Author Topic: Chronological BattleTech Fiction Review - The Succession Wars - Part II  (Read 205689 times)

Mendrugo

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Date: September 10, 2954
 
Location: Homer

Title: Seeds of Loyalty

Author: Philip A. Lee
 
Type: Short Story (BattleCorps)

Synopsis: Samson feels a thrill of anticipation as he starts his day, but takes care to banish his smile as he performs a ritual bow at his personal Shinto shrine, meditating by mentally reciting the litany of his ancestors back to his bloodline's founder, Andrew Izumi.

At the Kardaan Memorial Airfield, he sees a crowd gathering, including a handful of Sea Fox merchants and dozens of Snow Raven pilots, along with several VIPs.  Samson greets Cloud Cobra Khan Patrick McCloud and his entourage of Clan Council members.  The Khan tells Samson he expects to see good things at the demonstration. 

Samson then proceeds down the runway to where four prototype Pella-class aerospace fighters await.  Should the demonstration be sufficiently impressive, the Sea Foxes have agreed to broker the sale of production models to the Snow Ravens, netting a supply of HarJel for the Cobras in exchange.  Samson is joined by Pilots Marcella, Quentin and Tomas.  Tomas, who had piloted a 95-ton Xerxes in Clan Coyote, states disapprovingly that he finds the design too small for his tastes.  Samson replies that he hopes Tomas' different outlook will help make the demonstration better.

The quartet take off for low-altitude maneuvers, though Samson notes Tomas struggling to keep his Pella stable (not accustomed to the greater impact of crosswinds on the lighter airframe).  The group perform a simulated strafing run against a Star of Medium 'Mechs, achieving better-than-expected results.  However, during a vertical climb, Marcella experiences technical difficulties when an access panel comes loose, rendering her controls unresponsive.  Her fighter continues on a ballistic trajectory directly towards the VIP observation platform. 

Samson is uncomfortably reminded of an event in 2934, when ilKhan Corian Tchernovkov died in a crash while piloting an unfamiliar aerospace fighter.  Post-crash analysis by the Snow Ravens proved that the vessel had been assassinated by Tchernovkov's successor, Cloud Cobra Tobias Khatib, leaving a stain on the entire Clan's honor.  He orders Marcella to eject, but she reports the canopy jammed and the ejection system offline.  Trying to warn the Khan also fails, as the tower reports the channel is flooded by static - making Samson certain this is an intentional assassination attempt.  With lasers powered down for the demonstration, he cannot even shoot Marcella's sabotaged craft out of the sky. 

However, the autocannon rounds are live - included to provide proper combat weight, but not intended for use.  Samson orders the other fighters to join him in combining fire on Marcella's craft, targeting the starboard wing.  The combined fire sends the Pella into a flat spin, veering away from the reviewing stand and exploding just 500 meters from the crowd.  Samson orders the airfield sealed off and all ground crews detained.

Samson mentally wrestles with the fact that he is the first Cloud Cobra Warrior to willfully kill another Cobra, and whether it was justified to trade Marcella's life for that of the Khan.  His angst is interrupted, however, by Tomas' report of inbound DropShips - a Carrier and several Unions. 

Khan McCloud says there has been no formal batchall, but that he is mobilizing all of Alpha Galaxy, launching fighters from Telinov Airbase to support them, but holding back anything else (including the OmniFighter ready group of the 214th) from Kardaan Memorial airfield (likely due to the potential that they were sabotaged as well). 

The Carrier launches its fighters just as Quentin identifies its IFF as Coyote forces of the 19th Battle Cluster of Clan Coyote's Beta Galaxy - Tomas' former unit.  Samson orders his wingmen to approach the Coyote forces, but not to engage unless fired upon.  Tomas speculates that this attack is retaliation for the death of ilKhan Corian Tchernovkov, who had been elevated from Clan Coyote.

Entering range, the Coyote fighters (Gothas, Xerxeses and Avars) mass fire, destroying Quentin's fighter.  Samson orders Tomas to take evasive action, while pondering why the Coyotes had abandoned zellbrigen.  Tomas is just as outraged, though Samson notes that he uses the pronoun 'our' when referring to the Coyotes.  Tomas shoots down a Coyote Avar and Samson takes down the other, but ends up with the Xerxeses and Gothas on his tail.  His Pella critically damaged, Samson is forced to eject, ordering Tomas to "give them hell."

Drifting down in his parachute, Samson sees 'Mechs battling in the streets of El-Ghaza, while Tomas downs a Coyote Xerxes before being shot down himself.  As when he was taken bondsman two years previously, Tomas glides the wreck of his fighter safely into the desert sands.  Samson sees no more of the battle, as he hits the ground going too fast and is knocked out.

He awakens to find Tomas treating his broken arm.  Tomas reports several Clusters of Coyotes are advancing on El-Ghaza.  Looking towards the Cloud Cobra capital, he sees several dogfights in progress above it.  Tomas suggests they find the Coyote forward command post, where one of the Khans will be commanding the offensive.  Just after nightfall, they make contact with Coyote Elementals.  Samson identifies himself as Star Colonel Samson Izumi and requests safcon to speak with the Khan.  An APC picks them up and conveys them to the command post.

At the command post, they are brought before Khan Judas Levien, who gloats that Samson's air show provided him the opportunity to repay the Cobras for their earlier treason.  Tomas speaks up - telling the Khan that he has much to answer for.  He notes that Tobias Khatib had acted on his own volition and been appropriately punished decades earlier.  An assassination attempt against the Cloud Cobra Khan - his Khan - makes him equal in depravity.  Samson challenges the Coyote Khan to face him in a Circle of Equals - offering, as the stakes, to withdraw the Black Sheep against the Coyotes calling off the invasion.  Judas finds the offer of a Cluster against two Galaxies unacceptable, and offers the 19th Battle Cluster instead.

The two men fight unaugmented, with Levien having his arm bound behind him to match Samson's broken arm.  Samson smiles, subtly, since Levien is unaware that Samson has maintained his ancestor's mastery of aikido.  He soon gains the advantage, due to his skill in unarmed combat, and puts Levien on the ground.  However, Levien is quick to seize any advantage, and kicks Samson in his broken arm, then draws a combat knife and slashes at the arm.  Bleeding and dazed, Samson wonders what sort of flower will be planted for him in the Black Sheep's arboretum.

The fight is interrupted by Tomas's shouted demand to initiate a Trial of Possession for the right to take Samson's life.  Levien demands to know why Tomas thinks he can interrupt the sacred rite, and Tomas responds that Levien has already abandoned tradition by attacking without a batchall.  Tomas blocks Levien's attack and disarms him, turning the fight into a brutal exchange of close-quarter blows until Tomas lays him out flat with a right hook. 

Levien accepts defeat and tells Tomas to kill him, but Tomas refuses - saying he does not need to kill the Coyote Khan in order to win.  Samson and Tomas leave together, with Samson confirming that, having been defeated, he will have the 214th remain grounded for the duration of the fight.

Notes: This was a superbly written and intense scene - kudos to Phil Lee! 

I guess this story actually fills both the Cloud Cobra and Coyote slots in Phil's "Great Work" to do stories for each Clan.  It really conveys the sense of what The Way means to the Cobras, and also conveys the unyielding arrogance of the Coyotes during their reign as "top dog" of the Kerensky Cluster. 

Given the political shenanigans for which the Snow Ravens are known (see "Davion, Caleb"), I honestly had expected the story to have gone in a completely different direction.  Having Snow Ravens prove that Faction A sabotaged Faction B sounds like a good basis for a game of "Let's You and Him Fight."  I'd actually assumed that the Snow Ravens had sabotaged the Pella, arranged the assassination attempt and manipulated the Coyotes into attacking on false pretenses (having assassinated the Coyote ilKhan themselves decades earlier and framed Khatib for it).  I was actually quite surprised when it turned out that the Coyotes were the legitimate aggressors, having been led on the warpath by a revenge-obsessed Khan. 

No wonder the other Clans took any opportunity to strike at the Coyotes in the 3000s, if they gained those 20 enclaves with similarly dishonorable tactics.  Perhaps the Coyotes' technological edge resulted in a dulling of their Warrior ethos - relying too heavily on the latest doodad to emerge from the Scientist Caste's bag of tricks.  (Alas, Acme Widgets only produces the J-series of utility vehicles, so we're denied the possibility of a good Warner Bros. in-joke by naming a Coyote MechWorks after Wyle E.'s favorite mail order outlet.)

The Pella was well described, and I was surprised, when doing research, to find it was an original creation for this story and isn't referenced in any of the official materials - not even the MUL.  I wonder if it will be included in TRO: Golden Century (which seems like a logical fit), or if it will be relegated to the "Never Seen" thread.  I presume the Coyote Watch took care of the actual sabotage.

I was surprised to learn, in this scene, that Samson had a bloodname.  Usually, when a Clan character is introduced, their bloodnamed status is immediately established to convey their bad-assedness to the reader.  In fact, as you'll note in the entries above, I initially assumed that he wasn't bloodnamed, adding a twist to the relationship with Tomas - having a non-bloodnamed Star Colonel superior to the bloodnamed Warrior in both rank and skill, thereby calling into question the actual significance of the bloodname.  Leaving it out at the beginning allows the titles to be disregarded and the story to focus on the interpersonal dynamic, rather than on the relative genetic hierarchy.

I was somewhat confused by both Samson and then Tomas challenging Levien to a Circle of Equals.  Shouldn't the proper terminology be to challenge him to a Trial of Grievance or Trial of Possession in a Circle of Equals?

