Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star

[Hotpoint]

SPECIAL NOTE FOR BATTLETECH FORUM MEMBERS:

This story is also being posted elsewhere, which is why the Author's Notes are written in the way they are (for the benefit of those less familiar with the setting). This is a reboot of my story "Revenge of the Nerds" and will borrow from the earlier version occasionally.

The fates of both the 295th and 331st Divisions (which were coincidently both part of the 11th Army of the SLDF) were dictated by jumpdrives going wrong at an inopportune time. Having their fates altered by one of those jumpdrives going wrong at a different time seemed poetical.

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GUIDED BY THE LIGHT OF A (RED) CAMERON STAR - A BATTLETECH ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

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Part I

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"To hell with it. We'll make our own Star League with Blackjacks and Hussars"

Major-General Jenna Romanov - 2830 CE

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Militia Headquarters (Niops VII) - Niops Association – 2827

In most inhabited systems being assigned to keep a remote watch over the zenith and nadir points of the star, monitoring for the distinctive electromagnetic signature of an emergence-wave heralding a jumpship about to arrive, was an important and valued task.

Of course, in those systems jumpship arrivals were a considerably more frequent occurrence than they were for Niops, which had twice gone more than a decade without so much as a single visitor.

It might have been an urban legend but there was supposedly one poor son-of-a-bitch that had spent nearly his entire thirty-year career in the Niops Association Militia (NAM) manning the monitoring station who had never once detected an inbound jumpship signature. By sheer bad luck he hadn't ever been on duty when the sensors registered one but had stubbornly refused a transfer from the posting until he did.

That was not a retired military man whose stories were worth listening to in a bar.

If it wasn't for the fact that a uninvited vessel could be carrying a dropship or two full of pirate raiders the job wouldn't even exist, but because it was a dangerous galaxy and it could be pirates there was always some poor unfortunate non-com sat behind a screen on Niops VII bored out of their mind and praying for a transfer to a better assignment.

On that particular afternoon the poor schmuck watching the screen wasn't one of the usual non-coms who sat in the chair, but a junior officer instead. A sergeant had gone off sick and because Second-Lieutenant Jason Carmichael had done something to get on someone's shit-list, he wasn't entirely sure what, he was temporarily re-assigned to what was likely the most tedious job for at least thirty light-years in any direction.

It wasn't like there was much excitement to be had in any job in the NAM. You could count the number of attempted attacks on the system since the colony was founded on one hand, and none of those had managed to get anywhere close to making landfall. What Niops lacked in numbers of infantry, tanks or battlemechs for the ground-forces it more than made up for in squadrons of old, but still serviceable, aerospace fighters.

Carmichael had known full well that in signing up to become a mechwarrior he would likely never actually get to see combat in his machine, but at least it was a job that would pay the bills. More to the point he just didn't have the grades to land a gig in the science bureau where the big bucks were to be made and the rock-star astrophysicists had to beat the girls off with a stick.

Leaning back in his chair Carmichael took a long swig from a can of carbonated lemonade. It was a little too sweet for his tastes, and the chemist that developed the synthetic lemon flavour had apparently never tasted an actual lemon, but it was the best thing you could get from the vending machine out in the hall.

Barely more than a desk and three large computer display screens, positioned in a room not much larger than a supply closet, the Monitoring Station didn't even have a door because the Major in the office down the hall knew that if it did the man or woman sat at the screens would be inclined to use their time more productively and take a nap.

"Maybe if I pray really hard someone in the Free Worlds League will stumble across an old map of the Star League that has us on it and they'll invade?" Carmichael muttered to himself drily, putting down his can of soda. That possibility had certainly been a real concern when the news (much delayed) had arrived in Niops that the so-called 'Succession War' which had started in 2787, not after the Star League fell, had finally petered out in 2821. If the armies of House Marik weren't tied down fighting the Lyrans and Capellans on their borders they might look out towards the rim again instead, and it wasn't like the NAM could take on the military of a Great Power.

So far, no Free Worlds League though, fortunately for the people of the Niops Association. It could have been even worse than the Mariks of course, having them as your big neighbour was better than enjoying the dubious pleasure of the Draconis Combine or the Capellan Confederation breathing down your neck. The latter state even practised what was effectively a mild form of slavery, only a proportion of their population being granted citizenship and everyone else being placed into the 'Servitor Class' stuck doing all the crappy and dangerous jobs.

The Drac's under House Kurita didn't have servitors, but their numerous camps full of dissenting political prisoners were certainly demonstrative of a society that you wouldn't want to live in if you were used to a free press and liked to speak your mind.

Carmichael looked around the room, noting the insignias of both the Star League and the Terran Hegemony still emblazoned on everything, instead of the flag of the Niops Association itself. It was likely the Star League Defence Force that had installed all this equipment when the colony was founded over a century before in 2700 and nobody was going to bother replacing any of it it until it completely wore out.

When you got right down to it, in all likelihood Niops was effectively all that was left of the Terran Hegemony after the five big Successor States had divided it up amongst themselves. After all the destruction wreaked upon the Hegemony by the Amaris Coup, and then the fourteen-year-long campaign by the SLDF to take Terra and the other occupied worlds back from the bastard, it had been in no fit state to fight off the new set of invaders, though a few worlds had supposedly tried anyway and paid the price in nuclear fire.

Maybe if most of what was left of the Star League military hadn't opted to follow Kerensky out into the Deep Periphery the Hegemony might have survived, but by that point the SLDF wasn't in a position to take on everybody at once with some vaguely realistic chance of pulling off a win. They still had generally better equipment, that was how the Hegemony had brought everyone to heel in the first place establishing the Star League, but the other major interstellar powers had weight of numbers and each one a fierce desire to reign supreme in the Inner Sphere.

That fierce desire had resulted in them bludgeoning themselves for over thirty years with little to show for it. Well, little to show other than billions of deaths and the ownership of a few more planets, often highly irradiated by this point, that used to fly the Hegemony flag but now bent the knee to some foreign Lord sat on a throne in New Avalon, Luthien, Capella, Atreus or Tharkad.

Say what you like about the High Associator of Niops, effectively the Head of State of what had become a de facto independent nation now that the Hegemony was gone, he might have a really crummy title but at least he was born on Niops and was chosen by the local populace.

Carmichael yawned and stretched. This job would suit his brother down to the ground, he decided, plenty of time to sketch out that stupid novel he was always talking about writing. The alternate history one where Kerensky is killed in the fighting on Terra just after he took down Amaris, General DeChavilier takes over command of the SLDF and digs in to defend the Hegemony against all comers.

"I should have remembered to bring my noteputer, tried to get a new high-score in Reunification Wars III, or at least been able to check my messages" Carmichael said to himself regretfully before he picked up his soda again, downed what was left of the contents in a couple of gulps and lobbed the empty container into the trashcan. "With an aim like that I'm wasted sitting anywhere but the cockpit of a Highlander."

"You'll be lucky if they let you command a Burke, Lieutenant" a voice from behind interrupted his thoughts. "Remain seated, that's exactly where your ass is supposed to be located" it continued when Carmichael started to rise.

"Major Heath" Carmichael greeted the woman that was his temporary CO while on this, hopefully also temporary, assignment. She had an office down the corridor and spent most of her time reviewing paperwork which likely explained why she often looked on the verge of emptying her service-pistol into the next person that failed to return a request for leave in triplicate. She now stood in the doorway to the Monitoring Station with a soda of her own in her hand, also the lemonade because it really was the best thing in the vending machine.

"Having fun Lieutenant?" Heath asked wryly.

"Yes Ma'am" Carmichael replied.

"Strange, it doesn't mention a masochistic streak on your psyche profile" Heath responded. "I've spent a good few hours in the chair myself, makes you totally reassess your definition of what it is to be bored out of your skull."

"Far be it from me to disagree with a superior officer Ma'am" Carmichael replied flatly. "I've got to ask, why not just get a damn computer to do this job instead?"

"One was supposed to be delivered from Tau Ceti just before the New Vandenberg Uprising began back in '65 and because of that it never got here" Heath explained.

"Then why not just make our own?" Carmichael asked reasonably. Despite being way out in the Periphery, beyond the accepted boundary of the Inner Sphere, Niops wasn't a primitive, barely developed low-tech backwater. They could still make things that were increasingly considered lostech elsewhere, thanks to all the fighting and economic disruption.

Heath shrugged. "Always something higher priority for the Project Workshops and there's always an extra body available to put in the chair in the meantime" she told him. "If nothing important goes wrong and needs replacement parts from the Workshops for a couple of years I guess they'll make us one, but don't get your hopes up."

"If I'm still here in a couple of weeks I'll be considering resigning my commission" Carmichael told her, not entirely in jest. "Why don't they just rotate this duty?"

"Because there's also usually a few people that are either no use for anything else or have done something deserving of punishment" Heath replied. "Assuming you're one of the latter group I also assume you won't do whatever it was again."

"I don't know what I did" Carmichael replied honestly.

