Seven

[Zureal]

OMG, he posted again! more more mroe more more moremroermoewireorm.... sorry... droop for wanting more dropped on the keyboard  [drool]

[Antagonist]

Damn, it's been so long I can scarcely remember how the story went before this. Going to have to re-read it from the beginning. :(

EDIT: Done. This is going to be interesting.

[Valles]

Thanks to Antagonist for poking me into motion again.


DIERON, DRACONIS COMBINE
AUGUST 23, 3050

The conference room was filled by an appalled silence.

Rather than the holographic reproduction of a real room that had been used for the meeting of the Grand Council of the Clans, the current layout was an array of ‘vidscreens’, four deep and ten wide, showing the faces of the other Galaxy Commanders of Clan Ghost Bear - who were, in the absence of Khan, saKhan, and Loremaster alike, effectively the rulers of the Clan - and the commanders of the contracted mercenary units who were, equally effectively, the planetary governors of the Ghost Bear Occupation Zone.

One of those, a worn, scarred man whose shaved head made him look even tougher than he was, leaned forward into his pickup. “I’m not clear on how you people’s procedures work on this, so I’m just gonna be blunt,” he said. “If you’re not gonna hit Terra, I need to know, so I can go do it myself. Those whoresons need to die.”

“You may rest assured we intend to,” Vera said. “The question is how.”

“Galaxy Commander Tseng, you are the senior commander in Operation Revival’s theater of operations. Could you begin with your evaluation of the conditions there?” Dane Vong, the commander of Rho Galaxy, was looming and massive even for an Elemental. He’d earned his position in the wave of promotions that had followed the vicious mauling that had kept Rho from being tapped to take part in the invasion, and had a reputation as one of the Ghost Bear’s leading Wardens.

“Certainly,” she answered, and answered from memory: “At the moment, we have in-theater one frontline galaxy and the equivalent of perhaps ten more in second-line forces drawn from the Inner Sphere itself. Of that, four galaxies - eight regiments - are in fully refitted battlemechs, five more are a mix of unrefitted conventional units, and the last consists of refitted aerospace fighters, currently distributed in support of other elements. We have sufficient transport capacity remaining to move all of our ‘mech and aerospace elements, or our conventional ones, or to bring up additional forces from the Homeworlds, but not to do any of those simultaneously.

“Trials of Possession have gained us access to the sensor reports surviving from the Wolf and Jade Falcon assaults on Terra, to add to those transmitted by Alpha and Beta Galaxies in their own attack. Analysis of battle damage repairs to Com Guard units present at more than one of those engagements has given us a baseline on their recovery rates, as well as what we think is a conclusive count of their surviving aerospace units. At the moment, and assuming proper use of anti-atomic tactics and equipment during the operation, we do have sufficient force to break through what remains.”

“Also assuming that they haven’t held anything back through each of the fights,” one of the mercenary commanders put in.

“Also assuming,” Vera agreed, ”though those actions were desperate enough that I do not think it likely.”

“Obviously in a perfect world we would attack immediately,” said Asha Snuka, of Zeta Galaxy. An Elemental, as expected from the commander of the only pure-Elemental formation in all of the Clans, she was as petite as a daughter of that subcaste could be, and a perfect contrast to Dane in both looks and attitude. “But is one galaxy sufficient?”

“Certainly not after fighting the refusal trials demanded by those whom Comstar has directly wronged,” Vera said, speaking over the rather profane objections of several of the mercenary commanders to the idea of being left behind. “We would need to bring up at least Rho as reinforcement in order to replace Alpha or Beta - or to activate Clan Diamond Shark.”

She paused for a moment. “And while we do that, Comstar’s remaining Warships are free to pick our forces off in detail. The Smoke Jaguars are free to regain their initiative - it cannot be long now. The Com Guards that have survived the attention of their enemies across the Inner Sphere are free to concentrate.”

“I am no fool,” Snuka said. “You intend to deploy your lucrewarriors in support of Delta Galaxy, quiaff?”

Vera smiled at her image, an expression full of icy edges. “The question is, indeed, what odds will be set in refusal of the attempt to forestall me.”

Snuka glared back. “Do not think that mere ability gives you the right to spit upon all that our society, upon all that the work of Nicholas Kerensky means and all that the Clans were made to be. I will not permit it.”

“You cannot stop me.”

[Shadow_Wraith]

Nice update.    Hmm..... interesting events coming up for Vera

[Antagonist]

1. Challenge

2. Augmented

3. Elemental

4. STOMP

5. ???????

