Author Topic: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic  (Read 171860 times)

ThePW

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #210 on: 19 November 2018, 17:19:21 »
I'm waiting for Mr. Smith to say QuiAff or QuiNeg to Natasha, followed by proper Batchcall for an answer.

Before the clans advance thru the periphery! Meaning he uses Clan names for Clan mechs!

TT


I hope he remembers that distinction: If Smith mentions the terms Mad Cat, Ryoken & Dasher and not Timber Wolf, Storm Crow and Firemoth in front of the 3030 era WD's, you will get blank faces from them just as much as the FEDCOM would be.
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DoctorMonkey

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #211 on: 19 November 2018, 17:25:39 »

I hope he remembers that distinction: If Smith mentions the terms Mad Cat, Ryoken & Dasher and not Timber Wolf, Storm Crow and Firemoth in front of the 3030 era WD's, you will get blank faces from them just as much as the FEDCOM would be.


I'd be tempted to be a bit more subtle and ask their opinion on removing the Large Pulse Laser from his customised MAD-2R and adding some missile launchers, maybe grafting on external boxy ones like on a Capellan Catapult...
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cawest

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #212 on: 20 November 2018, 21:43:23 »
do we know what ships or other assets were at the Ruins of Gabriel?

PsihoKekec

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #213 on: 21 November 2018, 01:24:10 »
No, but it is theorized that it houses some mothballed warships and maintainance/repair facilities, probably looked after by a skeleton crew at this point.
Shoot first, laugh later.

cawest

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #214 on: 28 November 2018, 20:37:22 »
can you post a copy of the recovered stuff from Helm?  I know it was on spacebattles somewhere. 

paulobrito

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #215 on: 29 November 2018, 04:40:03 »
537 Battlemechs Total.
430 Assaults


Royal Battlemechs(49);

25 Assaults

    4 x HGN-732b Highlander
    2 x Rifleman II
    6 x BLR-1Gb Battlemaster
    12 x THG-11Eb Thug
    1 x DVS-2 Devastator*

12 Heavies

    8 x MAD-2R Marauder
    4 x BL-6b-KNT Black Knight

12 Lights

    12 x MON-66b Mongoose


SLDF Regulars(488);

397 Assaults

    52 x AS7-D Atlas
    84 x AWS-8Q Awesome
    52 x Various Mackies, MSK-9Hs and custom jobs of same mostly. One WTF Royal grade job with a pair of Snubbies!!??
    36 x LGB-7Q Longbow
    3 x SHG-2F Shogun
    20 x CP-10-Z Cyclops
    30 x TDK-7X Thunder Hawk
    72 x THG-11E Thug
    48 x STK-3F Stalker


38 Mediums

    8 x CRB-27 Crabs
    12 x PXH-1 Phoenix Hawks
    12 x VL-2T Vulcans
    6 x DV-6Md Dervish


53 Light mechs

    36 x LCT-1V Locusts
    12 x FFL-4B Firefly
    5 x FLC-4P Falcon


2106 Combat vehicles

    576 x Alacorn Mk VI Heavy Combat Tanks (yes, five hundred and seventy six :wtf:)
    50 x Burke Combat Tanks
    24 x Royal Burk Combat Tanks
    36 x Chaparral Missile Tanks
    4 x Kanga Jumping Hovertank
    401 x Von Luckner Assault Tanks
    51 x Royal Von Luckner Assault Tanks
    155 x Demon Combat vehicle.
    341 x Generic LRM Launcher
    44 x Generic SRM Launcher
    12 x PAT-005b Puma ASsault tanks
    36 x Royal Zephyr scout tank
    150 x Mobile Long Tom Artillary Vehicles
    100 x Thor Combat Vehicles
    120 x Bulldog Combat Tanks



1000 Utility Vehicles.
Not even going to try. Mostly trucks and the like. Unsurprisingly most of the useful things like industrailmechs, construction and engineering vehicles, communications vehicles, long range transports; all the stuff that would be of great use as you settle some planet a long way away, were loaded up by the Exodus fleet as the SLDF slowly assembled. Also why a lot of the faster hover vehicles and transports were taken.

Some highlights include 6 SLDF Mobile HQs, 2 MASH units and a mobile water purification and pumping vehicle that somehow got left behind.

Infantry gear;
20,000 Infantry kits Including standard issue rifles, heavy weapons and specalist kits, communications gear e.t.c.

Spare Parts;
56,553 tons assorted spare parts. Roughly 48% would qualify as Lostech by tonnage. Over 10K tons are FF field armor patches.

Ammunition:
100K tons plus ammunition, mostly left behind as too dangerous. Exceptions made for some units with a cross selection of Arrow-IV, heavy gun ammo, some carefully packed LBX/10 shells NARC/Art IV/Streak missiles very carefully handled to remove the guidence and electronics from the fuels and explosives, dozens of samples of each.

*Devy isn't technically a Royal Mech but only because it was in prototype stages when the Coup went down and the SLDF had better things to do than label things as this or that.

Zureal

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #216 on: 03 December 2018, 21:03:52 »
Is it just me or am I the only one that wants Katrina and Mr. Smith to get together? Would of been awesome if instead of a noble title he asked katrina out on a date :D :thumbsup:

Dave Talley

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #217 on: 03 December 2018, 21:15:04 »
death by snu snu
 :D :D :D
 >:D >:D
Resident Smartass since 1998
“Toe jam in training”

Because while the other Great Houses of the Star League thought they were playing chess, House Cameron was playing Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker the entire time.
JA Baker

Kwic

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #218 on: 03 December 2018, 21:24:27 »
Damn you Dave.  I thought another chapter was posted. 


Chris.

Eagerly awaiting the next instalment

Excellent work

Dave Talley

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #219 on: 03 December 2018, 22:52:00 »
blame Zureal
Resident Smartass since 1998
“Toe jam in training”

Because while the other Great Houses of the Star League thought they were playing chess, House Cameron was playing Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker the entire time.
JA Baker

truetanker

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #220 on: 03 December 2018, 23:04:14 »
I'm blaming both of you!!!

Chris? For you... :  :whip:

TT
Khan, Clan Iron Dolphin
Azeroth Pocketverse
That is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units.Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013
TT, we know you are the master of nasty  O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013
If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force.  I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have :D ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016
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paulobrito

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #221 on: 04 December 2018, 03:20:09 »
death by snu snu
 :D :D :D
 >:D >:D

Well, so far - Kim Sorenson, Katrina Steiner and Natasha Kerensky. In the area of knowing hot, deadly woman, is in a good rol.

Zureal

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #222 on: 05 December 2018, 00:37:48 »
I'm blaming both of you!!!

Chris? For you... :  :whip:

TT
blame Zureal

Do not hate, apreciate  :D I also know that you came back thinking this was the next chapter  >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D

TheBrokenLance

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #223 on: 05 December 2018, 00:56:17 »
Do not hate, apreciate  :D I also know that you came back thinking this was the next chapter  >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D

You're an evil, evil person.  Haha.

truetanker

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #224 on: 05 December 2018, 01:06:17 »
Zureal


Do apreciate  :D I also know that you came thinking Dinosaur Hunting Guns: Taking Down T-Rex and Other Extinct Reptiles >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D

https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/gun-shots/2013/04/best-dinosaur-guns-taking-down-t-rex-and-other-extinct-reptiles

TT
« Last Edit: 05 December 2018, 01:07:55 by truetanker »
Khan, Clan Iron Dolphin
Azeroth Pocketverse
That is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units.Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013
TT, we know you are the master of nasty  O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013
If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force.  I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have :D ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016
Me: Would you rather fight my Epithymía Thanátou from the Whispers of Blake?
Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid
~ Nav_Alpha on 10 October 2016

DOC_Agren

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #225 on: 06 December 2018, 20:59:41 »
Damm I was looking for more story
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"


Shadow_Wraith

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #227 on: 09 December 2018, 14:50:13 »
So this updated today and it was simply Marvelous!

Eivind

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #228 on: 09 December 2018, 15:18:20 »
Here's a direct link to todays update, over at Spacebattles: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-was-easier-on-the-tabletop-a-battletech-si.659596/page-320#post-53099626

I imagine Chris will posting the update here as soon as he has the time, so no complaining.

ThePW

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #229 on: 09 December 2018, 18:59:31 »
*Reads Chapter 13* *brain explodes* HOLY... That sh... that was awesome. Gloriously awesome...


is there ANY plans to make this a module or officially made book, like that other official AU book?
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idea weenie

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #230 on: 09 December 2018, 19:49:38 »
I wonder if they can have the walking wounded Wofl's Dragoons hired for Cadre contracts, essentially teaching the FC technical teams about the Star League and Clan technology, plus classes for Mechwarriors about how to properly use it?

Kurita is going to be very unhappy when his spies relay to him about how Davion is making use of the Dragoons.  Especially since most of the knowledge is coming from the Dragoon tech teams (civilians) , rather than the Mechwarriors (warriors).  That could drive home the point to someone in the Draconis Combine that a society of warriors is not the best result

Red Pins

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #231 on: 09 December 2018, 21:50:22 »
Hehee!  See ya, suckers!  20,000 new words to this story on SB.
...Visit the Legacy Cluster...
The New Clans:Volume One
Clan Devil Wasp * Clan Carnoraptor * Clan Frost Ape * Clan Surf Dragon * Clan Tundra Leopard
Work-in-progress; The Blake Threat File
Now with MORE GROGNARD!  ...I think I'm done.  I've played long enough to earn a pension, fer cryin' out loud!  IlClan and out in <REDACTED>!
TRO: 3176 Hegemony Refits - the 30-day wonder

Chris OFarrell

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #232 on: 10 December 2018, 07:17:43 »
Have to say that the local character limit really makes me a sad panda :(

Oh well, here we go!


Chapter 13: Bargined Well and - ohh! Shinies!


Leaving the meeting room, Ardan and I moved past the two surprised guards outside and retraced our steps back to the elevators without need for an escort. With some effort I ignored the curious and sometimes worried looks from Dragoons in the bullpen at us leaving a meeting barely twenty minutes after it had started.
One that should have easily lasted hours.


Arriving in the Mech Hangar I will admit I glanced around looking for Kerensky’s Warhammer either in its bay or waiting in a dark corner like a fourteen-meter-tall boogeyman. I didn’t see it, so I didn’t quite run to get into my Battlemech and power it up rapidly, just in case she was heading back in this direction. Ardan also seemed to want to move with a touch of haste and the two of us had our Battlemechs in motion within a minute of getting into them. I fell in behind him as we left the hanger, walking out into the late afternoon sun and clearing the Dragoons HQ without incident. Five minutes later we were through the gate into the AFFS side of the base.

Only then did I exhale and let a little of the tension loose, mentally forcing myself to stop gripping the two control sticks so tightly.

So. The Dragoons knew we knew.

For the record, I was not convinced this was a good idea. At all.
No matter how
fun it had been to slap the Dragoons in the face with the reality of their inactivity.
My plan -
THE plan as far as I had known until Ardan came calling and ripped me out of school - had been to just follow the original plan.
Because say what you will, it had
worked. The Dragoons had skulled down a few cans of Red Bull, set their RAGE levels to 1.5 times the Smoke Jaguar Average and done the whole Neo ‘come at me bro’ gesture to the Combine by scorning and calling out Takashi in front of his peers. The Combine had happily obliged; focusing the DCMS efforts on the Federated Suns front in the 4th Succession War, mitigating losses there to less than a dozen worlds despite a near naked border - with almost no deeper raiding. And of the worlds lost, only Marduk could be said to be of real strategic value - and secondary value at that.

But this time?

Marduk now had the Grey Death Legion of all groups camping out on it - a Grey Death Legion who had apparently expanded to almost
two Battalions of Mechs with significant supporting arms when I wasn’t looking. Even better, according to Ardan, they were very eager to prove themselves worthy of their absurdly generous contract terms and, assuming Grayson Carlyle was half the tactical genius he was in Battletech, that should be enough to beat up any credible invasion force Kurita might be able to throw at them, steal their lunch money and give Lori plenty of material for snarky comments. Snords Irregulars had been loaned by Katrina to Aaron Sandoval and Hanse had even issued them one of of the captured DCMS Invaders (with the hint that if they did a good job they might just be allowed to keep it). The Light Horse had also been pulled from RAT to stay on Robinson with their own extensive private Jumpship fleet as a mobile reserve, their place apparently backfilled by some reshuffles Yvonne had done in tightening their plans based on my sources. Meaning Aaron Sandoval now had some extra cards to play defending the March.

So we had extra units, increased direct and indirect starting damage to the DCMS thanks to the Dragoons and Light Horse and a sudden shortage of DCA Jumpships on top of that? I think if Jamie had been allow to simply go off and goad Takashi without us jumping in to muddy the waters, we would have gotten a better result than the original timeline! And, when the war was over, the Dragoons would still be at their weakest ever point, without the Clans to run home to and needing a patron…

Hanse Davion and Katrina Steiner however ... disagreed.
 

*
**
******
**
*


It only took us minutes to reach the AFFS outer perimeter, but Fort Susan Sandoval was massive. In addition to its logistical node functions, it had been built to garrison up to four RCTs at once, rare as it might be to see such a force concentration. Ardan and I had to walk for another ten klicks to reach our destination; complex Bravo-One. A general-purpose warehouse belonging to the AFFS Department of the Quartermaster. Although calling it a ‘Warehouse’ would be understating it somewhat, in my opinion; it made an Amazon fulfillment center look like kiddy’s stuff.

The core building was well over a klick long, a massive trapezoidal hunk of reinforced ferrocrete that was apparently rated to survive a near miss from a strategic nuclear ground burst, with a sub-basement twice as large buried under the tarmac. There were loading docks scattered around the building and several small office buildings connected to the side of it where the people who ran the whole logistical nightmare worked. Unusually however, given that we were well inside the outer and inner perimeters of the base, there was a standing guard force deployed here in Draconis March Militia uniforms. That said guards were a mixture of Davion Guards Special Forces and DMI Commandos was something few people on the base knew and hopefully fewer people would find out.
We parked our rides in a convenient lance-sized Mech hangar next to said warehouse before submitting to a complete electronic and physical search to make sure no bugs had been planted on us, even as Techs arrived to get started checking out our rides for the same. Paranoia perhaps, but we knew 7th Kommando and Wolfnet had access to a lot of the SLDFs best toys, quite possibly with a few Clan enhancements on top. As unlikely as it was that the Dragoons would have bugged us - especially given they had no idea what had been coming - it never paid to be sloppy or casual about such things.
In any event nothing harmful was found and Ardan and I moved into a small fourth floor office that Ardan’s DMI and MIIO staff had taken over, monitoring the events playing out after our unsubtle flipping the table.

As anticipated, it seemed almost the entire Dragoons Officer Corps was being called in by Wolf to join the Regimental Commanders for an urgent meeting, with Wolf even having some of the less seriously wounded who were on bed rest being kicked out of said beds to join in on the fun. Snord and his daughter had also been called in, which I actually felt bad for, given that the surveillance feed showed they had been down on the bases extensive private beach with the Irregulars and most of the Black Widows. It looked to be pretty friggin rockin beach party too, with the irregulars having ‘borrowed’ an AFFS field kitchen and having acquired an impressive amount of booze, food and other such supplies from who knows where. Rhoanda had even moved her lostech Highlander down there to serve as a combination jukebox and power source for some portable equipment they had set up.

Too bad I didn’t have anything from the Beach Boys on my iPhone I thought with a mental sigh. Would have been hilarious at a Beach Party to have ‘Help me Rhonda’ playing...

At any rate, I suppose after freezing their asses off on Misery; celebrating their victory with sand, sun and surf wasn’t actually a half bad idea and the Irregulars and Widows were clearly getting on like matches and high-octane gas. Unsurprising perhaps, given that both units were 99% made up of local Spheroid crazies. Alas, a Bandit appeared not too long after Ardan and I got back, blowing sand everywhere before William Cameron jumped out, grabbed the two Snords, dragged them on board and blasted back to base at maximum overthrust. Their absence hadn’t seemed to dampen the party one bit though, as afternoon turned to dusk. What if the use of man-portable flamers to ignite a roaring beach bonfire out of hastily looted packing crates and an effigy dressed in what looked suspiciously like the uniform of a Draconis Combine Warlord, was any indicator...

Simply put, it was clear that I had kicked over an ant’s nest. Dragoons were coming in from every direction to the Dragoons HQ building. Even from Geosynch where EVA teams and utility shuttles were carefully putting Hephaestus Station back together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, a drop shuttle had gathered several officers and screamed for the ground with scant regard for traffic controls objections. And after Kenneth Quo and his team had joined everyone else in the hall, the doors were shut, electronic countermeasures hastily installed by Dragoons techs activated and we had nothing to do but wait as dusk steadily gave way to night.