"Then it's likely that after you've eventually escaped this tedium that I'll be seeing you again" Heath told him, the seldom-seen smile that had now appeared on her face demonstrating that his personal purgatory had brightened up her whole day. "See you in an hour to make sure you haven't fallen asleep or put your gun in your mouth" she told him. "Have fun Lieutenant" she added with a chuckle as she walked off.

"I await your next visit with joyful expectation Major" Carmichael replied sardonically.

"That sarcasm might be the reason you're in the chair Lieutenant" Heath called back.

Carmichael blinked. Crap, she might be right, he thought to himself, assembling a mental list of higher ranked officers he might have sassed recently.

Before he could think of a third name for the list the central computer screen lit up followed by the other two as numbers and text started to scroll upwards. "Oh shit!" Carmichael quietly swore as the sensors reported an emergence wave at the Zenith point. "MAJOR WE HAVE AN INBOUND JUMPSHIP" he called out as he began to run through the checklist of what to do.

"This had better not be you yanking my chain Lieutenant" Heath replied tersely, shortly before she stuck her head back around the empty doorway. "Guess not" she continued in surprise as she saw what was on the screens and stepped inside to stand over him. "Bring an optical telescope to bear" she ordered. "The star-gazers won't like us re-directing one of their precious orbitals but it's not like the stars won't be there to look at tomorrow."

"Already on it Ma'am" Carmichael replied, taking remote control of not only one of the dropship-sized telescopes orbiting Niops VII but also sending an alert to all NAM installations of the inbound ship. At least the fighter-jocks would have some fun, getting ready to make an interception if necessary.

One of the inexplicably weird things about the Kearny-Fuchida jumpdrive was that it was demonstrably provable that the emergence wave of a jump actually started to form at the destination before the incoming vessel made the jump. This meant that in one sense Carmichael knew about the jumpship having made a successful jump before it's crew even did.

It was often said that if you kept too strong a mental grip on the basic principle of causality then the K-F equations were going to be beyond you because effect demonstrably preceded cause.

Somewhat less weird was that the power of the detectible emergence wave correlated to the mass of the inbound jumpship, and how far it had jumped. This gave you the opportunity to guess what might be on the way before it appeared. Based on the readings Carmichael was looking at it could be a massive Monolith transport jumping ten light years, but it would be far more likely to be a smaller Invader jumping the safe maximum of thirty.

Thanks to the distances concerned what they were looking at had actually happened minutes earlier, the standard jump-points being located hundreds of millions or even billions of kilometres from the star because jumping in anywhere close to a gravity well was dangerous to the point of being suicidal. When you're dealing with literally astronomical distances light moved inconveniently slow and you spent a lot of time looking into the past even relatively locally.

"It's an Invader class" Carmichael noted, hardly a surprise because nearly half of all jumpships in the Inner Sphere were Invaders. Despite the menacing name they were actually just civilian transports, although that didn't mean the three dropships she was carrying weren't full of people with guns and hostile intent.

The image of the Invader appeared on one of the screens and most planetary defence forces would kill for a telescope with a resolution which could make a ship that far away look so sharp and clear. One benefit of being a colony originally built for astronomers and astrophysicists was that sensors designed for scientific research worked pretty well in a military application too.

"Incoming tight-beam radio transmission from our guest. Looks like Niops Recognition Codes" Carmichael reported. "Really, really old ones. Also we're receiving a follow-up hail from a Captain Simon Mitchell… isn't that the retired SLDF Navy guy that showed up last year to see if anyone had nuked us yet?"

Heath laughed. "Yeah, that's him" she confirmed. "I was on duty when he jumped in broadcasting codes we hadn't used since before Amaris" she recalled. "I mean they weren't valid but it made us curious enough to ask how the hell he had them."

"Turned out he used to deliver cargo to Niops before the war right?" Carmichael remembered seeing that on the holovision news. That sort of thing was a big story in a system like Niops where, unlike most of the Inner Sphere, the newscasters weren't reporting how many towns and cities were blasted to rubble that day.

"Yep, basically said it was nice to see we were still here and then asked if Niops was open to accepting refugees from the Terran Hegemony if he could find any" Heath recalled. "The High Associator eventually sent a reply saying we had already taken in more refugees than we could easily handle, but if they were from the former Hegemony worlds we could take a few, as long as they had at least one person with useful technical or scientific skills per family anyway."

Carmichael nodded. "Already got all those Capellans that turned up before I was born to handle the unskilled labour I guess" he observed. It was the arrival of those refugees fleeing the Succession War, bearing personal accounts of the immense scale of the destruction being wrought, that had convinced Niops to remain isolationist and firmly off the grid. Weirdly enough the Capellans were only too enthused to being taken in, despite not being accorded full citizenship rights by the Hegemony descended majority population who were suspicious of outsiders. It turned out they were just happy to get any rights at all, because for most of them that in itself was a big step-up compared to back home.

"We're receiving a follow-up communication from the jumpship, still text only" Carmichael announced. "Message reads: 'Hope the invite still stands, sorry about interpreting it a little broadly but it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. Also, we've been looking and we can't find anywhere else to go'."

"What the hell do you think he means by that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine Ma'am, probably better, you know the guy and I don't" Carmichael replied with a shrug. "Wait a second, I'm detecting additional emergence waves appearing at the Zenith and Nadir points" he stated, managing to keep his tone level and professional. "We have a large number of inbound jumpships and if they're all arriving from the same system he did then some of them are very, very large."

"Define large"

"Like that ****** Black Lion Class battlecruiser that just jumped in… and a Texas Class Battleship…and now a freaking McKenna!" Carmichael exclaimed. "Detection System is also showing multiple transport jumpships now appearing, plus additional warship contacts including at least one more cruiser and several destroyers" he reported then frowned. "This isn't some training simulation you organised to rag on the new guy is it Ma'am?" thinking he should ask just to be sure.

"No" Heath replied flatly. "No, it is not."

"Now picking up IFF transponders, all vessels showing as belonging to the SLDF Eleventh Army" Carmichael told her, taking the Major at her word. "Do you think Kerensky's people have finally come back?" he asked, it had been over forty years since they vanished but much of the Inner Sphere had been expecting them to return ever since, likely in a bad mood when they saw what had happened to the Terran Hegemony in their absence.

"Who else could it be?" Major Heath replied reasonably, it wasn't like any of the Successor States could have fielded hardware like that even before they lost most of their fleets fighting each other. "I hope you're still keeping all other NAM installations sites appraised" she checked.

"Feeding them everything I have. Aerospace Fighter Command must be crapping themselves" Carmichael reasoned, imagining some poor fighter-jockey being told he might be scrambled to take on a fleet of warships and their own complements of aerospace fighters.

"I'll get on the horn personally to Brigadier Nellis from my office, if the ghost of First Lord Richard Cameron jumps in riding a magic unicorn yell out" Heath told him wryly, shaking her head in disbelief as to what was happening.

"Wait, we're receiving a communication from the battlecruiser. Vessel is claiming to be the SLS Michigan, message reads as coming from a Major-General Jenna Romanov of the 295th Battlemech Division and counter-signed by an Acting Major-General Franklin Hallis of the 331st. They're requesting permission to come down in a dropship to meet the High Associator and the ranking officer of the Niops Association Militia."

"Now I really need to talk to Nellis" Heath responded with a grimace before running out the door.

"I'll keep an eye out for the Spectral First Lord on the Unicorn, Ma'am" Carmichael called after her, grinning as he realised that he was going to have the best story to tell of anyone that had ever sat in this damn chair.



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Note from the Author:

This a a reboot of a story I had running over on Battletech Forums and which I realised was wasting its premise and the setting, this version should be inordinately better.

If the Battletech Universe is unfamiliar to you then to give you an idea it has been described as 'Game of Thrones with Big Stompy Robots'. After the fall of what was a powerful central government, one led by the Lord of a Great House, the other Great Houses fight over the scraps via any means at their disposal (armies, wealth, spies treachery). Pirates and Mercenaries are a common feature of this setting, the mass slaughter of civilians is common and there are even dragons you can ride (well on one world there are).

Battletech is not however 'Game of Thrones with Big Stompy Robots'. Battletech predates the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire being published by over a decade, so therefore in fact Game of Thrones is Battletech without Big Stompy Robots (and Tywin Lannister only wishes he was Hanse Davion of the Federated Suns).

That being established the year is now 2827. The Star League fell just over forty years ago, the Terran Hegemony was mostly destroyed by the Successor States fighting over who got to take the biggest chunk of it during the (First) Succession War that raged from 2786 to 2821, after General Aleksandr Kerensky led most of what was left of the Star League Defense Force off to places unknown after winning the Amaris Civil War, and out in the periphery near the edge of the Free Worlds League a tiny single-system polity called the Niops Association tries to ignore the rest of the Inner Sphere as it studies astronomy and astrophysics.