6. PROFIT!

EDIT: Oh, and you're welcome! ;)

[marauder648]

Having just read this basically the invading Clans fleets have been gutted right?

[Valles]

Yes and no. The Ghost Bears committed basically their entire warship reserve to support their ground assets in the invasion. They lost a big chunk of that, but still have the majority of their fleet available for operations, including all of their jumpships.

The Jade Falcons and Wolves sent a smaller share of their warships, but no longer have anything left in the Inner Sphere - of the ships they sent to Terra, only Dire Wolf made it out, and she's all but a wreck. They have ships in the Homeworlds to send up, and those can certainly be assumed to be on their way, but the Exodus Road is long and they won't arrive for some months yet.

The Smoke Jaguars still have all of their space assets, but their ground forces have been bled by what was effectively a small civil war and their logistics are drawn down enough to make even them think twice about taking the offensive - and they've got Invisible Truth aiming straight at their occupation zone, because Comstar knows that, too.

[Chris OFarrell]

It also seems that our cute and cuddly Galaxy Commander is leaving out the possibility that there are other aspects to the SDS system as yet being held in reserve on Terras surface. I mean given how they went to the excesses of breaking out the Nukes in orbit with fighter swarms, you'd hope that its a sign they really don't have much, or at least not enough to be confident enough in stopping a force the size of the Jade Falcons...

But...

[Valles]

She is, after all, still very young.

[Antagonist]

She is, after all, still very young.

Dat blueball. :-/

[Valles]

...What the hell, I'm about to pass out and this is a good one-liner to stop on.

Morita is in his sixties, BTW.



GARSTEDT, CLAN GHOST BEAR OCCUPATION ZONE, DRACONIS COMBINE
SEPTEMBER 7, 3050

1.5 to 1. Three to two. Not terrible odds, not insurmountable…

But she couldn’t be the one to fight this battle.

In one respect, one that she tried to tell herself was the more important, it was a concession - to allow the mercenaries to fight in their own name and right at this trial was to admit, irrevocably, that they were truly warriors. But it was a ‘concession’ that had been made to keep her from taking part in the fight, to sweep the strongest warrior from the board.

That was obvious just looking at the way they’d worded the prohibition to block Consuela, as well.

Vera could only sit around the holotank aboard Dieron’s Run and watch the view from the monitor cameras, thrown up for the warriors and soldiers, Bloodnamed and not, crowded in tight on every side.

“If you squeeze my hand any harder,” Consuela murmured into her ear, an experience she’d otherwise have found very distracting, “it’ll go too numb to do you any good.”

She laughed softly, and made herself relax her grip. “My apologies,” she said. “I am… unaccustomed to being helpless at so critical a moment.”

Her lover’s laugh surprised her, and she glared.

Connie rubbed a thumb along the back of her hand. “That is my great-grandmother down there,” she said. “Who do you think taught me to pilot?”

The display showed that the three Crusader Warriors had separated, each taking a different route through the jagged fracture zone that marked the trial’s operation area on Garstedt II’s major moon. Maia Kohler, on the other hand, had kept in close company with her counterpart’s Wolverine.

Watching the two mechs pace along on the inset screen dedicated to them, Vera was impressed - rather than draw their enemies down on them, the two mercenary veterans were proceeding under passive sensors and radio silence, signaling to each other with the positioning of their mechs’ hands and arms like a pair of giant infantrymen.

The first contact was with the Stormcrow.

Galen Tseng had been one of the loudest voices protesting the idea that ‘freebirth scum’ could ever be allowed to fight on the same battlefield as ‘real warriors’. He opened fire the instant he turned the corner of the twisting valley, and the Wolverine - what had its pilot’s name been? - staggered under the impact as the torrent of long-range missiles bored in. A blaze of light connected the two mechs as the Wolverine fired back with the large laser that had replaced its originally-mounted medium.

“Come on, fire,” one of the mercenaries in the crowd urged, but Colonel Kohler didn’t. Her Shadow Hawk’s refitted weapons suite had a particle projection cannon and an LRM rack three-quarters the size of Galen’s Stormcrow A - she certainly had the range to take part in the fight - but she didn’t use either of them, instead throwing her mech into a forward sprint that matched her companion’s stride-for-stride.

A second exchange of missile and laser fire passed between the two engaged mechs, and then Kohler hit her jump jets, launching her Shadow Hawk up and to one side, leaning it in midflight so that, rather than scraping its shoulder along the fracture-valley’s cliff face side, it struck feet first, and ran sideways along the vertical surface, over and past Tseng’s advancing machine and kicking off before gravity could catch up to inertia and pull it down.

