Throw a Stone (BT/afterSI)

World of Eggs 03


Colchester
Kestrel Combat Region
Federated Suns
19 February 3025

If there was one truth to the military life, it was that rumor and scuttlebut will out. Prior to the invention of the KF Drive, they were the only things capable of moving faster than lightspeed. The Eridani Light Horse could not fail to notice a whole Monolith-class JumpShip just going away for months, and then coming back with all collars full.

The dream of a SLDF Cache is a common fantasy in the Inner Sphere, because while very rare it was not actually all that implausible. Many a mercenary company blew into notoriety through finding a cache, and commoners into millionaires overnight. The SLDF hid caches all over the place, like some sort of demented squirrel digging holes in planets. There were potentially thousands of such caches in all the House territories and even in the Periphery. There was a reason more than just the SLDF wanting to waste money though. Caches could serve as a reserve for when the SLDF had to actually fight a Great House, or set up a second front, or to distribute to allies while the SLDF had to spend inescapable weeks of travel forced by the KF-Core limit towards the battle zone.

Functionally the only difference between a cache and a supply depot is that a supply depot that you don't know about can't be raided, sabotaged, or stolen by local powers.

Barbara Mosley went on that expedition, and then came back good enough to beat Natasha Kerensky.

It was patently obvious to everybody that the Eridani Light Horse found lostech out there. The question was how much?

While others could only wonder - the ELH's corps of engineers could only be giddy.

-.
-.

"Are those Alacorn Mark Sixes?! We have ALACORNS!"

The 95-ton vehicles were infamous even half a millennium laters. Techs had to fight their urges not to prostrate before the High God King Slayer of BattleMechs. There were literal tears, stroking the symbol of the SLDF painted on the side and when they had to start painting the prancing horse symbol onto the side of the tanks.

These boiling feelings of awe and inferiority could not be readily understood by those who did not have it rubbed into their faces constantly how diminished and powerless they had become from a position of greatness. Mercenaries were just a little bit ahead of being bandits and beggars in the view of some.

The Eridani Light Horse were never an impressive frontline command, but they were known for defending the people. Pirates and "pirates" feared the Light Horse.

"It's a pity about the 81st Tank Company," one of the engineers murmured. "They're going to get so overshadowed." Very few things could survive three Gauss Rifle shots hitting all at once. Even an Atlas would fear to tread ground near where an Alacorn might lurk.

The 81st Tank Company was the tip of the spear for the ELH's combat vehicle formations. Four Von Luckner tanks, 75-tons and armed with a beastly Autocannon/20, LRMs and SRMs, and backed by eleven tons of armor, were capable of bringing beastly amounts of firepower to smash BattleMechs into pieces.

The ELH had surprisingly many Von Luckners.

They were much more flexible combatants compared to the 80-ton Demolisher which sacrificed everything unnecessary for the task of bringing two hard-hitting but short-ranged AC/20s to the battlefield to be able to destroy any Mech within one or two hits.

Unfortunately they did not have so many Von Luckners that they could afford to move them in standard formations, but instead the anvil to a hammer.

The reaction of the commander of the 81st Tank Company, "One-eyed" Weldman, was only laughter. "You think I lost this eye with being unwilling to mix it up with Assault Mechs?" the grizzled veteran replied. "This just means we finally get an Assault Tank Company."

"That's right!" another engineer opined. "81st Tank Company's Fire Lance being Vedettes isn't much to speak of even if AC/5s have the range of PPCs."

A 50-ton Vedette Medium Tank's firepower was severely lacking compared to a 50-ton BattleMech, which could mount at least an AC/10 or a PPC - but unlike an Alacorn or a Von Luckner, Vedettes were comparatively primitive tanks that run on Internal Combustion Engines. To put into perspective, an AC/5 was also the main armament of a Scorpion Light Tank, at 25 tons half the weight and only marginally useful in swarms. All a Vedette gained for being 25 tons heavier was more speed and armor.

More pitiful was the 81st Tank's Strike Lance, which were only Galleon light tanks armed with a Medium Laser, two Small Lasers, and a near suicidal 3 ½ tons of armor.

An AC/20 could deal punishing damage but only had the range of a Medium Laser. A Gauss Rifle dealt proportionally, say, 15 damage but outranged everything on the battlefield. And an Alacorn Mk VI had three of them in the turret.

They were the big punch that the ELH really needed. Not even the Wolf's Dragoons' Assault Mechs would be able to stand up to such firepower.

Engineers were giggling.

A Light Horse Regiment was formed from a mix of mechs, infantry and combat vehicles within a regiment. This unfortunately also meant that regiment-for-regiment, their offensive firepower was lacking, which was why Light Horse Regiments routinely operated in a Regimental Combat Team or RCT to concentrate mech, vehicle, and air forces as needed.

Unfortunately, the ELH no longer had the luxury to move all three existing regiments as an RCT as they wanted. One regiment to take or defend a world was now the routine for the Inner Sphere.

-.
-.

Major Pierre Bouchard, commander of the 27th "Wolfhounds" Company, 7th Battalion, 21st Strikers Regiment, had been sniffing around the Supply Division. Fortunately the engineers still recognized the portly pipe-smoking man from when he was an aide to General Armstrong, and it was only a fuel truck explosion killing the command of the 27th Company that had him promoted. His real love was logistics.

The six modified Dictator-class DropShips had to land on a new clearing some distance away from Fort Bradley. There was really no space for it around the base proper.

Planetary government worried about the ecological impact from mass clearing those forests, but no one was allowed to have any eyes nearby. A new road was constructed. Rivers and drainage were accounted for. The ELH compromised by saying that once they decide to leave Colchester to a new homeworld, maybe Colchester could use that clearing for a new town or farmland to assign into new petty nobility.

Major Bouchard, due to his past work as General Armstrong's aide, had been invited to watch the unloading. It was probably this sort of command influence that made his best friend Jameson Nigel, commander of the 7th Striker Battalion, feel grumpy and paranoid that Bouchard was after his job. Bouchard had no interest in command rank however, unless it was command over the entire Supply Division.

When the DropShips began vomiting out Urbanmech upon Urbanmech until there were rows and rows of two full regiments of Urbanmechs - itself a number of Mechs rarely seen unless on official inspection by House Lords on their armies - he was worried.

Then he learned that the Super Urbanmechs were armed with PPCs and lasers, and in fact other than missiles the entire hoard was composed of ammo-indepedent platforms (Gauss rifle ammo being merely inert watermelon-shaped slugs of metal) he was in love.

"It's like the Crab," he murmured.

The 50-ton machine armed mainly with lasers was such a favorite for logistics-free ease of use and was perfect for raiding the back lines of the enemy, that it was poised to become the standard Medium Mech of the SLDF much as the Marauder - also an energy-focused Mech- was the standard Heavy Mech of the SLDF. Unfortunately only a few thousand had ever been produced before the Star League itself collapsed.

"With these many Urbanmechs, of course we need to reorganize the regiments," he nodded.

It was now several weeks since General Armstrong had announced the formation of a new 121st Cavalry regiment to add to the 151st Black Horse, 71st White Horse, and 21st Striker regiments. Given that Light Horse Regiments were supposed to be a mix of different combat platforms, two regiments of fast light mechs could be distributed to four or even five regiments if needed.

He understood that it was unrealistic to create a uniform SLDF-style regiment composed entirely of Urbanmechs even though the regiments on hand already supported that combined-arms approach complete with command and mech artillery groups.

Barbara Mosley's Urbanmech company was a test run. Inserting uniform formations of Super Urbanmechs on the company or battalion scale into the regiments would maintain unit cohesion. Pilots were already used to their machines and were unwilling to switch out into a trashcan.

But it was not just Urbanmechs that came back with the expedition group.

They also brought back almost mountains of lostech. XL Engines. Ferro-Fibrous Armor. Pulse Lasers. Arrow IV artillery. SLDF Neurohelmets and life support. SLDF Communications and computer equipment.

Supply Division had been arguing for days what to do with this largesse.

Supply Division and Engineering Division and the Combat Division were in a low-level unspoken war.

Civilian Command was happy to be outside of this pit, happy with their new medical and exploration assets and information databanks to winnow through. Truly, more wealth only leads to more problems. The unity was broken.

"Yes, I know we have more than enough to upgrade all our regiments with DHS and Ferro-fibrous armor. But that would complicate field repairs if we run short of advanced supplies," said Miranda Crocus, one of the supply chiefs. "Advanced tech is a limited resource, we should stockpile them to recover from battle damage as needed!"

This was a blatant lie. They had enough stocks to refit a regiment ten times over. Engineering could taste this lie. Combat pilots and crew wanted their mechs and vehicles upgraded to Royal versions as soon as possible and test out ER and Pulse weaponry.

Withholding technology that could save their lives and break the Light Horse's enemies all the faster would be criminal.

Unfortunately, engineers also had the traditional thought that mechwarriors and tankers were self-important idiots that don't care about all the hard work that goes into keeping their combat platforms functional.

Combat crew wanted their stuff upgraded. Engineering crew wanted to play around with those advanced materials and would suffer some of them being damaged by the combat crew if that was the price of access. Supply crew just saw them both as idiots who would use up limited supplies until then they were back to where they started.

And among combat crew there were also the secondary war front between the Mech and Vehicle operators as to who needed priority for upgrading. MechWarriors obviously thought that their speed and front-line combat performance meant they were owed the upgrade, while tank crew argued that ton for ton upgrades to their vehicles gave a larger boost to previous performance.

Major Pierre Bouchard was consulted as a tie-breaker. He shook his head sadly. "This is pathetic."

He slammed his palms onto the table. "Is this what we are reduced to? Like starving children fighting over scraps of bread?! Is this the behavior of the Star League Self Defense Forces or the House troops biting at each other over the remains of technological progress they themselves destroyed? If we are this ready to fight over treasures with each other from being resupplied ONCE, do we deserve to have any more?"

The three engineers looked at him. "Do you think it's true… that the… the real SLDF… made contact? They didn't just find a cache?"

Bouchard shrugged. "I don't know."

"Chief Cade isn't here, he's over at the seventh dropship," said another of the engineers. "Even if it turns out that we now have our own automated factory, it would be just as big."

"But if the SLDF are actually returning… we…" the third engineer bit her lip. "We haven't wasted our time in the Inner Sphere! We tried so hard. The Inner Sphere needed us. Staying behind wasn't a betrayal!"

-.
-.

Please come back.

Millions. Billions. Not just children, but adults too, had prayed deep in their heart for centuries.

When Kerensky went into self-exile, taking the SLDF with him, and the Terran Hegemony collapsed and eaten by the Great Houses, many of those that remained equally wished for the SLDF to return and lead them back into peace and prosperity of the Star League - and half terrified that the SLDF could only come back hell-bent on revenge. The Inner Sphere could not exactly say they wouldn't have deserved it, except maybe to argue if the sins of the father should be inheritable.

Not just a few prayed that maybe the latter would be better.

Please come back.

And burn these Lords.

-.
-.

RNIK DEATH EGG
Modified Dictator-class DropShip
Colchester
Date Unknown

Eligio Cade was made privy to the terrifying truth. The SLDF are actually returning.

But there was no second SLDF to stand in the way of the Clans of Kerensky. The Eridani Light Horse had to work to create the Second Star League by blood and sweat and unwavering determination not to break kayfabe.

He was prepared for many things. Outright magic was not one of those things.

But it also made perfect sense.

"So just to repeat - this nanolathe can make… anything. Anything at all we want-" said Eligo Cade, the Eridani Light Horse's Chief Engineer. "At least, anything that is technologically possible, by plundering nearby parallel dimensions for plans and assembling them molecule by molecule."

"Anything as long as it's shaped like an Urbanmech," replied Andrei Posseli.

Eligio Cade tilted his head and thought of the obvious loophole "Could it create pure elements?"

Posseli smirked. "If you're talking pure gold Urbanmech, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that prevents us from doing that. At a market value of 300 C-bills an ounce, the only problem is finding a way to transform 30-ton Super Goldenmech into 317 million C-bills. I doubt there's a collector out there that insane, but if Trading Horse was careful maybe we could get melt prices in a thousand small transactions.

"Pure Super Germanium-mech? Not even the slightest bit more difficult to produce."

Eligio Cade felt lightheaded more than just the micro-gravity he was experiencing. "That is… broken. Just broken."

"Obviously we are not going to do that, because it would be too dangerous for House Davion to learn we don't exactly need them for funding anymore," said General Armstrong through the realtime data connection to the planet, even through several astronomical units of space in between.

"Money can't buy an expert logistics train though, so we do still need House Davion," added Posseli. "We still need reasons to explain away the new things we possess that could not conveniently come from a long-lost cache."

"So is that why we now have an 80-ton Assault Urbanmech that can go up to 86 kph and packs a Gauss Rifle?" said Cade, pointing to a nearby full Mech Bay.

Andrei Posseli threw his hands up "I wanted to see what a 400-rated Extra Light Fusion looked like! This is the only way we can get Extra Light Engines - build an Urbanmech that can use that rating then pull it out." The nanolathe plundered nearby alternate dimensions for plans and schematics, so there was not even a need to spend sweat trying to force things

Eligio Cade for a moment, for some reason, wished he had two pieces of bread in his hands.

Posseli added "Well not free, as such. The nanolathe still needs feedstock. Locusts go in, better Mechs come out. It's much faster than having to do energy to matter conversion-"

Both engineers paused for a moment as they digested the words.

Cade's cheek twitched. "Magic is magic. This is technology. How would Robotnik have known how to utilize the power of a Chaos Emerald into a repeatable form? This whole thing is programmable. I regret so much not being able to at least speak to the man."

Both engineers lowered their heads in respectful silence for a moment.

Then Cade looked up.

Before he could say anything, Posseli said "I do not want to recycle this. A common 240-rated Engine lets this go at standard Assault Mech speeds and there is nothing in the Inner Sphere right now that is capable of carrying double Gauss Rifles."

"If we set up a terrible precedent with MechWarriors getting custom Mechs, everybody will start expecting it or rushing even more recklessly into battle trying to achieve merit."

"That is far too late. Barbara Mosley taking down Natasha Kerensky needs to be rewarded, and a mere 30-ton Super Urbanmech, no matter how fast it is, is too fragile. So she gets Super Urbanmech II well before we are in a position to mass produce even the first Super Urbanmech design. We can't allow her to die."

"Yes, that RobotniC Enterprises thing, I heard about that," Cade replied. "I approve. We owe Doctor Robotnik that at least. People should learn to at least appreciate what that name means."

And then after that the conversation devolved into toy manufacturing and the plan for a Solaris mech stable, because if they wanted the name Doctor Robotnik to really become popular across the entire Inner Sphere, they had to target the child market.

-.
-.

The Death Egg did not need the nanolathe per se. It was actually an automated factory in of itself. It could produce ER PPCs, endo steel frames, fusion engines, all in situ through mechanical means as long as it was supplied the right feedstock materials.

Eligio Cade was tempted as anyone to play with the Mech Lab, but the Death Egg only had enough room inside for spare Mechs. Unloading and transferring BattleMechs and materials through open zero-g space to a different dropship was arguably possible, but a slow and laborious process that no one would do unless truly necessary.

The other engineers read into the true ability of the nanolathe were losing their goddamn minds.

Anything that could be modeled in the designer could be prototyped within a day, anywhere from down to 10 tons to 100 tons. Lostech was not a thing; it was just available tech. Even things that haven't even been invented yet were a thing!

The factory automatically plundered nearby parallel dimensions for plans and working schematics. Anything it could make was already battle-proven in mass production somewhere else in the mirror universe.

Worse yet, the nanolathe could produce 4 Light mechs up to 30 tons, or 3 Medium Mechs up to 55 tons, or 2 Heavy Mechs up to 75 tons, or 1 Assault Mech up to 100 tons... in a day.

... As long as it was Urbanmech.

Eligio Cade had to remind himself that it was a bad idea to have a hangover in space the moment he realized that they could build an Assault Mech every. Single. Day. Uggh. Fortunately the rest of the engineers were still under the delusion this was merely an automated factory, because this was the sort of thing that invited nukes and WarShips.

Machines were not the bottleneck now, finding as many qualified pilots that were not prone to treachery was the problem.

He had previously asked Armstrong why didn't they land the Death Egg into Colchester, where it could be safer and mass-produce more openly instead of out here in the jump point where anybody could have a look at it, and where it was vulnerable to attack. Posseli answered that this means they would lose the ability to manufacture Endo Steel, but Amstrong's actual reason was that the Death Egg was never meant to serve as the Eridani Light Horse's permanent mobile factory.

An egg, when seen from a different point of view, was just a seed.

-.
-.



Declan System
Kestrel Combat Region
Date Unknown

The Invader-class JumpShip FSN THE GIFT MINOR hung at the zenith jump point of the Declan star system. The reason systems could drop out of star maps is that the star map did not itself show all the stars usable by JumpShips. Within a 30-LY radius, there could be dozens of unremarkable uninhabitable star systems that a JumpShip could pass through.

JumpShip captains as a rule did not want to use unmarked systems when jumping, for in the danger of a malfunction they would be stranded in deep space with no hope for rescue.

Declan could have been any of a few dozen stars nearby. Only the ELH's Star League-dated maps still showed the coordinates of this star.

This was a MIIO operation, and so the crew in the DropShip was composed of intelligence agents and people all but kidnapped away from colleges in Kestrel. The orders had been updated midway, they were to perform a planetary survey within one week.

Prof. Bartleby of the Kestrel Normal University grumbled that this was barely enough time to do anything and they were all wasting his time. Wasting two months of travel on a pointless expedition! His troop of students suffered for it, being forced to take tests and work on their thesis in a ship with no other possible distractions.

"There's already ships here," the Fury-class DropShip captain informed Cassidy Burford, the AFFS officer in charge of this expedition. The Invader carried only a single DropShip, a waste of two of its three collars, but this was an expedition ordered with the highest priority straight from New Avalon.

Six shining white Scout-class JumpShips hung in space with their jump sails undeployed. Eerily at the same time, the ships fired maneuvering jets, as if turning to stare at the intruding Invader.

Prof. Bartleby had doctorates in Archeology and Geology, and had been bribed into this mission by the promise of access to lost terraforming technology research at NAIS. This meant he was also keenly familiar with Star League designs related to space travel and human expansion.

Scout-class Jumpships were among the smallest JumpShips ever built and were completely unarmed.

Yet these blank-faced white ships inspired in him a strange animal instinct to flee.

"Did I say this was a waste of time? Could we burn towards the planet at one and a half gravities? That would cut transit time from seven days to a little more than four a half," the professor said. "Yes, yes, let us not waste any more time."


--------------------------------------------------------

 

Sorry for the lack of more content, been terribly busy recently.

Here, have an Urbanmech II.


Revisioning the Urbanmech with arms.

Using MWO/MW5's internal layout scheme, the right arm maintains the ability to carry full-sized Large Weaponry like AC/20s, Gauss Rifles, etc. while the left has the Medium Weapon slot protruding off the shoulder while a tiny Stormcrow-like arm protrudes from beneath.

It is too short to punch with, but now at least if it falls it can get up by itself.

Code:

Regular Urbanmech II AC UMR2-1AC
 
Mass: 40 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Experimental Tech
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-E-D
Production Year: 0
Dry Cost: 3,120,880 C-Bills
Total Cost: 3,160,880 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,004
 
Chassis: Unknown Standard
Power Plant: Unknown 120 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 32.4 km/h
Maximum Speed: 54.0 km/h
Jump Jets: Unknown
	Jump Capacity: 90 meters
Armor: Unknown Standard Armor w/ CASE
Armament:
	1  LB 20-X AC
	1  Medium Laser
Manufacturer: Unknown
	Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown
 
Overview:
The Regular Urbanmech II is an attempt to modernize the standard Urbanmech. Though
based on the Super Urbanmech II chassis, the Regular Urbanmech II is not fast (or
"Super") though still notably speedier than its initial incarnation, able to go
up to 54 kph or Assault Mech speeds - compared to the 32 kph maximum speed of the
stock Urbanmech - aka "Slow" and "Less Slow".
 
It gets "Less Slow" and "Fine."
 
The extra 10 tons allows it to have better speed, three jump jets, maximal
8 and 1/2 tons of armor,  and most importantly - carry a full-sized LB-X AC/20
with two tons of ammo. At little more than 3 million C-bills to produce, it is
called "the smallest Assault Mech to exist" and is devastating in Urban Combat
situations.
 
 
The right arm is able to accept any large weapon such as ACs, PPCs, Gauss
Rifles, replaced with MRM pods, etc. The left arm is turned into a shoulder
weapon mount that is wired to accept energy weapons up to a Large Laser in size.
A small utilitarian arm similar to that of the Clans' Stormcrow protrudes below.
 
 
--
 
 
Some variants reduce armor slightly in the legs (assuming that the short and
dumpy stance of the Regular Urbanmech II the legs are less likely to be hit anyway)
to protect internal ammo compartments with CASE. The loose half-ton can also
be allocated to a Flamer for anti-infantry work.
 
Replacing the LBX AC/20 with a (Light) Gauss Rifle or RAC/5  allows the left arm to
carry two Medium Lasers and lets the Urbanmech IIH more comfortably do micro-
Assault mech duties or long-range fire support where its middling speed is less
relevant.
 
A Super Urbanmech II with an XL Engine is of course more capable of having this
warload and still be able to deliver AC/20s to facetime at 86 or even 97 kph.
This is kind of bullshit.
 
--
 
 
================================================================================
Equipment		   Type						 Rating				   Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard					  67 points				4.00
Engine:			 Fusion Engine				120					   4.00
	Walking MP: 3
	Running MP: 5
	Jumping MP: 3 Standard
	Jump Jet Locations: 1 CT, 1 LT, 1 RT								   1.50
Heat Sinks:		 Single Heat Sink			 10						0.00
	Heat Sink Locations: 1 CT, 2 LT, 2 RT, 1 LA
Gyro:			   Standard											   2.00
Cockpit:			Standard											   3.00
	Actuators:	  L: SH+UA+LA+H	R: SH+UA
Armor:			  Standard Armor			   AV - 128				  8.00
	CASE Locations: 1 RT												   0.50
 
													  Internal	   Armor
													  Structure	  Factor
												Head	 3			9
										Center Torso	 12		   18
								 Center Torso (rear)				  5
										   L/R Torso	 10		   17
									L/R Torso (rear)				  3
											 L/R Arm	 6			12
											 L/R Leg	 10		   16
 
================================================================================
Equipment								 Location	Heat	Critical	Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Medium Laser								 LA		3		 1		 1.00
LB 20-X AC								   RT/RA	 6		 1/10	 14.00
@LB 20-X (Slug) (10)						 RT		-		 2		 2.00
											Free Critical Slots: 25
 
BattleForce Statistics
MV	  S (+0)  M (+2)  L (+4)  E (+6)   Wt.   Ov   Armor:	  4	Points: 10
3j		 2	   2	   0	   0	  2	 0   Structure:  3
Special Abilities: CASE, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA, FLK 1/1/0
 

OOC:

Spoiler

The Regular and Super Urbie II made redundant the need for the AFFS to develop
a mech like the Hollander. The proliferation of ER PPC meant less urgency to field
any mech that can match Clan weapon ranges.

 

More Super Urbanmech II in Barbara Mosley colors.


Who's a bad bad mech?
A bad bad MEEECH.
A bad a bad bad mech.

Code:

uper Urbanmech II Custom UMS-MC
Mass: 40 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Experimental Tech
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-F-D
Production Year: 0
Dry Cost: 11,970,933 C-Bills
Total Cost: 11,970,933 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,613
Chassis: Unknown Endo-Steel
Power Plant: Unknown 280 Fusion XL Engine
Walking Speed: 75.6 km/h
Maximum Speed: 118.8 km/h (151.2 km/h)
Jump Jets: Unknown
Jump Capacity: 120 meters
Armor: Unknown Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
2 Light PPC + PPC Capacitors
2 ER Medium Lasers
1 TAG
1 Guardian ECM Suite
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: Unknown
Targeting and Tracking System: Unknown
Overview:
The Super Urbanmech II is based on Barbara Mosley's original Super Urbanmech
Custom. Though less Hardened for survival, most still retain the horn for improved
sensors and communication electronics.
This Super Urbanmech II variant is based on her White Unicorn loadout. It is fast,
able to hit 118 kph on a full run and 151 kph with the Supercharger. While two
Light PPCs normally do not do enough damage, when its capacitors are charged
it can deal a significant alpha strike.
This mech is designed to tangle with Clan Light and Medium scout recon
Battlemechs and is known to make Grand Dragons cry.
 
Variants:
Although not an omni-mech, the fact that most of its weapons are arm-mounted
means it is relatively easy to modify.
The basic version is still a 10-ton heavier Super Urbanmech with an ER PPC or
Plasma Rifle as its main gun.
A popular variant is based on the less-advanced Regular Urbie II, which carries
an AC/20. These "headhunter" mechs have slowly ingrained into the popular
consciousness that there are few things scarier than an Urbanmech at a full
run.
================================================================================
Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Endo-Steel 67 points 2.00
Internal Locations:
Engine: XL Fusion Engine 280 8.00
Walking MP: 7
Running MP: 11 (14)
Jumping MP: 4 Standard
Jump Jet Locations: 1 CT, 1 LT, 1 RT 2.00
Heat Sinks: Double Heat Sink 11(22) 1.00
Gyro: Standard 3.00
Cockpit: Standard 3.00
Actuators: L: SH+UA R: SH+UA
Armor: Ferro-Fibrous AV - 134 7.50
Armor Locations:
Internal Armor
Structure Factor
Head 3 9
Center Torso 12 17
Center Torso (rear) 6
L/R Torso 10 15
L/R Torso (rear) 5
L/R Arm 6 12
L/R Leg 10 19
================================================================================
Equipment Location Heat Critical Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Light PPC + PPC Capacitor RA 10 2 3.00
Light PPC + PPC Capacitor RA 5* 1 1.00
Light PPC + PPC Capacitor LA 10 2 3.00
Light PPC + PPC Capacitor LA 5* 1 1.00
ER Medium Laser RT 5 1 1.00
Guardian ECM Suite LT 0 2 1.50
ER Medium Laser LT 5 1 1.00
Supercharger CT - 1 1.00
TAG HD 0 1 1.00
Free Critical Slots: 30
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 4 Points: 16
9/3j 2 2 1 0 2 0 Structure: 2
Special Abilities: TAG, ECM, ENE, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA

Part of what makes Clan Lights so dangerous is that most of them are 7/11. Already better gunnery skills of Clan pilots walk at +1 while forcing a +3 against Inner Sphere targeting.

ELH Badnik mechs get Variable Range Targeting Quirk for free and so get -1 on Long range combat.
+4 vs +7.

On medium range
+3 vs +5

4x Light PPC is very possible to mate to a Targeting Computer for another -1.
Less on point damage but trades it for overall ease of use

 

Dragonslayer 01


New Aberdeen
Draconis March
29 February 3025


Two Invaders appeared in the Nadir Jump point below New Aberdeen's star. These pair of JumpShips disgorged six DropShips. Two Overlord class dropships, three Unions, and a Leopard-CV fighter-carrier. They burned towards the planet at an uncomfortable 1.5 gravities, shortening transit time from nine days to a little under five days.

The Comstar station on New Rochester received priority mail from nearby systems - Wolf's Dragoons were simultaneously assaulting the 4th Deneb's homeworld of Harrow's Sun. Those on New Aberdeen could only grit their teeth and trust in the combined force of the rest of their regiment, the AFFS security force based on the moon Bane, and the 21st Striker Regiment of the Eridani Light Horse. This was a wolf trap.

New Aberdeen was a snake trap.

Major Raymond Allwine asked "You know what really annoys me about the Draconis Combine? What really grinds my gears? What really puts rice in my corn flakes?"

Major Kaplan gave him a dull look. 'Are all Eridani Light Horse like this?'

He asked with a sigh "What about the Combine?"

"I really hate the uncomfortable truth that the Draconis Combine is actually a strong nation." He turned around to face the Davion officer. "As we are both employed by House Davion, we should not be blind to the flaws in the nation we serve, the better head off future difficulties, no? If even the Federated Suns is criticized as two-faced by sacrificing so much on the altar of militarism, how could the Draconis Combine with its weaker economy maintain the second largest military in the Inner Sphere? How dare the Combine always be pushing to claim worlds and often succeed?"

Kaplan grimaced. "Isn't it because what we call a sacrifice they make an obligation? Davion has to sacrifice half of itself just to withstand Kurita's aggression, but the Draconis Combine puts everything it could possibly have into the altar of victory. You're right, it is a hideous nation - and it's hateful that it is this strong."

Allwine nodded. "House Kurita's existence proves that strength itself can come from different sources. It is most ironic that they do prove one tenet true - it is cooperation that gives the most strength. The despotic brutal and often casualty insensitive rule of House Kurita is perhaps among the worst ever devised, but a broken people believed in it utterly. Not like the Capellan Confederation where the citizens endured the cruelty of their nobles from existential danger of being the weakest power, but that they genuinely believe that it is House Kurita's inevitable destiny to rule the Inner Sphere. Their hardships don't matter - that other people lived healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives were irrelevant. The people of the Dragon valued their spiritual and cultural treasures more than whatever luxuries and conveniences are available in the other nations."

He sighed. "And unlike other nations, the Draconis Combine never really feared the SLDF."

Unlike other nations in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine did not have such a reverence for the Star League - it was humanity's golden age, true - but they always believed that House Kurita would have been as able a leader as House Cameron. Mighty as the SLDF might have been, they were first and foremost seen as a rival preventing the Dragon from achieving its rightful rule.

The SLDF deemed them likewise, and continually did the SLDF and the DCMS fight a covert low level Ronin War, always testing each other's boundaries and skills.