Founded by the Terran Hegemony under the auspices of the Star League as a self-sufficient and oversized scientific research project, one intended for a multi-generational study of stellar evolution, Niops survived the Amaris Civil War and the Succession War by making sure not to get noticed in all the commotion. This worked so well that they ended up practically all what was left of the Star League (and the Terran Hegemony) and didn't suffer the catastrophic fall in their tech-base that most everyone else did (it helped that they had a weirdly disproportionate number of very smart people to start with).

In canon the Association continued on like this right through the Second and Third Succession Wars as well, but in canon a ships jumpdrive failed later than it does here in this AU (all will be explained later, it makes sense, honest). As a result of this mechanical fault a certain group has to take a detour which ultimately results in them running into another group... and well the 295th Battlemech Division under Major-General Jenna Romanov and the 331st Royal Battlemech Division under Acting Major-General Franklin Hallis turn up at Niops looking for a new home, and with a few ideas and plans about the future.

Screw the Roman cosplayers of the Marian Hegemony, all those worlds are rightful Niops Association Hegemony clay!

[Cannonshop]

ahem,

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[insert expression of enthusiastic joy at a new Hotpoint story!!!]

[Hotpoint]

I give you the Niops planetary system, which I shamelessly borrowed much of from the real-life TRAPPIST-1 star system. TRAPPIST is also a Red Dwarf star with three worlds in the Goldilocks Zone (not too hot and not too cold) but because it's a M8V Class Star (instead of a somewhat larger, and warmer M5V like Niops) the Goldilocks Zone there is the 4th, 5th and 6th planets rather than the 5th, 6th and 7th for our own subject.

I've reordered a few of the planets in their orbits to better suit Niops as well, and tweaked some things on occasion, but it works pretty well I'd say.



All the planets are tidally locked to the star except for Niops VII because it's the furthest out. This helps explain why the majority of the population of the Niops Association live on the coldest of the three inhabitable worlds in their system (tidally locked worlds with oceans and an atmosphere enjoy extreme weather as a result).

Niops I, II & III are hot as hell (Niops is only a Red Dwarf but they orbit really close to it). Niops IV is similar to Venus (thick, toxic atmosphere), V, VI & VII are inhabitable but only VII is really hospitable (it's cold but it doesn't have rainfall in some places that resembles a waterfall more than it does a storm).

[DOC_Agren]

1 ping only

[David CGB]

More please

[snakespinner]

Great start, looking forward to this. :beer:

[cawest]

GREAT TO SEE YOU BACK!!

"Battletech is not however 'Game of Thrones with Big Stompy Robots'. Battletech predates the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire being published by over a decade, so therefore in fact Game of Thrones is Battletech without Big Stompy Robots (and Tywin Lannister only wishes he was Hanse Davion of the Federated Suns)."


i flew my soda all over the table.  that is soooo perfect. 

[Daryk]

Cool!  Cannonshop's enthusiasm alone is enough for me to follow this further, though I'll say I'd have watched it without a post aside from that...  :thumbsup:

[Blade4]

Wolverines and a second group that otherwise would have died out and at Niops hopefully in time to balance out their xenophobic isolationist scientist ways. Yeah this could get interesting very fast.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Definitely enjoying this so far.  Should be fun to see how the two cultures end up meshing.

Wolverines and a second group that otherwise would have died out and at Niops hopefully in time to balance out their xenophobic isolationist scientist ways. Yeah this could get interesting very fast.

Niops isn't exactly xenophobic at this point in history.  Isolationist, sure, but that's not surprising for a tiny high-tech enclave in the midst of the First and Second Succession Wars.

Where Niops become xenophobic is after the Jihad, where mercenaries they hired worked with one of the locals to try to overthrow the government, where the Marian Hegemony harmed their industrial infrastructure, and where the Word of Blake then went nuke-happy on them, resulting in Niops basically resembling the Fallout series for a good 60-80 years, during which the Free Worlds League and Republic of the Sphere both did their best to exploit them in the name of "stablizing" them, which, as we note, they didn't really succeed at.

Even then, though, what's Niops mainly up to these days?  Mining germanium and splitting profits with Interstellar Expeditions.  That's not exactly xenophobic.

[Dave Talley]

Tag

[Mister Spencer]

Taking another route to RotN? Now with Wolverines + 1?

Target locked.

[mikecj]

Nice premise and a strong start!  Thanks for sharing.

[Hotpoint]

Part II

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"Buffalo Meadows orbited a red dwarf as well, so settling down on Niops VII felt almost like coming home. Better food here though, and a lot more kids running around."

Commodore Sarah Mbeki - 2830 CE 

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Robert H Goddard Spaceport (Niops VII) - Niops Association – 2827

Standing beside the small vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft that had delivered him to the edge of the massive landing pad, the Goddard spaceport having been constructed decades before from a mix of reinforced concrete, fused black stone and some skilled civil-engineering, High Associator Giles Olson squeezed his eyes shut and steadied his breathing. He had always known this day would come, though he expected it would be the military of the Free Worlds League that he or his successors would be facing when it did, but that certainly didn't make it any easier.

Once belonging to the militia, the Vector VTOL which had picked him up from his home in the capital and then flew him the fifteen kilometres out to the port had been nicknamed 'Bureaucrat One' many years before and the moniker stuck. Painted blue and bearing the crest of the office of the High Associator, the VTOL's nickname was itself a reminder of how a position that was once just that of the director of a long-term research project had only become that of a Head-of-State due to external factors beyond their control.

This sort of thing was really beyond the pay-grade of a radio-astronomer who had only really turned to politics because his wife pushed him into it, Olson thought to himself glumly.

Another VTOL, also a Vector but this one still painted in its original NAM colours rested beside 'Bureaucrat One', having arrived slightly earlier bringing Brigadier-General Nellis, the ranking officer of the militia, with it. The other Vector was also armed, unlike Olson's own, though what little firepower it boasted was utterly dwarfed by what was heading their way.

"It's a Lee Class military dropship, pretty much state-of-the-art just before Amaris sent the Star League spinning straight to hell" Brigadier-General Nellis observed professionally as the massive craft they were there to greet began its final descent high overhead. "Seventeen thousand tons, armed to the teeth and it could be carrying a full battalion of mechs plus a squadron of aerospace fighters aboard" he told Olson sounding almost blasé about it all. "Much bigger than anything we've got, armed or not."

Because of the ongoing need to transfer goods and people around the system the Niops Association had maintained a small number of dropships of varying types themselves over the years, a couple of which could be seen resting on the pad nearby. With the notable exception of a single old Confederate the militia used to shuffle war-machines between Niops V, VI and VII, none were of a military nature however and that one exception was pretty small, massing less than two-thousand tons.

"I'm more concerned about that warship that escorted it here from the jump-point, the one that's in geosynchronous orbit above us" Olson replied, opening his eyes again and pointing to the sky.

Nellis chuckled mirthlessly. "It's only a corvette, if they were really trying to scare the crap out of us it would be a battleship aiming Heavy Naval PPC's down at the capital, Sir" he said fatalistically. "As per your orders I made sure to have every bird we have either in orbit or ready to scramble, carrying all the heavy ordinance we could hang off them, just to make sure our guests know they can't foist just any terms they want on us" he informed the High Associator.

"I assume you also re-deployed our ground forces away from civilian areas as instructed?" Olson checked. "I'm hoping these people aren't savages like the Mariks were at New Dallas, but in case they are I don't want nuclear bombs dropping on our towns because there's a few soldiers there too."

"Yes Sir, all our battlemechs, tanks and infantry are now dug-in at least fifteen kilometers from what few urban centres we have." Nellis confirmed. Even in a system like Niops, where the standard stellar jump-points were only a couple of days journey by dropship to the inhabited planets, that still gave the defender plenty of time to prepare. Of course, hostile forces often preferred jumping in to so-called 'Pirate Jump Points' for that exact reason since arriving at a lagrange point much closer to your objective did made for a somewhat riskier jump, but also an easier fight planetside since the defenders had considerably less time to prepare a warm welcome.

"Not that we could defend the towns anyway, given how few battlemechs and tanks we actually have" Olson remarked sadly.

"Urban warfare favours the defending side, but you're still correct in this instance, Sir" Nellis concurred. "On a more positive note we've also rigged the Project Workshops on all three worlds with explosives, so you can threaten to blow them up if you need to play hard-ball in negotiations" he added.

The High Associator nodded. The Project Workshops, bespoke manufacturing facilities that could reproduce near any piece of machinery or circuitry, were in some ways the technological crown jewels of the Niops Association. They had made it possible to maintain the system's high tech-base and standard of living despite being cut-off from any possible resupply of equipment. They had even produced the majority of the handful of Highlander and Black Knight battlemechs which represented the main striking power of the NAM's ground forces.

Mass production was not something a Project Workshop were optimised for, however. In that role they were far inferior to even the assembly lines of the Successor States, let alone the slick automated robot factories of the former Terran Hegemony. That being said however, while they couldn't make anything in quantity quick or efficiently they could however make you most anything, just as long as they had the schematics for it, or an example to reverse-engineer.