In midair - if the moon’s thin atmosphere could be called ‘air’ - she twisted, facing back the way she had come, and hit her jets again to land with feet together and arms outstretched like a gymnast rather than a fifty-five ton war machine… Save for the deadly PPC and missile rack now pointed straight at the Stormcrow’s weak rear armor.

Automatically, Tseng spun to face her, to deny her the shot - a moment before awareness caught up with instinct and he remembered the far-less-flashy machine he was actually fighting.

Before he could recover from the error, three pulse lasers reached out and blasted away the armor protecting the left arm he’d exposed by turning - and a moment later, the longer-duration long-range laser tracked across the breach and sheared the entire limb away from its mountings, amputating all four of Tseng’s own lasers - and half his short-range firepower - in the process.

“Freebirth!” the clan warrior snarled, whipping his omnimech around to bring its missile launchers to bear again. The LRMs locked first, roaring out to batter at the Wolverine’s increasingly worn armor - and before the torso-mounted Streaks could follow suit, Morita - that was the warrior’s name! - hit his own jump jets and soared over the Stormcrow, landing on the far side so close that the laser lenses of his extended arm were practically touching its rear armor.

“My parents were married, thank you,” Morita said dryly, as the omni fell, its reactor gutted from the rear.

Consuela snickered.

[Shadow_Wraith]

Ohh!!  A Clan Trial, Vera's mercenaries VS Crusaders?   More, more stories please!   [drool]

[Chris OFarrell]

"Old age and treachery will beat youth and beauty every time"

Lolz at how the Crusaders very carefully made the bids rules to keep 'BOOM-HEADSHOT!' and 'Atlas-Moves-Like-Battle Armor' out of the ring.

[Valles]

Not a proper update, but this might amuse people.

[Valles]

Oddly, while the Merc reaction to this is obvious, I'm not quite sure how Clanner etiquette views the last event here.



GARSTEDT, CLAN GHOST BEAR OCCUPATION ZONE, DRACONIS COMBINE
SEPTEMBER 7, 3050

The second warrior - an unblooded Ristar named Uven - announced himself in a blaze of laser fire. Each of his Nova Prime’s arms pointed at one of the mercenaries’ backs from where he stood perched atop one of the canyon walls overlooking them, and blasted forth five searing rays of destruction.

Three of the ten missed, gouging across the stony floor of the canyon. Two slashed across the previously untouched armor of Colonel Kohler’s Shadow Hawk, accomplishing nothing of note, and, though the fifth that had been aimed at her all but ruined one of her rear armor’s sectors, it wasn’t enough to cause an actual breach.

Colonel Morita was less lucky; none of his rear armor survived, and his right torso was savaged. Fortunately, his Wolverine still mounted its original, relatively compact fusion engine, and the jump jet assembly carried in that compartment was… expendable.

Uven had barely started to crow victoriously, despite the savage wash of heat that must be flooding his cockpit from firing so much of his Nova’s arsenal in one salvo, when the two Spheroid mechwarriors spun in a perfect unison that Vera found a little eerie, targeted, and fired.

Both of them let loose full alpha strikes - a large laser and a medium, and three short-burst mediums, and twenty-one missiles all battered and savaged their way across and through the Nova’s main torso glacis, leaving it all but naked to anything and everything that might follow.

And then, with malice forethought, Maia Kohler put the blast of the particle cannon that was her last charged weapon right through Uven’s now-exposed reactor.

Consuela giggled into her ear, and Vera looked away from the display to give her a glare. “what is so funny?” she whispered.

“The Colonel and Uncle Mori haven’t - have not - broken zell yet,” the older mechwarrior answered. “That first one faked himself out, she never fired a shot, and this guy was the one who targeted both of them at once.”

Vera blinked. Thinking back… “Well played,” she said quietly. “That will be very useful against those attempting to overturn the results here.”

“You think they will?”

“I think it will be tried. There are those whose definition of zellbrigen includes the stipulation that they are the only ones allowed to win.”

Connie giggled again, and started to say something - then erupted out of her seat, shouting at the display tank along with half of the rest of the room. “Look out!”

Despite their warnings, Colonel Morita turned too slowly to deny the shot at his ravaged rear armor to the racing Viper that had erupted around a blind corner. Short range missiles bracketed his Wolverine, spalling the armor of its limbs and burying themselves inside its vitals before scattering vicious shrapnel in all directions. One warhead found the magazine for his own missile launcher, and the stored rounds chain-fired in a titanic fireball that erupted out of the cellular storage blast vents like a fountain of smoke and flame and made the fifty-five ton war machine stagger - a moment before the searing flare of a laser bored inside it and completed the Wolverine’s destruction.

