How do the EDs plasma guns compare to ppcs? I imagine the deliver more heat but what about force?
Crossover The Greater Game (Babylon 5/BattleTech)
- Thread starter Spartan303
- Start date
Chapter 9
New Haiti
It had taken just over a day for the two vessels to close the distance enough for real time communications. On the one side was Jaime Wolf, traveling in a cut down Leopard dropship, something chosen specifically because it was small and not especially intimidating, but also very swift if the need to be somewhere else arose. Sheridan of course remained on the Lexington, taking his time and proceeding at a leisurely pace so as not to reveal any of its real potential.
The rest of their respective commands had held back and were waiting to see how things went, Sheridan had been authorised to proceed under first contact protocols and determine if these new arrivals were as much of a threat as a pirate kingdom was. For the Dragoons, well, a task force of warships had certainly caught their undivided attention.
Neither side was expecting trouble, Sheridan certainly had the advantage regarding combat ability, but he also had the most to lose if things went badly. If these ships failed to report back, or if one escaped, would Ian Davion send forces to avenge them? Would the Federated Suns see the small but well armed Earth Alliance presence on their borders the same way President Levy had seen the Tortuga Dominion on hers? That could get very unpleasant very quickly, and with still so little information to go on regarding the personalities of the great families, the Alliance had to take it slow and careful.
“Captain Sheridan, am I coming through clear?”
The signal was still voice only which suited Sheridan fine, he didn't particularly want to risk the new arrivals spotting something useful in the background on the bridge of his ship.
“Colonel Wolf, loud and clear.”
“Good, I'm glad you agreed to this talk, Captain. So much easier than flipping signals back and forth every five minutes.”
Sheridan had been so used to Tachyon based comms, adapting to light lag had been a bit of a challenge, but he chose to see it as recreating the way the pioneers had done it back in the early days of space travel.
“I can imagine you have some question you'd like to ask.” Sheridan started with the obvious. “Before you do, my government wishes to state very clearly that we have no hostile intent toward you or your command.”
“That is certainly good to hear, Captain.”
“That said if your intentions here are hostile, well, you know how this kind of thing goes.”
“Then let me put your mind at ease Captain, we're not here looking to fight you.” Wolf spoke evenly and confidently, if he was uncomfortable staring at a 1,200 metre long heavy cruiser, he gave absolutely no indication of it. “My mission is one of Pirate hunting, but it looks like we're a little late to the party.”
“Well, apologies for that Colonel, if we'd have known you were coming we'd have saved a few for you.” Sheridan got the sense Wolf was a professional, both a soldier and a leader, so he had no need for pretence.
“Plenty more out there for us, we're not greedy.” Wolf replied, still getting a feel for the situation. “Can I ask why, Captain?”
“Why are we here?”
“Yes.” Wolf's voice became more pointed and serious. “We are here because Prince Davion needed the pirates raiding him dealt with, but until now didn't have the forces to spare. For us this is a contract, for him his duty as a Prince. But what about you?”
“It's our duty too, and our responsibility.” Sheridan had been very carefully briefed on exactly how much to say, what approved information to offer, and what to avoid like the plague. “We have some commitments nearby and were raided by pirates from here a while back.”
That was of course true, if the Lucky Dip and her two very optimistic dropships counted as a raid.
“I see. So your response was to obliterate the entire pirate armada and steal one of their planets?”
“Not just one planet.”
He couldn't see the man, but Sheridan swore he heard a little scoff of amusement.
“I respect your dedication to the task, Captain. This does however leave my side with a minor problem. I have a contract to destroy the ability of these pirates to raid into Davion space. You seem to have handled that here, but my contract remains unfulfilled.”
“If the pirates are broken already, then surely your contract is complete?”
“It's a matter of honour Captain, we came out here to kill pirates and that is what we will do. New Haiti was the jumping off point for most of the larger raids, but it seems Tortuga is where the bulk of the surviving pirates are now. That's where we will go to finish our contract.”
“I can follow your reasoning.”
“I think Captain that perhaps we might be able to assist each other, we seem to have a convergence of interests.” Wolf brought up the topic Sheridan had been expecting. “Would it be possible to negotiate with your leadership?”
“I am authorised to escort you to the planet for a meeting with General Fraser, if you would like?”
“Excellent news Captain, I think your General might find my suggestion extremely beneficial.”
Earthdome
Geneva, Switzerland
Waiting for news had been the most difficult part for the President, it always was. She had the responsibility for initiating this operation, for putting loyal sons and daughters of Earth into harm's way, and she would carry the blame if they failed to return home. The initial attack had ultimately gone well, casualties were higher than expected but less than feared, but now with a third party involving itself their worst fears were starting to be realised. There was the distinct possibility of escalation well before the Alliance was prepared to face it. Her policy of engaging the pirates was in real danger of backfiring.