Who was in charge of handing out names in Levien's sibko?  The name Judas was a bit spot on for his dishonorable tendencies.  Who were his sibkin - Benedict, Quisling, Ephialtes, and Gaius?
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: September 13, 2954
 
Location: Homer

Title: Seeds of Loyalty

Author: Philip A. Lee
 
Type: Short Story (BattleCorps)

Synopsis: With the Black Sheep grounded due to Samson's pledge to Levien, Khan McCloud orders Samson to take command of the 149th Cluster and authorizes him to transfer personnel from 214th.  Patrick adds that he's terminating the Pella project, since the Ravens pulled out of the deal, not wanting a fighter that was involved in an assassination attempt.

Back at the 214th's base dome, recovering from their injuries for a few days while the 214th transfers en masse to the 149th, Tomas and Samson go to plant a pair of seedlings in the arboretum to honor Marcella and Quentin.  They are stunned and saddened to find the arboretum in ruins, a downed Coyote Gotha having smashed into the roof and collapsed half the dome.  Samson tells Tomas not to worry about the plants, since he is no longer a bondsman.  Tomas responds that the arboretum speaks to him in a way he cannot explain - each of the plants truly represents a life from Cobra history.

As Tomas sets about to save what he can, Samson takes comfort that his protege has found his path to The Way, and become a true Cloud Cobra at last.

Notes: While it's a clever way to get the 214th back into action despite Samson's pledge, it smacks of rules lawyering - the same path that Clan Mongoose took (and the reason that their enclaves now have names like "Necropolis 34" and "Mass Grave Site").  I can see such a tactic being justified in this instance, given Levien's abandonment of batchall and zellbrigen, but given the Mongoose experience, its overuse would lead to the Cobras no longer being taken at their word - a crippling failing in the honor-centric Clan society.

The epilogue contains the explanation of why the Pella didn't appear in any of the source material - project cancelled and all prototypes shot down.  Perhaps an entry for the next XTRO Boondoggles.  Still, the fighter performed fairly well, with three 40-tonners taking out equal numbers when outnumbered 2-to-1.  The rejection speaks more about how ingrained superstition is for the Clans - and not just for the more "out there" groups like the Nova Cats and Goliath Scorpions.

I was initially surprised to see references to the Sea Foxes, but checking the chronology, they didn't switch over to "Diamond Shark" until 2985, thirty years hence, after some more Raven shenanigans.  (See why I immediately suspected them?!!)

The "149th Cluster" is most likely the 149th Cobra Guards Cluster - the Azure Guard.  Appropriately, its members bear Clan Coyote a grudge stemming from a battle on Priori in 2872, and have passed down the burning desire for payback to its members.  Sounds like they'll more than get their chance in defense of the Cobra capital.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

VhenRa

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It's not explicitly stated what Trinary Epsilon's force composition should be, but if you want to match the fiction, it should be mostly, if not entirely, vehicles.  While not explicitly stated, it is incentivized by the presence of 10 fortified hexes that can only be used by tanks or infantry, making them useless to Epsilon if their player opts for 'Mechs.

There is a composition list near the back of the book. Every CHH Galaxy is:
Trinary Alpha: Supernova Trinary of Mechs and BA
Trinary Beta: Supernova Trinary of Mechs and BA
Trinary Gamma: Supernova Trinary of Mechs and BA
Trinary Delta: Trinary of ASF
Trinary Epsilon: Supernova Trinary of Tanks and Infantry.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 12, 2973
 
Location: Kesai IV

Title: The Forgotten Places

Author: Alan Brundage
 
Type: Short Story (Legacy Anthology)

Synopsis: At Camp Scindian, near the city of Shalmirat, Olivia quietly slips out of bed and gathers her tool belt and dagger, then returns to where her "master," Cicero Arne is sleeping, and takes revenge for years of abuse by stabbing him to death.  She cleans herself off and leaves Arne's quarters, walking through the quiet camp to the vehicle bay.  She finds a young guard, Bobby, on duty.  He's aware of how Arne treated her (though unaware of Arne's recent relationship status change with breathing), and lets her take a buggy and escape into the surrounding sand dunes.

Notes: Olivia notes that she's treated like dirt by Arne because she's a Kesai IV native, and when the Federated Suns retakes a world, some of its citizens like to exact some revenge on anyone who'd ever been a Drac.  The world was conquered by the Draconis Combine during the First Succession War and remained under Combine control until sometime during the Third Succession War.  Olivia says that "a few hundred years ago, her ancestors had been Dracs," implying that she was born and grew up under FedSuns rule.  There is an account that elements of the SLDF 251st BattleMech Division, which was garrisoned on Kasai IV, refused the Exodus order and instead pledged itself to the Federated Suns, fighting off initial DCMS attempts to seize the SLDF depot on Kesai.  McKinnon's Company (the Fox's Teeth) descends from that unit.  However, Kesai IV was a Combine world before the Star League, during the Star League, and after the Star League, until the Federated Suns took it in the Third Succession War.

This brings up a point I've visited before in other threads - what sort of cultural changes does the Federated Suns make when it liberates a world with a radically different social structure?  On the one hand, the Federated Suns' charter pledges freedom of lifestyle for its citizens, and the central government lets the planetary rulers generally run things as they see fit as long as the tax revenue comes in on time and there aren't any atrocities perpetrated against the citizenry.  On the other hand, worlds liberated from the Capellan Confederation and Draconis Combine have their societies organized along caste lines imposed by the central governments of those states. 

It's a no-brainer that any members of the Servitor class would be set free from bondage on an ex-Capellan world, but members of the other castes (which function like supportive trade unions) might not want to lose their support structure.  Would the FedSuns military governor make membership in a caste illegal?  Forcibly rip apart the social structure that had existed for centuries?  What about on a Combine world?  Surely the Unproductives would be happy to get a leg up, but would the new FedSuns government put in the resources to retrain and re-educate such a large swath of the populace, especially one acclimated to grueling labor in the planet's factories?  And would the FedSuns want to engage in such social engineering if it meant disrupting the output of those factories?  Would the FedSuns military governor just give the Unproductives a new title and send them back to the same lifestyle as before?

On Zurich, during the FedCom occupation in the 3050s, we have scenes (in Bred for War) where FedCom characters denigrate the beliefs and practices of the locals, the Zurs, as primitive and superstitious.  Here, we see an AFFS commander having essentially treated natives as subhuman outlets for abuse due to their Drac ancestry.  After the massive losses suffered in the First Succession War at the hands of both the Confederation and Combine, FedSuns culture adopted a strong anti-Asian undercurrent, resulting in race riots, lynchings, and attacks on anything that smacked of Asian cultural origin - even noodle shops.  (Wait, angry mob, my pasta's Italian, not...aieeee!)  While some worlds that had originally been FedSuns holdings, such as Galtor, welcomed liberation and was able to base the new government on what survived from the local insurgency, many worlds would not have had any experience in living memory with anything but the caste system.
« Last Edit: 04 January 2020, 02:04:54 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

VhenRa

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One factor in that is... the Vultures from [spits] Far Country might have had a few advantages.

I suspect they landed on a planet which was much more viable.Buffalo Meadows might be marginally viable, it might have issues where crops simply don't grow.

295th's average age is probably also older, which isn't likely to help. Its likely the 295th personnel average closer to 40-50 years old. [Which isn't helped with how prior to the coup the CO of the 295th had been moving non-Hegemony personnel out of the division, meaning they likely had less surviving family to bring with them unlike other Exodus formations]
« Last Edit: 03 January 2020, 21:36:23 by VhenRa »

Mendrugo

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One factor in that is... the Vultures from [spits] Far Country might have had a few advantages.

I suspect they landed on a planet which was much more viable.Buffalo Meadows might be marginally viable, it might have issues where crops simply don't grow.

295th's average age is probably also older, which isn't likely to help. Its likely the 295th personnel average closer to 40-50 years old. [Which isn't helped with how prior to the coup the CO of the 295th had been moving non-Hegemony personnel out of the division, meaning they likely had less surviving family to bring with them unlike other Exodus formations]

Kaetaetoa certainly is a lush world where the four Vultures landed, albeit very poor in iron in that valley, heavily restricting industrial and technological development.  Not only that, but the DCMS settlers had a native workforce - the Tetatae - to help them.

The only description we have of Buffalo Meadows is that 1) it appears blue from space, orbiting a dim red star; 2) it has native grasses and trees (or at least grass and tree analogues) in sufficient quantity to form forests and generate a breathable atmosphere.

If the colony died out about eighty years after settlement, that implies that they didn't starve to death (that would've happened much faster than 80 years, since the DropShips certainly weren't carrying 80 years worth of provisions).  It may suggest that there was a first generation of kids, but that none of those kids had children of their own.  Possibly something in the local ecosystem functioned as natural birth control, and couldn't be overcome with what resources they had in the DropShip medical bays.

That begs the question, though.  Where are their ships?  ComStar and the Word of Blake found many SLDF vessels drifting in stable orbits and was able to recover them.  Are there three SLDF WarShips in this system?  What about the DropShips?  The DEST team on Kaetetoa found a Vulture from the Age of War sitting out in the open and was able to get it spaceworthy in a very short amount of time.  That implies that there should be a substantial number of salvageable DropShips somewhere on Buffalo Meadows, unless they were dismantled to build the depot (a likely prospect, since there's no sign of mining or refining activity that would have been necessary to create the structure of the buried depot from local resources).
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 14, 2973
 
Location: Kesai IV

Title: The Forgotten Places

Author: Alan Brundage
 
Type: Short Story (Legacy Anthology)

Synopsis: Two days later, after midnight, north of Camp Scindan, Olivia abandons the fuel-depleted dune buggy, hoping that any pursuers will assume she was heading for Cochi Spaceport in Shalmirat, while she actually headed for the northwestern oasis, where she hopes to join a nomad band. 