Another spark of flame marked the departure of the escape pod, rising away from the collapsing machine’s form…

...and then a second blaze of light licked it neatly from the air.

Aboard Dieron’s Run, it was impossible to hear a thing over the collective bellow of rage.

[Chris OFarrell]

******.

On the good side, this death may get a lot of (sane) Clanners and Sphereoids bonding over their shared ire at such a cowardly act. Although the diehard Crusaders will probably just have an 'only good Merc is a dead Merc' attitude, I get the feeling most Clanners in Ghost Bear would think such an action in a formal trial would be at best, very distasteful. Especially, as it will be pointed out, the Mercs held to Zel while the Ghost Bears didn't.

Of course if/when the Good Colonel puts her foot through the ****** cockpit, it might chill everyone out...

[Antagonist]

Wow. That was probably the dumbest thing they could've done. Whoever did that will die.

[Sir Chaos]

I wonder if anyone ever suggested that, while one would need to be a tested member of the warrior caste in order to have the honor of fighting other warriors, hired "lucrewarriors" should still be good enough to deal with the so-dishonorable-even-the-bandit-caste-would-reject-them ComStar scum. Set a dezgra to kill a dezgra, so to speak.


That said, the mercs´ performance in this trial - them adhering to zellbrigen while the "honorable" warriors broke it - should persuade at least the less hidebound members of the Ghost Bear warrior caste that Inner Sphere denizens can be honorable. Especially combined with the fact that, so far, the "evil" successor states have kept their end of the treaties even after ComStar turned on the Clans.

[Valles]

So, uh.

Writer's block is a thing.

Not necessarily the story I'd've picked to break it on, there's an original project that's been waiting even longer, but I'll take what the muse giveth.


GARSTEDT, CLAN GHOST BEAR OCCUPATION ZONE, DRACONIS COMBINE
SEPTEMBER 7, 3050

Colonel Maia Kohler didn’t let her old friend’s murder stop her from reacting, though the valkyrie cry that the observation systems relayed from her open com pickup certainly showed she felt the same rage and shock that had filled the watchers.

Racing at full speed down the narrow canyon, the Viper’s torso twisted to slash its lasers across the space where her Shadow Hawk had been, most of them missing high as she made the fifty-five ton battlemech dive under her enemy’s line of fire like a gymnast, its entire body almost horizontal before she brought the machine’s hands down to the rocky ground and pivoted it around the point of contact into a handstand - and hit the jump jets, with their vents rotated to add their push to the momentum of that charge and turn it into a spinning flip over the Trueborn’s machine.

Somewhere behind Vera, she could hear a fellow Clansman swear softly at the sight.

She sympathized entirely.

The murderer pivoted to follow his enemy’s motion, firing again. The heat in his cockpit had to be intense; his omnimech’s movements were slowed, sloppy, as overheating literally cooked the myomer fibers that drove its motion, changing their response to the electrical currents delivered from the engine and complicating balance and precision motions. The salvo told, though, carrying away the Shadow Hawk’s missile rack and leaving much of its armor along that side in tatters.

Colonel Kohler ignored the damage - her mech reached out, seizing the smaller machine’s arm and pulling in concert with an elegant sidestep and outthrust foot that Vera had seen, had practiced, for unaugmented combat, only scaled up for use by a ‘mech.

The Viper had nowhere to go but down, landing with a crash that made several of the watchers wince in mingled glee and sympathy. The Shadow Hawk seized its forearm in both hands, and planted a foot on the upper arm, near the shoulder - then pulled.

Relative to their own strength and mass, ‘mechs were much more fragile than humans, at least against that kind of stress. The Viper’s limb tore off in a chorus of tortured metal and snapping cables; ruptured myomer bundles dangled from the dismembered elbow joint like entrails or confetti as the standing mech tossed the thing away, its pilot’s contempt easy to see repeated in the machine’s body language.

The comparison became still more obvious as the Shadow Hawk took a hopping half-step back and slammed a vicious kick into the grounded machine’s side. Armor panels caved in, bending and crushing under the impact.

“See that little puff of glitter off the front?” said one anonymous voice in the crowd, with an Inner Sphere accent. “Lasers on that side are gone. Shattered lenses.”
Vera could feel herself going a little green as the Shadow Hawk stood back, off to the Viper’s crippled right, and let the other ‘mech regain its feet.

