use as a base camp temporarily."

"You talked it over with the First Prince right?" Sheppard asked. "Yes, I discussed some R&R while he got our bonus ready. Pierce is a bit far, but a lot of our vets are from there and they'll enjoy the visit.

May 20th, 3007.

We were finally lifting off of this misbegotten rock. Lieutenant Dunham and the refitted DroST's along with the Argo had arrived in system around five days ago. Captain Jewel and her team had gotten the Overlord and one of the messed up Unions capable of holding atmosphere and at the minimum making the jump to New Avalon.

The plan was to have the DrOST's transfer over to our Leviathans, while the Overlords took the King Henry V to the New Avalon Shipyards in order to get them fixed up. Jewel was going to head up that mission while the rest of us began the long journey towards Pierce.

Before I boarded the Messenger though, Prince Ian Davion grabbed me by the shoulder. "New Avalon for Christmas next year," he told me. "Don't be late."

He left me with those words as we burned for orbit.

May 29th, 3007.
We docked with the Whirlwind at the same time the Argo did. Allowing us to transfer the wounded over to the advanced facilities on board the Argo. We had also transferred the bodies of our fallen brothers and sisters to the Cargo holds. I had written personalized letters to each of their families, and would be sending a part of the bonus that the Davions had given us to each of the fallen's families.

"Get well soon." I told the wounded senior staff as they were taken over to the Argo. Sheppard just flipped me off, while the rest of them responded with affirmatives.

Currently, I had a lot of XO's filling in spots that normally the senior level staff were on and once we had charged the K-F Drives, we would be splitting up. The Leviathan with the Argo, the Unions, the Triumph, and Both Buccaneers along with one Leopard and one Leopard CV. We weren't taking chances on the Capellans taking a shot at us.

While Sheppard and most of the newer veterans were going to Pierce to set up a temporary training camp, I was taking the other Leviathan and the rest of the dropships and heading for where I had left the Manassas. It was time to go Lostech prospecting.

Location: Classified, somewhere on the Taurian Concordat and Davion border. Date: October 31st, 3007

All of the company I had brought with me watched with bated breath from their dropships as the depot's bay doors slid open to reveal the two Warhips inside. The senior staff and other people entrusted with the info had believed me, but seeing it was a whole different ball game.

"Now that is a ship." Lieutenant Packer observed, he was currently serving as my temporary XO.

"She's beautiful ain't she." I responded. "Take us in slow to the docking bays. We're gonna have a lot of work cut out for us on getting the advanced stuff off of the Confederates.

The pilots of the various Dropships. (the Bittersweet, Puma, and Messenger) eased us in and docked fluidly. When we were docked and the bay doors shut down, I sent the SLIC codes to repressurize the bay. Once everything was set, we all left the various ships in order to get to work.

Personal Journal: November 5th, 3007

I had almost forgotten what the massive Warships looked like until I saw them again. As soon as we had docked, we began to work. Maneuvering the Confederate Dropships off of the Manasses one at a time in order to unload the cargo stored on each one while also gettin the Unions off of the Age of Discovery in order to transfer everything over. Thankfully, we were able to fit everything from the Confederates, and a good chunk of the spare parts from the Manasses. (Freezers, Endo-Steel, Ferro Fibrous, ER weapons and Gauss Rifles, the Manasses had a lot of these things on it.) I also made copies of the Manufacturing core that the Manasses had to take with us and all of the scientific journals, the research that I had done everything that we could. The Age of Discovery still had some things I had apparently missed in its cargo bays, including enough Freezers to outfit an entire regiment of Assault mechs. Anyway, our next stop would be Pierce in order to unload everything we had stripped from this depot. And then we would hit a couple of the others that I had the coordinates for. Even if it was just spare parts, it would be worth it…

Authors note: I'm on a roll today if you couldn't tell...

MarkWarrior · May 18, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Six: Land, Loot, Survive…

Pierce, Federated Suns December 4th, 3007

"Why am I doing this?" A redheaded woman asked as she pushed the dirt.

"Because here in the Marksman, every single one of us learns how to be an infantryman. You will learn how to deal with Battlemechs, other Infantry, and how to deal with armor and come out not only alive. But victorious." Captain Sheppard told the entire platoon he was training with. His prosthetic needed to be calibrated and what better way than to get some work done at the same time. "While you are a part of this unit, you will develop interpersonal skills. All of us are capable of using armor and weapons, and a good handful of us are neurohelmet compatible and will go on to cross train into the mech piloting section." He explained "But first, you and everyone else here will start at the bottom just like the rest of us did."

"I bet Colonel Hull didn't have to do this." one recruit muttered to another one.

"I heard that." Lieutenant Mathis said. Crouching down next to the two recruits. "I've been with the Colonel from the beginning. And he was the one that instituted and started this training."

He dropped down and started doing the exercises with the two recruits. "The Colonel actually out performs many of us in our individual tasks simply because he works harder to learn and be better at them." He said calmly while continuing to do all of the different sets that Sheppard was putting them through. "I am an Infantryman, I love my job and I'm still a trained astech."

Mathis stopped doing the exercises when it was called for. Not a drop of sweat on him or even a hint of being out of breath. And raised his voice to finish what Sheppard had been instructing them on. "Here in the Marksman we do not expect perfection!" Mathis called out over the massive training ground in a booming voice. "What we do expect is that you always perform at your personal best. What that looks like is different for all of you. But the foundation for learning your limits starts here, at infantry school."

December 5th, 3007 location classified.
This was going to be the second depot that we were going to hit. The material we had gotten from the Manassas and Age of Discovery was going to keep us set for a while. But this next deep space depot looked slightly different from the first one we had stripped. Entering the SLIC captain's codes, Packer and I watched as the bay doors opened.

"That thing is massive." the pilot of the Messenger observed, looking at what the computers were telling him was a Texas class Battleship. As they eased in, they noticed why it had been parked in the depot. A portion of the side had been ripped off, exposing the interior to vacuum. The thing that stuck out to us was the massive Colossus dropship attached to its hardpoints.

After we had docked, we began to get the station powered up again.

Pierce, Federated Suns December 15th, 3007

"So you have strong bodies." Sheppard said, drilling the recruits. "That means nothing. A strong body leads to weakness if it doesn't come with a strong mind." He started to teach the basic organization of the Marksman.

"Who can tell me the basic formation used in the Inner Sphere?" He asked the classroom in front of him.

"You recruit." He selected one at random.

"It's a lance sir." The recruit responded.

"That is correct, and you would be right…." Sheppard paused. "If we worked like the rest of the Sphere. In the Marksman, we use what we have labeled the Fireteam." He stopped to let them digest that.

"The fireteam is a six unit measurement that is used for all of our formations barring aerospace and dropships." He turned to see a redhead giving him a slight glare. Then shrugged and moved on. "Can anyone explain why we use the same unit of measurement for all of our forces including infantry."

No one answered or put their hands up. "It's to help generate unit cohesion and better decision making." Sheppard answered.

"How does it help with unit cohesion if no one knows what their proper duties are?" The redhead asked with an angry look on her face.

"Well, while we do ensure the cross training is kept up to date, you will pick a primary focus and a secondary while you are here in the academy." Sheppard said. "For instance, I myself have a primary focus on Mech piloting, with a secondary in armor and I maintain my infantry qualifications at the bare minimum expected level." He paused. "Colonel Hull on the other hand, has chosen to cross train in everything. He is certified to do any of the jobs that are required in the Marksman, from the garbageman to the K-F drive engineer."

"Can anyone tell me why the Colonel would devote so much time to training in this way?" Sheppard asked, and then answered his own question when no one did. "He does this because of something he once told me. "I cannot ask anyone under my command to do something I am not willing to do myself." Sheppard paused his lecture here to let it soak in. "Colonel Hull, is one of the most talented Mech Pilots I have ever seen, a decent cook, and an awful driver.... But he wasn't willing to let that be enough. His personal best is by knowing all of you, and what your job entails and knowing where to put you so you feel like you are not only contributing something to the unit... But that you also feel valued for you to know, that once you are a part of this team, that you are a family. Cross training is a part of this because it builds those interpersonal relationships that a tight knit unit relies on in order to survive."

Looking at the clock, Sheppard almost fell over distributing the various study pages he had printed out. "Sorry for that ladies and gentlemen, I may have started rambling a bit there." He met the redheads eyes. "Kerensky, my office after the sims."

December 15th, 3007 location classified.

The Texas was a bust, the fusion reactor wasn't even able to be powered on and we had to manually remove the Colossus and Overlord from the drop collars. On the Colossus, we found a complete RCT. A good portion of them were Royals intended to liberate the Terran Hegemony, but after an RWR lucky nuke rendered the Texas inert, the SLN had towed it here and forgotten about it in the aftermath of the Amaris Civil War. The Overlord simply had a Battalion of Light mechs and some Aerospace fighters in their bays to support. Getting everything out of the depot, including all of the spare parts we could find, we headed for the Whirlwind. It was time to return to Pierce.

Pierce, Federated Suns, December 31st, 3007

"You look miserable here." Sheppard told the redhead seated at the table across from him. "If you want to quit and go back to the Dragoons, the Colonel left the offer open."

"You think I want to quit?" Natasha Kerensky snarled. "No, I just do not really understand why you do all of this "Cross training". It goes against everything I have ever known."

"Do you want to see what cross training looks like for real?" Sheppard asked, as he had her walk with him to the armor asset bay. Seeing the two Pegasus hovercraft that they somehow always managed to recover he grabbed the keys to one of them and gestured for Natasha to get in.

"Have you ever driven a tank or a car?" Sheppard asked.

"No, never." Kerenksy replied.

"Well, take it slow, ease the throttle forward, and we'll get started." He instructed.

Taking the copilot seat, Sheppard began to instruct on the different controls before letting her handle it.

"This is so different from my Marauder." Kerensky observed. "It feels different, like the controls are both less and more responsive somehow."

"That's because it is both. Tankers have to rely on what their instruments tell them, they don't have clear cockpits, and they're not able to compensate for things with a Neurohelmet like we as mech pilots are."Sheppard continued in his instruction, having had to break quite a few of the mechwarrior "mafia" out of their own heads.

"Now, take it as fast as you feel comfortable going." Sheppard said, triple checking his harness.

The Pegasus flew forward, and Kerensky maneuvered through the tanker obstacle course as fast as the Pegasus would allow. Letting out a whoop of joy when it reached its maximum speed. Powerslides, everything she could think of, she put that machine through until they were running low on fuel.

"So," Sheppard began. "What do you think?"

"When can I learn how to drive the big ones?" Kerensky asked. The grin on her face was prevalent.

"Well, improve your cross training scores, and we'll get you qualified on all of the hovercraft at least." Sheppard finished.

Pierce, Federated Suns January 31st, 3007

"Natasha Kerensky, for achieving victory over overwhelming enemy forces in both simulations and live fire exercises, we hereby promote you directly to Lance Corporal with all that that entails." Sheppard said from his podium as Kerensky walked up and received her rank insignia. Returning the salute he gave her before carrying on with the rest of the graduation ceremony.

Natasha was strangely happy with her decision to leave the Wolf's Dragoons for a bit. While she had initially raged at the thought of needing to be retrained, the Marksmen trainers had a method to their madness and had beaten down enough of her pride that she had a new viewpoint on it. Now, she would still prefer to be in her Marauder, but now she understood how to best use her armored vehicles and the Infantry that may end up under her command as a Lance Corporal. And if she maintained her qualifications in order to be able to take the VTOl's and various Hovercraft out for "Test drives" then that was nobodies business but her own.

MarkWarrior · May 18, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Setting up (Shop)

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns. June 7th, 3008

It had been a long six months. After looting two of the half dozen depots I had on my list, we had just about run out of lift capacity, having to quite literally squeeze one of our Leopards into a bay before leaving to meet up with the rest of the Marksman on Pierce. We arrived right in time to see our second Invader show up with the two freshly repaired and painted Overlords we had stolen from the 2nd Mac.

We made landfall on Kentares IV about a week and a half ago, landing in one of the abandoned cities that we were going to do our level best to restore. I made sure that the Jabberwocky's and Daedalus were the first out. We had given the Industrialmech pilots a set of blueprints and told them to scavenge whatever they needed from the city in order to build the fortress we needed/wanted.

It's always interesting how technology both advances and regresses all at once. For example, where sometime around the industrial revolution walls had become obsolete, and with the advent of aircraft following World War II, there was less entrenching involved as the tank improved. But the further into the future you get, the more necessary these things become until they are once again rendered obsolete.

With that bit of woolgathering finished, I climbed into my shiny and new Warhammer WHM-6RM and made my way back to the prefab buildings we had set up temporarily while we were working on the main base.

Everything was starting to come together nicely, and while I was definitely paranoid, I was also doing my best to prepare for every eventuality. Dunham had negotiated with TTI and the Calderons, and they would not only be putting a Mithril plant in addition to the Toro plant, but they had granted me a license to manufacture Toro's of my own and TTI had sent people with Dunham to help open a branch into the Federated Suns. It turns out that me having returned a large portion of their national pride and talked Zarantha into improving relations had resulted in a much more profitable relationship between the two nations.

The TTI people had identified a couple of factories that they would like to begin reconstruction on once the main base was set up and the defenses running. And it would take a year or so to get those factories up and running. In the short term, we had taken the factory that we had taken off of Tybalt and were assembling it into an abandoned factory. We were going to be churning out the Mithril suits for infantry, pilots, and vehicles for as long as we could keep up production.

Our new Colossus was being used as housing for now, while the air base that we had repurposed was launching flights of new trainees all the time. Wardog and Strider had complained for all of ten minutes before they hopped into their shiny new birds and had begun to turn tricks like nobody's business. They enjoyed training people, both those new to piloting aerospace, and those that had been in the business for a while. Wardog and Strider were hands down some of the best pilots in the 'Sphere, and they had proved it time and time again.

Just because we were all pitching in to build new facilities, didn't mean that we were slacking on training, both the new recruits and our veterans were training with the new equipment we had, and getting set up just in case the Draconis Combine decided to drop down for a raid. On top of training, we were upgrading our mech forces over time and those we weren't upgrading, we were incorporating into lances where they could still make use of the advanced tech we were putting into use.

We had a lot of metal now, and our main job before Christmas was to get our meat trained up while we were still on a rest period. Because as soon as I put our unit out for contract again, the Davions would have us raiding.

"How do you still manage to do that?!" Major Sheppard shouted as he jumped out of the simulator, he had finally done enough therapy that they (the doctors) were letting him get back into a combat role instead of the teaching/admin role he had been in for the past eight months.

"Well, I finally have both the speed and armor to do some of the crazy things I've always thought about trying but couldn't because I didn't have the speed or armor." I replied, cackling a little madly. I had been in the simulators all day, doing a sort of battle royale per se. I had started with Sheppard's Fireteam and was now working my way through one of our mech battalions. One by one they came, and I began to dismantle egos. I didn't care if one of my people managed to beat me, but I didn't need ego destroying the camaraderie I had built up and maintained.

An hour later…
At this point, there was a live tri-vid of the simulation battles, with people taking bets and shots based on what Hull or his opponent was doing. The ones that had managed to get close to taking him out had been a tanker crew driving a Manticore in an urban setting. They had used their small profile and led Hull around for a merry chase as they stripped armor with their PPC and LRM's. Hull had managed to close the gap on them, but not before they had nearly cored his mech with a skilled gunner.

The Colonel had actually climbed out of the sims at that point and walked over to congratulate them for almost winning the scenario.

He had then climbed back into the simulator and gotten back to it. He had basically stated he would be in the sims until someone managed to take him out.

It had been hours. People had come close to taking out the Colonel, but somehow he always managed to dodge the worst of it and come out on top. It was almost like his Warhammer was responding before he was sometimes, and it was uncanny. Finally, a Demolisher tank team led by Lance Corporal Kerensky had managed to barely eke out a victory over the Colonel.
The entire regiment cheered and threw Kerensky and her crew onto their shoulders and carried them to the table that had the liquor and beer on it and began to pile drinks on them for being the team to finally beat the Colonel.

"Dammit." I said to myself as I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine. "I knew I overdid it yesterday." I shuffled to my closet and got out a fresh uniform, laying it out over my bed before heading to the bathroom for a five minute shower.

Once I had a fresh clean uniform on and was showered, I headed for the command center we had put together to see how the regiment had recovered from yesterday's spontaneous festivities. Walking outside and wincing from the frequency of the light, I reached into my pocket for the sunglasses I was rarely without only to find nothing.

"Oh.. that's right, that red headed she devil took my sunglasses as part of her bet." I started muttering to myself. That had been my only pair of sunglasses from the 21st century. And now I was going to be stuck with 80s styles. "Oh well," I shrugged to myself. "I guess I'll have to find a pair of aviators."

I finished my walk to the CIC and took a seat at my desk, enjoying the fact that we had proper aides to sort through the paperwork again. I took care of the small amount of documents I had and then went to check on the fort we were building. Our engineers had been told to go wild, and I was finding that if I had wanted this done fast I should have gone with civilian contractors instead of the combat engineers I had.

I moved through the regiments various quarters, observing training, maintenance, and whatever else they were up to. The NCO's and regulars were the beating heart of a unit and I needed to constantly keep my finger on the pulse. One of the constants I got was to import more of the coffee that I brought with me. Apparently that brand only did limited edition stuff and I had lucked out when I found a stash of it.

One of the things we had implemented while the cities around us were abandoned was to do urban environment training, this was for our Mithril, our tankers, and our mech Pilots. So once a week, we ran a simulated urban training scenario and looked to see how we could improve.

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns. July 15th, 3008

"Dear Colonel Mark Hull,

"I, Ian Davion and brother Hanse Davion, would like to cordially invite you to spend Christmas on New Avalon with us. Please make all of the preparations necessary and depart with all due haste. Thank you, Ian Davion. PS. Wear your uniform"

There was a bunch of other stuff in the letter, but it basically amounted to "You can bring an escort, but it can't be massive."

I got together with the Senior staff and put together a team that would go with me. I was going to take the King Henry V and the Messenger as my dropship and jumpship. And I had a "Bodyguard" team of four people. I was going to be lifting off in a couple of hours and I had handed a series of operational plans to Major's Sheppard and Peterson expecting them to be able to handle the construction and training while I was gone again.

Authors note: I'm tapped out for the day/night ladies and gentlemen. I'm about to crash. (You know you're tired when you're leaning over a computer cackling to yourself as you type an inside joke)

MarkWarrior · May 18, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Tell me, have you heard of...
New Avalon, Federated Suns December 10th, 3008

"This is the Dropship Messenger, requesting a flight path." The pilot of the Messenger commed the main space controller for the New Avalon system.

"We see you Messenger, move to the designated spaceport in the order that we send you." The traffic controller told my pilot and we waited until we received the coordinates and the order we were given.

Once we had an order to descend and move towards the planet below. We now had seven days in which to spend time doing nothing but prepping for politics. And trying to figure out how to avoid offending people by my thoughts on the Star League.

December 17th, 3008

Even though we were personally invited by the First Prince to New Avalon to celebrate the season, we still had to go through all of the standard protocols that everyone else had to go through. This included checking all of the stuff we had brought with us through customs which included the gift we had brought for the Davion brothers.

When we exited the Messenger and began to make our way to a hotel that had been recommended to us. When we left the spaceport, we began to be blinded by flash bulbs and all sorts of questions. The reporters had somehow gotten word that I would be coming to New Avalon and were waiting in ambush…

"Colonel Hull! New Avalon News here! Can you tell us what it was like to be a part of the destruction of the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry?"

"Colonel Hull! New Valencia Associated Press. What was it like being rescued by the Wolf's Dragoons."

The questions kept coming so I stopped trying to fight through the reporteres, and decided to just hold a miniature press conference there.

"Stop!" I barked in my Command voice and watched as the crowd of reporters stilled. "I will answer your questions, but I will do it in order and one at a time."

I pointed at the first person who had asked a question. "You first Ma'am."

"I'm Felicia Land with the New Avalon News network." She said, "Can you tell us what it was like being a major part in the destruction of the 2nd regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry?"

"It's something that can't really be put into words, but I think a quote from an old Terran commodore suits it best. "We have met the enemy and they are ours.". I paused and took in the moment of silence. "Next question."

"Marian Dance, New Valencia Associated press." he said. "What was it like being rescued by the Wolf's Dragoons?"

"Rescued?!" Lieutenant Mathis, the head of my bodyguard detail, spoke up. " What fucking rescue? We didn't need rescue, we weren't trapped on Tybalt with the 2nd Mac, they were trapped there with us and we were making them bleed."

This caused an uproar, and the various news organizations talked over one another until a Davion security team escorted them away.

One of the security team members doubled back and told me that there was a discrete car waiting out front, and that the Davions had arranged for a stay in the New Avalon palace complex.

Climbing into the unmarked black sedan, my four escorts and I enjoyed the relative quiet for a time.

A couple of hours later…

Security in the palace complex was no joke, we had been going through the layers of security since we had arrived through the main gates. We had been checked over for weapons a minimum of three times. (Mathis had tried to convince them to let him keep some of his hidden weapons, but it didn't go over well.) We had gone through virtually every test that had probably ever been thought up.

When we were finally through security, (If I went through another scanner I was getting my team checked for signs of cancer when we got back to the Argo.) We were directed to a side room and instructed to wait.

There was a version of a miniature Fridge there, and they had small bottles of water laid out along with assorted alcoholic beverages. I merely grabbed a bottle of water and took some sips before taking a seat on one of the various couches. After waiting for a period of about fifteen minutes or so, the door opened to reveal a butler/aid who instructed me to follow him.