As dawn approaches, she heads for a hill to find shelter and crawls into a triangular hollow.  Inside, she finds a manmade interior, and crawls inside to discover a 'Mech bay containing scattered debris, a dead MechWarrior, and a BattleMech.  Thrilled, she tells the 'Mech that, together, they can both escape.

Notes: Man, the Legacy Anthology should've used an Albatross instead of a Grasshopper, given what bad luck it is for the ships it travels on.  This makes at least the second time it's survived its DropShip going down.

Kesai IV (referred to as Kasai in the "Fox's Teeth" scenario pack) is a desert world, with only one outpost of civilization.  Outside of Shalmirat, the wastes are inhabited only by small bands of desert nomads.  There are a lot of similarities between Kesai IV and Astrokaszy, though Kesai is more "Tatooine" than "Arabian Nights."  Issue 2 of BattleTechnology features a small description of the world by William H. Keith: "Kesai VI is a desert world, but does have scattered forests and woodlands along the coasts of its small seas.  Though desert camo is most appropriate in general, the garrison at the Shalmirat spaceport uses forest camo because of the surrounding woodlands, where the local chlorophyll variant gives the vegetation a yellow cast."
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 15, 2973
 
Location: Kesai IV

Title: The Forgotten Places

Author: Alan Brundage
 
Type: Short Story (Legacy Anthology)

Synopsis: Olivia explores the structure and determines that it is actually a DropShip, with usable supplies.  She gets an auxiliary generator running and takes the cooling vest from the MechWarrior corpse.  She identifies the 'Mech as a Grasshopper, which she's read about while performing maintenance on the 'Mechs at Camp Scindan.  She powers up the fusion reactor, and notes that the weapons are offline, jump jet reaction mass is low, and the myomers are dried out, but the armor is in good shape and the actuators are more functional than she expected.  The neurohelmet is an older, more advanced model than she's accustomed to, but its circuits are burned out, and there are no spares onboard.

Checking the ship's computer, she finds out it was shot down years earlier, and a fierce battle raged around the craft, implying that several other 'Mech wrecks are located in the immediate vicinity.  Heading outside, she finds the buried remains of a Locust and pries the cockpit open.  Inside, she retrieves the functional neurohelmet from the mummified corpse of the pilot.

Back inside, she calibrates the neurohelmet and successfully powers up the Grasshopper's control systems.  She gets two of the lasers back online, put her supplies in the cockpit cubby, and emerges from a functional bay door into the scorching desert, then sets course for the spaceport.

Notes: It's interesting that myomers can dry out.  In the Blood of Kerensky trilogy, Kai uses a stray strand of myomer (used for stringing fancy guitars) to escape from a holding cell, and that hadn't dried out despite being outside of a 'Mech and not in airtight storage.  I guess the extremely dry conditions and years (decades?) of exposure were required to degrade the myomer's performance. 

In StarDate magazine, Blaine Pardoe detailed the contents of a 'Mech cockpit, and notes that most contain a small locker for emergency supplies.  Other accounts have the emergency supply locker located inside the ejection seat, so that it stays with the pilot when he/she ejects. 

It's not specifically noted, but Olivia appears to have been working as a 'Mech technician at the military base, with her status as the abused native slave of the unit commander being more of an informal role.  By 2973, technicians were in short supply in the Inner Sphere - becoming the targets of objective raids, and often kept in protected bunkers so they can't be stolen by raiders (or can't walk off on their own).  Mistreating such a rare asset seems like a poor choice, even given Arne's bigotry.

I wonder how the crash site got abandoned.  If the DropShip crew won the fight, they'd have tried to salvage the supplies.  If the world's garrison won the fight, they'd have looted the wreck.  Did they all kill each other simultaneously?  The most likely option is that the crew won the fight, but then headed off overland to link up with friendly forces and got wiped out en route, taking the location of the ship with them to their graves.  (Or, more charitably, linked up with friendlies and extracted offworld, never getting the opportunity to return to salvage the wreck site.)
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 25, 2973
 
Location: Kesai IV

Title: The Forgotten Places

Author: Alan Brundage
 
Type: Short Story (Legacy Anthology)

Synopsis: Olivia reached the city outskirts in just three days, avoiding Camp Scindan, but had to wait for a week before finding her opportunity to get into Cochi Spaceport.  She monitors panicked communications on the militia radio band, reporting a heavy raid inbound.  She sees an Overlord with a tree painted on it landing in the spaceport and deploying a 'Mech company.

As the raiders engage the militia (getting trounced by the heavier militia 'Mechs - losing a lance without inflicting any casualties), she enters the fray as the raiders begin to fall back to the DropShip.  She engages a militia JagerMech to save a raider Stinger, forcing it to retreat to the Davion lines.  She follows the Stinger to the DropShip, where 'Mechs and vehicles laden with booty are boarding with the aid of raider infantry.

Olivia disembarks and introduces herself to the Stinger pilot, Ysabel Vassy, the commander of the Witchwood Warriors mercenary unit.  She offers Olivia a berth in the unit, which she accepts, happy to leave the hellhole of Kesai IV and all the terrible things that had been done to her behind. 

Notes: The Witchwood Warriors are probably under contract to the Draconis Combine, given Kesai's location.  Given their state (Olivia notes that only 12 'Mechs come out of a DropShip designed for three times that number), they're probably enmeshed in the Combine's company store trap, on a trajectory towards having their equipment seized and incorporated into the DCMS and their MechWarriors becoming indentured servants (probably dumped into the Legions of Vega).

It certainly doesn't seem like there would be enough valuables in Shalmirat to make a profit for the unit, especially if they lost four 'Mechs in the initial engagement, and probably more while holding the perimeter to load whatever loot they secured in the immediate vicinity of the DropPort.  Granted, there's certainly no profit in raiding the desert nomads, so Shalmirat's the only place worth going on the otherwise worthless rock.

It's 22 days to the jump point, so unless the Witchwood Warriors came in at a pirate point, they've been inbound for a while.  Olivia notes at the beginning that she has a rare opportunity.  At the time, it simply seems that she's referring to being awake (and with a dagger secreted in her tool belt) while Arne is asleep and vulnerable.  However, she may have been referring to having an inbound raiding party - meaning that she can escape into the desert while the militia is preoccupied with the attack.  Once she finds the 'Mech, her calculus changes from joining the nomads to joining the raiders - which is why she changes course from the oasis to the spaceport.

The only problem with that theory is that the Witchwood Warriors may have used a pirate point, since panicked communications about the raid only start shortly before the landing.  That means that they either appeared in near orbit shortly before landing, or (and this is a definitely possibility), the militia has no deep-range detection equipment, and only noticed the inbound DropShip when it reached orbit.  Odd for the planet to be so blind, but appropriate for the late Third Succession War on a worthless world.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: March 22, 2990
 
Location: Wotan

Title: Golden Rule

Author: William H. Keith
 
Type: Short Story (BattleTech Starter Box)

Synopsis: Captain Durant Carlye and Major Jonathan Colby discuss a contract offer from Georg Suertos, the richest man on Wotan.  Carlyle observes that Asgard is old-fashioned, with narrow, crowded streets in a city huddled around the mountain where the Asgard Citadel looms.  The two follow a paper map to a garish night club called The World Tree, which Suertos owns.

They make their way to the designated table, and are approached by Suertos' representative, Reid, who offers them a two-lance offworld contract on Golandrinas.  On a LosTech portable holoprojector, Reid identifies the target as Trent, a settlement in the night-side of the tidally locked world run by a local warlord named Duboise (late of the Arcturan Guards), who doesn't acknowledge the authority of the planetary government in the city of Rowe.  Intel suggests Duboise is hiring Periphery bandits, including a group called the Deathgeld, to try to topple the government in Rowe and seize control of the entire planet.

Reid acknowledges that there's nothing of value on Wotan, but Carlyle speculates that Vickers Mining may have recently made a major mineral strike there.  Reid refuses to confirm, but offers 1,570,000 C-Bills plus transport for Colby's unit to disrupt Duboise's operations on Golandrinas. 

Notes: As a bonus insert in the 2018 Beginner Box, William H. Keith returned to writing for BattleTech by chronicling the adventures of Grayson Carlyle's father, Durant Carlyle (briefly seen in "Decision at Thunder Rift" getting slaughtered by bandits). 

With only two lances (one short a 'Mech, having lost a Thunderbolt on the previous mission), the ranks seem to be a bit high.  Captain works out for a company commander, while Major would normally equate to battalion command.  Either Colby and Carlyle used to run a much larger unit, or Colby's Commandos is inflating their ranks as a marketing tool.

Keith's specialty in BattleTech's early days was worldbuilding, with pages in his Gray Death books and in his BattleTechnology magazine articles dedicated to cataloging unique aspects of many worlds' ecosystems, rotational periods, gravity, climate, etc.  Keith describes Wotan as relatively clean and modern, for a "near-Periphery" world, but antiquated by the standards of more prosperous worlds, noting its narrow, crowded and loud streets in the unsavory part of town.  Golandrinas gets more detail - an arid "eyeball" planet, the innermost world of an M7 red dwarf tidally locked to the primary, with one hemisphere baking and the other locked in ice.  The planetary capital of Rowe lies on the terminator between the two sides, where the temperatures are bearable.  A large icecap has formed in the heart of the Deep Night side, giving the planet the appearance of having a pupil, like an eyeball.

