Author Topic: I, Caesar  (Read 8218 times)

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #60 on: 06 December 2023, 06:17:04 »
SLDF Castle RICHELIEU
Illyria, Illyrian Palatinate
March 2nd, 3011

"Move! Move! Move!"
Aidan ran up a flight of stairs, his neurohelmet in one hand, the other grabbing the hand rail to pull him along faster. The stairwell was abuzz with the sound of boots, heavy breathing, grunted commands and curses. Alarms blared through the concrete caverns of the ancient SLDF castle. The day was officially going to hell in a handbasket.

The Patties had been getting ever more insistent in their demands to get access to the site. This morning, they had made a real job of it. A few companies of armor and infantry had set up position on the edge of the Ferrum claim, supported by a few mechs, and an ultimatum had been issued: give us access to your claim, we know you're illegally digging for lostech.

Aidan had tried to stall them. Then RICHELIEU's long dormant sensors had picked up a jump signature at the planet's pirate point, and before they knew it an Overlord was howling through the atmosphere. He'd hailed the ship. The only answer had been to land on the tail of a fusion torch and disgorge an understrength battalion of mechs at his doorstep.

"Nguyen, I need that bunker online!" yelling into his radio, he pushed a blast door open and sprinted into the main loading area.
It was pandemonium. The evacuation order had been given twenty minutes ago, and everybody not carrying a gun was busy grabbing whatever they could get in a last minute effort to squeeze just that tiny little extra bit of technology out of the castle.

"There's like two thousand tons of soil and rock on top of that cupola!" Nguyen's harried voice barked back through the speakers. "I need more time!"

"Time's the one thing I don't have. I'll see what I can do. Keep the line open!"

"Roger. We'll get this thing going, no matter the cost. Nguyen out!"

Aidan ran towards the automated mech repair bays. All the machinery and electronics rested in doubly secured freight containers, with every nut and bolt video documented in triplicate. The flatbeds were ready to roll. Behind them stood his ride.

A jeep came racing down the entry tunnel and stopped with screeching tires.
Centurio Ostroff jumped out and came running towards him. Covered in sweat and dust, the seven foot tall soldier looked even bulkier in the combat armor he had requisitioned from the SLDF depot. The Mauser assault pulse laser looked like a submachine gun in the man's bear paws. Crusted blood covered the back of one hand.
"Comms to the jumpships are down, centurio," he reported without introduction. "We've been getting plastered with heavy broad-band jamming since the moment that big bugger made landfall."
"Are we holding?" Aidan donned the neuro helmet and fastened the chin strap. The SLDF model was far lighter and more ergonomic than the unwieldy static helmets he was used to.

"The Patties 'ave underestimated our defenses and readiness. Beat their first assault back. Bloody affair. They must've lost two hundred men and a company worth of vehicles and mechs. We lost a quartex, and two mechs took a pounding but are still up," the infantry specialist reported. "But we need to leave, now. Those newcomers have gone after the outer camps and are now moving onto us!" Ostroff was usually as stoic as a rock, but the urgency in his voice was undeniable now.

Aidan angrily shook his head. "I'm not abandoning this bunker, not without a serious fight, Ostroff. We're not letting this facility and all our equipment fall into enemy hands that easily. Nguyen's men are working on getting the surface defenses up, and our demo experts are setting charges to blow the entry tunnel. We'll take whatever's not nailed down, blow a mile worth of tunnel to deny the Patties and whoever else is out there easy access, and then we'll be getting the hell outa Dodge."

Ostroff flashed a lopsided smile. "A shame we never got a chance to check out those other tunnels. Always was curious why they worked extra hard to blow them."

"****** 'em," Aidan muttered. "Could be zombies down there. Could be Roland the Headless Hunchback pilot haunting the halls, for all I care. We're living on borrowed time, so it's better to get the stuff we have got access to than speculate about the stuff we haven't."

"Alright," almost four hundred pounds of legionary nodded. "What are your orders?"

"See those flatbeds? No matter what happens, they have to get onboard a dropship. Keep a corridor from the bunker to the landing site open. Get the rest of the people out."

"And what're you going to do?"

"I'm going to buy us some time." Aidan patted the hull of the giant war machine standing next to him and smiled. "I've always wanted to shoot a Gauss gun."

A throng of techs buzzed around the mech's feet. Their commanding officer waved at him.
"Centurio, I'm going to run you through the start-up sequence," he announced.

"Absolutely not," Aidan snapped. "We've got no time for that. Get me in that cockpit and get out of the way."

"Alright, but I'll have it noted that it's on your own peril then," the mech tech frowned. "This isn't just an SLDF machine, sir. It's a royal configuration, Hegemony specs. I'll be on the line for the first meters."

"Fine," Aidan grunted, "as long as you get me in the field, now!"

RICHELIEU's main tunnel was a fifteen meters high oval, but it piloting an assault mech it felt like a cramped narrow tube.
"Be careful, sir. The neurofeedback on Star League systems is more direct and intuitive than on what we're used to work with," his mech tech explained to him via radio as he stomped up the causeway.

Aidan had to evade a duo of trucks and the multitude of civilian and military personnel that squeezed through the tunnel. In intervals specialists were setting demo charges against loadbearing parts. He caught a glance at Mitch and Kat, laden with plastic explosives they had dug up from part of the bunker's storage. There faces were fully concentrated, bereft of their usual banter.

"Roger, I can feel it. Movement and commands are much more fluid than I'm used to. Makes steering almost feel slippery," he replied. "Rather than brute forcing my way through with sheer concentration it all almost comes too easy."

"The matches with the data we've taken from the systems. Calibration and permeability of neural transmitters is leagues better than our stuff." A pause. "Your armor's complete, but patchwork. The autorepair bay was already dismantled, so what you see is what you get, sir. Best I could do on the fly."

"As long as I can fight I'm not too concerned about the paint job, base," Aidan turned around the last bend in the tunnel.

"Jump jets are offline, as is the Artemis system, and you're short some ammo…," signal quality deteriorated quickly as he walked towards the light of day.

"Understood, base. Get out safely!"

"G...d hun..ng!"

He emerged from the concrete tunnel into the funnel of packed dirt holding the sides of the hill. The last shreds of the tarp meant to conceal the entry flapped in the wind above. Fires raged in the prefab village. Broken glass glittered in the sunlight. Soot covered blackened walls. Pockmarked and burning tanks stood discarded along the wide eastern slope. The dead were everywhere. Waiting for more to join them.

Chunks of ferroconcrete erupted around him as a salvo of AC rounds tore into the first prefab house he came across. Aidan's ninety-ton assault mech turned like a ballet dancer, his targeting computer picking up an enemy Dragon at around half a kilometer away. The Terran Hegemony built electronics burned through whatever ECM the other mech emitted with terrifying ease and locked on in far less time than Aidan was used to from his Grasshopper. His LRM20 launcher belched a salvo of guided missiles and he brought his M-7 Gauss rifle to bear. Anxiously he held his breath as the targeting reticles converged. His own missile warning blared angrily as the Dragon spat out ten LRMs of its own, but before they had crossed half the distance Aidan punched the firing button. Thunder cracked, but not from the weapon itself. The ferrous nickel-iron slug riding on a trail of ionized air crossed the supersonic threshold – and slammed into the Dragon before the sound even had registered in Aidan's ears.

The effect was instantaneous – and devastating. The Dragon was a heavy beast, and its torso-based LRM launcher served as an additional buffer zone for the humanoid mech's cockpit area. At least, it should have. The metal slug tore across the launcher's upper half and right through the front window, peeling the mech's head away like an overripe banana.

Aidan had no time to gawk as the dying mech's last salvo pummeled the Highlander, makeshift plating coming loose in some spots. He gritted his teeth, but the massive war machine took the hits in stride. The Dragon simply had stopped. It stood right below the ridge like a statue.
"Holy crap," the centurio muttered, "I think I'm in love."

Circumstances gave him no breathing room to venerate the ancient technical marvel he rode in as his screen lit up with red blips.
"Control, what's the situation. Augustulus, this is Watch Dog 1!"

"Watch Dog 1, Minerva is set to launch in two," Augustulus' operator's voice was tense. "Bollinger's broken orbit and we've lost contact ascent due to enemy jamming. Outer camps are gone, and we've got more than twenty-five enemy mechs converging on Ferrum."

"Negative on launch, Control. Evac still ongoing, main package en route! Maintain position and give fire support!" Aidan commanded, switching channels. "Shepherds, this is Watch Dog 1. Meet at my coordinates and protect the road from bunker to dropships! Pair up and prepare for mobile defense."

He drove the Highlander through the rubble of the settlement up the eastern slope to get a better vantage point.
"Ostroff, what's your situation?"

"We've fallen back to our second line of positions to tighten the defense," the gruff centurio's voice echoed through his speakers. "Infantry ammo's fine, but we're running short on LAWs and portable SRMs. Not sure how much good we'll do against those mechs." He sounded doubtful.

"Fall back to the LZ then and secure the loading area around Augustulus and Minerva. Your men are of no use getting trampled in the rubble, taking potshots with their rifles," Aidan made a quick decision.

"Understood, Watch Dog 1." Ostroff hesitated before adding: "What about Nguyen?"

"The Shepherds will keep the road open as long as possible," Aidan promised. "Now move out!"

"Roger, centurio. Ostroff out."

Aidan's Highlander climbed the eastern slope's ridge. Green blips moved to the section of the map that lead from he funnel-shaped cut in the nearby hill to the dropships sitting a little less than a kilometer away. His lightest unit was a relatively new Quickdraw. The heaviest mech in his arsenal, aside from the Highlander he had adopted, was an ancient Cyclops. Alphard had pulled out all the stops to give him the most firepower they could scrape together, and he was under no illusions the reason he was in command was directly related to the fact the emperor was his friend – and the highest ranking officer of the armed forces his mother. There'd been plenty of officers with more seniority, but he'd gotten the job, and he'd be damned if he didn't see it through!

The red tide advancing on him right now put that into question.
Enemy mechs poured over the next ridge, APCs and infantry in tow, registering his presence the same moment as he did theirs. He didn't wait for them to make the first move. The Highlander locked on to the next best target, a Griffin in plain white, and he punched the master firing button, unleashing a full salvo of short and long-range missiles, lasers and Gauss slugs. Immediately he put the Highlander in reverse. More peripherally than consciously he noted the mech dancing like a puppet as projectiles hammered its hull and the solid metal slug evaporated armor.

"Enemy moving in! Shepherds, get ready!" he called out over his comms. "Nguyen, right about now would be a good time!" Aidan caught the LRM launcher cycling back to green and fired again. The already battered Griffin staggered back once more as missiles tore into its torso. With a flash the shoulder-mounted missile launcher exploded, and barely a split second later a series of explosions rocked the mech, tearing it apart in a fireball.

A barrage of PPC bolts, autocannon fire and incoming missiles cut any kind of celebration on Aidan's side short. Gritting his teeth, he drove his assault mech back below the ridge as damage indicators turned to yellow and orange. "Nguyen!?"

"Working on it," Nguyen sounded as if he was speaking through gritted teeth. "I'm sending my people out with the trucks, I can do this with a rump crew. A few minutes," he promised.

Up above, Augustulus opened fired over the ridge, LRMs and PPC bolts raining down on the attacking force. They responded in kind.
"We don't have minutes!"
The Highlander stopped between the wreckage of two two-story prefab houses, towering above them. "Everybody get ready. Here they come!"

They did. Like a tsunami the enemy force rolled over the hilltop. Aidan's Shepherd team were the first to fire, throwing out a ten mech alpha strike that hit the first wave like a truck. Shielding his lower torso and legs against the enemy, he himself opened fire as well, spreading his weapons across the whole advancing front. SRMs exploded between soldiers. Medium lasers bore into APCs. His LRMs took a fancy to Marauder. The Gauss gun hiss death at a mech his battle computer identified as an Excalibur, blowing its right arm cleanly off. Across the front pristine white mechs took damage and people died.

The counterstrike followed immediately. While the first line still struggled under the Marian onslaught the enemy's second line rolled over the hill top. The enemy mechs wasted no time and started firing with brutal efficiency. Their battered comrades joined in almost immediately.

Being on the move was what took the sharpest edge off the blow. Aidan's men were experienced veterans and knew their machines well. Paired up and mobile, a lot of the incoming fire missed outright or was caught in a way that one covered the other's vulnerable spots. Still, none walked out of that first response unscathed.

Like Tango dancers, the Marian mechs swerved across the valley floor, keeping away from the road in their center. Where the attackers fire was heavy, but individual, Aidan's people concentrated theirs. The Marauder was a tough cat, but in the combined crosshairs of a Thunderbolt and a Grasshopper it staggered. The Cyclops and Quickdraw paired up against the Excalibur. Others followed suit.