I followed the man down the winding corridors, finally reaching one final security checkpoint where they did one last sweep before allowing me into an office. There was an obviously well used desk in there, ornate and hand made, but that desk wasn't in use, instead,there was a smaller side desk where Ian and Hanse were looking over paperwork and arguing about something or another. When they saw me, they both stood up to greet me.

"Colonel Hull," Hanse greeted me with a firm handshake. "A pleasure to see you again."

"Hull." Ian said and shook my hand immediately after Hanse was done. "Take a seat." He sat down, moved the thing that Hanse and Ian had been arguing about out of the way and gestured for myself and his brother to sit.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked, as I took a seat in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs.

"Yes." Hanse and Ian looked at each other before Ian nodded to Hanse. "What is your real backstory?" Hanse asked outright. "No one, not even a confirmed time traveler should have been able to access the gear that you magically produced over the last couple of years." Hanse paused and stroked the small beard he had grown since I last met him. "Ian and I like you, but unless we get the truth we will not be able to trust you."

I sat there for a moment, gathering my thoughts and decided to let them know at least part of the truth.

"I was a part of the Star League Intelligence Corps towards the end of the Amaris Civil war." I then told them my story making sure to leave out things like the Manassas, the locations of them where I had stashed it and the other depots, and my extradimensional origins.

"That…" Ian leaned back in his chair. "Is a lot to digest."

Hanse just sat there quietly, mulling over everything in the space of his own mind.

"Is there anything that you can give us that would help us recover any Lostech?" Hanse asked after a second. "Anything that can help prove that what you say is true?"

I paused, thinking it over before nodding to myself and smirking at the two brothers while stroking my beard mysteriously. "Tell me, what do you know about a world called Helm?"

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns December 17th, 3008

"Kentares is beautiful." Sheppard said to his girlfriend Erika Lamb, was sitting beside him while she picked at his false leg.

"I still don't understand why you didn't go for a cloned leg?" She replied. "Not that I hate the prosthetic or anything…" She tried to wave off any offense as Sheppard just laughed.

"No, it's just that I find it funny that you took this long to ask." Sheppard pulled the shorter brunette into his arms and placed his head on her shoulder. "I'll change to a cloned leg if you want." He said. "But I wanted to get back to what I was faster, and we couldn't afford the downtime as a unit then." He laid a kiss on her cheek and eased down onto the blanket beneath them to look at the gorgeous sky.

"I think I'd prefer your regular leg back." Lamb responded, having taken a moment to think about it while relaxing back into her lover's arms. "I know it's silly, but it bothers me that it's missing sometimes." She rolled over onto her side and made sure he could see her face. "I will still be with you regardless of your decision. But I miss the warmth of you having two legs and I hate how the prosthetic sometimes causes you pain even though you try to hide it."

She stroked his slightly worn face and smiled gently at him. "I want you whole and to not feel pain. That's why I want you to go with the cloned leg." She then smirked. "Besides, you'd enjoy using the downtime to go and instruct the new recruits."

Sheppard just chuckled and poked her in the side, starting a slight tickle war that went on for about five minutes before subsiding. "Alright Erika." He got serious. "I'll talk to Hull when he comes back from New Avalon and have him put me on training rotation until I get used to the cloned leg." Then his eyes twinkled a little bit. "But you're the one that has to break the news to Peterson's wife."

Erika's eyes widened at that. "On second thought, you can keep the prosthetic…." She tried to argue against her previous case, not wanting to be glared at by the new mother.

"She'll kill me." Erika said. "You can't do that."

"She won't kill you." Jack waved his hand nonchalantly. "She just seems scary, she's really sweet though."

"Yeah, I know." Erika said. "I just don't want to cause a rift between her and Thomas."

"You won't," Jack stated. "She'll understand, after all, Paige and Mathis stepped up while he was in recovery for his eye surgery."

"I forgot how much paperwork Sheppard and Hull handle." Peterson said to his wife Francesca Jones who was sitting on the couch in his office, nursing their three month old son while he was finishing up the last of the paperwork.

"Hey you." Francesa said while Thomas looked at his wife questioningly. "I love you!"

Thomas just smiled back at her. "I love you too. Let me finish this last couple of pieces of paperwork and I'll burp him for you." He took a couple of minutes to read over the submissions before sorting them into three piles, accepted, for further review, and rejected and when he was done, he went over and began helping his wife take care of their son.

Authors note: I know that it was a bit of cuteness overload there at the end, but this story isn't just about Hull...

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Title Pending(I still haven't thought of one… edit: 1k words and still don't have one)

New Avalon, Federated Suns, December 29th, 3008

"You're going to need to send someone with my message to the rest of my unit." I told Ian and Hanse, we had been sitting and plotting for a good week or so now. "They can spend the time training and building up further defenses while I'm gone, but it still doesn't look good for a unit to be without its commander for a while."

"We'll put the Marksman on a garrison and defense contract with raiding clauses." Hanse said. "And we'll have it in there that we're borrowing you for consulting work with the Third Davion Guards RCT." Hanse paused. "It'll work as a cover pretty well if we disguise the Third being gone on training exercises to see if we're going to adopt the Marksman's unit organization or not."

"That should work," I thought out loud. "I'll send a handwritten and encoded letter to my XO and a recorded message for them along with the contract details."

"Being gone for a year isn't very good optics though." I said. "If the Third and I are gone for a year people will start to wonder."

"You raise a good point…"

We continued to hammer out the fine details of our planned raid over the rest of the days until the new year. After we had gotten the details set we had made "Public" the details of the Marksman's contract and that I was being granted a title and a landhold as a result of destroying a third of the Big Mac.

January 1st, 3009
"Make sure this gets to both Major Sheppard and to Major Peterson." I said, handing Mathis a sealed note and a package to go with it. "I'm counting on you to make sure that the Messenger gets there in one piece while I'm gone and to help everyone hold down the fort."

"Yes sir." Mathis replied. "Anything you want me to tell them that's not in the letter?" He asked.

"Just to keep up the good work." I said, "Thanks for all of your hard work Mathis, make sure you take a vacation when you get back."

"I'll take a week or two off before getting back into it." He replied. "See you when you return Colonel." He came to attention and gave a snappy salute before boarding the Messenger and getting ready to take off.

A couple of hours later… 3rd Davion RCT dropship…

It was kind of funny. After I had decided to tell the Davions about Helm a few months ago I had gone over the SLIC records at my disposal all over again and had actually found documentation regarding the Brian and the cache within. The irony of it was not lost on me at all.

Shaking my head, I stopped woolgathering and made sure my harness was strapped in tight and there was no fraying. After all those years ago and the destroyed Quickdraw I was still paranoid that I would lose my footing and die if my straps snapped like that pirates did.

Hanse just grinned at me from his seat across the room from me. "You okay there?" He asked. "You look a little bit concerned."

"One the first mech kills I got before making Ace was on a Quickdraw being piloted by a pirate. They didn't maintain her straps and when I took out the ankle…" I trailed off.

"The straps snapped and she died in some horrific way I imagine." Hanse finished, nodding in understanding.

"Yeah, ever since then I triple check any straps before I go anywhere." I said, not caring if it made me seem paranoid.

"I've seen stranger rituals from career soldiers." Hanse said, "We're going to be here for a while, so tell me… Why did you decide on a six man team…"

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns January 2nd, 3008

"Put your backs into it!" Sergeant Kerensky yelled at the platoon she was training. "I wanted this wall up yesterday!"

The Marksman had made helping the construction of the base a part of the physical conditioning for the new recruits.

"Now go drink water!" Kerensky yelled' "You have a sixty second water break and then we're heading out to the field!" She had really started to enjoy this. The Clans had never had a boot camp sort of experience, and watching people that she was in charge of teaching learn, develop, and grow was extremely satisfying. Well that, and she got to yell at people.

"Get in Formation! Move it people!" The platoon stumbled into formation and began to run towards the field that had been repurposed into an advanced obstacle course.

"Drop and give me fifty push ups, and then hit the course." Kerensky ordered. She wanted them exhausted before they hit the course so she could use it as a lesson. She then traded places with her DI partner and went to wait at the end of the course.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Kerensky heard from her DI partner on the other side of the course. "Swing your legs over that log! What do you mean you can't do it?! Go to the back of the line!"

The sounds of drill instructors made Sheppard smile. He might actually request permission to be permanently placed on training rotations to help get the next generation of Marksmen set up. Plus, he actually enjoyed teaching and was good at it to boot. Parker would do a good job at filling Peterson's shoes and Peterson was already a second XO in all but name anyway.

"I'll have to write down some changes to the command structure soon." Sheppard said to himself as he wrote that down.

"Hey Peterson!" He called as he saw the other man walking somewhere. "Can I talk for a second?"

"Yeah Sheppard," Peterson replied. "What's up?"

"I'm thinking about stepping down in order to man the home base and training facilities." Sheppard told him directly. "Would your wife be opposed to you becoming XO?"

"Probably wouldn't be opposed at all actually." Peterson responded. "We have both been enjoying the time together while on garrison, and she likes that I love my job…." He paused "Give me a day or so to talk it over with Francesca and I'll get back to you."

"Alright then, I'm headed to the Argo in a couple of hours to get the work up done for the cloning." Sheppard said, having gotten approval to get the operation done.

"Make sure you get the head doc!" Peterson called over his shoulder, "I know she's scary, but she's also the best."

March 14th, 3009

"Why a Treble clef necklace?" Hanse Davion asked me as I spotted for him in the ship's gym.

"It was a Christmas present from my little sister." I said, helping him rack the weights he had been using.

"Ahh," Hanse replied. "I'm sorry.."

I stopped him from making any apologies. "No need to apologize Hanse," I said, getting set for my own reps. "It's not the first time I've been asked, and it won't be the last."

"And I guess you left a wife behind as well?" He asked, figuring he might as well be blunt about it.

"Yeah," I said wistfully. "She would have never believed me if I told her that this would have happened."

"Do you have a picture?" Hanse asked curious to see what kind of woman would marry a man like Hull."

"I do actually," I pulled out a picture that I had printed using some of the devices on the Messenger years ago and handed it to Hanse. It was a picture I had taken when she wasn't expecting it, and even though it didn't capture her when she was dolled up, or in fancy clothes or a dress, It was a picture of her on my parents farm, holding a hunting rifle slung across her back and telling me not to take a picture. "I've got better ones saved somewhere." I told Hanse, "But this one is my favorite."

"Do you have anyone you've got an eye on?" I asked Hanse, trying to get to know him better.

"Well, there is this one girl…" He said

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Forty: A roll of the dice

Helm, Free Worlds League May 17th, 3009

"We managed to get the key right?" I asked Hanse, wanting to ensure that we didn't get buried in a Castle Brian by accident.

"We got the key." He replied. "We're going to need your help to locate the area the cache is in though." He said,

We got both the maps from the key and from the most recent planetary survey and compared them while I consulted my SLIC notes. "Follow the river." I told the tech after I had consulted my notes, "There stop." There was a small building, almost a shack that was outside of a mountain. "That's the area the Brian is in."

After I had pinpointed the general area of the hidden Nagayan Mountain we descended into a nearby valley.

"Thanks for the mech." Hanse said, I was currently riding in his jump seat. "Never had the chance to drive a "Royal" before"

"Really?" I asked as we neared the lone building by the side of the mountain. "I figured that you'd have access to all sorts of Lostech."

"Last time I checked, my name was Hanse." He replied with a smirk on his face. "Not Ian."

"So Ian has a Lostech mech than?" I asked.

"I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations as to what the Davions pilot." He replied with a chuckle. "Aside from this baby of course." he patted the side of the TDR-5Sd that I had gifted the Davions for Christmas. "Why didn't you bring your mech?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"The techs were still figuring some things out when I left." I responded with a shrug. "That, and I didn't want to have people trying to steal my mech thinking it was the one I took an Atlas down with."

After fifteen more minutes of conversation and plodding along, we reached the shack and Hanse made his mech crouch so that we could use the ladder to get to the ground.

"Think this is it?" Hanse asked, looking at the strange square prefab in front of us. Little more than a shack. "I didn't think ancient Star League facilities had gate houses that looked like this."

I just gave him a look™. "You would be very surprised." I said as I walked in. "Hand me the case?" I asked, and Hanse passed me the key.

"Moment of truth." I said, as I placed the key into the slot in front of me. There was a moment in which nothing happened, and then the ground shook, and a part of the rock face began to split apart.

An hour later…

"Is everyone here?" I asked, as the rest of the column finally arrived. The Third had left behind a good portion of their people and metal on garrison in order to make the most out of their lift capacity.

"Yes Hull," Hanse rolled his eyes at me. "That's everyone. We can go inside now."

With that, we slowly walked the Thunderbolt into the Nagayan Mountain, flipping the spotlight on so he could see.

"Holy Shit!" one of the mechs behind us whispered over his open comms as we saw the rows and rows of SLDF mechs that the various spotlights illuminated. .

Hanse just snickered as various other phrases echoed over the open comms channels. After making sure the entrance was clear, we went through the kneeling and dismounting the Thunderbolt once again.

We then spread out, looking for the main computer so as to not accidentally trigger the self-destruct.

"Hull, over here!" Hanse yelled from the far side of the cavern. "I think this is it."

I made my way over to him and saw a massive computer screen in front of me. "Yeah, I'd say this is the right place." I walked up to it and inserted the Helm key into the computer and watched it boot up. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty'. James Madison. Popped up on the screen in front of me. Then the standard OS of the Star league appeared in front of me. The facility also started to bring lights online and everything was starting to be unveiled.

Two Days later…
"We could finish the Capellan Confederation in less than a decade with the spare parts alone here." Hanse said as he examined a copy of the manifest I had printed out.

"Well, It's a good thing we brought all of the dropships then isn't it." I said, putting the copy of the core I had just made into a sealed crate along with the sixteen others I had made. "Make sure you split these up, I want every dropship out of here to have at least one of the cores." I told the two aids I had borrowed to assist me in getting everrything together on this. "These are worth more than all of the equipment in here."

I had brought enough computer cores to copy the whole library at least twenty times over, in every format it could copy them to, including the original. I had sixteen of them in the common format used today, and four of them in various other formats, such as the computers aboard the Messenger.

May 24th, 3009

We were lifting off now. We had to ditch pretty much all of the autocannon, SRM, and LRM ammunition in order to squeeze some of the tech in, but in the end, we managed to fit the most important parts of two brigades onto the dropships we had brought. We were stacked on top of eachother, and we had to leave some of the mechs that were still common in the Fedsuns behind, but we had made it out with a lot of material and over thirty copies of the computer core.

When we got ready to leave, we triggered the explosives we had set on the core and the material left behind and watched as the sea returned to the surface of Helm.

Hilton Head complex, Terra May 30th, 3009

"What do you mean there's a sea on Helm again?" The Primus, Julian Tiepelo asked Precentor Helm.

"Primus, we woke up this morning and the Yehudan Sea was back." the panicking B station precentor was panicking.

"Precentor," Tiepelo lowered his voice in order to help calm the man down. "It was probably something the SLDF did that finally collapsed on them. It would hardly be the first DoME project that failed after the destruction of the Succession wars."

Atreus, Free Worlds League June 15th, 3009

"What do you mean the Yehudan Sea is back in place on Helm?" Janos Marik asked the SAFE agent briefing him. "It was there last month wasn't it?"

"Yes Captain-General," The agent replied. "We fear the rumored cache may have been found and taken by someone." the SAFE agent replied. "But we don't have any evidence to prove that theory correct as of yet."

"Well, then don't come back with this kind of BS without evidence to back it up!" Janos Marik exclaimed, standing up from his desk.

Personal Journal: October 25th, 3009
Well, I did it. I managed to get the Helm cache, and as far as MIIO can tell no one is the wiser. We have enough cores to scatter out, and Hanse and Ian will be establishing NAIS as an attachment to NAMA within the next couple of years. I was allowed to take a lance of Royal Assault mechs with me as initial gratitude, and Ian had sent a message to Zarantha Calderon requesting a face to face meeting to take place in the next couple of years facilitated by yours truly. I had warned Hanse and Ian about Comstar wrecking efforts to recover lost technology and showed them the copies of secret operations and communiques I had made using the Messenger's facilities and so they were taking every precaution possible as far as the security of the cores was concerned and would only be bringing in various companies as necessary. I requested permission to buy out Salvatore Incorporated and received an affirmative as long as I could get the production lines up and running again. Thankfully, with the Mithril production starting to take off and our investments in TTI starting to pay off, we would be able to buy them outright and begin the process of getting our own dropship lines up and running again soon. I also was able to bring two of the copies of the data core with me to install in the heart of my base on Kentares IV.

Authors note: The dice were kind to Hanse... and I hope you guys like that I gifted one of the last remaining Davion Thunderbolts in existence to Hanse. I know it's not his Battlemaster, but I think it suits him.

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Forty-One: Getting (Back) to work.
Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns December 24th, 3009

"Yall did a really good job." I looked at the massive fortress before me.

The combat engineers had gone all out and made a fortress complex that could contain an entire three regiments of forces. There were layers of walls, tunnels, and underground areas for both repairs and future factory expansion. The TTI people had the engineers prep an entire area for them and had gotten to work on building the factory that was planned to go here.

Meanwhile, Mithril production had gone up, and we were sitting on a very large surplus of M10A-Mithril armor. We had taken some things into consideration over the last year, and had been producing M11A-Mithril for the last six months. Enough to entirely refit our forces with the improved armor.

The M11A had quite a few benefits over the M10A. Among them was the ability to use MPPC's and had better communications and a slightly longer battery life. It was able to maintain a speed of 17 km/h instad of the previous 15 and still was able to take limited mech fire.

We had also trained up an entire regiment in our way of doing things, and if what Hanse had told me before heading back to New Avalon to redistribute the new gear was correct. We would be doing some raids into Combine space soon.

Either way, it was good to be back.

January 1st, 3010

I had decided to welcome the new year by having another simulation contest. This time, we were going to be having it televised, recorded and broadcast. This was going to be one of the ways we generated interest in moving to Kentares IV again.

This time I didn't last as long. I was in the running for two hours before being killed by a simulated Alacorn (One again led by Kerensky…) nailing my Warhammer with a headshot before I could get away in time.

It had actually surprised me that Natasha Kerensky had decided to stay here with us. She had not only stayed with us, but she had (After resistance in the beginning) thrown herself into the cross training like a woman possessed. She was learning everything she could, and I was worried that she would take it back to the clans if we pushed her way.

1 week later…

"Lance Sergeant Kerensky!" I stood up and greeted her as she came into my office. "I see that you've settled in quite well."

"Yes actually." She smiled openly. "I wasn't quite sure about how the Marksman did things at first, but now I am completely sold on the idea."

"That's really great to hear." I said honestly. "We love it when people become part of the family."

"Is there something specific you wanted to talk about Colonel?" She asked, "Because I have a tank platoon to get trained up."

"Yes actually." I said. "The Wolf's Dragoons left for some sort of supply run about a year ago and I was wondering why you didn't go with them? You could have requested leave at any time."

"Honestly." She said with a sad smile. "I feel like I belong here more than with them. I may have spent my whole life with them, but this is where I truly feel like I belong. There's something about the Marksman that is just different from every other unit I have ever interacted with or been a part of." She then paused to take a breath. "Whatever that difference is, it makes me feel like I am just Natasha, not a name attached to Aleksander Kerensky."

"Well," I gave a soft smile. You know what that is called?" She shook her head. "It's called being a part of the family."

"You, Natasha Kerensky are important and have value because you are you." I stated outright how I felt about each of the Marksman in my employ. "Every single person in this unit is valuable not just because they fill a role here. But because they have intrinsic value because of who they are."

Natasha just soaked in my words like a sponge. A strange look in her eyes. "Colonel." She said as she stood up. "I want a match, mech on mech."

"Sure," I chuckled. "I'll pencil you in for next Saturday." I showed her the calendar on my desk and how it now said "Duel with Kerensky" for the next weekend. "Go take care of your tankers Kerensky. We'll be deployed sooner rather than later."

With that, she turned around and left my office. And left me shaking my head. That was odd, and the last thing that I expected out of the ice cold woman I had met almost two years ago.

"Oh well," I shrugged to myself. Something for future Mark to worry about. And I got back to my paperwork.

Davion Palace New Avalon, Federated Suns December 24th, 3009

"You found how many regiments in the cache he was talking about?!" Ian asked incredulously, pointing at the sheet of paper detailing the exact numbers of their raid.

"Two whole Brigades worth Ian, along with a data core containing pretty much everything lost in the Succession wars." Hanse stated.

"We need to give him more than he has asked for Ian" Hanse said. "This alone will mean that we can push back both the Capellans and the Combine. Not to even mention the core."

"I know Hanse." Ian shoved his chair back violently. "Give me some space to think."

"We're going to need to create a new March position soon." Ian decided. "We need to get this equipment distributed, and hit the Capellans now while they're reeling from the losses of New Aragone. "Hanse, I'm promoting you to Field Marshal of the Third Davion Guards effective immediately." he then pointed at Tikonov on the map of the Inner Sphere on his wall before sinking into his chair and thinking deeply.

"Hanse, what would you need to take Tikonov?" He asked, extremely serious. "Because I need to buy time to get the six regiments of gear in the right place."