As much as we would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that meeting, Ardan had flatly refused the eager suggestions from the office full of spooks on ways they could easily bug it and get around such hasty countermeasure installs. Which was probably the right call; being discovered bugging them right now would only undermine the months of painstaking work done to contrast ourselves from the Combine, right up to Ardan respectfully giving the Dragoons space and time to work through this new paradigm.
It was hard though, for me to simply do nothing. Unlike say Helm or New Dallas, we were now entirely reliant on other people for the decisions going ahead. It wouldn’t be our actions this time, but their reactions and choices that drove this ... and we could do little but call the pot, put our cards on the table and see how things went down.

And so as the sun set and dusk turned to night, we did that thing all soldiers hated more than most anything else; we waited.

“You certainly didn’t pull any punches with Wolf, John” Ardan observed as we sat down in an empty office, alone now for the first time in many hours, the two of us nursing cups of coffee after a light -but far better than Zero-G ration packs- dinner. I hadn’t really cared for the drink much in my old life - alone in that among all my family, work colleagues and friends - but I had come to appreciate it through boot camp as being the only hot drink on offer most of the time.

“Hey, I didn’t call him the vanguard of an invasion of the twisted degenerate inbred delusion of the Star League dreamed up by a madman with a thing for test tubes, not even once!”

“Yes, and I’ll be sure to note that restraint in my report” Sortek deadpanned, eyeing me from across the table and I took the rebuke for what it was as I straightened up in my seat. I had been given the latitude to troll the Wolf … now it was time to start acting like a professional again.

“I think we hit the mark pretty much dead on” I decided after a moment's consideration, dropping the snark to consider the meeting as objectively as I could. “The Dragoons were always largely a personality cult built around Jamie Wolf. Where he goes, they go - especially at this point when they are still homogeneous in their makeup. I mean, you saw in there how eager they were to follow him back into the Dragon's lair? I think they’ll just as readily follow him into our plans. Assuming, of course, that we convinced him.”

“That is the question” Ardan agreed, sounding happier with me giving analysis over attitude. “Based on your information, Clan society and leadership certainly seems to favor short term tactical thinking over long term planning and strategic vision …  it’s honestly not terribly surprising that Wolf tunnel visioned on finding the next war rather than trying to figure out how he and his people would even get started on as broad a set of independent orders as ‘prepare the Inner Sphere for a Clan invasion.’”

I grunted at that, not exactly agreeing. There were in fact Gods knows how many ways he could have started that work. What between Wolfnet, Snord and Blackwell; even if he didn’t want to directly make a move he had plenty of avenues to look at doing so. But, we were past that now. And Ardan did have a point that even trying to think in that fashion couldn’t be easy for a Clanner, even one as exposed to the Inner Sphere as Jamie had been.

“People like Ulric Kerensky are the exceptions to the rule and notable because of it” I shrugged instead, tacitly agreeing. “The ability to be able to think and -more importantly- effectively operate on a strategic time frame in a culture where any decision can be challenged in a ‘might makes right’ fight to the death? That certainly takes a rare combination of skills. I’ll actually give Jaime credit for at least sort-of thinking about his mission now and again. Kerensky though? She just wanted to outright forget about it and go find the next target to blow up. I swear that woman has the strategic analysis capabilities of an unholy union of Romano Liao and Aleksandr Kerensky...”

“I wouldn’t say that around Natasha” Ardan said, sounding mildly amused - perhaps at my continuing contempt for the legendary SLDF general. An inspirational leader for sure, but ultimately in my mind (and happily, Hanse ****** Davion fully agreed with me) a Battalion Commander promoted so fast and far beyond his experience that it wasn’t terribly surprising his strategic thinking boiled down to ‘I will cunningly send wave after wave of men at the Caspers until they reach their pre-programed kill limit and shut down!’.

Or, as TV Tropes would have put it; ‘We Have Reserves!’ Yvonne Davion had apparently let loose a very rare snorting burst of laughter when she read my Zap Brannigan snarking of his strategic failures in my debriefing comments, which had been included as background around the whole Clan information pack. Something I was rather proud of.

“Probably not a good idea” I agreed. On general principals in fact; the longer I stayed away from Natasha the better. Unstoppable killing-machine hellbitch that she was, she certainly wasn’t a long-term thinker and I didn’t really want to risk her trying to shoot the horse after it had bolted or something. I mean, even in the ****** Clan homeworlds Natasha was known to definitely lack the ‘Kerensky vision’ that Ulric had - and boy was that saying something if even Clanners thought so! Her ‘strategic review’ of the state of the Inner Sphere at the start of Lethal Heritage … well, clearly, she had her talents but strategic analysis was not one of them.
“But beyond a lack of critical strategic thinking skills” I continued, “I’m also going to guess that Natasha declaring the whole idea of the Inner Sphere being unable to defend itself came down largely to CSS.”

“CSS?” Ardan blinked and I waved a hand idly.

“Oh. Clanner Superiority Syndrome” I explained and that caused Ardan to roll his eyes - but there was a faint smile on his face to hold back the edge of the gesture. “They’re a step up from Homo-Sapiens and have either ‘a right to dominate and lead’, or, ‘a responsibility to magnanimously step in and protect’ because we’re incapable of looking after ourselves - especially against other superior Clanners.”

“Ah” he said, rolling his eyes with exquisite tact and left it there as we both took a sip of our drinks.

I might be being unfair to the Dragoons -not bloody likely- but I always had a sneaking suspicion that, like most Clanners, the original Dragoons had an instinctive belief in their superiority over the rest of mankind on a fundamental evolutionary level. Even if only subconsciously; they believed that only Clanners - even Freeborn renegade Clanners - had any hope of saving the Inner Sphere from the Clans. Even the Warden philosophy at its core still held that the Inner Sphere would inevitably need them to come in and save it from something the poor dumb Spheroids couldn’t handle at some point rather than admitting a warrior society needed a war to justify its existence. So, despite mankind being out in space for a thousand years and the Clans entire existence being barely two centuries worth of it and a population disparity just this side of hilariously lopsided, apparently we were all helpless little sheep needing either culling or petting…

Such an attitude helped explained things like Jamie Wolfs ‘Complete waste of time 3051!’ conference on Outreach to try and teach combat Veterans -with victories against the Clans under their belts no less! - how to be Clan Warriors to face them. Because, of course, real war wasn’t about silly things like sitting down in the Year of Peace to plan logistics, troop movements, industrial plans and technology transfers, combined arms applications or strategic warfare modeling between the Generals of the Great Houses to present a unified front and compare notes…
No, it was entirely about shiny toys on the field driven by Übermensch who would sweep across the Inner Sphere like an unstoppable fire unless they prepared their own Übermensch to stop them on the Clans terms...

At least part of today with our casual attitude was ripping Wolf and his people, hard, out of their comfortable little world. That the primitive spheroids with a polite, almost indifferent air knew their SUPER AMAZING SECRET … and we barely cared. We had plans well underway to deal with it without their Genetically Superior asses even being involved or required … and we were pointedly asking where they stood. Not leading us, but either with us … or against us.
It was going to be interesting to see how they took this brave new world or if their wittle fragile minds cracked under the strain of new ideas…
Still it didn’t look like much would happen anytime today. The Dragoons Officers had been in conference for hours now - unsurprising if Jamie was bringing all the Spheroids in the Dragoons officer corps into the truth and good luck with that. I mean, how did you sort of explain that their comrades in arms who they trusted with their lives were the vanguard of an invasion force made of the twisted remains of the SLDF who wanted to enslave their home?

Outside that fun, Jeremy Ellman, the former Beta Regiment commander who had retired but been convinced by Jamie to stay on as the head of Training Command, had been left in command of the Dragoons by Jamie. Unsurprisingly it seemed there was a lot of initial uneasiness from the line troops and support personnel in the way the entire Dragoons officer corps had, after a brief meeting with Hanse Davions Pimp Hand, scrambled into a closed meeting like they did. Ellman was the ideal choice to put in charge for now, being both very well respected and having a very level head on his shoulders that did wonders to calm down any jumpy troops. He had gone on a tour of the base, kicking asses of people who were slacking off from their jobs to worry, making sure the Home Guard (who directly answered to him anyway) were standing their posts calmly and not getting nervous or twitchy. The only real excitement seemed to be when the Widows and Irregulars staggered back into the base roaring drunk and Ellman had the MPs find some hole to throw them into to sleep it off.
Ultimately, our best guess was that the Dragoons leadership team would make decisions tonight, present them to the officers and - presuming everyone agreed- tomorrow the rest of the Dragoons would be brought up to speed. To that end, Ardan had dismissed me while he caught up on paperwork and reports, leaving me to find my quarters. Bravo-One was so damn huge that a couple of dozen rooms in a next-door building were rapidly convertible into bunk rooms for the rare but certainly not unprecedented need to bunk down people here during busy times. It was hardly the height of luxury, the fold-out bed looked about as comfortable as the one in boot … but again, seriously, compared to zero-g hammocks?
And so, I had a hot shower with unlimited water - ****** yes! - and after getting changed into a shirt and shorts, set my alarm and crashed into the bed with a sigh… yeah this one felt exactly like the cot from boot.

Only now I wasn’t lying down in the dark worrying about the next day of pain ... now I got to lie down in the dark and worry if I had just strategically ****** the Federated Suns Combine Front good and proper!

Or, to be a little fair; if Hanse and Katrina had done so.

The two House Lords and their inner circle had, according to their letter to me, concluded after talks with their various naval specialists that the Dragoons trying to blindly grope their way back to the Clan Homeworlds was a nonstarter. Ergo, they were not afraid of the Dragoons running home to raise the alarm that the Clans cover was blown, which gave them a lot more freedom of action with the Dragoons ‘trapped’ in the Inner Sphere as the FedCom powers were the only rational choice for a patron.

I mean, it was just a little unlikely they would run back to the Combine - no check that. A little unlikely they would run back to the Combine without murder-death-kill intentions. The Confederation would probably love to impress them into the CCAF in their weakened state and Jamie would probably be less than enthused about that crazy daughter of Mad Max trying to marry and/or have him killed once again - not to mention Romano on top of that.

Although that could lead to hilarious sitcom potential with Justin also in the mix now that I thought about it…

The Free Worlds League was a valid possibility, but they were both some distance away and still the source of painful memories with all manner of growing internal problems.
Hanse Davion’s original timeline AstroTurf internal frictions he had set up to keep the Mariks out of the 4th Succession War had now been well overtaken by a far more serious spat rapidly spiraling out of control from the fallout of Helm. Most especially the (entirely true) fact that Lord Garth of Irian had been trying to get at the cache to give him the military muscle to overthrow the Captain General. Apparently SAFE (whose foreign intelligence sucked balls but whose internal counter-intelligence was actually considered first class, especially when focused on internal frictions) had found more than enough circumstantial evidence to convince the Captain General of Garth intentions… just not quite enough to be able to openly accuse him with hard proof.
Not yet anyway.
Things hadn’t decayed (yet) to active shooting, but provincial and Federal units were quietly shifting around - making everyone nervous - and every other province was eagerly maneuvering politically to see how they might be able to take advantage of the situation. Hanses original timeline had suddenly accelerated away into something far more genuine without him having to do a damn thing and I suspected that jumping into another Free Worlds League civil war appealed to the Dragoons about as much as retiring to become farmers.

Still, there were always other options … it was just a question of if you were willing or just desperate enough to risk the odds.
And that was the billion C-Bill question that was keeping me awake in my bed.
Were there enough people desperate enough to risk it?

The Dragoons Warships had very deep cargo holds and plenty of room for dropships carrying extra personnel and supplies if enough of the Dragoons decided to run for it - even if it would probably take a bit of time to get them up and running. Wolfnet could surely use that time to get enough data from Inner Sphere Periphery traders to guide them as far as the Chainelane Isles; a Periphery microstate a few hundred light years past the official Coreward Periphery border. A useful starting point given that it had Inner Sphere links … but it also had a lot of data on the deeper, darker things lurking out there if you knew who to ask. ‘Data’ that just might include directions to the Hanseatic League or JàrnFòlk; real deep Periphery cultures that in turn had some contact with the Clans...
I mean, I had suggested exactly that progression to MIIO when they had asked for suggestions on how to get people into the Kerensky Cluster!

Of course, that was a highly unlikely, worst case scenario. While there might be one or two outliers who would want to go back to the Clans because they were cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, a trained warship crew that did not make. Add to that the ranting of Singh in ‘Wolves on the Border’ that suggested the ‘you cannot go home again’ factoid was already well known and accepted but there had been no civil war or split as a result of it.

And it wasn’t hard to understand why either.

I mean, the best their Mechwarriors could expect on getting back given their Freeborn status and age, would be a pat on the back and demotion to infantry cannon fodder if they were very very lucky. And the non-combat arms? Say goodbye to the freedom of the Inner Sphere and hello to the tech cast, merchant cast and labor cast with all the wonderful ‘you are property for the Warriors to trade around at will’ fun. The odds were good that Kerlin Ward and Ulric Kerensky had stacked the Dragoons with exactly the kind of Freeborns who would only go back if dragged in chains kicking and screaming after having a taste of the Inner Sphere. To say nothing of the Dragoons Inner Sphere comrades in arms, families and support personnel who’d probably be rather less inclined to pack up and wander off to an alien society where they would be fourth class barbarian-bondsmen at best...

No. By in large the Inner Sphere was a paradise for the Freeborn of the Clans. Especially the more liberal states of the FedCom and Free Worlds League. The only one with skin in the game on their silly breeding program by having a Bloodname -as far as I knew- was Kerensky and she clearly hadn’t really given a toss. Even when the formal recall order had come in the original timeline, she alone had obeyed it seemingly to fight against the invasion from the other side of the fence, alongside Ulric. Possibly -probably- a hedge she and Jamie had decided on to cover their bases given that she was the only one the Clans had to even pretend to listen to, being a Clan Bloodnamed Council member.

But in any event … worrying about this was pointless.

The die was now cast. I had ****** cast it. All we could do was see which face came up.

So I flipped over, closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Chris OFarrell

  • Warrant Officer
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  • Posts: 605
Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #233 on: 10 December 2018, 07:18:48 »
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My alarm went off at 05:30 on the dot and I was up and moving before my brain finished coming online as I threw of my blankets and rolled out of the camp cot. So automatic were my motions that I was up and yanking on clothes for about ten seconds before I realized that this wasn’t boot and I didn’t have an angry NCO inbound to berate us for not being up and ready within sixty seconds of the end of the designated sleep time.

This was worse.

Well I thought glancing around the room, at least Natasha isn’t sitting in a dark corner brooding at me while petting a giant slugthrower…

I jumped into the shower - and hissed as by either design or some stupid plumbing mistake, I got a face full of cold water. I gritted my teeth and pushed through. It was sure as hell not the first time I had had to suffer such things in training- and it did wake me up rather effectively.

With that done I threw on a fresh duty uniform, made the bed and cleaned the room (some habits die hard I suppose) before heading out and downstairs, then across a footbridge between this building and the larger one we were working out of. I glanced around outside - it didn’t seem the world had ended overnight and there was no sign of cats and dogs living together - before entering the larger building past a couple of guards who simply nodded at me as I entered but said nothing, making my way to the small commissary. A decent selection of food was on offer with dozens of AFFS personnel and spooks around loading up on the carbs for what promised to be a big day.

“Smith” a voice called, and I turned to see Ardan Sortek wave a mug of coffee at me as he moved past with a tray of food in the other hand. The man looked disgustingly fresh and alert even though I strongly suspected he had stayed up considerably later than I. “Grab some food and join us” he ordered as he and a group of people headed into what I recognized as an officer’s mess - which had a guard standing outside.
“Yessir” I nodded and turned to grab my own tray, loading up a few things and forcing myself to exercise restraint in my choices. The last thing I wanted to do was make myself sick on today of all days. God I’d kill for vegemite, which apparently did still exist but only on one or two Lyran planets and was seemingly considered some form of bio weapon throughout the rest of human inhabited space...
Mess food on the whole I didn’t think had improved terribly much from the 21st century, but compared to dropship food? Yeah, night and ****** day. Grabbing a cup of tea as well I carefully made my way across to the door. The trooper there had either heard Ardan’s order or had standing orders about me; in either case he opened the door for me and closed it behind.