As on Trell, Wotan's planetary garrison operates out of a fortified castle complex that overlooks the capital city.  I wonder how old that structure is.  Prior to the Reunification War, the Rim Worlds Republic (of which both Wotan and Golandrins were members) had heavily fortified many of its worlds, making them "hedgehogs" - festooned with fortresses, vehicle garages, cruise-missile launchers, and space-defense-systems, explaining why it took the SLDF 20 years to fully subdue the Republic rebels and restore House Amaris and his Loyalist forces to power on Apollo.  Having architecture that dates from the Age of War would definitely qualify as "old fashioned."
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 5, 2990
 
Location: Golandrinas

Title: Golden Rule

Author: William H. Keith
 
Type: Short Story (BattleTech Starter Box)

Synopsis: Aboard the DropShip Ragamuffin, Carlyle discusses DropShip Captain Hank Austin's concerns about Major Colby's decision to land right outside of Trent, rather than further away.  Carlyle explains that the plan is to land right next to Duboise's 'Mech park, destroy the unmanned 'Mechs, and get back aboard the DropShip before any of the defending forces at Trent can muster a response.  Captain Austin remains skeptical, noting that he doesn't trust the intel supplied by Suartos to be accurate.

An hour later, the Ragamuffin enters atmosphere and Carlyle's lance of the Commandos mount up for action, ready to deploy a Commando (Diesel De Salva), Catapult (Natalie Bryant), and Shadow Hawk (Durant Carlyle).  David Pryor's Thunderbolt is there as well, but still undergoing repairs.  De Salva and Bryant snipe at each other, which Carlyle recognizes as stress from heading into an unknown tactical situation.  The intel lacked details on the quality and equipment of the Deathgeld and Duboise's other troops.

Sergeant Kal Griffin tells Carlyle that his Shadow Hawk is ready to go.  Minutes later, the ship lands, and the 'Mechs race out through the cargo bay doors into a howling windstorm and encircling darkness, lit only by a red-orange glow on the horizon in the direction of Rowe.  Second Lance rendezvouses with First Lance - Wolverine (Jonathan Colby), Shadow Hawk (Earnest Hauptmann), Locust (Zeller), and Locust (Hernandez).  Major Colby orders Carlyle and Hauptmann to take point. 

They quickly cross the two kilometers from the Ragamuffin to the BattleMech staging depot and blow a hole in the perimeter wall, IR scanners revealing the forms of running men through the dust and darkness.  They push in through the breach and see twelve scaffolds, but only two occupied (a Whitworth and Panther - both 'Mechs used by the Draconis Combine, Carlyle notes).  Carlyle reports that the rest of the 'Mechs are unaccounted for.

The 'Mech bay infantry opens fire with missiles and machine gun rounds.  Carlyle and Hauptmann smash the Whitworth and Panther quickly, then take a look at the rest of the compound, which appears deserted.  Instead, he picks up a giant heat signature to the north of Trent, and reports back to Colby that he's going to check it out.

Near the heat signature, Carlyle finds an open field strewn with white, crystalline rocks, and sees the source of the heat is a Vickers Mining Mobile Mining Refinery - a LosTech mobile structure dating from the Star League era.  It appears to be unmanned, operating on automatic.  Noticing movement, Carlyle spots a red-and-black painted Dragon approaching, and reports to Colby that it's a Kurita operation.  As he battles the 60-tonner, he wonders if the Deathgeld troops are the advance guard for a Combine invasion.

More 'Mechs join the fight alongside the Dragon - a Thunderbolt, Wolverine and another Dragon, which appear to have been hiding their heat signatures behind the mining vehicle to spring their ambush.  Carlyle warns Colby to stay away from the trap.  Colby orders Carlyle to withdraw, and the rest of the Commandos arrive to join the fight shortly thereafter, taking out the enemy Thunderbolt and one Dragon, but losing Major Colby's Wolverine in the crossfire.

Notes: Captain Austin's concerns are legitimate - if the Commandos get overmatched while the DropShip is right next to Trent, it's at risk of being overrun and destroyed.  Presumably, he's keeping his drive warmed up for immediate departure.  (MW2: Mercenaries: "I'm not being paid enough to die!")

It's nice to see some mobile structures other than purely military ones, for the sake of variety.  One wonders how such a thing is transported to the mining site.  No DropShip would be large enough, so Vickers probably ships it in pieces and assembles it onworld, then drives it from mine site to mine site. 

If the Deathgeld knew that the Commandos were coming, why did they set up an ambush in which they were outgunned?  And why leave two of their 'Mechs to be destroyed in the hangar?  If this is a mining site, there are probably explosives galore.  Emptying the hangar of Deathgeld equipment and then rigging it to explode would have been far more effective.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 6, 2990
 
Location: Golandrinas

Title: Golden Rule

Author: William H. Keith
 
Type: Short Story (BattleTech Starter Box)

Synopsis: Back in the sickbay of the Ragamuffin, a seriously burned Major Colby tells Carlyle and De Salva that despite winning the engagement, the mission has been a loss, since the Commandos arrived too late to stop the Deathgelds from marching on Rowe.  According to the captured Dragon pilot, Lt. Senichi Hiramatsu, six 'Mechs are currently rampaging through Rowe. 

Carlyle speculates that the Commandos were set up to fail.  Colby suspects Reid is working for the Combine.  Carlyle reports that he found a vault  at the site with five hundred 12.4 kilogram bricks of gold, valued at 500,000 C-Bills each.  Carlyle speculates that the 250 million C-Bills worth of gold is intended as pay for the Deathgeld - taking a percentage and providing the rest to the Draconis Combine.  Colby expects the Deathgeld to abandon the attack on Rowe and come back to Trent.  They discuss either hiding the gold and negotiating, or buttoning up and head back to their JumpShip.  Colby speculates that the Deathgeld troops will be willing to talk, since "the guys with the gold make the rules."

Notes: Gold is a lot more valuable in 2990 than today.  12.4 kilos of gold goes for about 52,000 C-Bills by current prices (based on converting current prices to 1985 prices and then using the $5 = 1 C-Bill conversion), so gold has become about 10 times more valuable.

The gold only masses 6.2 metric tons.  I wonder why the Commandos are planning to hide the gold, rather than just putting it on the DropShip and claiming it as spoils as they hightail it back to Wotan.  Heck, if they need to eradicate the Deathgeld, they could subcontract it 200 times over to other merc units.
« Last Edit: 04 January 2020, 10:14:38 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 8, 2990
 
Location: Golandrinas

Title: Eyestorm

Author: William H. Keith
 
Type: Short Story (BattleTech Core Box)

Synopsis: At a ramshackle pub - The Howling Wind - in the cluster of domes known as Trent, Captain Durant Carlyle discusses the local weather with Jocko, who claims to be a Vickers Mining Company employee.  Jocko notes that big "eyestorms" can last four days with winds exceeding 150 km/h.  The conversation turns to the Deathgeld mercenaries, who Jocko says wiped out the local militia when they arrived a month earlier, and are likely to come back to Trent soon.

Jocko departs, and the bartender, Geri, takes the opportunity to ask if Carlyle's mercenary unit really took the Deathgeld's gold and hauled it back to its DropShip.  She warns Carlyle that agents of local warlord Gerard Duboise are watching him closely.  Carlyle suggests she move offworld to Beta VII or Wotan, but she says transit fees are too expensive.  She explains that the world is named after a native animal - the Ice Swallow (which was loosely translated as "Golondrinas" by the early Spanish settlers, then misspelled on the official starmaps).  She says that eyestorms often blow large numbers (billions and billions) of Ice Swallows from the day side to the night side, where they die in the cold, then release a worm that mates and crawls back to the dayside, buries itself and grows into a plant that eventually fruits and releases fresh Ice Swallows.

Carlyle dons his environmental suit and departs the bar, meeting Diesel De Salva's Commando on the outskirts of the dome town.  Together, they return to the DropShip Ragamuffin and meet the other members of the unit in the ship's common room.  Carlyle informs them that the Deathgeld is likely en route, using the storm for cover.  He says that Jocko, who he suspects of being the pilot of one of the 'Mechs the Commandos wrecked two days earlier, drunkenly bragged about the Deathgeld having multiple companies, suggesting that the Commandos will be heavily outnumbered when the full Deathgeld roster returns, possibly by a ratio of 20-to-7.  Hauptmann speculates that they'll leave a garrison in Rowe, lowering the odds to closer to 2-to-1.  Captain Austin says it will be hard to spot anything in the storm, since radar identifies the storm as being filled with millions of fist-sized objects moving 40 km/h in the storm, with an ETA in Trent in five hours.

Four hours later, Carlyle scouts the leading edge of the eyestorm, with trilateral furry winged forms smacking against his ferroglass cockpit in the high winds.  Then, like ghosts, ten 'Mech signatures materialize on his radar along the Trent-Rowe road.  Carlyle reports contact to the rest of the Commandos.  Firing his jump-jets, he launches into the air and lands right next to a Deathgeld Dragon, broadcasting that he wants to negotiate.  The Dragon pilot takes an aggressive posture, opening fire (as expected), missing as Carlyle jumps away, seeking cover in the wall of wind-tossed birds. 

Carlyle fights off several approaches by the Deathgeld until he's drawn them into the pre-determined position, then contacts the Commandos and lets them know that the Combine forces are in the kill zone.  The fight devolves into a raging brawl that goes in the Commandos favor.  The remaining two Deathgeld 'Mechs break contact and flee.  The battered Commandos let them go.