It often ended with a draw, with a slight edge to the Combine in pilot vs pilot combat.

They watched the dropships approach on the holotable. It would still take most of the week and ASFs were surprisingly short-legged. Intercepting the dropships would require carrier vs carrier combat, but unless there was enough weight of numbers from the 4th Deneb, such a clash would not be decisive compared to the number of ASF from the Combine's own carriers and fightercraft inside their military transport dropships.

So until then, there was nothing to do but to wait. Brief moments of brutal intensity punctuated by long stretches of tense waiting around, such was the military life.

"The Combine did contribute men and machines to the SLDF still," Kaplan said, remembering how the great bulk of SLDF was composed of member state contributions. These men were always assigned to guard different Houses than the ones they were sourced from to minimize conflict of interests. "You know, come to think of it - I am actually surprised that almost all of them chose to follow Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere. So they believed in the SLDF enough over their own upbringing as Combine citizens."

Left unspoken: SLDF indoctrination was superior to Kuritan brainwashing, then?

Kaplan pointedly looked away from Allwine.


-.
-.

New Aberdeen
8 March 3025


The night skies of New Aberdeen boiled with fury and fire.

The 4th Deneb's aerospace fighters contested the orbitals while the 8th Galedon's own fighters opened the way for dropships to land.

Orbital entry was the most vulnerable time for dropships. These egg-shaped Unions and Overlords tried to shed velocity, sheathed in a bubble of plasma from the air shock as they entered the atmosphere, completely blind and deaf to everything.

ASFs could only shoot at them from above or below, because operating in the same layer would have them experience the same effects. Above the atmospheric boundary, ASFs could proceed at speed, while below that all fighters had an imposed maximum speed due to atmospheric drag.

The 4th Deneb was an aerospace heavy force, but this was a problem for the aerospace complement taking up a sizable proportion of regimental power. The Kurita invasion force counted ASF power separately from the 8th Galedon's mech regiment, and so had enough craft to screen the approach.

AeroSpace Combat was unlike BattleMech combat, where resilience vs good gunnery ruled. Pilots had seconds to deal as much damage as they could before the enemy could break weapons lock. Speed was only limited by fuel and human endurance. All the rest of the time was trying to angle for a firing solution, minding fuel consumption lest they would be dry and stranded out in space.

No power could assume aerospace dominance in a hurry. While fighters battled, the dropships cleared the atmospheric boundary and flipped around to burn against the pull of gravity.

The invasion of New Aberdeen had begun.

-.

Jody Smith was a child of New Aberdeen. Everyone in the city had gone to the underground shelters, and now she sat in her mother's arms. This was not even the fifth time she had experienced this - schools had evacuation drills and her neighborhood had emergency drills. This was life in the border worlds.

Her father was a soldier in the AFFS militia. Her mother stroked Jody's hair while they waited with the crowd. One of the things Kurita might do once successfully conquering a world is to execute militia soldiers in case they trained for insurgency. It was better to replace defenders with their own trusted soldiers from offworld, and Kurita soldiers were highly incentivized by the promise of land grants and privileges in conquered space.

House Davion was strong, but it was never guaranteed that they would always be able to defend all their worlds. Every time a big regimental-scale invasion was announced it was always a time of fear and doubt. Would this be the moment that, being distracted by all so many necessary battles going on at the same time, House Davion's strength would be stretched too far and fail?

Jody looked up. "Don't worry mother. This time it's different. It's like the news said - they're not facing any regular MechWarriors anymore. They're facing the Eridani Light Horse! Heirs of the SLDF!"

Her mother kissed the crown of her head. "Sure they do, baby. Sure they do…" she whispered without much conviction.

-.
-.

General Lavrenti Kornilov sniffed at the dry, faintly acrid air of New Aberdeen. It was a wild and backwards world that was only worth the notice because it belonged to Davion. Kurita took it once before, and they could do it again.

This was deeply uncomfortable for infantry, but mechwarriors were used enduring heat. But only relatively short but intense bursts of overheating. The hatch of his mech closed and he was kissed by cool air-conditioned air and felt the chill of his cooling jacket.

The 2nd Galedon was sent because though they might be considered a green regiment, they specialized in open field battles. Its officers often served as lecturers in the Sun Zhang Academy. Galedon Regulars were well-equipped and well-trained regiments, only the wide swath of space they had to handle meant that some regiments were better for training ladder. The dry brush terrain of New Aberdeen was welcoming to mechs that could move at great speed and react in unison to changing battlefield conditions.

While listed technically as a medium weight regiment, this was only on average by the total tonnage of the mechs. In practice, the 2nd Galedon was heavily biased towards heavy mechs and light mechs, with few mediums in between.

It was just that all those Heavy Mechs were Dragons. Sixty-ton machines that could move up to 86 kph, easily keeping pace with smaller mechs. His own personal mech was a Dragon. Like the Draconis Combine itself, all things come from deliberate and focused aggression.

The dropships landed midway between the two main settlements of New Aberdeen. Rolling hills but little forests meant not much in terms of cover.

Kornilov landed with three full battalions mechs to add to the much-battered battalion on New Aberdeen. Unlike a Regimental Combat Team, they spared no weight for infantry - all of it was pure battlemech power. Infantry and combat vehicles were a separate follow-on force in a different dropship.

"Sho-sa Geordi, you will take your command company and your second company and head north. It is an insult that a battalion is being harried by a single company of light mechs. You will link up with the remainder of Ehrenburg's Battalion and find this… Barbara Mosley. And break her. Make sure Ehrenburg lives to pay for this humiliation. In the meantime, attach your third company to my battlegroup."

"Hai, general. It would be our honor to serve."

At this point, Barbara's Badniks had reduced Ehrenburg Battallion from thirty-six down to two and a half lances unwilling to step out of the shadow of their Overlord lest they eat the rain of Arrows. Overlords had a nose-mounted Long Tom Artillery piece that could perform counter-battery fire.

Kornilov ordered these two companies to head north and set up another forward operating base in preparation for infantry to storm and capture Firthhaven. Aircraft would patrol the skies to swoop down on detecting a launch. The Eridani Light Horse might have lostech missile artillery, but missile artillery was still expensive and they should be running low.

He intended to take the rest of the regiment and push at the capital city. Intel estimated that the ELH and the 4th Deneb only had between them four companies of mechs.

Two full battalions plus a company (seven companies) meant there was no need for misdirection.

It would take almost six hours of running south, but such was the life of a mechwarrior. Most of war was actually just mind-numbing getting from place to place. An 84-strong force composed entirely of Battlemech could run nonstop by untiring power of their fusion reactors and artificial muscle myomers, limited only by the human weakness of their pilots. This was why the Combine's first notion was always to purge weakness from the flesh. Let the mind overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, and there one shall one enlightenment.

The lack of any obvious choke points around Conlan City meant that minefields would be less useful. With enough speed and being sufficiently spread out, artillery was not such a danger but merely random chance.

With forces on the field in full view of each other, ECM and defeat in detail was marginalized.

The enemy shall meet their force in decisive battle or their city would be razed as a consequence of their cowardice.


-.
-.

Raymond Allwine and Roland Kaplan gathered their mechs together.

The Eridani Light Horse contributed one Heavy Mech company and a one Light Mech company while the 4th Deneb had two Medium Mech companies on the field, for a total of 48 mechs that could be seen. Another 18 combat vehicles were formed up in echelon around them.

Barbara Mosley's Badnik Company up north were facing around 24 new mechs and 10 heavily damaged ones. Allwine sent his Battalion's entire force of LAMs and VTOLS in support, but that still meant Mosley's company was outnumbered twice over.

Kaplan grimaced. "We could take them in a fair fight, but we're at two to one odds. If we had the advantage of terrain or night combat, this would be possible."

Allwine nodded. "It is SLDF doctrine to prefer fights where you can outnumber your enemy. The Combine produces good pilots. Skilled Mechwarriors. Some of them can even be honorable sorts. The SLDF losing to them in pilot vs pilot combat panicked them enough to initiate the Gunslinger Program," said Allwine. He beamed and held up a thumb. "But even without the great bulk of SLDF, and the Combine abiding, the situation has not changed. Technology alone does not guarantee victory. Man vs man you might risk the question. But in a battle of holistic systems…"

The whole was more than the sum of its parts.

Or to put it another way "House Kurita hates it! Beat the DCMS with one simple trick!"

--

 

You thought it was an update, but actually it was


GET IN THE GODDAMN ROBOT, SHINJI.

 

Dragonslayer 02


Approx 180 km NNW of Conlan City
New Aberdeen

It was not even noon yet.

In truth, it was not exactly necessary for General Lavrenti Kornilov to lead this rarely-seen force concentration. He could have just stayed at the DropShip, coordinating the regiment's actions via the command post inside an Overlord.

However, this whole thing was about repaying the insult. Doing better than the Wolf's Dragoons. It is known that sometimes even Jaime Wolf fights on the field. A leader must at times go to the battlefield and risk their life to prevent an unseemly appearance of laziness. The Draconis Combine can abide many things, but a timid commander least of all.

He had advised his predecessor to commit ritual suicide rather than face any accusation of impropriety by the Assembly of the Grand Inquisitor, the Combine's military court. While General Fastius Semronovitch had done nothing wrong, just being called up meant that those facing the court would never be seen again and they could extract any confession they wished. Better to die with his honor intact. And thereafter Kornilov took control of the regiment.

Someone may have given the Grand Inquisitors false information for this exact situation.

The battle group moved with three companies on each flank, with the command company at the center. It was roughly an A-shaped formation.

His Target and Tracking System buzzed with air contact. ASFs approached from ahead but at high altitude. These were 4th Deneb fighters, still contesting the skies, preventing Kuritan air from being of any direct help. At the very least no one was in a position do any bombing runs. They would have to rely on forward scouts to find the enemy.

Kornilov idly listened to the battalion channels. Four hours in and nothing interesting had happened. Battlemechs had autopilot when at cruising speed, and the wide open (if not exactly flat) expanse of New Aberdeen's semi-arid soils were excellent for this.

The radio crackled "Erik Lance to Rocket Lead, reporting enemy contact. Looks like… four lances. Two lances Urbanmech. Two lances Catapult and Archer. We are engaged. Over."

"Roger that." There was a click. "This is Rocket Company Lead to Battalion Command, seeking permission to support. Over."

"Hm. That would be forward left company, would it not?" he said to Kutuzov, walking beside him also in a Dragon.

"Hai, general. That one is named, oddly enough, Steiner," was the reply from the other mech. "Steiner's Rocket Company is a light mech company. I would recommend sending Tolbukhin Company instead, they have anti-minefield sensors."

That would mean compressing the left side. He frowned. "Sensible. Catapults and Archers with four medium lasers are decent skirmishers for fire support mechs, they can withstand attack by light mechs ranging in the back line. Tell them to pull back. See if the Davions will dare try to harass our flank, and then meet them with force."

"Hai, general!" Kutuzov relayed the instructions.

"Rocket Company to Erik Lance, pull back. Do you copy? Erik Lance, do you read?"

Looking ahead, the two forward companies were behind a ridge, and their scouts ranged several kilometers ahead of the formation.

No communications returned from Erik Lance, composed of three 20-ton Wasps and a 35-ton Jenner. Kornilov wrinkled his nose. While light and barely armored, those four mechs should still be fast enough that they could not be taken out quickly. Even one against four lances, they should be able to break off.

Steiner's voice came back "Enemy contact! As reported, here comes eight Urbanmechs, four each Catapult and Archer. We are under missile and PPC fire." The left company spread out while the other forward company moved to assist.

"If this is a feint, if we move with the weight of numbers we will not be led astray," said Kornilov. "All forces, move on point and engage." He moved the throttle of his mech to full. The arrow-shaped formation tilted to the left.

As his mech cleared the ridge, he saw how the enemy engaged forward elements. Two companies of light mechs versus one mixed company of lights and heavies. The light mechs were rushing to close in with the enemy at full speed, while the Davions were walking at a quick yet oddly leisurely-looking pace at an angle, picking them off one by one.

The Kurita formation pivoted to prevent the enemy from finding the flank. Steiner company was the tip of the spear. Coming from behind the Urbanmechs, missiles crossed the gap. Missiles were rarely a decisive weapon against light mechs, as most of them can miss a mech moving and abruptly changing directions at high speed.

Large Laser fire, however… that was another matter entirely.

A Locust brewed up, its ammunition igniting from being cored through by a pair of Large Lasers. Those were probably ARC-2Ks, a common variant in the Draconis Combine. There, a Jenner that managed to get through was showered in criss-cross fire from the Catapults. Instead of four Medium Lasers, the Catapults only fired three each. On the other hand, these lasers struck at ranges closer to that of a Large Laser. Armor boiled off as the beams carved into it, until one of its legs was sliced clean through and the mech collapsed face-first into hard ground.

The Urbanmechs peeled off from screening the Heavy Mech to meet the incoming medium-weight company from the middle left portion of the battle group. They answered LRM fire with PPC fire from extreme ranges.

"So it is true…" he heard Kutuzov murmur. "They are using lostech. This is not the Fourth Deneb. They are the Eridani Light Horse!"

Both the Eridani Light Horse and the 4th Deneb still used standard SLDF pale olive camo.

"Good! Crushing this group would be a fine appetizer. They made a mistake here - throwing away two lances of Heavies just to buy themselves time. Even losing a full company of light mechs is worth the exchange. We could trade two for one and still be on the advantage - a spoiling attack should do more than their own weight to be of value! Destroy them!"

They had been warned about stupidly fast Urbanmechs with ER PPCs. But to defeat them all one needed to do was to be sufficiently fast. Long-range duels were a fool's bargain.

As the 2nd Galedon Regulars rushed forth at full speed, the ELH mechs slowly dialed down their attacks and began to accelerate. They disengaged smoothly. Even the Catapults and Archers began to move past regular running speed of Heavy mechs - up to Medium mech speeds, ensuring that most of the 2nd Galedon Mechs would not be able to catch up given the initial distance between the two formations. Only Light Mechs would be able to close the distance, but then that would lead them out of sight of the battle group.

The Eridani Light Horse attacked, wrecked a company of light mechs in short order, and then pulled back with almost no damage to themselves.

Those heavy mechs were moving at 86 kph.

Dragon speeds.

How?

"Did they downgrade the LRMs into LRM-10s? LRM-5s?" Kutuzov murmured to himself some more. "Or is it more lostech? It is probably lostech." His voice was tinged with greed.

"Enemy contact!" reported Ulasov's company, formation lower-right. "Medium mechs!"

Deneb.

Kornilov hissed. "Split the force. Kutuzov, take two companies and handle this."

He would take the remaining four companies and keep pushing forward. Kutuzov's battle group was fast enough to deal with anything. Deneb's Light Cavalry would have mechs in the same weight class.

Kutuzov sucked in his breath. Not participating in the fight against the Eridani Light Horse meant he was not due any of that lostech salvage. Deneb Cavalry Mechs were potent if used with skill, but mundane.

"Well, Tai-sa?"

"A-as you command, Tai-sho." Kutuzov's Dragon halted abruptly and wheeled about. The battalion commander began screaming commands into his comms, and the two rear guard companies broke formation.

--
--

It was ideal for a force to move at a uniform speed, preferably a Medium Mech's 86 kph running speed or 54 kph cruising speed. In practice, this was not possible even for a maximum aggression Kurita force. Light mechs such as the Panther had a powerful punch for their weight class with a PPC, but were limited to 64 kph running speed. This was not normally a problem as that was average Heavy mech speed and the DCMS like to use Jenners and Panthers in a hammer and anvil approach.

Medium mechs could carry heavier firepower if they were to accept a reduction in speed, the classic Davion Enforcer for example. A Class 10 Autocannon in one arm and a Large Laser in another totaled 18 tons (w/ ammo) for a 50-ton machine. A 45-ton Vindicator was essentially an up-sized Panther for these purposes, with more armor and all-range weapons load.

By a similar vein, a Heavy Mech could accept a reduction in firepower or armor in exchange for speed, the Dragon or Quickdraw for example. All of the 2nd Galedon's Heavy Mechs were in this vein.

The 2nd Galedon also had a pair of Assault Mechs, moving at a top speed of 54 kph. They were a Stalker and a Victor.

A veritable rain of missiles arced from the sky. Eight heavy mechs, each carrying a pair of LRM-15s, meant a white swarm of 240 LRMs inbound. Fortunately indirect fire was not quite as accurate as within visual range launches.

Unfortunately this was still a big swirling blob of missiles that was guaranteed to hit something. Anything. The command company scattered to spread out chances of being hit.

Mechs had more or less some armor stripped off. More so with the two Assault mechs in the command lance, being too slow to change their direction in time. Once again Lavrenti Kornilov appreciated the wisdom of not being the big obvious target in the regimental command lance. In the Combine, speed was life itself.

This meant that unless Kornilov wanted to fight directly and outpace his command and bodyguard lances, his command battle group was limited to 54 kph. Lances with Panthers in them were limited to 64 kph to maintain unit cohesion.

It was just that the Eridani Light Horse were refusing to step in between the hammer and the anvil.

So be it. On a broad front they would meet the enemy. Ten BattleMech lances by themselves would normally be a match for all two mixed battalions the Davions had on planet. They would be the hammer. They would be the storm. This was the decisive battle!

-.
-.

Allwine watched the formerly neat Kuritan formation wobble into disarray, splitting into two like a cell undergoing mitosis.

What had once been a neat arrow had turned into two stringy blobs. The formations stretched out into a line to be able to surround and swallow the enemy. As everyone in this fight was familiar with Light Mech tactics, they all prepared to refuse the flank in advance.

With their unprecedented speed, the ELH's Archers and Catapults didn't need a screening force of Light Mechs. Now the four lances separated into two groups - the Urbanmechs being the hammer and heavy mechs with their missile load and ER Large and Medium Lasers being the anvil. Kuritan Light mechs that outpace their own company would be caught in enfilade.

This was doing the Mongol, he mused. They could drag this out for hours if they had to. Normal operations would already be leading the enemy into an enfilade ambush of combat vehicles and heavy mechs.

But the Eridani Light Horse only had two full companies - six lances - or 24 mechs in this fight.

They had reduced the enemy's starting 82 mechs by one company (12) and heavily damaged another dozen. Another 28 mechs (2 companies + command lance) then removed themselves to deal with 4th Deneb's own two dozen mechs.

Now all the remaining 42 BattleMechs were raring towards Raymond Allwine's face.

He stroked at his bushy mustache. Half a year ago this would have been intimidating.

But knowing that General Armstrong had access to Robotnik's holorecordings - years of the man's philosophy and forgotten/buried knowledge about the inner workings of the Star League - Allwine had begged for the privilege of listening to the voice of a man born in two golden ages of mankind. He had to hear and accept all sorts of uncomfortable truths.

Chief among them was that the SLDF was not really all that much better than the House militaries during the height of the Star League. Davion troops were as professional as the SLDF, Kurita troops just as skilled, even House Liao at that time was a competent power. Marik and Steiner had the economy to match the SLDF's output if they really wanted to. Their advantage was that they started ramping up early from the days of the Terran Hegemony and never stopped. They took in contributions from the House Militaries and labeled them as their own.

What made the SLDF so much better than the Great Houses that, until Kerensky left with all the SLDF, they did not dare to test their might?

The SLDF had many advantages, their system was unmatched, but there was another special thing that broke loyalties of family and nation into something greater. What elevated their personhood and brought them into recruitment centers that knew they would be ceding their citizenship in their House to fight on distant worlds?

He looked to his left and right. He was in a Battlemaster, an 85-to Assault mech often used as a command mech. Even Hanse Davion used one. To his left was a 75-ton Marauder, and to his right two 75-ton Flashmans. A 30-ton Super Urbanmech Comms Guard was standing by his side around knee level, its dome top barely visible at this height. This was the entirety of his command lance.

Behind him were all eight of the Super Urbanmech Arrow IVs of the battalion. They would be helpless to direct attack, as they sacrificed too much armor and speed in order to mount their sizable artillery reloads.

And two 60-ton communications and control trucks.

Ah yes. He grinned. "Presentation!"

-.
-.

Near The Firth
New Aberdeen
Same day

Yasneyev Georgi was a proud graduate of Sun Zhang Academy. Though its training was founded on harsh discipline and emphasized bushido, at least it was based on savage beatings as the conditioning regiment as the Galedon Military Academy.

Sun Zhang was one of the few schools in the Draconis Combine that honored its graduates with both a Wakizashi and a Katana sword. These may be worn with the soldier's dress uniform. If for any reason the soldier dishonored himself in any way, however, he must commit seppuku or face the loss of his 'Mech or fighter, landholdings, titles, rank, and both his own and his family's honor.

Ehrenburg, commander of the third Battalion, was also a graduate of Sun Zhang Academy. Sun Zhang Academy counted as its graduate the current Coordinator of Worlds, Takashi Kurita, autocrat ruler of the Draconis Combine itself.

Galedon Academy was for commoners, Sun Zhang was for the elites.

Ehrenburg's failure on New Aberdeen could only be expiated with death.

More urgent than simply beating some uppity mercenary MechWarrior was making sure Kiel Ehrenburg did not kill himself too early. His death must be observed according to the proper ritual of seppuku, as mere suicide to avoid enduring the humuliation any further would not be enough to save his family from the dishonor.

Officers of House Kurita did not have a duty to live, but to die properly. Dying in battle was often the best, but if Ehrenburg had decided to spike himself onto a PPC bolt to escape the consequences, there would need to be a serious inquest.

Ehrenburg Battalion's Overlord-class dropship, the Bialistock, had landed in a very defensible valley that used to be a mine established by the Combine when they owned the world. Towns nearby were Kuritan sympathizers, or at least were visibly cooperative as long as there were Battlemechs in the area.

A single Spider rushed forth to meet Georgi's battle group.

The pilot spoke in crackling heavily accented commoner's Japanese "This is Shujin Sugita of Badnov's Company, Ehrenburg Battalion. May I have the honor of knowing if the Mechs are of Georgi Battalion?"

As the Light mech approached, they could all see it was missing its left arm. Fortunately a Spider's pair of Medium Lasers was mounted in the torso.

"Is it? A mere sergeant by himself coming to meet his betters. You dishonor us. I am Tai-sa Georgi. Where is Ehrenburg?"

The Spider bowed. "I apologize for the insult, masters. You may have my life if you wish. But Tai-sa Ehrenburg-sama is… indisposed. He is of the moment in a medical coma and cannot show the proper courtesy."

Georgi sneered. "How convenient."

"If you would allow it, please follow me to the base at speed. We cannot stay out in the open any more than necessary."

Georgi sucked in his breath. "I did not think it was possible for the 2nd Galedon to fall so far, but you are all actual cowards now. I should shoot you where you stand."

"I would welcome this mercy, my lord. But please, I beg you to let us do this at a more opportune place. It has been a long journey for you. If my death would amuse you in anyway, I would happily offer my life back at base at your ease."

Georgi switched radio channels for a moment. "Second Galedon Second Battalion Command to Air Lance. Do you see any enemy movement? Over."

"This is Leaf Lance Leader, negative on that. Over." An Aerospace Lance was two fighters, and four ASFs circled the skies above the group.

"Actual cowards," Georgi breathed again.

-.
-.

Ehrenburg had at least chosen his landing site well. The valley was protected on three sides, and one side was a mountain face. The excavated chambers of the iron mines made for cool quarters and storage under the New Aberdeen heat. The site was large enough to support an airfield.

The Overlord loomed over an entrance that could only accept two mech lances walking side by side. The Battalion was originally accompanied by an Triumph-class fighter-carrier DropShip but, as the dropship was not as good for launching and refitting ASFs once landed, it left with the Wolf's Dragoons. Of the original anti-4th Deneb air support, only a single Sabre remained.

The valley did not have walls tall enough to be collapsed into invaders, but the rough rise and fall of the terrain meant that only jump-capable mechs would be able to move in cohesion. This was not terrain good for non-jump capable heavy mechs. The Kuritan Dragon could not jump, but it was at least fast. A Davion Centurion or Jagermech would not be able to contribute so well.

There was space to accept Georgi's company, as it was originally made to service a full battalion. Now he could see all the remains of what had been a proud assembly of forty mechs (3 companies + command lance, made possible through the removal of the six ASF bays for extra mech bays and cargo). Nine heavily battered mechs stood at attention, and the Spider escorting them joined them in line.

This was light mech country and that was all that remained of Ehrenburg battalion. Two 35-ton Firestarters, two 35-ton Jenners, one last 35-ton Panther, the rest 20-ton Locusts and Stingers, all showing extensive weapons fire carbon scoring on their Galedon colors of white and light blue.

Ehrenburg swiveled his 60-ton Dragon's torso from side to side, looking over the base. There were some signs of combat. The troops - infantry and armor, looked nervous and ready to repulse another assault at any moment.

The remaining Ehrenburg mechs were relaxed, as if inviting death. The regular troops moved with purpose and sank into dug-in positions. Trenches minimized exposure to artillery and mech fire. No one was pointing any guns at newcomers but at the valley mouth beyond them. Cowards but prepared to fight.

Georgi grimaced and bit at his bottom lip in a pug-like scowl. Something smelled wrong here.

 

Dragonslayers 03


NNW of Conlan City
New Aberdeen


Technically Roland Kaplan, as the representing of the 4th Deneb and proper ranking officer of the AFFS, should have been in charge of this operation. However, when Raymond Allwine revealed the plan, he realized that this was the special sort of crazy that could work terribly well against the DCMS.

"The Eridani Light Horse, the Deneb Light Cavalry, the Second Galedon Regulars - all of us purport to be specialists in the field of fire and maneuver. Who then, are the best at it?" Allwine had asked idly.

Kaplan blandly replied "The Second Galedon is nowhere near this starting line. I would have to ask from Kurita for a Sword of Light regiment at least, not these trumped-up paper boys."

Allwine nodded. The 2nd Galedon benefited greatly from the best that Kurita's logistics could bring, but carried themselves as a regiment that earned their place through skill alone. "That's what they think. One of them has the pride of all of them."

He sighed. "The Draconis Combine is a dragon that cannot be defeated, a monster that cannot be slain. Because they will never admit to ever being beaten. All setbacks are only temporary, a man would rather die than be humiliated. That is the way of the warrior - their bushido."

"We have all been fighting the Combine for centuries now. There really isn't anything new that can be used against them anymore. Just beat them straight up and don't worry about it," Kaplan replied and looked to the distance with the despair of Pyrrhus after defeating Rome at Heraclea and Ausculum. "The Combine… is just something we all have to endure. We beat them here, they're justs going to come back. Twice as mad. Not angry-mad, insane-fanatic-lunatic-mad.

"Sometimes I feel like they're a force of nature, a perpetual disaster of the Inner Sphere. How can any reasonable man stand against such reckless hate?" Kaplan clenched his fists. "Just beat them. Beat them every time. Kill enough of them so that next time they get weaker and weaker until for a longer time… we can have peace. Until they start to pull their bloody mind to things again."

Allwine said "The Draconis Combine cannot be hurt through war and violence alone, that is where they thrive. To truly hurt them, you need to attack their soul."

-.
-.


As Kaplan remembered that the Second Galedon took pride in being open-field combatants, the wide open sun-baked plains of New Aberdeen promised to answer this unspoken question. There were few wooded areas to hide ambushes in, and tube artillery like the venerable Long Tom were far too slow to accompany mechs. There was no choice but to intercept the enemy and get into a knock-out match.

The 2nd Galedon had to prove they were better in very thing their enemy took pride in. The 2nd Galedon moved with the arrogant confidence of a firstborn son.

Unlike the Eridani Light Horse and Kornilov's regimental command, the 4th Deneb's 3rd Battalion vs Kutuzov's Battalion would be decided by skill versus skill. They had the same tech level, the same overall speed, and no artillery to complicate things. There was always the chance that Kornilov would not have split the force, but too large a force was unwieldy and refusing to accept battle was timidity.

Both the 4th Deneb and the Eridani Light Horse had fought the Draconis Combine through centuries, and by now they were familiar with how they thought. The Combine thought in mythic terms, as if the whole of the Inner Sphere was a stage and each one had their role to play. Most were just chaff, incidental actors and background scenery, it was up to each one of them to achieve a starring role (often at someone else's expense).

Just outnumbering and encircling the defenders would have been fine, but that did not make for an interesting enough story. The glory that the commanders would achieve would be minimal. As Allwine admitted, this was similar to how on Hoff, the Kurita commander decided to ignore the Wolf's Dragoons and attack first after a soothsayer had promised him victory.

One would think that there would be no room for astrologers and mystics in a military campaign, but that was the inherent dichotomy of the Draconis Combine. Kaplan had to admit that the DCMS had some damn good individual soldiers ruined only by the rank ego and superstitiousness of their officers.

"I am Major Roland Kaplan of the Fourth Deneb Light Cavalry Regiment! Pyotr Kutuzov, I know you can hear me!" he shouted into an open channel. At the very least, everyone's battlerom would have it. "Is a fair fight the only thing you're scared of? Come on, you snakes! Let's dance!"

Unlike the Eridani Light Horse who cheated with Catapults and Archers that were just as fast as Medium Mechs, the two companies of 4th Deneb had to work to keep the enemy's attention on the chase. Kaplan's mechs moved in a loose formation that invited one on one duels.

They didn't need to pull the enemy away very far. Less than fifteen minutes later, the dry semi-desert of New Aberdeen showed a broad plume of dust coming from the horizon.

Just far enough that the Eridani Light Horse and 4th Deneb's combat vehicle complement could roll in from the flank. The Vedettes of ELH Bravo Company and DLC 3rd Armor Company now joined the fray.

Now Kaplan could almost hear the Kurita pilots scoff at their sensors reporting the approach of over two dozen Vedettes.