The table was easily big enough for two dozen people but was only half full, most people clustered around Ardan. Mid-ranked officers and Spooks, most of whom I recognized from last night.
I couldn’t help but feel just a little uncomfortable about that fact that I was here with them though.
The Officers Mess - which is what this had to be in effect if not in fact - was forbidden territory to lowly cadets like me (even if I wasn’t wearing cadet tabs) and I had an instinctive desire to turn around and walk right the ****** out before anyone noticed-

“Sleep well?” Ardan asked politely and I forced myself forward. Reminding myself that I held no rank as far as anyone else was concerned.

“Yes Sir” I nodded, moving to take a seat at the table. “Still not quite used to sleeping in space so it was nice to have real gravity again.”

“No-one who doesn’t live in space ever quite gets used to it” Ardan assured me, taking a sip of his coffee. “The best you can learn to do is endure it. At any rate now that we’re all here” he said, glancing around the room -and I noticed then that everyone but me had folders and paperwork, “let’s go over the game plan for today. So far, we have not had anything beyond the usual daily and activity postings from the Dragoons liaison officer...”

“Any sudden request for ‘live fire field exercises’?” I asked as I decided that this sausage was actually not half bad. “Or any admissions to the hospital - or morgue - overnight?”

Ardan blinked, then glanced at one of the officers who hurriedly swallowed his own food and shook his head.

“No no and certainly no” the DMI Captain shook his head firmly, the man looking slightly taken aback at the unexpected question.

“Any particular reason why you wanted to know John?” Ardan asked as he turned back. I shrugged a bit as I idly stirred my tea.

“If one of the Clanners was going to try call a Trial of Refusal over Jamie deciding, it’s not impossible they had it out with fists Sir” I pointed out, taking a sip of my tea and approving of the taste. “More likely you’d see a formal Mech fight and while I hope the Dragoons wouldn’t be so inconsiderate to do it in the middle of the base...”

“A fair point” Ardan muttered then glanced at another of the officers. “Make sure that one of the live-fire mesas is cleared of any scheduled activity today - just in case Wolf needs the space” he noted and the officer nodded quickly, making a notation on his noteputer. “Moving on to cover. Few other things first” Ardan continued, “I, time and Wolf permitting, have a dinner reservation with the Archduke tomorrow night. The Prince has told me to bring him fully into the loop from this point forward - but only him.”

“Into the loop?” I asked carefully, trying not to glance at the other people in the room too much. It felt weird discussing all this stuff openly, but the building had been quietly augmented with some choice counter-surveillance technology and even on this table there were a couple of what I recognized as white-noise generators that gave listening devices fits. Even the support staff in the kitchen were from an obscure wing of MIIO whose job was to fly around the Inner Sphere to provide the kind of logistics and administration support to even covert and black operations just like this one still needed.
Which I rather agreed with. If we were playing this by ‘Hunt for Red October’ rules, then I damn well wanted the cooks to be absolutely trustworthy.

“On RAT and GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG” Ardan clarified and I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that news. RAT, the code-name for the massive Federated Suns invasion of the Capellan Confederation, was still a very tightly held secret for obvious reasons even as it was moving into its final stages now - especially because of that in fact. I was sure the loyal Sandoval's had been pissed at being kept out of the loop in the original timeline - especially as they had lost nearly a dozen worlds to the Combine in this little war even as the Suns on the whole came out way ahead from the conquest of the Capellans most valuable and populated worlds...
“With the increased damage the Dragoons and Light Horse have done to the units in Galedon, the last thing we want or need is Aaron deciding to start launching offensive strikes in the ‘certainty’ that Galahad III can be turned around to support him” Ardan explained off my look, getting nods of agreement from the people around the table.
I also nodded in understanding. Of course, if Aaron Sandoval was looking for a fight with the Combine? Well he only had to wait just a little longer. Between the Jumpship theft, smashing of the DCMS on Misery and the Light Horse pyromania on DCMS logistics, the Draconis Combine hadn’t lost face so much as had acid thrown into it. And Wolf was hopefully about to throw a fist full of salt onto the bloody mess with a ‘free and frank exchange of views’ with Takashi...

At any rate, dealing with the Sandovals was a problem for Ardan later today - and hopefully if events played out right, it’d be a smooth meeting. Not for me right now. Which in turn begged the question...

“Anything I’m needed for Sir?” I asked as a thought occurred to me.

“Just to be on standby for when Wolf is finally ready to resume talking” Ardan replied after a moment before glancing up from his paperwork and putting a fork down as he directed a knowing look at me. “You have a request?”

“Well, uh, I haven't had any chance to put my Mech through more than a walk yet” I explained and at that Ardan couldn’t help but snort a brief laugh. Around the room, amusement flowed from the other officers too. Approving on the faces of those wearing Mechwarrior insignia, exasperated amusement that said ‘Bloody Mechwarriors…’ louder than any words could on everyone else's.

“By all means” Ardan waved me away with the tolerant smile of a parent telling their kid to indulge themselves. “God knows you’ve earned it. Make sure you’ve available and ready to RTB as soon as I call, but enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you Sir” I smiled as I got up, pausing to gulp the last of the tea down before exiting the room and not quite skipping out smiling as I started to make my way to a Comm terminal as Ardan and his people started going over the files Wolf’s people had sent over on their logistics needs and how they could look at trying to expedite them with the minor issue of light years to cross and few jumpships to cross it with.

Okay, so I skip out on cluelessly sitting in on a meeting about organizing jumpship logistics and get to go blow shit up with live weapons. This day is looking up!


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Happily it turned out there wasn’t actually that much going on firing range # 5 today thanks to the Dragoons canceling range time -and just about everything else for that matter- and I had been able to just walk on up. The range was a typical AFFS Mech ‘Gauntlet’ course a half dozen kilometers in length, although that length zig-zagged through valleys, a series of deep canyons and up to an elevated mesa. A combination of projected holographic images on cheap ‘cutouts’, data linked simulation projection into a Mech sensors and HUD and a number of more practical special effects scattered through the course did a pretty decent job at simulating a running gunfight from one end to the other that you had to fight your way through, across varied terrain.
Mechwarriors were scored on various factors on this kind of course, weightings changing depending on the class and weight of their design. Lights for example were mostly about getting through fast and surviving, with targets of opportunity providing bonus points and often a specific recon objective to get eyes on. Trooper mediums were about speed and survival, but with a much greater emphasis on being able to take out specific objectives on the way in and out. Line heavies (like mine) dropped most of the speed expectations in favor of ‘sweep and destroy’, but, also upped the enemies. If you didn’t kill enemies and move fast enough, they would start to pile up hits on you.
And Assaults?
Yeah, they were just ‘kill’ everything between here and there’. Most points were lost because simulated targets -including popup HVTs- were able to simulate disengaging from the lumbering monsters, because you took too long or because you did too much collateral damage.

I had been through a gauntlet on Sark, twice, in my Chameleon. I hadn’t made it through either time, but then the first time none of us had. That being the whole point of putting us through it that early, to give ‘Immortal Warrior’ wannabes a reality check on how difficult even simulated combat was. The second time around DD, Julie and three others had managed to stagger through, but again the rest of us had failed. Although I was proud to say I had made it further than the majority of the class, falling only at the end to a simulated Schrek some ****** had triggered because I had successfully evaded a Demolisher at point blank range in what had been blindingly obviously a trap. Which I thought was hellishly unfair; you show smarts on the field? Then the ****** NCOs running the place took it personally and sent in a death machine at precisely the point where I would have no hope to out shoot or evade it.

Well today, the game was different! I had the advantage-
Wait. That was the Hunt for Red October again damn it...stupid Marco Ramius expy got it stuck in my head!

At any rate, I did have the advantage. As inexperienced as I was, my bleeding edge Battlemech gave me the ability to pump out an awful lot of sustained firepower while both taking an impressive amount of damage and staying cool. Frankly, skill being equal I could outshoot and outlast most 3025 Assault Mechs in a slugging match and was more mobile than a good chunk of them too...

“You’re good to go” the rangemaster said as he finished his inspection of my Mech. I felt almost like a parent showing off my kid, anxious to see that he found no fault. As live weapons were used on the range (not against me, we weren't ****** Clanners!) the safety checks were stringent. The Mech already had a ‘greenflag’ (what the Techs called the fully combat ready and certification for a Battlemech) loaded into the base logistic network, but the rangemaster still insisted on a visual inspection and patching a technicians noteputer in to check the systems directly via a data port in my mechs foot.

Professionally I admired his diligence and attention to detail.
Privately, I wondered if he just wanted to gawk and poke at the Lostech toy.
He also seemed weirded out by the featureless grey paint job to the point that I did actually start to think about how I might improve on that … perhaps starting with a ‘HONK IF YOU LIKE GLAUGS’ bumper sticker?

What would be most insulting to Harmony Gold? Hmm, difficult question...

“Get on Tac-16 when you’re geared up and move to Nav Delta-Five-Zero” the rangemaster continued, snapping my attention back as he in turn jerked his head at the road that vanished into a tunnel, that rose through the face of the sheer rock wall in front of me. The gauntlet was on the other side of the ridgeline, something of a design choice to ensure stray shots didn’t get back into the base. The course itself started in a sort of open valley that narrowed into a maze of canyons that reminded me greatly of the original Mechwarrior Two intro (which I took as a good omen even if my Mech looked dangerously like a Timber Wolf) before offering either a climb to an open plateau or an Urban combat component through an abandoned firebase, depending on what the computers decided and my time.

It looked like a lot of fun.

“We’re running the Beta-Four scenario, be prepared for tracks and Mechs, mid-ranged difficulty for a heavy. You’ve already synced your TACCOMP? Good” he nodded off my own nod. “We’ll start things rolling once you get to the NAV - and keep your weapons cold until you get clearance” he added with a scowl that made me wonder if the Dragoons had been flaunting the regs?
Frankly, I doubted it, they were far too professional.
Well, for the most part anyway. I mean the Black Widows were the kind of unit you pointed towards and enemy, said ‘Hulk? Smash!’ and sat back to watch the fireworks.
But, for the most part, they were pros so I decided this guy was just a hardass.

“Got it” I acknowledged, smiling at the man. “Thanks Sarge.” Beta Four suited me just fine; mid ranged difficulty for 3025 heavies like Thunderbolts and Jaggermechs when I was running an SLDF Royal?

I resisted the urge to cackle like Dr Evil.

The slightly overweight NCO just grunted and turned back to his office with a last quizzical look at me, heading for the nearby building and the massive almost space-needle like tower that looked over the region, whose upper decks were loaded down with racks of sensors pointing in every direction to provide overwatch on all the live firing ranges on this part of the base. The man had been disinclined to move terribly fast on my unusual request of just rocking up in a Mech to request range time but had at least humored me and run my AFFS ID card.
At which point he had balked at something that came up on his screen I couldn’t see, then after a more focused glance at me, hauled himself out of his chair and gotten the ball rolling with his staff who had been preparing for a nice quiet morning off.

I’m guessing I had Ardan to thank for whatever that was about. Being on good terms with Hanse Davions pimp hand was surprising useful for cutting through red tape.

Walking over to the side of my Mech I took a last deep breath of the fresh sea air and started to ascend the chain-link ladder that led back to my Mechs cockpit. Luckily in boot the instructors made it a point (often literally by jabbing with pool cues on rope climbs) to ensure you built up enough upper body strength to be able to do this in the field where lift hoists were not available, so I made it to the cockpit with only a couple of grunts, swinging inside and slapping the prominent green button next to the hatch. With a loud rattle, the ladder retracted up into its stowage position and the hatch slid shut with a loud clunk as the NBC seal was reestablished. That done, I worked to drop into the pilot's chair and, for the first time, started to go through the full combat prep checklist for my new Mech.

First came the coolant vest hanging next to my chair, which I slipped on over my T-Shirt. Looking almost like an oversized tactical vest, the kevlar and synthetic skin contained thousands of tiny tubes through which a coolant was circulated from the life support systems to keep me cool. The whole thing seemed pretty silly to me; that Battlemech engineers couldn’t insulate the cockpit from the rest of the Mech … but my objections to the laws of conduction and radiation aside, I had no intention of my vital organs getting cooked alive. Even a cool running Mech like mine could get uncomfortable between salvos so I ensured it was snug and set, wincing slightly at the chill against my thin shirt as the liquid started to flow.
The vest, unlike almost all contemporary Inner Sphere models, also had a number of medical sensors built in to monitor my vital organs, precluding the need for additional sensors to be stuck onto my arms and legs but I still made sure that the medical feed on the secondary monitor for was showing correctly before I reached back to strap myself in with the five point harness and finally, placed my SLDF neurohelmet on my head.
God I loved how lightweight this thing was.

I then made sure my restraints were firm before finally reaching out to the main board to arm the auto-ejection system, ensure MASTER-ARM was set OFF and finally twisted the startup switch over to TACTICAL for the first time. Then after a pause and deep breath, I firmly pressed and held the ‘reactor ignition’ switch. One mississippi, two mississippi-

The entire cockpit was illuminated in a deep crimson glare.

Another of the little ‘under the hood’ things about a Royal Command Battlemech was that its on-board command computer had a huge amount of customizable options, far more than contemporary machines which simplified things as much as possible, including the security systems. Modern Battlemechs tended to do away with complicated security systems, generally just using a password on a computer console or even a simple spoken keyphrase. Both of which could be overcome by any half decent tech team in a matter of hours. Or by a trained mechjacker in a matter of minutes with the right (if admittedly rare) gear.
My ride on the other hand had a distributed security system through the main computers, including components in the reactor, weapons and command circuity like some kind of 28th century DRM. Trying to get through the security systems, while possible, would take a crack tech team days and probably require them to outright strip key components. It might be considered a little excessive by most contemporary Mechwarriors standards, but I for one had been consistently horrified by what passed for IT Security in this universe and had no intention of having my Mech stolen.

A million voices seemed to sound as one after the Mech computer parsed the neural scan from my helmet. It had taken almost two days for me fiddling with the (impressive) voice synthesizer built into the communications system to get the sound just right as I programed the system … and suddenly I wished I hadn’t.

“You … are not Saren.”

Okay, that voice was actually just a tad intimidating.
“I am John Smith” I identified myself to the computer with the correct first countersign, trusting myself that it was simply the chilly coolant moving across my chest making me shiver slightly...

“Rudimentary creature of blood and flesh, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding...”

Even as my Mech sneered contemptuously at me, I reached down to the keypad at my knee and tapped in the ten digit code I had selected; my old mobile number from Earth; no-one else was going to guess that. And much like Hanse Davions own two-factor authentication setup, the Mech would not prompt for that but simply proceed through the power up cycle … and then shut back down if you failed to enter it correctly at this point. The mechs scripting language was pretty simple to work out, although I had clearly surprised the hell out of the techs on Ardans dropship with how quickly I was able to pick it up.

“What is the truth of those who stand against us?”

“They exist because we allow it … and will end because we demand it” I supplied the countersign and with a rumble, the fusion reactor came to life under me once more, with status displays starting to scroll through their initial diagnostics at great speed.

“We are the vanguard of their destruction. You are assuming direct control. This exchange, is over.”

With that, the lights snapped back up to normal illumination as all the diagnostics came up green - not a very big surprise as they had come up green every time thus far.

Okay, perhaps I should come up something a little more inspiring and a little less inclined to make me think my Battlemech is a sentient Lovecraftian nightmare for a name than ‘Sovereign’?

“Reactor; Online. Sensors; Online. Weapons; Offline, Master Arm safe. All systems nominal” the much kinder voice of Betty ran through the legendary and by now infinitely familiar conformation sequence as the final systems unlocked and gave me full control. Reaching over, I quickly switched the communications channel to TAC-16 and hit the transmit switch on my right stick.

“Dagger Two, walking to Delta-Five-One” I called and after a quick look around to make sure I wasn’t about to step on anyone, I started moving out past the holding grid to the road up into the firing range, flipping on my running and forward floodlights as I entered the curving tunnel. It was a short walk of only a couple of minutes before I emerged on the far slope of the hill - which I suspected might have been the lip of an ancient extinct volcano crater. Then, my radio crackled.

“Dagger Two - be advised we just got a late starter who will be running the course with you and will be coming to join you on your run. Proceed to Delta-Five-One and hold.”

My face took on an incredulous look, glaring at my COM board in a way that made me glad that two-way video communication was generally not a thing used in the field.

****** seriously?

I finally got a chance to ‘stretch my legs’ as it were and, to paraphrase Idina Menzel; to ‘see what this killing machine can do, to test its limits and break through … anything that got in my way’. And now I was being forced to go side by side on the course? More than that, given my skill level I’d probably get shown up by some crackerjack Valkyrie pilot who stole all the kills and laughed at how damn horrible I was in such a vaunted machine. I mean, why couldn’t they just wait their turn instead of being bundled in with me?