In theory the idea was good. Practically, the white mechs teamed up as well. Not only were their ECM quickly proving to be a problem. Some of the mechs also somehow began shooting down the Marian missiles!

"Coming through!" Nguyen barked, and the flatbed trucks shot out of the hillside.

The Shepherds shifted, no longer just concerned with putting as much hurt on the enemy, but now dedicated to offering themselves up as more promising targets than the unarmed trucks and the passengers clinging to their backs and side.

Autocannon rounds exploded all around them. Lasers lashed out, and the staccato of machine guns. In a day that was going to hell in a handbasket Aidan witnessed a miracle as none of the trucks driving along the rubble-strewn road took any serious hits.

His own men were less lucky. The Quickdraw took a quick succession of laser and PPC hits. The Cyclops lost an arm all the while his AC/20 shredded an enemy medium mech. His centuria's Catapult jogged across the battlefield, lasers blazing and missiles streaking from its pods when it was hit by a combined AC barrage coming from three directions. The massive war machine crumpled like a tin can before its internal ammo stores exploded in a violent stream of fire.

"Nguyen!"

A long, deep metallic moan echoing through the valley basin was his answer. The ground rumbled even over the sounds of battle, and tons of earth and rock slid off the hill as some five hundred meters behind the bunker entrance an armored cupola pushed itself through the top layers of soil.

With the sound of metal grinding on stone a massive LRM launcher emerged from the cupola's top, flanked by pair of guns. The missile flaps opened and a seemingly endless stream of projectiles speared into the sky on white exhaust trails. Barreling through the ruins of the base camp, Aidan fired his Gauss rifle again, coring an already burning Flashman while SRMs belched from his launcher into the legs of a Kintaro and between a group of enemy soldiers. His eyes followed the bunker's missile salvo, wondering what mech Ngyuen had targeted. He frowned before bringing his medium lasers up to keep the heat buildup in check, focusing his targeting sensors on the Kintaro. He was about to fire when the missiles landed like pearls on a string in a line cutting across the whole enemy front.

Rather than listlessly spraying the mixed Patty-merc force with debris and shrapnel gleaming hot white fireballs erupted as burning gel popped all over the dry brushland. A wall of fire cut the attacker's force in two. Both Aidan and the enemy Kintaro pilot paused a second, stunned. Despite the distance the Marian centurio thought he could feel the fire's heat penetrate his cockpit. Or maybe that was just his mind's way of distracting himself form the dancing little torches all along the slope?

Whoever commanded the white mechs reacted immediately this time. The enemy's right flank broke off the assault on Aidan's position and turned towards the bastion as one, opening fire in a split second.
In his own fight, Aidan's enemy found his bearing first. One medium laser missed, the other burned across the Highlander's chest, but it was the Kintaro's dual SRM-6 launchers that dialed the assault mech's armor readings into the deep red in far too many places for comfort.

Aidan returned the favor, swerving left as good as possible in a twelve meter, ninety ton war machine as his freshly cycled launcher spat SRMs, leaving the medium mech's right arm limp. His own two lasers burned deep scars across the merc's hips, but the Gauss slug went awry, bursting through half a dozen prefabs, bringing his ammo down to half.

"Keep it up, people!" Aidan commanded. "Every gun on those bastards as long as the fire's keeping them apart." He grunted as the Kintaro opened fire again, twisting the Highlander's torso to dip out of the missile barrage's way almost completely. "Augustulus, what's Minerva's state!?"

"Watch Dog, loading is halfway done," control responded urgently, alarms blaring in the background. "Where starting to take damage!" Augustulus warned, fittingly as PPC bolts and laser zapped over the wall of fire, over the Shepherds' heads and into the landed dropships. "Be advised we have the rest of the enemy force advancing on Ferrum from the outer camps. Encirclement is a matter of minutes, Watch Dog. We can't stay much longer!"

Rather than changing the firing position Aidan kept his forward momentum and covered the few dozen meters between the Kintaro and his SLDF mech in a few seconds. "Roger, Control!" The merc fired his lasers again, and the Highlander soaked the damage up. But his SRM launchers had not yet reloaded again. "Nguyen! Can you set the turret to auto fire? Demo team?! Everybody in the bunker, get back to the LZ, now!" The assault mech raised its right arm. It looked as if the white mech realized in the last second what was going on and tried to backpedal, but it was too late.

"Just a few more cables," a terse Mitch muttered quickly before his channel fell silent again.

Throwing a massive right hook Aidan smashed the Kintaro's helmet-like cockpit in.

The young centurio took a second to evaluate the battlefield. All around him mechs were fighting, dying. For the moment, his remaining mechs held numerical superiority on this side of the wall of fire, but the burning, clinging gel would stop the enemy only so long, and fire did nothing to stop the mercs from using their long range weapons against his men and machines.

His radio screeched.
"…aking too mu… fire! …ret jammed!" Nguyen's voice was barely audible through static and explosions.

Almost a dozen enemy mechs and tanks that had shifted to the threat of the bunker's active defenses raced towards Nguyen's position, all weapons firing into the thick steel cupola and the embrasures and gun port. One of the guns attached to the large topside launcher shattered into a thousand pieces as AC rounds tore into it. The weapons' mount shuddered, squealed – but did not move to target its assailants. Flashes and explosions illuminated the others side of the cupola as well, and the announced enemy reinforcements appeared as distant blips on his sensors, showering the SLDF defenses with long range fire.

"Nguyen, do you read? Nguyen!?"
Aidan pushed the wrecked Kintaro over and targeted the first best mech firing at the bunker. Twenty guided missiles and a metal slug struck true, butchering the thin back armor of a Marauder, with the Gauss projectile breaching the front canopy.

Flames poured from the bunker's embrasures, so white and hot that they almost appeared liquid. Deep inside Aidan knew that getting Nguyen and the rest of his men out was a forlorn hope, but he still tried to raise him again. The channel remained silent.

The enemy did not. Turning, the detached flank now concentrated back on the Shepherds, and now their friends joined the fray as fresh pristine white mechs appeared in pair or triplets all along the horizon. Among the second line of attackers a gap appeared and an Atlas rumbled through the still burning wall of flames, ignoring the searing gel. With the breach made, others followed suit, set to join again with the rest of their comrades, momentarily turning into a solid wall of white steel.

"Shepherds, keep the entryway open at all costs!" Aidan moved his Highlander towards the deep cut leading inside the ancient Castle Brian complex, and the remaining Marian mechs joined in.

"Demo team! Mitch! They're pushing towards the bunker. Out now, and blow the damn thing!"
He fired his Gauss gun another time, dropping the ammo count to three. An Orion caught the slug dead center but kept coming.

Scarred, the heavy mech returned the favor by firing its AC/10 and LRMs, turning the Highlander's armor readings all across the torso to a purple. Metal moaned and myomers snapped as the impact of weapons' fire cut the assault mech's left arm off right below the shoulder. Zeroing in on the Hegemony force, the merc mechs opened fire, almost as one.

Two Shepherds went down in flames, bringing his numbers down to six mechs plus his own.

"Watch Dog 1, Minerva is loaded and preparing launch. Return to LZ immediately! I'm firing up the drives," Control snapped.

With a feeling of all-encompassing dread Aidan saw the enemy lead lance form a wedge and run towards the excavated entry of RICHELIEU, their comrades providing them with ample covering fire. He glanced at his displays and at his remaining comrades. Taking a deep breath, he put the Highlander in reverse and started pouring as much fire into the enemy as his heat sinks could tank.
"Shepherds, evac immediately. Cover each other!" he flipped channels, defeated. "Mitch, they're at the entrance. Will be inside any moment now. We're getting slaughtered here. Can't hold them. I'm sorry!"

There was a long pause before the demo specialist replied. When he did his voice sounded just as numb as Aidan's.

"Got it, centurio. Wish I could say it's been a pleasure. Get our people home safely." He sighed. "Hope it all was worth it." The line fell silent.
Falling back under the merc onslaught, Aidan watched his numbers shrink further as one of his Thunderbolts' legs gave in, sending the allrounder mech tumbling down. The pilot punched out in the last second, but landed in the middle of pandemonium and was quickly swallowed by fire and chaos.

The five hundred meters to the ship felt like an eternity. As the distance shrunk, more enemy mechs poured into the causeway down to the bunker. Limping, burning, bereft of limbs and attached weapons the Shepherds hurried into Augustulus' mech bays. Aidan stepped onto the ramp, the Highlander's torso twisted to provide the illusion of protection.

Suddenly, distorted and weak, Mitch's voice broke through the overall radio static.
"Better with a bang than a wimper, eh? ****** you, ******!"

The earth heaved. And again. And again.
A series of thunderclaps roared out of RICHELIEU's main tunnel, then dust and debris gushed out in a gray geyser.

As the loading ramp rose in front of Aidan he saw, almost like in slow motion, as part of the hill gave him, collapsing on itself. Rushing into a cubicle, Augustulus' systems secured his mech alongside what remained of the Shepherds, and almost instantly heavy G-forces pushed his body down as the Union-class' fusion engine jumped into action. The explosive force of the engines created a pulsing, rhythmic cadence that pounded through the dropship like the beat of a pounding heart. Against its own engine the impacts of enemy fire against the hull was barely audible. The force of the launch pushed Aidan into his cockpit seat like a great hand, squeezing his whole body as the dropship struggled to gain height and speed.

Alone and cut off, Aidan Volkov's thoughts fell back to what he had left behind, and at the catastrophe that had unfolded right around him. Nguyen dead. Mitch. Kat. Half the Shepherds. The voyage home would be long and dour.

He did not need to be a soothsayer to know his old friend's reaction upon receiving the news.
The Emperor would not be pleased.

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #61 on: 06 December 2023, 06:17:34 »


Mount Caelus
Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
April 19th, 3010

A storm front pushed dark gray clouds into the bay and over Nova Roma. The rain was still a thin drizzle, cold humidity that crept through clothes and windows alike. The weather was a perfect mirror of the mood inside the small council.

"You shouldn't have lied to me, brother." Sylvana paced across the room, her auburn hair gathered in a tight bun, wearing a thin business suit in several shades of green.

"I guess I'm lucky I confided in you eventually then," Marius rumbled, his youthful face frowning as he absentmindedly swirled a double bourbon in a thick tumbler.

"I'm your sister, Marius. If you can't be honest with me, who else can you be it with?" she snapped back at him. "I would've advised against this whole spiel from the very start! Maybe you're not all that suited for being more than a school teacher!" she rounded on Posca. "Great job at being imperial advisor!"

"Let it be, Syv," Marius took a deep sip of whiskey. "Posca's not to blame. I got the information. The whole thing was my idea." He placed the tumbler on the table and straightened. "I made the decision."

She stared back at him for a moment before she sighed and shook her head, her shoulders slumping. "Whatever. You're the emperor. Just don't drag me into something if you're not willing to clue me in. Not ever again, brother!" She turned half to face the rest of the council. "Well, it seems I now can add 'how to write off a company' to my corporate resume," she added tartly.

Marius smiled sympathetically. "How bad is it?"

"It's more an annoyance than a catastrophe for me," she shook her head, causing her bun to wobble around. "The monetary and material losses for the company are probably a decimal in our balance sheet. Most operations haven't progressed far enough to demand massive equipment investments and transport costs. We can cleanly write off IPM. I'm not the one I'm worried about, brother."

"You're worried about the political fallout?" he raised an eyebrow.

"Well, obviously. You've ben working hard to get your ideas and laws through the Senate. Getting chased off Illyria will make you look weak," she explained.

Under the table, Marius balled his fists. He'd barely looked at this angle since the news of their rout had broken in the palace. Once again, he found himself face to face with the strange staccato of highs and lows that an active part in shaping once fate brought with it. Just the other day he had been leading the groundbreaking ceremony for the Alphard Aerospace Academy, the naval pendant to the Imperial War College that was currently already under construction.

"Not necessarily. We could make it look like the culmination of a clever plan and show all the lostech we gained," Corvinus suggested.

"Absolutely not!" Marius shot the proposal down, sounding harsher than he had intended. "We will keep our findings as much under wraps as possible. Something always slips through the cracks, but the less people know about what we've got, the better for all. There's enough people out there who would try to get their hands on it, and go over our collective corpses to get there."

"Maybe we need just the opposite of the magister militum's idea?" Victor Blackwood spoke up for the first time. "Just tell the people the truth. Minus the lostech angle. Repeat how we went to Illyria with open arms. Brought trade and investments. Only to be backstabbed by those honorless Viking descended yokels. No good deed remains unpunished and all that."

"That could work," Posca nodded, giving Marius an encouraging smile.

"Thank you," Blackwood presented the thinnest of smiles himself. "Prepare a speech to the nation. Condemn Illyrian aggression. Doesn't matter if it's just half the truth. Domestically, we control the flow of information, so all you've got to do is stay ahead of the news curve."