Back in town, Carlyle thanks Geri for telling him about the Ice Swallows and how they read in the storm, enabling him to figure out how Duboise, who died in the battle, would be approaching.  The Commandos lost two 'Mechs (though the pilots ejected) while destroying six enemies, but still consider themselves to have sufficient strength to dig the remaining Deathgeld out of Rowe.  Carlyle gives Geri a gold bar worth half a million C-Bills.  As he walks out of the bar, he hopes Geri will use the gold to barter for offworld passage and create the life she wants for herself.

Notes: If the Commandos retained most of that gold, I'm surprised that, 30 years later, Carlyle's Commandos wasn't a larger unit.  Even if the unit split the take more or less equally (counting the support crew), that would be more than 10 million C-Bills per person.  Perhaps, instead of inheriting command of Colby's Commandos after the death/retirement due to injury of Jonathan Colby, Durant split off on his own to make his own Commandos unit.  He'd have his Shadow Hawk, and the 10+ million C-Bills would just about cover the other 'Mechs we saw in the opening scenes on Trellwan.

Given the scene's efforts to generate chemistry between Durant and Geri, I was beginning to suspect we'd just been introduced to Grayson's mother.  (Perhaps we have - depending on whether Keith writes more stories in this series.)

This was a good prose use of the optional "bugstorm" rule, last seen during the Blakist vs. AFFS battles on New Avalon, when the two sides clashed in the midst of sourbug swarming season.  It's interesting to see that the native life on Golondrinas follows a pattern of trilateral symmetry, and that it has naturally evolved a life cycle involving worm, avian, and plant development stages.  It certainly gives a more alien feel to the setting than putting the action in a scene that wouldn't be out of place on Terra.
« Last Edit: 05 January 2020, 22:23:23 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: December 5, 2991
 
Location: Solaris VII

Title: The Calm of the Void

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Aboard the Mule-class DropShip Perdido, inbound for Solaris VII, Nikolai Mason's internal monologue is interrupted by his shipboard rival, Jules Vonic, who needles him about his inability to find a piece of LosTech (an actuator motor control unit) that would give his career in the Lyran Free Traders Association a boost toward becoming a procurement officer.  He ignores her and continues on his way to the bridge, where he reviews the merchant JumpShip Talia's Investiture's six-month trading route under the command of Merchant Captain Cardian: Poulsbo - Galisteo - Timbiqui - Cavanaugh II - Nockatunga - Millungera - Alula Borealis - Bell I - Loric - Giausar - Ford - Gienah - Hyde - Rahne - Solaris VII.  Solaris is an R&R trip for half the crew, with the rest scheduled for shore leave on the next pass.

Mason decides not to seek any LosTech on Solaris - the trade is controlled by the various underworld gangs onworld, making the prices exorbitant.  Instead, he ponders the possibilities on future stops - New Kyoto, Algorab, Gacrus, Phecda, Wyatt, Alioth, Denebola, and New Earth, completing the free trader's yearly circuit from the center of the Inner Sphere to the Periphery and back. 

Notes: Randall opens the story setting up an Indiana Jones - Belloq rivalry between Nikolai and Jules, even using the line "I'll figure out what it is, and I'll take it.  Like I always do."  I wonder if she speaks Hovito?

The Talia's Investiture is a Star Lord-class carries six DropShips.  It appears that all six slots are filled by trading ships, so this vessel doesn't provide transportation services for independent or military DropShips, but instead picks up and delivers goods and passengers (mainly resupply runs for military garrisons when on the Lyran side of the border) in their own vessels, spending three days on each world. 

The fact that the LFTA vessel has military resupply contracts and a scheduled route would seem to make them a primary target for pirates or SAFE agents trying to disrupt supply lines for LCAF forces.  While the informal conventions of the Third Succession War preclude direct attacks on JumpShips, there'd be plenty of opportunities for pirates to attack (something Nikolai mentions as a routine occurrence) or for infiltrators to try to hijack the ship and steal the supplies aboard.  I wonder what kind of defenses the Talia's Investiture has - an aerospace fighter wing? Anti-boarding marines?

Nikolai's internal monologue hints at a dark backstory - "after all of his years spent trying to get away from the horrors his actions had unleashed" - that will undoubtedly be fleshed out in following scenes. 

2991 is pretty much the technological nadir of the Succession Wars.  New tech starts showing up in the early 3000s (with the Merlin coming off the assembly line in 3010, and various prototype designs following from the Capellans, Lyrans, and Federated Suns soon thereafter).  LosTech prospecting is, for many, a full-time profession that can be highly rewarding due to the high demand and limited supply of unscavenged tech.  It can also be very dangerous, given the volume of competition - even within organizations like the LFTA. 
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: December 24, 2991
 
Location: New Kyoto

Title: The Calm of the Void

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: At the Blackhearts encampment on the outskirts of the city of Hirihito, Nikolai trudges through the snow into the mercenary encampment, hoping he's successfully shaken Jules' tail.  At the perimeter gate, he finds the guards dressed in Christmas hats - something out of step with the mostly Buddhist New Kyotan society. 

Inside the camp, he heads to a shack, where he finds a messy assortment of gadgets and a woman named Chloe berating the machinery for not functioning correctly.  Nikolai is impressed by Chloe's abilities with the diagnostic array, and by the fact that the device she is evaluating is his long-sought actuator control unit - albeit a non-functional one.  She angrily asks why he's interrupting her, and he introduces himself as being with their supply DropShip.  He tells her he's looking for a master control unit for a Champion's right leg, which she correctly guesses would be for the 12th Star Guards, who are known for their Star League origins.

She also accurately assesses that he's trying to impress his merchant captain, and suggests that master tech Detlef Jorgenson at Bowie Industries on Wyatt might have what he needs.  In exchange, she wants a gyro from the 10th Lyran Regulars' head tech, Zardoff, on Denebola, as well as Nikolai owing her a favor in the future.

Notes: Christmas?  Thank goodness they aren't on Ford, where they'd be subjected to the terrible rhymes of Anti-Nick.

This scene contains more hints at Nikolai's dark past - being cast out from his family for not worshipping their idol, joining bandits, and being tortured through oxygen deprivation.  Given the reference to the curse "Blake's Blood" feeling "ill-fitting, even after all these years," my money's on Nikolai being a lapsed ComStar acolyte - possibly having grown up in a spacer family aboard ComStar's courier fleet.  (In addition to HPGs, ComStar also offers courier services and package delivery, and would need its own JumpShip and DropShip fleet for those functions.)

Chloe make reference to having her own hidden backstory, and the repeated use of "Blake's Blood" in anger suggests they may have ComStar origins in common. 

The barter economy is well entrenched in this technologically regressed era, with the few remaining examples of advanced SLDF technology on its last legs and being held together with spit and baling wire.  Ships like the Talia's Investiture are crucial to facilitating the trades.  If the recent video games are even remotely accurate representations of the black markets in the Inner Sphere, the prices for LosTech are exorbitant, making barter a far preferable option, as long as you have something to trade.

Interestingly, the Blackhearts also have ancient Star League origins, having been the SLDF's 77th Special Operations Group.
« Last Edit: 05 January 2020, 22:28:20 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: May 10, 2992
 
Location: Wyatt

Title: The Calm of the Void

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Nikolai rides in a utility truck along a desert road leading from Earhardt City to the Bowie Industries manufacturing plant, passing spectacular rock formations in scorching (55 Celsius) temperatures, ignoring his local driver's prattling while he considers how to approach Detlef about the actuator control unit.  He finds himself thinking of Chloe as well, then berates himself for taking his thoughts off the mission.

At the plant, once the truck is through security and the supplies are being unloaded, Nikolai makes contact with Detlef Jorgenson and tells him his contraband salvage is hidden behind a false wall at the back of the truck, in exchange for the actuator control.  Subsequently, an "accidental" explosion will fake Detlef's death, allowing him to jump ship from Bowie. 

Nikolai and Detlef secure the actuator controller, hide it and Detlef in a hidden compartment in a storage container, and load them aboard the now empty truck, which departs for the spaceport where the LFTA DropShip is waiting.  On the way back, Nikolai anticipates relishing the look on Jules' face when he presents the actuator controller to the Twelfth Star Guard, cementing a strong relationship for the trading crew. 

He is jolted out of his pleasant daydream by the arrival of a purple Wasp, which lasers a hole through both the truck's cab and its driver before melting the engine block.  The resulting explosion hurls the truck through the air, and Nikolai loses consciousness as it impacts the desert floor at over 40 kph.

Notes: The elaborate plan for Detlef to leave Bowie Industries suggests a nice callback from Randall to the early FASA concepts of technicians in the late Third Succession War - that of carefully husbanded assets that were essentially owned by companies or Successor States, and lived as virtual prisoners at their worksites, or in hiding, for fear of being abducted by a Successor State, corporate headhunter, or warlord that wanted their services.

Given the focus on Jules (Nikolai's Belloq-esque rival in the LosTech hunt, who's been mentioned twice in this scene alone), I would assume that the purple Wasp isn't actually a Marik Militia scout lone-wolfing it on a raid, but is actually one of Jules' agents, sent to crush Nikolai's dreams.  I would assume that claim jumping is a significant risk in the world of LosTech prospecting.  Too bad Nikolai spent most of his C-Bill assets lining up the deal with Detlef, and left nothing for a personal bodyguard. 