“Dagger Two copies” I curtly replied as I followed the pre-set navigation points up and across to the starting position, the sun now at my back. The start line was ahead, with a brief sort of cutting beyond it that turned hard right into the course proper beyond. More ‘traffic lights’ glowing a hard red couldn’t be missed telling you to halt while an anti-Mech barrier raised between them made sure if you somehow did, you wouldn’t walk onto a course full of live weapons fire. Looking around on my compressed display, I spotted the tall command tower brooding over the rim of the crater, thermals showing its guest observation deck was filled with a surprisingly large number of people.
Huh. I guess news about my Lostech mech had spread quickly?
Well either that or the massive observation deck was really a rotating restaurant…
Either way, it seemed I had an audience. Damnit.

“Dagger two holding at Delta-Five One” I added as I came to a halt, putting the ‘parking brake’ on and impatiently tapping my fingers against a console edge before I thought of something … and couldn’t help but grin to myself as I turned to my communications board. Unsurprisingly, Inner Sphere soldiers had been loading music into their communications systems since before mankind had headed out into space. NAIS, knowing it was I who would get this Mech, had even been so kind as to copy my iPhone and iPads music into my Mechs computers - a gesture that touched me. They had also renamed some of the tracks for obvious reasons, but, the complete soundtracks of all three Mechwarrior Two games plus Mechwarrior Four were loaded and good to go and I quickly started to queue them up. While idly thinking about what the NAIS scientists thought about that; having what essentially amounted to an ‘official soundtrack for their universe’?
At any rate; ****** being professional for once. I had been in the Battletech universe for years now and I have never once been allowed to just go nuts with a Battlemech and shoot the ****** out of stuff with fully powered weapons.

Damnit, I had earned this! But now I’d have to frigen share with someone else...

My timing was excellent though, I had just finished sorting my playlist when my sensor board pinged a proximity alert. A new passive Mech contact was on an intercept course from my six.
Okay, that had to be my ‘partner’.
I refocused focused my compressed holographic display to a narrower rear aspect as the yellow UNKNOWN contact approached on my TACMAP. And soon enough a vague figure came into view backstopped by the cheerful ball of fusion of the ever-rising morning sun. The image processors did their best to deal with the light bloom … although I instantly wished they hadn’t.
Now, I was faced with a humanoid figure ‘slow-walking’ towards me with a rolling red ball of nuclear fire behind it. The figure was washed out; a dead black silhouette without much detail of Heavy or Assault Size and I was instantly reminded of that classic anime shot of Evangelion Unit 03 with the sun behind it walking towards the good guys with utterly implacable, unstoppable, menace.

Okay, not a polite point of comparison to start with Smith I chided myself, tapping my COMM board to accept the Lasercom handshake from the incoming-

“Well well, if it isn’t Mister John Smith getting in an early morning workout” Natasha Kerensky’s voice came through my headphones and it was only by an act of God (and fact that the parking brake was enabled) that my Mech didn’t skip forward a half dozen meters as my feet jolted into the control pedals.
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Chris OFarrell

  • Warrant Officer
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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #234 on: 10 December 2018, 07:19:21 »
Calm the ****** down Smith I swore at myself, closing my eyes and taking then exhaling a deep shuddering breath. I opened my eyes as she moved off the line that had her backlit, her dreaded jet-black Warhammer filling out with Dragoons and Black Widow markings. For a heart stopping second as she turned her massive weapons array seemed to line up on my rear aspect ... but no, she was just turning in a zig-zag to step up next to me on my left at the start line.
Although she had probably taken her time with that pivot just to screw with me.

Well I’m very glad I hadn’t had enough time to digest breakfast yet, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d have to pull out for a few minutes to change my pants I thought before with another calming breath and careful clenching and unclenching of fists, I hit my microphone switch.

“Major” I greeted her in as cordial voice as I could. “I must admit … I’m a little surprised to see you here this morning. I thought you ran through the course yesterday?”

“I was running through it - and tracking to easily break all records- then at the halfway mark Cameron busted into my command loop telling me to get back to base right the hell now and nothing more” she explained, sounding rather irritated at that sequence of events - making me cringe just a little, what given that I was largely responsible for that outcome. “So, I did, thinking the Widows had set the ocean on fire or something ... but found everyone was being dragged into an emergency meeting. Apparently someone” - and that emphasis told me then and there she knew it was me - “blew the whole secret about our origins and that meant it was time to run around in circles screaming that the sky was falling or something, like a bunch of frigen Capellans just told the Chancellor was making a surprise personal inspection of their supply dump.”

Wait, what?

“You seem to be taking events rather calmly” I observed, entirely off-put by her blithful and unperturbed attitude.

Kerensky however surprised me with her response to that as she snorted.

“What’s there to waste time worrying about? Jamie getting a good kick in the behind to get to work? He can go run around in circles if it makes him happy. I’ve got a new course record to set.”

My mouth was hanging open right now and my face locked into a rictus of bewildered, stunned astonishment.

Okay. Kerensky was acting … sensibly. Rationally. Non kill-frenzy-ish. What the hell was going-

I immediately slapped myself with a mental 2x4.
Do not ask questions Smith. Do not look closer at this Smith. Just ****** roll with it!

“Dagger Two, Widow Prime from Charlie-Charlie” the Rangemaster droned from his elevated command center as he thankfully cut into my stunned silence at that point, saving me from having to try and come up with a reply. “Go weapons hot and confirm readiness.”

“Widow Prime, weapons hot and ready to rock” Natasha responded immediately on the channel - meaning her guns were already good to go, no surprise there! Technically that was a pretty big range safety violation ... but it would take a very very brave REMF to dare and call out the Black Widow on such things.
My skin did a good job of crawling however as I realized that Kerensky had pointed a whole butload of Alpha strike at my back with live guns.
Shaking it off, I reached up to flick the safety cover off the MASTER ARM switch, pressing the button underneath.

A tiny LED switched from a dull red to a shimmering green in response.

“Master Arm - engaged. Weapons, online” Betty confirmed. A second later, there was a sudden almost anticipatory rise in the humming of my fusion reactor as my weapons started to pull low-draw power. A set of floating crosshairs also materialized, nominally showing where my guns were pointing on their various mounts. In theory I could move either arm, the chin mount or the head turret independently of the others, but in the current mode the primary ‘red’ crosshair had them slaved so that all my forward firing guns would follow it, zeroed to optimum medium laser range. A flick of my right thumb and the aim point of my arms would recalibrate and zero the PPCs to whatever target or object was under said crosshairs. The ideal being to converge all weapons impacts at the same point, something easier said than done. Ergo, my decision to stay with the guns slaved to a single aiming point. My extended torso twisting would help make up for the more limited field of fire that got me. I hoped.

“Dagger Two, good to go” I replied to the command center with as much confidence as I could pull together.

Mech Two, Mech Three, Mech Four, MWO and Living Legends … don’t fail me now I silently called upon the gaming Gods before setting my hands on the sticks, feet on the pedals and focusing myself into the combat situation.

“Dagger Two, Widow Prime, copy. Good hunting. You are go for deployment in thirty seconds from my mark … mark!”

My tactical systems -linked into the base simulation computers immediately placed a thirty second timer into my HUD which started to count backwards as well as a timer for both I and Natasha set at fifteen minutes and holding, the total time we had to get through the course or be deemed to have failed.
Or … it should have been.
Instead it was set to ten minutes. What the-

“Oh I had the rangemaster bump up the difficulty” Kerensky said cheerfully, as if she could see the expression on my face. “Beta-Four is for damn kids, we’re running a custom Alpha scenario I wrote ages ago but have never had a chance to use until outside of sim pods. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

I felt my eyes bulging from my skull as I stared in disbelief at the war machine standing next to me. Okay, Kerensky had every reason to be cocky - by God she had earned her reputation the hard way. But seriously? What the hell did she think I-

Oh.
Ohhhhh!

Oh ******.

My Marauder was, being honest; not exactly subtle. A Royal Command SLDF unit with a custom refit done by NAIS? As a rule of thumb in the 3025 era where even a Bugmech made you a step above most other ground pounders; something like this monster would only be given to a Mechwarrior who had proven themselves capable of pushing it to its limits.
Because otherwise you were just wasting a very rare, nonrenewable resource.
Kerensky had probably been on her way here to shoot shit up (and her casualness aside, shooting shit up was probably the way she was going to deal with the stress from ongoing events), found out I was here and decided this was a perfect chance to get a real workout in alongside a genuine peer of a Mechwarrior...who she probably had a great many questions about given how ‘mysterious’ I was with my fuzzy position and rank.

So, um, whoops? But it wasn’t like at this point I could do anything about it.

“No problem” I lied through my teeth, biting my lip nervously as I forced myself not to take my control sticks in a death grip. Beta-Four was about gunnery practice, running through and shooting up static simulated targets dodging a token few scattered shots here and there.
‘‘Alpha’ level simulations had the enemies actually able to shoot back entirely properly, be just about as tough as they should be rather than the Battlemech equivalent of cardboard cutouts-

“Stand by to deploy in ten … nine …” the Rangemaster called out and damnit, he sounded like he was excited too! A sinking feeling started to flow through me as I realized I was about to really annoy Natasha ****** Kerensky if I screwed her second attempt to run through this thing by being unable to keep up with her…

“Stick close and do not slow me down” Kerensky added as if able to read my thoughts and I couldn’t help but cringe at the ‘cheerful serial killer’ tone before my logical, analytical mind kicked in, shoving my fear to the side to start to work through the tactical situation.
Stick to Kerensky like glue. Pour firepower into whatever she shoots at, keep her back clear … and otherwise treat her like your own personal bulldozer. She’s the lead, you’re her wingman-

“MARK” and with that, the traffic lights went green. I kicked my pedals, both sending my Mech charging forward and Mech Two Mercs ‘Trojan Horse’ blasting into my ears - before my eyes grew wide as I belatedly realized there was a three meter drop on the far side of the starting line. Kerensky landed with catlike grace, me less so, but the drive-by-wire systems and Gyro compensated flawlessly and we stomped down the short starting road before pulling into a ninety degree right turn into the range proper, exploding out the narrow cutting into the open valley beyond.

Despite me having the inside line and a Mech as fast as hers, it didn’t surprise me for a moment that Kerensky had already pulled ahead.

I took in the tactical environment in a heartbeat; we were at the top of a long slope narrowing into what seemed to be a shallow canyon of sorts directly ahead a couple of klicks distant. The entrance to said canyon -and sides of the valley we were in for that matter- were flanked with plenty of large rocks, scrub, trees and defiles, providing provide God only knows how much cover for surprises to be launched against us...

Still, even as my mind whirled … I couldn’t help but glance to the side at the black monster beside me and allow a silly grin pass my face as we screamed down the hill with almost 80’s style heavy metal guitars screaming in my ears.
I, John Smith … was running into battle alongside Natasha ****** Kerensky.
Inside a Battlemech. Inside Battletech!

The inner geek in me just couldn’t help but squee.

Her Mechs motions were flawless - probably even entirely unconsciously so. My Mech was shaking. Despite its best efforts, a Mechs Gyro could only go so far automatically to stabilizing the unit on the move - especially over rough ground at full throttle like we were. Very very experienced MechWarriors could learn how to, like breathing or walking, make continual subtle adjustments to smooth out their torso movements with their gyro and neurohelmet - what in the tabletop would be called movement modifiers vs gunnery skill I suppose. But just looking at Natasha?
Her Mechs legs were spraying dirt in every direction in a blur of motion … but her Warhammers upper body was so stable she seemed to just be floating over the ground -

“Enemy power up detected” Betty warned and I snapped my attention back to where it belonged, feeling a thrill as I saw the crimson CONTACT icons pop up on both sides of the course, just over a klick and closing fast. Month after month of training under the brutal hands and guidance of my instructors, Julie and plenty of other people came together as smoothly I swung my crosshairs over at the crimson icon on my side of the course, pulling my throttle back as I zoomed in on-

TVTropes would probably have called my reaction a ‘Flat What’. Crossing rapidly into ‘Oh Crap’...

“Contact, One O’Clock … Kit-Fox” I called over our tactical channel, not able to keep the WTF out of my voice as my T&T systems flickered then gave up, clearly getting no help from the range systems and just marking it as UNKNOWN after cycling through a couple of possibilities that were not even close.
Okay, so Natasha’s little ‘custom program’ was putting us up against ****** Clan Omnimechs?
Well, why the ****** not…who needs a technological advantage anyway? I asked myself as my hopes of leveraging my Mechs far superior technology against the expected 3025 targets just died a horrible, horrible death, my pinky toggling the voice command switch.
“Designate Unknown One as ‘Kit Fox’” I ordered Betty and with a beep, the tag updated.

Adder over here, engaging” Kerensky confirmed, sounding highly amused by my reaction and at that she drifted left to get lateral separation as I focused in on my enemy. Downrange, the right arm carrying what could only be a Gauss rifle twitched in my direction and the training beaten into my head kicked in, causing me to jerk my Mech hard to the right and kick my pedals. Barely a second later a simulated hypersonic ball of metal whipped by at incredible speed, seeming to only barely miss slamming into my face in a blink-and-you-miss-it blur of motion.

Well, now I’m really glad I went to the bathroom well before mounting up.

Training moved my hands without me even thinking as I corrected my course and speed, bringing my aim points into line. My right thumb squeezed my right sticks top trigger and there was a shift in my arms as they calibrated for ERPPC ranges. Pulling my speed as low as I dared as I held the guns on target, I squeezed the primary trigger.

For the first time since 2781, my Mechs guns were fired in anger. To my pleasant surprise, the twin purple particle beams smashed squarely into the target center mass, right on top of what I recognized as a Jade Falcon insignia. Said simulated target - really an iron plate on tracks with a holographic overlay - reeled for a second as the range computers calculated the effects of my beams ripping into its center torso and with a highly unlikely explosion the first enemy of the day was down. My heat indicators flickered as the heat pumps in the cooling loop flushed good coolant through the weapons pods and carried the heat to the radiators, but I didn’t feel any change in my cockpit - for now anyway.

“Enemy Mech, destroyed” Betty approved of my actions and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Nice shooting - move faster!” Kerensky chided and I turned attention across to her side of the compressed display - and blinked as I saw her target long dead. A glance at the feed from the simulation computers showed its cockpit had recorded two direct and simultaneous standard PPC hits sufficient to declare the pilot dead or incapacitated with her Mech still untouched. Because of course Natasha ****** Kerensky could outshoot a unit with two Clan ERPPCs, in her Warhammer, even from outside maximum effective PPC range, without slowing down. Duh!

“Roger” was all I trusted myself to say, kicking my throttle back up to full as she backed off to let me slowly catch up, the terrain of the downward slope giving way to a thin scattering of trees on a flat valley floor. Ahead, terrain narrowed; rising ahead to our left and right and constricting our path into a sort of canyon out of this first area. Moments later, Betty warned once more of enemy power ups and over the rise at my twelve one low-slung design loomed into place, at about four hundred meters - HOLY SHIT THATS A NOVA!

I slammed my Mech to the right far more violently than I had when trying to evade the Gauss rifle, damn near causing my Mech to spin to the ground as I simultaneously chopped the throttle back. My instinctive but poorly executed evasive maneuver caused my Gyro to scream in protest almost as loud as the lock-on warning alarm and my Torso wildly rocked ensuring I had no hope in hell of using my weapons … but the desperate move paid off handsomely as a New York rave parties worth of coherent light tore through where I would have been rather than where I was. Three of the emerald beams did slash across my left arm, but without any concentration or dwell time generating the Battlemech equivalent of a flesh wound.

That could have been much, much worse. Should have been much worse. If that Alpha Strike had hit me dead on, it would have torn my Mech to pieces.

****** bullshit Clan tech I mentally snarled the ancient curse of many a Battletech player. In whatever form of the game you played from Tabletop to Mechwarrior to RPGs, ****** bullshit Clan Tech!
I brutally fought my top-heavy Battlemech, refusing to let gravity win while yelling at Betty to designate target four as a Nova.
On the plus side, the targeting systems showed the thermodynamic price the Nova paid for pressing the ‘megadeath’ button as its heat scale exploded waayyyyyyy past the ability of its cooling systems to cope with the waste heat, glowing white hot on the simulated IR readout as it worked to kick off a virtual global warming scenario on Robinson, personally. For at least the next twenty, maybe thirty seconds it would be a non-factor and I directed my attention to the other side of the field, hauling my almost stationary Mech around in a 180. A Clan Mech I recognized as a Hellbringer -a Clan take on the Warhammer in a lighter package- was busy having a free and frank exchange of views with Kerensky. Or, at least it was trying to … because Kerensky was busy drifting.