Hanse thought about it for a good five minute before replying. "Give me the Third and enough of the cache to bring us back up to full strength, I want the Heavy guards, the 6th Syrtis Fusiliers, and the Marksman along with two regiments of the Eridani Light Horse. Give me that, and operational command, and I'm confident that we can take the planet. I want the infantry outfitted with Mithril though." Hanse smiled darkly. "I have ideas for what to do there."

"Done, I'll have the contract on its way to Hull by the end of the day." Ian got an extremely serious look in his eye. "I'm gonna need to talk to Calderon sooner, if I can organize a hit on the capellans from them at the same time as you hit Tikonov, we can stymie reinforcements until the planet is ours." Ian got up and began to pace again. "Hanse, I'm going to make him a bloody Duke. But are you sure you can pull off Tikonov?"

There was silence as Hanse went over his plans again. "Yes Ian, I'm certain that we can pull this off.

"Hanse, you have six months. Six months to get everything together and move on Tikonov. Ian said.

"I'll get right on that." Hanse replied, and walked quickly to the exit of the office. He had work to do.

Authors note: So, after addressing something made in the comments earlier, I'm going to explain it here for the people that just navigate through threadmarks instead of combing through the actual thread for the golden nuggets of truth. The Factory complex that I bought that was mentioned in the previous chapter is literally 500KM squared of dropship constructing and testing facilities. And only one line is working right now. This purchase will allow me to begin production of not only Vengeance aerospace carriers, but also build and produce the new Sting class of dropship that started out life as a DroST and ended up as a Powered armor deployment and support dropship. The Sting class is literally designed to deploy power armor while hovering and then blanket the immediate area (Ground or Sky) with fire and to be able to provide close Air patrol and support to said power armor as necessary. I didn't get short changed or anything on the cache. I have four copies of the memory core, and I have access and the rights to produce/use anything I want from said core. The Taurians did end up giving me a title and so I temporarily moved a company of mechs and tanks over to the factories there to guard my "small" landhold. (Apparently saying no didn't really matter to Zarantha because when Dunham showed up to talk to TTI about the Mithril line we wanted them to produce she threw it at him and told him to deliver it to me.) Zarantha has also begun negotiating with the Fedsuns in order to be good neighbors. Better a friend and trade partner on the border than an insane potential enemy. I also managed to get a Snowden promised to be sent to help with processing materials for the new factory that TTI is building on Kentares IV. By the time I'm done, the Texas expy and the British/French (What are the fedsuns really?) in space will be best friends ready to take on the Inner Sphere and the Clans… That is all.

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Forty-Two: The difficult we do immediately, the Impossible takes a little longer.

Kentares IV Draconis March, January 14th, 3010

"Why?" Sheppard asked.

I just raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"

"Why do you have a Farm in the middle of the base?" He asked, clearly struggling not to throttle me for my latest bout of sanity.

"Well, I for one happen to enjoy farm fresh eggs and meat." I shrugged. "And it's not like there's a whole lot of options on that front around us." I gestured at the rusting cities and factories in the distance.

"But starting your own farm instead of hiring someone?" He questioned.

"Jack, I was raised on a farm back on Terra before I left to do freelance work on computers." I said. "This is nothing new to me, and in fact is really relaxing when you get down to it."

He followed me to my coop where I was collecting the morning group of eggs. "Don't you have that match against Kerensky later today?" Sheppard asked. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for that?"

"Yeah," I shrugged. "But that's not until this afternoon. I was planning to do a barbeque afterwards."

"With Kerensky?" Jack asked for clarification.

"No," I said. "I'm doing a get together with the senior staff and NCO's."

"And why am I just finding out about this now?" Jack asked. "You know I don't turn down those baby back ribs that you make."

"Well, I kept trying to invite you over the last few weeks, but you were avoiding me after dumping that tray of paperwork into my office and then blocking the door." I gave him a slight glare at the last bit. "I would have done the paperwork without being locked in there you know."

"Yeah, you're not looking for payback are you?" He asked as he followed me into my house.

"If I were, you would never know." I said while putting my fresh eggs away into my refrigerator. "Payback always comes when least expected."

In the Afternoon, Mech training area.
"Are you sure you want to do this in that?" I asked Natasha Kerensky. "I mean, we haven't had time to upgrade your Marauder yet."

"I am confident in my skills as a mech pilot." Kerensky said, giving me a death glare. "Let's see if yours are up to the task."

"Alright then." I said, raising my hands and backing off. "Your funeral." I muttered underneath my breath.

We both climbed into our mechs, and triple checked to make sure that everything was set to "Training" mode.

After I had powered everything up, and safed everything, I moved my Warhammer out of the bay.

"Alright, I will be your referee for this match." Sheppard broadcast from his shiny Cyclops. "I will be running all of the simulated munitions through my computer in order to ensure a fair match."

I moved my Warhammer to the opposite side of the training field, making sure that my mech was tied into Sheppard's systems. I actually moved a little bit further out, Kerensky's Marauder might be a decent heavy mech, and it might outmass me by a solid five tons, but I had more armor, better weapons, and I was a good deal faster. I mean, we hadn't exactly published my Warhammers specs anywhere, and I was going to use that to my advantage.

Natasha Kerensky was angry. She thought she would have the advantage in armor and range, but she had been sniped at with PPC's from well beyond the range hers were effective at. And, to make matters worse, the Colonel was moving far faster than any heavy mech of its weight outside of the clans should. He just kept dodging in and out of range, he would hammer her with PPC's, almost literally skate his mech around, and then duck back out of range.

"Fucking Lostech Bullshit." the words that no clanner had ever said before and would never say again left her lips as she pushed her Marauder forward at flank speed.

She pushed into her range bracket and cackled to herself as she nailed his right arm ERPPC. Reducing it to slag and stalling him for a second as he tried to figure out how she had closed the distance on him.

After wearing eachother out at maximum range, Natasha had had enough. She pushed forward and tried to engage Colonel Hull's Warhammer in melee, only to find that that was where he truly excelled.
After several minutes of dueling at close range, they both were both moving to end the fight when Sheppard called in on the Comms.

"Stop the exercise!" Came over the open comms channel. "We have a priority message from New Avalon for the Colonel."

"Alright, moving to the Messenger now." I said. Shifting my brain out of combat mode and kicking it back into logical thinking mode.

At the barbecue a couple of hours later…
"So, what was so important that our duel had to be interrupted?" Kerensky asked as she loaded up a plate with two bacon cheeseburgers and a lot of fries from the grill and fryer in front of me.

"It's not classified, and we're going to be announcing it to the group later anyway." I shrugged as I flipped a burger and moved a sausage over to the table next to me. "Hanse and Ian Davion have a job for us." I said, "And we have three months to get ready for it."

"What kind of job Colonel?" Packer asked as he helped himself to a couple of sausages and a small stack of ribs.

"Ian wants Tikonov." I said, and closed the grill to let the next set of ribs cook properly.

"Could you say that again?" Major Packer cleaned out his ear with a pinky. "I think I just heard you say that the First Prince wants Tikonov taken."

"You heard right." I said, absently checking the time left on the ribs. "It can be done, and we have the best chance of it now versus any other time."

"And why would that time be now?" Lieutenant Colonel Peterson asked me. He had an inkling of an idea but wasn't one hundred percent sure.

"Mithril will be more devastating now then it will be later on." I said. "If Ian and Hanse buy all of the suits we have to spare and get people trained in them quickly enough, we can use it to overwhelm and surprise the regiments of Infantry on Tikonov." I stopped talking in order to open the grill and take off a rack of ribs. "On top of that, after what we did to the 2nd Mac, MIIO and DMI have some reports that there may be less forces there at this time."

"I see what you mean about the right time." Peterson said, chewing thoughtfully on a hot dog. " but we're gonna be in for one hell of a fight."

"Well, we're the Marksman." Sheppard said with a cocky grin on his face. "The difficult we do immediately…." he trailed off. Repeating a saying that the R&D team had come up with and spread throughout the team. "The impossible just takes a bit longer."

May 25th, 3010.

We were at the jump point with two combined armed regiments, Our fleet of Dropships was being led by the Colossus we had found and despite it being Lostech, we were going to need it if we wanted to carry everything we had with us. Our Mithril clad infantry had been spread throughout the fleet, and we had four companies loaded onto our Sting class dropship/gunships.

In less than a month, we would be heading to Tikonov come what may.

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Forty-Three: A Hope in Hell
Caselton, Federated Suns June 10th, 3010
(Onboard Hanse Davions dropship for planning before moving onto Tikonov)

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" Hanse Davion asked me. "I believe you said you were looking into dropping Infantry from orbit?"

"Yes, I got to test one out before we left." I grinned widely. "We're going to start training specifically for them soon and make it into a volunteer only unit."

"What would you even call Infantry dropped from orbit?" Field Marshal Felsner of the Davion Heavy Guards asked.

"Well, I'm leaning towards Orbital Drop Shock Troopers myself. But the R&D team is still knocking around names"I shrugged. "The technology has existed for centuries, and with Mithril, we can make it a survivable and effective means of delivering infantry to places that need reinforcements or softening up."

"I thought that's what your new DroST refits were for?" Hanse asked, the Davions having purchased a license for it after we had put it out there.

"No, that's for regular Infantry dropping and support." I mean, they're still there to help, but we're not dropping them from orbit in a Sting." I paused. "Well, not yet anyway."

After the standard introductions and some woolgathering was done, Hanse began to brief us on his plans. It turns out, the rest of the Big Mac was on Tikonov while rebuilding after the losses we had handed them, along with elements of the Ariana Grenadiers, The First Chesterton Voltigeurs, and the second Ariana Fusiliers along with the eighty regiments of infantry that were almost always there.

"You sure that you're up for being the bait?" Hanse asked me after the rest of the various CO's had left. "I've got other plans that we can fall back on if we need to."

"We can do this." I told him. "We'll pin down the Big Mac long enough for you guys to take out everyone else." I smiled mysteriously. "Like we said at Tybalt."

"What did you say at Tybalt Hull?" Hanse asked,

"The only way to eat a Big Mac is one bite at a time." I replied. "And this time, I brought Lostech…"

Tikonov Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation June 18th, 3010

"Are we sure that this plan of Davions will work?" Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, the CO of Marksman's first regiment asked over the comms system. "I mean, the Big Mac can't be that angry at us can they?"

"Sheppard, do I need to play that audio message again?" I asked, as we burned into the atmosphere of the planet below.

"Yes actually, hearing the man literally spitting mad was quite funny." Sheppard replied.

"Well, we're going down after the second wave. How's your XO doing?" I asked. We had expanded pretty rapidly and a lot of our vets had been promoted to officer and senior NCO positions.

"She's handling it pretty well," Sheppard said. "I'm just glad that it helped her shape up a bit."

"Yeah, Mckay has come quite a long way." I responded.

"By the way, Colonel." Major Packer said. "Aren't you going to respond to Archibald McCarron's message?"

"Respond?" I asked. "I'll respond after we're on the ground, we're playing distraction remember?"

Hanse had sent us first, to begin drawing the defenders of Tikonov out, and he had requested that our Sting class dropships with their battalion of Mithril PA infantry aboard be with him in the second wave. Wardog and Strider squadron and all of their trainees had proven their worth on the way in. With the Lostech birds, and having extra firepower, the Outworlds Alliance Aces had proven just why they were some of the deadliest pilots in the Inner Sphere, they had shattered virtually every single fighter and dropship sent at us. With minimal casualties on our side.

Marksman Drop Zone Tikonov Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation

"This is Colonel Hull of the Marksman Mercenary company." I broadcast on all open frequencies available to me in my Warhammer, Captain Dunham was going to be in the Mobile HQ with me coordinating between both Regiments. "I heard the Big Mac was on planet and decided I wanted another bite." I paused for effect. "But I heard that Archibald McCarron was too much of a coward to come face the Marksman after what we did before." I chuckled audibly into the mic. "I mean, he couldn't even work up the nerve to hunt us down afterwards."

I cut the channel off. I knew that he was going to take the bait, and if the Mac was going to draw in anyone else than Hanse's plan would go off really well.

"Alright people." I broadcast on the Marksman's encrypted channel. "We've just made the Mac angrier than they've ever been. Expect extremely aggressive behavior and for them to almost exclusively target whatever formation I'm in."

"I'm going to be broadcasting through all of this so as to focus their attention on me. Follow your CO's lead, they know what to do."

June 20th, 3010

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea." I said to myself as I fired one of my ERPPC's at the headhunter lance chasing after me. "That's the third Lance today." I kept dodging fire, and stringing the enemy lance along until they were in position. There were nine sharp hypersonic "Cracks" as the lance chasing after me were met by nine hypersonic projectiles, shredding armor and causing the lance of heavy mechs that had been chasing me to lose armor, legs, and in once case to just drop and bury itself into the ground due to it missing a cockpit. The heavy lance tried to turn around and run, but were savaged by PPC fire from the two supporting Manticore's and the Marauder that were coordinating with the three Alacorns. I had "Borrowed" the fireteam from our First regiment after dealing with the first Lance of heavy mechs that had been assigned to "Headhunt" me.

I had really pissed the Big Mac off, because they had thrown themselves at us heedless of our Lostech advantage and were paying for it in the sheer numbers game. Mithril also was a great equalizer and had been helping to put some of the enemies own metal into our fight. Over the past two days, we had been funneling the enemy into killzones generated by their near suicidal focus on me. The various mechs and gear we had grabbed from the SLDF depots had made a tremendous difference. Now we just needed Hanse and the rest of the Tikonov invasion force to complete their objectives.

Stopping next to the Marauder, I waved my ERPPC in thanks to the leader of the fireteam before heading over to the mobile HQ again.

June 23rd, 3010

"Sheppard I need you to push in the rear right now!" I ordered from my Warhammer, coordinating long range fire from the fireteam I was currently borrowing. "We've got a short company of Assault mechs pushing our shit in!"

We managed to drop four of the twelve assaults and wound most of the others before I had the irreplaceable tanks fall back while I drew fire.

Crouching, I dodged an AC/20 shot that would have flat out killed me if it had connected to the cockpit that they were aiming at.

"Colonel McCarron is that you?" I asked the Atlas that was currently trying to cave my cockpit in. "Cuz if it is you then you need to hit the sims more. Your aim is trash."

I slid out of range of a score of SRM's and kept maneuvering out of range of his AC/20.

"You know who it is, Hull!" He roared in a rage at me. "It's time for some payback!" His command Lance kept moving forward, leaving me very little room to dodge fire. Thankfully, I was still much faster than the average Warhammer and I now showed that as I moved away at flank speed away from the fireteam. I didn't want them to pay for my strategy and tactics.

"I managed to get back out of their maximum range and turned around to start firing at the two lances chasing me. Crippling one of the mechs, and coring another with a golden BB. I had reduced them to a lance and a half before they closed in on me again. "You might get me McCarron," I said. "But you and the rest of your unit won't live past the week." I taunted as I turned around and unleashed an Alpha strike on his Atlas. Shredding tons of Armor and bringing up my heat to a level that was starting to become uncomfortable.

"Sheppard!" I broadcast again, weaving out of the way of missiles and lasers. "Where the hell are you?!"

"We're trying to break through now Colonel. " I heard autocannon fire in the background. "They left a Battalion behind to stall us"

"Well, If you don't get here in time," I said as I removed a Charger's foot from existence with a PPC bolt. " Have Rook get onto my Noteputer. My last will and testament is in there."

My mech staggered as one of the AC/20's from the Atlas finally connected. Almost making me lose my footing. I was down a lot of armor, and one more of those AC/20s would probably core my mech.

I kept running, ducking behind a small hill, using it to absorb some of the fire before popping out of cover and trying to arc a PPC bolt into the cockpit of another mech. I failed, but that mech did duck back for a while and it let me move further out of range of the mech killers that were hunting me. I knew that there was a canyon wall I was going to run into if I didn't stop soon, and that I would have to make my final stand.

"Why are you running Hull?" McCarron roared. "You not man enough to face me?"

"Man enough?" I asked, "Bitch please, you came at me with two lances of assault mechs and I only see you here with one lance." I stopped my mech and turned around to face them. "My dead wife was more of a man then you are." I chuckled to myself. "She sure as hell was a better shot than you at the very least."

If I was going to die, then my last stand was going to be a story told for all of the ages…

MarkWarrior · May 19, 2022

Chapter Forty-Four: I heard there was a damsel…

If I was going to die, then my last stand was going to be a story told for all of the ages…

Then, an orbital deployment pod crashed into McCarron's Atlas, and a Thunderbolt casually walked out of the wreckage, headshotting the mech next to it. "I heard there was a Damsel in distress." You could hear Hanse's shit eating grin over the comms channel. After he had broadcast that, another three mechs fell from orbit in formation around him and the fireteam I had coopted came in behind and finished off the enemy mechs left standing.

"Screw you Hanse." I retorted. "I had them on the ropes."

"Sure you did Hull." Hanse walked his Thunderbolt past my and used the hand to pat the shoulder of my mech. "Sure you did."

"How's the rest of the fight going?" I asked, if Hanse was deploying on us, that meant we had drawn in a lot more forces then expected. "Can you afford to come bail us out?"

"We already crushed the Grenadiers and most of the Fusiliers, while the ELH is working on the First Chesterton." Hanse told me, "The Third Davion are acting as floating forces for rapid deployment."

"You need to get back to your dropships and re-armour." Hanse said. "I can see the sun through parts of your skeleton."

"Yeah yeah," I said. "I didn't see you playing bait out there."

"That's because you make such good bait my friend." Hanse chuckled. "I mean, I've heard stories of a certain "Canopian job" from some of your command staff."

"Dammit Sheppard!" I muttered, "It's always your fault."

"Hanse," I got serious for a second."You got this area for now?"

"Yeah Hull, you did good." Hanse said "Go get some rest while your mech is re skinned I'll coordinate from here."

July 15th, 3010

"How bad were the losses?" I asked Sheppard now that we were able to have a meeting for the first time in weeks.

"Well, the Infantry has taken the least amount of damage. Any infantry that see one of the two Sting's basically throw down their arms and surrender at first sight now. But we're going to be spending a lot of time in the repair bays." He gestured to one of our tanks being repaired behind him. "Proper combined arms tactics limited our personnel losses by a lot but we're going through our spare parts a little faster than expected."

"Well, they did throw more people at us than was initially planned for." I remarked. "On a side note, I heard Hanse's plan to use the Sting's to capture Earthwerks went well."

"Yeah, Captain Mathis isn't going to let us hear the end of it for years." Sheppard replied.

"He's not going to be doing a whole lot of bragging from what I understand." I said with a serious note in my voice. "We're going to be paying a lot of therapy bills over the next while. They shredded the regular infantry like they weren't even there."

"I heard the same thing from the Davion Heavy Guards infantry CO." Sheppard said. "We're going to have to make sure to get some more therapists then. Mental health is important in our profession."

"Hanse said that the First Chesterton were on the ropes a couple of days ago, but I have the feeling we're going to be here for a while." I said.

Six months later…

"I really do think that might be the last of them." Hanse said as we watched what we thought was the last Tikonov Militia unit on the planet throw their weapons down and power down their light vehicles from the mobile HQ.

"Don't jinx it Hanse." I said. "You're going to be spending years checking for MASK spies and all sorts of assorted messes."

"Yeah, I know." Hanse replied. "I got a communique from Ian, I'm going to be the military governor here until things settle down."

"Congratulations?" I said/asked. "I know it's more work, but you're probably the best choice for it."

"I know this." Hanse told me. "But If I'm not there to watch Ian, who knows what kind of trouble he'll get into."

"I'll try to keep an eye on him, and be ready to bail him out if he gets himself into trouble." I said. "And, I'm leaving extra Mithril here. I have a feeling that you might need it for pacification if things get really bad."

"I'm not going to slaughter these people, Hull." Hanse looked me in the eye.

"Hanse, they're literally impervious to small arms fire, I don't expect you to slaughter them, I expect them to be the best damn riot patrol ever made."

"Oh, right; forgot who I was talking to for a minute." Hanse said. "Your contract is up in a few months, so I'll bend your ear for some ideas, and hopefully, we're able to stop for a bit and repair and rearm."

"Sounds like a decent idea to me." I said. "Now, it'll take some time, but I've got some ideas about the thug line…"

Two months later…

"Just so you know, I fully expect to be made godfather of any of your children after that rescue." Hanse joked as we exchanged goodbyes.

"I didn't need your help." I retorted with a smile. "But thanks for it anyway." we had rehashed the argument of whether I had needed the help or not multiple times by now.

"I'll let Ian know that you're doing well here." I said. "And I'll do my best to keep him out of trouble."

"You better." Hanse replied. "Yvonne must be pulling her hair out, and she's gonna need some help."

Tikonov jump point March 25th, 3011

I was tired. It had been a long campaign, and I just wanted to collapse and then go work on my farm for a bit when we got back to Kentares. I was still daydreaming about rest when I got to my quarters and opened the door. "Sorry, wrong room." I went to close the door and was yanked inside. After that, I wasn't daydreaming much anymore.

MarkWarrior · May 20, 2022

Historical interlude 3000-3011

Introduction:

While there are many things that we could say about the Inner Sphere in the time between 3000 and 3015, many of them would tie back to one unit. While this is not a summarization of their unit's history during this time, one might say that we take a closer look at the Marksman than most histories because they were a large part of how the Inner Sphere looks today.

The time period of the early thirty first century was one of the typical raids and exchange of forces that plagued the third Succession war, and nothing was different until the appearance of one Mark Hull, while his claims of time travel were never truly confirmed, it was clear that he knew of at least one if not multiple Star League era Caches of technology.