The quintessential medium tank all others were measured against, a Vedette weighed fifty tons but was only armed with a single AC/5 and a Machine Gun. This was an anemic warload in the thirtieth century, more proper to a tank or mech 25 tons lighter.

Even at those numbers they were underwhelming. A Vedette Medium Tank was not worth a mech - in fact a MechWarrior would consider it not worth even three for a mech - a well-piloted Light Mech could even just survive its fire long enough to step on them.

Their main advantage was that they were cheap and decently fast, able to keep up with medium mechs. They roared to contact in several dagger lines, tearing up the ground at over 80 kilometers per hour.

This disdain for the AC/5 was odd considering that an AC/5 was a Dragon's main gun as well, but it also had an LRM-10 to supplement long range fire, and a pair of Medium Lasers that never feared running out of ammo. It was an excellent close-range combatant. Kutuzov's Dragon led the charge.

"Is this it, you Davion dogs?!" Tai-sa Kutuzov spoke over comms. "Pathetic. You are not mechwarriors if you need to be rescued by some second-rate tanks! Enough running. Fight me now, cowards!"

Major Kaplan ordered his two companies to wheel about to fight. "This is far enough. Deneb Cavalry! Let's skin some snakes!"

Kutuzov detached two lances to screen against the incoming tanks and readied to duel the Davion mechs to their deaths. They would not accept surrender, he boasted. His ancestors would always look upon him with pride, but the Davions would know only weeping and disgrace, unworthy and craven from birth.

They were sons of the Dragon, and this was their story. It was the story of a warrior trampling upon the weak and the unworthy.

These eight mechs, mainly Jenners that were deadly with their four medium lasers and SRMs at close range, and led by Griffin, were excellent tank hunters.

The leader's PPC and the Autocannons on those Vedettes had the same effective range. As the dazzling blue lightning of the Griffin's PPC shrieked, a rolling boom of autocannon fire answered.

Shells ripped through the air, and the incoming Kurita mechs waded into that fusillade. Light Mechs running at full speed aiming to close the distance all staggered. For the sufficiently unlucky, blood painted the insides of cockpits.

The Eridani Light Horse had even ditched their Machine Gun ammo in order to load even more Armor Piercing ammunition for their Class-Five Autocannons.

The RNIK Death Egg could plunder nearby parallel dimensions for items to duplicate and ELH 19th Red Horse Regiment, Allwine "Neckbreakers" Battallion, had a hundred tons to share.

AP ammunition was not strictly a straight improvement, being twice as heavy with larger propellant load to compensate for the heavy tip in exchange for improved chance to punch through fresh armor. The heavier kick meant they were less accurate in a burst. In many ways they were more dangerous against tank armor, where a punch-through would rapidly disable or kill the crew, compared to mere equipment destruction or mostly harmless blow-through on a battlemech.

Having half as many rounds per ton was not worth it. The Inner Sphere had the ability to craft better ammunition for a long time now, but no one wanted to bother. Just shoot more at the enemy. More ammunition meant better battlefield longevity, as plenty of shots were likely to miss under combat conditions, mechs and tanks jinking this way and that.

But with this many guns concentrating fire against mere eight mechs-

It was like a farmer cutting through stalks of rice.

And now the ELH armor company had a clear run at the thinner rear armor of the 2nd Galedon troops already engaged with the 4th Deneb. Kutuzov could not even turn back in horror.

Roland Kaplan smiled as he drove his Dervish deep into the brawl. This was the story the 4th Deneb wanted to tell.

A tale of gung-ho idiots.

-.
-.

North of Conlan City
New Aberdeen

A loud cheery voice issued from the comms, drowning all used radio frequencies.

"How deede-ly do, bad neighborinos! Are these some snakes in the grass I see before me? Hellooo New Aberdeen! This is Raymond Allwine, Battalion commander of the Eridani Light Horse speaking! I can see you, Lavrenti Kornilov. I stand approximately twelve kilometers ahead of you. Maybe this would be a good-doodly-day to once more be reminded why House Kurita cowered before the SLDF. Dare you fight me in this death ground?"

Then he laughed. It was a strange canoodling sort of laugh.

Kuritan communications returned with angry retorts. "Honorless mercenary rat!" "You will die like the dog you are!" "Kurita banzai! Combine banzai!"

Kornilov only scowled in silence. In difficult ground, press on; In encircled ground, devise stratagems; In death ground, fight.

This was the wisdom of Sun Tzu, still valid after three thousand years, and studied well in all military schools of the Combine.

This was too obviously a scheme of the Light Horse. They had some sort of stratagem. Now that what had once been an overwhelming force had been cut in half to merely overpowering, they were promising to stop running and finally conclusively fight to the end.

That was probably a trick. Yet of course the DCMS would dare!

As the mechs closed in, Kornilov's sensors detected aircraft at long range. VTOLs. Petty white strings of LRM-5 volleys spun towards the 2nd Galedon on the heels of the Light Horse. Most of them misses, and those that didn't caused minimal armor loss.Those were probably some pathetic Warrior combat helicopters.

Useful, but rarely decisive against battlemechs. Their rotors could never be adequately armored and the need to fly sharply reduced their weapons load. Warrior VTOLs were skies' equivalent to the Quikscell Company's Scorpion Light Tank. Cheap and nearly useless by themselves, only threatening in great numbers - and the buyer will need those numbers, because they were that cheap and they were so thinly armored they were guaranteed to lose a great many of them.

Was that it?

No, he resolved. This was a distraction. A stupid distraction, but there had to be something else. Even if they were there to waste the time of any mechs aiming up to shoot at them it would still be a poor scheme. The Eridani Light Horse was no underfunded militia.

He scowled. This was disappointing of the Light Horse if that was all they had. With ten mech lances, he did not fear an ambush even by tanks.

As much as Kornilov wanted to accelerate and join the point of contact for combat, the leading line of light mech companies had stretched out enough distance between the center force composed mainly of medium missile mechs and Dragons and the trailing rear line of assault mechs and their Panther escort.

"Visual contact with enemy battle line!" the forward lances reported. "Heavy mechs! Led by a Battlemaster!"

Kornilov's heart sang. Finally!

The ELH Archers and Catapults slowed down and formed up to join the advancing lance. Three lances formed the Erdani battle line versus the ten (more like nine, after damage from the running battle) of the 2nd Galedon. The eight Super Urbanmechs screened the left side. It remained immensely frustrating that the ELH mechs were still mostly in shape, though not unscathed.

Fortunately it seemed that the Archers and Catapults had finally run out of ammo. They could only contribute their guns now.

No need for anything complicated. Just slam into them at speed and cut them down! Not even his troops could screw up something that simple. The flanks would care for themselves with this many mechs forming natural encirclement.

-.

And this was the time the Eridani Light Horse finally used their Arrow IVs.

Kornilov had almost forgotten that the ELH had them.

Eight missiles slammed into the ground between the forward and middle lines of the 2nd Galedon formation. But instead of artillery, the missiles on impact exploded into tall billowing columns of black smoke.

Despite themselves, the running Kurita mechs hesitated. The DCMS did not prize initiative in its low-ranked officers. Run through or not? Better wait for orders. Lance leaders waited a few priceless seconds for the company leaders to order them to rush through.

The forward line, with their sight lines unhindered, rushed ahead in full fervor.

This abruptly reminded him of the great shame of the Kurita family, the battle off Leyte between the IJN's Center Force and USN's Taffy 3. The commander of that fleet, aboard the mighty superbattleship Yamato herself, had been driven off by a bunch of destroyers and jeep carriers. Takeo Kurita's descendants spent a thousand years trying to expunge that shame.

If only he had dared. If only he had been willing enough to lose, he could have seen the illusion of the enemy's strength for what it was. The DCMS studied it to understand how nerve meant the difference between defeat and victory. Metal was nothing if the man was weak.

And once more, the forces of Kurita were being stymied by a smokescreen.

In those seconds, the forward lances exploded.

Kornilov had no idea what was happening, only that massive explosions were rippling ahead of them. Had the Light Horse set up a minefield? When? How?

Well behind the lines, after laying down pre-targeted kilometers-wide areas with obscurant, the eight Super Urbanmech Arrow IV artillery mechs now let loose their Arrow-IV Thunder scatterable mines.

Behind even them were two trucks with six individual command pods and extensive command and control facilities inside. They just happened to command and control drones.

Arrow IV artillery was dangerous, but in the end they were still only about two hundred kilograms of bang each. Even airburst cluster warheads had an effective kill radius of sixty meters.

The VTOLs that Kornilov had earlier dismissed as Warriors were actually RNIK Egg Flyer drones, twenty tons each, packing an LRM-5 for long-range harassment and a Medium Laser for close-in support. Piloted remotely, they had an effective control range of 80 kilometers and could serve as recon and light support with their top speed of 151 kph. Surprisingly, they were even fusion-powered - what many considered a waste of a Class-85 fusion engine in a chassis protected only by two and half-tons of armor.

The way the Eridani Light Horse operated in the Succession Wars was from a position of extreme scarcity. They had to carefully mitigate risk and conserve as much military hardware as possible. The DCMs preferred to spend men, and if enough died in exchange for good salvage, they would still come out ahead. The SLDF's philosophy was that it was always better to spend metal instead of men.

The Egg Flyer drones swooped down to every lance that was not sufficiently dispersed and exploded in the middle of them. Abruptly turning into an expanding globe of heavy shrapnel, the kamikaze drones meant that anything within 30 meters was just outright deleted from existence and anything inside a 180 meters-wide sphere was just dead or heavily damaged.

The Death Egg considered them "Urbanmech enough" for some reason to produce, the same as the Urbanite Ultralight Mechs. The ELH would never run out of these type of disposable remote control drones.

Within those three and a half seconds of hesitation, eight explosive drones removed six lances of the 2nd Galedons forward battle line. Mechs bravely running through the smoke ran into the fresh minefield.

"Minefield! Minefield!" Kornilov heard one of the forward elements screaming in panic. "Their missiles can lay down minefields!"

'More damn lostech!' Kornilov cursed silently.

Then moments later only the sounds of PPC fire and more explosions. Firecracker-like bangs announced airburst artillery shells, dropping bomblets that were more likely to hit battlemech heads (and thus increased chances to breach through to the pilot within) compared to ground-contact high explosive shells.

The Kuritan general was struck numb with indecision. The last he had seen, the ELH battle line was weak to the right. But that was also predictable. Super Urbanmechs were fast enough to move flanks in that time.

Radar of course still worked through smoke. But without visual sensors to aid in identification, Super Urbanmech ECM blocked any information from passing through.

Left or right? Or wait for the smoke to dissipate?

Until he could make a decision, the entire battle group was actually paralyzed in place. He snarled and ordered "Right!"

More airburst bomblets bloomed overhead in the few moments while he reached a decision. No more time to think - just run! Mitigate artillery damage by simple speed and dispersal!

He ordered the Panthers to push through the smoke and report, while the pair of Assault Mechs and Trebuchets remained in reserve, following close by as he rushed to the right flank with his Dragons.

The smoke was there to make it difficult to know tell the mines landed, he was sure now! It was unlikely for the trailing edges of the smoke line to be mined. He only needed to move a little further and then push through.

As Kornilov finally made visual contact with Allwine's battle line, there was only joy in his face. Finally, an enemy he could shoot at!

He never saw the six Super Urbanmechs moving through the smoke cover, the Kuritan mechwarriors ignoring the unfamiliar warning buzz as they sighted but did not fire anything recognizable as a weapon.

It would prove to be a mistake.

TAG lasers worked through smoke because they communicated via microwave from the TAG-carrying battlemech's targeting sensors to the inbound missile. With the same effective range as a Large Laser, this put those daring light mechs well within danger range of return fire from the Stalker. If only that Assault Mech turned around.

Seconds later, it no longer mattered.

But even with more explosions erupting behind him, Kornilov could no longer spare any attention to the rest of his regiment.

He had Raymond Allwine's lance in front of him; seeing them cutting down his Panthers with massed laser fire from Archers and Flashmans, striking well beyond what should have been possible. Kuritan pilots were known for making a light mech act like an extension of their body, slipping away from weapons fire, turning combat almost into a deadly dance. None of that helped them now.

"Honorless cur!" Kornilov screamed at the enemy.

Then for a moment he paused again.

That Battlemaster was running pace with the other heavy mechs. Heavy mechs that had been demonstrated to have the speed and maneuverability of mediums.

A Battlemaster was an assault mech that weighed eighty-five tons.

The 2nd Galedon had split their force again, so that now it was three lances versus two. Now the Eridani Light Horse outnumbered the enemy, as was right and proper SLDF doctrine.

"Hi diddly ho, snakey boyos," spoke Raymond Allwine. "Time to die."

Lavrenti Kornilov let out a guttural roar full of hate and spite. He was still a general of the Draconis Combine! A samurai! As long as he could take down the enemy with him - as long as he could trade his life for the enemy - he could still win!

As long as he lived, he could make a fight of it -

Allwine raised his Battlemaster's right hand, and pointed a weapon that never existed within the timeline of this dimension. To make room for the Command Console, his command mech had to sacrifice all other weapons than the one on its right arm.

Shrak! Shrak! Shrak!

A rapid burst of PPC bolts slapped against the body of Kornilov's mech.

"What-"

As the rest of the heavy lance engaged, throwing bolts and beams downrange, Kornilov's mech kept going and was ignored by the others. It also turned out that the Archers and Catapults had not entirely run out of ammo, but had reserved some volleys for this final confrontation. For a moment the Kuritan general exulted. This at least was a proper duel, and he -

Shrak! Shrak! Shrak!

Again with the PPCs firing in quick succession as if it were an autocannon or something. His Dragon flinched back from the combined kinetic and thermal damage as if an animal wincing in pain. His autocannon returned with snap fire in vain against that weight of assault mech armor, but -

Shrak! Shrak! Shrak!

His cockpit blared with warnings about armor loss.

"What is happening-?" How did everything lead to this?

SLDF doctrine had always been about having as many options as possible. The Draconis Combine had welded itself culturally into the doctrine of all-out-attack to achieve local force superiority and crush the enemy in the decisive battle.

Superior technology and firepower was not enough to win battles.

But they sure helped.

Shrak! Shrak! Shrak!

"What-"

In his confusion, only that word kept repeating in his mind until the armor was breached and his reactor lost containment. Thoughts of ejection never entered the ruddy fog of his mind until it was too late. He died never knowing about the Rotary Light PPC.


-.
-.


Ehrenburg Firebase
Near The Firth
New Aberdeen

Yasneyev Georgi zoomed in with his mech's secondary cameras at a group of infantry. They had anti-mech SRM launchers but were pointed away from the Kurita mechs. They looked up at the ridges and the open field beyond the valley, anywhere but the Kurita mechs.

Troops on perimeter patrol marched crisply and with purpose, with minimal waste of energy. They were tense, but motivated.

Too motivated.

He sucked in his breath as he realized what had been screaming wrongness into his subconscious thus far. Kuritan infantry, long the much abused child of the DCMS, never exhibited initiative. Discipline in the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery meant brutal suppression of any disobedient individual thought. These infantry did not exhibit the any of the expected battle-worn malaise of a battalion so beaten down to the dregs they feared the open sky.

The Overlord Dropship powered up.

"It's a trap!" Georgi screamed as he fired upon the mechs in front.

The Spider from before dived and then scampered for cover behind the standing lances of Kurita mechs. Most of them were merely unpiloted shells, too damaged inside to repair. The three that were still usable, fired back a single volley and similarly scooted for cover.

Then then Overlord's many guns slammed into Georgi. LRMs, PPCs, autocannons, lasers; his Dragon was just cut in half. Half-melted pieces scraped against the armor of the stunned bodyguard mechs around him.

Over the weeks, although Badnik Company could savage the 2nd Galedon's 3rd Battalion out in the open, the base and the Overlord was not something they could crack with their light mechs.

In many ways, a Light Horse regiment or Davion RCT was weaker than a standard Kurita regiment. They wasted transport tons on infantry and vehicles that could have been more Battlemechs instead. A Light Horse regiment was pathetic by DCMS standards, lacking sheer concentration of force and can only harass and run and prefer to fight enemies that they could outweigh.

Allwine Battalion wasted valuable dropship carry capacity on sixteen APCs, with only one battlemech company instead of normally three in a battalion.

But there was one thing a mechanized infantry company could do that a mech-heavy force could not.

Assault and seize dropships with their hundred twenty men.

Barbara's Badnik Company had weeks to listen in and decrypt Kurita transmissions with their Super Comms Guard Urbanmechs. A microdrone slipped in to physically tap the electrical lines of the base to turn them into receivers, while other stealthed recon drones recorded all happenings. The ELH didn't even question how the communication systems could imitate voices with enough sampling. That was just the sort of technological wizardy the SLDF used to be capable of, they reckoned.

Now disc-shaped things flung themselves into the sky from behind the ridgeline. Land-Air-Mechs were normally easy prey for ASFs. They were barely air-to-air maneuverable. The pair of Kurita ASFs circling overhead tried to outmaneuver at least a dozen ADA Arrow missiles from Super Urbanmech AIV and eight Urbanmech LAM's Air-to-Air Arrow IVs fired from their two internal bomb bays.

They failed. The Kurita fighters dropped as flaming wreckage into the confused mill of Georgi company.

Arrows and PPCs rained down from the ridge and Inferno SRMs streaked up from the trenches. The Urbanmech LAMs landed to sling more ER Laser Laser fire along the path of retreat.

More Mechs powered up from reactor shutdown behind false, magscan shielded cover. Allwine Battalion had landed with what looked to be utility industrialmechs, 15 tons each packed among cargo. With arms capable of hauling ammo bins and reloading missile cells, it was not unusual to see twenty of them working around a base.

It was just that they also happened to have ER Large Lasers for faces.

Barbara Mosley cackled like some some demented coyote as the Dragons all burned in a web of her own making.

The Eridani Light Horse had taken over the Overlord Dropship Bialistock DAYS AGO.

-.
-.

Elsewhere in the skies, 4th Deneb fighters had finally baited the 2nd Galedon fighters into the range of air defense artillery. Flak and ground-to-air missiles slapped them out of the sky. The plan had always been to allow the 2nd Galedon to land. Now that those dropships were landed, the main thing was to keep them from leaving.

Overlords were quite valuable prizes.

Barbara Mosley would then be allowed to paint three Overlord or cracked eggs dropship kill/capture tallies on her mech, right next to the black spider. The legend of the donkey's behind grew, to her continuing consternation.

"UNICOOOORRRNNN!!!"

"Bad-ass."

-.
-.

But what about Epsilon Regiment and the rest of the 4th Deneb?

Kaplan had no confidence that two Deneb battalions versus Wolf's Dragoons' heavyweight Epsilon Regiment would fare as well, no matter what trickery in place. The Eridani Light Horse's 21st Strikers mediumweight regiment had another thing going for them entirely.

 

Ehh, screw it.



Or if you like all-laser loadout:

This was inevitable.

 

We have been calling it the Super Urbanmech for long yet only now do we do this.

 

The World Egg 01



Colchester
Crucis March
Federated Suns
16 February 3025

Seen one military base, seen them all. Natasha Kerensky walked through the base up to the second floor of a prefab. Guards were posted at regular intervals, enough that she didn't need an active armed escort. She did still have a guide though.

Natasha Kerensky had never been intimidated nor impressed meeting with any of the Inner's Sphere's ruling nobility or their generals. Fortunately such encounters were also rare unless she was shooting at them. Her uncompromising punk rock aesthetic compromised nowhere, not even in the middle of grand ballrooms and dining halls.

In the Clan homeworlds, she had continually been passed for bids simply because she was too good of a pilot. Natasha Kerensky was the only bloodnamed warrior to volunteer for this effort of infiltrating the Inner Sphere. The Clans saw the Inner Sphere ruled by their carrion lords as weak, degenerate, and corrupting. Ironic, she thought - now that she had come to live in the Inner Sphere for a decade, she could see just how much bigger yet oddly limited was the thinking of the Lords. In the Inner Sphere of a thousand worlds, they did not need to manufacture reasons to make war a constant and admirable state of being. In the homeworlds, she was being held back due to jealousy by her superiors. For all the martial advantages that their genetic selection and iron wombs may claim to give, Natasha could see now that the Clans never thought beyond the next few fights.

In the Inner Sphere, everybody was born through natural means, so she only had to deal with stupid archaic nonsense somehow that being a woman meant she was less of a warrior. But once inside a mech, nothing in the meat mattered except the will, the skill, and the ability to endure. She stared back evenly, noting the mild displeasure on Armstrong's relatively young face. She did come close to wiping out Stedman's company after all, she supposed. The Eridani Light Horse were good, but not that good.

Surprisingly, Natasha felt no anger at Barbara Mosley for… not being able to give as good as she gotten? Been got? Natasha sniffed. Mosley had made it clear that it was a battle of *systems*, and the ELH was fighting in a way that made simple tonnage less relevant. Only time would tell if that would hold true, as there were many out there who could scoff at the notion of a technological advantage.

"The right man at the right place is worth a hundred men out of position," she heard from a little lower beside her.

She looked down towards the young teenage boy in a ELH cadet dress uniform walking beside her. The boy held a smug 'That was what you were thinking of, right?' look on his face.

"Do you just randomly burst out aphorisms?" she asked with another disdainful sniff.

"Yes," was the simple reply.

Natasha abruptly felt that talking to this kid would be like talking to a brick wall. In those gray eyes there was the surety of a zealot and the confidence of the utterly ignorant.

Soon enough they were at the door to the brigade commander's office. "Cadet Devlin Stone! Presenting Captain Natasha Kerensky, as ordered, sir!"

"At ease." Nathan Armstrong gestured to a chair. "Please sit."

Natasha sat down while Cadet Stone stood off to the side in a parade rest. She faced Armstrong with all the calm reticence of… a stone, some might say.

After a while, the general sighed. "I would like to say that it's an honor, but we both would rather prefer if this whole thing didn't have happen."

Natasha made no response.

"Some believe that prisoners of war have a duty to escape, if not at least to make life more difficult for their captors. It would be… unproductive… for both the Light Horse and the Dragoons if you tried something pointless like that. Are we going to have that problem, Natasha Kerensky?"

Natasha replied "Not as for as long as you work to get us returned to Wolf's Dragoons as soon as possible."

"Very good. Thank you. Before we begin – you mentioned something about Mosley accepting the Black Widows Company as her bondmen. What does that mean?"

"Nothing," Natasha replied with cool confidence. "That is just the concussion talking. I may have completely forgotten about the word for 'guarantor'."

"Bonds as in bail, right? A bondsman is someone that acts as surety to the court that the prisoner will not escape. That sounds… likely."

Natasha nodded.

"Technically it should be Mosley that should be the bondsman, isn't that right?"

Natasha shrugged minutely. "Well if she were ever my bondswoman I would make sure to treat her nicely, you do not have to worry about that." That feeling of strong and sure death at the time now mystified her. There was nothing special about Barbara Mosley. She had for the moment felt that the whole universe turned around herself and agreed that if she ever had the best time to die, it would have been in that moment.

"Mmm." Armstrong leaned back on his chair. "Well, getting you back to the Dragoons might take some time. We know how far Wolf's Dragoons will go to make sure no one tries to take their people hostage again. This is not that situation.

"However, while the death of Anton Marik might say that even the main line of Great Houses are not safe from the Dragoons' revenge… look, the Draconis Combine and House Kurita are not going to care. This is why we are effectively insulating both House Davion and House Kurita from the equation. We will hand Dragoons POWs off to Jaime Wolf, personally, on our own ships and down to our own vehicles on the tarmac, on a neutral world.

"You have more to fear from the ISF trying to assassinate you to weaken the Dragoons. If they cannot have you, they will just kill you to deny you to their enemies. Their collective ego will not allow being made to look weak and dependent on mere mercenaries. This is no conjecture. This is an inevitability."

Armstrong then shook his head sadly. "You should have interacted with enough of their officers by now – anything they can't reconcile to their world-view that leads to their inevitable domination of the Inner Sphere, they will just reject. Individuals can have honor in the Combine, but the Combine itself is built on devouring anything in its reach. It knows neither mercy nor compunction."

"Is House Davion actually any better? Is any House any better?" Kerensky replied. "The business of the mercenary comes from their constant need to take worlds and avenge insults. The fact that House Kurita seeks to conquer on basis on strength alone is no different from the justifications of anyone else on supposed moral grounds."

Armstrong snapped his fingers and pointed at Devlin Stone.

The boy responded "Very few polities are known for having such a deep record of playing fuck-fuck games as House Kurita. You should really know better than to expect anything different to come out of mountains of prior evidence."

By the grimace on Armstrong's face, he had expected something different. Perhaps a trite slogan masquerading as wisdom or something.

"Fine. Be that as it may, it is not as if Colonel Wolf is unaware of this. Is that all you wanted to say?"

"No. Natasha Kerensky, are you really prepared to just sit for months in a jail cell? Your men could return to the Dragoons as soon as they are able, but you – we would prefer to actually keep you."

Natasha's eyes narrowed dangerously.

He quickly added "For at least three months. The SLDF initiated the Gunslinger program in the hidden yet frantic realization that their pilots were not actually better than the mechwarriors of House Kurita, and in fact in duels were at best able to maintain an even tie. We want that. We would like to run a Gunslinger Program of our own to crash-train our recruits to a high level of skill… and it just so happened that someone known for training up a random bunch of rejects into an elite fighting company fell into our hands. There is no better possibility for an opfor trainer in the entire Inner Sphere.

"We already know that the Wolf's Dragoons are training a Kuritan regiment that could fight flexibly in their way, the Ryuken.

"Natasha Kerensky, if you would give your sworn word not to try to break parole, it would be better for all of us if you didn't just waste weeks or months away in a jail cell writing your memoirs or something. We would pay you and your company by the same rates as the Dragoons during this time, and we would expedite getting your crew back home if you can give us those three months. We may be opponents here, but we are not exactly enemies."

Natasha furrowed her brows. The ELH were offering her a way out of the hell of being benched again. That was an interesting proposal, but it might look badly upon the Dragoons if it got back to House Kurita. Being paid of it also added the smell of treason. She shook and her head and prepared to refuse.

Nathan Armstrong clasped both palms together into a single fist and leaned on his elbows on the table. "Think of it this way – when, not if, WHEN the Combine finally betrays you and tries to strike at your dependents, there is a force that can appear just suddenly somewhere else to relieve the pressure. Don't count on Davion to swoop in past the border and play the hero, in the end Davion only plays to their own interests. We just have a deep personal grudge against the Draconis Combine. We believe that the fall of the Star League and the death of the Terran Hegemony can directly be blamed on House Kurita. House Kurita had always worked to destabilize the Star League as force that as much as it brought peace and progress to the rest of the Inner Sphere, stymied their ambitions to supremacy.

"When the Usurper took Terra, Minoru Kurita refused to allow the SLDF to use worlds as bases of operations to shorted the war. He refused personally a request by Colonel Bradley, of the 3^rd Regimental Combat Team, for us to do so. We have a strong suspicion that it was a member of the ISF that tipped off the plans our 19th Striker Regiment, leading to the loss of that regiment that we mourn even today."

He glanced aside for a moment. "Stone?"

The boy coughed into his fist and recited:

"From the personal diary of Takiro Kurita, entry dated June 2751 -

My private audience with General Aleksandr Kerensky
did not turn out exactly as I had hoped. He refused to stop
his military maneuvers near Luthien. This displeases me
much, and so I have ordered as many ISF agents as can be
spared to infiltrate the Regular Army. We must have an
earlier warning the next time General Kerensky decides to
try to bully the Draconis Combine. Not only will he fail to get
his way, but his military exercises might have to be
postponed in favor of defending his very life.

Why so many people are so pleased to hear that he
has been appointed Regent and Protector is mystery. He is
a soldier. An excellent one, true, but a soldier nevertheless.
It is doubtful that he will stray too far from what Simon
Cameron would have wished. If he were truly as good as
everyone claims, he would take his power as Regent and
rule as First Lord until the boy Richard comes of age.

Even now, it seems that the young Cameron lacks the
inner authority to rule effectively-not ten years from now,
not twenty, not thirty years from now. We will have no choice
but to gut the Star League once and for all."

For a moment, Natasha Kerensky's eyes burned at the insults and the easy threat of ambush and assassination against The Great Father her namesake.

Nathan Armstrong continued "We think that the Combine is a brittle society that pretends to strength – when faced with something that can outfight the way they spend lives on the battlefield, they will shatter. They are a drawn sword extended as far as it possibly can – any more and they will just expose their own throat to the enemy."

Natasha Kerensky treated his grandiose words with something akin to pity "And what are aiming to accomplish with three regiments? I respect that the Eridani Light Horse are excellent at war, but you are still just a Light Horse Regiment. No matter how much you want to wound House Kurita -"

"Five. We have the men and materiel to build up five regiments, right now. We can go as far as we can with only three Light Horse Regiments because we spend careful time training our men, but we don't exactly have a way to crash-train troops to a high level without removing troops from the operational tempo. As I said before, we have the means, what we don't have is a challenging enough OPFOR, and we are not insane like Kurita to go for live-fire training campaign like what they did with the Second Galedon on New Aberdeen."

Armstrong gestured to the map of the Inner Sphere, and its four large quadrants with the tail of House Liao below, which had roughly remained the same for half a millennium, half of humanity's history in space. "House Kurita is large and strong, but because of that they have shatterpoints. One of these days House Kurita is going to provoke us enough that we might just end up doing our own version of MacCarron's Long March on the way to Luthien."

A small smile graced Natasha Kerensky lips. Well then! If only she had known earlier that the Eridani Light Horse actually had the balls to be more than setpiece soldiers, seemingly moved without their own will by the House Lords they served. They liked to pretend to be the most studious of soldiers, more like actors in a play than warriors, holding respect and fealty to a flag they never really knew or experienced.

They were just castoffs of the Star League, not Children of Kerensky.