Yes, drifting.
As in Tokyo-Drift Drifting.
With a seventy ton Battlemech.

It was completely impossible of course so she did it anyway; telling Newton's first law to go ****** itself as she shifted her full throttle momentum near fifty degrees off her line of advance into a skidding slide of sorts that left Mech feet sized skid marks in the soil under her feet. The simulated Hellbringers Alpha strike ripped wildly through where she should have been, its guns barely scoring a glancing hit with a couple of SRMs and a glancing laser hit before its simulated muscles overloaded, leaving it unable to track its opponent. Unlike me however, Kerensky had kept her guns perfectly on target the whole time through with a torso swivel.

The simulation seemed to have no programing for point defense systems so her SRMs smashed into the Hellbringers chest unabated, the cluster of detonations serving as a fine aiming point for two medium lasers to slice into followed by one of her two particle beams, the Widow clearly holding back her other big gun to manage her heat curve. Simulated armor panels went flying in every direction as the range computers projected the estimated damage, but while her withering salvo clearly staggered the bot it was also clear that it wasn’t going to be a straight kill. Even against a glass cannon like the Jade Falcons favorite heavy.
So without hesitation I snapped up my arms and opened fire.

My snapshot was perhaps a tad too hasty and I should have taken the time to aim more carefully as one PPC missed my aiming point and simply peeled armor from the targets right arm. The second particle beam however tore precisely through the shredded mess Kerensky had made of its torso and dug deep into the chewy nougat center-

“Enemy Mech, destroyed.”
You know, I’m pretty sure that, as a rule, Mechs don’t normally explode like that.

A frantic beeping in my ears however brought my attention to my situation as the Nova sluggishly, but malevolently came back to life on my compressed display. My own heat was being dissipated efficiently - firing both PPCs maxed out the cooling loop and the further you overheated the less efficient the system became, surprise surprise. While my other guns were charged, I wanted to hit hard so I slammed my Mech back into motion, wheeling back around in an evasive course to close the distance at a rapidly accelerating pace-
The simulated bot was still badly overheated, the simulation faithfully reflecting the stiff sluggishness of myoymer at its thermal limits but even so the thing opened fire with a quartet of hitscan emerald beams as my Torso twisted near automatically to prevent hard dwell penetration. Two shots were clean misses, but the fire pattern of the AI had been annoyingly competent, using a laser on each arm and two on the torso to try and bracket me. Two direct hits raked down my left arm and this time they did far more than simply burning off paint, ripping an alarming amount of protection away!

Ah. the ****** Clan ER-Medium Laser. OP, Plz Nerf Catalyst!

...

No, seriously please nerf them before I have to fight them for real!

Nothing critical was damaged though. Riding out the simulated shuddering my Gyro threw me as the Nova again blazed white on the IR readout, I swung my Mech and torso to face the Nova once again head on, halting inside medium laser range. My heat sinks were now well in the green and the enemy inside the ‘sweet spot’ of firepower overlap, so I lined up my crosshairs on the jutting knee joint, flicked open the covered safety and pulled the secondary ‘DO NOT PULL’ trigger on my left stick.

It wasn’t quite an Alpha strike. While my Mech could theoretically pull one off, it would push my units heat near to the SCRAM level and turn my cockpit into an instant inferno. However, dropping one of the ERPPCs out of the loop would reduce the stress on the cooling loops sinks just enough to make it viable so that’s what I had programed into that switch. It would still slow me down - with the myomer governors ‘stiffening’ my limbs so I wouldn’t risk damaging them by trying to run at normal speeds with them overheated - but not enough to be a problem. And if you absolutely positively had to kill every last Trashborn ****** on the planet…

Four ruby lasers converged on the Nova. My aim point was slightly off, having targeted its right knee, but the beams slashed in none the less, flaying simulated armor from its thigh- and slagging the real iron plate behind the simulation from the splatters of glowing metal spraying out of the projection. Joining them, a high frequency blast from my pulse laser unleashed, cutting through the cloud of vaporized metal to rip into the simulated skeleton of the design followed by the blowtorch of my right arm PPC bolt, the fire control system judging for whatever reason it had the better angle of the two … and ******!
The damn thing rocked back but the idiotic range computers stubbornly believed my firepower concentration wasn’t good enough to-
Then lightning whipped left to right to exactly strike my targeted point, instantly snapping the leg off and the simulated Omnimech promptly fell face forward … and exploded.
Seriously? What the hell was up with that...

“Enemy Mech, destroyed! Phase one complete, proceed to phase two” Betty approved.

“Thanks for the assist” I called as I brought my mech up to speed, the jet-black Warhammer casually walking down the slope on which the Hellbringer had been standing. Clearly that double PPC salvo had pushed her heat into the yellow zone given how brightly the radiators were glowing over her Mech’s skin, to say nothing of how her previously graceful loping had turned into a kind of stiff power walk.

 
Movement still looked flawless though.

“Only fair - you took part of my kill, I get to take part of yours’ Kerensky replied with an amused snort, her gait smoothing out as she dumped heat. My own heat also starting to flush from the saturated heat sinks, luckily still not high enough to have really made a different in my cockpit. Yet.
“Now keep moving and stay close kid, this next bit might get a little … fun” she warned me and with a bit of a smirk I fell into line behind her, our Mechs kicking back into a solid sort of ‘jog’ as we passed through the narrowing valley into the rocky sort of canyon entrance.

Okay, we’d just nailed four ****** Clan Omnis. Granted, with the greatest Mechwarrior in the Inner Sphere leading me through the fight, but still, I felt some measure of confidence returning now as we moved onto the next part of the course.

Bring it - wait, did she just call me kid?!
« Last Edit: 11 December 2018, 05:34:47 by Chris OFarrell »
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Chris OFarrell

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 605
Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #235 on: 10 December 2018, 07:20:31 »
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“Nav point Delta Five-Four, reached. Commence final phase. Three minutes, ten seconds, remaining.”

I barely heard Betty as I staggered out of the canyon following Kerensky, deeply regretting my decision to taunt Murphey by daring the course to ‘bring it on’. My smirk had long vanished being a rather pathetic look of pure relief as we cleared the canyon and moved back into open air.
I dared to finally take a split second to release one of the death grips on my sticks to wipe the sweat out of my eyes, breathing shallowly in the stifling air of my cockpit. My Mech’s heat was technically already falling back towards the green, but the cooling loop system was primarily about pulling heat away from the weapons, reactor and artificial muscles of my Mech. Secondary waste heat - or Ghost heat as Mechwarriors called it - tended to sink ‘deeper’, into the skeleton and air of the cockpit, taking a great deal more time to conduct to heat sinks. And much less time to conduct into my cockpit air. So, despite the best efforts of the life support systems it was still a damn sauna in here.
Of course this was a well-known issue - hence my vest - but that was just for keeping my major organs within tolerance and making sure I didn’t die, not making sure I was comfortable.

Although to be fair; not all of my sweat could be put down to excessive firing of weapons.

The previous area had been a vast network of slot canyons. Natural formations, but expanded and dug out for Mechs to run through. A network that had included dead ends, loopbacks, short tunnels and more than a few caves. It was the perfect place to run the infamous AFFS Scorpions Nest scenario as part of this Gauntlet, where Mechwarriors found themselves being mobbed by Quickiemarts staple light tank. They were a joke of a threat really, at least against Mech’s like ours … one on one.
The laughing tended to die quickly when twenty of them cornered you. One AC/5 shot connecting might earn a snort - twenty of them? Rather less funny.
Even so, especially with Natasha ****** Kerensky on point, the two of us should have -would have- bulldozed through the scenario … if it had been the Scorpions Nest scenario. These things were so fragile that no one bothered with stand in proxy targets or plates, just pure holographics simulated on our HUDs that wilted at a stern glare.

Except this wasn’t the Scorpions Nest scenario. This was a Kerensky special she called the Fire Scorpion’s Nest scenario.

Ten - a full ****** Binary!- of the Clan Quad Mechs had been lurking inside the Canyons. The first one we had run into barely after we started our run into the next section. It’s weapons loadout was pretty light - significantly lighter than mine in fact - but it had decent armor and was very stable as a firing platform.

Even as Natasha and I had torn through its rear armor with a concentrated barrage that blew its holographic ammo bins sky high and caused it to simply vanish from our path; new sensor contacts had immediately flashed on with power ups detected everywhere around us … and these wouldn’t be so kind as to give us the chance to come up behind them and shoot through their weak rear armor.
We had just awoken the nest and six or seven more red contacts started converging on us with alarming speed.

Kerensky had simply turned her Mech slightly towards me and said one word.

‘Run’.
And oh ****** did we run.

I was certain Kerensky would not stop if I fell over -which I came terrifyingly close to happening several times- and as my soundtrack advanced to Timothy Seals Cover of ‘Freedom Fight’, it really did feel like I was sprinting for my life with a hoard of killing machines galloping after me. I was also pretty much entirely relying on Kerensky, the difference between a complete n00b like me and her was never more apparent than now. Beyond the magical way she made her Mech move or her bullshit aimbot accuracy, she exactly picked our course through the highly confusing terrain without needing to slow for so much as one second. Keeping her throttle firewalled with me barely able to keep up even with 100% of my focus on keeping from tripping over and absolutely nothing left over even to monitor where the enemy was. She weaved us through the canyons on a wild roller coaster ride that got us occasional snapshots from enemy Mechs at ‘crossroads’, but only a handful of LB/X submunitions from those shots landed on my armor, scattering minimal damage. None of the heavier AC/10 shells managed to connect (thank God) and we managed to work up a decent lead over our pursuit as Natasha perfectly forced them into tail chase single file … except for the two that powered up suddenly right at the exit, stomping out of a couple of caves to physically (well, virtually I suppose) block our egress.

Or as Matrix Smith would say; ‘I’m sorry, this is a dead end’.

Because with the other seven converging after us -and Valles Clan Ghost Bear aimbot Mechwarrior nowhere to be seen- we had at best two minutes to kill them and get out of here before we got cornered and torn to pieces.

Weaving as best I could to throw off the computers aim and ignoring the autocannon shells and cluster rounds spraying over my armor causing my Gyro to throw me around in programed simulation of the impacts, I focused my firepower onto Kerensky’s target, blazing away with my arm mounted weapons. The hellish barrage of particle beams, lasers and missiles ripped into the simulated target at optimal range (or at least the ground beyond it after passing through the projection) and did enough damage that the computers declared the two forward facing weapons mounts on the design were out of action, rendering it useless.

At which point it exploded. Whatever - question for later.

Bad news however; my target was now stomping forward, clearly pissed I was ignoring it as it flung another one-two punch of autocannon munitions into me, alarms sounding as my front aspect armor started to buckle under the double tap of the UAC/10-

“Right leg - hit its right leg and MOVE!” Kerensky barked at me and my conditioned to follow orders mind obeyed, dropping my crosshairs and focus on the - wait was that my right, her right or its right no time no time!- leg and triggered my lasers, well before the heat sinks radiators could finish venting from saturation, the guns able to recharge vaster than the heat cycle could complete. The quintet of beams scathed into the moving joint and Betty scolded me that I was getting awfully close to an automatic shutdown from the heat. Real scalding heat like someone had just opened the doors of a couple of ovens blew into the cockpit - and I hissed through my teeth as I saw my salvo hadn’t done the job. At least two of the mediums, the arm mounts restricted by the sluggish myomer had shot long-
Then a quartet of medium and small lasers joined my beams from the side, slashing in with an awe-inspiring shot focus that had all four converge at the exact same point (and pass through the hologram to hit the far wall of course, but that wasn’t important). What was important was that with an entirely unimpressive holographic severing, the leg failed and the entire Quad Mech tilted wildly as it fell. Happily, its final salvo went wide as its guns were yanked off target and with its weapons unable to bare on me I staggered around after Kerensky for the exit as fast as my Mech would let me move. Proximity alarms warned me the rest of the Fire Scorpions were arriving to avenge their fellow bots and I had to resist the urge to push my mech harder - after all this was only a simulation and I didn’t want to actually damage the thing for a few KPH more speed. Fortune smiled on me however as I staggered through the exit barely a second ahead of a barrage of mixed autocannon rounds from the lead quad that figuratively blew craters all over the canyon wall instead.

Now that's what I call a fun run!” Kerensky cackled, sounding horrifyingly like she was enjoying herself as we (or more accurately I) staggered towards the start line of the final section. I took a second to confirm I was on course before releasing my sticks to shake out my hands and then key the life support systems to break the NBC seal and vent with the outside air. Blessed cool morning sea air rushed through moments later and I tried not to wince at how wet my T-Shirt was even as I grudgingly admitted it was doing a sterling job of conducting heat away with my chilly vest. I made mental note to have a hand towel of something in easy range in the future as my attempts to use my sleeves proved less than useful to wipe down my face, reaching out to pick up a water bottle to take a gulp as my high efficiency heat sinks did sterling work radiating into Robinson, my Mechs muscles firming back up to normal movement.

And Natasha clearly wanted to be on the move.

“Come on, we only have three minutes to finish this!” she said as her Warhammer started into the climb.
 
“Copy” I said, holding the sigh I wanted to give but did not dare. I slotted my water back into place and sealed the life support back up, focusing on the terrain ahead and wincing. We were not being directed into the urban combat course which was a mixed blessing. Less ambush chance but now we were facing a long steady climb over rocky brown ground that provided absolutely no cover. A memory came to me then from Mechwarrior IV; the final mission of the desert campaign. A hard push up a long, long slope like this one to the primary objective; a firebase serving as a POW camp. A slope backstopped by defensive missile turrets with mobile Mech forces charging down the hill to stop us…
Of course with a firm resolve (and the Holy Gauss Rifle) I and my Lance had blasted our way up to the top. The game scenario however promised to be far less fun playing it in ‘real life’, especially as the terrain was just about as perfect as you could get for Clan extended range weapons...

“Enemy power up, detected” Betty warned right on que as the range dropped steadily and I took a hastily last swipe of the sweat on my forehead before setting myself and zooming in on the crest of the hill as we advanced up it, which showed two contacts approaching it from beyond … then emerging to skyline themselves.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” I groaned, my heart sinking in my chest as my optics zoomed in on the projected image facing off against me.

It was like looking into a dark mirror. The same reverse canted ‘chicken walker’ legs, hexagonal weapons pods hanging from the sleek body with secondary guns stubbing the torso. In addition however, this monster had two massive boxy missile launchers bolted onto its ‘shoulders’ just the CPLT-C1 … and despite the threat, I couldn’t help but smile wryly as my T&T system went into a perfectly canon tailspin.

Catapult. Marauder. Catapult. Marauder! CATAPULT! MARAUDER! CAT-

A quick voice command override however, gave it it’s true name.
 
Seriously” I bitched over the channel. “A ****** Timber Wolf?

Kerensky just cackled, clearly finding my insolence amusing.

I’d always preferred the Clan name but whatever you called it, the dread machine looking down at me was one the most optimized murder-death-kill machines ever built by the Clans. Even into the Dark Ages, the Prime config was something any half decent Mechwarrior would only treat with respect for the sheer optimization of firepower, weight, speed and protection it represented.
And now one was glaring down the hill at me.
For all my contempt and loathing of the Clans as a society and culture, I had absolutely zero doubts about the potency of their killing technology. This thing was the Battletech face of the Clan Invasion for a very good reason.
Kerensky on the other hand - I briefly risked a glance at her side of the hill - and saw … actually, I didn’t have a clue what that was. It was clearly either a heavy - or more likely an assault. The LRM rack looked light but there were plenty of what looked like laser mounts. Which, given BS Clan weapons ranges…

This, was going to suck.

Then my music queued over to ‘Action Pack’ from Mechwarrior IV, the confident voice of Natasha ****** Kerensky came back over the line … and suddenly the odds didn’t seem quite so bad.

“Alright” Kerensky’s voice came back, sounding almost hungry as she aligned for her attack run. “Hold your pace. I’ll move forward, draw fire then swing around for the Timber Wolf. Then we shift back on the Kingfisher. Ready? Go!” and without giving me time to do more than process the orders as I tried to remember what the ****** a Kingfisher mounted she opened fire; PPCs flashing with a thunderclap to reach out and slap into both enemy Mechs simultaneously as she accelerated away.