If you wanted a gauss rifle for a Highlander, a new fusion engine for a cargo dropship, a replacement radio-telescope or a complex part for a Hyperpulse Generator then a Project Workship could make it for you. If however you needed a hundred of any of them you'd better be prepared to wait a good long while because it was, in effect, extremely high-tech artisanal production that was partially hand-built.

High Associator Olson suddenly laughed causing Brigadier Nellis to regard him quizzically. "Something strike you as funny, Sir?" Nellis asked wondering what that could possibly be under the circumstances.

"It just occurred to me that I should have listened to that maniac that wanted to build a few nuclear devices to crack asteroids for mining" Olson explained his laughter. "They would have come in handy right now to improve our negotiating position."

"Or just the knowledge they existed could have gotten us glassed from orbit unless we had scores of them plus effective delivery systems" Nellis suggested just before the deafening sound generated by the fusion engines of the dropship coming into land made continuing the conversation impossible for now.

Olson and Nellis covered their ears with their hands as the landing gear of the massive spheroid spacecraft deployed and with engines being smoothly throttled back, so as not to completely scorch the surface of the landing pad, the Lee class dropship set down as gently as seventeen thousand tons worth of metal, plastic, glass and ceramics actually could.

"Think I should wave a white flag?" Olson asked, both of them uncovering their ears as the engines shut down completely. "I've got a handkerchief in my pocket."

"I doubt they think we're coming here expecting them to surrender so it's rather a moot point Sir" Nellis replied wryly as one of the battlemech-sized hatches on the dropship began to open and an unloading ramp started to slide down.

"I should have stayed in radio-astronomy" Olson muttered to himself, setting off towards the ramp with Nellis beside him.

"If it makes you feel better, if they decide to vaporise us on a whim with one of those big Particle Projector Cannon mounts I've got a battery of artillery set up and ranged in that will unload a whole heap of shells on them in response" Nellis told him.

"I'm sure the expanding cloud of hot gas that was once me will be very pleased about that" High Associator Olson replied sardonically.

"My cloud will be" Brigadier Nellis responded rather more brightly, sounding sincere enough about it that Olson seriously doubted the man's sanity.

By the time they reached the dropship four figures, three male one female, had already descended the ramp, all wearing SLDF uniforms, two of them in army fatigues and the other two in the jumpsuits favoured by the navy.

"I feel overdressed" Nellis quipped since he himself was wearing his dress uniform, although it was at least the same colour as their army fatigues, the standard olive drab of the Star League military which looked even more dull than normal given how bright, or rather dim, the local star was.

If a young child on Niops was told by their parents not to look directly at the sun a reply of 'Why not' was not an unreasonable response. It was some of the fluorescent fittings inside that could hurt your eyes, particularly in brightly lit laboratories, workshops and efficient hydroponic farms.

One of the two men wearing white navy jumpsuits stepped ahead of the others. "High Associator Olson?" he queried.

"I am" Olson confirmed.

"Nice to finally meet you in the flesh, we've only conversed via radio before, and then with a delay" the man told him, smiling. "I'm Captain Simon Mitchell, not quite as retired from the Star League Navy as I made out to be when I jumped into Niops last year."

"Apparently not" Olson replied drily.

"Apologies for the minor deceit there but I'm sure you can see why it was necessary now" Mitchell continued unabashed. "It's even colder here than I remembered it being, of course I'm a few years older now so that could be the problem" he admitted. "Town's grown a lot too, got a good look dropping in from orbit."

"You can ramble later, just get on with it please Captain" the only woman in the group spoke up impatiently.

"Damn kids have no respect these days either" Mitchell complained, grinning.

"I'm eighty-nine" the woman retorted.

"And I'm a hundred and seven so the point stands Ma'am" Mitchell replied, smirking

"Mitchell" the other man wearing a naval jumpship chided with a distinct edge to his tone.

Mitchell straightened up. "Sorry Admiral" he responded, abashed. "Ahem" he cleared his throat. "High Associator Olson may I present our ranking commanding officer, Major-General Jenna Romanov" he formally introduced the woman who now stepped forward herself.

"I apologise for Captain Michell's irreverence, I'm afraid he's long past the point in his career that he takes protocol seriously and long past the age where threatening him with a firing squad isn't an exercise in futility" Romanov said with a resigned sigh. "May I present my senior staff, Acting Major-General Franklin Hallis and Admiral Zoltán Bremman."

Olson acknowledged them with a nod to each. "My military advisor and head of the Niops Association Militia, Brigadier-General Craig Nellis" Olson introduced his own companion in turn.

"Major-General" Nellis recognised Romanov's rank with a salute that she returned.

"Nice to see you're still wearing SLDF colours here Brigadier-General Nellis" Romanov observed. "Sorry I don't still have my own dress-uniform but it got recycled years ago" she said. "We should get onto business I suppose" she continued, looking back to Olson.

"I confess I'm dying to ask what brought you here, where you've been all this time and why you're back now, but that can all wait for the moment, Major-General Romanov" Olson addressed her, cutting to the chase. "What terms are you offering?" he asked flatly. "Please bear in mind that Niops is not undefended and we all fully prepared to destroy our own most valuable facilities to prevent them falling into hostile hands intact."

"Terms?" Romanov queried.

"The terms you wish to dictate for our surrender" Olson explained, wondering why he had to.

Romanov suddenly burst out laughing causing Bremman and Mitchell to do so as well, for his part Hallis just smiled.

"Something strike you as funny?" Olson wanted to know, realising he was now in the position Nellis had been not so long ago in not getting what seemed to be a private joke.

"Yes, I'm afraid you've really gotten the wrong end of the stick here, High Associator" Romanov told him once she managed to stop laughing. "We've been poking around the Inner Sphere for nearly two years looking for what's left of the Star League, or rather the Terran Hegemony, and you appear to be the only part left that isn't near-utterly destroyed or else under foreign occupation" she told him. "You've also continued to govern yourselves as a civilian administration within the bounds of the Hegemony legal system, making you de-facto, and arguably de-jure, the Terran-Hegemony-in-Exile, whether or not you've ever really thought of yourselves that way."

Olson looked confused by the way this seemed to be going. "What are you saying exactly?"

"That we've concluded that, by default, the Government of the Niops Association is effectively the Government of the Terran Hegemony and therefore the High Associator, that being you in this instance, is also the Director-General."

"I'm sorry?" Olson replied, nonplussed.

"Perhaps this will clear things up" Romanov replied, giving Mitchell a nod.

"Atten-hut" Mitchell said loudly, himself and the others snapping to attention. "Present arms" he continued, all four of the SLDF officers then saluting.

Saluting Olson.

"Eleventh Army, Star League Defence Force reporting for duty, Director-General" Romanov addressed Olson formally. "With your permission we will start deploying aerospace and naval forces to help defend the system immediately, and in conjunction with Brigadier-General Nellis begin making plans to integrate our ground forces with those of the Niops Association Militia."

Olson stared at her for an extended period of time as his mind caught up. "Shouldn't you be trying to track down someone named Cameron?" he asked plaintively, taking them at their word for now.

"Amaris was a little too thorough unfortunately, the only ones left are very distant cousins" Romanov replied sadly. "The closest might be the Windsor-Camerons on Terra, but we suspect they'll be under the thrall of the damn phone company by now" she said. "A figurehead to rally around would be great, but not if they think the sun shines out of Jerome Blake's ass."

"This isn't some ploy or trick is it, get us to lower our guard then stomp us?" Olson asked, pretty reasonably he thought.

"No Sir" Romanov replied, shaking her head. "We'd like to stay, establish a new home here, but if you order us to leave and never come back we'll do so" she told him honestly. "I mean we could invade and take over but that would make us the kind of people we just don't want to be."

"Some of us have a recent history having to deal with a tyrannical ****** that thinks might makes right and he's not someone we care to emulate" Acting Major-General Franklin Hallis spoke up for the first time. "We do have some ideas for the future though Sir" he continued to Olson. "It would be a real shame to let all this starlift capacity and firepower go to waste, but that'll be your call."

"At least a half-dozen unclaimed systems with habitable planets within easy reach of here to antispinward" Admiral Bremman chipped in. "Only small existing populations for the most part, if any people at all, who could be swayed to accept protectorate status by the promise of jobs, protection from pirates and a generally higher standard of living."

"It's Free Real Estate" Hallis agreed, nodding enthusiastically. "We strongly advise it would be best to plant a flag there before the damn Mariks do, get a foothold we can develop into something with a big future and prevent Niops being surrounded by the Free Worlds League as well."

Now utterly dumbfounded Olson looked from one of them to the other trying to determine if this was all some bizarre dream, or else the most monumental practical joke played on anyone in the history of the Inner Sphere.

"Oh, there's one more thing I'd better mention as a matter of some priority" Hallis continued. "Captain Mitchell told us that when he was here originally, transporting cargo to and from Niops for the SLDF, back at the dawn of time when battlemechs ran on clockwork, you had something called a 'Project Workshop' that he got a tour of because there wasn't much else to do."