But if they were actually like this in the privacy of their own home, that was respectable. A warrior needed drive to live as much a mech needed the heat of born starfire within its fusion engine.

Armstrong continued "But of course, as you are a POW, being given access to live mechs and ammunition comes with some conditions."

"Tch. I understand." Natasha uncrossed her arms. "What else do you want? You will not attempt to get any information about the Dragoons from me, or the whole thing is off. Immediately I will stop the first time this happens."

"Please give some latitude to stupid soldiers and scuttlebutt, but we will be assigning minders for that exact purpose. You should not be bothered unnecessarily. As much as you might not care to trust these words, we of the Eridani Light Horse don't actually care about Wolf's Dragoon's inner workings or their mysterious source of supplies."

Stone, behind Kerensky, fluttered his fingers and made "woo-eee-wooo" noises.

Armstrong gave him a scathing glare. The boy stood back into attention "Apologies, sir!"

The general turned back to Kerensky and with a much put-upon tone added "We would like to have your lessons plans repeatable and testable, so as much as possible we would like to have it done that a child could understand them. So to fill out your company, we will be assigning you a lance of… almost literal children, to prove the methodology starting from practically nothing."

Natasha's eye narrowed again. That was close enough to sibko training that it was doable, and guaranteed a hassle.

Armstrong gestured with his left hand "You get Stone as your permanent adjutant while under ELH custody. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience."

The boy raised his hand, arm up straight and rigid as post, like a student eagerly asking to be called up "I am Combat Ready!"

Armstrong closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened them again, showing only the tiredness of command. "If nothing else, Natasha Kerensky, you are dismissed. You may confer with your troops and visit the medical section if you wish." He looked over Natasha's shoulder again and rubbed at bridge of his nose. "And Stone…? Go away and go adjute."

Devlin Stone thumped his right fist to his left chest in a Roman salute. "BY YOUR COMMAND!"

Natasha Kerensky leaned back and her expression buckled. Were the Eridani Light Horse actually like this? Is this actually their own great big secret?

---------


Harrow's Sun
Draconis March
04 March 3025

While the Second Galedon were predicted to be landing on New Aberdeen, despite their relative proximity of a single Jump to Harrow's Sun from Misery, the Epsilon Regiment had delayed their assault by several days from simultaneous assault. This was enough time to affect some repairs to damages suffered by Charlie Battallion on New Aberdeen and to meet with the command staff to mull over what new tactics to expect from the Eridani Light Horse.

If the ELH were in a position to reinforce New Aberdeen, then of course they also have the time window to deliver forces to Harrow's Sun.

Epsilon Regiment was one of the Wolf's Dragoon's crack frontline regiments, and while the 4^th Deneb was a fighter-heavy regiment supported by AFFS fighters on a moon base, the Dragoons carried with them two Overlord-class Dropships – the Hawken and the Ise, a Fortress-class – the Osu, and three Union-class DropShips – the Hebrides, the Sunniva, and the Mt. Suribachi, all on one Star Lord-class JumpShip. An Invader-class JumpShip with a two Titans and a Mule lent from the Dragoons' naval support contingent rounded out the force.

All combined with their ASF bays and strong armor and weaponry, this was a powerful force that could easily punch through or eliminate entirely wings of defensive fighters and land anywhere they wished. Despite the size of the force, this was a regimental scale raid aiming to destroy or salvage as much of the military infrastructure as possible to weaken the way for a later invasion by the Combine. At the very least, that AFFS aerospace base on Bane would need to be leveled utterly and their two wings of fighters eradicated.

Civilian jumpships nervously tried to look innocuous or hurried their charging under the shadow of this naked military power. DropShips on approach to the zenith jump point urgently declared their status as harmless non-combatants. They kept these messages on a loop.

Onboard the Star Lord-class JumpShip, Dragoons astrogation monitored all system traffic. Unlike the vastness of space and the random emergence points of JumpShips, it was easy to pinpoint a world and notice orbital activity around it. The interaction of light, radiation, and EM signatures revealed significant large masses in between the world of Harrow's Sun and its two moons Boon and Bane.

"There are ships around the planet, sir," the JumpShip Captain reported to Colonel Arthbutnot. "At first we thought they were more fighter-carrier dropships, but spectral analysis shows they're fully-loaded JumpShips. High possibility Star Lord and three Merchants. Someone did a jump into a pirate point."

"Impressive. But unnecessary!" replied Arthbutnot. "They already had a week's advantage over us, their carriers could have reached the world well before we arrived." He adjusted his eyeglasses and smiled toothily. "If the ponies did manage to bring more fighters, well then gentlemen and ladies- we have a good fight of it!"

 

The World Egg 02



New Avalon
Crucis March
Federated Suns
17 March 3025


Ardan Sortek normally by this time would be considering resigning from the Davion Heavy Guards into command of a more deployable frontline force. Knowing about Liao's inbound perfidy, he still wanted to move his command towards the Capellan March, but that was Duke Hasek-Davion's territory. He was a sword, he supposed – and Hanse was a dagger – and it helped them none for him to be in disgust at the self-serving politics of court then only to move towards a region that needed political as much as military finesse. He no longer had the excuse of randomly flailing around trying to escape from politics would help things.

Michael Hasek-Davion was extremely popular in the Capellan March as the stalwart defender against House Liao, and Hanse Davion a far removed ruler more concerned with the closer Draconis March. Were it not for Duke Hasek-Davion, the Capellan March would get the dregs of support from the AFFS. The notion that he might be conspiring with Maximilian Liao for grand treason was unthinkable. Therefore, any orders that came from Hasek-Davion's hands had to be carefully viewed for what was beneath the underneath. Ardan's skull already ached well in advance trying to imagine working for someone that actively yet subtly wanted you dead.

But because the Draconis Combine was in truth the much larger threat, the Davion Heavy Guards could not be so easily deployed. Maximilian Liao had been counting on his obvious dissatisfaction with being on New Avalon to trigger the plot to discredit him as delusional in the event of OPERATION DOPPELGANGER.

He and Quintus Allard had been considering doing this anyway – that is, go to the Capellan border and fight, not to allow Hanse to be replaced - because otherwise Michael Hasek-Davion would have free reign over the deployment and spin any losses as a lack of support from New Avalon.

Once more, Ardan wondered- why can't people who have all the power and privilege just be content? What is more that they need that they would entertain treason and murder and kinslaying just to be able to wear the crown? Does Michael really think he could do a better job than Hanse, after betraying the people of the Federated Suns to its ancestral enemies? What could make all this waste worth it?

Hanse being replaced and interrogated was no longer an option due to the extremely sensitive information he now possessed regarding the possible return of the SLDF.

The Eridani Light Horse's Wandering Horse was of no help, they had already given their warning and Davion intelligence could not be so incompetent to fail to follow through. Only Hanse Davion could decide this, the ELH had no business butting in any further without overstepping their boundaries as retainers.

Ardan supposed that they were more concerned with House Kurita and Wolf's Dragoons. That was fine. That was part of the reason he had been drilling his regiment of the Royal Guards in formations that imitated the Dragoons.

In a conversation with Ren Felsner, the actual Field Marshal in command over the entire Davion Royal Brigade of Guards and known for his unorthodox strategies, it was suggested that part of the reason that the Dragoons get so far is that they are a Dragoons regiment with a heavy concentration of force. They break their opponent's will to fight sooner than the weight of numbers could matter.

When directly asked by Sortek what he felt about other mercenaries like the Eridani Light Horse, Felsner admitted that he didn't see much to admire about mercenaries in general, though he supposed that the difference was that an old-model RCT like theirs - that mixed combined arms within a regiment instead of separate mech, armor, infantry and air regiments - could move and be deployed faster. If you only had a regiment in situ to work with, then they were of course more flexible.

But they did nothing all that new. The SLDF was good, but one had to remember that the Star League came about as an alternative to the Age of War before it – the Federated Suns too had been fighting for almost a thousand years by now. There was nothing inherently special about SLDF doctrine, it was their wealth of resources and the decisiveness by which they applied it that mattered.

The Dragoons were good, but throw an entire RCT at them, he still put his faith in the Davion Guards. The Eridani Light Horse? They were impressive mainly in how they could do so much with so little.

"In a straight fight, I wouldn't hesitate to match a good Davion regiment against anyone," Felsner finished.

That was not as comforting to Sortek as he had hoped.

Then rumor came down that the Eridani Light Horse had beaten the entire 2nd Galedon Regulars and the entire Wolf's Dragoons Epsilon regiment with minimal losses and that was even more disturbing. That was mind-boggling levels of improvement compared to their mauling on Hoff when they first matched against the Dragoons. He would not so candidly imagine even the Heavy Guards to get through without sustaining appreciable losses. Was there something that the AFFS could use? The ELH had already given up so much, why should they be expected to share even more of their doctrine?

Yet if they didn't in order to keep their advantages, was not that a hint that they expected they might have to turn against their patrons in the future?

Then he got personally got word from Hanse that Nathan Armstrong had requested another audience.

While not as giddy as Hanse, he wondered what the SLDF was up to today.

--
--

"You beautiful person! You bunch of magnificent equus!" Hanse bellowed as Nathan Armstrong entered the room. "I heard what you did! How I wish I could hear Takashi Kurita howl!"

Armstrong nodded gracefully and inserted a holotape into the waiting projector. "Thank you. But it was not just us, it was in cooperation with the 4th Deneb and our 21st Striker Regiment. We can't do that too often."

"Why not?"

The holo showed a model of the Scout II JumpShip paired with two Dictator-class spheroid DropShips. "Because our jumpships look too much like penises as it is."

"But… all jumpships already all look like penises," Ardan mumbled, then slapped his face as he realized what he was saying. Objectively true, and yet…

Hanse chortled. Ah, how they did not disappoint. The ELH's non-sequitur ways of avoiding answering a question about their real capabilities had an almost comedic timing. Did they practice this?

The First Prince of the Federated Suns lounged back on his chair, years of stress melting off his face. "So, you mentioned you wanted something? Removing two regiments from House Kurita is a significant contribution, they only have around eighty of them."

Ardan wondered if Hanse was trying to downplay it to remind the ELH to maintain a humble big picture mindset, or if it really was that significant. Like a leaky dam, the collapse always starts with something small and untreated.

Armstrong nodded, apparently not offended at all. "That is why I am here to ask about how we… or you… are doing with those Scout II jumpship plans. We also want to buy up as many DroST hulls we can get."

"Drost? The DropShip-Tank?" Ardan echoed. "Aren't they obsolete?" The DroST was a line of vehicles that were a precursor to modern dedicated military DropShips. They were capable of landing and taking off vertically due to large fusion thrusters on pivoting wing assemblies, but those same assemblies also made them more complicated and vulnerable in combat. They were now mainly produced as civilian transports instead of hauling tanks and infantry as the SLDF originally intended. "I suppose they are six thousand tons compared to a Leopard's one thousand nine hundred, if you ever need to haul something with an aerodyne."

He glanced towards the image on the holo, and his eyes widened. "Wait, do you mean to turn them into Assault DropShips too?" That was the sort of extensive rebuild that takes shipyards years to accomplish! It would often be faster to purpose-build something based on a more modern hull, like Avenger or the Achilles; the latter which at 4500 tons and a safe thrust of 4 gravities was the closest thing to a WarShip that Inner Sphere still possessed.

"Done," said Hanse. "But I have a feeling this isn't what you came here for. You could just easily posted this on official channels. What do you really want that only my authority as First Prince could give you?"

"Indeed. As you should have already been informed, we are expanding our force first to four regiments, then five. Personnel is an issue. But we cannot just simply start recruiting drives for mercenaries and volunteers again. This will only fill up the needs for the short term, we need a sustainable in-house source of replacement and reinforcement," said Armstrong.

"Mmm. So what are you proposing?"

Armstrong made the holo show the Federated Suns territories, and the large rear region that was mostly undeveloped and undefended. "Two things. First – we heard about the problem with your Vagabond Schools – those repurposed freighters that travel to the Outback where the educational facilities and standards are so poor that it is more worthwhile to pack up a region's 12-to-13 year old youths to a JumpShip and study there for nine months of intensive education. The problem is that they are so old that these JumpShips are so old that they can't even be used for freighter duties, and they are prone to deadly accidents. And that you only have ten of them to serve scores, if not hundreds of worlds."

"Yes. If the Federated Suns were a military dictatorship, an uneducated citizenry would be beneficial. But we are just starved to address the needs of the Ministry of Education. You are right to presume that this is a JumpShip capacity problem – we can only do so much to spread around our limited number of teachers, and without enough jumpships educational and employment opportunities of even the most promising youths left undiscovered and limited to their backwater of a world." Hanse rubbed at his nose. "Are you proposing we start filtering new Scout IIs first into the Vagabond schools? I agree that they have a bigger, more comfortable grav deck and they seem built to serve long-duration independent cruises. We haven't even started trying to remake Merchants into Scout II lines though."

"The first and second requests I have are related to this issue. This is actually suggested by my wife, who is the head of our civilian division. If the Eridani Light Horse are no longer content to hide our light under a bushel, then it stands to reason that we ought to meaningfully help make the Inner Sphere better, not just slowing its bleeding out by fighting and killing. Be like vitamins instead of just antibodies. Therefore Eridani Light Horse would like to contribute JumpShips to this endeavor. You just supply the DropShips and the teachers."

"Wait. Contribute?" Ardan held up his hand. "Where are you even getting those ships? Do you mean… it's done?! You have been reinforced?!"

Armstrong clapped his palms together and bowed. "Greetings and salutations from the Declan Blacksite. It is live. If you send anyone to snoop over there, they will die. Thank you for your generous cooperation, my lord Davion."

"Heh. Who actually is the one that pays in this relationship? But if you're willing to do this, obviously there is a string attached. Out with it, man!" Hanse gestured snappily.

Armstrong shrugged helplessly. "Well you how the Eridani Light Horse's reverence for the Star League and styling ourselves as its legitimate remnants can be called costume play or even cult-like by some-"

"Hah. Are you supposed to just say that?" Hanse snorted with amusement.

Armstrong continued "We would like to start recruiting efforts under the banner of the Star League and with all the rights normally enjoyed by the SLDF. Namely, that each ELH JumpShip or installation counts as independent territory and consulate, and that once people sign up to the Eridani Light Horse they surrender ties to their former nation and citizenship and accept the authority of the SLDF in primacy over their lives and livelihood above all else for the duration of their enlistment."

Hanse pointed "Ahaha. Ha. That is big. It is a magnificently huge favor you are asking compared to just some ships. You know I cannot simply cast aside citizenship of the people of the Federated Sons. It would be tantamount to having a potentially hostile nation inside my borders." It was a testament to just how much Hanse was delighted by the Light Horse's actions that he did not take it as an insult.

Armstrong shrugged. "More like an enclave. It is not as if this is new. This was how the SLDF and the Star League operated before."

Hanse jabbed his finger with each point "But the difference is that the Star League is gone and you are not actually the SLDF, and if even so we would need renegotiate the whole thing instead of proceeding from expired agreements with a dead polity, and most importantly - you are still under the employment of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns."

Armstrong nodded. "Yes. Which is why we would only be recruiting under the name of the Eridani Light Horse and associated support services for now. The primacy of mutually equivalent SLDF law which inside these territories, and a process of extradition for what breaks the laws of the Federated Suns. Those who seek political asylum may find a place here. Nothing in force just of yet, but maybe eventually dual citizenship?"

Hanse smirked and leaned his chin on his wrists. "Oh? Dual citizenship with *what*, I dare ask."

Armstrong shrugged again. "If I say 'Terran Hegemony'" here he made air quotes "then Comstar would start screaming like lunatics."

"They're not the only ones with a reason to be unnerved at hearing that!"

-.
-.

WDS HAWKEN
Harrow's Sun
Draconis March
07 March 3025

The Dragoon's Epsilon Regiment combined naval force was about halfway to Harrow's Sun II. The captain of the WDS HAWKEN reported to Arthbutnot "Sir, we have drive signatures. Sensors report what may be a Vengeance escorted by two lighter dropships, possibly Avengers or Leopards, coming from the moon named Bane. And from the pirate point – four dropships, possibly Overlord-class. Approach velocity one point five gee, intercept in two days, six hours."

The colonel frowned. After the initial hail by the ELH commander in the system, Charles Winston of the 21st Strikers for the Dragoons to "cease their attack, turn around, and leave" which he had summarily ignored, there had been no communications.

The AFFS had two fighter wings on Deneb, which meant two 20-unit groups, or enough to support being a regimental wing for an RCT and one for the home guard. The Dragoons had brought three wings into this fight.

Unless the ELH brought multiple wings on those Overlords… but then that raises the question – where would the ELH find enough ASFs and pilots in the first place? And four of them?

Only now it was starting to feel strange that the 4th Deneb would willingly relinquish command authority over the defense of their homeworld to newcomers like the ELH. Numbers alone did not mean the absorption of command rights for the smaller force.
The Fourth Deneb were also known for assault boarding operations.

Arthbutnot sucked in his breath and growled. Yes that was the most likely outcome. Why allow the enemy to land at all? An Overlord could support many Small Craft and substantial boarding parties. He went over to the communications officer and bid him to open a regimental comms channel. They only had so much time to prepare, but the ELH 21st and the 4th Deneb were vastly underestimating them if they chose to rely on these tricks.

-.

WDS HAWKEN
09 March 3025

Red battle lights and alarms rang through the bridge. The communications officer announced "All hands to battle stations. Aerospace Fighters launching. All hands prepare for zero-g maneuvers."

The engines of the Overlord suddenly cut off, and the ship began to coast along on its stored momentum. Lacking the acceleration provided by the constant thrust, now everything suddenly became weightless even as the craft maintained significant forward velocity.

AeroSpace Fighters, mainly Stukas, released from the Hawken's bays. More of the Dragoon's fighters began launching as well from their fighter-carrier, while the Union DropShips moved to the shadow of the pair of Overlords.

Up ahead, the battle map showed the Deneb Vengeance dropship releasing its own cloud of fighters, while from the Overlords four fighters each emerged to escort their mothership. Hm. Normally an Overlord carried six.

Buckled into his seat and wearing a bulky and space suit, Arthbutnot could only scowl. All of the naval command staff were wearing space suits, while the rest of Able Battalion would only sit blindly and helplessly in their crash couches or belted into their beds while the ship fought a space battle. He could contribute nothing to this fight as either a commander or a warrior.

The combat map showed two waves of fightercraft about to meet each other.

"Enemy contact in five, four, three, two – fighters engaged."

The neat lines immediately collapsed into a confused tangle of BVR fights. Fighter combat was not a matter of senses, but of fingers on computers shooting at distant and near invisible blips on a screen, and pitting the need for evasive maneuvers against being able to hold a lock.

C-beams glittered in the dark in front of Harrow's Sun.

Something scraped against the side of the HAWKEN and it was as if the whole ship screamed.

 

The World Egg 03


Declan
Abandoned System
Federated Suns
Date Unknown

With a sound roughly like a "*WVORP!*, vibrating across the hull and carried by the hot flash of suddenly vaporized and displaced ambient space gases, with the paradoxical sight of what looks like coruscating glass shards unbreaking itself - the SLS ARENDAL resolved back into normal space.

"Sensors confirm. G3V class system, six planets. Matching stellar charts. It is the Declan star system."

The captain of the ship scowled. "I am never going to get used to that. Being able to go anywhere in the Inner Sphere in one jump. It is weird. It is unnatural. And I want it off my ship."

Nathan Armstrong sucked in his breath. "This is magic. I wasn't sure if I believed it, but… nothing made by man could do this."

Beside him, Andrei Posseli waggled his mustache and grinned. "It could still be aliens though, sir."

Everyone else groaned. Everybody remaining in the JumpShip's skeleton crew had already been briefed to the real situation. This was likely to be the last journey of the ARENDAL.

"Drive flares detected! Ships on intercept!" the Radar Officer announced. "Distance five hundred thousand klicks!"

The main screen showed white and checkered gray bulbous ships on the approach, burning white-hot fusion rocket trails. The dome-like head and the long thin body marked them as Scout JumpShips. But the track showed that they were accelerating at the equivalent of 3 gravities.

A Scout JumpShip was one of the very few JumpShips actually capable of appreciable in-system movement… but at most .2 gees.

A ship with a JumpDrive core and drop collars reinforced enough to support maneuvering at multiple gravities must by necessity be a Compact Core… and that meant they were WarShip cores.

Davion had checked the system before, right?

Did they actually get away with anything useful or were they just space dust?

The comms chirped with an incoming transmission, which was accepted.

The screen showed a simple robotic face that had a pasted on beard and mustache and a naval hat. "- Hello the Monolith. This is the RNIK Tenderfeets Scout Three Squadron. What do ye here? Do ye be the Eridani Light Horse? We will have no truck with Heavy Horses here, we do not have time for such fodder. - "

"Oh yes!" Andrei Posseli, a man nearly fifty, almost squealed in childish glee. "I missed these sassy robots!"

-.
-.

The Scouts entered a diamond formation around the ELH Monolith.

"Now what?" Armstrong asked Andrei Posseli. "We're still too far out in the system. Do we transfer dropships or head straight to Declan II?"

The engineer, one of only three people to physically meet Doctor Robotnik and the one given the development diary, pointed at the system map. "The Chaos Emerald is too important to be put to somewhere anyone else can get at it. So we're supposed to go to the outermost planet, Declan VI, which is a gas giant. Captain, please plot a short jump."

The Captain grumbled "Plot a short jump like we can't get misjumps anymore. Make it so."

"Wait. Don't we have to wait until the drive core recharges?" Armstrong interjected, befuddled.

Posseli then only pointed to the readout on the main console. [DRIVE CHARGED] blinked back at him.

He said "The Chaos Emerald absorbed and redirected all the energy needed to translate into hyperspace. It's really such a pity that the Chaos Emerald is so dangerous to hold, or that it can only be in one ship at a time, because this means a ship can go anywhere in the galaxy if it wanted to. Instantaneous and unlimited Faster than Light travel. I can understand why this had to be the blackest of projects. Using it for anything other than exploration is a tragic misuse of power."

Armstrong nodded and hummed softly while rubbing his chin. "Mmm. OPERATION SEEDCORN sounds more and more fantastical the more I hear about what it was supposed to do, huh. If the thing is so powerful that it can do this, the more dangerous it sounds making contact with another civilization that does make open use of its power."

"Well, General?" the Captain asked idly, turning around on his chair.

"Ah. Right. You may proceed."

The Navigator looked to the left, to the right, into each the eyes of the bridge crew looking for assurance. Even though they had just survived an impossible jump, it was hard to shake the long-held knowledge that you could only safely jump to a gravity-neutral zone. Into the orbit of a gas giant was the exact opposite of that.

Slowly the Navigator made the calculations and shakily input the numbers. Then she said "Coordinates fixed. Pilot, you may engage the Jump at your discretion."

"Jump warning. Jump warning. Hyperspace Jump in three. Two. One- "

The ship began to glitter with breaking spacetime. Tendrils of fractal lightning grabbed at the surrounding vessels.

*FWORP*

-.

*FWORP*

The entire formation emerged back out into realspace. The angry orange-red hues of the gas giant Declan VI loomed overhead.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief.

"I could get really used to that…" the Navigator said softly. "Man, it sucks *we* can't go exploring instead."

"To boldly go where no man, or mech, or hardboiled egg, has gone before…" said Posseli. He turned to Nathan Armstrong. "Now, the obvious thing is to put it on a rocky world so it can mine for metals, but gas giants may also have a metallic core."

"Can the Death Egg survive that?"

"No of course not sir. It's going to splatter inwards like, well, an egg. But it should last long enough for the programmed behaviors the good Doctor put into the nanolathe to activate and get to the second part of the plan. But it's still not too late to prefer landing on a more conventional hospitable world and have the Chaos Emerald available."

Armstrong shook his head. "No. The temptation is too strong. Let's do this and get our ships."

"Aye sir. You hear that, chief?" Posseli then addressed the open comms to the Death Egg. "We are good to go for OPERATION EGGDROP."

Joseph Kubler responded "- Got it. All remote control systems are online, course set. We are removing ourselves from the ship. Automatic undocking in five minutes. -"

-.

After some time, the Death Egg uncoupled from the Monolith JumpShip and engaged its transit drives. Everyone piled onto the observation deck to the DropShip plunge into the gas giant for its last journey.

For a long while, nothing happened. Armstrong mentioned aloud "Well, if anything else, at least we got three regiments worth of units and supplies and six WarShips out of it." He felt that maybe this would be better. Too much power. Too much magic. Even if Robotnik and Stone trusted the Eridani Light Horse with it, power corrupts. It was better if they had to earn their way through their own sweat and blood.

Davion would just have to be content with the idea that the Terran Hegemony in Exile looked at the situation and called the whole thing off as a lost cause.

And then, the roiling loops and curls of the gas giant began to move faster. Swirls of colors moved out of their bands, combining in some spots and fraying out in others.

Two deep white cyclones the size of whole lesser planets formed on the northern hemisphere, in line with each other. Below, the equator bands ballooned out to either side in spiky whorls. Then below that, an arc of repeating white curls. Two eyes, a mustache, and a grin.

"Jesus Christ-" someone gasped softly in terror and awe.

"No," Posseli and Armstrong said together. "Doctor Robotnik."

Even though all was silent save from the ambient noise of machinery, it was like they could hear a madman's triumphant AHAHAHAHAH through the vacuum of space.

-.
-.

The 'eyes' of the planet glowed green from the inside, and two bright beams lanced out into empty space. The beams continued across half the star system until they hit Declan II.

Clouds parted, the ground broke asunder, and on that distant backwards planet... a Metal Extractor was laid down.

A Kbot Construction Lab was then lathed into existence.

The beam cut off, then the Robotnikied world turned its attention back into nearby space. It lanced eyebeams out into the nothing right ahead of the Monolith.

The eyes of the world changed from green to gold, and bright golden power lanced out into empty space. The beams stopped on empty space as if hitting a solid yet invisible wall, and began to flow like honey. Energy turned into matter. Chaos into form. Potential into purpose.

A great golden ring, many kilometers wide, slowly came into being.

-.
-.

They had by this time relocated to the lead ship of the Scout III WarShips. The whole thing was clean gleaming brand new. It was crewed entirely by robots.

"Ayy, Acting Commodore-Bot asks to be relieved," the robot in command said with a sloppy salute. "This ship only operates at twenty percent efficiency without an organic crew. Make ye be at home, my crew will see to yer needs."

"Where did these ships come from?" Armstrong asked. "How did Robotnik squirrel away a whole fleet of ships?"

"Nay, General. We be a misjump from the future. Also double nay, you canna abuse this."

"But-"

"We tried, General. There be angry time monkeys. The casualties be horrendous. We be seeing your head get put on a pike. Never again."

"…"

The ELH staff walked numbly through the primary corridor. The air tasted sweet, almost like fresh mountain air from pristine filters.

The Scout III WarShip had two counter-rotating 90-meter gravdecks. With extensive automation, it was running with a robot crew of thirty. Officially however it had the cabins for 20 officers, 120 crew (enlisted and gunners), 34 personnel for 12 ASFs in their bays, and 20 passengers and 40 marines. It could support up to twice that number without straining life support. 41 Lifeboats ensured they could abandon ship and burn towards a nearby life-bearing world with room to spare.

Quite a lot for a mere 105,000 ton light escort Q ship. It was suspicious that the ship could serve for evacuation if pressed, but more charitably this also made the Scout a suitable exploration vessel.

"Coffee? Tea? Or whiskey?" Posseli asked Armstrong after they had settled in.

"The strongest they got," the general whispered.

"Irish coffee it is, then." He snapped his fingers and a waiter-bot rolled to attention.

The magnetic rollers of the bots could pass through the ship without care if there was gravity or not, and much faster than any human could move in zero-g. The ship felt more like a hotel than a fully functional WarShip armed with real capital-grade weaponry.

They stared out a nearby porthole in the nautical themed restaurant. The grav deck rotated, so real windows were not only a weak point in the armor but the sight of stars streaming past at a rotation of 4 and 1/2 times per minute could quickly be dizzying. The porthole was a screen sunk into the walls.

Outside they beheld a green glowing outline, slowly filling out with metal. A central half-spherical core surrounded by sunflower-petal sections, growing from the inside out..

A spire rose from the center, and two deep wells like eyes remained sunken as the structure filled up.

After several more minutes, the task was complete. It was like half a moon or a round face with whiskers growing out of the sides.

The deep eye holes glowed green.

The nanolathe wells spun and formed Dropship-sized Construction Vessels. Bee-shaped things flew out and they then begun creating and punting things through the Ring.

"What do you think they're doing now?" Armstrong asked.

"I think they're tossing stealthed HPG stations out into deep space so we can all keep in contact with our Urbanmech HPGs and ship-based HPGs," Posseli answered.

HPGs were point to point transmitters, so in deep space each one had to know where every other HPG would be. On the positive side, in deep space they would also be less impacted by gravity and would never move relative to the star nearby. This also made them impossible to repair, but the fabricators could just chuck another one out there as a replacement.

The general shivered. Awesome.

Behind the station, the Ring of solidifed Chaos Power hung gleaming in space, a circle of bright and purest gold. While a ship could no longer jump with the unlimited range of the Chaos Emerald, tapping the Ring with its drive field would allow it to reach any point in the Inner Sphere or the Periphery.

While range was effectively unlimited, this only applied to going out from Declan blacksite. Anyone wanting to take advantage of this again had to travel all the way back to it.

There were Rings in the usual jump points and gravity neutral lagrange points in the system. Not only could the Rings allow for unlimited range single-use jumps, but also instant passage from one to the other inside the system.

The Rings also projected a Kearny-Fuchida hyperspace jamming field. Anyone trying to plot a course to the system would just bounce and misjump to the closest other star in the direct line.