The damage should have been limited. Particle beams tended to start to lose coherence inside an atmosphere beyond about eight hundred meters or so, robbing them of the tight focus they needed to slice through the voodoo-magic-bullshit conductive armor plating used on modern combat vehicles. They could still hit things further out, but the rapid -and unpredictable- dissipation meant the probability of scoring a hit dropped off rapidly, ditto the damage done. And by a klick you’d just have a rapidly dispersing cloud of ionized gas that might give infantry sunburn. My ER-PPCs used some process -that generated a buttload more heat mind you- to contain the extended magnetic field that normally ‘bloomed’ from the weapons muzzle, improving focus and thus range by about a quarter … and I was only starting to come into that range now.
However Natasha ****** Kerensky was, of course, always going to Natasha ****** Kerensky and nailed both Mechs dead center with clean hits. The damage was almost incidental though, her shots serving their primary goal of pissing off the bots and causing them to focus in on the Warhammer storming up the slope towards them as I fell behind. So I brought my arms up, my targeting computer confirmed effective range and I cut loose.

Two more particle beams ripped up the slope - only missing Kerensky by about thirty meters as she floated back across in an evasive maneuver and I bit my lip painfully as I reminded myself my shots were not simulated. Passing low to the ground, the beams left arcs of grounding static electricity - the infamous ‘man made lightning’ effect - before smashing into the Timer Wolf’s ‘torso’. Half melted iron flew everywhere in a molten spray and It was enough for the simulation to throw a randomization into stability of the Mech, causing it to wobble as it tried to fire its two Large Lasers back at Widow-Prime (Mechs were a horrible, horrible gunnery platform if we were being serious about this) barely missing her as she danced along, even as its shoulder launchers vomited a near Macross level of warheads downrange.

And, as if to prove that no good deed ever goes unpunished, one of the beams that had harmlessly sliced through open air at her found downrange a convenient right torso to punch into anyway.

“Critical hit - Right Torso Heat Sink” Betty informed me helpfully as my Mech bucked and I fought to keep its power walk steady, unleashing a string of profanity that took me right back to online gaming in the 21st century given how much the word ‘Bullshit’ was involved. A rapid glance on the damage control board and I dismissed the loss for now as the heat pumps automatically rerouted around the shutdown links. I still had enough capacity to keep throwing the PPCs out with only minor heat buildup and the beam had missed my fusion reactor and gyro at that penetration angle. The rest of my torso armor was also pretty cooked from an UAC/10 and LBx/10 trying their very best to bash it in ... but now I had the Black Widow serving as my armor.

And was proving far more effect than mere Ferro-Fibrous plate.

In another Natasha ****** Kerensky bullshit moment, the Trueborn -with exquisite timing- jumped her Seventy Ton Battlemech back down the hill off a raised bit of rock she had been arcing towards, landing into a crouch and sending rock flying everywhere as her momentum was transitioned into the ground. The crazy jumping (without jump jets mind you) zig-zag move must have had her Mechs skeleton screaming in pain and betrayal, but it the rapid change of direction seemed to throw off the direct missile barrage from the Timber Wolf almost completely, with only one or two managing to splatter against her shoulder and most detonating on the ground in a failed attempt to track her. The higher arc LRMs coming over from the Kingfisher had a better chance to correct their paths as they plunged down, but those that hit still lacked any concentration to do anything useful.
Well, except the two that blew her spotlight off. Virtually of course.

Kerensky didn’t reply to the insult from the more distant Omni though, boiling out from behind the rock without delay and closing on the Timber Wolf, her torso rotating to track it as the two Mechs enchanted broadsides. Her PPCs and medium lasers slashing out to be returned with the Omnimechs ER Medium and Pulse lasers. The Warhammer’s heat signature spiked right to the levels of saturation of the heat radiators, her Mech shuddering to a sluggish walk as if in mud - but she wasn’t alone there. Even as the Clan Mech tore chunks of armor from across her Torso and legs, her firepower piled in on top of my own impacts, sending melted iron everywhere as the Omnimech started to move sluggishly from driving its heat past its limits.

“Smith! Finish it!” Kerensky demanded over the Comm.

I couldn’t help but grin tightly as I recalled one the best Battletech FMV cutscenes ever made, where an AFFC officer had said exactly that regarding another Timber Wolf.

And in ‘Panthers’ honor (one of the most ballsy Raven jockeys to ever live bar none in my opinion); I came to a halt, aimed and cut loose without hesitation, ignoring the low warning tone as my heat spiked into the yellow zone, having not quite given enough time for the heat to cycle before kicking into motion again. The particle beams were true, smashing into the torso to unleash hell inside the Mech. An instant later a burst of SRMs from Kerensky ripped into the same explosion, staggering her Mech to a crawl from the waste heat pouring out all over her.

The range computer however promptly declared the Gyro of the Omnimech was KIA and it staggered to a knee -
And blew up.
Seriously, were these things Angels from NGE cosplaying Battlemechs or something? Oh now THERE is a hilarious thought; imagine if Zeruel took a trip to Strana Mechty-

My daydreaming was rather quickly cut short however as my Mech rocked hard to the side; three or four different alarms sounding as I unexpectedly slewed to a halt. Safety configurations on the range meant that real Mechs would never be unbalanced enough (by the simulations anyway) to deliberately send a Mech falling. After all, on one hand there was making simulations realistic … and on the other, there was wasting a ****** of money by breaking very expensive war machines. Ergo, Mechs judged to have fallen over were forced to come to a sudden halt and stand for eight seconds, the minimum time a very good Mechwarrior would need to get back to their feet after taking a tumble.

The Kingfisher, I belatedly noticed, had most rudely - and surprisingly - stopped being pretending to be a stationary turret and was now stomping down and across the slopes at me, leaving its special effects iron cutout behind to go full holographic. In an ironic echo of my previous tactics of ignoring the overheated Nova, it seemed this Bot wanted to quickly rip me up while Kerensky was overheated. My tactical computer also now helpfully updated its information to confirm that its lasers were ****** Clan Pulse Bullshit and the two large and two mediums had just torn through my left Torso to sheer off my left arm, knock out a heat sink or two and unbalance me enough the computer had ruled I was, in virtual terms, lying on my back staring at the sky.

Well ****** that shit!

“Smith, you okay?” Kerensky called urgently.
Dawww, she does care!
Or cares about how long I can draw fire from her anyway. Either or.

“Tis but a scratch!” I declared as I glared at the ‘penalty box’ counter - on the plus side the enforced wait was letting my coolant loop finish discharging and as my Mech came back to life under me, I spun around and started to close in as fast as I could on the enemy Assault. A burst of missiles ripped out at me for my insolence but my insane charge seemed to have screwed the bots fire control because they mostly smashed into my ‘destroyed’ arm - doing no damage at all - with a few more crashing into my left torso - costing me another heat sink but the ‘Zombie’ nature of my Mech was really coming to the front now. “Come on then, you pansy!” I continued to yell over my open channel as with our combined closing speeds I crossed quickly into effective medium laser range rapidly and hit my Alpha strike switch. “I’ve had worse!”

Heat flooded again into my cockpit as the destroyed heat sinks were lazy bastards and refused to help, my guns tearing into the Kingfisher. My Mech also slowed to a crawl as the governors, again, restrained my limbs. The heat wasn’t too bad though, but with the loss of the heat sinks it would take longer than usual to vent. And while my barrage certainly looked impressive as it tore into the enemy Mech sending fire and shrapnel everywhere … there was no armor breach as I had clearly missed the point Kerensky had hit earlier.

Oh Crapola-

Perhaps the bot was pissed at me calling it a pansy, because it now let loose with everything it had - and I was again going to be sitting still for eight seconds. Well there goes my right arm. And why the hell did I program Betty to say ‘Critical hit’ when important things got trashed?

“Have at you then! It’s just a flesh wound!” I defied the other Mech at the ridiculousness of my situation as it prepared to deliver the killing blow with the Aidan Pryde signature ER Small Laser of Doom move … at which point it suddenly veered off to face its other opponent, apparently because I was now locked up in the eyes of its programing?
Or it was smarter than it looked and knew the Black Widow was not someone you ever turned your back on?
Either way it’s decision meant it took her salvo into the existing damage on its chest and I suspect Kerensky had scored an ammo bin from the way the back of the Mech exploded out towards me, CASE systems letting the ammo cook off.

Big mistake I grinned as I let my crosshairs focus in on the charred rear armor where the CASE system had quite literally blown off the armor plating, cutting my remaining three lasers in as I aligned, judging I had just enough spare heat capacity. I took a nanosecond to make sure it wouldn’t pass through the hologram to hit Kerensky (which was why these things rarely moved off their marks outside of these expert modes) letting the crosshair drift with the stomping target as it staggered, pulled the trigger-
The beams hit my chosen target dead on as heat spiked into my cockpit again. For a second I wondered if I had just shot up an empty chest or if the simulation system wasn’t smart enough to account for trick shooting like this ... but then with a shudder, the Kingfisher slowly fell forward to smash into the ground face first-
And exploded like all the rest.
Man it’s good that doesn’t happen in real life because the salvage teams would be out of work...

“Enemy mech; destroyed.”

“Ha! The Black Knight always triumphs!” I mocked-

Not if you don’t make it to the finish line you don’t” Kerensky snarled at me and blinking I saw there was barely twenty seconds on the clock - and a bit under two hundred meters to go, Kerensky stomping ahead of me towards it. Whoops. And clearly I had left the communications channel open.

“Shit shit shit!” I cursed -after killing the COMM line- kicking my pedals to the floor. My Mech staggered into motion, moving like a drunken sailor slowly picking up speed as heat was bled away and the computers relaxed their iron grip. Come on come on… I mentally swore at my Mech as it slowly got over its sluggishness, mentally wishing for the Mechwarrior games coolant flush systems right about now. That two hundred meters looked like two hundred miles as step by step my speed readout slowly crawled above thirty … thirty five … forty …

Kerensky crossed the line ahead of me and her counter froze at eleven seconds, flashing green as mine continued to count down far faster than it should be.
Come on! I mentally yelled as my limbs continued to firm up and I started to break into a run, the distance and timer indicators seemingly crashing together-
“YES!” I yelled as the timer went green with just over two seconds remaining and Betty beeped that glorious triple ding.

“Nav Delta-Five-Six reached. All Primary objectives complete, gauntlet successful.”
« Last Edit: 11 December 2018, 05:09:55 by Chris OFarrell »
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Chris OFarrell

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #236 on: 10 December 2018, 07:20:45 »
“Widow Prime, Dagger two, clear gauntlet and proceed via NAV grid epison for return to training command, how copy?” The commander center then cut in / and I could swear in the background I could hear people demanding others pay up?!

“Solid Copy Charlie Charlie” I threw back before making a mental note to have Ardan send someone to download the recording of this little stroll before wiping the computer systems local records and making sure the staff knew to say nothing about it to anyone. The Clans were, after all, still rather classified, in theory.

But I wanted a ****** copy. I had just trashed a custom Natasha ****** Kerensky throwing ****** Clan Omnimechs at me scenario! HA! Take that Trashborns!

Then a second later, reality slapped me down hard as my brain caught up.

No. I had hardly faced down Clanners. I had faced down bots. Dumbass bots who were more or less unable to use their mobility, had no skill in dodging or maneuvering and were content to fight essentially as giant turrets, firing their guns as fast as possible without any concern for heat levels or evading. Letting me in turn take all the time I needed to carefully line up my shots when they immobilized themselves.
And I had still all but cosplayed the Black Knight, even with Natasha ****** Kerensky for a Lancemate and doing, bluntly, all the hard lifting. If I had faced the same scenario against even trained Inner Sphere pilots, let alone Clanners who could do even half of what Kerensky could do?
Well that’s why you don’t fight bullshit duels against Clanners but hit them with ten times their numbers in combined arms and enough artillery to make Zhukov award you an honorary Red Banner on the spot. No matter how unsporting Trashborns like Kerensky might think that is that you don’t want to play their games on their terms...
 
And speak of the Devil I thought as my communications link flashed and I opened it up once more.

“Well, that answers that” Kerensky noted as she regarded me walking towards the exit, falling into line behind me as I passed her.

“And what question might that be, Major?”

“You’re a complete rookie who's never been in combat before, ever. Clearly AFFS trained, but only half trained and you’ve probably never even fired the guns on that Mech of yours before today” she concluded and my ego collapsed immediately like a souffle poked with a vibrokatana.

Okay … was I that bad?

Come on John, chin up; you have one years training and you’re thinking she of all people won’t notice that? I chided myself as we stepped off the rock onto the asphalt of the access road that would lead us down the side of the hill and back to the south, around the course to the base. The view was actually quite nice, reminded me of that desert road in Forrest Gump ...

“Is this one of those ‘You do not truly know someone until you see them fight?’ things?” I asked, badly paraphrasing the Matrix while trying not to sound anything like as impressed as I was that she was apparently able to pick all that up … by simply watching me run around with her.

“After a fashion, I suppose” she verbally shrugged as her tone sharpened. “But it’s enough for me to see clearly that you are not from the Clans.”

I blinked. I blinked again.
Then I burst out laughing over the line.

“What … what … you thought I was …and I lost it, leaning back, closing my eyes and just laughing my head off between gasps of air, my mech coming to a halt as I took my feet off the pedals and let go of the controls.
The idea was so incredibly absurd that I just couldn't help it. Snickering and snorting as I struggled to get myself under control, some vague part of me considered that this must be all my tension being let out all at once, but I couldn’t stop laughing.
Me?! A ****** Clanner? Or a ‘Tanker’ as gladiusone had aptly named them? Great insult but given that AFFS Tank crews would probably take it personally from a Mechwarrior like me, not a good idea to use it...especially against the Black widow.

Still, I didn’t know if I should feel flattered or insulted that they thought I was one. So I settled for the amusement.

“Okay, okay I’ve got to know. What idiot came up with that conclusion? What were they drinking when they did and where can I get some of it?” I demanded, shifting my Mech around to face hers - which had also stopped - before belatedly reaching out to flip the Master Arm switch back down as I realized I was facing directly at her.

“Master arm disengaged. Weapons; Offline” Betty sounded disappointed at being told to pack it up, my arms dropping in a subtle way as the power flow was cut to the myomer that made the fine adjustments to the gun mountings, having had a more than ample workout for me to be confident NAIS hadn’t missed anything when they retrofit and checked out my toy.
All in all, I was very happy at how well my Mech had performed. The watered down Clanners would have probably trashed me much earlier if I was in a standard 3025 Mech - and I had a whole new appreciation for the poor SOBs in the original timeline who had to face down the Clans with such gear.

“Well it’s … the Dragoons officers in the room with you and Sortek? They sensed quite a lot of hostility towards Jamie’s decision making, from you towards him” the Trueborn said over the radio and bless her, she actually sounded a tad abashed in response to my balls to the wall laughter at her accusation, which more than any other denial probably hammered home how hilariously wrong it was.

Oh. So I had hostility towards Battletechs greatest procrastinator not doing his ****** job and/or being the vanguard of an invasion of my nation. Had to be I was a Clanner myself! Couldn’t possibly be I was pissed at him because I didn’t want to see the Inner Sphere overrun by a bunch of diet coke Übermensch who on average see a civilians greatest value as zeroing machine gun arrays, could it?
 
“To say nothing of the small issue of you knowing Khan Wards final orders, which unless there has been a leak by one of a half dozen Dragoons Jamie trusts with his life, has to have come from the Clans” Kerensky added a little more pointedly and relevantly.

Eh ... that’s a fair conclusion to draw from facts in evidence I mentally gave her a pass. Not that I was going to tell her how we knew what we did of course. That was classified so dark that black holes had issued cease and desist orders against MIIO.
Even so, perhaps I could kill a couple of birds with one stone here with very careful application of the truth?

“Well on your first point” I said, trying to keep my voice professional and any amusement out of it as I pushed my Mech back into action, Kerensky trailing along behind, “my attitude towards your boss is entirely towards his complete lack of leadership over following his damn orders. Which, if say the Clans invaded tomorrow, could have genuine and horrific consequences for quite literally hundreds of billions of people and make them really regret that we may have had ten years to prepare for it and simply wasted them”

Kerensky seemed to simply take that in as it was without comment, so I shrugged and continued.

“As for your second point? I’m just an aide to Ardan Sortek” I tried to keep my tone as matter of fact as possible, eager to get the spotlight the hell off me. “And I’m his aide because I’m one of the most studied on the Clans in the Federated Suns. But” I added, feeling like I was starting to reach Obi-Wan levels of ‘from a certain point of view’, “it’s pure book learning. I am also authorized to tell you that the source for our information on the Clans was not either the Dragoons or anyone associated with them - including past associates like Snord. You can tell poor Major Blake, if he is about to start hitting the bottle, that his security was, to quote an irritated Quintus Allard, ‘tighter than the Magestrix’s corset’ - and before you ask I have no idea how he knew how tight that was ... or how tight that actually is for that matter.”