It is interesting to note that instead of staying in the Federated Suns when he initially formed his unit he went to the Taurian Concordat, proving himself invaluable in anti piracy actions and getting salvage rights instead of pay. This set the tone for most of the Marksman's career in the periphery. After gaining the lost prototype dropship Argo, he arranged for it to be refitted into a R&D and medical Dropship. Something that generated much interest at the time, but didn't prove itself until years later.

There is little known about the Interstellar Expeditions contract that they took after their anti piracy missions, but it is confirmed that their two nearly extinct Leviathan Jumpships were salvaged from the IE mission. (1)

From there, they grew their unit from a company to almost a battalion, using funds procured by the selling of the Jumpships that they captured and sold to the Taurian Concordat in their first anti piracy missions. (2) After they had grown, they engaged in the recapture of stolen goods from the Marian Hegemony, leading to the Magistracy giving them both the rights and licenses to advanced medical technology, equipment, and personnel. (3)

It is not known what the Marksman did for the Concordat, it is only known that he arrived, met with Protector Zarantha Calderon, got authorization to bring his unit to Taurus, and spent several weeks in meetings with both her and several TTI industrial heads.

After that, the Marksman were simply another mercenary battalion in the employ of the Federated Suns.(4) With nothing to truly distinguish them from any other company until the raid on Tybalt. This raid is what truly set the Marksman apart from the typical mercenary company, after seizing the world with little to no casualties, they also managed to defeat and destroy the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry. (5) Which had been reinforced with Elements of both the 1st and 3rd regiments of the same unit. While some might argue that this was the debut of what is now considered the standard Power armor.(6) Its relative obscurity at this time limited the public's exposure to the Mithril power armor and so it didn't become a common sight on the battlefield until years later.

With the destruction of the 2nd Mac, the Marksman had cemented a reputation for punching far above their weight class, and for using unconventional tactics to do so. It is to be noted, that the battleroms of the Duel between Major Barton, and Colonel Hull are still used in textbooks today for reference.(7)

There was little action from the Marksman for the next several year period, they accepted limited garrison contracts, and began a massive recruitment and training spree. It was uncertain as to why they were recruiting so many forces, because at this time, the Marksman had barely two Battalions to their name. Then, after almost a year of not being seen in public Hull returned with a large amount of SLDF era weapons, gear, and combat vehicles and mechs.

One he had come back from raiding whatever cache he had known the location of, the Marksman unit as a whole moved to Kentares IV. The unit then grew from two Battalions, to a force of reckoning with two combined arms regiments to their units banner in a period of two years.

Then Hull visited the Davion Palace complex for Christmas, gifting the Davion family and Hanse in particular a Lostech variant of the Thunderbolt. After that, there is conflicting information on whether Hanse, Hull and the Third Davion Guards were actually gone or not. What is known is that over a period of the next two to three years, the Davions began work to rebuild the Avalon Hussars, and began to rotate units off of the front lines to be given fresh war material.

It should be interesting to note, that during the beginning of this process, Ian Davion and his brother put together an ambitious plan to take Tikonov. It is said that Ian wanted to be on the front lines for this, but that Yvonne Davion forced him to remain behind and to assist with the rebuilding of the Avalon Hussars.(8)

It was during the invasion and taking of Tikonov, that the Mithril Powered Armor (Light) truly made its debut onto the battlefield. The Marksman, having had years of development into Powered armor, had sold licenses of slightly outdated units to the Davions, and with the relative inexpensiveness of the armor, and the increase in effectiveness, it proved why it would later become the golden standard of the Inner Sphere.

There was quite a force defending Tikonov. With the remaining forces of the long since nonexistent McCarron's Armored Cavalry regiments stationed there while they were being rebuilt after the losses that they had taken on Tybalt as well as quite a few other elements. And from what notes we have, it seems that Hanse's plan for taking the world involved baiting the remaining MAC units into attacking the Marksman regiments that had made landfall.

It was here, once again that the Marksman made a reputation for punching above their weight class, with nearly three regiments of mech forces from McCarron's Armored Cavalry along with them drawing in support elements from the Tikonov Militia.

The Marksman did well in both maneuvering and unexpected tactics, allowing them to use the Lostech that they had at their disposal to oftentimes level the playing field even face with superior numbers. While this diversion was taking place, the remainder of Hanse's forces were shattering the remaining forces on Tikonov, using the Marksman's new DroST variant which they called the Sting to great effect against infantry. It was this dropship in conjunction with the Mithril armor that was critical to the success of the Tikonov invasion. (9)

The battleroms that were examined of Colonel Hull's fight with Archibald McCarron noted that the man was extremely comfortable fighting superior numbers and weight without pause. (It is unknown if Hull had a death wish or not at this time) and Hanse's entry into the battlefield is still considered the textbook entry and definition of orbital dropping, and the source of what became known as the "Dynamic Entry."

Interstellar Expedition later revealed that they helped assist in the salvage and recovery of the two Leviathan Jumpships
It is to be noted that the Marksman faced serious criticism from other merc units for selling their captured Jumpships to the Concordat at this time
As it turns out, they were the only mercenary unit to have asked for access to the advanced technology, and this allowed the proliferation of advanced Star League Era medical Technology to spread faster than was previously noted
The Federated Suns would remain the main employer of the Marksman for years to come. They still employ several regiments of them for various reasons.
The forces of the 2nd McCarrons armored cavalry typically only held three battalions, but when they reinforced the world of Tybalt, they had two extra battalions lent to them from the first and third Regiments.
The Mithril was seen as a Davion development being tested by the Marksman at this time. This was later proven false.
Mostly used as a reference in the terms of what not to do. Many academies, while holding Hull as one of the primary Mech pilots in the Inner Sphere at this time. (Along with the likes of Natasha Kerensky, Morgan Kell, and Yorinaga Kurita.) Do not advise that you use his tactics. According to quotes from several of his own people, he was almost always using "Fucking Lostech Bullshit" to gain any advantage necessary.
In Yvonne Davion's now published journal, it was revealed that Yvonne had to physically force Ian to stay on New Avalon instead of running off to join Hanse and Hull in their conquest of Tikonov.
To this day any Capellan infantry formation that has lineage dating back to the Tikonov invasion that hears the words "Sting Incoming!" will drop their arms and surrender.

MarkWarrior · May 20, 2022

Chapter Forty-Five: Heart to heart
April 20th, en route to Kentares system
"Tell me why I need to start working on this now?" I asked Sheppard and the assembled staff.

"Because if you don't then we're going to let Kerensky know where you've been hiding." Sheppard grinned at me.

"Fine," I responded. "Give me the list that I know Dunham has prepared, and we'll start going through and getting staff together for both the planet and Sharpshooter Manufacturing."

"Thank you," Peterson said. "We don't want you working yourself into an early grave like you were doing after the Lancers."

"I'm going to be asking for y'all you help me sort out this noble bureaucracy stuff." I shrugged. "I've never been a noble before."

"We'll help you out." Sheppard said. "Now I believe I have a bet to win." Sheppard nodded at Mathis, and they both grabbed onto an arm.

"This is mutiny I say! Mutiny!" I yelled. "Packer help me out, please." I made sure to look as pitiful as possible.

"Sorry Colonel, no can do." Packer said, turning his back on me. "I'm getting a cut of the proceeds after all."

"Peterson?" I asked

" Sorry boss… I Promised Hanse I'd help Sheppard with this plan…"

"Mutiny?" Sheppard chuckled. "We're just making sure our CO is well taken care of…"

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns April 27th, 3011

It was nice being home again. I smelled the fresh air, and looked around at the farm I had left. The Chickens and pigs had been taken care of by Peterson's wife Francesca while I was gone. And the farm air was pleasant to me. I made to walk inside, reaching for my keys, but something seemed off to me, and I began to back away from my house, moving to the pistol I always had on me. I didn't draw it yet, I didn't know what was wrong, but I could feel something off. My chickens were unusually quiet as well. As if they knew that there was a predator nearby. Finally drawing my pistol, I went for my comms device to call in backup when my house exploded.

"Ahh Fuck." I said as I pulled myself to my feet. I looked down, seeing a shard of metal embedded in my left arm right below the artery. Quickly, I grabbed the tourniquet from my med pouch and went through the process of threading the velcro through the belt style clip and yanking towards myself as hard as I could. "Dammit." I grit out as the wound throbbed worse while I turned the windlass until my arm began to go numb. Locking it into the notch, I latched the velco down. Running my hands over the rest of my body to do a status check, I noted that I had blood draining from my ears. Probably because my eardrums had burst. There were other minor injuries, but the worst one was my arm. Well, that and the broken wrist on my right hand.

Keeping my weapon in my hand, I began to analyze my environment. If someone had bombed me it stood to reason that they would have someone stationed to finish the job. With that in mind. I dropped down, making sure to get low and behind cover. If someone wanted me dead, they'd have to try a lot harder than that. I couldn't hear anything, so if someone was trying to be sneaky they'd probably succeed.

Once I had reached reasonable concealment at the very least, I began to try and figure some things out. Not being able to hear more than muffled sounds was making me angry for once. And the fact that I wasn't able to hear if backup was coming or not was a really bad thing, especially if it were more than just me under attack.

With me not being able to hear, I knew that I would need to stay down until someone came to bail me out. I grabbed one of the smaller sheets of metal that had made up a part of my house without thinking about my broken wrist. Grunting at the pain, I dragged it over to my brick wall, and leaned it over as a makeshift shelter which I then climbed in to finish treating my wounds.

Grabbing my medbag and ripping it off of my hip, I opened it up. I started with the shears and cut my shirt off. I had been wearing body armor for years and so had three layers on. When the shirt was off, I grabbed the cleaning pads, and began to go over the biggest cuts and scrapes first. Making sure that everything was cleaned out before doing anything further. My tourniquet hurt, but it was making sure that I wasn't bleeding out and so I left it. The shart of metal that was in my arm had gone entirely through the meaty part of my muscle just below my artery and there was still a good six inches sticking out.

It took a little while before someone had managed to get to me. It may have been five minutes, it may have been three hours. I wouldn't have been able to tell. My perception of time was skewed right now. When I saw a suit of Mithril lifting up the sheet of metal I had used as cover, I pointed my sidearm at it. Not caring that it might be one of my people. It wasn't like I could hear them identify themselves after all. After about a minute of them trying to communicate with me, the Mithril operator pulled her helmet off. Kerensky had shown up to rescue me.

"I can't hear anything." I repeated. Making sure that I was understood. "I need a medic." I then took stock of my left arm, right wrist, and the rest of my body. "Correction. I need surgery."

Natasha visibly sagged, and another Mithril operator hit the ground next to her. Taking of their helmet and revealing Sheppard.

"He can't hear you, Sheppard." Kerensky told him. "I'm pretty sure the explosion damaged his eardrums."

Sheppard looked and saw the dried blood in and below my ears.

"Get him to the med station." Sheppard said. "I've still got fires to put out."

I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew that I was about to lose consciousness. I could feel my body and brain trying to withdraw for rest, and I refused in favor of staying awake. I knew that I might have a concussion as well because of how hard I had been thrown, and so even though my body was screaming at me to rest I ignored it. I needed to be awake so that I could stay alive.

Kerensky put her helmet back on, and used the Mithril's strength and speed to take me as quickly as she could to the nearest medical facility that we had set up.

When she reached the door, it slid open quickly and let her bring me in and hand me off to the doctors and nurses at the ready. She kept a careful eye out though, if someone had been able to set up bombs in the Colonel's house, who knew what else might be in place.

Agro, Kentares IV Orbit April 29th, 3011

"Did anyone get the name of the dropship that ran me over?" I asked, pleased to be able to hear again even if I was in a lot of pain.

"I believe the word you are looking for is bomb." Natasha Kerensky said from the corner.

"Yeah, I kinda figured that." I gestured to the cast on my wrist and the slightly fixed cuts and scrapes all over me. "What with the massive hole in my arm and everything."

"You're lucky you wear body armor everywhere." The head doctor told me. "And I'm surprised that you carry a medbag with you. The tourniquet was a touch that we hadn't thought to have in our own field kits."

"Fortune, God, and Murphy all favor the prepared." I replied. "And I knew something was going to happen soon. We've caused too much damage to the Capellans for them to let us go without any responses." I tried to shrug and then winced.

"Need me to prescribe some painkillers Colonel?" The doctor asked.

"No." I shook my head and moved to get up. "What was the damage caused?" I looked at my self proclaimed bodyguard. "Kerensky, do you know how bad it was?"

"Sheppard sent me an update an hour ago." She responded. "MASK sent some infiltrators in with the private contractors we had building the houses and dorms. They smuggled in some inferno gel and shoulder mounted SRM's." She shrugged. "They screwed up though. None of them went for the stashes of gel and stuff until after your house exploded. By that time, most of us were already in Mithril and made short work of them."

"How much did we lose Kerensky?" I asked, I figured being blunt would get a direct answer.

"We lost a good bit of the factory that TTI was working on. Thankfully none of the employees were there…" She trailed off. "Peterson's wife died in the explosion, along with McKay and Commodore Frye's husband."

"Fuck." I said. "I'm going to have to hold everyone back from starting a personal vendetta against the Capellans after this." I muttered. "Kerensky, help me get up. We've got some red tape to cut through."

"I can't let you do that Mark." She told me, moving to stand in front of the door. "Doc said you couldn't get up until she cleared you of the concussion and they just operated on your eardrums." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Sheppard and the rest of the team have got this and we sent a courier in the Messenger for assistance in setting up a bureaucracy."

"I get it." I leaned back. "I just hate feeling useless." I confided in Natasha. "I know up here in my head that I'm not useless right now, but it always takes a while to internalize that kind of knowledge."

"Sure does." Natasha looked at me seriously. "It took the entire first year of being here to even begin to understand any of this." She gestured to the ship, and I understood she meant the Marksman in general. "Where I am from, no one is important unless they are a warrior. And you aren't even relevant then until you've earned a last name, a bloodname." she stopped and smiled sadly. "There is no family there, no love, only the cold hard forceful application of survival of the fittest. And you don't even realize it when you're in there that it's so cold and devoid of love. You're just happy that you survived. And glad that it proved you were the fittest." She inhaled. "But with that comes arrogance. For you to not just prove that you are a great warrior, but to prove that you are among the only ones to have earned a name."

"And then, you are only known by that name. All of your achievements?!" Natasha started to get loud and her face flushed with anger. "They don't even matter besides what was contributed to the name, which is never your own." She visibly took breaths to calm herself down. "What is the point of life?" She asked. "If it is never truly your own?"

Authors note: I don't actually know where Natasha's Spiel came from. I'm honestly just as surprised as you probably were at this chapter. I had started with some thing entirely different in both my storyboard and my outline and ended up with this when the characters started talking...

MarkWarrior · May 23, 2022

Chapter Forty-Seven: Slice of Life

Epsilon Eridani, Capellan Confederation July 4th, 3011

Peterson was a professional, he knew what his job was, and he always strived to do better. That's why he was the CO of the second regiment and loved by all of his men. But this time, he was out for blood.

They had three main objectives to accomplish. The first one, was to wipe out the Fusiliers. The second was to secure the Brutus factory and relocate as much of it as possible. The third objective was something that Dunham and his handpicked group would be taking care of.

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns June 10th, 3011

"Signed and done." I said as I handed the last piece of paper to my new secretary. "Thanks for all of the help Mary."

Ian had really gone to town on getting extra people here to help me set up a bureaucracy in the last couple of weeks. Dunham's XO had submitted the list of people that Dunham had made a short list of to hire as well, and so now I had the beginnings of a larger planetary Government and Sharpshooter Manufacturing now had some talented and ambitious people behind the investments, and helping to get factories up and running.

"Mary." I said before she left my new office. "Can you make a note for us to buy more Sting class dropships for the Militia?" I asked.

"Absolutely." She jotted it down in the little notepad she carried. "Anything else I can assist with?"

"Get me a meeting set for tomorrow with Colonel Sheppard and the Militia Commander." I paused in thought. "I think his name was James Earnest."

"Yes sir, I'll get right now that." Mary responded and left to go man her desk.

"I'm still weirded out by this." I thought out loud. "Well, at least it helps me with the paperwork load for the day." It wasn't even two thirty in the afternoon local time.

"I might as well see how everything else is going." I said, and made to walk out the door to my car when I was ambushed.

"And where do you think you are going?" Natasha Kerensky asked me. "You still owe me for getting you out of the doc's office early."

"I was planning on going to check on the new complexes being built." I said. "You can come with you know."

"Or, you could take a break like you always make the rest of us do." She suggested. "I have some ideas on that."

"Okay?" I questioned. Natasha's idea of rest was much different from mine. "What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about a visit to the shooting range." She suggested. "For all of your focus on cross training, I've never seen you do any sort of infantry movements."

"Oh, I haven't been to the range outside of quals in a while." I thought out loud. "That actually sounds great."

With plans having been made, we hopped in my car and made our way to the closest range.

"So, what's the occasion?" I asked Kerensky, she had been strangely clingy since the explosion and surgery.

"Just wanted a break." She replied. "And I asked because apparently everyone else is busy and I kinda wanted to talk." She muttered that last part so I couldn't hear it properly.

"What was that last part?" I asked, as we pulled up to the range.

"Nothing, get us a long range bay" She said. "I want to see if you chose Markman because you are one, or if it was because it sounded like an interesting name."

"Alright." I shrugged. "I hope you're practiced up."

We entered the range shop/check in area, and I grabbed a hunting rifle, one meant for hunting deer or something similar. While the .308 Winchester didn't exist anymore, this was the closest thing I had found in the ballistics profiles. I paid the rental fee and bought some ammunition for both my handgun that was on my right hip and the rifle I had just rented.

When Natasha saw that I had chosen a civilian rifle she just scoffed and paid for the fees and ammo of her weapon of choice.

"Why a civilian rifle?" She asked, still a little cocky that she would beat me in a long distance shootout. "You don't even have the enhanced optics."

"This is the closest to what I grew up with." I shrugged. "And besides, it's the person behind the weapon that matters. Not the weapon."

We walked over to the bay and got the targets set up. We were going to individually sight our rifles in before we tried to out shoot the other person. After we had gotten set up, we started with the closer ranges. Such as 50 to 100 meters, before branching out to reach the far targets.

When we got to the further ranges, Natasha was surprised to see me bring a small notebook out filled with rough calculations. While there wasn't wind in the bay, she did see me check for wind and do quick math to make sure I had everything lined up before I took the shot. Unfortunately for the two of us, the range didn't have any targets that went out past 1200 meters and so we were left with a tie.

"I know something we can do as a tiebreaker." I said with a cocky grin.

"And what might that be?" She cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Tell me?" I asked. "Have you heard of a sport called paintball?"

Epsilon Eridani, Capellan Confederation July 11th, 3011.

The ODST pods for infantry deployment onto the battlefield was a huge success. They had broken the Militia and eradicated the AA with barely a company of Mithril clad infantry.

And then, the Combined Arms forces did the opposite of what the Fusiliers expected them to. At first at least. They sent probing forces similar to the ones the AFFS and most merc units did. Drawing Lances out of cover and seeming to engage before the Sting dropships moved in and provided fire support while widening the gap in the line with more infantry.

The Fusiliers did attempt a fighting retreat back to their dropships. Thinking that they had saved the last battalion they lifted off. But they were met in space by Wardog squadron who had been waiting in space to greet anyone who tried to escape. Given that the Fusiliers no longer had any aerospace cover they attempted to outrun the Aerospace fighters but they were destroyed in a short amount of time.

Once the Marksman's second regiment was finished with the Fusiliers, they went to the Brutus factory and under their engineers directions, loaded up the entire thing into multiple dropships with space to spare. The Colossus, Mule, and the Triumph class dropships were being relegated to cargo carriers for this mission.

While all of this was going on, Captain Dunham had taken a team of engineers, the Buccaneers, and a mule along with some extra Dropship personnel for an important mission that Hull had sent him on.

Bryant, Capellan Confederation July 27th, 3011.

"This isn't a smash mission, boys and girls." Peterson smiled now that he had gotten a little bit of payback against Mad Max. "We are here to take whatever is still intact and can be potentially fixed from both the Grasshopper and Von Luckner factories." He paused. "Do exactly what the Engineers tell you to. If you break something, you will be buying it."

"That said, when we get back home, drinks are on me." Peterson waited out the cheers. "You guys did good. We got some small payback against the leadership of the Capellans by both taking out the Fusiliers, and by denying them an entire factory." He smirked. "And that's a damn good feeling to have."

MarkWarrior · May 23, 2022

Chapter Forty-Eight: Lifting of the Veil

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns June 11th, 3011

"Natasha, I've got something to show you." I said. "Have you met Lieutenant Jones before?" I asked.

"No, I do not believe we have had the pleasure." She replied, shaking Dunam's XO's hand. "Is there a reason we are both here?"

"Yeah Nat, you might want to sit down for this." Jones stood on my left side and handed a file folder to her. "We've been doing some SIGINT work and found these communiques between a couple of different MASK cells." Jones had a separate file on the desk in front of Natasha. "On the desk is the list of MASK cells we uncovered and what intel we were able to pull from their files."

"I'm gonna kill that bastard!" Natasha roared. Standing up in a blaze of fury before realizing where she was. "Si!" She stood at attention and saluted. "Requesting permission to leave and go blow things up?"

"Denied Lieutenant Kerensky." I responded without getting up from my desk. "Now sit down and listen."