General Volkova cleared her throat. "Regardless of how we spin it: we cannot let this stand, sir. The people will want blood. And I know for a fact that the legion will want a chance at payback."

Marius turned away and rose, walking over to the star map that covered almost all of the chamber's northern wall. He knew Alina was right. Appearing weak was the greatest mistake a leader in his position could make. A few years down the road he probably could have shrugged it off, especially with all the turmoil the near future was about to unleash. But right now, he needed to be the strong brute, inside and outside the Hegemony's borders.

He looked at the four mosaic stars representing the worlds of the Palatinate and made up his mind.
"How long will it take to mobilize our forces, General? When can you punish the Illyrians?"


SLDF Castle 401-L RICHELIEU
Constructed in the early days of 2766 C.E. by the SLDF corps of engineers RICHELIEU was one of a number of fortifications specifically set up outside both the Successor States and the Periphery nations. Distant enough from the front lines as to not invite enemy attacks and still close enough to serve the juggernaut of the Star League Defense Force, RICHELIEU and its brethren were smaller in size than the standard Castles Brian of the Inner Sphere, but larger than the Outpost Castles found throughout the Periphery. Meant not primarily as garrisons – even though the complexes provided ample room for large detachments of troops to be housed and supplied near permanently – but as logistics hubs for the front lines, the average Castle 'L' consisted of four to eight underground levels of warehouses, machine shops, garages and large repair facilities for most military vehicles smaller than dropships. Castles 'L' would provide medical facilities advanced enough to care for wounded that could not be properly nurtured or saved in field hospitals, and their repair facilities could return machines back to service that field repairs would have seen scrapped and butchered for parts. By storing replacements for all branches of the SLDF the Castles 'L' kept supply lines short, especially for larger gear like naval parts that otherwise would have been needed to be brought in from great distances, often from Hegemony worlds. RICHELIEU was one of only three Castles 'L' to be finished and put into service, and the garrison saw most traffic when General Kerensky moved the SLDF against the Rim Worlds Republic and during the preparation phase for the drive towards Terra.

While nominal operations and refilling of the dwindling stocks were attempted in the years following the end of the Amaris Civil War, the garrison eventually saw the writings on wall as the Inner Sphere slipped closer to all out war. When General Kerensky revealed his plans for Operation EXODUS, most of the base personnel chose to follow him and their SLDF comrades. The last commanding officer oversaw the efforts to conceal the installation and its defensive bunkers and load as much of the present supplies to their dropships. Parts of the installation holding gear deemed to dangerous were sealed off by controlled detonations and partial flooding, while vital parts of RICHELIEU were rigged to blow in case unauthorized parties attempted to access them.

It is not known whether the garrison managed to link up with Kerensky's EXODUS in time and what became of them or their families.


Sorry, had to split this up due to character limitations.^^

PsihoKekec

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #62 on: 08 December 2023, 01:22:53 »
Falling out with his sister was one Mariouses biggest regrets and yet he carelessly made a fool out of her in a big way. Even if this can be hidden from the public, she knows and will remember, so in future he will have to be more careful not to drive a wedge into cracks in their relationship.
Shoot first, laugh later.

marauder648

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #63 on: 08 December 2023, 05:39:10 »
It seems that ComStar came out to play, inevitable really once that Castle was found but still, great writing!
Ghost Bears: Cute and cuddly. Until you remember its a BLOODY BEAR!

Project Zhukov Fan AU TRO's and PDFs - https://thezhukovau.wordpress.com/

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #64 on: 08 December 2023, 11:38:09 »
It seems that ComStar came out to play, inevitable really once that Castle was found but still, great writing!
BattleTech's original party crashers, heh.  :grin:

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #65 on: 15 December 2023, 01:57:02 »
C h a p t e r  0 7:  Politics by Other Means


Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
May 2nd, 3010

“Well, that scheme went tits up faster than a dead hooker in the Perfumed Alleys!”
Never one to mince words Marcos Kimura shot an accusatory glare to the young emperor as he paced through the Chamber of Whispers.

“As always, your eloquence is unrivalled,” Olivia Palek rolled her eyes and sighed. “But unfortunately, for once I have to agree with my esteemed colleague.” She shook her head. “The first grand diplomatic overture of the Hegemony, and barely half a year’s past before it all went up in flames.”

“Screw diplomacy!” Kimura growled. “They’ve killed our people, stole our property, and chased us off planet. And we don’t know how many they’re holding hostage, given we didn’t manage to evacuate two of the four planets.”

“Maybe so,” Malik Al-Amin scratched his beard. “What are the losses for the treasury? Did your sister have the numbers, your majesty?”

“All things combined, we’re looking at around thirty million C-bills, give or take. It’s basically a rounding error for Alphard Trading, and the loss in military equipment isn’t so much the monetary cost but who and what we lost.” Marius shook his head, speaking through clenched teeth. “Heavy and assault mechs are hard to come by outside the successor states, and losing experienced mechwarriors is never easy.” He stopped behind a chair and gripped the backrest, forcing himself to exhale. “In the grand scheme of things, my sister and the board are convinced this won’t have any serious economic repercussions, though. We’d do well to remind ourselves that this was never about getting access to Palatinate mineral resources. Whatever they might have, we can get the same easier on our own worlds.”

“Then what was the whole point of this exercise, if not to get their resources?!” Kimura exclaimed, equally puzzled and frustrated.

“Tsk, tsk. It really shows that your wife is the one running your businesses, Marcos. Getting the Illyrians themselves was the point.” Olivia threw her long braid over her shoulders and looked at him, an eyebrow raised in skeptical evaluation of the man. “A couple hundred million people are a sizeable market, and since we have a hundred times their industry their mere existence would have made them a consumer market ripe for our corporations to conquer. That’s what made the deal so valuable in the first place, didn’t it?” she looked at Marius.

“A good marriage means partners concentrate on what they’re skilled at. It’s called division of labor, Senator Patel!” Kimura snapped back before Marius could answer.

The Emperor ran a hand through his auburn hair and turned to stare out of the windows onto the plaza deep down below, hoping his face did not slip. A good marriage, right. He swallowed what he had wanted to say and concentrated on the senator from Addhara. “You’re right, Lady Patel,” was all he said. That, and the access to a vast underground SLDF base full of lostech.

“Then it’s a shame this will no longer happen,” Al-Amin leaned back in his chair, folding his hands. “The Illyrian shortage of jumpships means we would have dominated every aspect of that trade, from start to finish. By undercutting their own trade families through sheer volume, I think our cartels could have fully controlled their economy in fifteen, twenty years. A shame. Truly, a damn shame,” he sighed.

“Screw your trade routes and balance sheets!” Kimura rumbled. “This is attack against the Hegemony, against all of us. It’s an attack against the Emperor, too!” he focused on Marius. “What are we going to do about it? What will you do about it!?”

“Maybe the best thing to do would be not to further escalate the situation?” Isabella Osei’s bright soprano suggested. The petite woman drew back when all eyes in the room centered on her, then stiffened. “What good will shedding more blood do now?”

“You can’t be serious!?” Kimura erupted from his chair. “I knew you and your friends were too soft on almost ever issue, but this? You’ll let this affront slide!? Are you a coward, or are you a Marian noblewoman!?”

“I am not a coward!” she shot back with surprising fortitude. “My family set foot on this planet five years before yours ever saw the sun rise over Alphard, and I will not-!”

“Bella!” Olivia’s voice was not loud, but it cut like a knife nonetheless. Osei’s mouth snapped shut. “You know I rarely agree with Senator Kimura’s usually outdated point of view,” she shot the man an imploring glance. Just this once Kimura was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. “But he is right. We cannot let this slide. It was an attack, and an attack calls for a reaction. People got killed. Patricians, pleb soldiers, civilians. The streets want us to take action. They want vengeance.”

“As they should!” Kimura growled, but left it at that.

“War is good for business,” Al-Amin declared, then briefly flashed a smile before turning somber again. “But peace also is good for business. There’s also the issue to act now, before public sentiment turns into a frenzy. The attacks on our holdings have been on the forefront of every outlet 24/7 for the past weeks. We’d do well to take the reins into our hands before it all boils over.”

“Then give them an outlet! Let’s mobilize the legions and go to war! Illyria is just four planets, and not even one tenth of our population between them! You’re the emperor, right? Then let’s become an empire!” Marcos Kimura sat down again and looked at Marius expectantly.

“No, senator.” Marius’ face was composed and unreadable as he turned his attention away from the window and back towards the members of the Chamber of Whispers. “We won’t. But we won’t let this stand unanswered either!” He opened his arms in a wide gesture. “We don’t have the strength to conquer the Palatinate. Not yet. Conquest is a pipe-dream, senator. We don’t have the troops for a prolonged campaign, let alone an occupation of their worlds. If we tried we’d get bogged down, and it’d eat through the Hegemony’s budget like famished mice through a grain silo.” He looked at the others. “But we will hit the Patties, and hard. We must, in fact. The universe is an ocean, amici, and it is full of sharks. And often just the appearance of weakness is enough to draw predators.”

“If I may?” a voice from the back spoke up, and Posca stepped into the circle, his simple tunic contrasting starkly with the elaborate and luxurious clothes of the gathered leaders of the Senate. “There is also the issue of lashing out too strongly. If you look like a rabid dog, sooner or later the huntsman will come and put you down.” He tapped a button and a hologram of the nearby periphery sprung to life, centering on the four worlds of the Palatinate. “Up until now, the Free Worlds League has been the premier trading partner of the Illyrians. The Hegemony would do wise to tread lightly around Janos Marik’s backyard. The Captain-General is not a man to be trifled with.”

“What do you suggest then?” Marius motioned him to continue, hiding a sly smile. They had rehearsed Posca’s objection.

“Moderation, dominus. Moderation is what I suggest. Be hard, but not harsh. No atrocities, no mass enslavement, no abductions. Clean strikes to emphasize that the Marian Hegemony can not be just walked over.” He crossed his arms behind his back. “Act in a way a successor state understands. A… military reprisal.”

“That sounds just like a convoluted way to expend lots of energy for very little direct gain. Reparations in the form of slaves and goods are the least would should demand after we’ve slapped those buggers around,” Kimura protested.

“A very Marian way to approach the issue, senator,” Posca shook his head, his voice taking on a tone Marius remembered very well from lessons where the older slave had been less than impressed by a pupil’s performance. “But the League, directly neighboring the Palatinate and having strict laws against the enslavement of man, might see things very differently. While my personal position makes me less than objective in this question I dare say an intervention by Atreus is not something this chamber wants, is it?”

“He’s right, Kimura,” Marius quietly blocked the traditionalist senator’s reply. “The last thing we want is to risk five regiments of the Marik Militia jumping the border to teach us a lesson we won’t recover from. Janos Marik can squash us like a bug right now, even with the Lyrans and Capellans breathing down his neck. No amount of beating our chests,” he had wanted to say ‘his’ chest, but decided for a more conciliatory tone in the last second, “will do us any good in that case.”

The leader of the traditionalists crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Then what!?” he harrumphed.

“For the past ninety years we’ve been raiders,” Marius’ mouth opened in a shark-like grin. “So, I suggest we raid.” He pushed a few buttons and the view in the holo emitter changed. “We will use the bulk of our forces, new formations included. It’s the only way we can hit four worlds simultaneously with a comfortable margin of local superiority. We go in, destroy whatever forces they manage to throw our way, lay waste to their military and critical civilian infrastructure. Seven days on planet, then we take off again, regardless of the state of the objectives. It'll be a clean strike, not slaving, no looting, to keep foreign annoyance to a minimum. Only battlefield salvage, and Illyrians military supplies if we should get our hands on them.” Marius drummed his fingers on the rimmed backrest of his own high-backed chair. “I’ll even extend an olive branch in advance,” he nodded towards Isabella Osei. Keeping each faction of the Senate at least somewhat happy with how he approached matters had the advantage of making fewer of his nights sleepless. “If they return our people and pay reparations we will consider the matter settled. Will they accept that? Eh, I doubt it,” he shrugged. Having chased the Marians off planet with the help of benefactors, the Palatinate would have few incentives to play ball. “But nobody can claim we didn’t try to solve this peacefully then. I’ll have our terms transmitted via Comstar, couched in the most conciliatory way.”

“They’ll know we are coming,” Olivia Patel added quietly for consideration. “They’ll be ready. And then, what after?”

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #66 on: 15 December 2023, 02:16:29 »
The Perfumed Alleys
Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
May 2nd, 3010

Nestled between the shadows of Nova Roma’s downtown skyscrapers and the countless square kilometers covering the planetary capital’s seaport, the Perfumed Alleys were a labyrinthine maze of thoroughfares congested by pedestrians, narrow side streets with upper floors leaning in so much it made them look more like tunnels, scores of seedy bars frequented by customers of dubious repute, and countless street vendors and small shops offering everything available under the sun, legal or illegal.