Instead of the usual conference room today they were in her office, the great seal of the Alliance hanging behind her desk framing the gaunt woman, the worries of decades etched on her face. Around her were representatives of her military, diplomatic and scientific departments.
“Negotiations are scheduled for later today.” The Alliance's Ambassador at large, David Sheridan, brought her up to date. “I can ask General Fraser to delay things until we can get a full team out there.”
“It will depend on this Colonel Wolf's proposal.” General Denisov considered carefully. “Our intel mentions his group a few times, very well equipped mercenaries. I don't think he's interested in picking a fight with us, and I don't think he's going to be interested in diplomatic relations.”
“What could he want then?” Levy ran through some options in her head. “A forward base for a while? Fuel and supplies?”
“All possible, we'll know later today.” The old General had nothing more to say. “We've also completed our after action report for Operation Tripoli, the summary is here Madam President.”
The full report was presumably a massive document filled with technical analysis, President Levy only required the few sheets of summary to keep her up to date. She skimmed through and gave her attention to General Sikander Singh, the slim officer's khaki uniform distinguishing him as the commander of the army.
“What are your recommendations, General?”
“In the short term Madam President, we need to reissue our shaped charge munitions and update our heavy missile technology.” Singh was surprisingly soft spoken. “When fighting the Minbari, we found that by far the best weapon were sabot rounds, relatively small but very fast darts of metal optimised to pierce armour and damage the interior of an enemy vehicle. Our shaped charge shots were just too slow moving to accurately hit the Minbari grav tanks and the Minbari armour was very effective at dispersing the explosive component.”
“Would they have helped against those robot war machines?”
“Probably. Our sabot rounds were not useless but they simply didn't inflict enough damage before the enemy was able to close the range. We'll need to conduct more analysis but it appears the armour materials on these Battlemechs were resistant to the piercing ability of our sabots, robbing them of their main advantage. We had to hit the same part of the machine a few times to break away the structure and begin inflicting internal damage, and unfortunately our tank crews aren't trained that way.”
“For the last two and a half centuries, the golden rule of tank combat has been to get the first shot in, and to make sure it's a single hit to kill.” Denisov helped the President. “As we moved out into space we found all our adversaries had the same idea, even the Minbari, so we simply refined our doctrine and carried on.”
“We're going to need a completely new doctrine to handle mechs, especially if they are common in armies across this new galaxy.” Singh reasoned. “One with a strong focus on inflicting as much damage as possible as rapidly as possible.”
“To that end, Madam President, we have two procurement goals.” Denisov fished out some more papers. “A new type of heavy tank, specifically a mech killer.”
“Our existing tanks can't be modified?”
“Not to the degree we need.” Singh shook his head. “Switching out the ammunition on our Thor tanks will help, but our tanks are designed for precision long range engagements. They simply don't hit hard enough, or just as importantly fast enough, to handle this threat.”
“Likewise Madam President, while our Odin tanks do hit very hard, and we are recommending full scale production of them too, they are built on the same hull as the Thor and lack sufficient survivability.”
“Like all of our vehicles, they are optimised to resist kinetic weapons, again as all of our enemies up to the Minbari used kinetic cannons.” Singh clarified. “That is something we need to adapt to.”
Levy looked at the papers which contained a helpful engineers sketch with various annotations.
“The Siegfried?”
“Yes Ma'am, to maintain the mythological naming convention.” Denisov nodded. “We have two proposals, an ideal heavy tank and one we can put into production at the earliest date. The Siegfried is our urgent design using off the shelf components for rapid development.”
It certainly looked intimidating to President Levy's civilian eyes, a large vehicle dominated by two extremely large looking cannons.
“Will it be good enough?”
“We believe so.” Singh confirmed. “The cannons are the same type we use on our ocean going cruisers, 175mm BilPro naval artillery. We already have a production line for them, in fact our goal is just to use the entire turret mechanism unmodified and put it on a tracked chassis. The guns, their mounts, the turret ring, the autoloaders, we'll just put them in tanks instead of ships.”
“Does it need two guns?”
“The warships use the guns in pairs so it's cheaper and quicker just to take the already in production system and use it as is.” Denisov explained. “If we reduce it to a single gun we'd need to redesign the mounts and autoloaders. It would make the tank smaller, but also more expensive and delay the project by months.”