It wasn’t courtesy, it was contempt - and not just for the Clansman’s ethics.


The next exchange was a demonstration that that sadistic confidence wasn’t unearned; the Shadow Hawk stepped forwards, into the assault to grab the left arm by the wrist and push it harmlessly away. The two lasers still remaining aboard the lighter machine savaged the armor across the Shadow Hawk’s flank, but could do no more than that before a palm strike (from a battlemech!) mangled the arm’s elbow and turned into the setup for slamming the same elbow back into the lens-assembly on that side.

“Completely disarmed,” Vera said, to herself. “But that will not be the end.”

“Not after lighting up an ejection pod like that,” Consuela agreed, with less horror and more satisfaction.

The Viper took two half-staggering steps backwards, raised its maimed left arm to get the short-range missile rack there to bear - and attempted to fire.

Attempted, because the jammed feed mechanism blew the entire limb off at the shoulder.

An almost gentle shove from the Shadow Hawk’s hand turned the Viper’s actual stagger into a headlong backwards fall, though in moments the pilot was struggling to bring it somehow back to its feet.

Colonel Kohler walked slowly around to stand next to the Viper’s cockpit, a passing, seemingly barely-aimed particle cannon shot boring straight down through damaged knee armor and neatly amputating that leg in the process.

The Shadow Hawk leaned down, bringing the transparent paneling of the two cockpits within only a few meters, though what the two pilots saw of each other was impossible to know through the screens’ longer-distanced feed before the standing machine straightened and lifted one foot to rest, deceptively gently, on top of the Viper’s cockpit.

“...Damn, Gran,” Consuela muttered. “Cold.”

For a moment, Vera didn’t understand - then she saw the crash framing around the cockpit start to bend, to buckle, and realized that the fifty-five ton war machine was bearing down, deliberately, agonizingly slowly, letting the helpless Trueborn see and appreciate his oncoming death.

She closed her eyes rather than watch.

[Red Pins]

...I find that when I get blocked, its because I don't like the way the story is going.  Back off a bit, then re-imagine the story, then try again.  Working through a block is something profession writers may be able to do, but I can't.

[Sir Chaos]

It´s back!!!!

*does his happy dance*


One question, though: Wouldn´t the trial be over the moment the last trueborn´s mech is disarmed and immobile? Or are authorities deliberately holding off on declaring the result because the warrior in question has dishonored himself so badly?

[croaker]

Dayamn. Very good to see this one back, V. And in fine form.

[Valles]

It´s back!!!!

*does his happy dance*


One question, though: Wouldn´t the trial be over the moment the last trueborn´s mech is disarmed and immobile? Or are authorities deliberately holding off on declaring the result because the warrior in question has dishonored himself so badly?

The honest answer is that the idea that the proctors would call it at that point didn't occur to me; certainly there was no one with the physical ability to intervene - the combatants were the only units within the trial area. I'd say that, Watsonianally, some of them were reasoning along the lines you suggested, others were waiting for one or other of the fighters to say that they felt there was no point in continuing, and the remainder were too busy being horrified either at Colonel Kohler's unorthodoxy or the fact that she took apart an essentially undamaged omnimech with, literally, her mech's bare hands.

[Valles]

Her hands sweated on the controls, slipping slightly as she made the delicate adjustments neccessary to her task. Every time her fingers slipped, hope jumped in her hammering heart, then whiplashed back to desperate fear and despair as the error only prolonged the inevitable.

Within her own mind, she hammered desperately at that wall dividing will from actions, frantically fighting to turn aside from the course her body was set on, she was set on...

...and failed.

On the com line from the mech under her Warhawk's foot, Consuela had stopped cursing her name, stopped begging and attempting to reach out to her. Now, the screams of the woman she loved were mingled with the groan and cry of bending metal as her cockpit crushed in around her, the metal walls collapsing under tons of force more than able to shatter and rend bone and flesh as the crush zone worked its way up her body.

Somewhere in the collapsing cockpit on the other side of the speakers, a belated alarm began to howl, the dying omnimech's death cries mingling with Vera's victim's, and the control panel she was leaning against twisted and shifted, elbowing her in the ribs as she unzipped the netting holding them to the wall despite free-fall and reached out to answer the buzzing intercom.

DROPSHIP ARCTIC TERN, ZENITH JUMP POINT, LP 723-32
DECEMBER 20, 3050

"GALCOM's quarters." Consuela's voice was muzzy with sleep, and obviously so was her mind. If she were fully awake, she'd have avoided using the mercenaries' invented abbreviation of Galaxy Commander, knowing the way it annoyed most trueborn.