Natasha sat down promptly, but I knew that she was still angry. "Natasha, I'm sending them this Intel regardless of how our conversation today goes." I said, and watched as she sagged a bit in relief. "You can resign your commission, and go to aid them and none of us will blame you. I'll even send spare parts for your Marauder along with you if you want." I shrugged. "Or you can take the leave you've saved up and come back, the choice is yours. And regardless of what you choose, we'll have your back." I handed her a copy of the intel report. "Choice is yours. Now go hit the Mech range. I'll let them know you're coming."

June 17th, 3011

"Thanks for meeting with me Mr. Watson." I shook the TTI rep's hand. "It's good to finally be able to have a face to face meeting."

"Of course Mr. Hull, It's a pleasure to meet you." He sat down across from me.

"Now, I just saw the sheet on the Toro Production facility." I started.

"Yes sir, even with the MASK paying us a visit, we're still set to open in three days." Watson grinned. "I'm glad you managed to finish them off for us, Capellan Bastards, worse than these Davions." He swore.

"Well, I'll be with you at the factory on opening day." I said. "Is there anything you or your team need?" I asked.

"Just some room for expansion." Watson said. "TTI wants to offer you the option to buy out our peoples contracts." He shrugged a bit. "My contract is open to be bought as well. We all know you're going to be expanding production on Kentares, and we're here to make money so we're available for that if you want."

"Get a copy of the Contracts to Katherine over at Sharpshooter." I nodded at the office building set aside for the Manufacturing division of our assets. "She'll look them over and give you an answer."

"I'll do that, thanks." Watson replied. "Thank you for inviting me for this meeting sir. It's a real pleasure to meet with you."

"The pleasure was all mine, Watson." I stood up to shake his hand once more. "Have a pleasant day."

That was my last meeting of the day, and I wanted to get out of the office. I got up, threw on my coat, (I still wear the Marksman uniform for now.) and opened my office. When I got to the door of my new house, I paused. And instead of leaving right away, I went and threw on some civilian clothing. (Still with concealable body armor and weapons.) and when I left, I took the side entrance.

I knew that Jones had security people following me, but I just needed some alone time. And so I jogged until I had reached one of the smaller exits to the base and headed for the woodline. I needed some peace and quiet.

I had just reached a small stream in the woods when one of my bodyguards reached for his comm device. Lifting it to his ear, he nodded at whatever he was being told before his body language shifted and he turned to me. "Duke Hull, we've got a vehicle on its way. You have a priority transmission waiting for you at the Comms center."

"Alright," I sighed, and started jogging back to the base, meeting a military truck along the way. We drove at a rapid speed, and had made it through to the comms center in a very short amount of time.

When I reached the comm center, I was directed to one monitor with a headset and a microphone attached. "This is Duke Hull of Kentares IV, to whom am I speaking?" I asked.

"This is Archon Katrina Steiner of the Lyran Commonwealth. I'm requesting the use of your medical facilities for my Husband Arthur Luvon." Echoed through my ears.

"Archon, you have my permission to bring one small craft plus escorts to and aboard the Argo for medical attention." I told her. "I will meet you there as soon as I am able."

June 19th, 3011

"Sorry it took a little bit longer to get here." I told my old subordinate with a small grin. "I just don't have the same people to sort paperwork that I used to."

Katrina laughed a bit at that. "I always wondered what the reaction of some of the members of my fireteam were." She said out loud before getting a little solemn.

"How is he?" I asked, indicating Arthur. "I hadn't heard anything about either of you being sick." I said.

"It's cancer of some kind." She halfway sobbed. "We found an Old Lostech cache and didn't remember to use your protocols until we had already been exposed to radiation."

"Well, at least you made it here in time." I observed. "We should get you checked out too'' I waved one of the orderlies down. "Can we get a medical check and cancer scan done on Archon Steiner here?"

The orderly just nodded, and went to file the right paperwork before getting started. "It'll all work out Katrina, you'll see."

June 25th, 3011

"How are they doing doc?" I asked Janet Hale, the head doctor.

"Well, we managed to operate on Mr. Luvon just in time, if he had been even a week later, he would be dead." She replied.

"And Archon Steiner?" I asked.

"She's pregnant, her second one if I'm correct, and there's several areas that we're pretty sure are benign now, but could turn cancerous and kill her later." Janet answered my question.

"And she's waiting to see if Arthur is going to live before giving the go ahead on her own surgery." I said, giving a small wave to the woman on the other side of the glass.

"No actually." Janet replied. "She gave us the go ahead to operate and remove any growths we find."

"Then what's the hold up?" I asked.

"She's waiting to speak to you before she goes under." Hale said.

"Okay then," I said and straightened up a bit. "I better speak to her."

"Colonel Mark Hull." Katrina greeted me, using my rank. "Can I call you Mark?" She asked.

"Of course." I replied. "I was told you needed to speak to me."

"Yes." The typically strong woman looked a little smaller in the hospital bed in front of me. "Thank you." Tears ran down her face. "I don't know what I would have done if I had lost Arthur."

"Lady Steiner." I said. "You don't have to worry about that anymore, you were both once a part of the Marksman." I said.

"And the Marksman are family." She said, remembering her time with us fondly. "I'm going to go under for Surgery now." She said, "Can I count on you to keep us safe?" She asked.

"I'll always keep a member of the family safe." I said, "I've got you surrounded by people who will make sure that you and Arthur will make it back to the Commonwealth."

"Okay." She said weakly, "I'll leave it in your hands then."

I just nodded and then left the room to the doctors. I wanted to make absolutely sure that everything went smoothly from here on out.

June 30th, 3011

"Move the Argo into the shadow of Kentares' moon." Commodore Frye ordered. "I don't want anyone to know we're here until after the Archon and her husband are able to be escorted back to their dropship."

Two days into the recovery period, we had detected a Draconis Combine raiding party inbound towards the planet. It wasn't more than a battalion, but I was pretty sure that Comstar and ROM had a hand in leaking info to the Dracs.

Thankfully, we had Strider squadron, and a whole host of aerospace assets on standby to meet them before they hit the atmosphere…

MarkWarrior · May 24, 2022

Chapter Forty-Nine: Intelligence
Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns July 1st, 3011

I hated having to watch things from the ground and not be able to do anything about it. And to make matters worse, Katrina had left me babysitting Melissa while she was in recovery along with Arthur on the Argo. So I was sitting in the communications bay, listening to the chatter among our pilots as they artfully destroyed the enemy forces. Having a regiment of Fighters left at home made defending it a lot easier.

"No Melissa, don't touch that." I rushed over to prevent her from pushing the broadcast button. "Come on Mel, you've got to listen to what Uncle Mark says."

"Unca Mock." She reached up to be held and so I picked her up. "Up"

"You're spoiled." I said, as I brought her back to my chair and handed her my keys to play with. "Spoiled rotten I say." I began tickling her sides to peals of laughter.

I was only able to halfway listen to the battle in the void, but I knew that not being able to keep an eye on Melissa would end up with me dead. Finally, after about an hour trying to, I managed to tire Melissa out enough that she fell asleep while I was holding her.

"Last of the enemy has been destroyed." I heard as I held Melissa, "Send in recovery vehicles ASAP." I decided that a situation report could wait until the next day. I yawned, sat down in a comfortable chair while holding Mel, and nodded off.

July 3rd, 3011

"Rook, you manage to rip anything off of the dropship computers?" I asked our main computer specialist. (He had been adopted into our intel department years ago.) While holding Mel who was fast asleep on my shoulder.

"Yeah actually." Rook said. "I've got some interesting stuff for you to go over later." He glanced at one part. "Say, have you ever heard of a system called Versailles?" He asked me.

"No, I've never heard of it." I said, lulling Mel back to sleep as she began to stir. "Maybe it appears on some older maps or something." I suggested, genuinely having never heard of the system.

"Well, I don't think these people were Dracs, Colonel." Rook said seriously. "Their dropships were too new, and the computers weren't full of junk like most dropships are." His face paled as he looked at one of the things that he had just seen in the data that he had pulled from their systems. "Colonel, take a look at this."
"Fuck." I said, "Whoever this was, they really wanted to send a message didn't they?"

"I'll say sir." Rook finally regained his composure. "The Davions would have unleashed hell like it was the first succession war all over again."

"Thanks for all of your help Rook. I'll send a line or message to Ian or Hanse and see what I can dig up with Jones." I said, "For now, go get some rest Rook, you look like you could use some rest."

July 4th, 3011

"Katrina, I'm not your babysitter." I said as I tried (And failed) to pass Melissa back over to her mother.

The toddler I was holding refused to let go. Saying "Unca Mock, Unca Mock." And grabbing my beard in order to direct me back to the room we had set aside for her to play in.

"Ow, Mel stop." I said, slowly untangling the hands from my beard. "Katrina, get your daughter before she rips my beard out."
Katrina, (And Arthur,) were too busy bent over laughing to assist poor uncle Mark. At this point, I had been brought low by the toddler and she had spun around to climb on my back as if I were a horse. "Unca Mock Unca Mock." She cheered. Laughing at my misfortune.

Finally, I managed to escape from the little terror that Mel was sometimes. But it was only because she had gotten tired. After recovering from her laughter, Katrina picked Melissa up and gave her a kiss on the top of the head.

"You like playing with Uncle Mark Melissa?" She asked, booping Melissa on the nose.

"Yes, Play Unca Mock." She made to reach for me again but was blocked by Arthur swooping in to capture her attention. "Dada." She reached for the still slightly weak man and he held her tight and kissed her on the cheek.

Smiling softly to myself, I slipped away and allowed them a private moment to be a family.

July 10th, 3011

"Mark, seriously anything you need ever, You call Arthur or myself and we'll make it happen." Katrina said as she hugged my neck.

"Well, there's a couple of things that I actually have for you." I said, and grabbed an envelope I had prepped. "You're not allowed to open it until you've made it back to Tharkad." I said. "And I'll be sending a Sharpshooter representative over to Tharkad soon. Try and point them in the right direction?"

"I can do that." Katrina laughed. "The Kell brothers just started up a Merc unit, and Morgan told me to tell you that he said "Hi" before I left."

"Alright, I'll catch up to Morgan sometime in the future." I said. "Katrina, Arthur." I knelt down at eye level for Melissa. "Mel, I'll see y'all around sometime." I gave Melissa a big hug, a handshake with Arthur, and Katrina wrapped me into a bear hug and then they left to head back to Lyran space. They would be bringing a couple of my doctors and nurses with them to make sure that they stayed on the path of recovery though.

July 11th, 3011

"McAllister." I said, seemingly calm.

"Yeah?" He asked as he walked over.

"Where is my Warhammer?" I asked. "And why is there a Marauder in its place?"

"That redhead came by bout a month ago." He snapped his fingers together to help him remember. "Kerensky, I think her name was. She had authorization from you to take a mech out for the long term. It didn'ay specify what mech she could take."

I sighed heavily. "Well, let's see if there are any surprises waiting for me." I climbed to the cockpit via the gantry. I popped open the hatch to see that there was a sealed letter sitting on the seat of the Marauder.

Sitting down in the chair, I opened the letter and began to read it. "Sorry for the switch Mark, but I knew that I might need some of the Lostech in your mech to help out the Dragoons. Do not worry though! I'm just borrowing it for a little while and you can use my Marauder while waiting for my return. By the way, I left some things in your office for you to find later. I will be back in a year or so, and I hope that we will be able to pick up where we left off.

Your battle buddy, Natasha.

"Fucking Clanners." I muttered to myself with a smile on my face. "Always got to be different."

"McAllister!" I yelled. "See what Lostech you can swap out in here. This is gonna be my ride for a while."

July 31st, 3011

"Leave the stack there." I pointed to where I wanted the pile of paperwork lay. "Anything super important today Mary?"

"Check the first envelope, I think it's from Hanse Davion." She said, before dismissing herself back to her desk.

Reaching for and opening the letter, I found that it was an invitation to Hanse and Dana Stephenson's wedding in January of 3013. Apparently I was being invited as part of the groom's wedding party and I was to be there as "Early as possible." I had been keeping tabs on Hanse, and he had earned the nickname "The Fox" all over again as he pacified and began to convert Tikonov over to the Davion way of thinking.

I was also keeping tabs on the NAIS construction and what was going on with the hiring and recruitment of scientists there. It seems that no matter what the universe, Dr. Banzai would always be drawn to work for NAIS instead of a company like mine.
Natasha had been spotted and we knew that Natasha would give them our intel, and it seems that Ian had consulted with Hanse and gotten the Northwind Highlanders to move back to Northwind permanently or at least that's what the slow pullouts seemed to indicate anyway.

Dropship on route to Wolf's Dragoons. July 25th, 3011

"And you are?" the odd man in front of her in the ship's gym asked.

"I am Lieutenant Natasha Kerensky of the Marksman." She said as she sat down on the bench press. "If I have to ask you to leave me alone again, it will be accompanied by a broken nose at the minimum." She glared at the man who had been hitting on her.

"Fifty days." Natasha said to herself "It will take around fifty days to get there, let's hope it's enough."

MarkWarrior · May 24, 2022

Chapter Fifty: Homecoming

Carver V, Capellan Confederation September 5th, 3011

"Colonel Wolf." Natasha inclined her head to her once subordinate as she was escorted to his office. "I have extremely important intelligence for you." She said, and handed the data in the form of files and the small core with the comminques on it.

"Kerensky." Jaime Wolf stated, leaving silence to fill the air for a solid minute. "We thought you had abandoned the mission given to us by Khan Ward."

"Were we not assigned to gather intelligence on the Inner Sphere?" Natasha asked. "How are we to know what the current climate is if we stay in our own unit instead of branching out to investigate."

"But we have not received a report from you in almost a year and a half Kerensky," Jaime wolf said, still not having raised his voice. "What was so important to bring you back here that you did not even send a message first?"

"Look at the files, and the data on the disc." Natasha said. "Everything you need to know is on there."

Major Joshua Wolf, who had been sitting in silence for the time being finally spoke up. "So, have you had any good battles?" He asked, eager to fill the silence and change to a different topic.

"Well, there was the Conquest of Tikonov." Natasha started, and then began to tell the story of the Marksman and what they accomplished on Tikonov.

"He eliminated three assault mechs?" Joshua asked, more than a little impressed. "All coming at him at once?"

"I still have a copy of the Battlerom somewhere." Natasha replied with a smirk. "It was quite the battle, shame that you were employed by the wrong side."

While Natasha and Joshua had been catching up and exchanging stories, Jaime was reading over the files that Natasha had brought to them for review.

"You are one hundred percent confident in Colonel Hull's intelligence report?" Jaime asked.

"Yes sir, I would stake my life on it." Natasha replied.

"Then we will be breaking our contract with Liao and moving onto the Free Worlds league." Jaime said. "Our families are not bargaining chips to be used to restrain us."
"You will be remaining with the Dragoons." Jaimes stated. "We will need you to assist with us breaking out."

"Place me where you need me." Natasha said. "I did bring a mech after all."

"I need to get the senior officers together." Jaime said and nodded to Joshua, indicating for him to gather the assorted Wolf's Dragoons officers for a meeting.

September 6th, 3011

"We are all in agreement then?" Jaime Wolf asked the assembled regimental commanders.

"Aff" Echoed in the small room.

After that, the assembled group of officers dispersed, Natasha's information having helped them to make a decision. Now they just had to carry it out.

"Thank you Natasha." Joshua Wolf said, "I know Jaime would not have said it, but thank you."

"I will only be here to aid in your escape." Natasha responded.

"You will not be leaving the Dragoons again, Kerensky." Jaime Wolf said, walking up. "We have need of your skills, and Khan Ward was not pleased that you did not accompany us on our last return and report."

"I think not." She replied. "And if you try to force it, I will call for a Trial of Refusal."

"So be it." Jaime replied. "We will settle this after we have left Capellan space."

The Triad, Tharkad City, Tharkad Lyran Commonwealth October 10th, 3011

"Alright, we got everything settled, put all of the fires out, etc." Katrina said to Arthur while holding Melissa. "Now let's see what the good Colonel left us in this letter."

Opening it, she took the time to read it and then, passed it over for her husband to read.

"That son of a…" Arthur started to say and then stopped when Katrina glared at him. Glancing down at the child she was holding. "Son of a motherless goat." He finished. "He's sitting back in his office on Kentares IV, laughing at us."

"Probably." Katrina agreed. "And now we owe him quite a few favors." She said, " I'll have to see if we can poach some of his Intel people. They're very good with SIGINT and have quite the number crunching team." She gestured to part of the enclosed documents that had been in the envelope. "See the numbers here?" She asked. "That had to take weeks of work to track down, especially considering the times and sheer amount of Kroner being moved."

"I can see that." Arthur responded. "We'll definitely have to help this representative he's sending to Tharkad to make some connections. Some of this could help us dominate the Dracs once and for all."

Carver V, Capellan Confederation September 10th, 3011

"I think they were ready for us." Natasha said as they ducked into cover on their way to the Mech bays.

"You don't say." Joshua Wolf replied as he fired his carbine at yet another group of Capellan infiltrators. "At least we managed to get the dependents out already."

"Yeah, but we're still here idiot." Natasha replied. "And now we're blocked off from the mechs."

"We'll get there." Joshua replied as he dropped another Capellan with a lucky headshot.

"Not anytime soon we won't." Natasha muttered. "Give me that," Natasha grabbed the carbine out of Joshua's hands and thrust her sidearm into his arms instead. Checking to make sure that the mag had enough in it, She burst out of cover rapidly, and advanced on the infiltrators. Firing short bursts in concentrated areas that at the very least caused them to fall back.

"Damn Natasha!" Joshua said as he covered her back with the sidearm. "Where did you learn that?"

"Marksman school of hard knocks." She replied. "It's an exclusive club. No Mechwarrior Mafia allowed." She had Joshua hand her the rest of the magazines he had, and reloaded her weapon. "Everyone learns how to be infantry there… Everyone."

After that, they advanced from cover to concealment, and vice versa until they had broken through to the mech bay where Joshua's and Hull's mechs were on standby. Running to the gantries, they climbed up the stairs and ladders in order to get in and power up the mechs.

Once Natasha had sat down in the Warhammer, she once again appreciated the smooth feel and ride that the Colonel's personal mech had to it. It was almost as if she was piloting a clan mech once again. Moving through the security procedures, she took the time to appreciate that McAllister had reset the protocols for her before she had left Kentares.

"Where's the rendezvous Major?" Natasha asked over laser comms to Joshua's Black Knight.

"Navpoint Beta is the LZ." He responded. "Tying you into the system and uploading it now."

The Dragoon's dropships were parked on a field outside of the city, and Natasha's intel had allowed them to quietly pull their dependents off of Carver V and move them to Hephestaus station before the station left. Then, Capellan special forces struck, trying to prevent the Dragoons from leaving in conjunction with the local militia. It had worked on some of them, the dragoons not having expected it this soon. But the majority of them had regrouped around the dropships and were waiting for any stragglers.

"This is Major Joshua Wolf, clear a path for me." He said over comms to the Dragoons' artillery division. "We've got armor and infantry in the way."

Natasha just followed Wolf's lead, not wanting Hull's mech to get too damaged.

The artillery hit at the coordinates Joshua had indicated, and the vehicles and infantry pulled back rather than die from the king of the battlefield. Speeding through the city, they moved to the LZ and joined the rest of the Dragoons as they left the planet.

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns September 5th, 3011

"Sheppard, Earnest." I greeted the two men in front of me. "We're going to need to talk about force, the mercenary unit, and how we're going to handle the chain of command from here on out."

"We just finished setting up the Brutus factory, and repairs on the Von Luckner, Grasshopper, and the dropship repair and manufacturing lines are moving ahead of schedule thanks to the TTI people that we bought out the contracts of." I said. "With that in mind, we need to establish supply lines, and who gets first rights on war material and everything else."

The two senior officers in front of me just nodded.

"I'm leaning towards the Marksman being a mercenary unit maintained by us. The Kentares Militia Getting first priority for equipment until they are full, and the house unit being temporarily made up of Marksman and eventually expanded upon." I said. "We can decide on force composition later…"

With that, we got to making plans for the future.

Author's note: Can't think up a good name for the house unit… At least not one that fits the theme I've got going on. I almost used something like the Aurelian Guards, but my last name isn't Aurelius here… So, any suggestions will be welcome and one might end up being picked up later.

MarkWarrior · May 24, 2022

Chapter Fifty-One: Conversations

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns September 17th, 3011

"I need to head to New Avalon." I told the assembled people with me. "I need to bring some important intelligence to the First Prince, and I'll be trying to find some more personnel to hire for the factories."

"Alright." Sheppard and Peterson responded. "We'll hold down the fort and keep things on task while you're gone."

"You'll be a little busy." I said. "We've got five to six more Sting Gunships being shipped here and I want Commodore's Jewel and Fry training up more crew."

"We've got immigrants moving in, but it'll take a while for the population to grow." Mary, my secretary told us. "Last census had a little over six and a half million people on the planet, and immigration is just now starting to pick up again." She showed us the figures. "Expect that to pick up when the factories are up and running and we start making more of a profit here. But for now, there's too many bad memories of the Massacre for a lot of Davions to move here. Most of our immigrants currently, are people from the Concordat who also want to join the Marksman eventually."

"Stay sharp, people," I reminded them. "Us not quite verifying identities is what led to the bombing in the first place."

"Dunham, I take it you're triple checking backgrounds again?" I asked.

"Yes sir, MIIO even attached a Liaison for us to coordinate with." He responded.