“There's also the rate of fire element.” Singh added. “Two guns gives us double the rate of fire, and while a single rapid firing gun would be better, our autoloading technology just isn't there yet. Not for guns this big.”
“The chassis is a heavy excavator hull that we developed years ago for construction work on high gravity planets, very large and very sturdy.” The senior officer wrapped the description up. “We'll add as much armour as we can, but we need to balance that with keeping it air portable. On the plus side, it will use naval armour piercing shells which are designed to punch through heavy armour and then explode inside a target, that should ruin anyone's day.”
“They also tend to be rocket boosted, at sea that gives the shots more range, but for us it adds muzzle velocity without worrying about recoil shaking the guns loose.” Singh winced at the idea. “It's not an ideal solution, but we can have a prototype within two months and if it works full production after another four.”
“Alright.” Levy nodded. “What's your ideal solution?”
“That would be Brunhilde.” Denisov handed over the last of his papers. “This is actually a design we drafted last year after we managed to get some data on the Minbari super heavy assault vehicles. At the time it was not considered practical, but things have changed.”
This particular design did look considerably more aggressive. While the Siegfried was pretty much a regular tank supersized and given another cannon, this vehicle was more ambitious featuring articulated bogies for the tracks, a very low profile design, and a pair of absurdly huge cannons. It certainly followed a theme.
“As you may recall Madam President, the Minbari super heavy vehicles shrugged off almost anything we could throw at it. Our urgent solution was the Odin, a big gun on an existing hull, but long term we wanted a vehicle that could outmatch the Minbari in every metric. Speed, protection, and of course firepower.”
“The main armaments are 155mm Gauss guns, those weapons are currently only in prototype stage.” Singh pointed out on the illustration rather unnecessarily. “Once completed, they will be the most potent land based weapons known to exist, We can hopefully go back to one shot kills against all expected targets.”
“The Brunhilde will also be fast, the wide tracks and independent suspension will allow it unrivalled mobility, and it will use warship grade armour.” Denisov rounded up. “Not to mention next generation sensors and computer controls.”
“How long until these can be built, General?”
“Two to three years, possibly more if we run into difficulties.” Denisov answered apologetically. “Which is why we need the Siegfried, good enough now is better than perfect tomorrow.”
“It is also too large and heavy for our existing landing shuttles.” Singh chipped in. “So part of the project will also be a new heavyweight landing craft.”
“Erm, hello, excuse me?” A small hand was raised from the opposite side of the room. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Doctor Ginelli.” The President looked away from the assorted description of weapons.
“You remembered me?”
“Very hard to forget you doctor.” Levy smiled but whether it was a compliment or not was far more ambiguous. “Did you have something to add? Please go ahead, I want to hear thoughts from all my advisors.”
“Well, the tanks look great and sound useful, but why don't we just make our own battlemechs?”
The two Generals gave her a blank expression before Singh spoke up.
“We don't need them, the tanks will do the job.”
“They are certainly great at shooting things, but they're not as versatile or mobile on the attack. Mrs. President, we've seen that in the hands of barely literate pirates mechs can be extremely destructive, imagine what we could do with them.”
“At this point we don't know if we can even make our own, our analysis of the wrecks showed several pieces of technology we have no references for.”
“Yes, mostly to do with the motive elements.” Ginelli remembered the notes. “I'm confident with proper study we could crack these secrets, and honestly Mrs President we really need to try.”
“I disagree Ma'am.” Denisov countered. “It's better to refine and advance systems we know to be successful. Heavy tanks, superior missiles, and if possible increased funding for our next generation of Starfury which will have atmospheric capability.”
“What do you think Professor Klein?” Levy turned to her most senior scientist. “Is it worth trying to replicate this new technology?”
All eyes turned to the grey haired man, not so eye catching as his younger eclectic colleague but commanding respect as Earth's most accomplished physicist. His theories on gravitons had been groundbreaking and were on the brink of cracking one of the most massive technological developments of the era, true artificial gravity.
“I think both suggestions are correct.” He concluded plainly. “We need those tanks and they will be ready first, it should be our priority. Even if we do find a way to build mechs, those machines will still need combined arms support, therefore the new generation of tanks is certainly not a dead end.”
“But you think mechs have potential?” The President pushed.
“I do, there is a reason they are so prized and widespread.” Klein nodded. “At the very least we will find ourselves fighting against them time and again in the future, the more we know about mechs the easier those battles will be.”
“So you propose studying them?” Singh nodded. “I already have our engineers breaking them down, I'd welcome some help but I would have thought this sort of reverse engineering was beneath your team.”
“My people are fully committed to Project Warlock, but Doctor Ginelli is free.”
“No, I'm not.” She shot him a look. “Did you just fire me?”