Entry into the mystery system required that someone in the ship possessed one of the original Chaos Rings. And good intentions, because magic was an intent-based process.

"Even this… even this power… to create something from nothing… is better than the temptation of the Chaos Emerald," Armstrong whispered at last. "This isn't something human power can accomplish anymore, this is impinging on the domain of gods."

He had been admiring Robotnik before, but knowing that a man was able to turn away from this much power and completely entrust it to the next generation- that was almost oppressively humbling. He could have been a god, but chose to die as a man. That man was a hero that no one would ever know.

Posseli nodded and answered "Robotnik's Development Diary has a line that I don't quite understand, but about this it says - Chaos flows from a Sea of Gold, ships are swords and dragons are angels, demons are killed by kindness, and all life is a gift from the Lord of Nightmares."

"Don't you miss a time when all we had to worry about was just financially recovering from losing half a regiment?" Armstrong said with a heavy sigh.

"While it was more comforting to live in a universe that made sense, I would have to say… no. It has only been half a year, sir. Knowing that the universe is really much bigger than our stupid little wars in the Inner Sphere… that there's more wonder and magic out there than we can believe… that is much more comforting to me. Puts everything in perspective, I'd say." Posseli shrugged. "Ah, drinks are here."

The waiter bot slid onto the table two tall hot cream-topped mugs. The mugs had plastic blisters on top, almost like baby feeders, to minimize risks of spilling in artificial gravity. Posseli stuck a bendy straw into each hole so that they looked less insulting.

Armstrong reached for one, but only pinched the glass handle without lifting the mug until eventually he calmed down. "At least in the heart of a gas giant, no one can lay claim to it anymore. Declan II as a world factory sounds important enough that no one would ever think it is just a decoy."

He paused and waved at the screen, "At least I hope this… this... this planet with a face! Calms down and goes back to normal."

"Do you really think that's it?" Posseli said with a cruel smirk. "If there was ever a need… I'm sure Doctor Robotnik has made a way for his only begotten son to retrieve the Chaos Emerald and hero it up. No, sir – it becomes even more dangerous now. Because now the question is… when that time comes – did we raise Devlin Stone to withstand the temptations of that power?"

"No. Stop."

"There is an old aphorism that goes 'it takes a village to raise a child.' Sometimes it takes a regiment."

"I left them alone with Natasha Kerensky."

Posseli raised a mug in salute and took a sip. "Ah. Sucks to be you, then."

-.
-.

The crew of the SLS ARENDAL were fully read into the situation and so they knew that most of them had to be the first new settlers of Declan II. They could not leave and accidentally betray this information. Seeing a planet with a face made them think that this was simultaneously too crazy to be believed but too dangerous if anyone were actually crazy enough to believe it.

The Eridani Light Horse now had six WarShips that conveniently still looked like civilian vessels. The fruit of decades of ruthless optimization, they were a proven yet newly manufactured design from another timeline.However, that was not enough to save them from a surprise visit by some Dantes.

The new limit to the nanolathe inside the GREAT ARK was that while it could build ships, with near unlimited mass for building being disassembled from the core of the gas giant, it could only design and build from known designs. It only had the plans for the Scout and vessels based on that hull.

For anything bigger that can match up to a real WarShip, they needed to disassemble a bigger ship.

The Captain of the SLS ARENDAL stroked the leather top of the captain's chair. For generations, his family had served the old girl. Not always as the Captain, it was an elected position, but always with honor. From ship crew to fighter pilots to dropship command, it was all fine as long as they could come home – not to a world, trapped by the weight of gravity, but in the comforting cocoon of a spaceship.

"The old girl's not dying, sir" the First Mate tried to console the old man. "It's just a rebuild. She'll come out of this better and without her old pains."

"Will she?" he replied with a low growl. "I've seen the lathe. It can make you think something has always been there. It can duplicate anything, but can it fake history? I don't know – if her body changes, will she still have the same soul?"

"Sorry sir, but needs must. We have our orders. The naval contingent is just as part of the Eridani Light Horse RCT as the mech regiments. We can't be kingdoms of our own in a military roll."

"Aye, I understand. The one for the many," with one last squeeze at the leather, he let go. "We all fight in our own way. This girl would like to be able to fight directly."

"Yes, sir. Let's go. We can't stay here, not unless we want to be disassembled and reassembled along with the ship."

The captain nodded. He turned away and began to float off towards the exit.

Then suddenly his eyes gleamed as if a terrible yet great concept had just occurred to him. He turned around and lunged at the Captain's chair again. He clamped onto it like a koala on the tree. "Part of the ship! Part of the crew!" he screamed. "PART OF THE SHIP! PART OF THE CREW!"

"Not this shite again," the First Mate sighed.

They managed to sedate the old man and bring him away.

-.

And the SLS ARENDAL slowly sank headfirst into one of the eyewells of the ARK, to be reborn into the SLDS ARENDAL. From the other eyewell, floated up rebuilt Dictator-class DropShips. Four of them as Pocket WarShips, and two as Assault Tugs.

Everybody else had to go into the remaining Scouts IIIs. As the DropShips locked into place, the ships could now, with the aid of the Rings, disperse out into the Inner Sphere.

"These ships have a Lithium Fusion Battery, right? Think we could meet up with the 21st Strikers along the way and bring them to Harrow's Sun faster?" Armstrong mused. "Or to be more precise, you go bring them there while I do my job and go to New Avalon."

"I thought you were worried about Kerensky's influence on Stone?"

"I'm actually more worried about Stone's influence on Kerensky, but I figure by this time the damage is done. It's time to pass this headache on to someone else."

-.
-.

Harrow's Sun
Draconis March
07 March 3025

They were the wolves.

The pack runs as one, fights as one, and never abandons their own. That was what made them strong. Not the arrogance of the falcons of jade, nor the dreams of the nova cat, nor the naked bloodlust of the smoke jaguar. Leadership. Unity. Those who break with unit break with faith, and the faithless will meet only death.

Charles Winston and Daniel Arthbutnot made quite the pair. One looked old and grandfatherly, another thin and like some harried office worker. Their exterior belied the merciless warrior hearts and brutal savagery once in control of a BattleMech. Only the cold intellect betrayed by their eyes hinted at the danger.

Arbuthnot hissed at the old man "Those are no mere Assault DropShips. I would almost be impressed."

The Overlords and other DropShips of the Epsilon regiment hung motionless in space, their occupants uncomfortably floating and clinging to things in zero-gravity. Their engines had to be shut off or else risk catastrophic destruction after battle damage.

DropShip tugs and space workers moved slowly to attach secure lines to pull them closer in-system where they could affect repairs in stable orbit.

The Modified Dictator-class Pocket Warships, tentatively called internally the DOOM EGG, had a quartet of Light Subcapital Lasers on each facing and could strip all the armor off a Union's side in two or three sweeps. They had six Piranha Subcapital Missile Launchers to slap aside fighters and were each escorted by four EGARTS drone fighters.

If the ELH really wanted to destroy the Dragoons, just one of them would have been enough to murder their entire force.

"If the Epsilon Regiment would like to have a proper battle at a later date, perhaps in a series of company-scale duels to minimize infrastructure damage, the Eridani Light Horse would happily accept those terms of combat in lieu of the randomness and chaos of a planetary invasion," responded Charles Winston. "But for now, the 21st Strikers Regiment would have your parole to defer the attack on Harrow's Sun. You will be towed towards a stable orbit and then you may disembark. You may even keep your mechs, they will be held in trust here until the DropShips can affect repairs and either a nominal ransom or agreement for prisoner exchange is reached with the Wolf's Dragoons. This is a thing we do only because we know the Dragoons have honor."

He added "Also I agree, this would all have been much more impressive if we used proper WarShips." Then the old man shrugged, "But we all have to make do with what we are given."

Arthbutnot clenched his teeth until his jaws hurt.

Barbara Mosley, in taking down Natasha Kerensky's Black Widow Company, had made her name echo around the Inner Sphere.

Charles Winston personally did not care for any fame. But in seizing a whole goddamn Wolf's Dragoons regiment, he was sure this event would enter the ears of the House Lords themselves. Takashi Kurita would hear of it personally. People would die for daring to bring up bad news that makes the Coordinator look like he made a mistake, any mistake. Seeming like he overestimated the value of Wolf's Dragoons would also shame the supporters of the plan to establish a Dragoon-like regiment, the Ryuken. The Coordinator was untouchable, but the churn of lesser officers was not.

And then they would hear just how the Dragoons were taken down.

This was a capacity to conduct naval operations to make even Hanse Davion nervous. Everybody from Maximilian Liao to Katrina Steiner to even Michael Hasek-Davion would have to sit up and pay attention. The whole Inner Sphere would pivot around this moment, he could feel it.

Where did the general find these ships?!

It was confirmation. No wonder they had been told it was acceptable to paint the Cameron Star over the tan prancing pony. They had been resupplied. They were no longer alone.

-.
-.


New Avalon
Crucis March
Federated Suns
17 March 3025

"You're still refusing to let us deal with the Dragoons, then?" asked Hanse. "I could overlook the single company of Natasha Kerensky's, but an entire regiment… you had better have a good reason for me to potentially allow them back into Kurita hands, to kill and raid our worlds even further instead of just letting them sit out this war in a comfortable enough prison camp."

"We do this because we need the Wolves intact as much as possible for when the Draconis Combine inevitably turn against them, creating a blood feud. Hopefully this actually tempts the factors involved there to accelerate their plans. Then we can throw Epsilon Regiment to help their parent unit and have their gratitude. If not - what you want to ask from Jaime Wolf in compensation for the return of his regiment is up to you, my lord."

"Unfortunately for us, the Dragoons also have a point of honor about not being used against their former employers, so I can't just demand for the regiment to be moved to the Lyran front," the First Prince noted. "I don't want my soldiers to have to face their Epsilon Regiment again."

"I have a suggestion," said Ardan. "I am certain the Dragoons will want a real honest fight out of this, instead of just being blasted and captured midway. I know I would be infuriated. What if you ask that they can only fight the Light Horse? They can only attack worlds that the Eridani Light Horse have garrisoned?"

Both Nathan Armstrong and Hanse Davion furrowed their brows and considered it.

"That sounds… reasonable," said the ELH general. "This would involve planting the 21st Strikers down on a world instead of a fast reaction force. In fact a world would need to have two of our regiments to be worth the time – one to defend, another that can be moved out and keep the enemy off balance. Just like what the Dragoons are doing with their base on Misery."

"I will not force you into this if it would mean losing the flexibility the Light Horse RCT is known for," said the First Prince.

Armstrong shrugged. "I'm not that, ah, super concerned about the fate of the Wolf's Dragoons. It would be ideal for them to be ripping through House Kurita, but if there is no other alternative we would not object to them spending the next few years in a prison planet either. I suppose it all depends upon you and the response from Jaime Wolf."

"Very good." Hanse made a gesture as if sweeping away the issue, then opened his palm out towards the far side of the room. "You realize, of course, that the reason I allow this is because of the elephant in the room – which we will discuss now. Your WarShips-"

"Pocket WarShips" Armstrong put in.

"… Pocket WarShips. Is that even an actual term? No, never mind. What do you want for us to have access to them?"

"Nothing. That is, you will not have any access to them. You already have all the elements, Hanse Davion. You would learn more from failing than copying. The Terran Hegemony once attempted to inhibit the member states by making it always more convenient to be reverse-engineering than developing their own ability to create things from the ground up, no matter how inferior they may appear at the start. I will not harm you like this." Armstrong's gaze was stony. "Just play the game of 'How many Subcapital Lasers can you fit on a Union?' The answer is - enough to make a ship ten times its size choke on it."

Hanse leaned back on his chair and closed his eyes. Ardan wondered if he was angry.

After some time, the ruler of the largest and most powerful state in the Inner Sphere said "You have no idea – no idea at all how much of a relief that is. I just keep getting surprised that there's no other shoe being dropped. Whatever agenda you might be pushing here, I don't even care anymore. I just trust that you do not intend any harm to my Federated Suns."

Armstrong stared at him and said slowly as if explaining to a little child "It's not like we have been trying to hide it. The restoration of the Star League and peace in the Inner Sphere."

Hanse hissed "You MADMAN. It sounds insane and impossible if you just say it like that. Who would believe you!"

Ardan looked hurt for a moment. Why was it so hard for politicians – as much as he hated to admit it, his friend was a consummate politician now – to believe that people could be as honest and straightforward as exactly what they said?

Armstrong shrugged again. "It is what it is."

"I… I do want to be First Lord of the Star League," Hanse admitted. "If it can happen in my lifetime… you said I would make a perfectly adequate one. But I'm a realist. I can only hope my descendants can achieve it, and we gain it by proving ourselves worthy of it by the example of the prosperity and security of our realm. If you want to recreate the Terran Hegemony… we have controlled those worlds for too long, I don't think I can adequately explain away giving it up unless the Terran Hegemony is militarily restored to something like its height."

He looked opened his eyes and looked helpless for a moment. "But if you could do that, why would you even need us? Why even stay here? What I am most afraid of is true friends becoming the greatest enemies because of the need of politics. I… don't have many of those left. I can't even trust my supporters if they only tell me what I want to hear to advance their own interests or because they don't want me to worry unnecessarily. Controlled and being controlled. That's politics."

Then he shook his head and his demeanor, as a ruler forced into his position from the untimely death of the heir, returned. "The Eridani Light Horse at some point will have to stop being just an RCT and become a political body of its own cognizance at some point. I wonder – are you prepared for this, Nathan Armstrong?"

The general grinned. What a stony question indeed. "I am happy to say that I would able to retire immediately before that becomes my problem."

"Stop showing me up like this, you total bastard," Hanse said flatly.

-----------------------------------------------

AN:
And there we go.

I am sorry to say that is as far as Throw a Stone can go for now. This feels like a good 'Book One' end. It's time to let it go into a hiatus.

The ELH already have all they need. They have a cubbyhole they can retreat to if things turn for the worst. They have infinite manufacturing capacity now that they just have to slowly distribute to the Inner Sphere via shell companies. You can just imagine what influence they will have on the events leading up to the 4^th succession war – or if it even happens at all, and how this much would panic Comstar, and the fate of the Wolf's Dragoons.

They have enough that they would not just be made extinct by the Clans; their centuries of loyal service meaning nothing, betrayed by the selfish incompetence of every power that they trusted, the end of the last remaining piece of the noble collective dream that was the Star League.

 

The Charm Offensive

-.

Colchester
Federated Suns
Sometime in 3025

Natasha Kerensky scowled as she walked through the ELH base, Devlin Stone keeping step beside her.

The ground trembled beneath their feet.

"I don't know but I've been tooold~!" song-shouted the drill sergeant.

"~I don't know but I've been told~" returned the jogging trainees.

It just so happened that they were jogging in formation inside a troop of 15-ton Urbanite Ultralight Mechs. Natasha turned away from the dust kicked up by the passing machines which very much resembled eggs that just so happened to have arms and legs.

"Industrial Mechs?" she murmured. She supposed that was cheaper than a full-sized training mech. However, if it was just getting people used to a neurohelmet, simulators and their brainwave readings were very close to the real thing. The only thing simulators could not reproduce was the sense of forward and reverse acceleration from movement and impact.

Training with refitted industrial mechs or very stripped down battlemechs might even give trainees the wrong idea of how responsive mechs could be, because more mass meant more momentum to overcome.

"Myndo's got a Network Node~!"

"~Myndo's got a Network Node~!"

"Likes to push the on-off swiiiitch~!"

"~Likes to push the on-off switch~!"

"Dig that crazy kind of witch!"

"~Dig that crazy kind of witch!"

- the trainees sang as they continued off and away around the base perimeter.

Natasha frowned. 'Who is Myndo?'

"Myndo Waterly. Precentor Dieron. She is kind of totes cray cray."

'What?' Natasha looked down and squinted. "That was an expected question. You are not reading my mind."

The boy tilted his head to the side. "Of course?"

Natasha huffed and resumed walking a well-worn route towards the ELH hospital. "This is not in the SLDF standard training regimen," she mentioned offhand. "For such traditionalists as the Light Horse, I am surprised you would break with tradition this far."

She respected the SLDF as the root of the Clans, but not so much its martial prowess. The Clan way had already proved superior to the old SLDF style war. Nicholas Kerensky built the Clans over their shattered remains in their reconquest of the Pentagon Worlds in OPERATION KLONDIKE. The rebels had driven away Alexandr Kerensky, and the old man, the Great Father, died in bitterness. The Clans repudiate weakness and civilian rule from that unforgivable ungratefulness and insult.

"Scout mechs should be 20 tons. Who decided that?" Devlin responded.

Natasha blinked. Who did decide that, anyway? But "Scout mechs should be able to survive to deliver their intelligence. It is not enough to simply be fast."

"Speed is life," responded the boy. "If we didn't have this I would have to wait two years before being allowed to serve at all."

Take to the fight in barely-armored war machines at only the age of, what, sixteen? How Clan-like. Natasha Kerensky nodded in approval.

"Um, we are probably not thinking of the same thing…" said Stone.

"That is irrelevant. Let us not waste any more time."

-.
-.

"Do not abandon me, Lady! Please…!" Colin MacLaren looked a far cry from the polished MechWarrior he was just a few short weeks ago, the perfect picture of a gentleman warrior as if ripped from the pages of ancient noble cavaliers. "Let me serve you in any way… I can still stand. Give me some time, I can still stand!"

He tried to lift his right arm in vain. He had almost no left shoulder to speak of, and his lungs were shredded. Burns scarred the lower left side portion of his face, including the chin and lips, and amputated his mustache. Hair would never grow there again.

Natasha Kerensky stared down stonily at him. She reached out and clasped his hand in hers, and though her face didn't change expression, her eyes showed all the pain and regret the Black Widow could never reveal as a weakness. "Yes," she replied softly. "I believe you. You are still strong."

But you will never be a MechWarrior again.

To the Clans, death would be far more preferable than to live a half-life full of humiliation and suffering.

MacLaren tried to smile with half a paralyzed face. "I will endure, Lady. For you…" He closed his eye as his sudden surge of strength began to leave him. "For… you."

"Colin!"

The hiss steady hiss of a respirator filled the room. The monitors showed his vital signs were stable.

"There is a way," Devlin Stone spoke up after a while.

Natasha Kerensky gave MacLaren's hand one last squeeze, as if trying to transfer her own body heat into his cold weak bones, and turned with a glare. For an adjutant, this boy was too free to offer his opinions. "What?" she hissed.

"We of the Eridani Light Horse value veterancy, and the old to manage to live through all sorts of battles are to be respected instead of discarded. A MechWarrior gets only deadlier past their thirties. Experience is to be preserved and shared as much as possible.

"As you know, the Magistracy of Canopus managed to keep most of the Star Leagues medical knowledge intact. For all that the Magistracy is known for sexual deviance, using that technology to create catgirls and mermaids and other fetishes… this is what they do in order to appear mostly harmless. The better to give every other power a share instead of being attacked in order to monopolize that power and ruin the very prize like the Succession Wars did. A lot of their medical tech deals with amputations and nerve reconnection.

"Our Major Steve Gray, for example, had taken a direct hit to the cockpit and ended up with his right arm and leg burned away. Surgeons attached bionic limbs and now he is fighting again with the 71st Regiment."

Natasha shook her head. The optimism of a child. "A human body, like a mech, if the core is intact, losing limbs is not as much of a problem. Without breath, no one is a warrior. If all they have is Star League medical technology, I do not share your confidence in their ability to treat my man's injuries."

Not even the Clans would be able to recover from this. Though mostly in the case they would not even bother. Warriors were inherently disposable. Every single one a competitor.

Devlin Stone smiled thinly and snapped a salute. "Ma'am what I am saying is - the Eridani Light Horse no longer has a reason to hold back. We too have direct access to improvements in Star League technology. We can rebuild him. Better. Faster. Stronger."

Natasha squinted down at him again. "Is this Armstrong's message? What do you seek to gain from this?"

"He might never be as good as a MechWarrior again, but honestly - people are too obsessed with Mechs. We would accept a bond of service for a time as a trainer-commander for augmented lances with dedicated armor support. You get to go back to the Dragoons. We get someone to continue your instruction for a while longer."

Natasha raised a finger to her lips. Would that count to Colin as abandoning him? On one hand, having an informant in the Light Horse would be useful. On the other hand, divided loyalties rarely pan out well.

"You are all fools to keep exposing your doctrine to your possible enemies," replied Natasha. "This tells me that your doctrine is new and untested, Armstrong should be wary of me deliberately engineering weakness into my teachings. If you are all counting on my pride to scorn not doing a good job of it, remember that my first loyalty will always be to Wolf's Dragoons."

Devlin Stone beamed. "Oh we are fully counting on you reporting every weakness to Jaime Wolf. In many ways, the Dragoons need our combined arms doctrine more than we the Light Horse do."

Natasha Kerensky scowled at him again. These ponies still make no goddamn sense.

-.
-.



Hilton Head
Terra
Sometime in 3025


The First Circuit of Comstar was the ruling body of Comstar, composed of the chief administrators of the HPG stations which made up the Prime or First Circuit of the old Star League HPG network - New Earth, Barnard, Alpha C, Bryant, Procyon, and Dieron - as well as a Prime Administrator. In 3025 the First Circuit's power rested in the Advocate Precentors of each realm - speaking for all HPG stations in each of the Great Houses while nominally in charge of their capital world's HPG station, and exercising Comstar's authority and activity in each realm.

Precentor Sian for the Capellan Confederation, Precentor New Avalon for the Federated Suns, Precentor Tharkad for the Lyran Commonwealth, and Precentor Atreus for the Free Worlds League, and finally Precentor Dieron would represent the Draconis Combine. The Primus, elected from their ranks and confirmed by the First Circuit, represented Terra and gave direction for Comstar as a whole.

Julian Tiepolo, Primus of Comstar and formerly Precentor Atreus, was a tall and quiet man wearing round spectacles. He glowered across the table to each of the other members of the First Circuit as a holotape began to play.

"Greetings, Prime Circuit of Comstar. I am Nathan Armstrong, Brevet General of the Eridani Light Horse Regimental Combat Team, and I come to you in the spirit of our shared roots in the Star League.

"The Light Horse offers respect to Comstar as the present successors to the Terran Hegemony, and your overt actions and vows to preserve technology and rekindle civilization across the Inner Sphere. Adepts of Comstar truly believe that they are working for the good of the common man.

"In that vein, we have a gift. We give you CORE DEMETER, a copy of a Department of Mega Engineering's Memory Core that contains everything necessary to terraform and maintain habitability for humanity across space. Everything including how to manufacture and maintain terraforming equipment from ground zero. This was how Terran Alliance learned to do this, and now everyone will know.

"Humanity's greatest enemy has always been hunger and disease and disaster, and civilization itself appeared as a measure of control over the natural world. We believe that it is immoral to withhold this information, even if it may be to the benefit of enemies.

"We have given this to our current patrons, the Federated Suns, of course. But even now diplomatic missions are on the way. CORE DEMETER will find its way into the hands of the Lyran Commonwealth, to the Free Worlds League, to the Capellan Confederation, to the Outworlds Alliance, Magistracy of Canopus and even the Taurian Concordat. And, inevitably, to the Draconis Combine.

"It is our hope that Comstar holding a second master copy would be able to serve to check that the cores have not been tampered with. It is our hope that Comstar uses this core to advance their efforts of rehabilitating and improving the lives of the downtrodden in the frontier where so many seek them out as legacies of the time when humanity was at its apex, and we turned our powers into more than war and violence.

"May we meet again as the Star League reforms.

"With all our regards, from the Eridani Light Horse."

-.
-.

Tharkad
Lyran Commonwealth
Sometime in 3025

The Lyran Commonwealth. Often said that they would be the economic and military superpower of the Inner Sphere were it not for the sheer self-importance of their nobles and the stunning incompetence of their commissioned officers. Katrina Steiner's coup against Alessandro Steiner happened in 3007, well after the Eridani Light Horse left Steiner service in disgust from their gross incompetence by 2999.

Archon Katrina Steiner even approaching her fifties remained a stunning woman. She gave the representative a warm smile without any hint of duplicity. "Though the Eridani Light Horse have left our service, we bear you no ill will. We are still allies and friends, we hope."

The ELH diplomat bowed "You are a wise ruler, Katrina Steiner, and in that vein we of the Light Horse give you this gift… and something else, to make this partnership between the Federated Sun and the Lyran Commonwealth a more equitable and indispensable one."

-.
-.

Sian
Capellan Confederation
Sometime in 3025

Maximilian Liao scowled down at the ELH diplomat from his raised throne. Balding and with beady suspicious eyes, most who looked at him now would forget the extraordinary levels of cunning he had displayed to give House Liao the strength it had. He reversed the collapse of the CCAF and secured the borders of the Capellan Confederation not through brute military strength but by making his enemies destroy themselves.

While House Liao remained the weakest of the Great Houses, the CCAF was once again a significant threat that could not be easily dismissed. The Concord of Kapetyn relaxed the tension at the Liao/Marik border, and Davion could not so easily raise forces to deal with the Capellan front without weakening their much more dangerous Draconis front.

"What makes a Davion dog dare to stand before us?" Maximilian Liao asked while pointing with a sharp long fingernail. "We remember well that the Eridani Light Horse has taken up arms against us. We do not easily forgive insults and you would be blessed indeed to leave with your head if what you say displeases us."

The ELH diplomat shrugged. "Eridani Light Horse. Wolf's Dragoons. MacCarron's Armored Cavalry. We can fight again and settle who is the best later. We mean no insult. This is the way of fighting men.

"Oh great and wise Chancellor Liao, we are here to offer our respects, and a gift, in the spirit of when House Liao and the Capellan Confederation were valuable members of our shared history under the Star League. This may somewhat displease House Davion - but we are doing it anyway."

-.
-.


Atreus
Free Worlds League
Sometime in 3025


Janos Marik was sixty-five, white-haired and weary, and had the eagle symbol of the Free World League tattooed on his forehead. It had been many centuries since the Eridani Light Horse left the service of House Marik, and he had no relevant feelings for or against the mercenaries.

He looked only mildly interested. If it wasn't for the rumors that the Eridani Light Horse were being a pet project of Hanse Davion, he would probably have put this meeting further back in his schedule. This was probably some sort of indirect way of communication from Hanse Davion trying to break up the Concord of Kapetyn.

As long as the Federated Suns were allies with the Lyran Commonwealth, they were inescapable enemies. The Eridani Light Horse had cost the FWLM many campaigns and had led many successful invasions into League worlds. It was not the hereditary grudge like with House Kurita, but the Eridani Light Horse would find no one in awe of them here.

He leaned his cheek on one fist and gestured. "Well? What is your purpose here?"

"Captain-General, in the interest of collective humanity, we present to you - CORE DEMETER."

-.
-.

Canopus IV
Magistracy of Canopus
Sometime in 3025

Magestrix Kyalla Centrella was raised to despise everything regarding the Free Worlds League and view anything Inner Sphere with a great deal of suspicion. Considering how much the Inner Sphere saw the Periphery as yokels to be taken advantage of, this was a natural reaction.

The Eridani Light Horse being so faithful to the Star League could only have them be a reminder of a time of brutal conquest and economic servitude. The fall of the Star League saw the Magistracy secure against the wars of the Inner Sphere. They were needed, but far enough to not be a target for conquest. She pursued a "service for service" exchange, in which skilled technicians and scientists from other realms could come to Canopus to live in luxuriant and even hedonistic surroundings in exchange for supplying them with their own highly-regarded medical professionals.

Yet none of that could be seen on Kyalla Centrella dusky face. She leaned back on her throne, positioning herself to expose better her bosoms though the window of her satin dress. She had a trim and muscular body and knew how to use it, both on and off the sheets. She licked her lips and smiled. "What brings such a virile young warhorse so far from its minders I wonder?"

"Magestrix, things could be better between us. You can't be left hanging limp while everyone else gets a ride. Let this Vagabond Horse give a you a taste of the old world-"

-.
-.

Taurus
Taurian Concordat
Sometime in 3025


The Star League was a golden age for the Inner Sphere, but it was a time of suffering and terror for the Periphery. In the Reunification War from 2577 to around 2597, of he Taurian Concordat fought with every means, even to the point of suicide, to hurt the vastly overmatching enemy. The Taurian forces were the most competent opponents the SLDF faced, doing much with their limited means and making it clear to the last man that the Star League's claims of a more enlightened humanity was a lie. They were not wanted there. In response, the SLDF prosecuted a strategy of scorched earth. Worlds died. Atrocities upon atrocities were laid upon the Taurian people. Many centuries later, the scars remained.

House Calderon would never forget nor forgive. But even among them, Thomas Calderon, a wide man with one eye (the other replaced with a cybernetic one after a hunting accident) was considered far too paranoid against the 'imminent' prospect of Davion invasion.

"You Davion bootlick! You devil of the Star League! You dare come here and tell me you don't intend any insult?! You insult me with your face! Give me a reason not to shoot you dead right now!"

"Father, please-" his eldest son, Edward Calderon, sighed. He at least did not share his father's mania about the perfidious Davions and cautiously extended to them a market for Davion goods. Everyone looked forward to his eventual assumption of rulership as a popular and competent leader.

Wandering Horse had noted that this made him a perfect target for assassination for certain interested parties to continue destablization of the Inner Sphere's powers or for certain parties inside the Taurian Concordat itself to continue their graft and embezzlement.

"In the name of the Light Horse, my life is yours to deal with. I was prepared for this. But also, this -" the diplomat held up the DEMETER CORE. "From water comes food. From food, manpower. From manpower, industry. From industry, the power to protect yourself from your terrible Davion incursion. From the halls of the Terran Alliance to chambers of Taurus - it is yours to do with as you see fit."