That brings up the question - aboard an LFTA ship, where everyone is technically on the same crew, but is also a Lyran independent contractor looking for a competitive edge, does the promotion system work like the Mirror Universe Enterprise - "the captain dies and we all move up in rank"?  Do officers employ personal guards due to the risk of being backstabbed by an in-house rival?
« Last Edit: 05 January 2020, 22:34:04 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: June 20, 2992
 
Location: Wyatt

Title: The Calm of the Void

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: At the Twelfth Star Guards base on New Earth's Neoasia continent, Nikolai glances out the window at the massive statues of the Magellan probe and the TAS Pathfinder in Colonization Park, celebrating mankind's first extra-solar colony.  His misery over losing the actuator control and getting dressed down by the Merchant Captain for taking the unauthorized trip to Bowie and delaying their schedule two days is exacerbated by physical pain from still healing injuries suffered on Wyatt.

Joshua, the Guards' quartermaster, certifies that all supplies have been received and inspected.  Jules, triumph in her voice, says there's one more item to discuss - a rare Star League-era Master Control Unit that is currently being turned over to the unit's master tech.  Nikolai's heart races, and he finds it hard to breathe, realizing Jules had somehow been behind the Wasp attack.  Jules tells Joshua not to worry about Nikolai, then mouths "I get what you want" at him, mockingly. 

When Joshua steps out of the room, Nikolai berates Jules for putting the control unit at risk.  She responds that she never cared about the MCU, but just wanted to punish Nikolai for getting in her way.  Joshua returns and asks what the Guards owe Jules for this treasure.  She responds that gratitude will be enough, knowing that "gratitude" translates into a long-term supply contract with better terms. 

Nikolai flashes back to his youth - beatings, despair, coming near death as others used him.  He consoles himself that he survived those, and that he will survive this.  He resolves not to underestimate Jules in the future.

Notes: Going out of one's way to torment another crew-member on long-haul missions seems a risky proposition when everyone involved lives in an ancient vessel with so many airlocks and the potential for life support failures at just the wrong moment.  Especially if I guessed wrong, and Nikolai didn't defect from ComStar's worship of Jerome Blake, but instead grew up among Thuggees as a disciple of Kali.  (In fact, being tortured with repeated near-death experiences might be exactly what disciples of a death goddess would do to indoctrinate their young.)

I wonder how old those statues are.  Given all the fighting over New Earth in the Star League Civil War, and the subsequent Succession Wars, I'd be surprised if the original statues hadn't long since been blasted to dust, only for replicas to be commissioned at a later date.

In MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, Nikolai goes on to marry Chloe and found the mercenary unit Nik's Cavaliers, before being killed by Black Inferno on De Berry.  His son is the POV character for the game.  Clearly, Nik's luck turned at some point and he made a big enough score to start a merc unit.  I haven't played MW5 (waiting for the GOG version), but I wonder if Jules was in any way associated with Black Inferno, given her apparent passionate commitment to taking away anything Nikolai wants.
« Last Edit: 05 January 2020, 22:20:32 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Kojak

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Are Nikolai and the others wearing some sort of special protective cooling suit to survive that heat? I'm not a doctor but I'm fairly certain 55° C would send someone into lethal hyperthermia after a pretty short interval, especially if it's also humid.
« Last Edit: 05 January 2020, 05:10:55 by Kojak »


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Mendrugo

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Are Nikolai and the others wearing some sort of special protective cooling suit to survive that heat? I'm not a doctor but I'm fairly certain 55° C would send someone into lethal hyperthermia after a pretty short interval, especially if it's also humid.

It’s stated to be dry.  I’d imagine the truck had sufficiently powerful air conditioning to deal with the conditions. 

Though how Nikolai survived after the truck crashed...
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: August 4, 2994
 
Location: New Kyoto

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Blackhearts' technician Chloe Reed seethes with frustration as she is, once again, denied the chance to become a MechWarrior by her supervisor, Major Jeffers.  Her bitter musings are interrupted by young Tilo, who brings rumors that the Blackhearts are being ordered to deploy on a cross-border raid. 

They pause in their discussion of the raid's target as two white-robed ComStar acolytes walk past, for fear that angering them might bring an interdiction.  After the pair passes, Tilo says he heard the target was Kalidasa, but Chloe doubts the Blackhearts would be mobilized to beat up on the Gryphons.  Instead, she guesses the target is the Kali-Yama Weapons plant, which would have both the Gryphons and whatever mercenary guards were under contract to KYWP.  Alternatively, she speculates that this raid could be in retribution for the Marik Militia's attack on Wyatt in 2991, which would make the likely target Wing, where the 30th Marik Militia is garrisoned.

As Chloe gathers her kit from her locker, she mentally calculates whether the Blackhearts will be back on New Kyoto by the time Nikolai Mason passes through on his scheduled trading run.  She cradles a miniature JumpShip pendant he gave her as a gift and looks forward to their next encounter.

Notes: Interdictions have, historically, been fairly rare, at least on a state-level.  House Marik lost dozens of systems and was invaded by all four other Successor States when they were Interdicted for 18 months during the Second Succession War.   House Kurita backed down in confrontation with ComStar when threatened with Interdiction (after a member of House Kurita wanted to join the Order against the Coordinator's wishes).  I wonder, though, if they're more common when the stakes are lower - being applied on a planetary or even individual level in retaliation for violations of ComStar rules or against planetary governments who refuse to give ComStar desired tax breaks, property leases, or other infrastructure and security support.

The fact that two Acolytes were present at the camp suggests that the orders from LCAF Mercenary Command were delivered via courier from the local ComStar HPG station.  I wonder if they did that trick with the vacuum sealed capsule, where the release of air signifies that nobody has opened it, read it, or tampered with it.  (At least, not on the way from the HPG compound to the mercenary camp, since ComStar could've done any of those at the station before putting the printout into the capsule.)  This method of delivery suggests a presumption that SAFE agents are monitoring all regular communications channels, making couriers a better way to ensure operational security, so there isn't a huge FLWM welcoming party for the Blackhearts, wherever they're headed.

One interesting item - the Acolytes are wearing white robes in 2994.  In the Stackpole novels set in the 3020s, Acolytes wear yellow robes.  The statement that Acolytes wear white robes comes from the ComStar sourcebooks set after the schism.  Then line-director Herb Beas (https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=31720.msg738145#msg738145), when asked about the difference, suggested that Focht and Mori changed the color scheme...or that Stackpole's accounts were wrong.  The presence of white Acolyte robes in the pre-schism era seems to settle that on the side of "Stackpole was wrong."   (Or that somebody washed their new yellow hat with the Acolytes' white robes the day before the Stackpole scenes.)
« Last Edit: 06 January 2020, 23:13:38 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

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BattleTech is, at its core, a fantasy setting where lostech stands in for magic, ComStar for organized religion, and "Interdiction!" for putting a curse on someone and/or the proverbial turning into a frog. It even sounds latin...
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Mendrugo

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BattleTech is, at its core, a fantasy setting where lostech stands in for magic, ComStar for organized religion, and "Interdiction!" for putting a curse on someone and/or the proverbial turning into a frog. It even sounds latin...

You will recall, however, that ComStar placed a temporary block on outbound communications from Galatea in "Not the Way the Smart Money Bets," resulting in the antagonist being financially ruined since his hedging bets never went through.  Not sure that amounts to an Interdiction, but it does indicate that local Precentors have some leeway in terms of denial of service actions.

Also, I'd liken Interdiction more to Excommunication, in an analogy where ComStar is equivalent to the medieval Catholic Church.  The blessings of the HPG are withdrawn until those who have sinned against the Blessed Blake have repented and been suitably punished (usually through copious donations of C-Bills to cover ComStar's material losses plus punitive damages).
« Last Edit: 07 January 2020, 02:28:28 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: November 11, 2994
 
Location: Wing

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: At the Blackhearts bivouac near Greinwald, working on a gut-shot Thunderbolt, Chloe suffers in the bitter cold a month into the mercenaries' campaign against the 30th Marik Militia, which Chloe expects to last until Major Jeffers considers enough of the Militia to have been destroyed to meet the "considerable portion" clause of their contract with the Lyran Commonwealth. 

She assesses the extensive damage against the dwindling stock of repair parts - the Blackhearts had only come expecting a quick raid, rather than an extended campaign.  As she prepares to run diagnostics on the gyroscope, she's interrupted by Tilo, who reports he's almost finished loading the armor plating on the J-24.  She tells him to add a lot more equipment for repairing internal structure as well.

As she finishes giving the gyro a clean bill of health, Tilo arrives with the J-24 and begins unloading parts.  Chloe smiles at his energy, knowing it will take days of sleepless work to get the Thunderbolt back into the fight.

Notes: There's excellent continuity in this series (thanks to a continuity review credited to Chris Wheeler).  Chloe worries about getting a black mark from the Mercenary Review Board, which was the ComStar-run predecessor to the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission.

Chloe's reaction to the damage done to the Thunderbolt is in the same vein of the Capellan Cuirassier tech team when they saw the damage done to their Grasshopper in the Legacy anthology.  And probably universal to every technical crew in the Successor States.  (Clans - not sure.  Resource scarcity isn't a thing there, at least as far as the Warrior Caste's toys are concerned, and doing such repairs is mostly what gives their lives meaning in the Clan caste structure.)

The J-27 is an ordnance transport.  I wonder if the J-24 was Acme Widgets' entry into the flatbed truck market?  Others in the "J-series" include the J-37 Ordnance Transport, JI-50 Field Repair Unit, and JI-100 Transportable Recovery Repair Unit.  (The latter two are from Johnson Industries, however, and not from Acme Widgets.)