“Your work on the jump drive is done, your team can finish the rest.” Klein smiled. “And I know how much you like this sort of thing.”
“But Dr Ginelli is a Hyperspace Physicist, not a weapons engineer?” Denisov frowned. “Is she best suited?”
“As a team leader and driving force behind the project, yes. Think of her more as a manager and motivator.”
“Manager?” Denisov looked like he was trying to swallow needles. “Your call, Madam President.”
“I'm happy to follow Professor Kleins advice, but are you sure the work on the drives is done?”
The older scientist yielded the floor to his younger increasingly agitated subordinate.
“The teams looking at the local FTL system have made some key breakthroughs, yes.”
“What she means,” Klein cut in, “is that she has personally cracked the principles behind these devices and worked out a way to build our own.”
“Really?” Levy raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I mean...” Ginelli stuttered.
“Yes, she has.” Klein answered for her. “And if that's not worth a Nobel prize nothing is.”
“I guess I wasn't getting one for zapping us all out here in the first place.” She winced inwardly. “But yes, I figured out the Germanium.”
“That would be the Germanium Alloy core each local FTL drive requires.” Klein added helpful notes, a teacher assisting his student.
“Yes, well, at first we all thought it was just a way to store the charge which is used to activate the hyperspace shunt.” Ginelli started, licking her lips. “I can explain this better if I had coffee.”
“No, you can't.” Klein said firmly. “Go on.”
She looked incredibly wounded and desolate for a moment, then pressed on. “All the navigators and engineers from the captured jump ship, they all said it was for the power charge, but when we swapped out the core and used our own capacitors, nothing happened. We delivered precisely the same charge, but it didn't initialise.”
She rubbed her eyebrows, thinking through the compulsion for caffeine.
“Then we learned more, like if you put two Germanium cores next to each other they also prevent a jump. That made no sense, because even an inert core had an effect. Turns out this particular alloy in this particular concentration when energised in a very specific way, turns into a tachyon calming device.”
“Can you explain that for those of us who aren't Hyperspace Physicists?” Levy asked.
“Yes, sure, well it's a bit like this. Tachyons are everywhere whizzing around us, through us, everywhere. We couldn't prove this until a century ago and from what I can tell nobody here has the instruments to detect tachyons, at least not anymore. The KF drive system basically works by creating a small pocket of hyperspace around a vessel and shunting it to another point in space. It is, as far as I can tell, using hyperspace as we know it, but it's a different dimension of hyperspace, far more compact and hence faster. Okay so far?”
“So far.”
“Right, well then, the issue I found was that this KF pocket is incredibly fragile and it can be easily disrupted by all the background tachyons. It stops the pocket from forming and you don't go anywhere, that's why my first attempts failed. So I go look at the Germanium, and it turns out this very specific alloy given a specific slow charge acts as a sort of lightning conductor, drawing in background tachyons and basically clearing the air for the KF pocket to form. That was the secret! The Germanium core created the right environmental conditions for the KF field, and that's why two cores near each other prevent a jump, they muddle each other and stop the clean redirection of tachyons.”
“Incidentally Madam President, we are looking to see if this principle can be used to prevent accidental jump ins or outs of Sol.” Klein nudged into the story. “Given the value of keeping our location secret, it may be wise to ensure nobody who arrives here can leave without our approval.”
“Isn't the reason we're all here right now down to manipulating background tachyons to inhibit FTL travel?” Denisov didn't frame it as an accusation but it may as well have been. “I don't think we want to do this again.”
“It would be on a vastly smaller scale.” Klein expanded. “And only after much study.”
“Anyway.” Ginelli wasn't finished. “Knowing that the secret was clearing the area around the KF field of background tachyons, I found a way to do it without Germanium.” She grinned, immensely proud. “We just use the tachyon directors from our own jump drives, easy.”
“Imagine for a moment that not everyone knows how easy it is, Doctor.” Levy gently reminded.
“Oh, right. Well our jump drives blast a stream of tachyons at some energised Quantium, the quantium creates a quantum twin for said tachyons in hyperspace, that's what quantium does, it exists both in and outside hyperspace simultaneously when energised. Anyway, we blast these tachyons, focus the stream ahead of a ship and where the two stream of twins meet, one in hyperspace and one in real space, they react and make a vortex. Simple as that.”
“Yes, simple as that.” Levy gave up.
“The important bit is the tachyon stream, or more exactly the energy fields we use to move those tachyons. We can manipulate them, direct them. In our drives, we want to concentrate them, but in a modified KF drive we do the reverse, we disperse them. We clear the sky so the KF pocket can form. That's it.”