"I'm taking the Messenger, and Lieutenant Rook with me." I said. "I need him to show how he pulled the information off of the dropships that tried to hit us."

The assembled people just nodded at that. "The Argo is to continue supporting the factory repairs for now, I want and need those Grasshoppers and Von Luckners in service soon. The AFFS has already indicated they'll buy half of our production when they're back in service. They tried for buying all of the production, but I'm reserving half for the Kentares Guards and the militia."

"What about the Toro production?" Sheppard asked.

"That goes entirely to us for now." I said. "They're a great deal better armored and armed than even some medium mechs. They'll end up working with close combat fireteams as fire support elements for now."

Talitha, Free Worlds League October 10th, 3011

"Bargained well and done." Natasha and the Dragoons had finished bidding for her Trial of Refusal. She would be going alone against both Joshua and Jaime Wolf in their personal battlemechs in her "Borrowed" Warhammer from Hull.

So, she went to the mech bay, making sure to go over the Warhammer herself so that she could make sure everything was running the way it was supposed to after the Escape from Carver V.

While she was checking on the electronics, Joshua Wolf knocked on the entrance to the cockpit. "Mind if I talk while you work?" He asked.

"No, just keep it a little low." Natasha responded as she did a systems check. "I am trying to work here after all."

"It's strange to see you do this." Joshua observed. "Has four years really changed you in such a short amount of time?"

"It's…" Natasha paused her work to consider how to word her next sentence. "An entirely different environment from any I have ever been in." She continued to the next system on her list. "I wouldn't even know how to describe it to you barring you experiencing it yourself."

"Okay, try anyway." Joshua shrugged.

"Johnny, the elemental that joined up when I did." Natasha started. "Has gotten married, he goes by the name of Johnny Lawrence now, and he's married" She smiled at the thought of him. "He has two children, and he and his wife operate a martials arts dojo when he isn't on deployment offworld."

"What does that have to do with explaining the environment?" Joshua asked.

"Everything." Natasha replied. "Would the Wolf's Dragoons, or the Clans have allowed him to open the Martial arts dojo? Would they have allowed him to be who he has chosen to be?" She moved onto the next system. "Or would they have battered him down for not only being a "Freebirth", but also for deciding that he doesn't want to be an elemental anymore." She sighed. "He's a part of the cooking and cleaning areas of the Marksman, and he's damn good at it too."

"I do not get it." Joshua Wolf replied. "Maybe I will never get it, but we will establish what happens tomorrow in the Trial of Refusal, have a good night Natasha."

October 11th, 3011

Natasha sat in Hull's Warhammer, triple checking everything, and unknowingly echoing what Hull did every time he climbed in, checked to make sure that the straps weren't frayed. She wasn't nervous about the Trial of Refusal ahead of her, but she knew that unless she was very good, skilled and hopefully lucky as well, that the Wolf brothers would be a hard fight to win.

Moving to the ERPPC's maximum range, she marveled at having an extremely fast heavy mech with ER weapons again. She was going to have to take out Jaime's Archer first, before Joshua got in close and tried using his laser array on the up-armored Warhammer.

After the signal to start the Trial had been sent, Natasha immediately saw that Joshua had advanced, hoping to close with her in time to use his large lasers to take her down before he overheated. (They had chosen a desert to conduct the Trial in.)

Not wanting him to get closer, Natasha backed up, squeezing the triggers for her PPC's and aiming for the right knee actuator. She knew that if he got in range with his lasers that she would take some pretty heavy damage. Thanks to the freezers Hull had crammed in, she could continue to fire the PPC's all day long, it wouldn't be taxing on her heat systems unless she started firing alpha on top of alpha strike.

Continuing to stay out of range of his lasers, Natasha kept worrying at Joshua's mech while keeping an eye out for Jaime's Archer. Being hit by a series of LRM's wouldn't be in her best interests.

"Where did she get this Warhammer?" Joshua commed his brother. "It is fast, and Natasha is hammering me from outside of my range."

"No clue," Jaime responded. "Keep her busy, I am swinging around in an attempt to flank now.

"Fucking Bullshit." Joshua said as another bracket of PPC's stripped another ton off of his Black Knight. "She has to be running Lostech in that thing in order for her to keep doing this."

"Jaime," Joshua said. "I'm about to have to punch out. I don't have any armor covering my torso."

"Just a little longer Joshua." Jaime said. "I'm acquiring a lock on her now."

But it was too late. Natasha had hit Joshua's gyro, and it had experienced critical failure. So when Joshua's mech toppled over, it buried itself into the sand.

"Jaime, I just took out Joshua." Natasha taunted. "Where are you at?"

Jaime appeared on her sensors on top of a dune behind her, sitting right at his maximum range. "I am right here." And a flurry of missiles were launched at her Warhammer. Spinning in place, she kicked up her speed to the full 86 km/h, moving out of the way of the majority of LRM's and allowing the rest to spread out instead of concentrating the damage. Seeing that she was still in ERPPC range, she fired at Jaime's archer. Moving to close in as rapidly as she could.

Natasha moved in close enough that Jaime's LRM's couldn't arm, allowing them to somewhat harmlessly crumple against her armor as she moved in and lashed out with medium lasers and SRM's.

Jaime just moved in closer, lashing out with his fists in an attempt to hit her in a melee, but she dodged around him, nearly skating on the sand and worrying at his rear armor. Jaime's medium lasers scored some hits, and caused one of her Freezers to fail, causing a little bit of heat to eminante from her feet, but Natasha kept hitting Jaime with everything that Hull's Warhammer had to offer. Sliding in and out of fire, and raking armor off with lasers, SRM's and her ERPPC's. Finally, she scored a hit on his Fusion engine, causing it to go into automatic shutdown and allowing her to claim the victory.

October 12th, 3011.

"I am so dead." Natasha looked at Hull's Warhammer. "He's going to kill me."

She had basically destroyed the Myomer muscles due to the desert and the missiles and lasers from Jaime's Archer. It would need a complete rebuild before it could be put back into combat.

"Kerensky," Jaime and Joshua appeared, taking in the sight of the blackened and partially destroyed Warhammer. "It was a good fight." Joshua said, and Jaime nodded. "We will honor the results of the Trial, and will notify Khan Ward that you are no longer a part of the mission."

"Thank you." Natasha inclined her head to the two Wolf brothers. "I hope that your next contract is favorable." And she turned and walked into the dropship that she was renting the bay out of. "See you around boys."

New Avalon, Federated Suns October 29th, 3011

"Do you have an appointment with Prince Ian?" The secretary I was on the phone with asked. "Because he's booked until July of three thousand and twelve." She chimed in.

"No, I need to speak to him anyway." I had been trying to explain to this woman for thirty minutes that I was the Duke of Kentares and needed to speak to Ian immediately. "Ma'am, if you do not let me at least talk to him, I'm going to come to the Avalon Palace complex, and I'll speak to him that way, whether I have an appointment or not." I was still talking when a sharp "Click" sound hit my ear. "She hung up on me!" I said more than a little upset. "Rook, Mathis, find us a vehicle. We're going to the palace complex.

MarkWarrior · May 25, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Two: Trolls…
Davion Palace New Avalon, Federated Suns October 30th, 3011
"You should have heard your voice." Ian laughed harder. "She hung up on me!" He mocked.

I just stood there. Not finding the fact that my time had been wasted on a joke funny.

"And, you just kept trying to convince her." Ian doubled over again.

"Maybe I can just let him die." I thought in my head with a mental shrug. "Surely Hanse will do a better job anyway." I had pointedly tuned Ian out at his point.

"No." I thought to myself, shaking my head in the process. "Hanse would be just as bad, only he'd take time to set up his trolling moments, better the obvious troll than the smug younger one."

"Hello." Ian waved his hand in front of my face finally getting my attention."No one's ever been able to tune me out like that before."

"I had practice." I shrugged, giving Ian my attention now. "When you grow up the oldest of fourteen and then get married with two kids…" I trailed off.

"You learn to tune the crazy out." Ian finished for me. "Damn it. I had an entire series of jokes for this and they're all ruined now." He shrugged. "Oh well. Now what was so important that you had to rush over here?"

"Can we move this to a briefing room?" I asked. "And you might want Yvonne and some of your advisers for this one."

"Yeah, I'll call for a meeting." Ian called his secretary in and had her gather the people on his advisory council. "You have thirty minutes to get together whatever you need for this." Ian looked at me. "When you've got what you need, have one of the servants guide you to the main briefing room."

October 30th, 3011

"On June 30th, 3011 we encountered what appeared to be a Draconis Combine Raiding party battalion sized in strength." I said, using the Tri-Vid screen to show pictures of the four dropships that had jumped into the system.

"Seeing as we had superior aerospace assets in the form of one of the new Sting gunships along with a near regiment of aerospace fighters, we met them halfway between the jump point and the planet of Kentares." I flipped to the next slide. "We destroyed them with minimal losses among our forces."

"But this isn't what we're here to talk about." I gestured for Rook to take the lead. "It's what we pulled from the dropship's computers that was important."

"I'm the chief computer tech of the Marksman, and due to us being issued Mithril for recovery operations I was pulled in to examine the dropship's computers and see if we could recover any intelligence." Rook paused for a deep breath. "We found two things of particular interest. The first thing we found was Nukes laced with extreme amounts of Cobalt." Rook took a cue from me and waited for the angry shouting and reactions to die down.

I gave them a couple of minutes to have their little moment before meeting Yvonne Davion's eyes. She was the only one calm in the room besides Rook and myself. She raised an eyebrow inquiringly, and I just nodded in response. A sharp whistle then echoed throughout the room and Yvonne lowered her hand down from her mouth.

"Children, the adults are trying to have a conversation." She said now that quiet had entered the room. "Lieutenant Rook, if you could please continue."

"Of course Ma'am." Rook struggled, not knowing whether to salute or not before just deciding to finish the briefing. "It was the second thing that was more important. These were not Draconis Combine Dropships." He stated. "They were too new, and had none of the signs of Combine ownership in the past."

"What do you mean by too new?" One of the advisors asked.

"Well, there's a certain amount of clutter that builds up over time in computers. Different errors that have been logged, small glitches that never get fixed, all sorts of things." Rook tried to explain. "But there was no clutter on these dropships. And whoever was in charge of security screwed up, they left us with coordinates of where they had come from." Rook nodded to me and passed the baton over.

"We fired the Nukes into the sun." I started. "We don't need something to go wrong on Kentares after the Massacre." People nodded in agreement. "And we did some digging on the star coordinates, and couldn't find anything. We know that it's close to Markesan, and that every piece of equipment that they used had been manufactured in the last year or so after analysis from our Astechs and engineers." I paused for breath. "Have any of you heard of a system called Versailles?"

"Well, neither has anybody in my company or on the planet." I shrugged, "So we're here to do some digging, and maybe see if we can get some payback for trying to nuke us into oblivion."

The room erupted into questions and slight chaos.

An hour later….

"Well, that was quite the shitstorm you stirred up in there." Ian said as he entered the sitting room Mathis, Rook, and I were resting in. "Mark, follow me." He gestured for me to stand up and follow him.

I followed him back to his office where a map of the Inner Sphere from before the Succession wars started. "I found it." Ian stated as he pointed to a system called Versailles. "It's right here, I don't know how we lost it, or who deleted it, but Versailles was a part of my nation."

He grinned at me. "Thanks for dropping an adventure onto my lap." And then he took off at a slight jog. I maintained pace with him until he had reached a side office.

"Hey Yvonne!. I'm taking my buddy Mark here and the Heavy Guards to go do some exploring. Be back soon!"

I just facepalmed and started to try and appear invisible when Yvonne poked her head out and saw me. "You," She pointed at me. "My office, now."

Knowing there was no escape, I hung my head and walked into her office.

"Want a cookie?" Yvonne waved a chocolate chip cookie at me. "I made them fresh last night."

"Ooh." My eyes got wide. "I haven't had homemade cookies in years. I will absolutely have one." I accepted her peace offering with a slight tear in my eye.

"I thought you were going to chew me out for a second there." I said, with a slight chuckle.

"No point." Yvonne shrugged. "I'm surprised I managed to get Ian to sit still for as long as I did." She offered another cookie with a glass of milk. "Thanks for that by the way, I managed to make him do his job for the first time in years because he couldn't push anything off to me when it came to the distribution of the Helm Cache."

"You're welcome." I responded. "These are really good, I'll trade you for the recipe."

"What kind of trade?" Yvonne had a gleam in her eyes.

"Well, I just so happen to have a recipe for White Chocolate Chip Caramel cookies." I replied.

"Done." Yvonne grabbed a sheet of paper and tore it in half for us to both write our recipes on.

"Now, was there anything else you needed Ma'am?" I asked, now that our business transaction was concluded.

"Make sure Ian comes back alive." She looked at me with slightly sad eyes. "I know that he's going to throw himself at trouble, but you seem to have a decent head on your shoulders."

"I do?" I asked, knowing I had a tendency to draw fire for my troops in order to win battles.

"You don't rush into combat unless it's made its way to your area." She said, "I've seen the battleroms, and read the reports. You stay in the HQ until someone gets too close, and then you engage." She sighed. "Ian wants to be on the front the entire time, and Damn the consequences."

"I'll do my best to bring him home Ma'am." I said seriously. "I can't make any promises though."

"That's all I can ask for." She said, "When you get back, I'll have tested that recipe out though."

"I'll sample them when I return." I replied, and shook her hand. "Thanks for not chewing me out."

"It was intel that we needed." She shrugged. "I don't shoot the messenger."

November 4th, 3011.

"Boy am I glad that I grabbed my backup Warhammer." I said to Mathis, Rook was on his way back to Kentares and would hopefully be bringing some reinforcements if this went the way I thought it would. "Nat's Marauder was still being worked on when we left."

"Me too." Mathis replied. "I'm glad I managed to talk them into letting me borrow the prototype." He gestured to the armor being loaded into the bay via forklift. "The Mark 15B Mithril is a bit slower, a lot heavier, and will last for a long time out in the field."

"Don't blow it up." I told him seriously. "We need the testing data from it."

"I'll try my best Colonel." Mathis shrugged. "But no promises."

We were being loaded into one of the Davion Heavy Guards dropships and would be taking off soon.

"You remember your orders?" I asked Mathis. "We can't afford to screw this up."

"I remember Colonel, I've got your back." He replied. "You still got that letter Yvonne gave you?" He asked me.

"It's going in the chest pouch of my Mithril." I said. "If Ian does anything stupidly heroic, I may need to use it."

"Then we are as prepared as we can be." We walked into the dropship and got ready for takeoff.

MarkWarrior · May 25, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Three: High of Seventy, With a chance of raining Mithril
Versaille, Comstar Hidden World, December 14th, 3011

"I expected more." Ian said as we traveled from the Jump point headed in towards the planet.

"Ian, this world is probably recorded as a dead world." I said. "If anyone came through here for a recharge, anyone down there would want to remain hidden. You can't really do that with a lot of active defenses in place."

"I guess you're right." Ian shrugged. "I just wanted a good fight."

"Ian," I said. "You are a Mech pilot, not an aerospace fighter jockey." I shook my head "What were you going to do? Hop in your Atlas and shoot AC/20's out of the Mech bay?"

Ian just shrugged in response. "I don't know what I was going to do okay?" He said. "I just want to do something."

"Well, you'll get your chance soon enough." I said. "Just be a little more patient."

December 18th, 3011

"Alright, we're dropping from and extremely high altitude people." Mathis relayed to the company of Heavy Guards infantry he had been attached to. "Our target is the HPG station down there." He paused. "Try for capture if at all possible. We don't know who this world belongs to, but we need as much intel as possible." He nodded to the Captain who was in charge of this company to take it from there.

After the standard pep talk and brief reminders that every commander went through, they watched the bay doors open, and waited for the light to turn green. When it flashed green, all of the Mithril clad Infantry jumped out of the doors in rapid succession. Their helmet's HUD giving them the altitude and how far they had left to go before using Jump Jets to slow their fall.

When the proper altitude was reached, the flare of small jump jets shone through the night as the company slowed their fall and finally hit the ground.

No one in the HPG station was ready for them, and Mathis, in his heavier armor, moved to deploy tear gas as fast as he could. The enclosed Mithril suits helped tremendously with that and it incapacitated a large group of the guards around. Which allowed a squad to go around and subdue the downed men and women while the rest of the Heavy Guards moved deeper into the HPG facility.

Everytime they came into a room, they entered with Flashbangs first, and moved to subdue any enemies they came across. When they finally reached the main office, they took what appeared to be a Precentor by complete surprise and had him bound and gagged just in case of any voice automated systems.

"This is a Comstar robe." Mathis comm'd silently to the company's captain. "We may want to tread carefully here."

"Comstar?" The captain replied. "I'm starting to see some robes over here too." The captain finished whatever his current task was. "We'll have to get to the bottom of this."

December 19th, 3011
"Ian, I don't think this is what we expected." I said as we dropped into the field next to the one city on the surface that appeared livable.

"Yeah, I'm not sure what I expected anymore." Ian replied. "Thanks for the advice on dropping the Mithril in the night, they took the HPG and the HQ without any casualties on our end."

"It looks like a lot of Civilians here Ian, I'm really glad me and the Field Marshal were able to persuade you to reign in the revenge a bit." I stated.

"What?" Ian asked. "You expected me to go out guns blazing?"

"No, I just thought you'd want to drop in your Atlas and kick the gate in." I replied. "The fact that we took their main base and captured what appears to be a lot of senior officers is a big deal."

"Now, I just have to make sure that these people understand that they're still Federated Suns citizens…" Ian responded. "Should be easy enough. I want to meet with that Self Style Precentor though."

December 25th, 3011

"Merry Christmas." Ian ended the small speech he had given to the people we were trying to make sure responded well to our current occupation. He then moved to shake some hands of people in the crowd when I got a really bad feeling. The same feeling I had before that bomb went off in my house.

Running towards Ian, I tackled him just in time to feel a truck hit me in the back of my body armor. And then, after I tackled him out of the way of the sniper, a bomb went off in the closest car, sending shrapnel mine and Ian's way.

After Mithril infantry had deployed to the situation, both rescuing the civilians that had been hit, and ensuring a safe perimeter, I got off of Ian and rolled him over to check for injuries.

"Fuck." I let out. "You stupid idiot." I grabbed my medkit and tore his coat and shirt off with my bare hands. "Check the front, then the back." I said to myself as I inspected for any holes in the front of his chest. Finding none, I signaled for the combat medic to help me lift him onto the stretcher. Where both the Medic and myself began to examine and treat what wounds we could.

"We need a medevac ASAP!" I told the Mithril clad medic before leaving here to do her job while I went to do damage control on the civilian's that had been caught in the blast radius.

"Anyone need medical attention?" I waved my IFAK in the air. "I can provide aid."

One mother held up her hand and moved to reveal a young girl with blood running down her arm. "Alright, clear me some space." I told the crowd and went to help.

"Set her down right here." I told the woman, indicating the cleared space in front of me. "I know it's not a hospital, but what I do here can get her there and help them do their job better." I made sure the mother gave me permission before starting to render aid. I checked for injuries, and found a ricochet from one of the sniper rounds had hit the little girl's leg. Grabbing my Tourniquet, I applied it to the girl, making sure to reassure both her and her mother that it would stop the bleeding even if it hurt. When I had finished with the girl and had wrapped her in an emergency blanket to help stave off shock another person had stopped for medical aid and I got to work.

Thirty minutes later…
"How's the First Prince?" I asked Mathis, who had now been assigned to bodyguard him instead of me.

"He should be fine, but he'll need treatment aboard the Argo, and at least six months of therapy before he'll walk or pilot a mech again." Mathis replied from his spot by Ian's door.

"I'll catch back up once I get some rest." I said. " I apparently make a great way to show that we're not here to hurt you."

"Well, not many people will jump into a crowd of potential enemies to save lives." Mathis pointed out. "And the Field Marshal was impressed at how fast the people turned bombers in after your little show out there."

"Well, I have medical training, and these people are brainwashed civilians. Most of them just want to live their lives so I couldn't turn my back on them." I responded before making my way to the door. "Now I've got to go sleep for about fifteen minutes, and then pray that Rook did his job."

January 15th, 3012

"Now I know what Hanse was going through after I left him on Tikonov." I muttered to myself, having had to effectively do a military governors job.

Thankfully, it had gotten both easier and harder after the bombings. Easier in the sense that most civilians were refusing to be associated with people who were willing to hurt their own in order to kill one person.

But the rest of them were harboring a vicious grudge. I had taken to wearing slightly thicker body armor than what I usually wore, and had been visiting the Mech factories daily in order to make sure that there wasn't any sabotage. The Heavy Guards were guarding the factories and all manufacturing centers with extreme skill. But that didn't mean someone wouldn't slip through the cracks and try to do something crazy and/or stupid.

To completely turn this planet into a Davion loyalist planet though. That would take the work of years, if not decades. And I had my own planet to get up and running again. I did not envy whoever had to run this place after I was gone.

I had gone into the HPG's systems and pulled out massive amounts of data on what the plans Comstar had running currently were, And we now knew due to interrogation that the local precentor had run far ahead of any ROM plans by sending his garrison forces to nuke Kentares.

So, we had proof that Comstar was hiding things and doing things that went against their public mandate, but we had no way of using that proof without it being blasted to pieces by the Comstar Propaganda machine and/or us getting Interdicted. While apparently NAIS first goal was to figure out the mobile HPG that we had taken from the Helm Cache, it would take a few years in order to figure it out.