"Yes. Yes we do" Olson responded guardedly.

"And that it could make just about anything?" Romanov checked for herself.

Olson nodded. "Within certain limitations but broadly yes" he confirmed.

"Great because it would make it much easier if we could borrow it to make the replacement parts we need to fix our Potemkin Class and then use it to bring the rest of my division and its gear here" Romanov told him. "The alternative would be having to send all our available jumpships back to the Draconian Drift in order to collect them, instead of just one carrying spare-parts and a bunch of engineers and technicians to help speed up repairs."

Hallis nodded. "Even after getting their other ships running again after forty years, the ones which did have functioning jumpdrives I mean, we didn't have enough starlift between us to give all of the 295th a ride" he explained, "much less haul away all those battlemechs gathering dust out there" he continued sadly. "We can really use them too, hence wanting to go back quickly."

"How many battlemechs are we talking about?" Nellis queried, intrigued. He doubted it would be anything close to a full division's worth, not after the losses taken by the SLDF fighting against Amaris, but even a couple of battalions would represent a lot of striking power these days.

"Six regiments worth" Romanov told him. "Near pristine condition, completely wasted on some rock orbiting a red-dwarf in the periphery" she opined. "I mean a different rock, orbiting a different red dwarf in the periphery" she corrected herself for clarity.

Nellis raised his eyebrows. "You have six regiments worth of battlemechs?" he asked in shock.

"No, the 295th has six regiments, which is admittedly more than twice what my 331st can boast, but then again we do have better machines."

"Well yes, obviously. The 331st was a Royal Division" Nellis replied having made sure to brush up on them before the meeting. The 'Royal' commands of the SLDF were given upgraded equipment than regular line formations like the 295th.

"No, I mean well yes we do have a fair number of SLDF Royals as well, but I was referring to the new stuff, the gear that was developed after we followed Kerensky Senior off on his Exodus" Hallis told him. "Major-General Romanov's people missed out on all that."

"From what you've told us that seems like a blessing" Romanov interjected.

"I doubt you'd have gotten along well with Nicky K so yes" Hallis confirmed with considerable understatement.

Olson looked from one to the other. "Wait. Didn't you both come from the same place?" he queried, confused as ever.

"No, his people went with Kerensky when he left the Inner Sphere, my people tried to, but we were delayed in joining them before they set out" she explained. "We followed later, hoping to catch up" she continued. "Then one of our damn jumpships broke down only a few jumps out into the periphery and, because it was the Potemkin I mentioned before, and was carrying about two-thirds of our dropships, we had a choice of either settling down out in the wilderness or ferrying everyone back to the Inner Sphere a few at a time with what working ships we still had. Long story short, we settled down and played farmer for forty years until Hallis and his people ran into us while they were running away from Kerensky Junior."

"I'd prefer to call it a secession, or at least a tactical withdrawal, Ma'am" Hallis responded defensively.

"So would I in your shoes, but that doesn't mean I'd be right" Romanov told him, making Hallis wonder if she had always been cranky and mean-spirited sometimes or if that streak in her character had developed with age.

"Ironically the reason we ended up running into them was because one of our jumpships broke down heading in the opposite direction back to the Inner Sphere decades later" Admiral Bremman remarked. "It necessitated a major detour in our planned route that happened to put them in our path."

"Love the symmetry, but not necessarily the maintenance crews" Captain Mitchell joked before taking notice of the increasingly confused and clueless expression on the High Associator's face. The man was clearly trying to understand what they were all talking about without the benefit of decades of backstory to fill in the gaps. "It's all a long, convoluted tale of woe Sir, and if you're interested in hearing it all then you might want to start by inviting us to stay in your lovely star system" he told him, the old man putting on the most persuasive and winning smile he could, being very glad he still had all his teeth.

These being the teeth Mitchell was also lying through about the system being lovely. Beyond the cold, and despite how large the sun appeared in the sky above you, the eternally drab colour it painted everything was hardly conducive to lifting your spirits.

High Associator Olson once more squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath to steady himself. "What the hell" he said eventually. "Welcome to Niops where the sky is always red, the medical care hasn't yet degenerated to the level of boring holes in your head to let out the demons when you've got a headache, and the Chinese food is surprisingly good" he said. "I also recommend the sport-fishing in the ocean but try sunning yourself on the beach and you'll get frostbite not a tan" he warned as a sprinkling of snow started to fall from the sky.

"Eh, you should see some of the weather on Strana Mechty" Hallis replied with a shrug.


----------

Note from the Author:

The Niops Association only controls one system, but has people living on three different planets there. As such it must be able to move people, goods and machinery between them (including the battlemechs and aerospace fighters of the NAM) hence having spaceports and a few dropships for transport. The NAM has a Confederate of its very own but can borrow one of the civilian Mule dropships if necessary. The Mule is pretty big, over 11,000 tons, but that's still quite a bit smaller than an SLDF Lee.

The VTOL aircraft 'Bureaucrat One' is a Vector which the Star League produced in very large numbers (over ten thousand built so the NAM getting hold of a handful isn't implausible). It's armed and can carry an infantry platoon (or a politician).

The 331st Royal Battlemech Division of the SLDF under Major-General James McEvedy (father of Sarah McEvedy we will hear a lot more of later) followed Aleksandr Kerensky on his Exodus back in 2784. The 295th Battlemech Division under Major-General Jenna Romanov wanted to leave with Kerensky too but were delayed and arrived at the rendezvous point after the Exodus fleet had already left.  The 295th set out in pursuit, hoping to catch up, but their Potemkin Class Transport Cruiser broke down in the Draconian Drift only a short way into the journey. This was a very big problem because it was carrying some twenty-five dropships worth of personnel and equipment (the majority of the division).

The 295th ended up settling on Buffalo Meadows, an inhabitable planet itself orbiting a Red Dwarf. In canon they ended up dying out there because they weren't having enough children to sustain the colony in the long term (because the 295th recruited mainly from the Terran Hegemony, Romanov was trying to get the division back the 'Royal' status it used to have once again, most of them had lost their families in the Amaris Civil War).

The 331st, by way of morphing into Clan Wolverine (again we will hear a lot ore about that later), pulled a reverse Exodus in 2823 during which one of their jumpships broke down. In cannon this happened a little later than it does in this AU and resulted in most of them getting killed. Here, because it occurred a little earlier, it resulted in them having to take a detour that eventually saw them running across Buffalo Meadows (to the great surprise of all concerned).

Two divisions of what had been the 11th Army of the SLDF (the 331st was part of V Corps, the 295th in XLIX Corps) tripping over each other in the middle of nowhere because they both suffered jumpdrive failures (albeit forty years apart) is so improbable, yet so poetical, I just had to run with it.

Directly antispinward of Niops ('west' on a map of the Inner Sphere) can be found several habitable worlds that in original canon would eventually form the Marian Hegemony (founded in 2920 by a man that perhaps liked movies about Gladiators a little too much). We're currently a century before then so those worlds are still up for grabs... and well worth taking control of incidentally).

I'll leave you with an image of what the sky looks like on Niops VII (the image is actually an artists rendering of what the sky might look like on the exoplanet Kepler-1649c but since the star Kepler-1649 is an M5V Red Dwarf like Niops, and 1649c orbits about the same distance out from it as Niops VII does its own star, it should be a good representation).

[Daryk]

Fingers crossed they don't stomp the Lothians...  8)

[Derain Von Harken]

I find it hilarious that the high associator is made no less uncomfortable by the SLDF coming to swear fealty to him as he was the idea of surrendering to them. Maybe it was just switching gears too soon.

[Daryk]

The universe definitely moved faster than he was prepared for...  ^-^

[Artifex]

But hey, the man reacted with a certain amount of aplomb here.  8)

[Daryk]

He certainly did!  I hope he continues to hold it together...  :)

[Mister Spencer]

I foresee many changes in the near to mid-future, certainly as it relates to the Cappellan refugees. Specifically, that as Niops is basically the last remnant of the Hegemony, and they are, technically, also the last remnant of the Star League, that the Cappellans should be accorded full rights according to the rules of the Star League.

There's going to be a period of transition, as Niops expands, just to be able to house and feed all the new arrivals. And with the Succession Wars continuing, they'll have less to worry about outsiders finding out about them.

[Derain Von Harken]

But hey, the man reacted with a certain amount of aplomb here.  8)

I admit the closing line was rather nice. Especially the remark about frostbite from sunbathing.

Let's hope he keeps that poise when it comes time to explain how far off any reservation Kerensky junior went. (Although to be fair the situation they were in was so nuts as to make him appear less crazy relative to the circumstances)

[Giovanni Blasini]

"It's Free Real Estate"

I'll leave you with an image of what the sky looks like on Niops VII (the image is actually an artists rendering of what the sky might look like on the exoplanet Kepler-1649c but since the star Kepler-1649 is an M5V Red Dwarf like Niops, and 1649c orbits about the same distance out from it as Niops VII does its own star, it should be a good representation).