“The bottom line, Madam President,” Klein rode to the rescue, “is that we can now in theory build a Kearny Fuchida hyperspace shunt without needing Germanium, or Quantium, or any lengthy recharge times. Just existing common materials.”
“Your saying you solved our hyperspace problem?” Denisov immediately perked up. “Unlimited FTL drives?”
“In the sense we can build as many as we want? Yes.” Klein confirmed. “Right now, range is still limited to thirty or so lightyears while we figure out the navigation specifics, but recharge times are probably going to be comparable to our existing Jump engines. Twenty minutes or so.”
“Fun fact, there are no actual range limitations as far as I can tell.” Ginelli chipped in excitedly. “It's just how well you can calculate your destination and regulate the energy input. It is extremely probable that there are ships that messed up their jumps billions of light-years away. Beyond the observable universe, which is incredible.” She paused for a second. “Though obviously not for them.”
“We are still in the testing phase, but the physics is good, the underlying principles sound.” Klein nodded his head. “This will work.”
“Perhaps I was wrong about you Doctor Ginelli.” Denisov half smiled at the hyperactive scientist. “Well, no, I was right, but in addition to that, you are an actual genius.”
“It's good news, very good news, but I've heard the word tachyon so much I'll have to think about it all later.” Levy exhaled. “Let's take a break here, meet back this evening after we know what's happening on New Haiti.”
“Very good, Madam President.” Her advisors all began to stand, Levy making eye contact with the young scientist and giving her a genuine smile.
“You did well, you might just have increased our odds of survival considerably.”
“After I put us here...”
“After you managed to grant us a reprieve from extinction at the hands of the Minbari.” Levy corrected. “This must have taken a lot of work.”
“A lot of coffee.” She grinned impishly. “I'd like to get back to studying what made us arrive here in the first place, I still can't figure it out, but maybe the Professor is right. Maybe I need a different project. Like big stompy robots.”
“Oddly enough, I think that might be exactly where you belong right now.” Levy still managed to find a little joy in her exuberance despite all that had happened. “Celebrate your success doctor, I think we're here for the long term and our goal now is to make the best of it, to thrive here. You've helped make that real.”
“So you'll let me experiment with giant heavily armed robots?” Ginelli asked hopefully.
“I think you've earned it.”
New Haiti
Jaime's Leopard took its time on the approach, probably a little longer than it had to, as he made sure the ship got a good look at the city and it's surroundings. He guessed that his hosts were expecting him to take a good look at their operation, so why disappoint them? The dropship roared in and circled the landing zone, still rather rustic for a space port, but at least the new owners of New Haiti had implemented a functional air traffic control system. He landed gently, dropping the side personnel hatch and stepping down into the still humid and somewhat uncomfortable environment.
“Colonel Wolf?”
He recognised the voice greeting him, turning to spot a reasonably young officer with a crew cut and a neat blue uniform. It wasn't any uniform he recognised, but that wasn't surprising.
“You must be Captain Sheridan, I appreciate the escort.” Jaime gave the slightest nod of the head maintaining an easy polite attitude. “I'm honoured to have a full Captain meet me, a warship Captain at that.”
“I need to talk to the General too, saves time.” Sheridan lied, not very convincingly. Jaime suspected he wasn't trying to hide it. “Shall we?”
They climbed into a very basic utility truck, plain grey with no doors and only the most basic of seating. It handled the mud effectively enough, pulling away from the dropship and beginning the careful journey across the field.
“You came alone?” Sheridan fought with the steering wheel.
“Call it a gesture of trust.” Jaime smiled slightly. “And an acknowledgement of the power dynamic. You have warships, I don't, so even if I brought my entire force and marched them all up to your front door, it wouldn't change a thing. I'd be just as much at your whim then as now, except if this is a betrayal, it would cost the lives of my best warriors.”
Sheridan appreciated the candour.
“Warriors, not soldiers?”
“Warriors.” Jaime confirmed. “I'm aware there's a lot of semantics about the difference between soldiers and warriors, they're just words. As a combat unit, you'll have to look hard to find any as good as my Dragoons.”
“Maybe not too hard.” Sheridan glanced at some passing Earth Force troops. “But I have heard your unit is about as good as mercenaries come.”
“They're as good as anyone comes.” Jaime replied with obvious pride and utter conviction. “I was actually looking forward to breaking some pirates, always rewarding to kill an enemy who deserves it.” He peered out at the distant pirate dropships sitting on the edges of the field. “And nice to claim some of the spoils of war, those Jumpships in orbit too?”
“Not like the pirates are going to be needing them.”