It was the place to go to if you were looking for goons for hire, where legitimate mercenaries offered their services. More so, far from the shadow of Mount Caelius the most infamous of the pirate bands and clans operating from the relative safety and under the patronage of the Hegemony called it their preferred port of call. The law treaded lightly here, if it trod there at all. Alleymen liked to handle things on their own, and the thirteen pirate captains effectively in charge of the district knew all too well how to keep their miscreants in line. For the Perfumed Alleys only worked if ordinary folk and their belongings were left unmolested. Rumor had it that those who fell ill of the unwritten rules of the place often could expect a fate worse than what official Marian prosecution, harsh as that was, had in in store.

Generations of emperors had looked the other way, content that the arrangement worked in everyone’s favor. Changing the status quo was not on Marius schedule. He bore no great love for pirates, simply because their very being eluded his control. But for now, the Alleys suited him just the way they were.

Crowded, loud and full of foreign tongues, the district was a nightmare for his security detail. He had only been here once before, on a dare, as a teenage boy. Today he towered above most the others in the crowd, just a few inches short of two meters.

Taller, broader, and determined he walked, and the crowd parted right in front of him like on instinct. People here were used to the streams of men and women, flowing with them as naturally as leaves on a river.

He turned a corner into one of the broader alleys. The stench of people hit him, more raw than the extravagant mixture of smells that the streets had carried so far. You could get everything in the Alleys, as alleymen never ceased to proclaim with stubborn pride. Spices. Fragrances. Drugs. Food. Producing all the scents one could imagine.
It was also the nation’s second largest slave market, dwarfed only by the Flesh Gardens on Suetonius. Here the air smelled of old sweat and new, or fear, of desperation. People abducted on raids from all over the periphery lingered in pens and cages, empty eyed, often bruised, with slave merchants greedily dividing their claims against each other with wires and fences and armed guards. Most at least had the good sense to span sun sails over their goods display. Hundreds of merchants sold and bought thousands of slaves each day in the Alleys.

It wasn’t just for new slaves either. The Alleys were the terminal for all large-scale trade in the business on Alphard, and with some of the larger corporations taking a hint and switching over to higher degrees of mechanization and specialized pleb labor, those pens rarely staid empty.

Marius wrinkled his nose beneath the veil of the thobe he wore to cloak himself. The vest and kevlar meshes he wore beneath made him feel even bulkier than he naturally looked. His ear piece cackled.

“That place does bring up unpleasant memories.” Posca’s voice was husky as he spoke through a larynx microphone, bypassing the all encompassing noise of the alleys.

“Just stay close to me,” Marius responded in kind. He felt a pang of remorse, having dragged his mentor along without remembering the ultimate cause of his presence in his life. He could have left it at that, but that tiny feeling in his stomach gave him pause. “I’m sorry, Posca. We’ll get this done as fast as can be, and then we’ll be gone again.”

There was a long pause. He could feel the slave’s eyes on his back, weighing his possible next words. But Posca only took a deep breath. “There surely are easier ways to get to the Chalice than this, dominus.”

“Probably a dozen or more,” Marius conceded, pushing past a smalltime peddler pulling a cart. From the corner of his eye he saw his two bodyguards shift around it as well. “Sure, I could’ve taken an aircar, but I wasn’t keen to announced my visit to the world. Besides, seeing it all from down here? I think it helps me get a measure of the place and people, Posca. It’s long past time that I met the Thirteen face to face,” he concluded.

“I can think of a handful of ways that did not include, well, this!” Posca sounded as close to angry as he had long since heard him.

“I’m stuck with palace courtiers and senators, Posca. I don’t get many chances to directly mingle with the people I actually rule, see how they spend their days, listen in to what they’re talking about,” he rebuffed him mildly.

Overlooking the southernmost point of the Perfumed Alleys, the headquarters of the Crimson Chalice was a conglomerate of whitewashed houses and mosaic covered domes that had grown and changed like a metastatic cancer since the days the first building had been raised. The brotherhood of the region’s most fearsome – and powerful – pirate bands drew its menacing name from the most mundane of sources: the bar the first pirates had called their favorite spot. During the following decades, those pirates had changed, their power had grown, and the rooms around the original tavern had grown exponentially, turning into an assortment of warehouses, whorehouses, gambling spots, slave pens and barracks. Thirteen small villages in one intermingled locale.

The place’s courtyard was like an invisible breakwater, though garish neon signs beckoned passers-by to seek pleasure and relaxation inside. Bouncers as tall as Marius, their faces brutish and pockmarked from years on the job, lingered around the high entry to the complex’ interior. Sizing him up and judging him worthy, they stepped aside and let him and his entourage in.

Inside, the Crimson Chalice was one winding pleasure circus, a bar mixed with dance club, a brothel and a drug den. Marius had heard rumors of the kind of orgies some of his fellow patricians partook in, and if there was one thing he certainly was not it was a sexual prude. But the open debauchery on display here was something else.

Music thundered on half a dozen dance floors. Naked bodies danced, or had sex, or did both at the same time. The air was heavy with the scent of drugs and sweat, with the acrid smell of puke piercing through here and there. Raucous laughter and high-pitched moans drowned out what few conversations he caught as he made his way deeper into the Chalice.

An utterly beautiful woman caught his eyes, her face weirdly familiar, framed in black locks and golden jewelry she lolled around on a large wooden table, her breasts bare and the rest barely covered by sinfully expensive see-through black silks. Hands were groping her. Her legs were spread apart, and she drew smoke from a hookah with an enraptured smile on her face, her eyes closed.

With some effort he pried his eyes off her. The patrons ignored them as they passed by, with barely clothed slaves rushing to and fro with trays full of food and drinks. Others dangled from chains on some kind of rails, moving to the sounds of the hammering beats of the music.

Marius kept his veil up, hoping to filter out the worst of the smells and drug fumes of the place until he and his companions arrived at the gate to the pirate palace’s inner sanctum. A couple of guards lingered around, half empty bottles lying around next to them. One was smoking something that definitely did not smell like ordinary tobacco.

“Whatchu want, eh?!” one bellowed, stepping into their way. Even five feet away his breath smelled awful through Marius’ veil.

“Here to see the Thirteen, on official business,” Marius replied, each syllable clipped and sharply pronounced to pierce the overall acoustic haze.

“That so, eh? Who might ye be then? Better check our schedule!” the guard glanced over his shoulder at the others and laughed. “Oh look, we don’t have one!”

“I’m Marius O’Reilly,” the young Marian leader announced, trying to keep his annoyance in check.

“Riiight,” the pirate stepped closer, trying to face Marius which, given his height, was rather a challenge. “We’ve got a joker ‘ere. Any relation to the Emperor, or do I we get to carry your sorry arses out of here in a pair of buckets for wasting our time?!” That got the other two bouncers’ attention and they straightened. Marius’ guards did the same, but less obviously so.
Despite the smell of rotting teeth and weeks’ worth of not brushing them hitting him in the face, Marius remained unmoved. Calmly, slowly he took off his veil and thobe, looking the pirate in the eye. “A very close relation to the man, I’d say,” he almost whispered.

As intoxicated as the man was, Marius’ face was probably the most well known in a radius of thirty parsecs. He could see the wide grin slip off the other man’s face, and the color followed suit. In a way it was quite fascinating to witness just how pale a man of the complexion of Kyalla Centrella could get. Marius tilted his head, barely raising his voice.
“I suggest you usher us in now. Would be a shame if that bucket you mentioned ended up carrying what’s left of your ass when the Thirteen realize your little ******, don’t you think?”

The fellow mumbled something, looking away before he spun on his heel. “Let them through, you two witless asscracks!” He even managed a small bow as he stepped aside to let Marius through.

Compared to the cacophony of debauchery outside, the inner sanctum of the Crimson Chalice was almost serene. Wide sandstone arches held a balcony over an oval room whose floor was covered in intricate mosaics worthy of a royal palace. Unlike the mythological or pseudo-historical touch most patricians preferred for the mansions, these here showed jumpships in space, battlemechs in combat, and planetary vistas. Lounge chairs and benches stood in alcoves all along the walls, and warm sunlight fell through a colored glass dome a few floors above. Almost as black as marble, a large and polished hardwood table dominated the room, echoing its oval form. Noteputers, papers, used kitchenware and glasses and bottles in various stages of emptiness lay scattered all across it. A bright holographic map of the nearby periphery hung suspended in the air right at its center. It was quieter here, and even the air smelled less oppressive. The main pirate bands held sort of a wary truce between them to make the best out of their business. But that did not mean they trusted one another.

He counted seven of the thirteen pirates that formed the conclave. It was almost unheard of that all thirteen were in port together.

“Under what rock did you climb out from?!” Leo ‘Blaze’ Mercer was the first to notice him. Four hundred pounds of meat and muscle hid beneath countless layers of fat jumped to their feet and waltzed over to him.

Showtime.
“Mount Caelius. You know, big hill, other side of the bay, with my palace on top? What tub of lard did you glide out from?”
Consciously ignoring the rolling tank, Marius put a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound, producing a small black rectangle rotating on a flat round foundation. He placed it on the table, and a high-pitched whine erupted from it, just at the edge of human hearing. “Now we can talk undisturbed.”

The large man stopped, blinked, feeling the eyes of his comrades on his back – and barked a laugh. “Your majesty? You’re lucky I recognized that mug. People who talk like that to me usually lose their tongues.” He snorted. “Hah, gotta leave you that, you’ve got balls!”

“And I can even still see them,” Marius replied flatly, then produced a smile as the others fell into raucous laughter at Mercer’s expense. At least he had their attention. Leaving the man standing behind him, Marius picked a reasonably clean glass and poured himself some wine. “So, seven out of thirteen. The best of the thirteen, I’m sure you will claim,” his smile broadened, faking joviality. “Maya ‘Cutter’ Khan. Blue Bonnet of the Grim Banshees. ‘Blaze’ Mercer. Captain Chen of Chen’s Cavaliers. ‘Storm’ O’Connor. Lady Ramirez, of the Bonecutters. Jason Fletcher.” He raised the glass to every one of them. “Greetings, to all of you.”

Hands scrambled for glasses to return the toast. If there was one thing most pirates needed little encouragement for it was drinking, Marius thought. Some clichés were true.

“To what do we owe the honor?” Jackson Fletcher was the first to speak. Middle-aged and sturdy built, the pirate lord had a clean suntanned shaven head and face, contrasted by a pair of angry red scars running diagonally across his head.

Marius glanced at the slaves waiting silently in the alcoves. “Tell your property to get out. What I’ve got to say is for your ears only.”

“You heard the man,” Mercer harrumphed from behind. “Out now! All of you!”

The speed with which the slaves left told Marius enough about how they were usually treated if they did not obey to their masters’ wishes and demands. He glanced back at Posca, but kept his smile.

“We’re alone, your majesty,” Fletcher announced. “Why are you here?”

“Simple.” Marius put his glass down again. “You, and all the smaller bands operating under your patronage, have brought immeasurable treasures to this nation. Now, national policy has demanded that I put brakes on one of your most lucrative branches of business. So, consider this my olive branch, for your recent troubles. I’m here with an offer to… redress your projected losses.”

“I’m probably the youngest member of this group, but one thing I’ve learned is that nothing in life comes free,” Blue Bonnet whipped his dreadlocks back over his shoulders and focused his piercing eyes on Marius. “So, where’s the catch… your majesty?”

“No catch, really. But you’re right. This isn’t just about you. It’s not. The Illyrians shot up our people and made me look a fool for trying to do business with them. I want to hurt them, and you’re going to help me do that.”

“And why should we do that?” Mercer slowly walked back to his chair. “What’s in it for us?”

“Why? Because I want to send a message to everybody out there looking to double cross us to think long and hard.” Marius paused. “But that’s neither here nor there, as far as you are concerned. What I’ll do is that: I’m going to hand you the Palatinate’s planets on a silver platter. The Legion’s going in, and soon. We’re going to smash their infrastructure, take their guns, steal their ships. Enact some payback. With the Patty defenders occupied with us that leaves you to reave at your black hearts’ desires. I want you to indulge your vices, ladies and gentlemen. Rob those planets dry. I’ll even let you in on a well-kept secret.” He leaned down onto the table, facing the seven. “We dug up a lostech bunker on Illyria – and I’ll tell you where,” he smiled mischievously as all of them leaned in. “Now, let’s talk details…”

An hour later they were on their way back from the Perfumed Alleys.
“That whole place, these people… They do make my skin crawl,” Posca lamented when they slipped into a nondescript car at the edge of the district. The driver immediately drove off with them.
Marius placed the small device back from the Thirteen’s inner sanctum between them and activated it again. It did not hurt to better be safe than sorry. With an ultrasonic whine the small machine sprang into action, and Marius had to correct himself: it did not hurt much.