"Warrior Consuela, this is the bridge. Is the Galaxy Commander present?"

Vera nodded to her lover and pushed gently off from their sleeping pad to start corraling abandoned clothes from the ventilation grate; the air started freshening immediately.

"She's awake, too," Connie confirmed, "I just reached the panel first. What's - rrgh, what is the news?"

"Hyperpulse message from Dieron's Run," the bridge tech said, excitement bleeding into his voice. "Star Colonel Doza Oldebrecht begs to report that the integrated air-wing tactic has performed to specifications; Omnifighter-mounted anti-missile systems were able to interdict nuclear strike packages for the entire force. Losses among the aerospace stars are approximately twenty-two percent; among the mercenaries, seventeen percent. Comstar losses, seventy-eight percent estimated. No warships observed in Sol System. Control of Terra local space is secure." By the end of the speech, the massive grin spread across his face was easy to hear.

"Excellent," Vera hissed to herself, used a gentle kick to launch herself at the little room's laundry intake before she raised her voice for the intercom to hear. "All ships are to clear for Jump and report their readiness. I am on my way to the bridge."

Cleaning done, she pulled out fresh things and started dressing, firing a set of Connie's own clothes across the little compartment.

"Yes, Galaxy Commander," the bridge tech said, as Connie let the line close. The Spheroid mechwarrior was grinning even as she shook her head, hair floating wildly in the room's microgravity.

"I can't believe we're about to invade Terra," she said.

Vera pulled her top on over her head and grinned back. "Belief is not required," she teased, "only action."

In less than three minutes she was drifting through the hatchway and into the dropship's bridge. Despite its mass for a mobile construct, the Overlord was a small space to one used to the expanse of a groundside base, and dressing quickly had been among her childhood's lessons. Consuela wasn't with her; she'd headed for the 'mech bays, to ride out the jump in her cockpit.

"Which ships have not reported?" she asked the senior of the three comtechs assigned to the small 'flag table' at the back of the already-cramped control spaces.

"More than can be quickly listed, Galaxy Commander," the tech replied. "Approximately one third of the force, at this time, but the rate seems to be steady. If it holds, the last should be ready inside five minutes."

For such a large formation, that was more than respectable - it was astonishing. But then, all of them had known that the moment was coming. The only real surprise was that the last Jumpship to report its readiness wasn't one of the Spheroid carriers, but one of the Clan's own Odysseys.

The Arctic Tern's captain was visibly embarassed by that fact as he turned to Vera and saluted, but didn't let it impede the crisp formality of his report. "Gamma Galaxy and attached forces are ready to proceed in all respects, my Khan," he said.

The term of address was a dash of ice water down her spine. "Begin the evolution, Star Captain... and have your adjutant make a note that we will need to speak privately, once the operation is complete."

The bridge crew looked away as their commander swallowed. Her tone of voice was even less pleased than she'd intended it to be. "Yes, Galaxy Commander," he said, and she made a mental note to figure out whether the way he backtracked from his earlier presumption made the offense lighter, or heavier.

"Starting the jump clock at three, two, one, Mark," said her comtech. "Mother Load-" the force's only Monarch-class jumpship, to which Arctic Tern and eight other dropships were docked, would be jumping first, ironically the safest position for the operation, "-reports jump countdown... twelve. Eleven. Ten."

Vera heard a faint echo of his words through the walls, from the surrounding corridors and compartments, as another tech cut his throat microphone through to the ship's intercom.

"Nine. Eight. Seven. Six."

Around the bridge, the dropship's crew were setting their panels to hold steady through the disruption of jump rather than crashing or going wild, and checking their own tie-down straps to make sure of the same for their persons. Two or three pulled out airtight drawstring bags and held them lightly in hand, with expressions of variously-disguised dread and resignation. They would be the ones who suffered from jump-sickness.

"Five. Four. Three. Two."

Ordinary jumps had long since lost any hint of fear for Vera, but this one was hardly ordinary. In many ways, it would be one of the critical turning points of her life - if she survived. Doza Tseng was a more than capable commander; if he said that Comstar had been cleared from Terra's skies, she was certain it was so, but-

"One-"

---Kirsten leaned into her vision, her expression a maddened mix of fondness, bursting pride, and pure irritated frustration, and reached out to swat Vera across the top of the head. Her lips shaped words unhearable, but which, having known her, were easy to guess as 'Stop moping, you surat'.