One of the things I did in my early Niops stories, which I should probably do again once i can get the cobwebs off my writing, is have Niopians wearing sunglasses any time they were outside during daytime on planets around G-type stars.

[Blade4]

The hard part will be integrating all these people and cultures together but if they can they have a very strong foundation. Quietly absorb the closest systems and build up Niop fast. Shipyards, factories, everything. Uses outer colonies for resources and future growth. Dont let anyone know they exist until they are in a position to actually defend themselves from incessant raids or invasions.

[nomad_345]

So, question, WHY don't the Niopians use the Project Workshops for building some of those Star League auto-factories? Or even some lower tech factories for, I dunno, computers, or anything else?

[Derain Von Harken]

Well for a start they are backed up making all the other things they need right now or in the near future. Something discussed in chapter One as to why someone had to sit at the tedious watch station instead of relying on a computer run automated system.

[Giovanni Blasini]

So, question, WHY don't the Niopians use the Project Workshops for building some of those Star League auto-factories? Or even some lower tech factories for, I dunno, computers, or anything else?

Because those factories are gigantic.  As noted in the first chapter:

If you wanted a gauss rifle for a Highlander, a new fusion engine for a cargo dropship, a replacement radio-telescope or a complex part for a Hyperpulse Generator then a Project Workship could make it for you. If however you needed a hundred of any of them you'd better be prepared to wait a good long while because it was, in effect, extremely high-tech artisanal production that was partially hand-built.

Now, imagine trying to build a Star League tech automated factory that takes raw ingredients in and spits out a finalized product, like a BattleMech.  That's going to be a massive series of facilities, having to make the various alloys that go into the armor layers, the components and alloys for the fusion reactor, the myriad of electronics components, computers, myomers, weapons and their components, etc.

To do that, the Project Workshop would have to first make the tools to make the machines to make the components and the tools to assemble the machines that assemble the components and the tools to make the machines that maintain the components of the factory, etc.  That's a massive undertaking, and it's no surprise that, in canon, the Niops Association was in no position to be able to do that.

[Hotpoint]

Because those factories are gigantic.  As noted in the first chapter:

Now, imagine trying to build a Star League tech automated factory that takes raw ingredients in and spits out a finalized product, like a BattleMech.  That's going to be a massive series of facilities, having to make the various alloys that go into the armor layers, the components and alloys for the fusion reactor, the myriad of electronics components, computers, myomers, weapons and their components, etc.

To do that, the Project Workshop would have to first make the tools to make the machines to make the components and the tools to assemble the machines that assemble the components and the tools to make the machines that maintain the components of the factory, etc.  That's a massive undertaking, and it's no surprise that, in canon, the Niops Association was in no position to be able to do that.

Yep. Niops was intended to be self-sufficient, not an industrial powerhouse with plenty of spare production capacity. It's also likely the arrival of the Capellan refugees fleeing the First Succession War at the end of the 28th Century put a serious strain on the economy, and having to provide infrastructure for them delayed an awful lot of stuff on the backlog for the Project Workshops.

Once they were established the additional workforce would have been a boon, but in the short-to-medium term a lot of things that ideally needed replacing before they broke down weren't (until they broke down completely, and had to be replaced).

It'll happen again with the SLDF turning up, although the 331st/295th have plenty of experience with starting new colonies completely from scratch so that helps a lot.

It's also worth keeping in mind this snippet from Betrayal of Ideals regarding the Wolverine's Switchback fleet:

"The Wolverines had been building new Models of Battlemechs and per Khan McEvedy's orders, Franklin had made sure that the design specifications and the tools used to make the new weapons and 'Mechs were already tucked aboard one of the warships. For the clans that tried to scour the factory floors, they would find nothing but smoking ruins. Frankin was hoping that some of the weapon systems could be built aboard ship, allowing some refitting of the 'Mechs that had made their escape."

They actually brought their factories and production-lines with them!

[Blade4]

And I am guessing in this iteration Nicholas could not catch up so they have their full fleet... Guess McEvedy died in the nuke attack instead being captured? Yeah that will be a huge help once they get those factories and workers settled somewhere and start producing spare parts and more mobile factories and industrial satellites to act as seed facilities.

Though dos bring up potential butterflies. Nicky torturing McEvedy for info was what let him catch up but it was also what let him figure out the Widomakers khan was playing him like a fiddle. So got to wonder how that plays out because between that and the Wolverine apparently making a clean break away Nicky was probably left in a very precarious situation.

[q1267]

Excellent start! Looking forward to reading more.

[Hotpoint]

Part III

----------

"Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance."

Sarah McEvedy, Khan of Clan Wolverine - 2823

----------

(FLASHBACK) SLS Michigan – Star System Gamma 12901 (On the Exodus Road) – 2824

Trish Ebon was still trying to get over the shock of being appointed saKhan and promoted to Star Colonel by Franklin Hallis, the man himself only having recently become Khan of the Wolverines with the death of Sarah McEvedy, and now she found herself having to disappoint him already. It was less than an hour since she had departed the Khan's flagship to join her new command, ferried over by a small shuttle-craft. "My apologies Khan Hallis" she began awkwardly, her image projected as a hologram from the bridge of her own ship, the SLS Bismark, onto the bridge of the Michigan. "I must report I am unable to perform the task you set for me at this time."

Hallis raised his eyebrows. "You don't feel you are qualified, query affirmative?" he asked, she had certainly seemed taken aback by the promotion.

"Negative" Trish responded, her holographic image shaking its head. "By which I mean I do believe I am qualified, it's just that your orders, taking my squadron of warships ahead of the main fleet to act as a picket line, relies on my having a ship with a lithium-fusion battery with which we can report back to you if we encounter vessels of the Kerensky loyalists" she explained.

"Trish, I mean saKhan Ebon, you do have such a vessel" Hallis pointed out, looking suitably confused since he was the one that chose the vessels assigned to her command. If equipped with an L-F battery a jumpship could perform two jumps before needing to spend a week recharging from its solar-sail or fusion reactor. This gave it the ability to jump into a system and then jump straight back if it ran into trouble, something the majority of vessels could not do.

"I have the Saratoga… but I have been informed by her captain and chief engineer that her jump-drive is FUBAR" she reported. "It was always… flaky, and needed coaxing to work, but the series of jumps we've undertaken since we left Clan space have put too much strain on it for the jury-rigged repairs made to keep her running."

Hallis groaned. "This is what you get for pulling old ships out of mothballs that haven't spent time in a repair yard since before we left the Inner Sphere" he muttered to himself.

"Her drive isn't slagged, so we can fix it, but if we rush the repairs then Saratoga's next jump could be the last she ever makes" Trish's projection told him.

"How long for repairs that'll get us back to the Inner Sphere?" Hallis asked.

"Well over a month before Saratoga can jump I am told, including recharging the drive once repairs are completed" Trish replied apologetically.

Hallis frowned. "And that is not just her chief engineer exaggerating so he can look good getting her working in half that time, query negative?" he checked.

The new saKhan and freshly minted Star Colonel shook her head. "Negative. Her jump-drive is in dire condition, and if we need her to be able to perform a double-jump with her Lithium-Fusion Battery we certainly do not want to cut corners on the repairs."

"We don't have a month to spare Trish" Hallis told her seriously.

"I know, but if we leave her behind we have to leave the dropships and aerospace fighters she is carrying behind too" Trish pointed out. "Not to mention the seventy-thousand tons of supplies and equipment in her hold."

"We can transfer some of the contents in her hold to other ships, but you are right about her dropships, every other ship already has their docking collars fully occupied" Khan Hallis replied gloomily.

"There is one other option" Trish told him. "If we can borrow a couple of dozen of the best engineers and jump-drive technicians from the rest of the fleet, and can also obtain any spare parts we might need from other ships, we can get Saratoga running reliably in half the time, maybe even less" she told him. "

Khan Franklin Hallis pursed his lips, that sounded a more reasonable proposition but perhaps he could do better. "What if I sent you a hundred pairs of extra hands?" he suggested instead.

"They would just get in each other's way, it's the law of diminishing returns unfortunately" Trish replied. "If for some reason we find we do need more of the technician caste, I mean more engineers" she corrected her terminology as the caste system had been officially abolished, "we can ask for them at that point."

"I thought it was too much to hope for" Hallis replied sadly. "Well, I couldn't give you a month, but I can give you two weeks, and if we're going to stay here longer than expected we can perform some less vital but nonetheless worthwhile and overdue maintenance on the other ships as well" he reasoned, making his decision. "I know everyone is itchy to get off the ships and taste some fresh air and fresh food, but our layover at Barbados can wait a little longer."

"The Saratoga will be a very useful part of our Touman when we reach the Inner Sphere" Trish opined. "That's why we chose to bring her along in the first place. I'm glad we're going to keep her on that basis alone" she added. As a Riga II class carrier/destroyer the Saratoga was a generalist rather than a specialist warship, with less firepower than some other destroyer classes, but nevertheless more armour than most to keep her in the fight if she did ever have to join the line-of-battle. Her real offensive power came in the form of her internal fighter-bays, large enough to carry a full wing of aerospace fighters, along with a cargo-hold large enough to keep them supplied for an extended period.