Kerensky made a ‘hmmm’ sort of noise down the line as we continued down the road back to base. I tried not to think about the fact that I didn’t technically have the authority to tell her these things, but was reasonably confident I could sell this to Ardan as a necessary step in ‘The Plan’. And Hanses paperwork to me had said quite clearly that we (plural) were to do whatever it took to get the Dragoons on-side. You could get a lot of mileage out words like ‘whatever it takes’ … and I think I had earned a little latitude even if there was probably an implied ‘talk to Sortek First’ in there.
And besides; he wasn’t out here alone in a long lonely canyon walking back to base with the Black Widow directly behind you at point blank range with real weapons!

“Okay, so next logical question, how the hell did you people know? About the Clans?” she asked and I took a second to consider my reply, content to let Kerensky keep ‘pumping me’ for information I was happy to give, even if it was misinformation, from a certain point of view.
Part of me wondered if this whole morning was all a cunning plan by Wolf to get more intel, but I doubted it. My presence on the range was a last minute thing, it seemed more likely that Kerensky after seeing me here had decided to see what she could find out about me on her own by barging into my course time.
A good reminder, if any was needed, that she wasn’t a one trick pony but had a great deal of street smarts in her head if nothing else…

“All I’m able to tell you about that is that only Katrina Steiner, Hanse Davion, Quintus Allard and Simon Johnson have the authority to approve access to that information. So even if I did know, I wouldn’t be authorized to say anything about how they got their information. If Wolf is still heading to Terra I’m sure he can take it up with either of them there.”

There was a long, long silence as she absorbed that and I focused on simply moving my Mech smoothly.

Fair enough I suppose” she finally conceded and thank God for that before her tone sharpened again. “So, that would only leave one final question. Who are you?”

My inner Vorlon smiled at that. The rest of me was less happy.

"Irrelevant" I replied.

"I think it is" she said and this time there was an edge in her voice, clearly, she wanted all the answers. With an implied ‘you don’t want to make me angry ... you wouldn't like me when I'm angry’ in her statement.
Well tough luck. It’s not like short of opening fire she had any real way to coerce my cooperation after all. Or so I kept telling myself to keep my bladder under control.

"Also irrelevant" I replied again.

We walked along for another ten seconds or so in silence, my blunt reply seeming to have thrown Kerensky for a loop as if I was utterly indifferent to having an irritated Clanner at my back with enough weapons to level a city block -

- which wasn't true for one second mind you -

- but I also knew that I absolutely couldn't cave on this. And I think I had something of a better handle on Kerensky now. Utterly a terror to face on a Battlefield no question at all and perfectly willing to do mass destruction to protect those under her command ... but not so trigger happy as to kill without reason. And given the incredible consequences to such impulses being unleashed here? Shooting me up on an AFFS base in the middle of highly delicate negotiations with the Federated Suns and the Dragoons at their weakest point ever?

Yeah, that would end well, not. And she knew it.

"Blake has almost nothing on you" she finally said, clearly realizing the direct approach wasn't working. "In fact, all he has is that you is that you were spotted at the Triad when Davion visited in 26 hanging around with the Kell Hounds - and slapped Alessandro Steiner down like the cretin he was when he tried to poke them a little too hard.”

"I see Wolfnet still has the old boys network going strong" I observed dryly in response as we continued to stroll around the side of the course. Wolfnet, the Dragoons intelligence service was, of course, tiny in comparison to even the smallest of the Great Houses agencies with a fraction of the resources … but did have some impressive HUMNIT resources spread through the massive Inner Sphere Merc community. From those sources they got a surprisingly good amount of information about the goings on around the Sphere, probably getting the most bang for their buck by far of all the intelligence agencies.
It was still complete Bullshit of course that a Clan force could even set up something like an intelligence agency with little to no native capabilities along those lines and compete against massive entrenched players with centuries of experience ... but there you go.
But accordingly, it wasn’t terribly surprising that the only data point they had on ME was that I had stood up for Patrick Kell and the Kell Hounds that night-

And that’s not all of it” Kerensky cut into my thoughts, her tone clinical and cool. “An ‘adjutant’ sits quietly in the background, fetches coffee when asked and otherwise takes notes and keeps his mouth shut. Sortek was perfectly happy to have you drop the ‘Clan’ bomb on us and take the Dragoons officers to task. You have been given a Battlemech from Helm, upgraded by the NAIS no doubt personally at the direction of Hanse Davion, wear an AFFS uniform with no rank to obscure your identity and yet can barely keep your Mech vertical when running at full throttle, when you’re not schmoozing with House Lords and the people around them.”

Okay, several data points then I suppose. It was mildly amusing to think that Blakes people, after looking into me, probably had more questions now than when they had started.

“Your point Major?” I asked her, trying to contain my amusement at her attitude.

You’re not an adjutant” she observed flatly and I rolled my eyes at the accusation. No shit sherlock...

“I also adjutant” I corrected her lightly. “Who I am is irrelevant; what I am right now amounts to an adjutant to Ardan Sortek. Specifically because I am one of the closest things to an expert on the Clans that the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth have - in theory anyway.”
Who’d have thought pushing Natasha Kerensky when she was walking right behind me with an awful of guns could be so much fun?
“If I may though ... I would like to ask you a question” I dared to wrench off this line of thought and earned a snort down the line, Kerensky perhaps deciding she wasn’t going to get anything from me.

“Well it seems you already know everything, so I’m not sure what the hell you’d want to ask me, but fire away” she invited me readily. Perhaps because she thought my question in turn would show where we were deficient in our knowledge? Or giving a clue where we might have gotten it from?
It wasn’t that kind of question though and I let my Mech start to slow, easing off the throttle to drift to a stop, then turned it to face Kerensky who had also come to a halt a hundred meters away.

“You are certainly under no obligation to answer it” I continued even as I wondered if this would be what pushed her off the cliff-

“Just ask it already, I’m a big girl, I promise you” she huffed impatiently in a way that didn’t quite hide the curiosity in her voice and I shrugged. Well, in for a penny...

“Did you love Joshua Wolf? I mean, love him, love him?”

There was dead air to that somewhat poorly put question - but the channel didn’t close. Dead air that lasted thirty seconds the clock on my HUD.
On the plus side, her Warhammers abnormally long PPC barrels were not pointing at me and her SRM tubes were still closed...

...yes. I did love him” she eventually responded, her tone not quite flat. More … neutral perhaps? As if she was keeping a ferociously tight grip on her emotions. And I decided to give her an out there.

“Then, for whatever it might be worth Major…” I said carefully, “even though I know it was a while ago, you have my condolences for your loss.”

“...thank you” Kerensky said with a background noise on the channel that sounded like her taking a deep breath to calm herself but with a faint edge of surprise in her tone. “I think you’re the first person outside of the Dragoons to even bother to say as much in fact. But … why the hell did you want to know?”

She didn’t need to explain what the ‘why’ was.

“Everything I’ve read about Clan society tells me that even the very concept of love is considered Taboo by Trueborns” I said, sighing and leaning back in my chair as much as I could with the restrained firmly in place as we walked along, now starting to slowly climb back to the point my map showed was an intersection, a short walk from which would be the tunnel back to the base. “Kerensky’s son seems to have put enormous effort into breaking down social norms to build his new ‘master race’” I was sure I couldn’t keep the hints of contempt out of my voice and I was sure I honestly didn’t care if she heard them. “Anthropologists brought in by MIIO are almost of the unanimous opinion that the Clans are simply too alien to even think of as human anymore in truth, in terms of them being able to relate to 99.99% of mankind...”

And what do you think?” she asked me after a few seconds. The tone was almost alien and I didn’t know what exactly to make of it, but...

I couldn’t help but wonder what weight she put on my opinion, but … let’s see where this goes.

“I think you proved that underneath all the bullshit pretense, a Trueborn is just as human as anyone else. And if you, one of the greatest Mechwarriors to come out of the whole breeding silliness can fall in love and hurt so much when it was ripped away from you by those ****** Anton and ComStar? That you can make the leap to see that there is so much more to life than the artificial box Nicholas tried to slam down around his society? Then it is probably inevitable that if and when the Clans return to the Inner Sphere, the sheer overwhelming population and cultural differences will, in the long run, overwhelm them.”

Micronion culture for the win! Isn’t that right officers pod?

“Nav Epsilon three, reached” Betty said, which I took as as yes. Good girl!

Oddly, Kerensky was silent to that and I wasn’t sure how she was taking it-

What” she asked in a slow, disturbingly careful terrifyingly precise way “do you mean by ‘Anton and ComStar?'”

I blinked. I blinked again. Then the color drained from my face and I took a hand off one of my sticks to violently facepalm as it suddenly hit me what I said.
Oh ******.
Excellent work John!
My mind sneered at me. You just had to show off and get all philosophical and high concept, didn’t you?

“Kerensky…” I started to say before sighing, closing my eyes and sighing as I let my Mech once more drift to a halt. My instinctive desire to deny I had said that being dismissed on the grounds of being absurdly stupid. “Quintus is going to kill me” I observed as I let my Mech slow to a halt … then an insane thought occurred to me.
On the other hand…in for a penny? How could I turn this around a little...?

“...alright” I said as I turned around to face her Mech - and resisted the urge to take a step back as it was less than ten meters away with the Mechwarrior inside visibly glaring at me through both sets of polarized glass. “All I can offer you is information I saw on a very recent source uncovered in the last couple of years. You never heard it from me, we never had this conversation.”

“I accept those terms” she said and this time there was no denying the edge in her voice that suggested pushing her patience on this would be a bad move. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. What, do you know?”

Well, if nothing else it proves she really did love Joshua if this is the reaction I’m getting...

“As you wish” I said exhaling and wondering how loudly Quintus was going to yell at me for this. “Then, in your knowledge of the events of Antons rebellion and the assault on New Dellos, do you recall hearing the name ‘Vesar Kristofur’ at any point?”
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Chris OFarrell

  • Warrant Officer
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  • Posts: 605
Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #237 on: 10 December 2018, 07:21:07 »
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There were, on reflection, a whole ****** [/I]of worse positions I could be in right now.

Considering that I now knew interuniversal travel to what I thought were fictional universes was possible (or at least ‘forking’ a new instance of me into one, was possible), I knew I could have ended up somewhere much, much worse.

I mean there were also better places I could end up. The Cultureverse for example (assuming I dropped into said Culture and not the Affront or something) would have been just about perfect really. But I would have also happily settled for most flavors of Star Trek....
But there were also far far more (supposedly) fictional places I could have ended up that made me go into a cold sweat just thinking about it. I mean, at least in my current position in Battletech I had every reason to be hopeful for the future and my future.
If I had, say, ended up in Westeros? Yeah, even if I wasn’t killed on the spot as a witch or demon or something, the best I could hope for would be to eek out a miserable stagnant medieval existence while trying to figure out a way to get the ****** out the way of the Ice Zombie apocalypse, gigantic civil war and all the other fun stuff that might be coming. And even that was one of the happier possibilities; if I had been thrown into say Warhammer 40K?
On balance, the fact that I was in a reality where my soul was not going to be ripped out of my body by some chaos sorcerer, bound into some horrifying nightmare of flesh and chained to Abaddon the Despoilers throne and ‘encouraged’ to tell him everything I knew about Warhammer 40K?

Yeah, ‘could be worse’ indeed.

Ergo, contextually I tried to tell myself ‘Hashtag; this is not a big deal’ on one hand (mental note, invent Twitter) … but on the other; I wasn’t in 40K and this was a fragging huge deal here and now.

The vehicles coming in were an eclectic mixture of IFVs holding the Dragoons senior officers followed by dozens of large AFFS busses borrowed for this trip with the main body of soldiers, ancillary support staff and hangers on. Only the IFVs and an honor guard of four Dragoon Mechs in the vanguard were even armed; this was not a force coming with its blood up.
Indeed, if anything, it was exactly the opposite.
Just about the entire force of the Dragoons minus the crews on their distant Jumpships, a skeleton crew on board the Hephaestus and those too sick to leave the hospital were here now. Unarmed and in dress uniforms they were not quite putting themselves collectively at our mercy, but it was near enough to make little difference. As much as yesterday Ardan and I had formally entered their part of the base under the technically unofficial yet very real rules of safe conduct, so too were the Dragoons coming to us under them now - and trusting us to honor them. Which silently spoke to the groundwork Hanse and his people had put in place with the Dragoons over the last six months - especially compared and contrasted with the Combine.

Whom I’m sure the Dragoons wouldn’t trust right now if they claimed oxygen was safe to breathe...

“Do you think he figured out yet that we grabbed those Omni’s on Barlow's End deliberately?” I muttered aside to Ardan from the second story window looking out over the makeshift parking area as the hoard of APCs and trucks neatly formed into lines and started to unload a couple of thousand people, my attention drawn to the Bandits in the lead. Hidden in plain sight - how the ****** had the Inner Sphere’s intelligence people never caught onto that? Even if you credited the Dragoons recovering every single one of the damn things they ever lost (which was bullshit of the first order) that very policy should have made every intel agency very interested in grabbing one to find out why. Or so you’d think anyway.

“Quite probably but, uh, let's not remind him?” Ardan suggested back in a sotto voice as Dragoons started to make their way inside the ground floor of the massive warehouse. Sortek was in a decent mood. Calm and prepared for this next step, but he had not been exactly happy with my liberties around Natasha Kerensky. Which wasn’t to say he was unhappy with me either.

Simply put he wasn’t exactly convinced that pointing Natasha Kerensky at Vesar Kristofur (or Kristopher Kelly or whatever he called himself these days, if he was even still alive) was going to end well. Especially with LIC and MIIO both trying to find him and capture him alive, dragging him to a nice damp cellar filled with their best interrogators to drain the former ROM head dry of everything he knew…
But he also admitted that putting Wolfnet into play who had a lot of ears to the ground in less reputable parts of the galaxy, might lead us to him.
Worst case, Kerensky killed him and she owed us one. Not an ideal outcome but not a bad one per se. Every dead hardcore toaster worshiper was a good one in my book.
Mostly though, my failure in this space had convinced me to just ****** leave the PSYOPs to the spies.

Presently, Ardan started for the rooms exit and I followed him out and through the upper story racks of cargo pallets and containers. We reached a metal staircase and descended down the side of the warhouse into the large section the Dragoons were pouring into. This middle chunk of the main floor of the massive structure was both empty and open, just a large concrete floor ideal for crowding everyone in together behind a secure perimeter with massive sectional walls to the left and right closing off the rest of the warhouse. Jamie Wolf had requested permission for the entire Dragoons to present themselves and make their decisions known and Ardan saw this as a good thing. It was very much tradition for the bigger and more professional Merc units to do have a ‘passing out’ parade like this for their new employer after all. Through most of the day the Dragoons sub-units had gathered in offices and common areas with company, battalion and then regimental discussions as they seemed to all come to a consensus … and I could only hope said consensus was the right one.

The contingency plans for the Dragoons saying ‘thanks no thanks, we’re going back to the Kerensky Cluster’ were … unpleasant. To put it mildly. But then, Wolf putting the entire Dragoons force essentially at our Mercy like this was a very good sign the Rabid Foxes would not be forced to live up to their reputation tonight.

As I followed Ardan down the metal stairway towards the warehouse floor, I couldn’t help but admire how quickly the Dragoons were assembling into formation. And I meant that literally; this wasn’t just a crowd standing around across the wide open area. Discrete groups of men and women were forming up into what I recognized as company sized units and they in turn were grouping into battalions and then larger formations that stretched along the width of the warhouse. Each headed by one of the Regimental Command Companies in the case of the line units and grouped together logically in the case of their supporting units like their training command or starship crews. The actual spacings in the groups were confusing for a moment in their randomness until it hit me like a bucket of ice water that the spacing was in fact, perfect. The empty spots were representing Dragoons who were no longer here to stand with their comrades, either dead or badly wounded. And quite a few of those who were here were clearly injured with bandages, casts, ‘moon boots’ and other advanced looking medical devices.

Yet, despite their battering; here they stood.

It was a powerful statement in of itself as we reached the warehouse floor, then we stepped up onto a makeshift sort of stage against the opposite wall from the entrance as the last of the Dragoons came through it; the senior officers themselves with the perimeter security teams closing the loading dock doors behind them.
Jamie Wolf and Natasha Kerensky were in the lead - the later for once in a dress uniform. Following them were the other four regimental commanders followed along with Major Blake from Wolfnet and the other independent and support unit commanders. Also mixed in wearing strikingly different uniforms were Cranston Snord and his daughter and as Jamie advanced past every line, every Dragoon in said line snapped to attention. As they passed the front rank, most of the officers joined their units while Jamie, Natasha and the Snords came up onto the stage, Jamie in turn stepping forward to face Ardan.