The ELH representative had already previously cleared this with Edward Calderon, of course. They had done all checks to make sure that the Memory Core was not some form of bomb. He dropped to one knee in a bow to lay the Memory Core down to the ground and then stood up straight to salute.

For the rebirth of the Star League, he was fine if he did end up being shot dead at that moment. May it be one freed from the sins of the first and not repeat its mistakes.


-.
-.

Alpheratz
Outworlds Alliance
Sometime in 3025


Niel Avellar was a long-faced man who looked continually out of his depth. The Outworlds Alliance was considered the weakest of the Periphery powers, a podunk and backwards agricultural nation in love with pacifism. They barely had any military and disdained battlemechs as hateful symbols of war, but they did possess the most skilled aerospace fighter forces in the Inner Sphere.
Sandwiched with Davion and Kurita on their borders, it was a continual dance trying to hold off on being absorbed by much greater powers. It was only the fact that making moves on the Outworlds Alliance meant weakening the direct border between these two bitter enemies that allowed the OWA to survive these many centuries since the fall of the Star League.

"That… that doesn't make sense. This is too valuable. Won't… won't Kurita want to take it? If we do this, that would just make us bigger targets for pirates! This is too much! We don't want war. We don't want any of the luxuries of the Inner Sphere. Take it away!"

"I was told that everyone has the right to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'. Just because people are content does not mean their lives are not already hard, short, and full of suffering. They already cannot protect themselves, because you overlook here that slaves are also a currency. Being ignored as lacking value only lasts until there is someone strong enough to care about having weak prey to dine on. Kurita and Davion will not come to rescue you, the avowed neutral.

"Since the fall of the Star League, the Outworlds Alliance lost over half its worlds not through war but from starvation and sickness. With the powers of DEMETER, Goddess of Harvests and Agriculture, feed your children well and let them grow up strong. Only they can decide your future."

-.
-.

Hilton Head
Terra
Same time

"The Eridani Light Horse are a known quantity, you said. There is nothing interesting in them using lostech, you said. It is just Davion showing more favor and field testing their scraps from Hoff, you! Said!"

As Julian Tiepolo, Primus of Comstar spoke, Hutrin Vandel, Precentor New Avalon, grimaced and shrank back as if being slapped.

After a while he rallied back "No one could have predicted this! They are just three regiments of mercenaries, a light combined arms RCT. A decent assault regiment could push them off a world just fine! They had never been unbeatable. Who would ever predict they would dig up some Memory Core and instead of selling it House Davion, give it to everybody in the Inner Sphere? Who would do that? This kind of generosity is nonsensical!"

"Can we do something with the cores? If we have the master copy, we can engineer flaws, could we sabotage attempts to duplicate the tech, and make this all sound unviable or a trap by the Davions?" asked Ulthan Everson, Precentor Tharkad.

"No. If our copy differs in a way that both the Steiner and Davion cores agree upon, that would make it too obvious that our copy is the one being manipulated." Primus Julian Tiepolo adjusted his glasses. "We are backed into a corner."

"Where did the Eridani Light Horse dig this up?! It is suspicious that Hanse Davion would allow this. Where do these mercenaries get the gall?" hissed Pedrigor Aliz, Precentor Atreus.

"The ELH only did this after their loss on Hoff," Myndo Waterly, Precentor Dieron, spoke up. Her eyes glittered with mad glee. "Many times before they had always been destroyed, but they never did anything unusual. Only after meeting the Dragoons did they stop holding back. Something happened there on Hoff!"

"You mean, they discovered something about Wolf's Dragoons?" Aliz asked in an arched tone.

Julian Tiepolo flicked his gaze up, and Myndo smirked at even that minute expression of interest. Wolf's Dragoons and his failure to uncover their origins had always rankled him. That House Kurita was interested in absorbing Wolf's Dragoons into their own troops was obvious. Tiepolo had already sent instructions to the new Precentor Galedon, Alexander Kalafon, to help it along. Warlord Grieg Samsonov was provided access to a potential turncoat within the Wolves.

But to split attention now between the Dragoons and the Light Horse…

Vandel said with a sigh "It is quite suspicious that very soon after, the Eridani Light Horse were able to beat the Dragoons. Not in regimental combat, but in space."

"WarShips?!" Aliz gasped in alarm.

Vandal shook his head. "No. Some form of super Assault DropShip. It is however another mystery where those DropShips came from."

"Do you have anything, anything at all, that is new and useful about the Eridani Light Horse?" asked Everson.

Vandal shrugged. "It is rumored with some support that the ELH uncovered an extensive Star League cache even with new DropShips. It makes sense, but it is difficult to trust the veracity of all the rumors."

"Why is that?" Everson asked again.

"Because they all involve far too many Urbanmechs."

Everyone in the First Circuit stared at him. This sounded like a total non sequitur.

Vandal shrugged even harder, raising his hands well above shoulder height. "Those are the reports! Apart from several conspicuous meetings between Armstrong and Hanse Davion, the Eridani Light Horse had done nothing unusual - all easily explained as reconstructive efforts after their loss on Hoff. Then they did this." He waggled his hands helplessly. "No one could have predicted this!"

"I… reluctantly agree," said Everson. "Tharkad had observed nothing unusual about the ELH."

"I agree as well," said Aziz. "Precentor New Avalon did not commit anything that could have been a mistake by not monitoring the Eridani Light Horse more closely. They were a predictable component."

"But they are not now!" said Waterly. "Is it not easier to insert operatives into the Eridani Light Horse than Wolf's Dragoons?"

"I will handle it!" Vandal responded swiftly. "This is under my remit, my territory, Precentor Dieron!"

Myndo only sniffed and smirked again. "So be it. May you have a better time chasing after the Horse's supply source than the Dragoons."

Julian scowled at the obvious indirect insult. He spoke "In truth, this situation is not as severe as it first appears. Terraforming technology is a danger to our missionary doctrine. If people are not desperate and fearful of enemy raids, they would not flock under our banner for protection and relief from hunger. However, be reminded that it was the First and Second Successions Wars, in the height of plenty, that were also the most destructive. The DEMETER CORE had been shared to all powers. Let them build up resources so that the conflict may intensify and Blake's prophecy come closer to fruition. The status quo is retained."

"Is it, Primus?" Myndo Waterly asked archly. "The Federated Commonwealth can leverage their manpower and economic might to revitalize their worlds. The weight is already too stacked in their favor as it is!"

"Do remember that the Free Worlds League is relatively at peace and with a working economy," said Aziz. "The Concord of Kapetyn is weaker than the FedCom alliance, but until now had lacked an effective counterweight. Lyran money and Davion might. Now Marik could just spend money to make Liao and Kurita fight. As holders of the master copy and with our inherited knowledge from the Terran Hegemony, I believe we have the perfect opportunity to more directly insinuate ourselves into terraforming efforts."

Julian Tiepolo, as former Precentor Atreus, just stared silently at him.

It was up to Everson to raise the unspoken question "Are you asking that we throw economic support to the Free Worlds League? Do you remain impartial, Precentor Atreus?"

"I do. Janos Marik is only a reluctant ally of Maximilian Liao. But relaxing the Liao border means they can return to the traditional ambitions of the FWLM, breaking through into Steiner space. The harder Marik can distract Steiner, the less they will be able to offer aid to the Davions."

Julian Tiepolo nodded. "I agree. The balance remains, only intensified."

Myndo Waterly crossed her arms. "I… do not have any serious objection. However, someone should still do something about the Eridani Light Horse!"

Tiepolo turned to her and nodded. In a cold voice he added "In that we also agree. By doing this, the Light Horse had proclaimed themselves our enemy. And they will pay for it, and even to the end never knowing for what sins they are now brought to ruin."


-.
-.

 

The Charm Offensive 02

Colchester
Federated Suns
Early 3025

"What the dry sober hell is this?" asked Natasha Kerensky.

"It is Warhammer," replied Devlin Stone. "But Urbanmech."

Natasha glared down at him. The boy raised his palms up and said "Your Warhammer is fine. But it is in storage. This one allows us to better collect combat data."

The Black Widow turned back to the bulbous 70-ton machine painted a nightmarish shade of black with bright red accents here and there. The arms and legs belonged to a Warhammer. Boxy and robust, the arms ended in reinforced barrels holding a Donal Particle Projection Cannon.

The core of the machine was that of an oversized Urbanmech however, the dumpy looking trash receptacle with a six-pod SRM-6 bin poking off the right shoulder. The gun clusters - a pair of Medium Lasers, Small Lasers, and Machine Guns - were located roughly where they should be in the lower left and right side hips of a Warhammer. All in all, a Warhammer's loadout was not complicated with distinct range bands from long range to short range.

A Warhammer could not support firing off all its weapons all at once, but bracket fire means that once enemies were inside a certain limit, firing off long-range weapons was pointless - specially with the minimum range of a PPC. It was better to rely on the less heat-producing secondary weapons for a while. This allowed the main guns to cool off until the range could open again.

"Are you aiming to humiliate me?" Natasha asked dryly.

"Humiliate you? You in particular? No ma'am." Devlin held out an open palm towards the Urbanhammer. "The weapons are stock, but because it was proportionally Urbanmech, there was still a lot of free volume. This allowed us to change the test machine's heatsinks to Double Heat Sinks and boost armor to 11 tons of Ferro-Fibrous up from the 10 tons of standard armor sheathing of the WHM-6R. This is enough to make the Mech capable of running and firing all its weapons and still remain completely heat neutral, and with 20% more armor protection. There were left over tons to emplace CASE."

That was enough to significantly increase the threat profile of a stock Warhammer. If the Light Horse had upgraded with lostech this far, then it explained why they were punching well above their weight recently. "This seems unfair. Who do you want me to humiliate?"

Devlin grinned. "Humiliate? Oh my dear Miss Kerensky. We want you to break some horses."

-.
-.

Fort Bradley
Colchester
Later that day

"You know who I am! And I know some of you still think there's nothing more worth knowing from a defeated foe. But none of you are Barbara Mosley. So if you think you are hard enough, come meet me in this circle. I was told enough about your lostech upgrades! Do you think that is enough? Come face me as an equal and find out!"

-.

Unlike the Solaris arenas, there were no protected areas for spectators to observe a mech duel.

Mechs were arranged at a clearing well away from the camp, while inside the auditorium a massive holoprojector displayed the scene. It had turned into a whole event, with everyone bringing in snacks and making bets.

Over on the third floor looking down at the auditorium floor from a utility wing, sat Stone Platoon.

"Since when did we have Urban Warhammers?" asked Bennet Brooklyn. "Heck, since when did we have Urbanmechs that are *seventy tons* at all?!"

"You know *since when*," said William Bloderwelg, the gentle giant of this troop.

Bennet scowled with his hooked nose and pointedly looked away from Devlin's direction. Everything weird with the Eridani Light Horse could now be traced all the way to the day the boy showed up in an Urbanmech. The Colchester starport even had a record of the dropship bringing him down, which left soon afterwards.

"It is fascinating though. Some mechs already look like Urbanmechs - the Flashman is 75 tons and has overall the same body, I suppose." Tom Lexington adjusted his eyeglasses. "We already have so many Urbanmechs, I guess this finally puts to pasture the question if we do have a mobile factory. The answer is yes. "

"Frikking bribery getting into the Light Horse…" Bennet continued to mutter.

Angela Bakko chirped "If Urbanmechs can be heavies now, do you think we can get to pilot one?"

"It's still a freakin' Urbanmech!" Bennet hissed and glared at her past his hooked nose and then pointed down. "It's still a trashcan! I don't think Kerensky's actually all that good! If she still beats people while piloting a trashcan- that… that proves something? I don't know! But this is stupid and looks wrong!"

"It is humiliating to be beaten by an Urbanmech," Devlin said simply.

Bennet clacked his tongue. "Yes."

"So of course this means we should do it against House Kurita as much as possible," he continued in an even tone.

Salli Maza raised her brows and beamed at him. "Is this why Captain Mosley is… you know, being her… everything at the Draconis March? She could have any mech, but still pilots Urbanmech. A Light UrbanMech at that!"

Angela squinted at him "You… seem to be very familiar with Captain Mosley, aren't you?"

Salli Maza smirked "And been hanging around with Natasha Kerensky herself a lot. She is quite the looker too, isn't she?"

"I am… I am sus!" Angela said after some thought. "I am very sus!"

"More nepotism…!" Bennet grumbled.

"That makes no sense, my friend," said William. "They are not related either biologically or legally. Captain Mosley has not shown any sign of favoritism or advantage towards friend Devlin. Unless you mean actually in reverse, as Miss Bad Ass is reaping all the benefits."

"White unicorn," Devlin said in reflex.

"You are the only one other than her that actually insists on that," noted Salli.

Angela pouted and made some strange mouselike squeaking noise as she crossed her arms and huffed.

"They're starting!" Tom slapped at the metal railing excitedly.

Hudson Asner, all of fifteen and already looking almost like an adult in his twenties, said "What do you think? How many matches before the Black Widow goes down?"

"Kerensky's good, but straight back to back fights? It's easier to win when it's a series of duels, so I'd say… three. Depends on what she's facing. Eventually her armor is going to get worn down," answered Bennet Brooklyn.

This was a limited live-fire test, with energy weapons dialed way down and guns firing mainly tracers, with the mech battle computers simulating full-scale weapons fire and effects.

Tom Lexington added "I don't know. The loadout of a WHM-6R has limited ammo compared to the WHM-6D, but very few things can take the hit of a pair of PPCs. In a long-range duel, a Warhammer will always win - but this duel is artificially restricted to a map only half a kilometer across where both mechs will nearly always have sightlines to each other. Smaller, faster mechs may have it easier than big mechs - they can whittle down enemy armor faster and skirmish to its backside. But…" He scratched at the back of his head helplessly.

"But what?" asked Hudson.

Tom nervously adjusted his glasses again. "It is Warhammer. But also Urbanmech. A 360 degree torso twist… I think that's really an unfair advantage in short-range duel. Would she be using it? If yes, then I think Captain Kerensky if she keeps getting consistent hits would be able to take down maybe double her weight in medium-weight opponents, or up to three mechs in her weight class who can't maneuver as well."

Hudson turned. "What do you think, Stone?"

"My father told me stories of Natasha Kerensky before he died, and he said that Kerensky was not yet as good as she could be. It would take two tragedies before she achieves that perfect clarity, and the ELH may have butterfield away that second tragedy. So now we see what the wrath of a +1/+1 Mechwarrior looks like instead of a +0/+0." Devlin Stone nodded several times in self-satisfaction. "Fuck yer TMMs."

"My… what?"

-.
-.

Griffin. Dervish. Catapult. Griffin. Phoenix Hawk. Thunderbolt. Hunchback. Warhammer. Thunderbolt again. By the ninth mech Natasha Kerensky downed, people were coming to realize that yes,

1. She was shameless enough to use and abuse the torso twist of a Heavy Urbanmech,
2. A Warhammer that can fire its pair of PPCs continuously and apparently NEVER MISS makes Light and even Medium mechs all but unviable on the field,
3. When the Light Horse fought the Dragoons on Hoff, this was part of the unnerving cry - "The Dragoons? Christ, they're not men, they're machines!"
4. Yes, Natasha Kerensky was that god-damned good.
5. Barbara Mosley returning to get herself trained to be on Kerensky's level is due to literally epic levels of assbeating. If the woman's self-respect could survive that, then Mosley would be forced to also become one of the deadliest MechWarriors to have ever existed.
6. If the Eridani Light Horse wants to be the tip of the spear for the reborn SLDF, they absolutely need to be on this level.

-.
-.

Devlin Stone turned around and smiled, extending his arms as if to give a distant hug."My friends, I have a gift for you. A surprise gift. High Command has designed to also trial Kerensky's methods on complete novices with no habits to untrain. Which means our platoon - or two lances - gets to have follow-along mech training, as a comparison group to other veteran mechwarriors doing the same thing. We enter battlemechs a full two years ahead of schedule."

"This is bullshit," breathed Bennet Broolyn. "How?"

"Nepotism," said Devlin Stone.

Then after a pause "Also, as long as it is Urbanmech."

-.
-.

Brunswick City
New Avalon
Same date

Countess Rodina Archernar was a dangerous woman and CEO of Archenar Battlemechs, the largest and most respected military producer in the Federated Suns. Although overshadowed somewhat by Corean Enterprises' fully automated factory in the technological decline of the Succession Wars, and limited in scope by not being a multinational corporation - Archenar was pure Davion loyalist through and through, operating solely in Federated Suns space. Archenar manufactured the first ever BattleMech for the AFFS, and now it felt right to her that once again House Davion would rely on her company in the turning of a new age.

Although they were inside one of Brunswick City's most high-class restaurant with a view over the glittering nightscape of the metropolis, Leroy Martin was not inclined to wine and dine the heiress. While she was indeed quite comely and wealthy and still unmarried, he had resolved to himself that he was a boring man that lived a boring life and the phrase 'married to his work' would probably be his truth.

Tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a trim black suit compared to Countess Rodina's orange and black ensemble, this business dinner had less of an impression of a date but a big brother taking his graduating little sister out to eat.

Rodina picked up her wineglass and motioned to outside. "Land is expensive in New Brunswick. As impressive as it is to get as much floor space in the Industrial Park, your company could have done better setting up a more secure facility in the outskirts, no?"

"RobotniC is a distribution company, not a manufacturing one, my Lady," replied Leroy. "Our source factories are a secret because what no one knows about, no one can raid."

Rodina stared at him past the rim of her wine glass. "Really? Despite the news all being about the mobile factory that just landed? The pundits are called it… what was that now? Ah, yes, 'the Corean plant in an egg'."

Leroy carefully cut into his salmon, ate, and looked up. A passing waiter happened to reflect light from the tray he was carrying onto Leroy Martin's square eyeglasses, causing his gaze to glint menacingly for a moment. The CEO responded passionlessly "A certain level of on-site production is necessary for sampling and as a buffer against minor shortages. A mobile factory is unable to produce full BattleMech and Combat Vehicles- it is nothing so unusual, a production line only oriented vertically instead of horizontally."

"And I suppose the fact that a mobile factory can have its own little island in the Hebrides instead of being an employer over some little town suits your purposes just fine."

Megacorporations had a tendency to dominate the economic prospects of nearby towns and could lead some businessmen to have strange illusions of lordship. Granted, most such firms were owned by nobles with their own fiefs, but they exerted pressure as much as they supported a town's vitality. Rodina continued "This is good for security, but it is not a good look. A company that looks always so ready to pull up roots does not give the impression of being a reliable friend. People will be always reminded that this whole thing… has something mercenary about it."

"I was informed that the Eridani Light Horse will not leave the service of House Davion unless something vastly immoral has occurred, or the Star League is reformed."

"Curious folk, the Eridani Light Horse." She had of course done her research. The ELH had done some impressive things, but nothing beyond the reach of the AFFS own storied regiments like say, the Crucis Lancers. She took a sip of from her glass, and laid down. She laced her fingers together under her chin. "So they have their own manufacturing now. It is easy to imagine that they found an old Star League base with its own automated plant somewhere. Of course, I will not ask about that - security reasons, I respect that - but doesn't that limit your scalability?"

"My lady, RobotniC is a creature of the Star League."

"... And that means what?"

"Our production capacity is yes."

"By that, do you mean…?" Rodina trailed off with a small frown.

"No matter what number you think of, the answer is yes. The only practical limit is shipping capacity. However many mechs and tanks Archernar and all other BattleMech production companies might want to refit, we can supply. Yes. The entire AFFS? Yes. We can supply Ferro-Fibrous armor, Double Heatsinks, CASE assemblies, and Target-Tracking Systems for many years in advance. Yes."

"... It's not a factory at all, is it? It's a factory that makes factory ships?!"

"My lady, I have absolutely no idea."

Rodina thinned her lips. "And I suppose you're going to Corean after this. You want us to sell your BattleMechs under our branding. Invest into it with land and manpower to set up a physical production line. Who is using whom as a distribution channel now again?" She let out a muted sigh.

Then she looked pained for a moment. "But why… why does it have to be Urbanmechs?"

"My lady, I have absolutely no idea."


-.
-.



Colchester
Federated Suns
Later that night

It was almost midnight and Nathan and Julia Armstrong were turning in for the night. They both had so much work that increased every day the 91st Cavalry regiment was being crash-assembled. The Brevet General of the entire Eridani Light Horse flopped on the couch while Julia put away the dishes.

Julia noticed. "Oh? Not going into your regular little communiques with the First Prince?"

Armstrong groaned. Having a HPG in his house was more of a hassle than anything, because instead of walking towards the command center and only getting summarized reports from whatever came out of the regular Colchester HPG schedule… Hanse Davion was abusing having an HPG in his Urbanmech to send him little updates of how his little ponies were operating out in the wild as tracked by MIIO.

"I think Hanse is harassing me to make Wandering Horse show up MIIO again" he said.

"So you are on first names with Hanse Davion now? How cute."

Armstrong raised his palms up in silent supplication. "A distance in the chain of command must be maintained. He knows that and I know that. He is fishing for more information."

Julia nodded. "Of course he would. The Light Horse is a danger to the Federated Suns as much as it promises to be its helpers. This is something we deal with regarding charity. Once people are too used to being helped, what happens when that help is stopped? Either resentment and feelings of betrayal, or in preparing for aid being cut off, never really trusted it in the first place."

"Well, at least Davion can always trust the Light Horse's willingness to screw over House Kurita."

Julia chuckled lightly. "And this talk about dilution of social distance has reminded me… aren't you favoring Devlin too much? I understand him being assigned as Kerensky's adjutant - if there was anyone that could break through her shell, Devlin could do it-"

"That boy, unlike any of us in the Light Horse, firmly and completely believes with zero doubt that we *are* the SLDF and we *will* rebuild the Star League. If they ever get into a philosophical argument it would be an unstoppable force meeting the immovable object."

"Haha. But really - the other cadets might start resenting this obvious nepotism. I've even been asked if Devlin wasn't actually your bastard son from somewhere and why I am being too motherly over him."

Armstrong turned to stare at her. No judgment at all in his cool and steady gaze.

Julia flushed and looked away. "So what! Devlin has never had a mother! That poor boy has absolutely no idea how to deal with women and girls. This is not nepotism from me! I'm okay with being a hypocrite!"

After a while Armstrong said "It is one thing to bring in whole regiments of Mechs. A noble buying a commission into the Eridani Light Horse should not be something we easily condone - that is the sort of thing that leads into the enormous incompetence of the Steiner social generals."

Then he pointed to a framed art piece at the wall. It looked like a photomanipulation of a gas giant to have a face like that of the RobotniC logo. A tongue-in-cheek reference to the ELH and their civilian company, one might assume.

"Devlin Stone is not a Cameron or an Amaris. We have checked. But because of Doctor Robotnik's outright goddamn future magic, we cannot even trust the reports of our equipment. Bribery is one thing. It is a different thing to be the heir to a power that far surpasses the Star League."

"So why not just let him live out the rest of his time in normal education? That would have built camaraderie instead of being singled out inspiring resentment from others in his cadre. We should be taking our time to raise him right instead of putting so much pressure on him so early."

"Because despite all that we have been doing, we can't assume that the Wolf's Dragoons will be our ally in the near future. Devlin Stone had an unnatural upbringing. He absorbs information and skills like a sponge. We don't know when the Clans will actually arrive, they might come in early prompted by some factor outside of our control. Doctor Robotnik raised his son to be the ultimate weapon to defeat the corrupted children of the Kerensky's SLDF, and we can't waste that. That weird little brain of his is disassembling the Clan Warrior ethos even as Natasha Kerensky thinks she is just being pandered to.

"The Light Horse had always rewarded going above and beyond instead of being threatened by an overachieving subordinate like the Combine grubbing for personal power. He is going to be the stone that drags the rest of the regiment along with him towards excellence or be left behind. His entire troop will serve as an object example. If mere trainees can do this - then they should also be able to do it. They just lack the effort. The motivation."

"Aren't you afraid of Devlin getting a big head?"

"Heh. The boy spent most of his life working for his meals. If anything his father raised him to have unrealistic expectations of personal responsibility."

Julia scowled. "That was borderline child abuse and that is one thing I won't forgive Dr. Robotnik for. No matter if he is a great man, he was not a great father."

"From what we know of Aleksandr Kerensky himself, this is a very common failing for such men."

 

Code:

Urbanhammer UR-HMR
 
Mass: 70 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Experimental Tech
Era: All Eras (non-canon)
Tech Rating/Era Availability: E/X-X-F-D
Production Year: 0
Dry Cost: 6,660,883 C-Bills
Total Cost: 6,688,883 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,490
 
Chassis: StarCorps 100 Standard
Power Plant: VOX 280 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h
Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h
Jump Jets: None
	Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Leviathon Plus Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
	2 Donal PPCs
	1  SRM-6
	2 Martell Medium Lasers
	2 Magna Small Lasers
	2 SperryBrowning Machine Guns
Manufacturer: StarCorps Industries, Olivetti Weaponry, Vandenberg Mechanized Industries, Taurus Territorial Industries
	Primary Factory: Emris IV (StarCorps), Sudeten (Olivetti), Pinard (VMI), Taurus (TTI)
Communications System: O/P 3000 COMSET
Targeting and Tracking System: O/P 1500 ARB
 
================================================================================
Equipment		   Type						 Rating				   Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard					 107 points				7.00
Engine:			 Fusion Engine				280					  16.00
	Walking MP: 4
	Running MP: 6
	Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks:		 Double Heat Sink			 16(32)					6.00
	Heat Sink Locations: 2 LT, 1 RT, 1 LA, 1 RA
Gyro:				Standard													   3.00
Cockpit:			Standard													   3.00
	Actuators:	  L: SH+UA+LA	R: SH+UA+LA
Armor:			  Ferro-Fibrous				AV - 197				 11.00
	Armor Locations: 1 HD, 1 CT, 2 LT, 2 RT, 2 LA, 2 RA, 2 LL, 2 RL
	CASE II Locations: 1 RT												1.00
 
						 Internal	   Armor  
						 Structure	  Factor 
Head						  3			9	 
Center Torso			  22		  30	
Center Torso (rear)				  8	  
L/R Torso				 15		   22	
L/R Torso (rear)					   8	 
L/R Arm					11		   20	
L/R Leg					15		   25	
 
================================================================================
Equipment								 Location	Heat	Critical	Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PPC										  RA		10		3		 7.00
PPC										  LA		10		3		 7.00
Machine Gun								  RT		0		 1		 0.50
Small Laser								  RT		1		 1		 0.50
Medium Laser								 RT		3		 1		 1.00
SRM-6R										  T		4		 2		 3.00
Machine Gun								  LT		0		 1		 0.50
Small Laser								  LT		1		 1		 0.50
Medium Laser								 LT		3		 1		 1.00
@SRM-6 (15)								  RT		-		 1		 1.00
@MG (200)									CT		-		 1		 1.00
											Free Critical Slots: 3
 
BattleForce Statistics
MV	  S (+0)  M (+2)  L (+4)  E (+6)   Wt.   Ov   Armor:	  7	Points: 15
4		  5	   4	   2	   0	  3	 0   Structure:  6
Special Abilities: CASEII, SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA
 

 

The Charm Offensive 03

---

Colchester
Federated Suns
March 3025

"Run! Run like your life depends on it! Because it does!"

The Eridani Light Horse were well used to physical training. The seniors of the Eridani Combat School ran in a crisp formation, hardening their bodies to endure the rigors of BattleMech combat.

But Natasha Kerensky lagged behind, being the drill instructor to the youngest troops. Stone Squad ran a ragged line, swaying on the verge of exhaustion.

Tom Lexington, the smallest of the squad had William Broderweg, largest in the troop, half-picking him up by the shoulders that Tom only barely needed to keep contact with the ground. With their size difference it was like someone pushing a wheelbarrow.

"Prayer cleanses the soul - pain is weakness leaving the body!" Devlin Stone mumbled hoarsely and mindlessly with each step. "Prayer - cleanses - the - soul - pain - is - weakness - leaving - the- body-"

Bennet Brooklyn's chant was simpler. "Fak - dis - fak - dis - fak - you…"

Angela Bakko weaved, flopping her arms out as if boneless. "But who do we pray toooo?!"

She suddenly felt warm arms around her shoulders. She could not turn her head. Natasha Kerensky was cheek to cheek. "Your god is right here" the woman said.

And with a sibilant hiss "and she is fresh out of mercy."

"Waaaaaaah!"

Someone among the other soldiers of the Eridani Light Horse had to be held back from rushing out in indignation. This was just bullying of first-year cadets. No one should be expected to go straight into hell training. Too much physical toll on a developing body, much like malnutrition, could last the rest of their lives. This could impact height and bone growth and how much muscle they could naturally develop if the body gets into the habit of cannibalizing muscle for energy reserves.

And the pain and borderline child abuse, of course.

"What?" Kerensky sneered at them. "Training is not enough! When have you last pushed yourself to the point that you might die? When everything in you screams, but you must force a broken body to move anyway? It is not mere willpower anymore that pushes you then. You must go beyond resolve. That is the difference between the dead and the great! I do not need soldiers with discipline! Common, predictable methods that produce common, predictable fighters! I am looking for soldiers that immortalize themselves into legend!"

"That… sounds like… spite," wheezed Salli Maza.

Kerensky calmly stated "It is the strongest motivator."

Though their faces soured, none of the other instructors there tried to refute.


-.
-.

Tharkad
Lyran Commonwealth
March 3025

Dee. Bee. Cee.

The Donegal Broadcasting Company logo appeared for a moment, and then faded into a newsroom. "Welcome back to the Evening News. I am your host, Karl Andersen. Tonight's top story - the DEMETER CORE. Is it legitimate? We can hear that for ourselves -"

The screen changed briefly into a clip of Archon Katrina Steiner. "We have verified that the Memory Core is indeed a copy of a Star League Library. How much of the information contained within is authentic is something that can only be tested by attempting to produce its schematics. The Core itself will be open for public access and its information is released to the public domain."