That the Riga II was also fitted with a Lithium-Fusion Battery as built, giving her excellent strategic mobility, and, unlike most destroyers, could haul a couple of dropships along with her only added to her utility.

"Send out your requests for personnel, I'll make sure the entire fleet gives you their full cooperation, saKhan Ebon" Hallis instructed her. "I will also notify them that we are staying here a while. Keep me posted on how the repairs to Saratoga are going. Wolverine Actual out."

"Yes Sir. Bismark out."

"Well, we all thought it was going too well so far did we not, query affirmative?" Hallis asked the bridge crew who had been listening in, his question answered by a chorus of 'Affs' and 'Affirmatives' depending on which style the crewmen concerned favoured. Kerensky had been pushing his desired changes to the speech patterns of his clans for some years now, but it was still a process very much in transition. Many older people in particular could not readily re-learn how to speak naturally, avoiding the use of contractions except for certain ritual ones, and it often made for halting, less than fluid conversations. Franklin Hallis himself knew he slipped back and forth between saying 'don't' and the preferred 'do not' more than the younger generation raised on the Clan Homeworlds did, not that it likely mattered anymore anyway.

Hallis turned to the communications officer. "Notify every ship in the fleet of the situation, and that I want them to carry out an urgent inspection of their own jump-drives so we don't have to do this all over again another dozen jumps down the Exodus Road" he ordered.

Despite reinforcing their warship complement from the Norfolk and San Diego boneyards, the mothballed fleets that dated from the First Exodus under Kerensky's father, the large majority of the Wolverine vessels floating out there were civilian transports. Invader, Star Lord, and Monolith class jumpships carrying dropships full of civilians and supplies. The civilians had been cooped up a while now, spending most of their time floating in zero gee on the dropships because the grav-decks of the jumpships they were docked to could only handle so many people at once, making it necessary to take turns on them. They were getting cranky, losing muscle tone, and a diet bereft of fresh food was bad for morale even if they weren't starving. As such Hallis could only hope the news that they weren't going to make landfall on a habitable world with edible fruits and vegetables as soon as expected wasn't going to be received too badly.

As the new orders were transmitted out Hallis sighed with resignation. To be honest it really had been going very well despite a few cranky civilians, at least since the unexpected nuclear conflagration that had seen both the Wolverine capital city of Great Hope, and the Snow Raven capital of Dehra Dun, bathed in atomic fire. If he had to guess, Khan Hallis would have pinned the blame for the destruction of Great Hope on that conniving rodent Jason Karrige, Khan of the Widowmakers, but it might have been Kerensky himself. As for Dehra Dunn he knew full well what had happened there, an aerospace fighter carrying a nuclear strike package, one belonging to the Snow Ravens themselves, had been shot down over their own city when it was dispatched to strike a Wolverine target.

The Snow Ravens had thought the Wolverines had destroyed Great Hope, so as to prevent it falling into enemy hands, although if they had been aware Sarah McEvedy was still within the city limits at the time, helping to evacuate civilians to dropships waiting to ferry them to the Switchback fleet, they might have reached a different, and more accurate, conclusion. Sarah McEvedy was arguably obstinate and rebellious, but she wasn't insane or suicidal.

Hallis doubted that the other clans would be told what had actually occurred, even though if they gave it any thought whatsoever, they would realise that if the Wolverines had escalated to WMD they wouldn't have just used a couple of them, not given how outnumbered they were.

Not that Khan Sarah McEvedy had ever entertained the nuclear option anyway. Clan Wolverine just wanted to get away, doing something that would ensure they were hunted down until the end of time was self-evidently not in their best interests.

"We are going to start running out of fresh water at some point" Hallis noted, looking to his aide. "I know we were going to resupply at Bermuda, and we still will, but in case something like this happens again later we should go ahead with putting together that improvised J-U Water Purifier that was suggested to me. That way in future we can be less fussy about where we collect our water from in future, and maybe ramp up hydroponic production on the Invaders too so we don't get scurvy" he continued, not entirely seriously as the ration-packs they were living on were fortified with vitamins to prevent that sort of thing. "Can you look into that as a matter of priority."

"Yes, My Khan" the junior officer replied formally, bowing slightly.

Hallis had barely gotten used to being treated with a certain amount of deference as saKhan, second in the clan's social order, after the death in battle of the previous saKhan Dwight Robertson. With the subsequent death of Khan Sarah McEvedy now he was the one everyone looked to and all he could do was try and pretend he wasn't mostly just following the written instructions Sarah left him.

"Nothing wrong with scurvy, Khan Hallis." Captain Brentjes, commanding officer of the Michigan observed from his own command chair. "There is a fine, long naval tradition to feeling deathly ill and having your teeth fall out before you die painfully from a vitamin deficiency" he joked.

"Other naval traditions include keelhauling and lashing men with the cat o' nine tails and I'd soon as not bring them back either" Hallis replied. "Unless we somehow capture a few Widowmakers, or perhaps Old Nick himself" he added to some laughter from the bridge crew as he decided Sarah would have liked that line too. Referring to ilKhan Nicholas Kerensky as 'Old Nick', a once common epithet for the devil, was really starting to catch on in the fleet of late. That or calling him 'Nicky K' because he would absolute hate being referred to so informally.

It was such a shame Sarah hadn't made it off Circe so she could have seen her plans for Operation Switchback working as intended. Using Nicky K's ego against him she knew that as soon as the Wolverine fleet made good their escape from Clan space he would gather as many operational warships as he could, leaving barely enough to defend the Clan Homeworlds in case the Wolverines double-backed, and would go charging after them hell-for-leather.

Realising this Sarah had outwitted her opponent and as part of her plans had issued instructions for the Wolverines not to set out for the Inner Sphere right away, but instead to hide in an uncharted system a handful of jumps out from home and a couple of jumps off to the side of the Exodus Road. After giving the other clans a few weeks lead to get far ahead of them along the known and charted route back to the Inner Sphere, Nicholas surely intent on chasing down his quarry before it could reach safety, the Wolverine fleet simply started following on behind, generally feeling pretty pleased with themselves for bamboozling the schmuck.

Franklin Hallis knew it was working because as they followed on behind they kept finding the refuse Nicky's fleet had dumped as it went, still well ahead of the people they thought they were chasing. Hallis only wished he could be there to see Kerensky's expression when the clans eventually reached the edge of the Inner Sphere, only to find a distinct lack of Wolverines to murder and indeed no sign of them whatsoever.

Ideally by the time Old Nick realised what had happened the Wolverines would have veered way off the Exodus Road, now being close enough to the Inner Sphere to not need to stop for resupply again, and then the Wolverines would vanish off the face of the galaxy.

Until the time came to put things right at least.

"All ships except the transport Dobrev have confirmed receipt of the new orders Khan Hallis" the communications officer reported. "They may have a problem with their communications."

Hallis nodded. "If you do not get a reply from them soon tell the closest vessel to them to send over a shuttlecraft to investigate, that might be something else that needs fixing as a priority. Additionally, since we are going to be here a while, check with Buccaneer if there is anything they can do to increase production of replacement weaponry and spare parts" he ordered.

The Buccaneer, a Sovetskii Soyuz class Heavy Cruiser, could not only carry five dropships along with her she also had a cavernous internal cargo hold, one large enough to haul an additional two-hundred thousand tons of goods or equipment. For this reason she had been assigned the task of hauling what had been the tooling, plant and machinery of the clan's armaments factories so the Wolverines would not have to start again from scratch when they reached their final destination.

The first enemy clan to overrun the factory complex on Circe where the Wolverines had produced their war-machines was going to be very disappointed to find nothing but the burned-out shells of buildings, utterly bereft of anything useful. Franklin Hallis decided that Kerensky would probably have most of his spies shot for not only having failed to notice the Wolverines stealing multiple warships and jumpships out from under their nose, but for somehow even missing entire production lines being dissembled and carted off before hostilities began.

The vaunted 'Watch', Kerensky's newly-formed Intelligence Agency, clearly required laser-eye-surgery or corrective lenses because that went beyond sloppy to being an example of complete ineptitude.

Given the need to repair and refit 'mechs and aerospace fighters damaged during the clans fighting withdrawal the personnel aboard Buccaneer, which included most of the factory workers, had managed to cobble together a couple of basic production lines aboard her for producing various equipment. The production rate was slow, and the meagre raw materials at hand wouldn't last forever either, but at least they could get a few more machines ready for battle in case they were needed anytime soon.

The thing that really burned was that given a few more years to ramp up new battlemech production, and further modernise the older war machines they already had, the Wolverines would have been able to put up so much of a fight the other clans might not have even dared to cross them. On the other hand, that was likely one of the reasons Kerensky made his move when he did, Hallis realised.