Behind her, every edge and line in the bridge separated, turning the sight of the compartment into a kaleidescopic storm of colored glass. The gaps between the edges were full of the soul-drinking black and hard brilliance of open space, of the universe unveiled for an uncountably short yet subjectively eternal instant.---

"...z-zero. Jump complete."

On Screen Two, Terra glowed blue-streaked white with cloud and ocean, a two-thirds full orb. On Screen Four, showing the directly opposite side of the ship, a thin crescent of illuminated gray was Luna. The helmsman spoke into the same intercom circuit, even as she brought her board live, synchronized to the other two dropships docked to that side of Mother Load, and fed a gentle tithe of thrust through the main engines. "Arrival confirmed. Terra-Luna Lagrange Point One."

Vera let a long, silent breath gust out, ignoring the groaning noises echoing through Arctic Tern's bones as the docking collar took the stress of an acceleration it had never been designed for to let the dropship and its fellows push the massive Jumpship off of the point... So that others could follow safely.

Four jumpships arrived in the second wave, three Star Lords and a single Odyssey flashing into existence safely separated by over a hundred kilometers of space at the closest, and soon they, too, were marked by the flaring drive plumes of docked dropships acting as impromptu tugs.

Vera kept her eyes focused on the display showing the jump point, and her ear out for the ongoing litany of verbal reports that detailed the sprung leaks that let liquid helium bleed from jumpship drive cores as their housings were subjected to accelerations that, though only fractions that of a habitable world, were still far more than the void-native starships had been built to take, that told of struggles with jammed docking collars and armor damaged as dropships were cut free of them.

The dropships would still be able to do their jobs, and the jumpships could be repaired. The real danger was that some of the wave after wave of arriving jumpships would misjudge their targeting, arrive outside the relatively narrow 'safe zone' of the planetary L1 point as mangled metal confetti - if at all, or that they would miss in the other direction and jump in on top of a smear of highly excited subatomic particles that had recently been one of their fellow jumpships.

It seemed cruel that the inevitable waited until the very last wave.

"Misjump!" the Arctic Tern's sensor tech snapped, as the bloom of released energy that accompanied a jump expanded into a ravening explosion rather than fading as normal.

"Radius?" Vera asked, unconsciously leaning forwards.

"Wait one..." one of her comtechs muttered, his fingers resting against the earphone that gave him a channel that had to be full of shocked and terrified babbling. For several seconds he 'sat' like a stone statue, held in place by his seatbelt and hooked and anchoring toe, then looked up. "Gamma radiation pulse across most of the wave," he said, "within exposure limits as long as none of them are involved in any nuclear strikes. Two Scout class and one Merchant class jumpships destroyed, three Leopard class and one Confederate class dropships lost. It looks like one of the Scouts came out right in the middle of the safety zone between the other two."

Vera took a moment to close her eyes and curse fate, then opened them again. "Understood," she said quietly. "General order - separate and lay in course for the drop zones."

[Valles]

DROPSHIP ARCTIC TERN, OVER TERRA, SOL SYSTEM
DECEMBER 20, 3050


The next disaster started at the worst possible moment. That fact wasn't coincidence; the gun crews manning the massive 350mm naval laser installation that boiled the protective armor plating from the nose of the dropship Midnight Sun in a single shot had waited until their targets were committed to atmospheric reentry. The searing heat of friction and atmospheric compression as the dropships bled off speed greatly constrained their ability to maneuver and evade, since even modern armor found such forces on the very edge of its ability to handle.

A forlorn hope of surviving Comstar aerospace fighters had struck, focusing the invasion’s attention on the incoming nuclear weapons, and the way the omnifighters pushed ahead, anti-missile systems snarling and driving aside the threatening missiles, while mercenary fighters followed close in their wake, chafing to be unleashed on the Comstar fighters. Until the laser fired, all eyes aboard the dropships had been focused on that drama - unconscious of any possible threat of ground fire, and making themselves dangerously easy targets.

Midnight Sun's pilot twisted his ship as it fell, rolling to re-enter sideways rather than nose-on and starting a slow rotation to spread the heating across the less resistant equatorial armor belts, but it was in vain. A second shot incinerated the dropship, along with the cluster of omnimechs it had been carrying.

Elsewhere in the broad arc of falling stars that made up the invasion force, the laser kept at work, shots ending in explosions and sprays of fragmented burning shrapnel more often than not.

Watching her people die on her cockpit's screen, Vera could only concentrate on not throttling the life out of her control joysticks; there was nothing she could do, and fatigue in her hands and arms could be telling in the actual fighting.