Andersen returned with "If the Archon is convinced, then that's enough for me. We should not underestimate just how big the DEMETER Core means for everyone in the Inner Sphere. It's not even lostech. The Terran Hegemony carried their terraforming secrets to their grave. With this Core, we can fix so many irreplaceable systems for centuries on the verge of breaking. Worlds that are barely habitable and can't advance because their population can't support anymore, that is no longer just something we have to accept. The thirsty will be given water, the cold will be sheltered, the hungry will be fed.

"Some people have already called this year the end of the Third Succession Wars. A wise ruler will pause their warmaking in order to see how to use DEMETER to finally ease long-standing economic and structural pains. Some fear that this operational pause will only lead to a much more destructive Fourth Succession War later, but for the first time since the fall of the Star League - we are back.

"My friends, we are back. Back to the heights of humanity in its golden age. We have the tools to do it all over again. We are no longer just ignorant
The Eridani Light Horse distributed the DEMETER CORE to everybody, literally everybody, to ensure that the information will not be lost again."

Then he smiled that charming boyish smile of his, that made Karl Andersen the most beloved news anchor in the hundreds of worlds of the Lyran Commonwealth. "Everybody… except the Draconis Combine."

-.
-.

"Did they have to give it to everybody? It would have been fine to keep it to Davion and Steiner. But I guess I can't get too angry with the Eridani Light Horse for that. I understand if they got sick about our incompetent generals enough, but a hundred years of history with the Commonwealth just doesn't go away. I like that they respect their roots. They were with us for as long as they served the SLDF."

The on-the street reporter asked "How do you feel about the core not being given to House Kurita?"

"Oh that makes perfect sense. I respect them all the more for that."

-.
-.

At Tharkad University, the dean of Environmental Sciences was being interviewed.

"Don't forget that Aleksandr Kerensky himself was an alumnus of Tharkad University. The Eridani Light Horse was right to distribute the DEMETER CORE - not just for idealistic but pragmatic reasons as well. Prince Davion's NAIS has been quite notorious recently, but it is the Lyran Commonwealth that has the capacity to truly leverage this information. Terraforming demands sheer economic might, and House Steiner is best positioned to carry things through. The end of the dark ages of the Inner Sphere will not begin with lostech weapons and technology but start here, with us, from worlds revitalized and made to rejoin the web of the interstellar economy."

-.
-.



New Avalon
Federated Suns
March 3025

News and media services in the Federated Suns had an easier time getting direct access to the Eridani Light Horse for interviews. However, Colchester was effectively a no-go zone outside of their starport. Fort Bradley and its environs were restricted to the press.

A representative of the Eridani Light Horse accepted an interview in a late-night talk show. It just happened to be Robert Green-Davion, offering perspective for both the AFFS and the Eridani Light Horse.

"The contract signed with the Eridani Light Horse allows them some degree of independence when not actively engaged in operations. This is something that we have just observed to be for our benefit. No, the Eridani Light Horse did not need Prince Davion's permission to distribute CORE DEMETER. Yes, the Federated Suns was offered first refusal for any finds of such significance in the future."

"So is it true? Is the Eridani Light Horse actually the advance party of the SLDF returned? Did they make contact with the SLDF in Exile?"

"That is not something that was revealed to me as the liaison to the Eridani Light Horse, nor is it something that can be admitted so easily."

"Reports have confirmed that the ELH are going around in new ships. Warships. Those don't just come out of nowhere. If the SLDF didn't provide them, does this mean the AFFS is making them?"

"This *is* something I can answer. WarShip is a loaded term. The more proper definition is 'Assault DropShip'. Naval power is a significant advantage, yes. The ELH has provided updated plans for new JumpShips and the yards at Galax are expanding to produce these new vessels."

"Astonishing. Just how much control does the AFFS have over the Eridani Light Horse? Can they refuse orders?"

"The contract with the Light Horse puts them under the command of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. They cannot refuse orders whose terms follow the contract. We are all professionals here, we would never give orders that are unrealistic." Robert Green-Davion carefully did not mention anything like so-called 'open orders', in which it was up to the local commanders how to carry out the objective.

The tail should not wag the dog. He wondered, with this display, if the Eridani Light Horse wanted to remind even Hanse Davion that they were horses instead of dogs and must always have the room to run free.

It would be a terrible waste if the Eridani Light Horse and the AFFS to have a competitive relationship over the same authorities and resources.

And once again, he was asked "Do the Eridani Light Horse really believe they are still the SLDF?"

And Green-Davion could only respond "Indubitably."

-.
-.

Elsewhere in Avalon City
New Avalon

Baroness Robin DeCaster was in a mild panic. It was one thing for a Baroness to speak to others of high status and to address the High Council. She had done her part to drum up support for the Vagabond Schools, talking to everyone from Dukes to space engineers and been willing to make enemies as long as it benefited the most helpless and downtrodden of the Federated Suns.

On paper, meeting with the civilian side of the Eridani Light Horse was less sensitive. Although not someone of military rank, she held a higher office and responsibility. She could be more casual with them, and it would be more comfortable to speak to people with a more practical mindset.

But the DEMETER CORE was something that no Great House, no matter their power, could ever accomplish. The Eridani Light Horse had thrown down the gauntlet and dared the rest of the Inner Sphere to come at them and pry the secrets of the Star League out of their dying hands.

This kind of crazy horse could do anything.

"Milady. Misses Julia Armstrong is here," her majordomo spoke.

Baroness nodded. "Send her in."

Julia Armstrong was no great beauty. DeCaster herself preferred only minimal affectations as required for formal occasions. This was an informal meeting, and so there was no need to dress up. She sought in Julia Armstrong's face some similarity.

There was kindness in Julia Armstrong's eyes, but also the hardness of someone who had seen many of her friends die. Yes, they did have many things in common after all.

Baroness smiled. "It is an honor to meet you, Doctor Armstrong."

"Likewise, Lady Robin."

She occupied the conversation first by asking what the civilian division of the Eridani Light Horse did. Life as a mercenary on a regimental scale meant that there was not really a true division between civilian and combatant. There were three almost caste-like divisions: combatants, civilians, and dependents.

Most mercenary regiments operated like this. The Light Horse, the Highlanders, the 12th Star Guards, Wolf's Dragoons, the Big MAC, etc. They have to secure a place far away from the fighting for their dependents before they could fight. Dependents were unspoken hostages for the mercenary's loyalty to their employers.

ELH Support and Logistics division handled everything that was not direct combat. This included training and limited merchanting to supplement the Light Horse in between missions.

"It costs Davion twenty million Cb per month just to retain the services of the Eridani Light Horse," said Julia Armstrong. "This is nothing compared to the upkeep of regiments like the Davion Heavy Guards, of course, but people need to be paid and the internal markets stocked and free time granted to visit and enjoy the outside world. The Eridani Light Horse operates as a closed system, and in times of plenty there is the temptation to buy more things and operate more powerful machines. Most is spent in maintenance, spare parts, and the rest - it takes money to make money, and so we actually also engage in investments all around the Inner Sphere."

"Can the Eridani Light Horse sustain itself like that?"

"Of course not. The RCT is large enough that only a Great House can afford us. We tried before to just sit and farm in the Periphery and it did not take." Julia shrugged. "If we are left unemployable because no one remains worthy of upholding the ideals of the Star League, then it is most moral to just leave. The game of thrones is not worth playing. But until that nightmare scenario, we will try to bring justice and defend the weak as far as we can."

"Fascinating." Baroness Robin. She took a sip of tea and put down her teacup with not even the slightest sound onto the saucer. "What does the Eridani Light Horse want of me, then? You already have the ear of Our Prince, what can the Ministry of Education do for you?"

"On that note, Lady Robin, I am curious as well. Why do Vagabond Schools take young teens in the age of eleven to thirteen instead of young adults and teach them a trade? Is a basic high school education really that valuable in the Outback?"

"To my sadness I will have to answer - yes. Yes it is that valuable. Illiteracy out in the Skid Row worlds is endemic. There are two reasons why we take such children. The first is that this is perhaps their only chance for nutrition and medical support. In their nine months of education they can try to overcome childhood malnutrition, the effects of which may last the rest of their lives. The second is that young adults cannot be spared from the hard labor necessary for life in those worlds. Education in a trade skill, such as carpentry, machining, plumbing and animal care tend to be passed down along family lines or through apprenticeship. Educated youths become valuable members of the community if they do not move on to continue their education off-world."

"Why on JumpShips though? Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a school? This limits the number you can teach at once - and what about microgravity? Wouldn't this impact their development as well?"

"There are several reasons for that as well. The first is staffing. Qualified teachers are a much rarer resource than school infrastructure. We cannot actually afford to assign teachers into each of those worlds. The teachers must move on after nine months. The second is political. By separating pupils from their environment, they are also freed from pressures from their families and social structures. Inside a Davion jumpship, we can enforce equality and correct ingrained habits and assumptions. It does no good to teach a child that all are meant to be equal under the law and go home back to vastly different living conditions. Here they can interact with each other without social barriers and learn empathy across social classes."

She paused for a moment and frowned. "The third reason… it is speculation. Schools stablished in the outback tend to suffer strange… misfortunes."

Julia nodded. "We are aware of this too. Schools and teachers on a world are always at risk, but at least there is the custom of not attacking JumpShips. Teachers are vulnerable to parental pressure and pirate raids, but the environment inside a JumpShip is one completely under your control. However... Vagabond Schools in the first place are JumpShips too old to be used even for trading anymore purchased and repaired to minimal spaceworthy condition. The Kennedy was lost in 3013 with all hands, with 500 students and crew, and containment the Sorbonne last year killed ten people including two students and a teacher. Many consider the Vagabond Schools a very expensive undertaking."

Baroness Robin DeCaster nodded. "Those deaths weigh heavily on me. They were my responsibility. But the shortages just cannot be made up."

"It appears we have the same continual problem then. Manpower." Julia smiled. "Or womanpower as the case may be. The Vagabond Schools are probably the main route that non-privileged women out in the Outback can aim for a better life on their own merits, yes?"

"Indeed. So much potential is left to wither every day." She bowed respectfully for a moment. "Life in the backwater regions of the Federated Suns is full of daily hardship and people are trapped in a cage not of their own making. What good is education, some say, when it only teaches you how to suffer even deeper from knowing just how low and deprived your existence is. Better to suffer in ignorance than to be tormented by the knowing.

"But with the DEMETER CORE, worlds that are barely habitable can become productive again - if not easier to live with. By that alone the Eridani Light Horse has changed the face of the Inner Sphere. Words alone cannot convey my gratitude."

Julia nodded back. "You are welcome."

"It is reckless and brave, and it is astonishing that someone dared to do it. I wonder though - do you understand the larger ramifications of this? So quickly you have may have set aflame a new Age of Explorers. Prospecting for lostech is inflaming the public imagination. So many people are going to get exploited and killed out there."

Julia stared back. "The alternative is letting worlds continue to starve, so we can only hope that in the end justice will balance all things."

Baroness DeCaster sighed. "I do not mean any offense. Grand gestures naturally lead to chaos. But the slow and methodical way also leaves many languishing in their misery. It was still a heroic decision." So she opened both her palms out towards Julia Armstrong. "So the question again - what does the Eridani Light Horse need from the Ministry of Education?"

"The Eridani Light Horse would like to provide the Ministry with support for the Vagabond Schools. In advance we admit that we are also looking for recruits, and ages of 12-13 is also the perfect age to begin training. However much that the Vagabond Schools serve as a pipeline towards the AFFS, as life in the military had always been a quick way to advance the livelihood of a family since antiquity, the Light Horse would like to offer youths a path to a life that while not safe is also meaningful and proud."

The baroness thinned her lips. "If it wasn't for DEMETER CORE I would think badly of this. But I believe that the Eridani Light Horse is not so simple as to be looking for cannon fodder. The lives of the Federated Sun's citizens cannot be transactional."

Then she sighed and rubbed her forehead. "But with only minimal publicity, I can guess that many would flock to your banner anyway. Soldering is a steady job with good pay and square daily meals. I fully accept this. It is a valid career. Maybe even the best career, for many."

Julia smiled and said nothing.

"Very well then. What support does the Eridani Light Horse wish to offer? Do you have some form of strange lostech that will speed up learning? Please?"

"If the Star League could just download training into people's brains, they would not have needed to set up academies," said Julia. "Nothing so convenient, I'm afraid. Nothing important is ever done quickly."

Lady Robin chuckled lightly. "A pity. Let us be realists, then. Military specialists are also very highly educated people, and we would welcome teachers with so much practical experience. Technicians to maintain our jumpships would also be much appreciated. If you want to use the Vagabond Schools as workplace training for JumpShip crews, that would be perfectly good too - we have much the same agreement with the Colleges of Savonburg and others. Or, if it comes in the form of financial support and investment, that would be acceptable as well. Our resources are meager, I freely admit."

Julia answered "There are ten operating Vagabond Schools, most of them old Invaders, Tramps, and so on - with refitted Mules serving as classrooms on DropCollars that are barely hanging on. This does not sound enough for so many worlds. These JumpShips are *dangerous*."

She turned on the palm-sized holoprojector on the table. "The Eridani Light Horse would like to offer support in the form of JumpShips and DropShips. Six NEW JumpShips. SAFE JumpShips. ROOMY JumpShips. Granted, only Scout-class, but they have been refit to maximize internal berthing. A skeleton crew of the Light Horse will accompany the Vagabond School, providing security and support against pirates and other threats. Gradually we will be filling in the crew with volunteers, and then cycle them out with fresh ships and minimal crews as they make a circuit along the Outback."

The projection showed the gravdeck layout. "These have been modified for two contra-rotating 90-meter grav decks." The outer rim spun to provide .9G, with corresponding lower apparent gravity as you go up 'higher' towards the core of the vessel. Steerage sleeping berths were triple-layer bunk beds at the second ring at 80% Terran gravity, with sufficient room and life support for two hundred people, or approximately 180 students and 20 teachers.

They also had room for six fightercraft, two Small Craft, and a thousand tons of cargo. That sounded… unrealistic.

"They will operate in pairs, sufficient to support more than four hundred students and teachers at any one time and bringing a company of mechs and ASF for defense. First Prince Hanse Davion has already given approval to this measure that serves both education and defense of the system during the duration."

Baroness DeCaster blinked. "Excuse me, what?"

"The DRIFTING HORSE has allocated JumpShips for the Vagabond Schools as long as you let us do some recruiting along the way. As we also possess the Primary Copy of the DEMETER CORE, we also have permission to inspect and possibly repair terraforming facilities along the way. We will be recruiting or training space crew, fighter pilots, medics, and technicians along the way."

Baroness DeCaster blinked. She blinked again. She blinked some more.

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened them with a hard burning gaze and spoke: "I accept. I do not question this. I accept."

Julia quirked her lips. "Really? Not even a question?"

"Are you actually the SLDF?"

"Of course we are. We have always been."

The baroness looked away and shrugged as if to say 'I knew the question would be pointless'.

Why even try to look in the horse's mouth? Because they might be carrying Danaans inside.

She faced forwards again and asked "Very well then, in seriousness, how soon can this be done?"

"Immediately."

"So you just have six new JumpShips that you can dispense away from the war at any time, hm? No, no - that is not a question. I do not need to know more about this." She began fanning her own face with her hands. "I fear that knowing… will only make it worse for me."

"My lady, did you not just lament the uneducated of the Outback preferring contented ignorance over miserable knowledge?"

"Exactly for those reasons. I choose not to be suspicious of the Eridani Light Horse and trust that you know what you are doing." They were owed at least that much for the DEMETER CORE. The Eridani Light Horse banked so much goodwill with this, that even if they were wiped out in battle after this the Inner Sphere would still remember them.

Julia Armstrong smiled back beatifically. And carefully not to let anything on her expression show 'We actually have no idea what we are doing'.

The stakes were high enough that they might as well throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. It was not enough to merely own a planet with a face.

-.
-.

 

The Charm Offensive 04

---

Colchester
Federated Suns
March 3025

The Eridani Light Horse set up a third camp for the Kerensky crash course. While normally Stone troop slept in the same regular barracks as the rest of the cadets, now they had their own little bunkroom.

Tom Lexington sat at a dark corner, knees up in a fetal position, sniffling with tears. Angela Bakko and Salli Maza sat beside the smallest of the troop and made soothing comments as they wiped dribbling snot off his nose.

"It's okay, it's okay…"

"No it's n-not!" Tom whimpered. "I just..l I just wanted to be on the Engineering track, you know? I didn't ask for this! T-this is unfair. Go ahead call me weak and crybaby, I don't care anymore!"

Everyone turned towards Bennet Brooklyn. He scowled and crossed his arms. "Tch. You're one of us. I ain't calling you week just because you cry. That's fair. We're supposed to just be doing basic training -" then he turned towards Devlin Stone. "YOU KNOW WHOSE FAULT THIS IS."

"You have strange conceptions about my influence on Brevet General Nathan Armstrong," Devlin blandly replied. But not untrue.

Devlin sat down kneeling with his legs folded under him, the seiza position, in front of Tom. "I am sorry. There are only some things I can say, I hope they will make you feel better."

"I… I doubt it."

"Kerensky's parole only lasts for three months. It's not like she will be around long enough to impact our physical development. You only have to endure this for seven more weeks."

"That doesn't make me feel any better at all!" Tom wailed.

Hudson Asner rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration "Jesus Christ, Stone."

"Sorry. This is just how Kerensky was raised. This is how I was raised-"

Angela and Salli abruptly turned aside and spoke as one "That's child abuse!" before returning to hug little Tom.

Devlin shrugged. "Three months in unlikely to permanently harm our bodily development. The problem isn't that we are being subjected to harsh training, but that we are being subjected to harsh training for adults. We shouldn't be doing this."

"I bet you're just enjoying this," Bennet spat.

"I'm not. I still have to make a presentation on why this whole thing is stupid and why the Spartan way doesn't work."

"Are you actually… telling me to give up?" Tom sniffed and looked up with red eyes.

"You can give. You may all give up. You are the ones allowed to give up. No one would think bad of you, we are after all cadets being given the full special forces training well ahead of time."

"That's implying you're not going to be allowed to give up," said Salli Maza.

Devlin nodded. "As long as one of us persists, the adults can't reject Kerensky's teachings out of hand. It would be too shameful to give up when a child does not. Right now they are working through spite and they will complete the objective as ordered. But they are not analyzing it sufficiently to beat it on its own terms. Kerensky, despite her looks, is not stupid. By torturing us with the full regimen, she is ensuring that cadets in our own grade do not see this as much as unwarranted favoritism as but a harsh voluntold exercise."

"Is that it?" Salli asked with a scowl. "We're just here for, what, motivational purposes? Why can't we just do that from the sidelines? Being watched should be enough."

"The Eridani Light Horse understands the powers of trust and commitment. That is why military training is basically a form of group torture. By the shared struggle and the ability to both prevent and cause group suffering, this results in high trust relationships that can allow men and women to risk their lives for each other on a regular basis. There is a difference between doing something dangerous and difficult with someone who can just leave at any time and one that is unable to leave. If Tom leaves, then you must all leave."

Tom Lexington abruptly stopped breathing. Angela squeaked and began more firmly rubbing the boy's back to bring him out of his panic attack.

"That's sick, Stone. Putting all that pressure on Tom instead of the shite you brought us all into."

"It all comes down to trust. A professional military trusts that their comrades around them will not abuse them, steal from them, or fail them, and that their rear echelon units will be able to support them no matter how thick the battle. But it also comes down to trust in yourself. It is normal for us human beings to shy away from pain and solve things so that we can do them without pain. Pain is the enemy where your only opponent is yourself. Sometimes the only lesson that suffering teaches is pain.

"But as soldiers, we know that the pain we suffer is for a purpose. Pain and sweat in training saves blood and flesh on the battlefield. We are pushed to our limits because we don't know them until we reach them. Pain. Exhaustion. Distraction. Pain and hesitation *kills*. We are not Kuritas who torture their recruits just to reduce them to compliant meat-slaves. Pain needs to have purpose as a personal trial.

"If we can push through pain, we save more than ourselves. As the ancients said, the morale is to the physical as three is to one. If you don't give up in the face of pain, you don't give up in the face of death, and your enemies will break before you do. Without morale, without *trust*, all the best kit and lostech mean nothing.

"Tom, if you give up here, then that's fine. That is all the Tom you can be. But I know you can do better than that. You won't break. A hero always at first tries to refuse the call. If you don't want to be a MechWarrior, that is fine too. But knowing yourself, that you can survive Kerensky's hell, that… that has value too.

"Stone Squad was chosen for a reason, and it's not just nepotism. It is not enough that you suffer. You must be worthy. It is not enough that you have power. You must have vision. This is what separates elites from veterans. The ability to look beyond the now.

"I believe that this isn't the end of it. I believe in the Tom Lexington that doesn't give up when it gets too hard. Because nothing's too hard when you've got your friends around you. If you don't believe in yourself, then believe in the me that believes in you!"

Devlin jabbed at his chest with a thumb and then pointed at Tom with two hands and an unnaturally wide grin on his face.

Tom stared at him like Stone was some sort of strange and illogically flamboyant and multi-colored tropical animal. Perhaps even one with a bright red butt.

-.


Colchester
Federated Suns
March 3025

"In summary: Training from a very young age does not produce superior soldiers. It creates a meaningfully inferior combatant due to stunted development than what would otherwise be available. A brutalized recruit does not make for a brutal, stronger warrior - just a traumatized one, a reckless one, and a society made of brutalized warriors is a brutal and short-sighted society.

"The Spartan way, much like House Kurita of today, is an inefficient power due to always needing to reserve its strength to counter a brutalized slave population. It creates loyalty through fear. It cannot mobilize all of its strength because the fear of being seen as weak is as dangerous as bullets and bombs. A more democratic society, like that of the Federated Suns, can rally back after defeats without cannibalizing itself and find victory without obsessing over 'decisive battle'.

"In much the same way, child soldiers glorify war without thinking about what victory actually looks like. It is so much of a sunk cost fallacy. A society that relies on child soldiers is likely also one that is lacking in logistics. Being too obsessed with only having the best to the point you would *break* potential recruits is a waste."

Devlin Stone raised a fist. He had dark shadowy panda eyes. "It is wastefulness!"

Tom Lexington looked up with a face of glittering admiration. "So he actually *did* make a slide presentation."

Bennet Brooklyn groaned and palmed his face. "Dammit to hell. When am I going to remember that Stone doesn't make jokes? He treats *everything* stupidly seriously."


-.
-.


Luthien
Draconis Combine
Meanwhile

Takashi Kurita had gone past blinding rage into some form of focused almost blissful calm.

He leaned back, watching with steepled fingers, as the Warlords of the Draconis Combine tried to shout each other down. The Black Room within the Imperial Palace was a sealed ultra-secure room for the most important meetings in the empire. The Warlords had been summoned from their own Districts, and in this meeting they were more concerned with trying to pull down each other than vying for his throne.

As it was as it always had been for the Coordinators of the Draconis Combine, a position of seeming absolute power that stood only through the careful maneuvering of greedy and ambitious subordinates.

Unlike the nobles of say House Davion or House Steiner, nobles of each world, even governors of district capitals, lacked effective power outside of their own worlds. All military power was subordinated to the superstructure of military commanders. Planetary nobility obeyed in exchange for their lives, which grants Warlords a very high degree of authority in how best to accomplish the Coordinator's orders swiftly.

In many ways, the Coordinator of House Kurita, despite having much more direct power, was less capable of exercising direct authority than the Chancellor of the much less potent House Liao.

"This insult cannot be allowed!" roared one of the Warlords.

"It is as I said-" spoke a tall and wiry man with a sagging neck. This was Warlord Grieg Samsonov, Warlord of Galedon. "The Wolf's Dragoons are not to be trusted. As mercenaries their fame is overblown. They have always been due for a humbling."

"But it is also more mercenaries that stopped them. Mercenaries against mercenaries," objected Vasily Cherenkoff, Warlord of the Dieron Military District. "The Dragoons were beaten in space. They beat your 8th Galedon decisively on the ground as well, did they not? Even if the Eridani Light Horse were using lostech, it is not as if we would be foolish enough not to use a similar advantage when the chance presents itself."

As commander of the smallest district but also the region most often embroiled in war, he felt had the place to point out military failures by other Warlords.

"The Eridani Light Horse are not unbeatable, the Dragon has faced them many times before," spoke Warlord Ivan Sorenson, of the history of the Rasalhague Military District. Tall, blonde-haired, and blue-eyed, he almost looked as if right out of a Steiner recruiting poster. "They are honorable and difficult adversaries."

Ukita Yoriyoshi, Warlord of Benjamin, interjected "It is to me much more dangerous that the Eridani Light Horse were able to defeat the Wolf's Dragoons in space at all. The Dragoons had at least been dutiful enough to send as much information as they could back to their jumpships. As the Horses met the Wolves halfway into the system, there was not enough time to catch the JumpShips before they could jump back out."

Although centrally located with all four other Districts of the Combine bordering it, the Benjamin District was considered a backwater region. Planets were sparse towards the Davion border, and though certain worlds were repeatedly contested - Prosperina and Galtor, for example, the rest of the worlds along the connective economic spine of the Combine were placid and unremarkable with little in the form of militarily significant industries.

Benjamin lacked attention from the overall DCMS military procurement system, but that did not mean it lacked wealth. Yoriyoshi was known for funding his Benjamin Regulars out of his own pocket and was an avid technologist. He continued "These Assault DropShips the Horses were using, I theorize they are heavily reinforced Overlords. The ranges by which they started engaging the Dragoons' own Overlords, it seems the Davions have access to Extended Range Lasers. They have lostech. It could be dangerous if these ships were to be used to punch through into their own invasions."

"The Eridani Light Horse could have dug it up from a SLDF cache. The same cache they brought out… " Here Kester Hsiun Chi, Warlord of Pesht, hesitated. Although he commanded the region that included Luthien, Pesht Military District's regiments were usually considered green and untested showpieces. He looked towards Takashi Kurita for guidance.

At Takashi's slow blink, he continued "Where the Horses brought out the DEMETER CORE. Something happened to make them aware of long-hidden SLDF treasures. Was there more on Hoff that we did not realize?"

House Kurita considered it a victory to have successfully raided the world, but Davion considered it a victory that at least the scientists escaped. It would not imply that the Coordinator made a mistake.

Samsonov growled softly and responded "There are reports from New Avalon that the Davions now have mass production of lostech such as Double HeatSinks and Ferro-Fibrous armor." He turned towards Takashi and bowed. "I beg your forbearance, my lord, our own scientists should be redoubling their efforts to reverse-engineer the samples we have taken."

It was his 17th Galedon, alongside Wolf's Dragoons, that attacked Hoff back in 3023, and could take his share of the glory.

"Refitting the AFFS would be a costly and time-consuming endeavor. In the short term, this is not likely to be relevant," added Warlord Sorenson. "The assault dropships already exist, therefore it is necessary to have shipkiller weapons."

"Or create some of our own," Warlord Yoriyoshi added without concealing his glee.

"I suppose so, yes," replied Warlord Hsuin Chi, as the only shipyards that managed to survive the devastation of the Succession Wars happened to do so because they were far and away behind the lines in the Pesht District.

"That will also take time, said Warlorld Cherenkoff. "The best way to disrupt the enemy's plans is to attack!"

Murmurs of agreement passed through the table. "But where?" asked Warlord Yoriyoshi. "It is obvious that Davion is preparing Harrow's Sun as a death trap. Though if it is only mercenaries like the Dragoons to die for it, then it would not be much loss. Let them do so, and see if Davion is willing to thin out the defense to save their precious little Horses while we strike at another important world at the same time."

Cherenkoff smirked. So far, Yoriyoshi had not been allowed to cover himself in glory. With the Dragoons quartered on Misery, a central position against the Draconic March, which is the Galedon District, most of the action that occurred all along a wide range on the Davion front happened without their participation.

Yoriyoshi only had seven regiments on the border, while his region as it touched both Steiner and Davion space had seventeen. Samsonov had twelve in the bordering Matsuida and Kaznejov Prefectures.

As the discussion petered down, all the Warlords turned their attention towards Takashi Kurita. They must have his permission first before deciding on the world to attack.

Takashi raised his chin and spoke coldly "This situation is not as dire as others would have us believe. They provoke us to act rashly, and stupidly, and we will not give their delusions any satisfaction.

"Jaime Wolf will come to me in supplication. If he wants his Epsilon regiment back, then he must exchange something with me. The DEMETER CORE is an insult, but it is irrelevant. It will be in our hands soon enough. Now we all have a common cause - the utter destruction of the Eridani Light Horse!"

-.
-.

New Avalon
Federated Suns
March 3025

Hanse Davion voluntold "Ardan! Have a morning jog with me."

Ardan groaned.

Because when Hanse now meant with a morning jog was less actual physical exercise but running around the palace on a pair of Super Urbanmechs. It would have made more sense if they were using a more humanoid Valkyrie BattleMech, but the armless Urbanmech had cruise control. Sitting around in plush seats was the opposite of exercise.

Tightbeam transmission between two Urbanmechs, passive ECM, and automatically scrubbed recorders was the only time they could use the Ground Mobile HPG. The ELH… or maybe the Star League… did something to make HPG transmissions completely silent while being used, it would only be the emergence of the HPG transmission would cause that electromagnetic burst. Or not, if it secretly happened to go from golden ring to another golden ring with almost the rest of the equipment doing nothing.

If one trusted Wandering Horse, this was the most secure vector for communications, far more than even Luthien's shielded Black Room.

"So I heard you were training the Davion Heavy Guards and the Light Guards against each other. Trying to work out what it would take for a Light Cavalry Regiment to beat a Heavy Regiment like the Dragoons? How is that turning out?"