In retrospect it was obvious that at some point the ilKhan was going to have to make an example of someone in order to keep a lid on dissent, and Clan Wolverine was the obvious choice. It wasn't just that we kept putting our heads above the parapet by playing fast and loose with Kerensky's rules, Hallis considered, it was the more egregious offence of outperforming the other clans by doing so.

When Nicholas Kerensky had led his disparate band of supporters on a Second Exodus from the war-torn Pentagon Worlds, those his father had settled as the Star-League-in-Exile, to the more distant colony of Strana Mechty, it was always with the intention to return, restore order and bring them back under control. Specifically, his own control and with a very particular definition of 'order'.

The formation of the Clans had essentially been a massive social engineering project intended to achieve that very goal. The competition fostered between the twenty clans aimed at a kind of guided Darwinian selection that would hone the skills of his warriors and spur the scientists, engineers and technicians to create ever-better weapons. The Clans never had the numbers to squander men or machines however, so the rules of the society put strict limits on just how many losses were deemed acceptable before one side or the other in a dispute was supposed to fold. That necessitated a return to the ancient notions of champions fighting to determine the outcome of a war, instead of whole armies being put to the sword.

Kerensky imagined Paris and Menelaus meeting in single combat to decide the outcome of the Trojan War. He probably should have paid more attention to the fact that Menelaus handily winning that fight did not result in the Trojans surrendering, it takes both sides playing by the same rules to make that sort of thing work consistently. Moreover, a dispassionate, more open-minded observer could well conclude that it was stupid to tie one hand behind your back in situations where you had a decisive edge in numbers or technology.

Nobody had ever accused Sarah McEvedy, daughter of Lieutenant-General Richard McEvedy of the 331st Royals and now Khan of Clan Wolverine, of being dogmatic or closed-minded. Politically naïve perhaps, and as regards diplomacy about as subtle as a brick to the back of the head, but she wasn't going to tie her own hands for the sake of social niceties.

Eschewing Kerensky's ideal of 'honourable', one-on-one pseudo-knightly combat for a pragmatic combined arms tactical doctrine, one based largely on the SLDF operational manuals for Regimental Combat Teams, the Wolverines under Sarah had overperformed during Operation Klondike compared with other clans. Then, after the Pentagon Worlds were secured as per Kerensky's vision, the clan had then begun winning a disproportionate number of Trials of Possession as the spoils of war were divided up, strengthening their Touman but unfortunately also raising the ire of their rivals.

It had been Khan McEvedy's solution to a temporary shortfall in food production however which had begun to bring the situation to a head. Nicholas Kerensky's laws were meant to make the caste system inviolable, the only movement possible meant to be downward, from the elite of the Warrior caste to the others. With the possibility of people going hungry McEvedy took a pragmatic approach and freed up the castes, transferring personnel around to help alleviate the problem.

The Wolverines didn't starve, moreover the majority of the population, most of whom had only been under clan rule since the culmination of Klondike in 2822, seemed more than enthusiastic about a relaxation in the caste system because it indicated that they might get more say in their own lives again.

McEvedy took stock of the situation, decided that doing what actually worked was more important than a rigid adherence to rules, some of which had been originally presented as merely temporary war-time expediencies to maintain order anyway, and ran with it.

Resource production increased with a freer, more dynamic economy, people were generally happier to have the yokes arounds their necks loosened, and the science and technician castes in particular flourished likely because they didn't have the boot of the warrior caste planted as firmly on their necks.

Already among the top tier of clans technologically Clan Wolverine started to pull ahead of the others, eventually demonstrating this change in the balance-of-power in a very noticeable way.

Despite having developed improved versions of several types of standard Star League weaponry, these improvements based largely on inheriting a lot of R&D work carried out by the Terran Hegemony on behalf of the SLDF, none of the clans had actually been developing and producing new models of battlemechs. Instead they had upgraded what machines they had inherited, while the limited number of new-builds were simply copies of SLDF equipment.

Then to great consternation in early 2823 the Wolverines unveiled the Stag, Mercury II and Pulverizer battlemechs, all brand new designs that they were already putting into mass production. They also demonstrated a new type of Extended-Range Particle Projector Cannon which was powerful enough to take off another battlemech's head at a range only a much larger and heavier gauss rifle could before.

Other clans were working behind the scenes on advances of their own, it was rumoured that Clan Coyote was ahead in Pulse Laser development for example, but while they were still at the prototype stage at best the Wolverines already had their own new toys in actual production. This also had several of the other clans deeply concerned about what McEvedy's people might themselves have at the prototype stage and whether they could catch up anytime soon.

One thing quickly led to another, a dispute over the ownership of a large cache of old SLDF supplies, which included a number of nuclear weapons, and which was found on territory now belonging to Clan Wolverine escalated. Already angry about the relaxation of the caste system by the Wolverines, and almost certainly concerned that they were demonstrating that things quite clearly worked better if you set aside some of his diktats, Nicholas publicly told Sarah to toe-the-line and hand the contents of the cache over or else, privately he was even more strident.

Sarah thought about it a long time, and when she had thought about it long enough she declared independence from the Clans.

Finding himself increasingly lost in his own thoughts Khan Franklin Hallis made a conscious effort to put aside the past for now and started to consider how else he might seek some benefit from the extended stay in the Gamma 12901 system that had been foisted upon him.

"Navigator. Find me a star system, off the Exodus Road, rimward and anti-spinward of here between twenty and twenty-five light years distant" he ordered. "It has to be a hot enough star that we can recharge our drives at the safe maximum rate, no damn red dwarfs" he continued. "When you find one plot a jump there and inform all other ships in the fleet to do likewise. If the clans appear on top of us all ships which can immediately make the jump to that system should do so on my order."

"Nice to see a ground-pounder savvy enough not to want a full thirty light-year jump to safety, far too predictable" Captain Brentjes observed. "It would however only be a stop-gap measure if we have to re-join the Exodus Road after a few evasive jumps, Khan Hallis" he warned.

"The plan Khan McEvedy formulated for Switchback included an alternate destination, if only as a temporary haven before continuing on to the Inner Sphere. If I am incapacitated for some reason I also provided saKhan Ebon with the name and location of the system concerned. I can only hope that it is as obscure as McEvedy believed it to be so Nicholas will not immediately guess our new heading. It is certainly not featured on the standard star-charts" he noted having checked to see if he could find the Columbus SLDF facility in the Epsilon Pegasus system listed anywhere. That hardly made it unique, for reasons of security, specifically to compartmentalise information, the SLDF had constructed a multitude of bases and supply dumps all over the place with only the personnel stationed there knowing where it was.

Rumour had it that during the Amaris War the 12th Fleet of the SLDF actually had a secret base somewhere inside the Rim Worlds Republic that the Rimjobs had no idea about. Warships staging out from there had made life hell for enemy supply lines.

"Colour me intrigued, Khan Hallis" Captain Brentjes responded, smart enough not to ask for any more details.

"What is life without a little mystery?" Hallis asked rhetorically. "If you need me I'll be in my cabin" he announced. "When I'm gone you might want to warn the fleet that if they waste the time we have here relaxing, instead of running battle-drills and fixing whatever they can then, then I might reconsider my policy on keelhauling. Which as you know is some serious shit in a spacecraft."

Captain Brentjes grinned. "Consider the word spread, Khan Hallis" he replied, clearly amused by the tongue-in-cheek threat.

The clans must have eventually figured out what the Wolverines were up to because two weeks later, just as Saratoga had finished charging her jumpdrive, a backtracking task force practically jumped in on top of them, presumably having previously checked the Barbados system for the Wolverines first because of its habitable world.

On the bridge of his flagship ilKhan Nicholas Kerensky could only begin to imagine why the entire Wolverine Fleet seemed to be patiently waiting for his arrival, Kearny-Fuchida drives charged and jumpsails packed away ready to go, as the whole lot of them promptly jumped out before he could issue orders to engage them.

They must be mocking me somehow, Kerensky decided, biting back his rage and outwardly seeming calm and collected as he ordered his fleet to unfurl their jumpsails and recharge their drives for the pursuit.

A week later Kerensky split his warships into four groups, each one capable of outgunning the Wolverine vessels and sent them off searching both rimwards and corewards along the Exodus Road, using his Lithium-Fusion Battery ships to scout ahead.

They found nothing so two weeks after that he widened the search pattern.

That was the problem with space, it was big and if the Wolverines had opted to try their luck away from the charted course of mapped systems along the Exodus Road then tripping over them again would require drastically more luck on the part of the clans.

With Kerensky's fleet so spread out and searching further afield they actually managed to miss the only Wolverine vessel that actually was still travelling down the Exodus Road.

The destroyer SLS Yukon had been left behind in the Clan Homeworlds, the last of the forces deployed to keep the clans busy while Operation Switchback was triggered. Gathering supplies, and rescuing a sibko of children, it had set off after the rest of the Wolverines months later.

None the wiser to what had occurred ahead of them the destroyer flew on alone all the way to the Inner Sphere where they found fleeting fame as the mysterious 'Canada Tribe' that caused the Draconis Combine much concern in 2825.