He cleared the landing field and found a stony road, not exactly flat and well maintained but better than mud. He picked up speed, churning up a cloud of yellow dust behind the vehicle.
“Never heard of the Earth Alliance before.” Jaime mentioned casually, but his eyes were keenly looking for a reaction. “Are you new to the region?”
“Fairly.” Sheridan kept it cool, his father was legendary for his poker face and at least some of that had been passed down. He'd never mentioned the name, and all comms were secure tachyon based systems, so he had probably not hacked them. Best guess was he had seen it stencilled on the side of something. “We kept a low profile.”
“Very low profile.” Jaime agreed. “There's no mention of you anywhere, not even a rumour. Well,” he smiled, “beside the usual stories of lost colonies and massed fleets in the deep periphery.”
“A couple of people thought we were Kerensky's exiles come back with a vengeance.”
“Really?” Jaime seemed to like that idea. “Imagine that.”
He followed the road deeper into the town, the poor condition of the settlement obvious to see. They drove past a tank, the crew watching them go by quietly, mildly interested in Wolf's different uniform.
“The pirates let this place go to hell, ran it into the ground.” Sheridan shook his head. “Perfectly decent planet like this? Might not be paradise, but a decent government could make a lot out of it.”
“Maybe.” Jaime nodded. “But you'd have to find a decent government first.”
“How about your employer? Prince Davion?”
“There are worse out there, but these are not golden days for the Inner Sphere. They have fallen far.”
“They?” Sheridan caught.
“My people are from the Periphery, just like you.” Jaime answered easily. “But we all have a job to do, mine involves fighting for money.”
“Just for money?”
“That's the job, but, well, sometimes its nice to be paid for your hobbies.”
Sheridan pulled onto the main highway, finally picking up some real speed.
“Not to be obvious, and I bet everyone asks you this.” Jaime continued. “But where did you find a squadron of warships?”
“They came with the uniform.”
Jaime gave him a look, nodding in understanding. He didn't expect that information to be volunteered nearly so easily. “Pretty nice perk of the job. I know my history Captain, I'm actually pretty well informed on warships. Never seen your designs.”
“No reason you should have.” Sheridan shrugged. “And yes, that is far beyond the scope of this meeting. As is any information about where I'm from and what my long term goals are.”
“Just my nature to be curious, actually I'm glad.”
“Why?”
“If you just told me everything to try and impress me, I'd have told you to turn this truck around and put my straight back on my ship.” Jaime answered honestly. “I am a mercenary Captain, but I have standards and I do not suffer fools. I look forward to where this is going.”
Sheridan swung the jeep round and into the central plaza, the somewhat battered governor's residence still overlooking the cobbled square. A pair of tanks greeted them, with several infantrymen stationed in key locations. Jaime quietly observed their deployments, tried to get a sense of their professionalism and demeanour in how they stood and acted, deeming them satisfactory.
They pulled up, broken glass crunching under the wheels.
“We still need to figure out where all the street cleaners went.” Sheridan stepped out first. “This place hasn't had a good sweep in about two hundred years.”
“Maybe that'll change.” Jaime observed. “Any trouble from the locals?”
“Nothing yet, I think a lot of them still don't understand what happened.”
“Hard to build an independent proud population out of such a broken people.” Jaime glanced around. “Why even try? Aren't there other things to spend your resources on?”
“Like all the other powers out there?” Sheridan guessed the logic.
“That's the way it is, way it's been for a long, long time.”
“But it doesn't have to stay that way.”
He led the Colonel through the main entrance, a pair of sentries standing to as the officers walked by into the large lobby. The troopers had tidied it up, which basically meant piling all the junk in one room out of the way, but it at least meant the two visitors didn't trip on anything. They arrived at the governor's office, the door pushed closed but unlocked on account of the mechanism having been shot off. Sheridan knocked anyway and waited.
“Come on through, it's about as unlocked as it gets.”
Sheridan pushed the door aside and let Jaime go in first, the office absolutely empty apart from a desk and a few mismatched chairs retrieved from different parts of the building. Most of the windows were boarded up, but enough sun shone through to highlight all the dust in the air.
“Colonel Jaime Wolf, Wolf's Dragoons.” The officer formally introduced himself.
“Brigadier General Robert Fraser, Fourth Assault Brigade.” The host responded. “Grab a chair Colonel, you too, Captain. I have water if you can stand it, the fella who used to live here left some booze, but I'm pretty sure you could fuel a jet fighter with it.”
”I'll take a pass.” Jaime smiled slightly and settled into a colourful wooden chair, Sheridan and Fraser forming two other points of a triangle. “But thank you for the offer.”