“You held out fine, old friend.” Marius wiped the sweat from his face. “But yes, I don’t think I’ll consider the Thirteen my trusted friends anytime soon.”

Posca pointed at the device. “A present from Blackwood?”

Marius shrugged. “Supposedly it scrambles all sorts of electronic surveillance attempts. Capellan made, easily a generation ahead of everything we could domestically produce at the moment. I don’t know how he got his hands on it, and I didn’t ask.”

Posca pondered the answer for a moment. “Do you trust him, dominus?”

Marius leaned back into the cushioned seats and closed his eyes. “Of course not. Maybe ten years down the road, when he’s done everything in his power to protect the Hegemony, I’ll extend my hand to fully embrace him. You can’t really trust people who do what they do only because the alternative would be a far worse scenario.” He sighed. “We were right to appeal to his ego, and he’s the best choice for the task at hand. Though I wish we could have given it to someone equally capable with more leverage in our hands. But it is what it is. And we’re in no position yet to prepare for a ‘who watches the watchmen’-scenario.”

Sensing the finality of the statement, Posca picked up on their earlier conversation.

“The pirates. If you’re not keen to deal with them, why meet them un the first place? You’re the Emperor!” Posca brought up their prior discussion.

“Because I had to sell them on the issue. I could have sent an envoy. Could’ve sent you,” he opened his eyes again and shot the older man a glance. “But the point was to sell them on the importance of what’s happening. I may be young,” Marius added ‘on the outside’ in his mind, “but I understand that trying to get a bunch of pirates to do something is like trying to heard Pompeyan meercats. Besides, I wanted to get a measure of them, just as they must’ve been eager to get one of me,” he explained patiently. He shook his head. “Still, sorry for dragging you through this, Posca.”

The older slave chuckled wearily. “That you don’t like them either at least gives me hope that I’ve instilled some good values in you during all those years of studying, dominus.”

“A few here and there, certainly,” he smiled warmly before his face turned serious again. “Those pirates… Each any every one of them commands far too much firepower for someone who pays very little heed to imperial rule. My rule, Posca.”

“It seems counter-intuitive then that you’ve put their noses on the scent of Castle RICHELIEU. Unless…,” his face lit up and he pushed himself to sit straight in his seat. “You want them to clash with the force that drove Aidan Volkov off planet!”

“Ideally, I’ve given them just enough rope to hang themselves. At least for one or two of them. If they destroy or at least damage the bastards that took the Castle Brian from us it’s a win on both fronts.” He leaned towards Posca. “The Legion will give that place a wide berth, and we’ll be gone for some time before Fletcher or any of the others make their appearance.”

“I’m no soldier, but why not have General Volkova try to handle those mechs?” Posca inquired skeptically.

Marius straightened in his seat. “I don’t want to antagonize the people who sent that force any more than I have to, Posca. You’ve been in the room when they analyzed the battleROMs, Posca. Those mechs weren’t Illyrian troops. They were pristine. More, there were some among them that have effectively been lostech for the better part of a century and a half. Tell me, does that sound like an ordinary merc outfit to you? Something a backwater like Illyria could just organize, bring in and pay from their pocket change?”

“Given you put it that way, I assume the answer is no. Then who is the Palatinate’s benefactor?”

Posca noticed his master looking at the scrambler for a long moment before he squared his jaw and spoke again. “The Palatinate is just a pawn in all of this, Posca. Strategically and operationally, there was a very small window of opportunity between the dig on site Ferrum striking proverbial gold, and that force making its entry. Who controls the flow of interstellar communications, Posca? Who must have the means to read and analyze all faster than light messages, either manually or even by an algorithm?”

His mentor frowned. “You mean Comstar is behind this? But their stance of neutrality is literally their strongest position! Their whole raison d’être is that they are impartial providers of information.”

“Information they themselves feed into their HPG network, Posca. Someone is always watching. What’s Comstar’s greatest strength, really? Their control of news and information across a thousand solar systems. Their access to technology nobody else has. That strength only endures as long as technology stagnates. As they can contain any finds and scoop them up, away from the grabby hands of the houses.”

“If that were the case, I somehow doubt they would have been able to maintain their façade of neutrality and benevolence for long. There’s always someone digging up one piece of lostech or another, dominus.”

“A single mech dug up from ditch, or some Star League terminal found in an abandoned planet’s warehouse isn’t enough to shake the status quo, Posca. A Castle Brian with a couple hundred square kilometers of tunnels, with tons of supplies and technology in a working state?” He sharply sucked in breath. “That’s a game changer. Comstar sits at the heart of the Inner Sphere like a spider in a net, in a solar system untouched by the ravages of the succession wars. And they have enclaves on every major world in the known universe, and corporate ties to countless others. Tell me, Posca, who else has direct access to all communications? Who else has a vested interested in maintaining a technological monopoly and therefore most likely systems in place that will scrounge said communications for any hint related to technology? Who’s got the money, and with the MRB the direct access to mercs in the area and the means to organize shipping, let alone slip them lostech mechs from stockpiles to make sure they get the job done?”

“How about SAFE?” Posca offered, with little conviction in his voice. “They are the only known agency close enough to the location.”

“True, they’d be the logical culprit, if you’re not asking questions,” Marius partially acquiesced. “But Blackwood’s one-man operation ran circles around them for years. And how likely is it that the information about RICHELIEU reached them in basically no time, was analyzed correctly, then punted up the ladder, and then acted upon? With mercenaries, and gear that the League’s own forces don’t readily have access to?” he raised his eyebrows. “I think I’ve got well enough of a read on Janos Marik that he’d have no qualms about sending in official League forces when the prospect of gaining SLDF gear for possibly a few brigades was on the line.”

Posca gave him a long, worried look.
“Dominus, if that is true, is meddling with them really a wise move?”

Marius laughed bitterly. “Posca, you once told me wisdom is knowing when to not do something, Politics is being forced to do it anyhow. I’m trying my best to not step on their toes. But I also cannot sit back and let it all play out unchallenged. The Legion won’t attack them. Officially, the Hegemony will be long gone from Palatinate space before the Thirteen make their appearance. I see no reason to throw away the lives of good men and women. It’ll also hopefully send the message that we know when to back off. Now, if one or two pirate bands hit Ferrum?” he shrugged nonchalantly. “That will also send them a message: that we back down, but that we don’t forget or forgive either. Either way, when the dust has settled, we’ll have gotten our pound of flesh, and they’ll still sit on RICHELIEU.”

“You do not think Mercer and the others will succeed, dominus?” Posca looked puzzled. The mentor was a fountain of knowledge on people and politics and history, but actual combat was not one of his strengths.

“It’s… unlikely,” Marius shook his head. “General Volkova thinks the enemy mercs were decent fighters, and the machines they pilot certainly outclass everything someone like Mercer or Bonnet field, in very much every regard: firepower, tonnage, maintenance. That is, if the mercs are still even there in the first place. Still,” he slipped a tiny smile, “greed will draw the Thirteen in. But my money is on those two companies of mercenary mechs. Or do you think more than two of those cutthroats will work together?”

“That seems unlikely, dominus. But… I do not like it,” Posca confessed. “It gives me a bad feeling in my stomach. Do you think by playing this tit for tat things will go back to normal?”

The car passed through the outer walls of the palace.

“No, Posca. It’s only a matter of time until they realize how much gear we dug up and brought back home. I don’t think this is over yet.” He smiled sadly at Posca, giving the slave the impression of a far older man for the brink of second. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. But,” he chuckled wearily, “knowing that already gives us the tiniest of advantages. We’ll have to prepare accordingly. I hope you’re not tired yet, we’ve got work to do!”

The next day, the Hegemony sent an ultimatum to Illyria. Wrapped in diplomatic language, Alphard demanded to hand over all captured personnel, repatriate all remains of the fallen, and pay reparations to the tune of thirty million C-bills. Illyria had until the end of the week to comply with the demands. Meanwhile, General Volkova began to plan for action.

Sunday came and passed.

In the early morning hours of Monday Posca woke Marius and handed him Jorgenson’s reply. It was only one word. Considering himself somewhat of a scholar of history in his own right, Marius had to laugh when he saw it. The note read: “Nuts!”

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #67 on: 15 December 2023, 02:36:32 »
...Mission wasn't exactly a catastrophe, but it was probably the width of one Canopian hooker's g-string away from it. The brass was eager to show the new paradigm in action, which, in my not so holy opinion, is never a good thing. Our Invader managed to drop in at the planet's pirate point. The setup was pretty standard. We had one Leopard with ASF run air cover and interdiction, one Mule on standby to pick up loot, and one Union rushing in to ruin the Patties' day. Reykavis isn't anything to write home about. Cold, with forests covering most the planet, at least where the mile high polar glaciers aren't. Your typical backwater world where you freeze your balls off three quarters of a year, and get eaten alive by mosquitos during the other three months. But like all their worlds it's rich in minerals.
… Gold? Nah, I mean sure, we'd take it if they had it, but most the stuff they dig up in the few communities large enough to run mining ops dug up iron, tin, nickel. We didn't come for that, but for the stuff they stored in warehouses around their capital at the planet's equator. We were the grab. The other two companies of 3rd Cohort were the smash, getting down on the other side of the planet near the main mines and industrial centers. Patties had been working some neat veins of cobalt, iridium and palladium, and every three months or so some cutthroat indie merchant bought up their stores for a pittance compared to the market price.
... Blackbeak Buccaneers actually took his ship in '09, that’s how we found out. Anyway, getting off track here. My centurio wanted to go after the warehouses first and the local armory second. Had us split up fifty-fifty, which was bonkers since we didn't need the footsies to deny the Patties access to the armory, and the armor was at a disadvantage in town as compared to the open fields around the drop port and the warehouses. My maniple CO suggested he take both the infantry and the armor. That way we'd have a good chance at securing the armory before the militia mobilized. But the fool didn't want to hear anything about it, claiming all of the ops had to be combined arms, and that they'd be shoving medals and promotions up our unshaven arses if we did as he told us. Typical highborn prick. I've got no idea whose wheels he had to grease to get the position, or the mission.
… of course, he had some strings pulled! C'mon, you're no idiot, you know how these things work! Wouldn't be surprised if it was him who peddled the mission to command in the first place, as stupid as it was.
...Why? Because the footsies and the tankers had been out of basic for maybe half a year, and we had nowhere near the cohesion or even understanding what we were supposed to be doing to run a raid of that size! Certainly doesn't help if your CO's as thick as a brick. Yeah, I'm no Patton either, but me and my maniple CO actually grasped what the whole 'combined arms' shenanigans was s'pposed to be. Tried to train with them, hard as that was.

...because them, they were all plebs, and we were patricians. Yeah, half of our families were nothing to write down, just an old name with a big plot o'land. Principes coming from pleb ranks got as much command authority as one from an old name, but try to get it through some people's skulls after eight decades of social conditioning. Even my maniple wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, but at least we tried.

So, Reykavis. Dipshit in command decided to divide the force in half, which is always a good system when you're working with an uneven-numbered force composition. Instead of just rushing to the armory, using our jump jets to cut corners, we had to stick together to cover the footsies in the APC and the tank taking up the rear. Naturally, the militia makes it to the armory before us, and before you can say 'Caesar's Tits!' we're receiving fire from all sides. One of our guys has to punch out, and the tank gets mauled badly, but the footsies clear some of the buildings and can drag the pilot back into their APC. When we make it to the armory we've all taken hits, we're bruised, and we've got Patty mechs on the field by then. CO orders us to just indiscriminately blast the place before we hightail it out of there, because we don't want to get outmaneuvered.

Meanwhile dipshit centurio realizes he can't really take over the warehouses in time because he's got only half the footsies with him, his mechs are entangled fighting the Illyrians, and the sole tank and scout he has are hard-pressed to cover his only APC. Then a couple of mediums and heavies enter the field. Naturally, shit hits the fan, badly. Turns out the Patties had a merc lance on retainer, and not a green one at that. Our maniple manages to link up with the others just in time to see dipshit CO kick the bucket.

Well, Lady Fate loves herself some irony. Centurio got his mech got cored by a Patty Centurion, of all machines. My CO takes one look at the situation, realizes she's now in command, and orders us to fall back. Militia's converging on us, the mercs have found their bearing, and we're rattled.

She takes ten seconds to get us back on track again. The footsies disembark between the warehouses. The light mechs and sally to draw the Patties in, while the tanks and our heavies begin pelting the drop port’s facilities with everything they have. So, the militia’s forced to split up, gets tangled between the warehouses where our footsies pummel them with satchel charges and portable SRMs as they try to fight our mediums. Bad for them, as our lights then fell on their flanks. Same happened with the mercs trying to stop our tanks and heavies. Nothing’s as dangerous as a CO who’s got a good read of the battlefield.