The fact that Chloe is just tired and not fearful suggests that the Marik Militia forces remain on the run, and don't pose a significant threat to the Blackhearts' rear area.  (Though, just to be on the safe side, the unit's DropShip is maintaining position in orbit.)
« Last Edit: 07 January 2020, 23:10:42 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: November 21, 2994
 
Location: Wing

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: After delivering her repair status report to Major Jeffers, Chloe argues that the Blackhearts can't win the war of attrition.  Instead, she advocates for a diversionary strike at the city of Wyvern, drawing enough of the Marik Militia away from Port Wyvern to enable the Blackhearts' Overlord to make a combat landing, supported by a simultaneous ground assault, destroying the remaining Militia garrison at the port and fulfilling the Blackhearts' contract requirements. 

Jeffers says that such a plan poses unacceptable risks to both Wing's civilian populace and to the Blackhearts' only transport offworld, especially since the Militia has fortified the port.  He emphasizes that Chloe is merely a Tech, and has no field combat experience, and says he'll terminate her contract if she pushes him again on his strategy.

Humiliated, Chloe leaves the bivouac command tent and goes into the snow.  She remains certain that she could be a MechWarrior if given the chance, and doesn't need field command experience to see that Jeffers' strategy is going to get them all killed.

Notes: The social stratification of the neo-feudal setting is on full display here, with MechWarriors at the pinnacle of the mercenary unit, with support staff, no matter how skilled, dismissed out of hand.  Early BattleTechnology articles suggested that many MechWarriors began training as adolescent apprentices to current MechWarriors, essentially as squires to their knights.  Members of MechWarrior families would, of course, be prioritized for such apprenticeships, since these families would be extremely reluctant to let anyone outside their bloodline take command of the asset on which their family's social standing rests.  Outsiders could only join the ranks for training if they married into the clan, or were adopted in.  Nobles that have holdings of sufficient size that they don't rely on their 'Mech for their position can afford to send their scions to prestigious military academies, rather than relying on in-house apprenticeships.

One question is why Chloe didn't apply to something like the Hero Institute?  Their admission standards are notoriously lax (you can double major in 'Mech Piloting and TV/VCR Repair, as long as your check clears), but she'd at least get some simulator time and enough experience to score a berth with...well, with Wilson's Hussars at best.  But she'd be a MechWarrior, and even a low echelon MechWarrior still outranks a senior tech.

If the Blackhearts only sent a battalion on the mission to take out a "substantial portion" of the 30th Marik Militia, which was presumably at regimental strength, that implies that the mercenaries are relying on hit and run attacks in blinding snow to wear the Militia down.  Looking at their Field Manual entry, they had a Fortress DropShip at one point.  That would have been a great tool to reduce Militia fortifications, since it's got a Long Tom mounted on the top.  Also, the Blackhearts regiment is stated to have significant aerospace assets - including a Vengeance carrier.  But does this battalion have any aerospace support?  Some high-level bombing runs against the port might soften things up.  They can't have any support aerospace assets on the ground, since their tents in the snow wouldn't support a runway, so any assets they have are probably up with the Overlord flying CAP to keep any Marik fighters from smoking the Blackhearts' ride home.
« Last Edit: 07 January 2020, 23:10:52 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: December 5, 2994
 
Location: Wing

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Tilo assists Chloe as she works to repair a Phoenix Hawk's arm atop a mobile repair gantry at the Blackhearts bivouac, simultaneously overheating and freezing.  She complains that it feels like they're going to be stuck on Wing forever.  Tilo teases her that she's just worried she won't make it back to New Kyoto in time to meet her trader boyfriend, Nikolai.

The work is interrupted by explosions, as an entire company of Marik Militia 'Mechs sweeps in towards the bivouac, having slipped past the perimeter unnoticed.  The gantry collapses, but landing in a snowbank saves Chloe's life.  As the Blackhearts' 'Mechs rally to repulse the attackers, Chloe realizes that the costs had become too high for the battalion to sustain operations, and that even if the contract terms weren't met, the Blackhearts would soon call in their DropShip and leave. 

Not that it will help young Tilo, dead and burning in the wreckage of the repair gantry.

Notes: This being a video-game tie-in, it's worth noting that the recent entries in the field have incorporated a new element - failure.  Not to say you couldn't pile it in and die in earlier works in the series, but for the most part, to advance in the storyline, you had to win the mission.  In HBS BattleTech and MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, players can withdraw from most missions where the OpFor is overpowered, the player unit isn't properly configured for the engagement, or bad luck has put the players in an untenable situation, or one likely to lead to a financially Pyrrhic victory.  That allows the narrative to continue unbroken, without save-scumming, for a more immersive experience.  (Granted, in HBS you still have to win the key storyline missions to move forward.)

The Blackhearts are very much in one of those situations.  They came expecting a quick stand-up fight, and got bogged down in an arctic meatgrinder.  Had I been given the contract to take out a certain number of Marik Militia troops, I'd be thinking in terms of bringing in copious amounts of landmines, as well as sappers and infiltrators to sabotage power plants, disrupt water systems, and poison food supplies, plus artillery (which the Blackhearts had, in the form of two Fortress-class DropShips).  The sabotage and artillery bombardment would force the Militia to leave the comfy confines of their fortified base as it shakes down around their ears, making them more likely to blunder into my minefields right about when my 'Mechs hit them.  Once sufficient scalps are collected, back aboard the DropShips we go. 

I wonder why they didn't send some plainclothes scouts to Wyvern to send an HPG message to New Kyoto requesting backup.  I suppose the pay offered by the LCAF for the mission only covered the expenses incurred by one battalion worth of troops, which would make any reinforcements essentially operate pro bono on behalf of the Lyrans.  No merc (except the Knights of St. Cameron) likes giving freebees.

Once again, we see that perimeter security is extremely poor in the late Third Succession War.  Sure, I can see the FWL forces slipping past a perimeter patrol, but why wasn't the perimeter liberally sprinkled with passive sensors?  Those things are dirt cheap, and can prevent surprise attacks unless the enemy has a substantial corps of specialists in sneaksuits clearing a hole through the wire by locating the sensors and either sabotaging or spoofing the readouts.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: February 2, 2995
 
Location: New Kyoto

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: In the city of Hirihito, Chloe sips cognac and discusses a contract offer by a pair of headhunters seeking to recruit her as a technician.  She describes their offer as more than generous, but rejects it, despite being nearly broke and unemployable onworld after terminating her contract with the Blackhearts.  She says she'll take the contract without any of the incentives if they agree to train her as a MechWarrior. 

The recruiters balk, with one asking why they would hire her for one job while paying to train her for a different one.  She offers to cover the costs herself out of her own salary and assume liability for any damages she might cause.  Chloe can see that they won't accept the terms.  Desperate, she makes one more suggestion.

Notes: Chloe notes that Major Jeffers seems to have suffered no penalties for the damage his battalion incurred on Wing, since he did enough damage to keep the LCAF happy and paying their contract fees.  From the Lyran perspective, the contract worked out perfectly - punish the 30th for raiding Wyatt and move along, business as usual.  Chloe, however, can't get past Tilo having died essentially achieving nothing. 

She also resents the constraints placed upon her.  She chose the mercenary life for the freedom it offered, but in the Blackhearts, she spent her days being told what she couldn't do.  She hopes, as a MechWarrior, to have more freedom.  Many of the MechWarriors in the stories we've seen have lacked much freedom in what they do - taking orders and shouldering responsibilities is the standard package.  In fact, one of the characters with the most freedom we've seen isn't a MechWarrior - "Sassy" Cassie Suthorn from Camacho's Caballeros pretty much takes off on her own and lone wolf ninjas her way through whatever she's trying to accomplish.  I'm not even sure the unit gives her specific orders - they just identify a problem and then wait for her to murder it. 

I wonder if Chloe would've been happier as a bandit.  Anarchy seems to be more her style.  Or perhaps she conflates being in a command position with freedom - a situation where she'd be making the decisions, rather than those whose rank and status places them above her.  This being the Lyran Commonwealth, social status certainly plays a central role in day to day life.

Interestingly, despite her technical skills, Chloe had no problem terminating her contract with the Blackhearts, and was even rejected by three other mercenary commands (where, presumably, her request for MechWarrior training was a deal-breaker).  By contrast, Detlef had to fake his own death and get smuggled out of the Bowie Industries plant when he wanted a change of scenery.  We even have a reference in one of the early scenario packs that a "family of technicians" had been discovered in hiding, and seized by the Federated Suns, eventually becoming the target of an objective raid by the Black Widow Company, implying that people able to fix 'Mechs were rare enough to constitute a strategic asset worth fighting over.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: February 5, 2995
 
Location: New Kyoto

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: In the aftermath of lovemaking with Nikolai, Chloe asks him a favor.  She tells him she likes the freedom of being a mercenary, but can't find it in the Blackhearts.  He asks who her new command is, and she answers that it depends.  She says she wants her own command someday, but needs to be a MechWarrior to do so. 

She admits that she's had MechWarrior training in her past, but not recently, and still has work as a tech.  She tells Nikolai that to get a position where she could do both, she had to promise them Nikolai as well, bringing his trading and logistics skills as part of the package.

Nikolai reacts with shock and anger, telling her she had no right to ask him to give up his dreams in favor of hers.  He dresses and storms out the door.

Notes: Interesting - so Chloe's secret past involved significant MechWarrior training, but she can't use it as a reference now.  Maybe she was a bandit.  Or perhaps she was part of the ComStar Guards and Militia, which technically didn't exist (explaining the secrecy), which would explain the technical skills.  That could also account for her nervous reaction when the two Acolytes passed by. 