Ardan looked pleased even if he was not directly participating in the present conflicts on the Liao border. "Better than expected. Of course, exercises are a costly undertaking, but the Heavy Guards are finding it more useful to drill against fast enemies and the Light Guards are left trying to work out more ways to inflict damage against a far less impulsive enemy that doesn't want to cooperate in giving chase."

"And you, General? How is Kerensky's boot camp working out for you?"

Nathan Armstrong responded "Kerensky is a beast and we had no chance of beating her in an honest fight. But we are developing our doctrine. The Dragoons are good, but combined arms seems to be a minor hole in their operations."

"Do you think your 21st Strikers regiment can hold out if the Dragoons attack Harrow's Sun to take back their Epsilon regiment? You know that they know that you are too honorable to just execute them out of hand."

"Possibly. The 21st Strikers is also an infantry heavy force, and it is unwise for mechwarriors to underestimate infantry."

"How so?" asked Ardan. "Heavy Mechs are hard enough to beat, even with armor and aircraft."

"Infantry-based TAG," replied Armstrong. "The Dragoons also love to use artillery, but they can't love it more than we do, who integrate it on the battalion level." His figure on the holo laced its palms together under its nose in a conspiratorial posture. "You could call over the Crater Cobras if they want to join in on the fun."

"Oh. They are a SLDF-derived mercenary unit too aren't they?" Hanse tapped on a console in the roomy and office-like Urbanmech cockpit. The search on Poni> where are the crater cobras returned to him "They are on Deneb Kaitos holding fort while the Deneb Light Cavalry are on the border. Interesting. They are not near enough to cycle into the fight unless there is a line of traders conveniently present to act like a command circuit towards Harrow's Sun. If you are looking for other SLDF daughter units, the Blue Star Irregulars are only a jump away on Ozawa. Both of them are guarding against Kurita actions from the Dieron Prefecture. Unfortunately, as we are waiting on the Combine timetable here, you would have to do this mostly on your own if you want to represent the SLDF. And the Deneb Light Cavalry, of course, if that counts."

Armstrong nodded. "Also, Gauss Rifle field guns."

Phffft. Hanse spat out the pre-dawn hot chocolate he was drinking through a straw, splattering the main screen. Fortunately, everything was also waterproof.

"Damnation, why do these Urbies tempt you to use their cup holders?!" he groused. He opened a panel for some cleaning cloth.

Ardan chuckled lightly. Once inside an Urbanmech, Hanse was so much more a cheery and childish sort. A far cry from the affable but cooly calculating impression he had to wear in public. It might still be a false face he put on to make others relax in his presence, but there was more truth in it than he would care to admit. You are already judged heavily for using an Urbanmech, once inside there would be no condemnation.

As this was clearly a whim by the First Prince, might as well follow through. None but Armstrong seemed to treat Hanse with such sheer disrespect.

This pair of hopeless comedians, Ardan Sortek sighed. May they quit their jobs and find the unimpressed audience they deserve.

"By the way, Hanse Davion," Armstrong continued blithely "are you still planning on baiting the DCMS into wrecking themselves on the rumors of an intact SLDF facility on Galtor?"

"Mm," Hanse mumbled, pleased. "It should not surprise me that Wandering Horse knows about that. Do you have any objections or additional information on this?"

"We do. There *is* an intact SLDF facility on Galtor."

"What."

"Three thousand kilometers south of the fake site, just some distance south of the Middle Way pass. Defending two sites would split your forces too much and risk defeat."

"Why did you not say this earlier?" asked Ardan.

"We only learned of it just recently."

Hanse rubbed at his chin. That sounded like an excuse, but at least a plausible one. And the Eridani Light Horse would not be telling them this if they had the intent to harm. "The false site has already been prepared. You are correct, it would be dangerous to start digging now - but letting Kurita get their hands on real SLDF technology would also be dangerous. Do you recommend protection through indifference?"

"You have us, Hanse Davion. Lostech treasures are… less relevant now. Destroying House Kurita's ability to wage war is the more important objective, your commanders would have been just distracted by… uh, what is that word? The shinies. We in the Inner Sphere are all far too conditioned to grub for lostech."

"Distracted by the shiny. Nice. Do you desire to participate in the Galtor campaign or will the Light Horse focus entirely on countering the Dragoons?"

"We are also… interested… in doing something about the 11th Benjamin Regulars on Tripoli."

-.
-.

 

Doctrine 01

---

Colchester
Federated Suns
January 3025

Tankers filled the large prefab sports arena/auditorium. Tank commanders, that is. There were a lot of them, and they would not all fit even if the Eridani Light Horse tried. Most of them were from the 21st Strikers and 121st Dark Horse Regiment, as the 71st was out there fulfilling Davion objectives while the other two regiments recovered and retrained.

The 151st Dark Horse was the most elite of the three Regiments operated by the Eridani Light Horse. With half their number down after Hoff, reconstituting the regiment was slow going. Normally the ELH would fill in the ranks from the two sister regiments - the 71st White Horse and the 21st Strikers - as a sort of sideways promotion.

But then Eridani High Command announced that they planned on establishing a new fourth regiment.
It would not be the 19th Striker Regiment, as it would be grossly disrespectful to the memory of their ancestors lost in the war to retake Terra, but a 91st Cavalry Regiment.

The Eridani Light Horse owed their name from 2479 when, assigned to the Rasalhague District, they routed attacking Combine forces like "speedy Eridani steeds chasing after fat Luthien cows". How they wanted to accomplish this was easy to understand. If undignified.

Even for a tank commander like Beth Duncan, it was hard to ignore the multiple regiments worth of Urbanmechs that had arrived. The ELH had to build new hangar just to keep them out of the elements and prying eyes trying to get an accurate count. Improbably fast Urbanmech regiments, what the hell.

But just like the rest of the Eridani Light Horse's tank officers, she was much more excited to hear that the Light Horse had SIX Alacorn Mark VIs on hand. She commanded a Von Luckner 75-ton Heavy Tank in the 151st Dark Horse Regiment, 9th Recon Battalion, Strike Lance.

Beth's father was a retired MechWarrior that taught at the Eridani Combat School, her uncle was an AeroSpace Fighter pilot, her brother was an infantry officer, and her sister worked as DropShip crew. She inherited her Von Luckner tank from her mother who had died in combat.

The tanned young woman with freckles crossing her nose sat stiffly on the plastic monobloc chair, and looked around.

The Eridani Light Horse spread their collection of Von Luckner tanks around the three regiments as heavy support formations. A lance of Von Luckers striking from ambush with their AC/20s could take down an enemy lance in seconds. There was no mechwarrior vs tanker divide in the Light Horse, they were fervent believers in combined arms. However, it was still true that the ELH lacked sufficient front-line vehicle power to push through on their own. The relatively slow speed of heavy tanks meant that they would forever be second in line to Assault Mechs.

Now the Engineering Division called together all the Von Luckners, Manticores, and Demolisher commanders, all the heaviest and deadliest of the entire Eridani Light Horse's combat vehicle complement. Beth Duncan sat beside another Von Luckner commander: Rose Martinson, of the 3rd Heavy Assault Company "Wrecking Crew" of the same regiment but in a different battalion.

The short but buxom woman whispered "You know what I think? This meeting better be about starting an Assault Tank company with those Alacorns at the spearhead. Who gets to command those beauties? I don't know about you, but I'd trade up in a heartbeat!"

Beth scowled. It felt disrespectful to discard the tank that her mother died in. On the other hand, she did almost do the same thing - die in that tank - in the frenetic scuffle on Hoff. The Von Luckner in question was still under repairs, as finding a 225 Rated Fusion Engine and refitting one to fit on a tank was slow going even for the Federated Suns' famous logistics train.

She gestured over to a group near the front. "Tin Can Company's probably going to get it."

That assembly was commanded by Captain Klause Hesse, attached to the 21st Strikers, and they were the ELH's premier combat vehicle company. They held a uniform assembly of Von Luckners and Pegasus Hover Tanks in whole lances in the SLDF style for hammer and anvil tactics. They ran with six vehicles per lance.

At the head of the auditorium was a stage and an officer stepped up to the podium. The concrete floor clattered with clicking boots as everyone else immediately stood up to attention.

"At ease," spoke Major Wendell F. TeCarr, administrative second in command of the Eridani Light Horse.

The tankers sat back down.

-.
-.

"Doctrine!" spoke Major Wendell F. TeCarr from the podium. "Operational doctrine must continue to evolve and refine itself, occasionally reverting back to older and simpler ways, for no doctrine is perfect. The superiority of SLDF doctrine is in its flexibility and the ruthless exploitation of initiative. Fight the war you're in with what you have. Minimize casualties while inflicting maximum havoc on the enemy. Simple to speak, difficult to carry out in practice.

"The Eridani Light Horse has survived three hundred years fighting and doing the most from a position of scarcity. While it is true that we never really lacked for supplies in the employ of the Lyran Commonwealth, for whatever lack in stratagem the Lyrans could compensate for with sheer economic power, it remains that over time the Eridani Light Horse has… diminished.

"We have little left of our physical inheritance from the SLDF. All we have left is the doctrine of the thinking soldier, the well educated fighting man and woman that can exploit every opportunity from the lowest boot on the ground to the commander watching the planetary campaign map. We have changed the doctrine to survive in these Succession Wars.

"To be children of the SLDF is to be adaptable to changing circumstances!

"And now… for a multititude of reasons, we must drastically adapt our means and ways again. What if… we no longer need to fight from a position of scarcity anymore?"

He paused. The thin man smiled and stroked at his pencil mustache. "You might have been paying attention to recent events. No, we did not just salvage some strange Urbanmech depot. The new doctrine asks - how would YOU prefer to fight if you had nearly SLDF levels of resupply again?"

The auditorium rang with garrulous shouting. TeCar let them mutter among themselves for a few seconds and then held up his palm. The ELH officers all immediately stopped.

"You all are here as representatives of the Light Horse's vehicle command. Our vehicular complement will also benefit from the refits and advanced technology we have access to. In fact, one might argue it is vehicle combat that benefits the most from advanced technology, and every bit of advantage matters.

"Our customs have it that tanks and other combat vehicles can be inherited from parent to child, in an unbroken line leading back to the fall of the Star League. This is not from stratified nobility as the Lords of the Inner Sphere do, but because it is a duty that must be earned. Our forebears trusted into us, their children, the future of the regiment - and from us to our children, that the Eridani Light Horse continue to shine the light of the Star League into the ever-distant tomorrow.

"We may order the refitting and refurbishment of the Light Horse Regimental Combat Team from above, but we will not do so without your input. A soldier of the SLDF is always conscious of their options.

"And so it is with this in mind, that we now should listen well to Chief Engineer Eligio Cade-"

-.
-.

It turned out that yes, Beth's prediction was right. The Alacorns *were* being assigned to the 21st Strikers. The 21st were being upgraded to Royal versions with DHS and ER weaponry for the explicit purpose of fucking up the Wolf's Dragoons.

The 121st were due for much deeper refits and more boring downtime.

Beth Duncan walked out of there, like most of the officers, numb and pensive with the revelations. Rose however stretched out like a cat and then beamed.

"Well that just confirms it, doesn't it?" she said.

Beth raised an eyebrow. "No it doesn't. They said 'in complete and unequivocal terms - we are not being resupplied by the SLDF. Or the Terran Hegemony.'"

"Why do they keep dancing around the words and just say it?! Oh 'we have access to functionally unlimited quantities of Extra Light Engines' like who the heck would be building these things brand new then? It's annoying and nobody believes silly technical denials anyway. Who are they trying to fool" She pursed her lips out. "THE FOOOOOLS."

"How insubordinate," Beth replied in dry tone.

Rose smirked. "So. They wanna upgrade our rides. They wanna upgrade ALL our rides. I'm going to say yes. What about you?"

Beth grimaced. Logically… of course she should say yes. But ripping out the Fusion Engine of a tank to replace with an Extra Light Engine requires extensive internal remodeling, and changing the main gun from a single AC/20 to a Gauss Rifle and a PPC involved a new turret swap. The ancestral Von Luckner would barely be the same tank anymore at the end of it.

Emotionally, would it still be the same tank baptized with the blood of her mother and all the worthy crew through the generations before her?

Eridani High Command could certainly just make it an order for regimental strategic operations, but this inheritance of war machines was not like the nobles of the inner sphere possessing their ancestral battlemechs.

"We earned the right to command these machines as the fulfillment of an oath," she repeated TeCarr's speech. "Our forebears trusted in us, their children, the future of the regiment - and from us to our children, that the Eridani Light Horse continue to shine the light of the Star League into the ever-distant tomorrow." Then Beth added her own thoughts "If we upgrade everything just because we can, won't that make them all harder to repair and maintain? We had a position of plenty before, what if we just lose it again and then need to operate from a position of scarcity again? This is kind of suspicious, you know? We are working for Davion now, but this looks like someone else is trying to tie us down into someone else's supply chain."

Rose nodded, then then shrugged. "But are we the SLDF, or are we not? Are you going to let sentimentality get in the way of winning? Reviving the Star League?"

Beth winced. Everything the Eridani Light Horse did now had that unspoken intent. Formerly, the ELH did their best to wait and survive until the SLDF returned. Now… it was like High Command had suddenly become mulish enough to want to fight the entire goddamn Inner Sphere by themselves if necessary.

Surely Davion could feel the tension in the air too?

-.

The Von Luckner tank had a name. She was the "Lucky Miss".

Still lucky even thought sometimes her crew needed to be hosed off the hull, because the tank had managed to be recoverable even through centuries of battle. The fusion engine remained intact and no ammo explosion ever split the tank in half. That was even miraculous due to how many different types of ammo the tank had to carry for its many weapons systems.

The tank had a regular crew of four. Beth Duncan, commander. Paris Fernanda, gunner. Jocelyn Xiang, driver. Diogenes Eckhard, comms and sensors. Due to Eridani Light Horse training doctrine, all of them had sufficient technical skill sufficient to maintain and do ad hoc repairs to tank systems. Beth regaled them with the points of the meeting.

"So they want to change the "Miss Fusion" engine to an XL Fusion? Pardon me, boss, but don't XL Fusions also be bulkier than regular ones?" said Paris.

Diogenes gestured to the back of the tank. "Most of the ammo stowage for the AC/20 goes into the turret with the Gauss Rifle having capacitors. The techs are going to find a way somehow."

Beth crossed her arms. "No problems with replacing the main gun?"

Paris replied "Boss, I would be a total dumbarse not to prefer having a GAUSS RIFLE and A PPC in exchange for a single AC/20."

"There's two versions you said," said Diogenes. "The XL Fusion could mean more speed or more firepower. The main gun… or two main guns… are basic to both versions. So the difference between the two is just missile armament."

"Some sort of Multi-Missile Launcher, hey?" Paris nodded eagerly. "That's new. A nine-shot launcher or a five-shot launcher." He slapped the paper with the proposed loadouts. "Artemis guidance package, even! This is some nice gear, bosslady."

Beth turned to the driver. "What do you think, Joyce?"

The woman shrugged. "Ma'am, if you're asking me which is worth it - more guns or more speed, I'm always on the side of more speed. If we go from Assault Mech speeds to Heavy Mech speeds, that lets us get into more fights than just waiting in ambush."

They were part of 9th Recon's Strike Lance, and the two other tanks in the augmented lance of 4 mechs + 3 tanks were a pair of Galleons. Tactics basically boiled down to luring the enemy into AC/20 bushwacking range.

"We might end up being assigned to escort the Alacorns. They are also planning on building three Assault Tank lances out of them - two Alacorns, two Von Luckners, eight Gauss Rifles brought to bear."

"Then I must insist on speed, ma'am! Escort vehicles need to be slightly faster than the thing they are escorting so that they can't be left flat-footed."

"If we are only as slow as Alacorns though, a larger missile load would be more useful against air threats," mused Diogenes. "On the other hand, being as slow as Alacorns means we would also only be deployed when Alacorns are needed. Too valuable to lose, too potent not to use."

"No offense boss, but even if we already spend most times in recon just waiting around, aiming to surprise a light mech counterforce… feels to me not getting to fight as much is like a sideways demotion. I personally don't envy the dudes given the honor of being Alacorn crew."

Beth nodded. "High command is really confident about this. I don't know why. Upgrading is dangerous if we can't get more advanced tech to repair the damage. I suppose a standard PPC isn't hard to find if the Gauss Rifle gets wrecked."

Jocelyn's gaze tightened. "Because we are the SLDF and this is our time," she said with a fanatical glimmer in her eyes.

Beth sighed and began rubbing her forehead. "I keep hearing that a lot, and I'm wondering if we're getting too haughty about this and when that is going to bite us in the ass."

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Colchester
Federated Suns
February 3025

The 21st Strikers Regiment had the focus of all the Eridani Light Horse's engineers. They were the one fully intact regiment of the ELH that was at home and could be flexibly deployed.

The 21st did not involve anything as extensive as Fusion Engine changes, but had universally changed to DHS and Ferro-Fibrous armor. ER and Pulse weaponry would be a surprise. However, they had an extensive infantry and fighter component too, and was the most well-rounded among the regiments. Colonel Winston had decades of experience. If there was someone the Light Horse could have confidence in sending against any fight, it would be the 21st Strikers.

The 21st Strikers were on their way to Harrow's Sun.

91st Regiment, 2nd Battalion, Allwine's Battalion had already set out, fully upgraded with fast Heavy mechs, and crushed Kurita's 8th Galedon on New Aberdeen.

Stimson Battalion, now the 1st Battalion of the 91st, was filling up with fresh machines and graduates.

This left the 121st twiddling thumbs on Colchester. Natasha Kerensky had yet to arrive.

The solution was simple.

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Seen from above, a company was conducting a search and destroy mission.

A Wolverine, two Hunchbacks, and Blackjack - that command lance covered all combat ranges.

Following behind were a group of seven combat units - three mechs: Griffin, a Stinger, and a Locust; and three tanks: a Von Luckner and two Galleons.

Roving ahead of the group was the Scout Lance composed of a single Locust and three light scout vehicles; a 20-ton Packrat and two 8-ton Darters.

This was the 9th Recon Company that Beth Duncan belonged to.

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People often said that being in the military was mainly about hurrying up to wait. This was not exactly true. Only about 10% of time in the military was combat. Sixty percent waiting around or doing maintenance. The rest of the time?

Meetings.

30% of all the hours ever spent. Meetings.

Welcome to the life of a professional military.

Captain Gary Werent, commander of the 9th Recon Company "Grey Gales" of the Sixth Recon Battalion of the 121st Dark Horse Regiment, gestured with a laser pointer to the after-action report on the projected screen. "So, in summary - what have we learned from our mock battle with the 4th Recon Company?"

This was part of the job of a company commander. They had to evaluate themselves then pass it up to battalion command and how their views differed. Discrepancies were useful. If a force had nothing to do, then make train and evaluate themselves. Bored soldiers were just the worst.

The "Sneaky Devils" were the 4th Company in the Sixth Recon Battalion "Stimson's Stealthers", which itself used to be the third Battalion of the 121st Dark Horse. Once again, Beth was in the second actual battalion named the Eighth Recon Battalion "Cyclones".

The "Grey Gales" and the "Sneaky Devils" were in many ways mirrors of each other. They also had a Von Luckner in their Support Lance, it was just that the rest of the lance consisted of a pair of Manticores and a Galleon, which was a hell of weight advantage versus Beth's own tank lance of one Von Luckner and two Galleons.

The two recon battalions of the 121st fought it each before one permanently leaves to become the 1st Cav Battalion of a new regiment. It was their goodbye activity before becoming different commands. It was somewhat sad, but at the same time Beth also felt it was right to try their hardest to pound their sibling company to the ground.

Lt. Patricio Saludo, lead of the company's Recon Lance, raised his hand. "It sucks to get our ass beat, sir!"

Beth clapped her palms over her face and groaned.

"Something less obvious, Lieutenant," Captain Werent replied dryly.

"Okay. We got our ass beat by Urbanmechs and it sucks, sir! Goddamn Urbanmechs are short enough that they blend into the treeline. But we almost got them because ER PPCs don't have enough of a refire rate. Urbies just cannot handle Jump Infantry *at all*. They're armless!" Everyone immediately groaned at the pun.

Even with that aside, a combat exercise that involved infantry jumping onto mechs and slapping explosive charges onto mech canopies was still a highly risky activity. Jump infantry were among the most reckless of fighters in the entire Inner Sphere.

He continued "But we lost not just because of their Star League tech advantage, but because they outnumbered us with their mixed lances. Normally the Recon Lance being infantry and light scout vehicles isn't a problem because command and strike lances are augmented so that that numbers add up the same anyway-

"But the former 6th Recon had their entire scout lance made up of upgraded Galleons, so when they joined in the fight that was a full four lances versus three."

Light tanks were easy prey for Battlemechs, but were often the hard counter for infantry.

Beth Duncan clapped her palms and raised her hand.

"Yes, Lt. Duncan?"

"Sixth Recon all have four-lance square companies, but technically also do have the same number of combat units as we do. Sixteen in a company, instead of the standard twelve in three lances. They just split their units into four while we concentrated them into two and make the third recon lance be entirely scout vehicles. If we do the same thing as them… we lose the benefit of recon lances being small and hard to spot in exchange for more direct fire. It's tempting to throw extra forces into battle, but if we lose recon then what's the point?"

"Good point!" replied Cpt. Werent. "And that is why Sixth Recon or 1st Cav shared the specs of the new Galleon Light Tank with us. Eridani High Command fully intends on standardizing the entire RCT's line of Light Support Tanks into these specific Light Horse Galleons.GAL-3000."

"Even Scorpions and Vedettes, sir?" said Saludo.

"Vedettes are Medium Tanks," Beth chuffed. "But Scorpions are just 25 tons that goes barely 65 kph anyway, so a 30-ton tank with more armor that goes up to 97 kph is an improvement. Because an AC/5 has the same range as a PPC, I know we get a lot of aggressive Scorpion commanders that try to contribute from long range. Recon is supposed to stay out of the fight."

Saludo kept his right hand raised and flicked his palm down to point towards her "Do you think the problem with tank on tank shock was that you were only backed up by two Galleons while their single Von Luckner already had two Manticores and *five* Galleons behind them?"

Beth grimaced. A Von Lucker with an AC/20 vs another Von Luckner with a Gauss Rifle and a PPC was no contest, which was why the mock battle simulated equal firepower as if her tank had already been upgraded. So the result returned to the basic Star League doctrine of 'never fight an equal battle' and 'outnumber the heck out of the enemy whenever you can'.

Saludo, as leader of the Scout Lance and piloted a Locust, lowered his hand and continued "I brought my light mech into the reach of four Galleons each with two Small Pulse Lasers and a pair of ER Medium Lasers in the turret and I got the shite kicked out of me. I don't think anyone else would have a good time. If those updated Galleons still have troop capacity for Jump Infantry like my eight-wheeler Packrats, I have no objections to this change."

Beth blinked. "Galleons are slower, are you sure?"

Saludo shrugged and ran his fingers through his hair, normally cut short for sake of a bulky Succession Wars neurohelmet but now starting to grow out into curly fistfuls again. "It's not faster than a Locust on a straight line, true enough, but I think having a pair of ER Medium Lasers pointing backwards on the turret is a bigger incentive for no bugmech to chase too closely."

The projection changed to the tech readouts.

The new Galleon had two versions. They were still 30 tons but with Ferro-Fibrous armor beefed up armor protection from mere 4 tons to 6 and a half tons. The two small vertical turrets poking out on the tank's 'chin' were changed from a pair of Small Lasers to Machine Guns for infantry support and the turret changed to ER Medium Lasers. With almost 80% of the range of a Large Laser, Beth sighed at predicting this would hardly discourage the already hyper-aggressive tendencies of Galleon tankers in the Light Horse.

Scouts vehicle commanders were chosen for their patience and willingness to serve silently and without glory, knowing that helping the rest of the regiment win was as important as any personal kill tallies.

She hoped this would just allow them to protect themselves well once Scout Mechs catch up… instead of giving freedom to any battle-lust they had long tried to keep suppressed.

The other one, a more line combat version, had an ER Large Laser as main gun. With a little more range than a standard PPC, Galleons could now serve in direct fire support role even in mech vs mech combat. It had been many centuries since a single Large Laser was notable as main gun on a main battle tank, but when escorting a Von Luckner now they all had the same range profile, the whole lance striking down enemies as they approached.

Captain Werent continued "Eridani High Command insists. Apart from small Scout Cars we can pack as cargo, the Brigade is standardizing on the Galleon as its Universal Light Tank. All Scout Lances will have to retrain."

"This is not a problem, sir!" said Saludo. "Survivability is more important."

"Right then. Onto the next issue. As had already been noted - the Sixth Recon Battalion "Stimson's Stealthers" has been pulled out of the 121st to serve as core of the 91st Cavalry Regiment. That leaves us in the 121st with only two Battalions - the "Bloody Half-Hundred" of the 50th Heavy Cavalry Battalion and us of the "Cyclones" Eight Recon Battalion. The 121st is a Regiment rarely deployed as a whole because it has traditionally been the role of the 50th Heavy Cav and the 8th Recon to protect the Light Horse's dependents ever since Kuritan treachery on Sendai.

"This is also partly the reason why we have augmented lances. Three combat lances and a non-combat or infantry recon. The Sixth Recon moves square companies of four lances for a total of sixteen possible combat units. The question now is if we adopt the square company or roll with augmented lances of six units with three per company for a total of eighteen combat units per company."

Lt. Ryan Hixen of the Strike Lance, and Beth Duncan's superior as the lance her tank group was attached to snapped his head up. "Wait, we can do that?!"

The Captain responded, "We are trying to figure out new doctrine here. The square company works very well for the Stealthers - now the 91st 1st Strike Cav - , but they also want to standardize on using Urbanmechs to accomplish most combat vehicle roles. Jump Jets and being air-droppable, they say. The 91st Cavalry is going to be less of a tank-carrying combined arms regiment, focusing more on missile artillery and VTOLs.

"So we are told that if the 121st is willing to be a heavy shock regiment, then their heavy tank lances are willing to stay in the Dark Horse."

Beth crossed her arms. As well they should. The 121st was the best combat arm of the Eridani Light Horse. Then she frowned. She raised her hand to speak up again "Since it's only us and the 50th Heavy Cav left, we're going to need to reconstitute the Third Battalion. But since we can't leave our dependents undefended, historically we have only been able to alternately deploy the 50th Heavy Cav and the 8th Recon offworld. As had been noted the 121st mainly fights with only two reinforced Battalions as is.

"If we have two three-lance companies of six-unit lances plus a command lance… that's sixty units per battalion and one hundred twenty on deployment. Plus Regimental Battle Group Company and artillery. That's a regular Regiment, isn't it?"

"Yes, continue. "What is your point, Lieutenant?"

"Sir. The 91st with their square companies forming square battalions, last I heard they are still only staffed two battalions to a regiment - right now ninety-six units to the regiment, before Command and Artillery. But the 'Bloody Half Hundred' also runs a square battalion, hence the fifty or so units in it compared to a square battalion's forty-eight. Add us, counting only combat units, that's eighty-six.

"So my question, sir, is why do we have augmented lances in *two* battalions instead of regular lances and just make the whole 121st a four-battalion regiment like the rest? Since we can only ever deploy two or three at a time anyway?"

Captain Werent smiled. "Apart from the manpower issue?"

Beth grimaced. "Sir. I retract the questio-"

"Because reading that the Eridani Light Horse dropped with two battalions to repulse an invasion is different from being told that the Eridani Light Horse dropped their whole regiment to attack your world. Our professionalism, care for civilians, and willingness to accept surrender means that the Eridani Light Horse has actually won more battles in our history by not fighting than fighting.

"There are those that say 'winning is everything, no matter what the cost', but actually it is also true that 'reputation means something'. The ideals of the Star League still lives within us, and that is why we fight. Where we walk… people have hope and our enemies question themselves."

Beth stared back dully. That was just playing with definitions for public relations what the hell. Since when did the ELH play mind games?

Her face scrunched up in thought. She supposed that, in order to look overwhelming even to five different Houses all at once, the Terran Hegemony had always been playing mind games and the SLDF just had to follow suit.

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SLS BY LIGHT FANTASTIC
Scout III-class WarShip
March 3025

Normally it would take most of a month to reach Tripoli from Colchester. Most of that was the 20-day transit time at 1 gs from the planet to the jump point. The DropShips carrying the 91st Regiment - or rather, half a regiment plus the 121st's 9th Battalion, burned towards the transit point at 2 gs.

Double the speed at the hardship of feeling twice as heavy for those inside. The human body was not meant to bear such a burden for long. Ten days of it was enough to make Beth Duncan feel like she had been running marathons all day even with everyone only doing minimal movements and spending most of the time lying down in bed so their hearts would need to work as hard just pumping blood.

The abrupt shock going from double standard Terran gravity to zero-gravity as the Overlord-class DropShip maneuvered to link up with the JumpShip made her feel as if thick viscous blood was pooling behind her nose and her veins would start leaking. Her every muscle ached with a dull fire.

With wobbly feet Beth passed through the airlock to join the rest of the regiment into the more stable gravity quarters within the 90-meter grav deck of the Scout II. A normal Scout didn't have any and was forced to burn fuel just to achieve .2 g through thrust. Everything was clean and gleaming new.

She was greeted by the white Cameron Star with the ELH prancing pony superimposed upon it, painted on the bulkhead leading into the grav-deck. She hesitantly reached out to touch the symbol reverently, and on further examination…

That was not paint. That was a tinted alloy engraving baked right into the metal. The white metal was rhodium; and the yellow-orange, brass. The horse silhouette was black steel.

"Oh no," she whimpered. "We might actually be the SLDF."

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