Anyway, drop port’s on fire then, the part that’s not already dust’n rubble. Never underestimate the explosion a hydrogen tank can produce. Warehouses are burning, too. Didn’t know why or who, but some ****** had infernos loaded. Anyway, air cover tells use there’s more Patties converging. They go in to harass them, but one of our boys gets shot down by AA, and a tide of light armor and technical starts rolling in.
With pure luck we make it back to the dropship without further losses, and we haul ass with enemy LRMs knocking against the hull. Almost a total ******. We lost about a third of the unit's strength that day, and had no loot to show for it. ‘suppose technically they called it a success because we did a hell of a lot of damage that day, but it didn’t feel like one.

The only good thing to come from that fiasco was my CO eventually made centurion and turned the unit around. I was told heads also rolled higher up the ladder, and directives from all the way to the top had every single one of us mech jockeys sit through lectures on combined arms combat some months later. Given how the legions conducted themselves on the Day of Woe and in '38 I'd say we took those lessons to heart. ...Me? No, I got a medical discharge back in '25, took over my father's vineyard. By the way, can I get you another glass...?
– A Force in Transition: Eyewitness Reports of the Genesis of the Modern Legion, Magmasaurus Imprint, Horatius, 3043 C.E.

PsihoKekec

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #68 on: 18 December 2023, 01:30:35 »
The birthing pains of the new model army.

Quote
Blackbeak Buccaneers

Was name inspired by a certain 60's ground attack airplane?
Shoot first, laugh later.

DragonKhan55

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #69 on: 20 December 2023, 15:06:15 »
Tagged for great glory.

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #70 on: 21 December 2023, 01:21:54 »
The birthing pains of the new model army.

Was name inspired by a certain 60's ground attack airplane?
No, tbh I don't remember how I came up with the name.

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Tagged for great glory.
Thank you!

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #71 on: 04 January 2024, 07:15:28 »
C h a p t e r  0 8:   Ma Bell's Long Reach


Massilia,
Continent of Gaul, Alphard
Marian Hegemony

Glass splintered as the empty bottle broke into countless pieces, crushed by a smooth rock the size of a toddler’s head. Half the span of a football field away a man flexed his hands, revealing the soft whirr of prosthetics far too pricy for someone clad in a worn long coat and factory workers’ clothes. His face was still, retracing the path the rock had taken through the air and the four by four feet opening in the ragged wall on the other side. Metal lattice lay bare across the ruined, pockmarked wall, revealing almost more holes than substance. The man took a few steps forward to check on his work again. Half a dozen bottles lay broken, one neatly placed next to another, all crushed by his stones. A shimmer of satisfaction flashed across his stoic face. With hints of Korean and Mediterranean heritage it was a face that was in a word so average one would forget it the moment one no longer saw it.

With one last glance, the man turned around, picked up his rucksack, drew his beanie down over his ears and nodded towards the deepening shadows off to the side. Footsteps departed in the dark. In some distance, the engines of several cars awoke, their sounds quickly fading as they, too, departed. With trained ease the man navigated through the labyrinthine corridors of the abandoned, decrepit factory and emerged onto the sidewalk of a warehouse district, right where the cones of two street lamps left almost just the hint of an orange glow. There were only few public cameras in the district, and the few of those that actually worked only showed a select mix of prerecorded footage tonight, courtesy of the man’s more tech savvy companions.

People numbered ever fewer than cameras at this time. Alphard was warm planet, but even here something like winter existed, and it hit harder in Massilia than in Nova Roma. Icy wind gushed through the warehouse district, driving dust and dry leaves in front of it. Shift change in most of the district would not be happening until a few hours from then, and nobody who did not absolutely have to be outside in the cold did so.

A stiff breeze billowed the man’s long coat and he sunk a bit deeper between beanie and woolen collar. Down the street, right, then left, past a few old loading cranes, then right again. The district had seen better days. Time and again he walked past abandoned old factories and warehouses with collapsed roofs or white-painted, boarded up windows. It was an old district in an old city – or whatever passed as old here. Most park benches in the place the man had grown up where older than both city and nation he was in. Still, the district with its myriad rusty corrugated sheet metal buildings was a relic of the early goldrush days of settlement on Alphard, back when everybody expanded wildly, before the planet’s economy had found its own steady pulse and mining and manufacturing had moved away from the temperate and colder zones, making way for agriculture.

The man knew the district well. Indeed, he had memorized the full layout in great detail, all the ins and outs and what lead where, what was where, and how not to be seen if he so desired. He turned a final corner and began his walk down a wide, empty road. To his right rose the high sheet metal and concrete walls of office buildings and warehouses, with only a few windows between them. From even fewer of those light shone into the street below in quickly diminishing cones. On the other side of the road a set of three warehouses surrounded by lumps of freight containers – some new, some old and rusting – rose twenty meters into the night sky, bleached red sheet metal covered in the faded yellow logo of a shipping company. Floodlights illuminated the area, and heavily armed private security patrolled behind a metal mesh fence topped with coils of razor wire. Every once in a while, an inconspicuous industrial mech walked by. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you knew what to look for.

Slowly walking down the road, the man began opening the buttons on his long coat with one hand. Private security was nothing special, however these here all carried standard Marian army assault rifles and body armor, and there was an awful lot of them. Surveillance footage taken by a small drone with the radar cross section of a bumblebee showed around a hundred heat signatures on the compound, with most of them hidden at strategic points where the owners of the warehouse complex had set up what the man could only describe as container forts, complete with infantry support weapons and makeshift, hidden pillboxes. The four industrial mechs walking around the area in seemingly random patterns also carried simple armor plating and, at least, a mix of SRM launchers, machine guns and medium lasers, clumsily covered from preying eyes. No, this was no ordinary setup.

Under his coat, the man felt the familiar weight and shape of a sphere right about the size of a toddler’s head. He kept his gait steady so as to not arouse suspicion. They had done their due diligence and, through a mix of bribery, hacking, coercion and plain old rumor-chasing had tracked down the Marian lostech cache to the run-down warehouse district half a planet away from Camp Sulla, arguably one of the last places people ordinarily would expect it. The man was convinced that, if anything remained back at the Marian main military base, it was little more than a decoy.

Coming up, hanging a few meters above the sidewalk on his side of the street a square part of prefab concrete building marked about right the middle of the length of the warehouses. Soft blue light, barely visible if you didn’t know how to look for it, shone through milky glass. The position gave a good overview over the warehouses. Which was why the Marians had chosen it as their impromptu command post, ready to lead the ‘private security’ in case a breach occurred. The man did not slow down. He had walked the same path for the past three weeks, several times a day, alone, among others, in various different sets of clothes. To whoever might look, he by now was a regular occurrence, a normal worker in the district. He and his companions had meticulously kept a tally of everything happening here. Everything they did had led them here. To this very moment.

From several directions, the sound of ICE engines rapidly grew louder, and, as one, a quartet of large, nondescript locally built vans burst into the streets around the warehouse. The man’s last coat button gave way. In one fluent motion he pulled the safety pin from the bundle of explosives that had dropped into his hands and hurled the lethal package towards the milky windows ahead and above. It took barely a second the cross the distance. As it crashed through the tinted glass, the man noted with analytic satisfaction that its path perfectly mirrored those of his nonlethal brethren he so thoroughly had practiced with.

The thought vanished as quickly as it had appeared, seared away by shrapnel and fire. Thunder rolled across the district as a mix of high explosives, thermite and inferno gel turned the Marian command post into hellish furnace.

Like clockwork ballet dancers, the four vans stopped as one at positions predetermined in long planning and dry run sessions and disgorged groups of black clad operatives. Hatches flapped open, revealing SRM racks and grenade launchers. Roof coverages flipped to the sides. For the brink of a second the world seemed to hold its breath. Then pandemonium erupted.

From the top of the vehicles jump troopers soared into the night sky, two from each van. At the same time, SRMs roared from formerly concealed hatches, spitting a mix of high explosives and incendiaries aimed at the Marian container ‘forts’, piercing the thin metal casings and showering unsuspecting soldiers with shrapnel and gel that went up in flames the moment it touched oxygen. In between the carefully orchestrated onslaught black-clad operatives moved methodically through the breaches, heavy armor absorbing what little defensives fire rose to meet them as they dished out death in controlled bursts.

Up above, the jump troopers danced their deadly ballet. Rearing from the surprise assault the four Frankenstein mechs reacted only sluggishly. Their coms were aflame with contradicting chatter and panicked reports, and their own sensors were in no way comparable to the suites true military battlemechs sported. The first and closest to the unknown attackers had just flicked the safety off their bolted-on weapons when figure with a jetpack suddenly filled their field of vision. Something flashed. Hot pain seared through their body before everything fade to black, and they slumped over into their controls. The upgraded industrial mechs were nothing to sneeze at, but they had a glaring Achilles heel: their cockpits were open.

The first mech, called ‘Able’ went haywire when its pilot died, having a full clip emptied in their body at point blank range. Slumped on its controls, the mech began to walk in an irregular circle, slamming into containers and the warehouse behind, crashing through the thin sheet metal walls, all the while firing its single large laser in wild arcs.
‘Baker’ found itself plagued by not one but three jump troopers at once, clinging to its chassis like bugs. It flailed its stubby arms impotently, trying to throw them off, moving across the area like a child throwing a tantrum. When they finally let go as one the reprieve was short lived as three satchel charges blasted the machine into at least as many large parts – and countless smaller ones.

Down below, the man had joined his comrades in arms in their gruesome and methodical task. Their initial strike broken any coordinated response – and resolve – and what they did now was part hunting, part mop-up and part execution detail. His own submachinegun spat death in controlled bursts into an enclosed room that the Marians had been using as an impromptu office.  Two men went down, their body armor doing little to stop the armor-piercing projectiles. Around him, others of his team had moved into the warehouse and had begun to set remote charges to the containers inside. They were a special brew his superiors had come up with some time ago, and tailored made to get rid of ‘solidly made problems’. Here and there a black clad operative threw open some of the container doors to peek inside, doing spot checks to see if their quarry was actually present. The man nodded to himself in satisfaction. Recon had been good, but one of the iron rules of the trade was ‘trust, but verify’.

At first, he and his companions had fixed their gaze on Camp Sulla, but after a few days of reconnaissance, bribery, picking up rumors, and maybe a decent amount of nigh untraceable hacking, the picture had become clear that whatever was stored at the Marian’s main military base was nothing but a decoy. The neobarbarians had played it smart, and shipped off their grand prize, and had tried to erase their traces. A good move, but one by amateurs trying to play in the major league.

Inside the containers lay stacked crates and sealed boxes wearing the logo of the long defunct Star League Defense Force. Some were big enough that one of them filled the container as a whole. Good. That checked out with the intel they had on the stash.

Around him, the carnage continued unabated. A few Marians had entrenched behind some more solid debris and rained machine gun fire into the operatives’ general direction. None of the bursts hit, and the resistance died unceremoniously to a grenade dropped from a jump trooper above.

The third of the Hegemony security mechs stood wreathed in flame from head to toe, inferno gel having found its way across its whole body. Like a fiery scarecrow it illuminated the night. Crumpled and smoldering, the wreckage of ‘Delta’ had crushed two containers beneath it next to it. Around him, gunfire started to die down.

Checking his watch, the man tapped his comm twice. One by one, affirmative replies reached back to him, and he allowed himself a smile. Time to go. As fast and orderly as they had come the attackers filed back into their vans and sped off. He watched the ruined warehouse shrink in the mirror, then pushed the button on the remote detonator a second operative wordlessly handed him.

The chain of explosions quite literally outshone everything that had happened in the prior minutes. With the horizon aflame, the man and his team vanished into the night.


MHAFS IULIUS CAESAR
en route to Alphard
Marian Hegemony
August 28th, 3010

“Deceleration phase ending in four… three… two… one. Drive boost off, main drive adjusting to one standard gravity. Remain in place until light switches to green.”

Marius could feel three times his body weight rapidly lifting off his shoulders and chest. His fingers had been curled around the rest of the seat he had spent strapped in for the past hour or so, and trying to flex them before he unfastened his safety belt shot daggers of pain through his hands and lower arms.

The Overlord-class’ lights flickered briefly, switching from a dull red to green before the normal cabin illumination sprung to life again.

His feet tingled as blood began to circulate normally, rushing back up through his body. Wearily, he got up and grabbed a bottle of water from a locker and a mix of pills meant to help spacers get over the side effects of high-G stress, painkillers included. His head throbbed, tortured by a dozen needle pricks starting from his neck and going all the way to his frontal lobes.

Gods, as much as space fascinated him, he was just too much planet bound to ever get used to the everchanging whims of gravity and acceleration. Gulping down the pills, and emptying the bottle for good measure, he briefly closed his eyes and had to steady himself, grabbing the edge of his desk with both hands.