“Well Colonel, I understand you wanted to talk about something in person?”
“I did, I could have asked over the radio but I wanted to actually meet you first. As I am sure Captain Sheridan has already figured out, I put a lot of stock in the people I work beside. I am a mercenary, but I can afford to pick and choose my jobs, and who I fight beside.”
“Is that why you are here?”
“I have a simple proposal General, one that benefits us both, makes my employer happy, and fulfills the terms of my contract.” Jaime got to work. “I want your forces and mine to attack Tortuga together.”
Fraser looked over to Sheridan, then back to Jaime with a look of mild amusement.
“Quite a suggestion out of nowhere Colonel.”
“I wasn't sure I wanted to make it until I got a better sense for who you are, and just as importantly why you are here.” Jaime spoke honestly. “But I can tell your soldiers are competent, well equipped for a mobile force, and your intentions are honourable. As I told Captain Sheridan, I have standards.”
“I appreciate your assessment, but we don't need help crushing Tortuga.”
“Of course you don't and neither do we.” Jaime acknowledged. “That's not the point, this isn't about the stronger aiding the weaker, it is two warriors fighting shoulder to shoulder against an enemy that deserves death.”
“Sounds poetic, but if I can speak plainly?”
“I'd be disappointed if you didn't.”
“We know your name, some of the hype surrounding your boys, but we don't know you. Why would we trust you to fight beside us?”
“I am sure my regimental commanders will ask the same thing, and I will tell them that there is honour in a worth battle with a strong ally.” Jaime smiled. “And then I'll tell them that we could use your artillery and air support, because even though either of us alone can win this battle, it will be vastly easier if we work together. And of course, less costly in lives.”
“That all kind of relies on if you are as good as you say you are.” Fraser held firm. “It's a lot to risk. We only have your word you are here to kill pirates, can I be sure you won't turn on my boys and girls once the shooting starts?”
“If we did turn on you, I am sure Captain Sheridan's big guns would quickly punish us for our rank stupidity.” Jaime noted. “Your forces lack a battlemech contingent, you seem like a reconnaissance in force rather than a full planetary assault unit. I can give you the hammer you need, two full regiments of elite combined arms troops. In return you support us with artillery, airpower, and additional infantry regiments for urban combat.”
“And after Tortuga falls?”
“My people go home, our contract fulfilled. That's all.”
“And if your employer asks what happened out here?”
“I'll tell him.” Jaime said true. “I can't lie to the man paying my wages, and I don't think I need to.”
“Well I can't deny some heavy armour would be very useful. I'll need to talk to my superiors, I'm expecting to be relieved which would free my unit up. Perhaps a joint operation might be to our benefit.”
“I think it would be General.”
“I'll let you know in the next few days, Colonel.” Fraser gave a nod. “Feel free to look around town while you're here.”
“That would be... thrilling.”
Fraser broke a laugh. “Aye, you're not wrong Colonel. I'd offer some hospitality if I had it but...” He trailed off, waving his hands around the room.
“No apology needed.” Jaime stood. “I'll head back to my ship.”
“I'll get you a driver. Hey! Jack! Get Colonel Wolf a ride back to his boat!”
“Yes sir!” A voice answered faintly from beyond the door.
“Well I hope to see you back soon Colonel Wolf, frankly I am very keen to see your people in action.”
“That works out well, we're very keen to be in action. Good meeting you General.” He shook hands confidently. “And you Captain Sheridan, until next time.”
The two officers let Wolf leave, giving him plenty of time to drive off before sitting back down.
“He knows we're not local, and he knows we're called the Earth Alliance.”
“Did you tell him?” Fraser frowned. “Nah, he probably read it on the side of your ship. That just proves he has eyes.”
“He's sharp General, maybe he is doing this to reduce casualties among his men, but I also think he's measuring us up.”
“No doubt about it.”
“So we refuse his request?”
“No.” Fraser shook his head. “We take it, we go in alongside him, and we give Tortuga a damn good thrashing.”
Sheridan shifted his weight a little, not sure what the play was.
“General, we should be careful trusting him. Our orders are to guard information about ourselves. I can guarantee you that man is smart enough to walk away with a hell of a lot more than we want him to.”
“Maybe so, it is a gamble, but this is also our best chance to see what a professional mech army can do without risking ourselves in the process.”
Sheridan began to understand.
“I lost thirty tanks to four mechs Captain, and while I am confident that won't happen again, I was up against pirates in old machines. Imagine if they had been real soldiers, if they had coordinated their attacks, supported each other, employed real combined arms.” Fraser grimaced. “Nah Captain, I don't think command properly realises yet how serious the situation is.”