Hilton Head Island, Terra December 19th, 3011

"What do you mean Taussen went dark?" Primus Julian Tiepolo asked, a little irritated at having been woken up.

"Sir, we have received none of the scheduled messages from the world." The young adept replied.

"Well, get one of our Jumpships out to check on them." Tiepolo replied. "We've had issues with multiple stations like this before for various reasons."

"But Primus," the adept interrupted. "There was no scheduled maintenance or anything else that might have made the planet go dark."

"Then we'll send one of the Dante's" Tiepolo responded. "We have no way of knowing what has happened unless the HPG starts responding again, and it's better safe than sorry."

MarkWarrior · May 25, 2022

Versailles, Toyama City
January 16th, 3012

"How bad is it, Mark?"

"If the Argo were here, we'd have you out of bed in a couple of days, Ian. You'd still be in a wheelchair for a few months though."

"Better a wheelchair than a casket. Any change on the prisoners?"

"No. A couple have managed to commit suicide despite protocols. The local 'Precentor' might have been acting on his own, but they're fanatics." I sighed deeply. "When I first started up the Marksman, I had to execute an infiltrator. His last words before I spaced him were 'Blake will see you dead.' These are people who are totally and utterly convinced of their own righteousness and have no qualms about the body count."

"You're right about that. How long do we have?"

"Rook and I did a deep dive. There's records of regular check-ins, and we've already missed a few. Odds are pretty good that the phone company is going to send some kind of 'service technician' here sooner or later. I figure we've got maybe... two months before they show up? Something happening to a world like this is going to get the attention of someoneimportant."

"What do you think they'll send? I can't imagine ComStar having a proper military arm."

"The guy in charge here, on his own, was capable of sending forces that would've turned Kentares into a radioactive wasteland and blaming the Combine for it. Someone on Terra? I'm worried that a Texas-class battleship might show up, and it certainly won't be singing showtunes."

MarkWarrior · May 25, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Four: A Series of Unusual Events

Taurus, Taurian Concordat August 25th, 3005

"Once again, I would like to try and meet the people that brought us home." Adrian Brutus, the leader of the group of scientists and their families that had been recovered from a failed colony said. "It is unfortunate that they left so quickly."

"Well, they did seem to be moving onto a contract with the Federated Suns." Zarantha shrugged. "Pity that, we could have used them here but they did help us out tremendously."

"Oh, I agree." Adrian replied. "It's quite interesting to see so many Taurians willing to fight and potentially die for a Davion's sake."

"Well, Hull seems to inspire an almost radical sort of loyalty to himself." Zarantha shrugged. "Why, if I were thirty years younger, I might have left my role to Thomas and gone with him myself."

"Is he that attractive?" Adrian asked curiously. "Because I found him to be merely average at best."

"It wasn't his physical appearance that was attractive. Not that he was bad looking." She said, "It was the sense of purpose he carries within himself. As if he is sure or certain that every action he takes is his own."

"Now, back to the Toro Factory and what was in both it and the feeders." Zarantha got Adrian back on track.

"Well, we had a computer core with all of our latest technology in case we needed to manufacture anything." Adrian started and began to discuss technological improvements to Zarantha.

January 3rd, 3006

"You're telling me you have some people who worked on Warship repair and theory." Thomas Calderon asked.

"Why yes." Adrian Brutus responded, more than a little confused. "When we said we were the top scientists in every field we were not joking, good sir." He seemed a little offended.

"Would you mind if I borrowed some of your scientists to work on something?" Thomas asked with a mischievous gleam in his eye. "We have something that they might want to supervise the work on."

"You're in charge here, just make sure they're fairly compensated for it." Adrian responded. "And you have to convince them of it."

"That won't be a problem." Thomas said.

Hyades Nebula Taurian Concordat, April 19th, 3007

"Check on those power couplings?" Sage asked her partner in crime Ariadne.

"Yeah, I'll let you know when I get there." She left to go run some tests.

The Vandenberg was a hot mess of a Warship. Sage and Ariadne had agreed. But they could get it working again provided they had the funds and the materials they had said. They were a year into the repairs, and had finally gotten the power systems working again. Which was the biggest step in the right direction they could make at the moment. If they got the power flowing to every area of the ship again, they could begin to diagnose and fix the real problems that lay underneath.

"Power coupling checks out." Ariadne yelled, "Hit it!" And so Sage flipped the power to the main reactor on. Watching as everything flickered for a moment.. And then stayed on."

"We did it!" They cheered, happy to have finally made some visible progress. "Now we can really get started."

Taurus, Taurian Concordat April 23rd, 3007

"Colonel Hull sent you to negotiate some licenses with myself and TTI?" Zarantha asked the young officer in front of her.

"Yes ma'am." Dunham replied, "He gave me authorization to negotiate in his and the company's name."

"Well, what is the first thing he wanted you to discuss?" she asked, deeply curious as to what Hull might be offering.

"Well, our R&D team has come up with something pretty unique, and we figured you'd want the first licenses to produce it." Dunam responded as he slid a piece of paper across the table. "It's M10A Mithril Mithril powered armor." He started and repeated word for word the spiel that Peterson had made him memorize. "Ma'am, we're also going to be trying to license them with the FedSuns, but we wanted you to have first pick."

After several moments of studying the data sheet in front of her, she nodded. "I think we will be purchasing the license from you, it should prove useful in a lot of different areas."

"Yes ma'am," Dunham said. "The Colonel already had a contract drawn up if you'd like to take a look at it."

Zarantha took a long look at the contract, making sure to go over the fine print. "Looks pretty good." She then set it to the side. "That can't be the only reason you were sent here."
"It wasn't ma'am, I'm here to get our DroST's refit to a new classification drawn up by the crews themselves." He offered. "Colonel Hull had me take a look at the DroST license, so we could purchase it before making modifications and putting it into production when we eventually set up a yard."

"Do you happen to have a copy of the redesign on you by any chance?" Calderon asked. "Because if it matches with the Mithril you just offered me I may be looking to purchase this as well."

"How many AC/20's?!" She exclaimed, spitting out her water."You're building a flying death machine." Her eyes gleamed with a true gun nut's delight. "Where do I sign?"

"Umm, Right here." Dunham hadn't expected that sort of reaction. But had the contract drawn up by the Marksman legal team available anyway.

August 12th, 3007
"I'll have to apologize to Colonel Hull next time I see him." Thomas told his mother. "I was extremely offensive and it was uncalled for."

"It's entirely up to you whether you apologize or not." Zarantha offered. "But if he keeps offering these kinds of advancements to us and the Davions, we may just have to start making in roads into more trade between us." They were looking at trials for the first new suits of Mithril Powered armor.

"I don't trust the Davions." Thomas offered, "But, I will acknowledge that there has been no aggression since the Succession Wars began aside from the standard retaliatory raids."

November 16th, 3007

"Man, these Powered armor suits make working on this much easier." Sage offered. "I mean, we're able to move and lift heavier things in order to get Real work done without being bothered by the help."

"Sage," Ariadne said as she continued holding up the console that Sage was working on. "Stop Talking, you're moving around when you do and making it harder to hold onto this."

"Oh, right." Sage got back on task and helped Ariadne set it down when they were done. "But still, imagine what we could have gotten done back then if we had access to these!"

"I get it, Sage," Ariadne sighed. "The Mithril suits are awesome. Can we get back to work?"

Carthage, Taurian Concordat December 13th, 3007

"Man, these DroST refits are awesome." One of the local militia said. "I heard we're getting at least two per world as soon as they get the refits done."

"I heard the same thing." The other one responded. "When do you think we'll get to use it?"

"This week." Their CO walked in. "We have word a couple of pirate dropships are inbound, and you get to field test the design."

So they loaded up into the Sting class Gunships, and made their way to meet the pirates.

"Yee Haw!" The pilot said as they flew around the pirate's unions. "This thing's awesome." They poured fire into the dropships and watched as they stalled out or exploded.

"We're going to need more of these." The pilot said to his copilot. "A lot more."

Taurus, Taurian Concordat January 10th, 3010

"Ian Davion offered us a temporary pull back of forces on the border, with a clause for keeping the border demilitarized." Zarantha told her son.

"Are we taking it?" Thomas asked. "I can't imagine why they would be doing that?"

"A third of the Big Mac was taken out by the Marksman a couple of years ago. The Capellans lost a great deal of forces and have moved forces away from us to their border with the Feddies." She told her son.

"I'm sending you and some of our forces to take some worlds from the Capellan Confederation." Zarantha told her son. "I've heard rumors of some abandoned factories on Victoria, and we need more manufacturing and industrial capacity anyway."

"We're going to be taking everything from here to Victoria, and will accept this temporary peace with the Davions for now?" Thomas asked.

"Yes son." Zarantha sighed. "Can you accept that?"

"I'll accept it for the good of the Concordat." Thomas told his mother. "I don't promise to like it."

Hyades Nebula, Taurian Concordat November 17th, 3010

"Yay!" Sage cheered. "It's moving again."

The Vandenberg's thrusters had been fixed to their full capacity once more and the ship was moving on its own power.

"Next thing, the jump core." They had put off the jump core until they got the rest of the main systems up and running. "Sage, you can't be hyperactive when we work on this one, if we screw up who knows what might happen."

"I got it, Ariadne." Sage replied, finally seeming to slow down. "You don't have to babysit me all of the time."

"Yes, I do." Ariadne rolled her eyes at her sister. "Mom put me in charge remember."

Sage just pouted as they walked to the K-F Drive.

Toro/Mithril Plant, Taurus, Taurian Concordat December 10th 3010

"Production is through the roof. And we finally managed to work the kinks out of the first assembly line." the TTI manager, Davis Jackson told Zarantha.

"How do the modernized Toro's compare to other light mechs designed for similar roles?" Zarantha asked.

"Well, nothing really compares in its own weight class. With modern space savings, we managed to streamline the design and cram a Medium Laser for help with close quarters defense." Davis replied. "We got reports from the first models in combat on the Capellan front that the upgrades are beautiful. And that when used with other Toros, they can bring down much larger mechs when they work together."

"You sent the TTI team to build a TORO factory on Kentares IV?" She asked. "I thought you never planned on branching out."

"We didn't originally, but with all of the extra money we're raking in from Mithril, Sting, and Toro production, we figured that it was time to break into some foreign markets." He told Zarantha the thought process behind the company's decision.

Hyades Nebula, Taurian Concordat December 30th, 3011

"Are we finally ready for the K-F drive test?" Sage asked Ariadne.

"Yes, I think that was the last bit of the fine tuning needed." Ariadne replied, and wiped her hands on her Mithril. "Let's go tell the Captain that it's time to test it. "We'll jump to Taurus' orbit and see where the Protector wants us to move from there assuming this works."

They made their way to the bridge, and told the Captain to prepare the crew to jump. And after the warning and jump sirens had gone off, they proceeded to jump to Taurus.

They winked out of the Nebula, and appeared at Taurus' Orbit, just as planned.

"Taurus, this is the TCS Vandenberg. We will now be returning to duty." The Captain of the now somewhat spaceworthy Warship broadcast to the communications center down on Taurus.

One of the Concordat's lost naval vessels had returned home.

Authors note: A little bit of what was happening in the TC while we were busy elsewhere.

MarkWarrior · May 25, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Five: Time Crunch

Hilton Head Island, Terra January 15th, 3012

"The Taurian's have a Warship?!" Primus Tiepolo asked incredulously. "I thought the Tripitz Affair was supposed to prevent that?"

"It was sir." The adept responded, wilting slightly from bringing bad news again. "This one seems to be an old Corvette from the Reunification war."

"Well, delay the Narbonne for a couple of weeks." the Primus said. "I want to see if the Taurians make any sudden moves."
"Sir, it's a Vincent Class Corvette." The adept tried to argue. "It won't be able to do much against a Dante Primus."

"Ahh, but who knows if the Taurians have more of them hidden up their sleeves." Tiepolo replied. "Taussen started their regular updates anyway." He waved his hand. "We can afford to stall for a little bit longer."

Toyama City, Versailles (Currently Federated Suns) January 17th, 3012

"Ian, we're loading you up with some of my people, and they'll get you to the facilities on the Argo." We were headed out to the field being used as a launch area for the massive amount of material being transported off world right now.

"Mark, am I seeing things?" Ian asked me, looking at the nose art on one of the Kentares Guard's Sting gunships. "Because that looks like Katrina Steiner in a bikini…"

I just face palmed, Katrina's old fireteam had waaay too much fun. "It's your imagination." I told Ian, as I wheeled him into the bay of the Gunship. "We'll see you in a couple of months. It'll take that long to ship all of the material here off world."

"Mark, I need you alive to help me out with all of this." Ian said from his bed. "You're not allowed to sacrifice your life here."

"I won't." I told him. "Peterson's people are good at the looting thing, we're going to take everything that we can that's not nailed down, and set up ways to destroy the rest of the military manufacturing here when we leave."

"I'm holding you to that." Ian said. "If you don't make it out, I'm not sure I could stop your people from storming Terra."

"No promises." I shrugged," But I'll see what I can do."

I closed the hatch and the Sting took off, carrying the First Prince away to safety.

"Alright," I rolled up my sleeves. "Time to get to work."

I went to the Mech Works facility and began to designate some of Peteron's and Adamina Roger's engineers as heads of dismantling certain factories and split the varied Mithril clad Infantry between them to coordinate and make everything go smoother and as fast as humanly possible.

"I want any and all Lostech Factories prioritized over everything else." I told Major Packer. "Make sure Adamina supervises ERPPC and Gauss Rifle factories first."

"We're on it sir." Packer replied, "Anything else we should prioritize?"

"Any lines of extinct mechs, and grab all of the freezers that they have stashed. We want everything that might be useful stripped and gone before February 15th at the earliest."

"I'll make it happen Colonel." Packer got to work.

"We have a lot of things to do and not a lot of time to do it in Field Marshal." I told the Heavy Guards commander who was walking with me. "Sorry if I overrode you on anything."

"No, you were right about the delegation and Prioritization of Lostech." He agreed with me. "Now, it doesn't feel right to leave the civilians here to be potentially killed by Comstar for this."

"I'm not leaving them here to be killed Field Marshal." I said. "My people are setting up pre-fabs that are hopefully out of range of any orbital bombardment, and we're offering to use the Sting's to bring them there if they choose to move, we're leaving the choice up to them."

"Well, that's a weight off of my chest." The older man grunted a bit. "We're going to be extremely busy aren't we?"

"Don't expect a lot of rest outside of our rotations until we lift off from the planet." I told him. "I did make sure that all of our evidence and data made it out with First Prince Davion though."

"Good, that in itself might be worth this entire expedition. Even if we don't make it off world." He said. "You included the prisoners in with the evidence?"

"Mathis is guarding them for me." I nodded in response.

"Good man that one." The Field Marshal responded. "Any chance I can poach him?"

"No sir, I don't think you can afford his fees." I smirked a bit. "But you're willing to try when we make it back."

"We'll just have to wait and see what happens then."

February 15th, 3012

"Alright Field Marshal, that should be all or almost all of the Lostech out of here." I said as I escorted him to one of the last dropships lifting off. "I'll stay behind and try and evac the rest of the population for a week before I leave."

"You sure Hull?" The Field Marshal said. "I don't mind staying behind a bit longer."

"I'm one of the last ones here that can keep the HPG sending its updates." I said sadly in response. "I'm not going to be able to leave until close to the last second."

"See you around Hull." Field Marshal Felsner saluted me. "It's been a true pleasure serving with you again." He walked onto the dropship's loading bay and I waited for his Dropship to lift off.

"We'll see, we'll see." I muttered to myself, heading back for the city. I had one Dropship left, and the King Henry V was going to wait at one of the pirate points for myself and the Troy.

March 1st, 3012

"Sir, we need to leave, a message from the King Henry just came in that a Warship is here." one of the Kentares Guard infantrymen ran up to me.

"Alright, lets go." We both started sprinting for the Troy. Knowing that even a few moments could be the difference between making it to the King Henry and not making it at all.

We were the last ones to board the Buccaneer class Aerodyne, and just as soon as we were strapped in, the Pilot lifted off. Even with early warning, it was going to take us two days to reach the pirate point, and if the Warship were lucky, they might intercept us on the way there.

March 2nd 3012

"It's going to be close isn't it?" I asked the pilot.

"Yes sir, it'll come down to who can maintain thrust without passing out first I'm afraid." The pilot responded. "And they might handle the stress better. He grit out. We had been flying at 1.5 gravities for 24 hours now, trying to beat the Warship.

March 3rd, 3012

The entire crew of the dropship let out a sigh of relief as we slowed down to dock with the King Henry. Glad to be done with the heavy gravity. When we had firmly attached to the jumpship, the warning klaxon sounded, and just as we jumped, a Naval Autocannon tore through the Troy…

When we appeared into the Markesan System, we were met with plenty of rescue dropships waiting for us. I had been strapped in inside of one of the cargo bays when the Naval Autocannon ripped through the Troy. Thankfully, it had stopped short of the Jumpship, but some of the flying shrapnel had gone straight through my Mithril. "Fuck!" I screamed. My left eye burning. "I'm losing oxygen." I said. "We need to get to a pressurized area now." I had to be manipulated through doors and entryways until we reached the airlock to the King Henry. It seemed to take forever to cycle the airlock doors, and I could feel the hissing from my penetrated suit.

When we had cycled in, one of the Guard grabbed my helmet. "Sir, this is going to hurt." He said. "It's going to hurt really badly." He undid the clasps under my helmet. "If we don't get to this sir, you may bleed out."

"Do it." I said. clenching my jaw as hard as humanly possible. They gripped my helmet, and ripped it off quickly along with the shrapnel that had penetrated. It felt like fire had been poured into my eye socket and my brain couldn't handle it. I doubled over and threw up, then allowed them to work on making sure that I wouldn't bleed out from the eye wound and the now massive gash that ran through my eyebrow.

Unfortunately, this wasn't my first injury to that eye, and using my slight experience with the injury I made sure that there was something to hold all of the vomit that would be coming shortly. "Whoever is senior is in command right now." I said, feeling extremely tired and sick. "I'm not going to be much use. And I threw up again."

MarkWarrior · May 30, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Unexpected
Markesan, Federated Suns March 21st, 3012

"Leave the Eyepatch on, don't let any moisture anywhere near your eye for two weeks until your next checkup, don't pick up anything that weighs more than five kilos, and do no strenuous activity." I finished the line from the doctor. "Anything I forgot?" I asked myself. "Oh, right. Your depth perception will be off and it will take time for your brain to adapt, so be careful around any sort of traffic." I smiled to myself. "I think that was everything."

The doctor just glared at me. "Take these pills to lower your eye pressure over time." He said. "You just got finished with surgery a day ago and we want to make sure that there's no permanent brain damage."

"Doc," I started. "My eye is gone, and until I manage to get back to my advanced medical facilities I'm not going to be doing anything dumb." I shrugged. "I wonder if finding door knobs will be as hard as it was the first time."

"Just…" The doctor facepalmed. "Just leave, I'll give your bodyguard the prescription and you can do as you will." he walked away. "Bloody Mercs with a noble title…. They never listen."

After the King Henry had jumped in with the wreckage of the Troy still attached, I had been rushed as fast and safely as possible to the nearest hospital, where I was operated on and they removed my eye before an infection or anything else could set in. I just wanted to be able to get back to either Kentares or New Avalon, because I knew that Ian would want a report on what happened. And, I had a bunch of dog tags, and flags to deliver to families. Over half of the Troy's crew had died when the Naval autocannon round had blasted through. While Mithril had helped many of them survive, it didn't do all that much to stop as massive a round as what went through us.

New Avalon, Federated Suns, May 16th, 3012

"That was very fine work." Yvonne told me as I sat across the desk from her. "I'm sorry about some of your people, but with what we managed to pull off of Versailles, we may be able to finish collapsing the Capellan Confederation inside of this decade."

"Thank you." I replied. "I'm going to ask for first refusal rights on some of the factories, but for now; I'm going to go try and get this fixed up." I gestured towards the eye patch over my left eye.

"I'm pretty sure you can have whatever you damn well please after the miracle you just pulled off." Yvonne told me point blank. "You want the first production runs of something and we'll get it for you, you want extra people vetted to help you with your own factories, done." She laughed. "Hull, you're from before the Succession wars era. You just don't quite understand what you just gift-wrapped and handed us on a silver platter."

"No ma'am, I don't think I ever will." I shrugged. "It was such a different time, it's still hard to wrap my head around it sometimes."

"Well, we're going to be charging you with setting up the lines on various planets over the next several years or so." Yvonne told me. "The reward for doing good work is…"

"More work." I sighed. "Any preferences on where to set them up?"

"We're going to want them on heavily defended worlds for the most part." Yvonne told me. "And the Exterminator line is going to Kallon Industries."

"I want one of the extra freezer lines and ERPPC lines for Kentares." I told her, "My people have some ideas on how to improve the standard Grasshopper."

"Done," Yvonne replied. "These lines are going to be allowed to be incorporated into the Sharpshooter Industries envelope as well." She told me.

"I'm going to be talking to the Taurians." I told Yvonne. "I've already purchased a Snowden and Got a license to manufacture at least two more."

"Already anticipated that when the Calderons notified us that a Snowden was moving from Taurus to Kentares a couple of months ago." She replied. "You're not getting out of this." She said, "Now, any other excuses?"