The cabin was small, an ordinary officer’s cabin, just a bunk, a tiny showering niche, a couple of lockers, two fixed chairs, and a desk. IULIUS CAESAR war a combat vessel first and foremost, and there was no place for luxury or special accommodations just for him. That’s what IMPERATOR, or Hegemony 1 as it was called, was for. But that wasn’t a warship and thus had not taken part in the operation.

Three beeps chiming from the pad next to his cabin’s bulkhead notified him of a visitor, and he hobbled over, silently cursing his feet while they slowly returned to their normal size. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” Aidan Volkov’s voice sounded tinny. Marius unlocked the bulkhead – locking things down was a standard procedure whenever the ship moved above speeds simulating standard planetary gravity – and let his comrade in.

“Did you spend decel strapped to the next bulkhead or how did you manage to get down here so quickly?” he welcomed him.

“Not living a totally namby-pamby palace life does have its perks,” sun-tanned, dark-haired and bearing his mother’s green-blue eyes, the younger Volkov stepped into the cabin with the grace of a leopard and slipped into the next best seat. “You look like crap warmed over… your majesty.”

Marius grunted. “Careful, I’ve been doing full contact mixed martial arts for the better part of a year now. I could beat your lanky ass any day for that kind of disrespect.”

“Yeah right. Probably.” He watched Marius stretch and wince as joints cracked and the emperor grimaced. “Cripple.”

Despite the discomfort Marius had to laugh. “Imperial cripple, please.”

“Alright then, Imperial cripple. Seriously, you don’t look great,” Aidan’s dark pony tail flipped back and forth as he shook his head.

“I feel even worse. Like, ‘needing physical therapy once back on the ground’ worse.” Marius hissed, trying to stretch. “Suppose that’s the advantage to active service, eh? Your body gets used to that sort of strain.”

“Eh, it never gets pleasant, if that’s what you’re asking. So,” he slapped his legs, “you wanted to talk to me before we make planetfall?”

“Yes. Care for a drink?”

“Right after that pill cocktail? Feeling adventurous, are we?” he chuckled. “Of course, Hawkbeak!”

Marius produced a bottle of single malt whiskey and two tumblers from a secure compartment of his desk and poured both of them a generous helping.

“Whiskey? Are we down to old man drinks now?” Aidan jokingly raised an eyebrow.

“It’s an acquired taste,” he rolled his eyes. “I’m stuck on Mount Caelius most the time, with Posca. Like I would have an idea what the hip kids drink!” The two shared a laugh. For a moment, Marius savored the warmth of the golden liquid as it ran down his throat before he spoke up again. “I’d like to get your appraisal of how we did.”

“Mine?” Aidan was genuinely surprised. “I’m sure there are more senior officers in the flotilla, or the legions as a whole for that matter, that’re more qualified than me.”

“Everybody’s more qualified than you, Vulture,” he deadpanned. “But honestly, I’m asking you because you’ve seen direct action under the new paradigm, you’ve trained forces – and I can trust you not to bullshit me because you’re my friend,” Marius told him seriously. “I’ve got full confidence in your mother to handle the big picture, Vulture. But I need people on site that can talk to me without trying to butter me up.”

Aidan blinked. “Thanks… I guess? Alright, where do I start? Legio I was a mixed bag. The mechwarriors are our most experienced soldiers, but they are all set in their ways, the good’ol Patrician mechjock mafia. Combat performance for them was good throughout the bank, and I would’ve been surprised if it hadn’t been, given most of them have served as long as me or considerably longer. But,” he leaned back, absentmindedly rubbing his fingers, “Cooperation between the Cohorts I to III and their armor and infantry regiments was lackluster at best, non-existent at worst. On all three planets they hit, they continually outpaced their support forces, often with disregard to the strategic objectives. On the flipside, cooperation between armor and footsies on their side was textbook, almost too good for green formations, to be honest, and that despite half of their officers being patricians. On Trondheimal, while II Cohort was busy stroking their egos, elements of the 4th Armored and 1st Infantry stopped a larger sized Palatinate counterattack comprised of mechs, armor, VTOLs and infantry cold, then enveloped the enemy and finally wiped it out when the rest of the 4th arrived. Much of the salvage taken on the ground can be pinned on the footsies and tankers. Now, that doesn’t mean Legio I’s mech did a bad job, the way I see it. Most the time they beat the Patties and achieved their strategic goals. Much of the important infrastructure across all four worlds has taken a hit.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming?” Marius took a sip of whiskey, swirling the glass in his hand.

“But it opened them up to unnecessary casualties, and we covered less ground in the end because they repeatedly got bogged down individually whereas they could have achieved victory as a united force. Now,” he gulped down his drink in one go, eager to continue, “Legio II, or rather IV Cohort as that’s all there is right now? They did fine. I’ve been training some of them between all my little extra tasks, so I’m absolutely biased,” he chuckled, “but since ninety percent of them were new recruits they’ve all grown into the service together. They’ve all trained as a combined force from the very start. Not sayin’ they are perfect. Trasjkis was the right spot for them to take, with the least resistance, and even then they appeared brittle sometimes. They are green, barely out of training, and for most of them it was the first time they had live ammo flying their way. And their casualty rate proves it. But even under pressure they remembered to act as a team. And they persevered.”

Marius scowled. “Well great. So, basically you’re telling me our sole full formation is too stiff to work as intended?”

“I’m not going to dunk on my comrades,” Aidan shook his head. “Most of them are fine soldiers. But you can’t easily overcome institutional inertia. They’ve been the unit for eighty plus years, and now they’ve been told to share the spotlight, with something as ordinary as tanks or, Jupiter’s hairy balls, infantry!” he chuckled mirthlessly. “You want them to work as intended? Retrain the principle officers. Give those who don’t adapt or perform the boot. Maybe break up the formation?” he shrugged. “Like, take out one cohort, divide it in three, then use the three companies as the nucleus for a new legion, and train it up as a combined unit from the ground. That way they’ll have to adapt? I don’t know, just a suggestion.”

“Your mom’s not going to like that. Legio I has been her home for decades now. Lots of emotional attachment. Gutting it and scattering it to the four winds? She’s going to hate the thought.

“It’s been my home, too, Marius,” Aidan reminded him. “And my mom’s a big girl. She knows how to take orders, should you pick up my suggestions. I mean, it’s not like you’d explode the regiment in one go. Building up Legio II will take until when? 3011? 3012?”

“The last update was that we’re on track for mid to late 3012, with armor and infantry, if everything goes according to plan,” Marius explained.

“So, it’s probably going to take until that year or so until you start to set up Legio III and IV. It’s not like you’re cutting up my home regiment in one fell swoop then.” Aidan eyed his glass, and Marius took the cue to refill it.

“Legio II’s the test run, Vulture. The plan’s to look at how setting it up worked, then apply the lessons to the next ones. Taking your idea, we’d take II Cohort and III Cohort from Legio I, then use their individual companies to set up the nucleus of the next two legions. Anyway,” he raised his glass, “bottoms up, old chap. You’ve given the imperial cripple something to think about. Cheers!”

The two men emptied their drinks and shared a moment of silence. Sighing almost simultaneously, Marius plugged the bottle and put the glasses away.
“You know, I’m going to give you your own cohort soon.”

“****** me,” Aidan ran his hands through his face. “You just want to make my life miserable, right?”

“Eh, it’s one of my more refined qualities,” Marius smiled before turning sober. “That you don’t want it tells me you’re exactly the right man for the job. Besides, you seem to have the right ideas. Be a shame if you didn’t get a chance to apply them.”

“There’s no escaping you, is there?” Aidan sighed.

“Perks of being emperor.”

They lapsed into silence again before the terminal on the small cabin’s desk beeped and booped to life, signaling an incoming call.

“Well, that’s my cue,” Aidan announced and rose. “I’m going to get some more shut-eye. Talk to you on the ground then.”

Watching the bulkhead close with metallic click and hydraulic hiss, Marius switched the screen on. A long row of code flashed down the side, a sign that the connection was encrypted. A second later, his sister’s auburn mane filled the screen.

“Syv! How are you!” Marius’ face lit up.

There was some delay before the younger O’Reilly answered with a smile. “Busy, big bro. Holding the fort for you, together with your grumpy old Posca. Just thought I’d give you a heads up on the situation.”

Immediately Marius tensed. “Any more ‘terrorist’ attacks?”

“What? No!” Sylvana shook her head. “No follow-ups. But the warehouse is gone. Investigators say the attackers must have used some mix of explosives and highly volatile incendiaries. Not a bit of evidence regarding who did it. Local CCTVs were down during the attack and backups were wiped. No eyewitnesses left, and no blood or DNA. Whoever did it, they were like vengeful ghosts.”

“Worrying, but that’s at least something,” the young old emperor exhaled audibly. “That nothing more’s happened, I mean,” he added.

“There’s a parade planned for tonight. You’ll be expected to make a speech, and look sharp,” his sister told him. “Just wanted to warn you ahead of time.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Posca. He’s written a speech for you. It’s attached to the datastream of this call. You can check it later.” She leaned closer to her screen. “So, how did it go?”

He quickly gave her a rundown of the campaign and his conversation with Aidan. “At the end of the day, transportation was a bottleneck,” he explained. “There’s only so many dropships and jumpships we have access to at the moment. We had to loan a few from the trading cartels to get by, and they don’t have excess ships to spare either. And we don’t have prime access to new production. Everything we can get is used or stolen. Interstellar transportation is a bottleneck for everybody.” Even after Helm that would stay true for many years.

“We do have corporations building small craft and orbitals locally,” she reminded him. “How about paying them to get into the game?”

“True enough. But we don’t have infinite money. Even with all the riches we’ve plundered in the last century, settling three new worlds, funding a massive infrastructure program and increasing our military by a factor of ten or so leads to empty coffers eventually,” he told her.

“You could run a tender, like Uncle Corv did with the weapons manufacturers. I’m sure the company at least would take the opportunity to flex its muscles,” she suggested.

“It’s a good idea. Your idea. So, you go and set it up,” Marius yawned and rubbed his eyes. His sister set out to protest but he stopped her, raising his hand. “Maybe I should make you head of my department of finance and economy.”

“You don’t have such a department, Marius.”

“No, but I really should. I took some time on the voyage to look at how seriously underdeveloped part of our executive is,” he explained.

“Well, thanks, but no,” Sylvana shook her head. “I’m nineteen, big bro. How about you give me a few years on the board of Alphard Trading before springing such a ridiculous idea on me?”

“Alright, fine, Syv. But for sure you know someone… .”

FWCartography

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #72 on: 04 January 2024, 07:17:29 »
Outskirts of Dalmatia, Illyria
Illyrian Palatinate
September 5th, 3010

Captain Jackson Fletcher stepped over the body of the dead Illyrian noble and took a long look across the valley from the terrace of the large mansion. A few fires still burned in the distance, but not too many. The air smelled of fresh snow, ozone, smoke, and a hint of fear. The estate’s entourage – what was left of it after the few men stupid or courageous enough to fight him had left for the afterlife – cowered in the yard. Maybe they’d fetch a good price. Or maybe…

He picked up a radio.
“What are you up to, Blaze?”
Leo ‘Blaze’ Mercer, captain of the Corpsegrinders was half a world away, a blunt tool doing what he did best: reave and destroy.
“That you, Scarface?” the big man’s voice rumbled through a wave of static after a few moments. “Havin’ a feast here! Those buggers brew a great bear, and man, I’m not complaining about the honkers on their ladies either!” he laughed. “And you, ya miserable ******?”

Fletcher felt a shark-like grin grow on his face.
“Oh, this and that. You know, I think I like it here, Blaze. Just realized I always wanted my own planet.”


Hilton Head, North America
Terra, Solar System
October 15th, 3010

“Now that next year’s budgetary concerns have been settled, may I inquire how ROM intends to solve the quagmire it has driven us into in the Palatinate?”

Julian Tiepolo, lithe, calm, and by vote the Primus of the last vestiges of the Star League that had transformed themselves into ComStar, the seemingly neutral and objective arbiter of interstellar communication, watched the hologram of Mercy Waters spit proverbial acid into Vesar Kristofur’s direction. Throughout the discussions he had observed the grey-haired, square-jawed Indo-Korean woman’s mood turn from tense to sour to thinly-veiled-belligerent. But the question was more than justified to spend prime interstellar HPG bandwidth on.
“Vesar, what’s ROM’s take on this?” he inquired, acting superficially cordial.

“Given the size of the discovered cache and the uncertainty regarding how far the Marian Hegemony had been able to exploit its find ROM concluded that a robust intervention was the most favorable tactic to avoid whatever was hidden in Castle RICHELIEU from falling into the wrong hands. To that end I opted for a proactive approach, making do with forces in the vicinity. ROM recon teams were able to map the area of the Castle Brian, and the order’s intervention was successful in securing the find. As far as ROM is concerned, the main goal of our blessed order has been upheld,” the forty-one years old Precentor ROM explained himself smoothly.