Over the comlines, she could hear the naval commanders charged with bringing the invasion force in safely snapping a long gabble of orders she didn't have the expertise to follow before the Arctic Tern, in unison with the dozens of other ships she could see in the images relayed to her protected mechbay, rolled madly, flipping end for end and dialing its massive fusion thrusters up to maximum burn, dumping velocity with a reckless haste that made her vision gray and haze around the edges, and burned aching bruises into her legs and arms where the structural members of her ejection seat pressed through its padding.

On the screens, the naval laser kept firing, carving dropship after dropship from the sky even as its victims dove for the relative safety of the ground, below its horizon. Even as Arctic Tern and the others dropped beneath its horizon, the laser kept trying, aiming for the stragglers and missing, defeated by the limitations of its own fixed mount but still lighting the entire sky with searing bursts of monochrome light.

Vera flipped her display to showing a ground map of their new landing zone; evasive manuvers that thoroughly disrupted the formation and scrambled the organization of the component units. With less than five minutes to ground, she'd need to work quickly to get things sorted into something workable, to designate mustering points and scratch units.

There were too many of those units for detailed consideration in the time she had; she made her decisions by snap instinct and the map's view of the terrain -  a company of mercenaries in light 'mechs attached to an assault binary as scouts, a supernova trinary assigned to cover a pair of artillery lances from two different units, and so on down the line.

That crazed mishmash was a recipie for confusion and disaster, but at least it would be tactically complete. She would have to trust to the training of her trueborn and the long years of experience among her freeborn to make up the difference and mesh the stew into a working whole.

The fact that she'd finished before landing was a bigger surprise than the shock of impact as Arctic Tern grounded hard, a horrible snapping noise echoing through the ship as one of the landing legs collapsed under the impact and left the decks listing noticably.

'Mechs were flexible; it could be dealt with.

"Reactor, Online. Weapons Systems, Online. Sensors, Online. All functioning systems, Nominal," the computer intoned as Vera's Warhawk quivered to life under her.

The thunder of footsteps echoed through the mech bay as one of the Executioners - whose jump jets made it better suited to evading enemy fire than her own more sluggish Warhawk, and whose pilot had no role in the invasion's command structure - advanced to be the first 'mech through the opening bay doors. Nothing greeted it but silence and sunlight, and soon the entire complement of omnimechs was out and on the move - due east, towards Hilton Head, four hundred kilometers away.

"This is turning into a disaster," Connie observed to her on a private channel, her Viper pacing back and forth across the slower formation of heavy and assault 'mechs that made up the command Keshik like a leashed hunting dog.

Vera considered the numbers. Ninety to a hundred 'mechs lost before even hitting the ground was painful, yes, absolutely, but considering that they had brought more than ten times that...

"No," she said. "It is not going badly. Just not as planned, is all."

[Fyrwulf]

So, I didn't know this fic existed until last night. I regret that, now, because it's all kinds of awesome. Please, continue!

[Valles]

For as long as the malignant neurochemical vagaries of that bowl of slushy soup I not-so-fondly call my 'brain' let me, I intend to.

[Chris OFarrell]

Why didn't someone tell me this had restarted!!!

YES!!!!!

I have to admit I'm a little surprised no-one in the planning phases of attacking Hilton Head, a Castle Brian facility, wondered if the place might still have surface to space defenses active :p

Also liked poor Vera unhappy at her officers starting to outright call her Khan now - because she is proving to be one of the greatest Ghost Bears ever. The 'might makes right' types love her because she is a murderkill machine that did what no-one has done before in a TOP - and proved it wasn't a fluke. The strategic thinking people love her because she hasn't died like all the other idiot Khans and Galaxy commanders have and has in fact continually been ahead of the curve on issues keeping the Ghost Bears alive. She's pretty much dictating policy and politics and military decisions for the entire Clan now ... but call her Khan and she'll slap you silly.

Love it :)

So I'm guessing the Wolf Dragoons are not about to jump in once the foothold is established with their regiments and warships? :(

[Valles]

The fact that Vera is one of the Clans' top strategists is more of a commentary on the woeful standard of the competition than any particular gift on her part. By Spheroid standards she's, oh, a promising junior officer, say.

And yeah, she's not unaware of her influence, but she's the kind of person who likes to do things properly. It might be obvious, but it hasn't happened yet.

The Dragoons are on their way to Luthien, and the laser will be addressed next update.

[PeacMaker03]

For as long as the malignant neurochemical vagaries of that bowl of slushy soup I not-so-fondly call my 'brain' let me, I intend to.

So Stealing this...
-- Valles the wordsmith