"No, I'll start splitting up some of my teams with new hires so that we can train up more people to run the factories and begin working on getting them set up for now." I replied. "I'll have the Sharpshooter legal team draw up some contracts, and I will personally make sure that the lines are placed on planets that are already under heavy guard."

"That's all I had on the board for this meeting then." Yvonne smiled at me now that the business was finished being discussed. "My grandkids love the cookie recipe by the way."

"I'm glad to hear it." I replied. "Any chance I can try and leave before Banzai or Felsner try and poach some of my people again?"

"Sure, just make sure that you slip out the side entrance." Yvonne laughed. "But Banzai will probably track you down anyway." She snickered. "He's seriously determined to steal some of your people."

"Well, if he wanted them he should have found them first." I said as I left the room. "They're my bunch of Mad scientists and no one else's."
I walked away to peals of laughter echoing from Yvonne's office. And from there, I left the Davion Palace complex and headed for the ports.

Kentares IV, Draconis March Federated Suns, June 8th, 3012

"Hey McCallister!" Natasha called out in the 'Mech repair bay. "I brought it back."

"Ye Stoopid Idjut" McCallister said. "You damn near destroyed the 'Mech. It'll nae a full rebuild now."

"Sorry Mac." Natasha apologized. "Any idea where the Colonel is?"

"He left a while ago." He was still inspecting the Warhammer. "I danno when he'll be back."

"Got it, I'll go check with Sheppard then." She said, and left the 'Mech to the angry chief Astech.

"Sheppard," She knocked on the door to Sheppard's office.

"Come in." Sheppard replied, working on a stack of paperwork. "Nat!" He greeted her. "How was your leave?"

"Could have been better," Nat shrugged in response. "Any Idea where Hull is?"

"Sorry Lieutenant, he's been off planet since the middle of October." Sheppard signed another document. "You'll just have to wait until he gets back if you want to talk to him."

"Alright then." Natasha shrugged in response. "How goes the Kentares Guard Formation?"

"Well, it's taking us a bit to sort through those who want to stick to the Marksman, and those who want to be a part of the Kentares Guard." Sheppard replied. "We're essentially spilling everything evenly between us, the Militia, and the Marksman for now, with Me operating as the XO and general commander for the Kentares Guard, and Peterson taking over the Marksman for now."

"Sounds complicated." Natasha sympathized.

"You have no idea." Sheppard responded. "I need to get back to it for now, I'll see you around Lieutenant."

"Have a good day sir." Natasha saluted and then left, she had some time to kill before Hull would be back on planet, and so she decided to throw herself into helping train the next group of Kentares Guards.

Kentares IV, Draconis March, Federated Suns, August 12th, 3012

"It's good to be home." I said as I stood on the ground of my new homeworld again, and then I began to greet the people that had been taking care of things while I was gone. "Mary, you got everything scheduled meeting wise?" I asked my secretary.

"Yes sir." She replied. "The first meeting is set for tomorrow, and everything is to follow throughout the rest of the week."

"Thanks for all of your help Mary." I said. "I'm just going to take today and relax before diving into the depths of getting more work done."

I left my office, and walked to my house. Making sure to greet and nod to people in order to let them know that I was back. When I reached my small Mansion, I unlocked the door and walked in. Looking around, I checked my house over really quickly, stripped down to a pair of gym shorts, and crawled into my own bed for the first time in almost a year.

August 13th, 3012

"Watson, I've got good news and bad news for you." I told the Sharpshooter manager.

"What's the bad news?" He asked.

"The bad news is that we're expanding massively as a company." I said.

"And what's the good news?" He raised an eyebrow.

"You're getting a promotion." I told him. "You'll be staying here to train people on recovering, repairing and setting up factory lines." I told him.

"We've got a lot of things moving around, and when the Snowden we purchased gets here in October, we'll have access to raw materials to start upgrading production." I told the man.

"Consider it done sir." Watson said. "It'll take time to get them trained up though."

"I know Watson, I'm splitting up your main team into various training groups so as to have a larger pool of trainees." I said.

"That should work." He replied. "It'll still take some time to get them work ready."

"You have eight months to have five teams trained up." I told him. "I can't promise much more time than that."

Hours later…
Was that the last meeting?" I asked Mary.

"Well, that was the last scheduled meeting for the day." She said, "Dr. Hale did send a message saying that you should meet her shortly for her to examine your eye."

"I'll meet with her aboard the Argo tomorrow." I said. "Anything else on the agenda?"

"Hull," Natasha walked into the room. "Nice scar you have there."

"Yeah, turns out a Naval Autocannon to the face can't keep me down." I chuckled. "It would have cost most people and arm and a leg get done what I did." I paused, "It only cost me an eye."

"That was pretty dark there Hull." Natasha told me flatly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah Nat, I'm fine; just really tired." I replied with a heavy sigh. "How'd everything go with the Dragoons?" I asked.

"It went pretty well." She replied. "The intel you gave me helped save a lot of lives."

"Good thing I sent it with you then." I shrugged tiredly in response. "Nat, I'm tired, can we do this dance another day? Because I'm done with this weird flirting thing we've been doing, just get to the point already." I got up and began to leave my office.

"And just where do you think you're going?" Natasha asked me, standing up and pinning me against the wall. "You are mine Mark Hull, and I'm not letting you go…."

Authors note: Y'all finally get what you wanted. You happy now? Looks sideways at Yuffie...

MarkWarrior · May 30, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Moving forward
Aboard the Agro, Kentares, Federated Suns August 14th, 3012

"What did you do to yourself while you were gone?" Dr. Hale asked me. "You have some small fractures that were never treated in your back, you're missing an eye, and I see some recently torn muscle tissue."

"I have no idea where the fractures came from." I told Dr. Hale the truth, trying to avoid some uncomfortable answers. "And it's not like Mithril was designed with Naval Autocannon in mind."

"Well, seeing as we started on your eye back in June, it'll be finished in two weeks and we can go in and do surgery to restore your vision." Dr. Hale sighed. "Frankly Hull, you need some anti stress treatments. You've been driving yourself non-stop for too long." She wrote down some notes. "I'm going to recommend that you keep doing whatever it was that lowered your overall blood pressure and other signs of stress recently." I did my best to keep a straight face. "We'll get you under for surgery in two weeks to fix the fractures and your eye."

"Is that everything Doctor?" I asked. " I need to be in top shape come January."

"You'll be fighting fit by November if you actually follow the guidelines we give you." Hale said. "You have subordinates, delegate more and do less work yourself." She gave me a slight glare. "When was the last time you went to the gym? Nevermind, start hitting the gym again, your overall physical condition needs to get back to its peak." She gave me a list of vitamins I needed to start taking.

"Mark, you're not in your twenties anymore." She finally said, "You're nearly Forty and you need to start thinking about settling down and starting a family. Even with longevity treatments you won't live forever after all."

"I'm working on it Doctor, I'm working on it." I stood up to leave. "Is there anything else I need to be wary of?"

"No excess amounts of alcohol, no drugs that aren't prescribed." She sighed, "If you actually had some of those vices your overall stress level might be lower."

"Whatever workout or thing you did this week to release stress, you need to be careful, there were a lot of small muscle tears and we can't fix those." She said, "Now get out of here, I've got other patients to see."

August 28th, 3012

"The surgery went well." Dr. Hale told the assembled senior staff and officials. "Now, I know that he's been delegating a lot more than he used to, but I need someone to step up and keep him from doing anything more strenuous than lifting a pencil for the next three weeks"

"I'll take care of it." Natasha volunteered. "I'm currently on his bodyguard detail anyway."

September 8th, 3012

"I'm not helpless Nat." I told my lover. "I can walk to the mech bay by myself."

"Nope, I've been assigned to your bodyguard detail by Colonel Sheppard." Nat smirked at me. "I told you I was never letting you go."

"Most people don't take it so literally." I said, entering the Mech bay. "Lieutenant." My voice hardened. "What the Hell did you do to my Warhammer?"

"I Used it in a Trial of Refusal against the Wolf Brothers." Natasha said in a tone that was low enough I couldn't make out what she said.

"What was that Lieutenant?" I asked. "I used it in a duel against the Wolf Brothers Sir!"

"Well, make sure you don't do things like that with my mech too often." I told her, "I mean, you've got a Marauder of your own."

"Yes sir." She replied, still at attention reflexively, and I continued walking deeper into the bay.

"Mac!" I yelled. "Can you have someone bring Natasha's Marauder up to the front for me?"

The big burly Irishman wrapped me up in a bear hug. "It's grae to see yae a gain." He set me down and patted me on the back. "I'll hae somone bring it rae up." He called for tone of the Astech assistants to have Nat's Marauder brought up.

The giant of a man patted me on the back again and zoned in on his next project.

"How can you understand him?" Nat asked me. "His accent is so thick."

"Natasha, he was one of my first hires, and I've been working with him for almost ten years now." I scolded. "If I couldn't understand him anymore I would have a serious problem."

Then, before she could chime in, her Marauder walked up and stopped. An Astech assistant popped open the hatch and climbed down the ladder, seemingly in a hurry to get back to whatever job he was doing before.

"What did you do to my 'Mech?"

"I'm sorry Lieutenant, I think I misheard you." I said.

"What did you do to my Mech Sir?!" Echoed in the mech bay.

"Well, seeing as both of my Highly customized Royal Warhammers are damaged nearly beyond repair…. I needed something to use as my ride."

"What do you mean Both of them?" she asked. And then turned around to see what I was pointing to behind her. "Oh." Her mouth hung open for a second.

The Warhammer I had set up as my backup and brought with me to Versaille/Taussen was intact apart from the Naval Autocannon shell lodged into the cockpit.

"How are you alive?" She asked, after she had recovered her composure.

"By not being in my mech." I shrugged. "The piece of Shrapnel that took out my eye was from the cockpit."

"And you are not angry?" She asked.

"Of course I'm angry." I let some of the rage that was seething beneath the surface bubble to the top. "But there's nothing I can do about it right now." I let the anger subside again. "Now, go take a look at your Marauder."

"What is that?" She asked after several seconds of inspecting and muttering to herself. "It's not an Ultra-AC/5, and there's no way it's a LBX 10…" She stopped walking "Is that al LB5?" She asked incredulously.

"Yep, Mac's personal prototype." I patted the leg of the Marauder. "You can take it out for a test drive when you're off duty later."

November 10th, 3012
"We need to get up." I poked Natasha in the side, only for her to groan and roll over. "We have to load up on the Messenger and go to New Avalon for Hanse's wedding."

"Sleep." She groaned and stole the blankets.

"Nope, the alarm went off and it's time to go." I got up and ripped the blankets off of the bed. "Get up Nat, I know you hate waking up, but if you don't get up now I'm going to have to take drastic measures."

"Fine," She sat up. "I'm up, I'm up." She eased herself out of the bed and got dressed. "We packed everything last night right?" She asked.

"I got everything I needed done, and I think you just threw some clothes in my rucksack." I told her as I dressed in my uniform.

"I am only coming as your plus one." She said, "And I can get a dress made and fitted easier on New Avalon."

"Point, I'm pretty sure the Davions have a whole team dedicated to that sort of thing anyway." I said, and we began to walk out of the house. "I heard that Archon Steiner is invited, so we'll see how everything goes."

We continued discussing the wedding until we had made it onto the Messenger. "We did get Hanse a wedding present right?" Nat asked me as we boarded the Dropship.

"Of course I did, I'm not an idiot." I replied. "I've got plenty of things to offer currently."

November 24th, 3012

Full contact sparring with Natasha Kerensky sucked, even with safety equipment on. She was vicious, and wicked strong. The only thing I was ever able to leverage against her was my weight and height advantages. Grappling was typically where I was best, but she knew all of my tricks by now and squirreled out every time I tried something new.

"Tap Natasha," I finally had her locked into an arm bar. "I don't want to break your arm." After several seconds of me testing her pain levels, she finally tapped.

"That is what? Dead even 20 to 20?" She asked me as she bounced back onto her feet after I let go.

"Sounds about right." I muttered. "I still have the wins in Mech combat and sims though."

"Well, let me try again in the sims." She responded. "I'll get you this next time as long as you're not cheating with that stupid Lostech Bullshit."

"Nat, I beat you last time in an Urbanmech." I told her while laughing. "And you were in an Atlas."

"Shut up and meet me back on the mat." She slugged me in the shoulder. "I'm gonna drag my score up somehow." She wagged her eyebrows at the double entendre.

"I don't share." I told her as I got back on the mat. "You know that."

"Yep, and there's no way I am letting you out of my sight again after the Versailles incident." She responded. "Now lets fight."

MarkWarrior · May 30, 2022

Chapter Fifty-Eight: What Happens on Bachelor night…
Avalon City, New Avalon, Federated Suns

December 25th, 3012

"So, got any thoughts on the bachelor party?" I asked Ian now that we were doing the private Davion Christmas party.

"Honestly, I'm delegating it to you." Ian told me with a straight face.

"No Ian, seriously I need to know what to prep for." I responded.

"Yeah, I'm delegating it to you." Ian shrugged. "You spent the better part of two years with him after all, I'm sure you'll come up with something."

"You better be glad I brought a Union with me." I told the Troll in front of me. "How's the fixed spine treating you?"

"Well, your people do really good work." Ian said in response. "I'll have to negotiate with the Canopians to get some of their people to come work for NAIS."

"It's more than likely worth whatever you end up having to trade for them." I told him. "Having the Helm core will help with the tech, but having people who know how to both build and use it properly is worth its weight in germanium."

"I agree, and I'll have some of my people reach out to the Magistracy soon." Ian told me.

"'I'm heading for bed." I stretched, having finished my sweet tea. "I've got a lot of planning to do."

"Don't let Natasha wear you out too much!" Ian called out as I walked away.

January 12th, 3013

"Alright, we're doing a simulated warfare drop from orbit." I told the assembled groomsmen. "We all have paintball guns and cut down Mithril suits to make sure we survive the drop. Seeing as there are seven of us if you include Hanse and Arthur We'll split up into teams of three with myself as referee. Hanse has the first pick, Ian has second." I made sure they could hear me. "Any questions." The assembled group just shook their heads. "Good, Hanse, you get first pick."

"Ardan," Hanse said with a smirk, and the team picking went from there. Hanse had Ran Felsner and Arden Sortek, and Ian had Arthur and Ben Banzai.

"Teams are locked in?" I asked, and they all gave their affirmatives. "Get your weapons." I handed all six of them identical paintball guns and helped them do safety checks on the two pods we would be using. Instead of the ODST pods from Halo, we had ended up with a design that deployed entire fireteams that had the same size as the 'Mech drop pods. "Now, I'm the Ref, if I call you out and RTB you RTB or you're out." I gave them a brief discussion of the rules and climbed into the pod I would be taking down with a grin. This was going to be fun.

One hour later…

"No Arthur, don't leave me!" Ian cradled the paint splattered Consort. "I can't win this fight without you!" Everyone was struggling to contain our laughter as the drama played out.

"Yes, you can carry on and win, tell Katrina I did my best." And Arthur "Died" in Ian's arms.

"I will have my vengeance, Brother!" Ian roared when I doubled over in laughter not able to contain it anymore. "I can hear you laughing at my misfortune even now!"

Arthur couldn't contain his laughter anymore and his frame vibrated from the laughter.

Then, Hanse's trio surrounded Ian, their paintball guns pointed at his head when Banzai literally swooped in from above on his jump jets and splattered them all with paint. "Hanse's team eliminated Ian has the victory." I announced over the universal comm channel.

"I have to tell you Mark, I didn't think this would be as fun as it has turned out to be." Hanse told me and the rest of the groomsmen plus one nodded. "Well, we can do some team swaps and some other things, but we've got this field rented out for the rest of the day." I told them. "And then, I've got a small hole in the wall that Mathis told me about rented out for the evening when we're done here."

"Well then, let's get back to it." Hanse said, I've got a score to beat."

From there, the rest of the day was a back and forth of wins and losses between the two brothers and various drama plays such as the time we had a Battle Royale style and Ian and Hanse teamed up to kill the rest of the group before turning on each other.

"It's over Ian, I have the high ground!" Hanse yelled from the top of the hill he was standing on.

"You underestimate my power Hanse Davion!" Ian yelled back.

"Don't try it." Hanse told Ian before Ian used his jump jets to try and assault Hanse's position.
"You were the chosen one." Hanse told his brother. "You were supposed to destroy the rest of them, not join them. You were my brother Ian, I loved you." Hanse walked away with his final victory of the day as night started to fall.

"That was fun, what do you have planned next Mark?" Hanse asked with a small grin on his face.

"Just some good old fashioned relaxation." I said, "We could probably all use the break."

That evening…
"This is a nice place." Ran observed. "I'll have to bring the wife here sometime." We were seated at the bar of a small steak house with an attached two lane bowling alley and some pool tables.

"I'll have the twenty ounce Sirloin, medium rare with the side of mashed potatoes." I told the one waiter, and the rest of the group gave their orders. "Pool or Bowling?" I asked the assembled group.

"Ehh, we can start with bowling and finish with pool." Hanse said, easing himself into the surprisingly comfortable chairs by the bowling lanes. "So, you and Natasha Kerensky yeah?" He started with the obvious question.

"I know you paid off some of my people to set me up after Tikonov." I gave him a slight glare. "I forgive you for this." I said magnanimously as I reclined in my chair as if it was a throne. "But you must reaffirm your loyalty to the throne."

"I have just the thing." Hanse grinned as he slipped behind the bar and quickly prepared a drink before setting a single shot glass in front of me.

It was blue, possibly GLOWING but that might have been a trick of the light. "Hanse, is this going to kill me?"

"It's a Coolshot. I know you're not much of a drinker and this has more kick than the one beer you limit yourself to. Peppermint Schnapps and blue Curacao. Mostly." he chimed in with that insufferable grin still there.

"It's the mostly that concerns me." The rest of the guys had surrounded me and begun to softly chant "Drink, Drink, Drink, Drink, Drink…"

"I'm going to regret this aren't I?" I said before manning up and downing the concoction in one gulp.

"Hmm…" I considered for a second. "This drink, I like it. Another!" I slammed down the shot glass upside down to Arthur gaping at me.

"Hanse Davion, you are a miracle worker." Arthur said out loud. "I never saw him have more than one drink when we were a part of the Marksman… Never."

"This servant hears and obeys excellency." Hanse gave a mocking bow and went back behind the bar again, bringing out something Very red instead. "A true liege lord should be able to drink fire, yes?" He played up the ham. "Well, this is said to be concentrated from a pure fireball, and should cleanse your pallet after the Coolshot." He slid the shot glass over to me. "Bottoms up." I downed it to the cheers of the rest of the group, and we took turns bringing out shots for everyone to drink.

"I believe you had the twenty ounce sirloin?" The waiter set his tray down on a small serving table and began to pass out our food. "Yes, thank you."

The room grew silent as we each dug into our food. We had been playing all day, and we were starting to slow down a little bit. After we had eaten our food, we made our way to the bowling lanes and proved just how bad we were at the sport.

"Man, I'm glad that I learned how to bowl. Arthur said as he landed another spare. "I'm proving Lyran superiority even in Davion space."

"Screw you Arthur," Ian said as he took a sip of his beer. "I bet you can't beat us at pool."

"What's the wager?" Arthur asked, rolling his palms together. "I'll put a hundred pounds down that I win."

"I'll take that bet," Ran Felsner replied, and pulled out his own wallet to add to the pot. "Anyone else want in on the action?" The two of them asked. "I'm in, Banzai said as he dug his own wallet out and threw a hundred pounds down. Soon everyone had joined except for me.

"Not joining Mark?" Arthur asked, curious.

"I'm not good at pool anymore." I told them shrugging. "I enjoy the game, but since my first eye injury, I've not been able to see the angle's properly anymore."

"So, I'll play, but I won't join the betting pool tonight." I said, grabbing a pool stick and some chalk. "Let's do this."

Author's note: If you have as much fun and laughter reading this as I did writing it then I will have succeeded as an author... Also, I'm not going to write the bachelorette party. If someone else wants to, that would be fine with me.

MarkWarrior · Jun 5, 2022

This was mostly written before the Wedding Chapter, so probably didn't actually happen.

But you can't deny the power of Smol Weaponized Adorable.

Avalon City, New Avalon, Federated Suns
January 12, 3013

A quiet knock at the door interrupted the conversation as one of Katrina's nursemaids came in with a sleepy toddler in tow.

"Forgive me, My Lady. Her sister woke her and she wanted her father to tell her a story."

"That's all right, Rose, I'll take her." Katrina gathered up her daughter. "Melissa, your father and your Uncle Mark are still out and probably hustling Prince Ian, his brother Hanse and his friends out of every pound they have right now."

Melissa nodded and curtsied as much as she could while sitting in her mother's lap, "Guten Abend."

She then turned to Natasha. "Are you going to get married too, Tante Tasha?" she said with perfect seriousness, as only a two year old Princess could.

"What?"

"You're going to marry Uncle Mark, right? That means you're my Tante Tasha."

"I..." Natasha just sat there stunned, her face going through a host of emotions no Trueborn would have ever shown, She thought about Johnny, who'd become truly happy with his new life with the Marksman, before laying her hands on her stomach.

She got up and kneeled in front of Melissa. "If you had asked me that yesterday, I would have said no. But that was before I saw the doctor this morning." Tears started welling in her eyes. "Before I found out I was pregnant with your cousin. So yes, Melissa, I want to be your Tante Tasha..."

"YAY!" Melissa jumped out and hugged her with all the passion and innocence that only a child could give.

Blood on the Horizon (Battletech SI)

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?

Not too sore, are you?