I'm not sure how useful Nikolai's logistics contacts would be if he abandons his Marik border trading route.  If she jumps ship for a mercenary unit operating around Tamar, his knowing who's got what on Ford and Loric won't be of much value.  I suppose if the new unit is operating along the Marik border, he could negotiate good terms for a supply contract with Talia's Investiture.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: July 2, 2995
 
Location: Matamoras

Title: Dissimulate Wanderer

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Young Fahad Arazad feels exhausted from the 55 degree Celsius temperatures and Matamoras' 1.46 standard gravity as he works to assemble a lattice shell that will provide them with shelter against the heat.  His father, Jabal, cautions him to conserve his water ration until they are picked up the following day.  Around them, striated rocks and rare crystals form wind-carved sculptures rising hundreds of meters into the air, twinkling in the blazing light.  Farhad and Jabal are here on leave from the Arkab Legions on Al Na'ir on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, camping amidst the rocks during the few weeks per year that the winds die down.

Jabal appreciates the vista with an artist's eye, but Farhad merely looks at the rocks and speculates that the Combine could make more profit strip mining the area instead of charging access fees for tourists.  He just wants to go home and escape the heat.

Farhad feels a subtle pressure change in his ear, and Jabal tells him to put his goggles on so he can watch Allah's hand.  Inside the shelter, Jabal presses a control to turn the exterior transparent, displaying a rising 600-kph sandstorm approaching as the calm eye of the storm moves past them, resculpting the terrain in ways that make it a mecca for Azami artists.

Notes: Given Farhad's hot take on the mineral value of the rock formations, I'd suspect that Metals of the Earth doesn't have any presence on Matamoras.  (On several worlds in the Rasalhague Prefecture, MotE used deep core mining techniques to strip entire worlds of all their resources, leaving tunnel-riddled husks behind.) 

I'm actually surprised that there is tourism in the Draconis Comibne.  While there's no shortage of things to see, I would have assumed that only nobles would be able to afford such trips.  Certainly the Unproductives aren't taking interstellar vacations, and I would doubt that many of the Combine's rank and file laborers could afford such things either.  Perhaps Jabal makes enough as a tech for the Arkab Legions.

Or, perhaps the Azami worlds have sufficient autonomy to organize their societies completely differently than on most Combine worlds.  When the Azami worlds were incorporated in the Combine, the DCMS first tried conquest, but failed when their occupation forces began to drop dead from wasting diseases carried by the Azami from Terra into space.  The Azami were themselves immune, but still contagious, and the victims were found to have their blood dried to powder in their veins.  They were then invited to join the Combine as an autonomous bloc, contributing their military to the Arm of the Dragon as the Arkab Legions. 

That brings up the question - how did the Azami get infected with bioweapons?  The only other factoids we know about the Azami history is that they were one of the latter groups to join the Exodus from Terra, and ended up with less hospitable worlds as colonies.  Also, the disease came from a period when bioweapons were unleashed in northern Africa during wars.  [Correction - the diseases weren't specifically linked to bioweapons, but to a continent-wide pandemic that nearly depopulated Africa in the late 20th and 21st centuries.]

There's no detail on what these wars entailed in any sourcebook, but one causal factor could have been the invention of commercial-grade fusion engines.  While unleashing an energy revolution and making cheap energy widely available, the creation of the fusion reactor would have been a death knell for petrostates.  The bottom would have quickly dropped out of the global oil market, and any country with an economy based primarily on petrochemical extraction would have been in dire straits.  It's not hard to see regional bankruptcy, governmental and societal collapse, and civil war as various factions battled for remaining resources or to settle old scores amidst the carnage.  While the Western Alliance intervened in Russia when it had a similar collapse and civil war, that was to safeguard the rest of the world against rogue Soviet nukes, while there would be no such existential threat from similar anarchy in the "Azami" regions.  I can certainly see an extremist group unleashing experimental bioweapons in the midst of the fighting (or, given their portrayal as amoral fascists, see the Expansionist-controlled Alliance government using the Azami conflict zone as a testing ground for weaponized xeno-viruses brought back by explorers on other worlds - "advancing the cause of science" with human trials of offworld infections and potential cures, without having to place Terran Alliance colonists at risk.)  [Correction - the pandemic took place well before the formation of the Terran Alliance government or the Expansionist party.]

The next question is, of course, are the Azami still contagious?  If contact with Azami mummifies people who haven't inherited natural genetic immunity, then are Azami generally allowed to travel off their homeworlds?  Do they have to wear light environment suits when around other people?  Did Star League medicine finally cure the Azami of their infections?  Otherwise, how can Jabal and Farhad be on Matamoras without unintentionally murdering everyone with whom they come into contact?
« Last Edit: 09 January 2020, 00:38:18 by Mendrugo »
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: July 15, 2995
 
Location: Bone-Norman

Title: Vision's Hunger

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Chloe Reed takes in the bright white sun, the sparse buildings of Red Stone City clinging to the massive red-stone outcrop atop which sits the seat of planetary government, Red Stone Palace.  All part of her new mercenary home. 

Her sightseeing is cut short as Lt. Dawson Clarmont comes by to say hello, and is surprised to hear she's come 500 light years to the edge of the Periphery.  Nikolai joins them, telling Chloe that he'd gone to check local bars after orientation to begin making contacts.  Clarmont tells Chloe he's seen her eyeing the Shadow Hawk, but tells her that she'll be starting her training in a Stinger.  With that, he welcomes them both to the Grave Walkers.

Notes: It's nice that Randall is using these stories to flesh out the climate and culture on many worlds that were previously only sketchily described or had no information at all.  Red Stone Palace comes from the Clan Jade Falcon sourcebook, where it was listed as a key battle site.  But what the palace was (fort? government center? palace-shaped rock formation?) was left unclear. 

As Frabby said, the BattleTech universe often resembles a fantasy universe with a sci-fi overlay, and Nikolai's instinct to go to local bars to find contacts immediately conjures up images of D&D parties finding contracts at the local tavern, or certain space-wizards finding lowlife smugglers at a cantina.  It fits in-universe, too, since the original MechWarrior game gave out most of the clues on where to go next from rumors picked up in bars on the various worlds (or from the lost-and-found bin at Galatea's Club Zero-Zero).

I wonder if the hiring agents on New Kyoto were part of the Grave Walkers, or if they were freelance headhunters contracted by the Walkers.  Lt. Clarmont doesn't seem aware of where they've come from, whereas you'd expect he'd be aware of where unit personnel were located on recruiting runs.  Just as the Bounty Hunter has paid informants all over the Inner Sphere, I'd imagine many mercenary units maintain networks of contacts in the Successor States, who can gather local intel on a target, keep tabs on potential rivals, and do some recruiting and light espionage in their spare time.

The Grave Walkers have a long and storied history through the Succession Wars, but begin a downward slide after taking heavy losses on Bone-Norman and other worlds during the Clan Invasion. 
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

Mendrugo

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Date: April 5, 2997
 
Location: Hesperus II

Title: Endless War

Author: Randall N. Bills
 
Type: Short Story (MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries)

Synopsis: Ryana Campbell oversees the landing of a Mammoth-class DropShip at the Defiance Industries BattleMech Factory DropPort, the fourth to descend  at the port that day.  Land trains move forward to begin unloading the cargo, while Ryana signals her driver to take her to a cluster of personnel in front of one of the bay doors.  She notices Chloe and Nikolai, recognizing them as the new recruits from the Grave Walkers.

Introducing herself as Captain Ryana Campbell of the Eridani Light Horse, she asks the group members to introduce themselves: Jasmine Carmine, Jeho Rahamad, Dawson Clarmont (also of the Grave Walkers), Chloe Reed, Boris Tuls, and Nikolai Mason.  As the recruits move to their billets, Campbell wonders if any of them will make it in the Light Horse.

Notes: This set-up at Defiance is decidedly different that what we've seen in other depictions.  In "The Dying Time," all DropShip traffic was routed to the valley below, and personnel used a monorail to reach the Defiance Industries Complex.  It certainly makes logistics easier if the DropShips can offload raw materials and components directly at the factory gates, but there's the operational security risk as well - especially if four hostile DropShips managed to insert into that DropPort and unload a regiment of BattleMechs.  I would presume this DropPort is pre-sited by all of the Myoo complex's dozens of artillery emplacements, just in case someone tries the direct approach.  I wonder if this DropPort had been shut down in favor of the one at Maria's Elegy for security reasons by the time "The Dying Time" takes place.

Looking at the ELH unit history, 2998 was the year that the 21st Striker Regiment defended Hesperus II against five regiments of Free Worlds League forces, so it looks like the new recruits are in for a trial by fire.

Randall has gone out of his way to populate these stories with vehicles from TRO: Vehicle Annex - Growler and Burro trucks, land trains, etc.  It's too bad that no record sheets were ever made for most of those units.  Though, granted, most serve as just objectives, rather than anything that has a chance of surviving on the battlefield, so "you shoot it and it dies" works in most cases.  I personally have a fun scenario where one side starts out with a lighter force entrenched behind ferrocrete walls, pits, bunkers, and turrets, while a heavier force tries to dig them out.  Midway through the scenario, the ground rumbles and a Corx mobile tunnel miner emerges inside the perimeter, with infantry pouring out of the hole behind it.  The defenders have to decide whether to try to hold out or try to organize a fighting withdrawal.

I wonder to what extent mercenaries drift from unit to unit throughout their careers.  The stereotype of the veteran merc is one whose jacket is festooned with unit patches and who has fought from one side of the Inner Sphere to the other.  Does this imply that most mercenary units don't tend to promote from within, forcing ambitious troops to send out their resumes to other commands if they're not moving up quickly enough in their current unit?  (Or perhaps just in units posting uneventful garrison duty, like the Grave Walkers.  A heavy combat contract will undoubtedly leave plenty of holes in the TO&E that will allow the survivors to get field promotions.)
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.