“Colonel Sortek, Mister Smith” Jamie nodded to both of us as he stepped up, his tone softly calm and his bearing professional, giving no hint about how his world had turned upside down in the last day and a bit. And I might be imagining things but I think his gaze focused on me for a heartbeat longer this time (and I wonder what Kerensky had told him?) before he shook Ardans offered hand then gestured to his side. “I believe you know Colonel Snord?”
Clearly, we weren’t even pretending that Snord wasn’t still taking orders from Jamie anymore.

“Of course” Ardan nodded and shook his offered hand. “We met on Heavy Guards trip back from Helm. I apologize I have not had the time to visit Clinton as yet, but I do plan to try the next time I’m in the Lyran Commonwealth.”

“I’ll hold you to that, we have plans for a whole new wing on 20th and 21st century popular culture what with all the music and media recovered from Hoff spiking interest” he boasted with a smile before he seemed to remember why they were here with a glance across at Jamie - whose expression was, if anything, faintly amused. “But” he added quickly, “we can discuss that later - a pleasure to meet you too Mister Smith” he nodded at me and I nodded back then hesitated as my gaze shifted past him to the redhead standing behind him.

Natasha was also studying me and I met her piercing gaze square on before I inclined my head slightly at her … and she returned the gesture. Which was good enough for now as I moved my attention back to Wolf.

“So, to continue our discussion Colonel. When we left I had asked you - and more broadly, the Dragoons, a question” Ardan started the conversation where we had left off, the thick concrete walls doing an excellent job of containing his voice and carrying it across the room.

“And I - and the Dragoons - will give you an answer” Jamie said with a nod before he took a breath and turned to face his people, his voice suddenly ramping up powerfully. “I am the Oathmaster. Trothkin new and old, Clan and Spheroid …” he paused for a second, drew a breath, “...Dragoons” he finished and there was emotion in that word. A raw sense of inclusion that shivered through the room and I guessed it’s pointed use meant that everyone had been brought into the secret, the issues worked through … and the Dragoons still stood as one.
Peer pressure was a hell of a thing - but that kind of loyalty was probably not surprising given the crucible of things like Misery. At least with good leadership anyway and happily it seemed if the Dragoons senior officers were in unity. And in cases like this, Clan rules actually acted as a break on dissension. If they did not want to play by Clan rules and wished to attempt a trial of refusal at odds of a thousand to one against or something….

“All we be bound by this conclave until they are dust and memories and beyond that until the end of all that is!”

Seyla!” the entire crowd answered.

I didn’t join them however and following my lead, neither did Ardan. We stood as witnesses to this pseudo Clan-Council, not part of it.

Jamie nodded then stepped to the edge of the stage and lightly jumped down to the floor, slowly pacing left to the far ranks, then back all the way to the right. Finally, he nodded.

“At ease” he ordered and with an impressive crack policed combat boots were spread and stomped into the ground as the Dragons relaxed their postures … slightly.

“We have come a long way since we were founded all those decades ago. Some have walked this road with me from the beginning” he nodded at Blake as he slowly walked back to the middle of the formation, his gaze locking with his senior officers one after the other. “Others have stood with us but a short time but are no less part of us” he added with a nod at Coshasa DuKirk who returned his nod with a curt but proud one of her own. “And others … have been lost along the way” he finished, glancing somberly at the empty slots before turning back towards us, his gaze seeming to lock with Natasha for a moment, emotions flashing between them I couldn’t decipher but guessed were about the man they had both loved who had been ripped from them.

One as a brother. One as a lover. And I didn’t want to think what my little grenade lob this afternoon had done there.

“I would nonetheless trust every person in this room...” Jamie continued, climbing back up to the stage and turning to face the Dragoons, the power of his voice and bearing almost captivating as he seemed to grow in stature before me, “...with my life” he said unequivocally. “And I have asked you to trust me with your lives in turn, trust you have given me” he continued, pausing for a moment before with a deep breath, he raised his chin unflinchingly. “And I have failed that trust.”

The Iron Discipline of the Dragoons cracked at that with an immediate rumble and shifting in the ranks and highly negative sounding muttering and objections coming from the group - including his senior officers I noted - but Jamie held up a hand and the interjections stilled, an edge coming into his voice.

“I have failed because I was given orders to lead you” he said, turning his head to seemingly take in every person in the formation, unflinchingly. “Orders to protect the Inner Sphere against the false righteousness of the Crusaders. To be a shield against their long held desire to rampage across known space and destroy anything and everything that will not bend to their twisted vision of the future of humanity. To hold to the Great Fathers true vision of living what he wished his descendants to see once more. To find and accept the value of what our ancestors left behind. To understand that it must be protected from those who would seek to destroy it ... even if that threat would be found in those we once called Trothkin. And what...” he added, raising his arms up at his side as if taking in all the mass of people in front of him and inviting them to answer his coming question. “What have I done to accomplish this?” he asked.

He let his gaze sweep across his senior officers and then the ranks of battalions behind them to the very back of the formation, inviting someone -anyone- to speak up.

No-one did.

“I have done nothing” Jamie finally answered almost harshly.

No shit sherlock I didn’t say - but I had some self control and didn’t need to Ardans look from the side telling me to keep my mouth shut thank you very much!

“There was always another battle to fight and no time to think about such things. And so I failed you. I failed my Khan and worst of all I have failed the people of the Inner Sphere I was charged to defend” he finished, seemingly accepting said failures as he laid them out … before he seemed to grow almost half a meter in a moment. His eyes blazing as his voice cracked.
But I will fail no more!”
 
“SEYLA!” was the shout - delivered in a very ‘SIR YES SIR!’ sort of way.

“On Misery” Jamie continued after the thunder faded, his showing a sort of distant pain, “I lost a friend. A good friend and a good man. I lost him because he saw his duty and refused to shy away from it. No matter how bitter the cost to him; he saw it through to to the end. And in my rage against House Kurita, I was fully prepared to throw all of us at the Combine and not stop until either they broke or we did - and in so doing I would have failed you all once again by not doing my duty. Accordingly…” he turned to face Ardan and straightened up. “Colonel Sortek; the Dragoons have discussed your question. And with unanimous agreement … we stand with the Inner Sphere against any Crusader invasion and stand ready to begin preparations to defend against one.”

Seyla” the entire warehouse echoed - this time in the somber way I had expected - and I had to fight the urge to sigh in relief. Okay, one problem solved, now the other minor issue…

“You would be willing to wave a request for a front line deployment against the Draconis Combine?” Ardan asked him, the sheer gravity in his tone enough to shift the orbit of Robinson as I tried not to hold my breath as Jamie seemed to struggle for a second before exhaling and meeting Ardans gaze.

“...Yes Colonel. As of this moment I, on behalf of the Wolf’s Dragoons … withdraw that request” Jamie agreed, clearly pained by the concession yet determined to accept the bitter pill and move on.
There was only a muted reaction from the Dragoons at Wolfs request. Flashes of resigned acceptance and melancholy across their faces while others glanced away rather than the glares and explosion of protests I had expected … and no surprise. Oh the disappointment seemed universal … yet it was muted. And it occurred to me that perhaps getting everyone on board with this decision had taken up far more of yesterday than the whole Clan thing.
If so, credit to Jamie and his officers then for moving everyone past the idea that for the Dragoons to win, the Combine had to die.

So, that was good. Now, we just had to reverse that decision!

“A humbling gesture Colonel” Sortek said solemnly … before offering a slightly wry, almost apologetic look. “But that will not be necessary.”

Wolf frowned and started to open his mouth, but Ardan held up a hand to hold his objections as he continued to speak calmly, but with a sheer authority in his tone. It was a subtle shift but I thought of it as his ‘Hanse’ tone, when he seemed to be speaking on behalf of Prince Davion more than himself...

“Yesterday Colonel, you asked if we trusted you and the Dragoons to follow orders” Ardan reminded him in a deadly serious tone and I killed the urge to impulse to smirk, recalling vividly that my original reaction to that question from Jamie had all of this into motion. “However, it would be more accurate to say that the concerns of the Prince and Archon were that if we granted your request for a front line posting, that you and your Dragoons would see such a deployment as an open invitation to declare a private war against the Combine. A war that you would hold as between only yourself and the Combine and that the worlds of the Federated Suns would simply be the ground you stood upon to fight, not the ground you stood upon to defend.”
The Dragoons CO remained stoically professional in the face of Ardans mild accusations … but my eyes caught the subtle looks passing between the senior officers down below.

Perhaps I was projecting a bit here, but given that it was, you know, exactly what they ****** did in the original timeline...even if in the end it worked out neatly to House Davions advantage.

“Given what they cost you, your willingness to step back from your fight with the Combine is a powerful gesture Colonel and goes a long way to reassure me that my concerns were misplaced. So if you tell me here and now that you will stand with us against the Combine, not simply alongside us? That you will accept reinforcements if we send them and call for them if you need them, not declaring your fights private circles of equals? Or, perhaps to put it a different way … can you accept that the Federated Suns has a very long going Trial of Grievance against the Draconis Combine that you are welcome to bid yourself into? While keeping in mind that there is a future beyond this fight we need to look towards?”

Jamie seemed to subtly straighten at that half dozen inches at that, as if a terrible weight had just been lifted from his shoulders, a faint smile coming on his face and he turned to look slowly across his people - and there was an electricity in the air as he took them in, finishing with Natasha who nodded eagerly (but then that was probably her default expression when it came down to mass carnage and destruction in the air) before facing Ardan again.

“Aff, we do accept. With gratitude and my promise that your trust will not be misplaced.’

Somewhere, back on New Avalon, I could feel Hanse Davion smiling coldly before, for no apparent reason anyone around him understood, doing a ‘Just as planned’ pose...

Ardan nodded at that in a way that was almost a shallow bow. “Seyla.”

“Seyla” Wolf nodded back.

“SEYLA!” the rest of the Dragoons barked, loudly. Looking all too eager, their gazes filled with vicious, determined joy as best I could put it that suggested any Kuritan Mechwarrior who went up against them was really going to be in for it.

Ardan then turned to me and nodded and I nodded back, strolling forward, my polished bots clicking against the stage in a way that echoed through the silent warehouse and drew attention like a magnet.

I couldn’t help but be highly amused at the fact that Jamie, Kerensky and indeed the other senior officers down on the main floor all looked suddenly very much on alert at my moving forward. Amusing that I have a reputation that makes these people wary.

“Colonel Wolf” I nodded at him and he nodded back, again with that slightly on-guard edge. “Your estimates from yesterday as I recall, presuming we can expedite some shipments for you, were that the Dragoons would be able to field roughly fifty percent of your five regiments strength in about a month? With Zeta and the Home Guard units held back to defend your dependents as you rebuild? And roughly one regiments worth of combat ready Mechwarriors dispossessed?”

“Correct” he nodded very slightly at me, clearly waiting for the shoe to drop.  And to be fair there was a shoe we were dropping … it was just a good one this time. “We will deploy all five line Regiments to forward planets currently undefended, moving some personnel around to put them at roughly fifty percent strength each.”

Ah, there’s that ****** Clanner pride. Should we deploy fewer units at greater strength by transferring people around and temporarily disbanding some? Or perhaps deploy half strength units alongside AFFC or allied units as a supporting force for them?
Nah!
Instead, let’s deploy each unit alone to five worlds at fifty percent strength and hope the Combine is too ****** stupid to simply concentrate and wipe us out in detail!

Gah. Clanners.

Fortunately, Hanse had a plan (cue Cylons theme) that would help deal with that small problem and several others at the same time (big ****** surprise). Seriously, some days I think that man came up with three new ways to brush his teeth every morning, each more cunning than the last...

“A tall order, half a Regiment per world to hold the line” I said with a slight tilt of my head that got no response, just a stoic look of agreement and I shrugged. “But perhaps, we can shift those odds slightly” I suggested, pulling a radio out of my pocket and lifting it to my face as I turned back to face the Northern wall of the warhouse. “This is Smith, hit it.”

There was a jolt and then a low metal rumbling, the ‘wall’ started to fold open from the middle to show the dark interior of the warehouse beyond and there was a loud gasp from the entire crowd as it revealed the terrible grinning face of an Atlas.

Not gonna lie, looking up at an Atlas grinning down at you like this … it was one of the most intimidating things I had ever seen in my life. General Kerensky himself had set down the design specs to make sure it intimidating and holy shit had he succeeded.
Although I’d be willing to bet for these people, it was less the Assault Mech itself and more the fact that it was painted in the deep black with red highlights and makings of Wolf’s Dragoons. Well that and the obvious upgrades, what with the four forward firing lasers (not an uncommon mod even if they couldn’t see right now the two aft guns were actually still in place) and the frigen Gauss Rifle in place of the Chemjet...

And the line of AS7-FC-X’s were not alone either.

Awesomes made at least thirty percent more awesome, which was about as close to perfection you could get this side of a Hellstar. An AWS-9Q by any other name still smelled awesome as did its brother variants behind it, no matter what the AFFS and LCAF wanted to call it.

Thugs carrying a secondary laser battery to replace the oversinked heat sinks that had been stripped out for use in some of the other Mechs around them, giving them a wickedly increased close range punch.

Eight upgraded Cyclops's with their impressive command and control gear fully operational ready for use by Dragoon commanders, with a dozen massive Thunder Hawks in front. And along the far wall, the STK-3F Stalkers were entirely stock; there was just not enough extra heat sinks to retrofit them. Even after taking every free floating one we had from Helm, stripping units like the Thugs down of a few and soaking up the first few months of production from Defiance?

We just didn’t have enough yet, which was a pity … and ultimately, that was also the reason the Dragoons were being given all these Battlemechs here and now. A bit over a third of Hanse Davions haul from the Helm cache.
Hanse had, predictably, refused to be sucked down into the ‘shiny new toy’ syndrome and instead carefully started to examine the logistical questions about exactly what he was going to do with his share of the loot after taking out the tech samples for NAIS … and had quickly determined he had quite a few issues to sort through.

First, the AFFS would have to find techs to be taken off the line, given access to the technology they were now going to have to maintain and find a way to train them up with what maintenance materials they had from Helm and the Helm core. That was not something that would be quick and easy. The only people in the Federated Suns who were honestly qualified to handle this technology as qualified techs were the engineers at the NAIS and, suffice to say, it was a nonstarter to even think about moving them into a tech role for line AFFS units.

Second, a lot of these weapons systems, especially the extended range weapons like Gauss rifles and advanced electronic warfare technology required extensive retraining for Mechwarriors using it if they were going to use it at all effectively.

And third, while Katrina was reforming the 4th as a political move as much as a military one and Hanse had plenty of trusted units people he could share his gear with, it was still going to be a tricky question of how exactly he best could maximize its potential and not waste it. The AFFS by the original timeline had stomped the Confederation like a Dire Wolf kicking around a first-generation Mackie. Adding a few regiments of Assault Mechs, even advanced technology ones, wouldn’t really change the strategic outcome there terribly much. Such mechs, limited in number but incredibly powerful, would best be deployed where you would get the maximum possible bang for the buck in the right concentration.

So, where was that?

Why, it was with the one force in the Inner Sphere that had the available spare Mechwarriors who were trained on using such technology of course! The one force who had techs trained and equipped to maintain them - and the only force on his strategic radar that instead of doing the curb stomping, would be on the receiving end of the best attempt of his enemies to deliver one and thus could badly use a qualitative edge to even the odds.

This has been a Hanse Davion. ‘Just as Planned ™’ presentation in Widescreen Stereo.
 
“As I said earlier Colonel” Ardan finally spoke up, drawing all attention back to him. “We stand alongside each other. And thus shall we stand … “he trailed off with a significant look at Wolf as he extended his hand to him, who gave a faint smile before taking it in a firm clasp.

“...until we all shall fall” Wolf finished the Clan affirmation.

“Seyla!”

This time, I couldn’t help but join in as Ardan did as well.

Mental note, buy mouthwash from the base PX tomorrow...
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

hpackrat

  • Sergeant
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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #238 on: 10 December 2018, 08:11:19 »
I see that you haven't corrected Natasha's overweight Warhammer. By any chance is her mech carrying a 5-ton backpack?

Sir Chaos

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Re: This Was Easier on the Tabletop - a Battletech SI Fic
« Reply #239 on: 10 December 2018, 09:34:54 »
I see that you haven't corrected Natasha's overweight Warhammer. By any chance is her mech carrying a 5-ton backpack?

Those extra five tons must be the weight of her reputation.
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
-Frederick the Great

"Ultima Ratio Regis" ("The Last Resort of the King")
- Inscription on cannon barrel, 18th century

 

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