“Your ‘pro-active approach has turned a lostech find – significant as it may be – into a war, a national collapse, and an anti-spy witch hunt across eleven planets,” Mercy Waters snapped. “Precentor Illyria’s reports have gone from concerned to panicked to outright traumatized. Meanwhile, Precentor Alphard lets us know he is convinced Marius O’Reilly would’ve been amendable to a quiet and peaceful solution right from the start, seeing as the Marians are trying to stem a colonization program, a military buildup, and infrastructure initiative and an expansion of their education system, all at the same time. Surely that is a situation that’d made the Marians receptive to offers of financial support in return to letting us shepherd their findings?” Waters’ hologram looked around the table. Both Alphard and the HPG station on Illyria were part of a chain of stations which primarily connected to the order’s superluminal network through her area of operations. Thus, she was privy to the contents of the reports both local precentors had sent to Terra.

“ROM’s operative qualities are well-established, and frankly beyond debate. Still, my reading of the situation is such that I must concur with my colleague on Atreus. Your approach, Precentor Kristofur, seems… particularly reckless,” Precentor Dieron commented thoughtfully. Tall and broad-shouldered despite his years the man would not have looked out of place on any parade ground of the successor states. “A less panicked analysis of the situation should have seen the mission fronted by the Explorer Corps, and local officials of our blessed order. Given the sorry state of their economy and standard of living, the Illyrians could have been bought off with trinkets and the promise of economic aid. And one certainly could have found ways and means to satisfy the wants of an ambitious young man like Marius O’Reilly.” He shook his head. “The plan you set in motion contains to many fault lines,” his hologram briefly flickered as he picked up a sheet of paper. “By your own reports, the mercenaries tasked with securing the cache suffered disproportionate losses in their battle with the Marian legions. What if they had lost? What if the Marians had gotten to the bottom of this?!”

“Precentor Dieron, the very nature of my work makes it so that far-reaching decisions often have to be taken based on an imperfect reading of situations far removed from those making them,” the slick-haired Kristofur looked from Mercy Waters to Precentor Dieron and, finally, to Tiepolo himself. “ROM studied the battle, and while the force we used emerged victorious, the greater cohesion of the Marian soldiers as well as their mechs individually higher tonnage seems to account for the lopsided kill ratios, despite the mercs force’s technological edge. That being said, my actions were communicated to and signed off by the Primus in advance.” A barely visible smile flickered across the younger man’s face, but Julian Tiepolo caught it and its meaning. ‘Ball’s in your court’.

“Time was of essence, Mercy, Victor,” the Primus admitted tersely. “I authorized Vesar’s use of mercenaries due to the rapidly changing circumstances on site. We all strive to act in line with Blake’s wisdom. However, sometimes circumstances have our hands bound.”

“Chaos always carries with it the seed of opportunity,” the younger Precentor ROM steepled his hands and smiled, as much to Tiepolo’s as well as Waters’ irritation. Before the Primus could act on his annoyance, the head of ROM dropped his cryptic smile and continued. “Between our first intervention and the return of the Marians in force, the mercenaries we employed and Palatinate forces on the ground were able to extract much of the remainder of the cache and ship it off world. What remains on planet is largely the base itself, whose impact is negligible. That’s one loose end tied up.” He held up one finger. “Our force has withdrawn from the planet in good order after beating a Marian pirate force, and all lostech items that may have had a tangible technological impact in the wrong hands have been evacuated.”

But Mercy Waters did not let go. “Leaving this to hired guns was a reckless move, in contrast to all standards of security for an event of such potential impact!” the Precentor Atreus protested, the woman’s square face red with barely contained anger. “Mercenaries cannot be trusted with tasks of such gravity, especially considering the sheer quantity of Star League era weapons and technology you so easily had go through their hands. Had I known of this in advance-.”

“I assure you, Precentor Atreus, that the decision was not made lightly. For open confrontation, units of the Com Guards would’ve been my first choice, too, but none were close enough, and as the Primus correctly stated, time was indeed of essence. Waiting carried the risk of losing all of the Illyrian cache. Hiring disparate mercenaries and equipping them from a local warehouse while providing transportation maybe wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was a solution made with the tools at hand, with a solid degree of deniability on our side of the equation,” the forty-one years old Kristofur stroked his thin mustache, smiling placidly. “Middlemen and shell corporations provided recruitment and funding. Now, by sheer happenstance the dropship carrying the survivors of the mercenary command in our employ did suffer a catastrophic decompression accident two jumps away from Illyrian territory. Nobody survived. Space is just so harsh and unforgiving of accidents, I’m afraid, and these things happen,” he gave Mercy Waters a cold smile. “Luckily, a jumpship operated by the blessed order happened to be nearby and salvaged the dropship and its contents. The second loose end tied up,” he raised a second finger. ROM’s reputation was well-earned, but Kristofur knew that what he did was just mastering the art of the possible. The trick was to keep up the image of having it all figured out. Not just towards the world at large, but to the people gathered here in particular.

An uncomfortable silence descended over the members of the First Circuit. After a few tense seconds Franklin Novoré, the eldest member of ComStar’s de facto government and Precentor New Avalon cleared his throat. “Sacrifices have to be accepted in the pursuit of Blake’s sacred vision. I think I speak for all of us when I say that is sad but adequate solution to this facet of the problem the discovery of Castle RICHELIEU has caused. Have you been equally thorough with the Marians, too?”

Waters snorted, an unceremonious grunt sounding more like a water buffalo than a woman, Tiepolo thought. Before Kristofur could speak Precentor Atreus had already begun.
“If you mistake subtle as a brick with thorough, I’m sure the honored Precentor ROM will answer in the affirmative.”

“Covert operations teams on Alphard monitored the Marian movements and tracked the RICHELIEU cache to a civilian warehouse while the Hegemony pretended it remained at their main military base. ROM operatives then attacked the guard detachment and destroyed the contents of the cache with a mix of incendiaries and high explosives. No witnessed were left behind, and our people suffered no losses. They successfully exfiltrated the planet three weeks later via the Alphard HPG compound,” Kristofur considered Waters coldly. “To the Marians it will look like an act of foreign terrorism, implicating either Illyrian radicals or actors that can be traced into the vicinity of the Canopians, alternately the League. Potential bread crumbs were left to both ends. So yes,” he raised another finger, “tied up as well.”

“Can we be certain that the Marian cache has been neutralized?” Precentor Dieron’s hologram leaned forward.

“Reasonably so,” Kristofur nodded. “Volume and quantity of the destroyed equipment correspond to roughly eighty percent of what the Hegemony could have transported off planet, and the remainder is so diminished that no danger of genuine proliferation exists.”

“A few hundred infantry kits and two or three dozen salvaged mechs do not change the balance of power significantly,” Jonas Stechlin – Precentor Dieron – mused and leaned back, apparently satisfied.

“What ROM is leaving out is that the order’s operation is seen as the biggest terrorist attack on the Hegemony in the past decade, and it’s turned into a proper witch hunt. Precentor Alphard has cautioned that, if the Marians keep up their digging, some of the order’s informants may be caught in the crossfire,” Waters leaned back, grinning like a smug cat.

“I see no reason for your satisfied demeanor, Precentor Atreus.” For the first time a hint of annoyance slipped into Kristofur’s voice. “Alphard’s reaction was more or less what I expected it to be, and ROM’s confidence is high that nothing will come from this.”

“You cannot be sure of this!” Waters shot back, but the head of ComStar’s secret service held up one hand.

“Quite the contrary. I can be as sure of this as any man in my position can. ROM’s reputation is well earned, and Alphard, zealous amateurs that they may be, sorely lacks the means to endanger the blessed order’s operations therein, even superficially. This I can, indeed, guarantee you,” Kristofur nodded, not just towards the Precentor on Atreus but the Primus and the whole First Circuit.

Waters’ frowned skeptically, but sensing she could not push the matter any further she relented. “Your words in Blake’s ears, Precentor Kristofur,” she scowled.

“This only leaves one further issue. What of the Palatinate?” Jonas Stechlin tilted his head inquisitively.

“Precentor Atreus initial statement about national collapse seems to bear out,” Kristofur admitted. “Gamma reports – and the missives from Precentor Illyria support this – that central authority across the four systems of the Palatinate has collapsed in response to the Marian punitive expedition and the mass pirate raids in its wake. There’s ongoing, unchallenged raiding by the Crimson Chalice, a conclave of pirate bands operating out of Hegemony territory,” he explained, “in two systems, with Illyrian resistance regrouping on Reykavis, and the trading houses traditionally in control of that small nation seem to have consolidated enough manpower there to deter the Marian pirates from making any overt moves against them.” He tapped a few buttons and the central holographic display showed an image of a cold planet flanked by a few portraits accompanied by biographic data. “These are some of the pirate leaders ROM has intel on, but the two on the upper right are of particular interest. Jackson Fletcher and Leo Mercer both command sizeable pirate bands. Mercer is a brute who can count on the loyalty of roughly a company of battlemechs. Between the two of them, Fletcher is the brain. Ex-mercenary, as ruthless as it gets. Murder, arson, kidnapping, he’s done it all. And he’s the big hitter among the Marian pirates. Putting it in military terms, he commands a combined arms battalion of mechs, tanks and infantry, and those criminals appear to know what they are doing.”

“All of that us undoubtedly of interest to some,” Precentor Tharkad spoke up, his tone making it clear he was not amongst those some, “but what does it have to do with the situation?”

“Everything.” Kristofur met his eyes, then looked at Mercy Waters. Precentor Atreus withdrew deeper into her seat and crossed her arms, her hands vanishing in her robe’s long sleeves. “Everything. By all accounts from Precentor Illyria, Fletcher and Mercer have taken over the planet and are taking steps to set that fact in stone. We may be witnessing the birth of a new pirate kingdom, this time right at the doorstep of a successor state. A development which we might be able to foster to ComStar’s advantage.”

For the first time in what felt like an eternity Julian Tiepolo spoke up again. The Primus weighed his words carefully.
“I understand Precentor Atreus’ concerns about the situation. Pirates usually have enough common sense to stay clear of our order, but with the advent of a possible pirate kingdom in her proverbial backyard we have to keep an eye on the safety of our rimwards enclaves. That being said, I find myself in agreement with Precentor ROM: we may indeed be able to use the situation to our advantage.” He straightened his back. “We have been looking with concern at Marik’s growing economic and financial power. It’s putting pressure on the C-bill, and by doing so, all of our operations.” Everybody around the table new that this was not just about running the known universe’s fax service. “A new pirate kingdom so close to the Free Worlds League borders might be a catalyst for introducing a factor of instability. Raids, disrupting internal trade, abductions… ugly options, but potent ones to put pressure on their economy. If action and reaction are held in moderation on both ends, by our well-meaning hands…” he looked around the table, and found receptive faces.


Corvinus O’Reilly Estates,
Merovian Highlands, Alphard,
Marian Hegemony
Some time earlier, 3010
“You look like a schoolboy thinking up his next prank!” Neeva Lee-O`Reilly called up at Posca.

“That would be the most wrinkled schoolboy on planet, domina!” he called back, his wrinkles this time just the effect of his broad smile.

The mistress of the large estates smiled back up at him as he dangled his legs, sitting on the edge of a large wooden crate. “You know you don’t have to call me that, Posca.”

“I know, domina,” the older man chuckled, his muttonchops swaying with the motion and the soft south-eastern wind as he slid down the large wooden crate he had perched on, landing on his feet in a roll belying his age. “Well, that’s the last of them,” he patted the rough wood.

“That was a lot of agricultural equipment.” The corners of Neeva’s mouth twitched.

“Your family’s lands are vast, and you do have the storage space,” Posca answered her evenly, his smile more knowing than mischievous this time. “And it is not for long. A few months, perhaps, and it will be distributed again.”

The athletic woman sighed resignedly, watching the workers who she knew were everything but transport a shipment of crates of various sizes into a nearby barn, using carts, forklifts and even flatbeds. “My husband isn’t home just yet, but I’d be happy to have dinner with you, Posca. You can tell me about what’s going on in Nova Roma, and how my grandnephew is doing.”

“How could I say no to such an invitation, domina?” Marius O’Reilly personal tutor bowed his head respectfully. “Please, lead the way.”
He patted the crate one last time. The rough paint read ‘Fertilizer’.

It did not contain fertilizer.

PsihoKekec

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #73 on: 08 January 2024, 01:13:25 »
But ROM was deceived, for another storage was used.
Would be interesting to see how volcanic would be the reaction of Comstar leadership, when they realise that, despite the Blake's Wrath ruthless efficiency, they have been tricked by Periphery hicks.
Shoot first, laugh later.

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Re: I, Caesar
« Reply #74 on: 08 January 2024, 01:19:15 »
The key element will be patience. Which, ironically, will probably be easy given the low level of development of the Marian industry and scientific base.

 

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