“So we go in with these guys, record every second, and then make sure the Joint Chiefs see what we'd be up against in a real war?”
“Got it in one, Captain.” Fraser smiled. “We see the capabilities of a professional mech force, see how good well maintained machines are, what sort of performance real soldiers can deliver. We'll gauge their tactics, see how they implement combined arms, follow their command and control. This is an immense opportunity, and while there is risk on our side, the benefits vastly outweigh them.”
“Understood General, anything I can do to help?”
“I'll handle it. I'm sure this will be a presidential decision so I'll call home soon, then pretend it took two days to get an answer. Should also be enough time for Second Corps to arrive and garrison this place.”
“There is one issue General.” Sheridan raised. “We're not even a quarter the way to Tortuga with the Explorers, we can't deploy for another few months.”
“Plus we don't want them learning about hyperspace.” Fraser nodded. “I know Captain, already thought about that.”
“So how do we get there sir?”
“We have you to thank for that Captain, how many jumpships did you snatch from those bandits?”
Jaime Wolf thanked the driver as he got out of the jeep and walked the last few paces back to his dropship. He was smiling, a smile that grew wider as he spotted a familiar figure waiting for him.
“Did they buy it?”
“No, they did not buy it.” Jaime answered. “They didn't need to, these are professionals, I didn't need to bullshit them.”
Natasha Kerensky just gave him a shrug. “So we on then?”
“Yes, we're on. The General's making us wait but he's already made his mind up, he's only got a light force here, he's going to need us.”
“He doesn't need a mech assault, he's got warships.”
“Which they use very sparingly.” Jaime observed. “Their Captain is an idealist, it's actually refreshing. I don't think they want to throw down massive firepower, they want to do this clean. They see themselves as liberators fixing things, not conquerors.”
“So they're Davions then?”
“Maybe, but I don't think so. There's far too much wrong here, everything is familiar, but it doesn't exactly fit.” He felt like he was holding several pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, enough to make a picture revealing some of the whole, but with no clue how much was hidden.
“Well while you figure it out, I'll just be killing pirates and making us look good, fair?”
“Fair.” Jaime allowed a slight chuckle. “Anyway, let this be a lesson on the value of doing things by the book.”
She gave him a sharp glare. “I’m not going to say it.”
“To think some of my senior commanders wanted to just jump in here blind because it was only a bunch of pirates.” Jaime let himself enjoy a little teasing. “Can you imagine?”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “You were right. Did they notice?”
“I don’t think so, they probably thought our jump scout was just another ship out of Tortuga gathering intel for their counterattack.” Jaime reasoned. “They weren’t expecting us.”
“They’re definitely not local, no drop ships, no docking collars on their warships.” She nodded across the field. “And check out those pirate mechs they captured, they’ve got no idea how to move them.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.” Jaime agreed. “And you saw their warship, the Lexington? She’d been heavily repaired, very recently too, the different patterns in the metal made it obvious. How many people do you think can do that to a warship?”
“No one we’ve met.” Natasha understood. “So we’ve got a completely unknown group with no records anywhere, no point of origin, no clue on their agenda, who have access to warships and who have just been fighting someone else out here who was tough enough to shred their flagship. That about cover it?”
“Aren’t you glad you came along now?” Jaime arched an amused eyebrow. “Life needs a good mystery, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She deadpanned back at him. “Yay.”
“Let's eat, keep an eye on things.” Jaime decided that was probably enough for now. “We might finally have something useful to report.”
It had taken just over a day for the two vessels to close the distance enough for real time communications. On the one side was Jaime Wolf, traveling in a cut down Leopard dropship, something chosen specifically because it was small and not especially intimidating, but also very swift if the need to be somewhere else arose. Sheridan of course remained on the Lexington, taking his time and proceeding at a leisurely pace so as not to reveal any of its real potential.
The rest of their respective commands had held back and were waiting to see how things went, Sheridan had been authorised to proceed under first contact protocols and determine if these new arrivals were as much of a threat as a pirate kingdom was. For the Dragoons, well, a task force of warships had certainly caught their undivided attention.
Neither side was expecting trouble, Sheridan certainly had the advantage regarding combat ability, but he also had the most to lose if things went badly. If these ships failed to report back, or if one escaped, would Ian Davion send forces to avenge them? Would the Federated Suns see the small but well armed Earth Alliance presence on their borders the same way President Levy had seen the Tortuga Dominion on hers? That could get very unpleasant very quickly, and with still so little information to go on regarding the personalities of the great families, the Alliance had to take it slow and careful.
“Captain Sheridan, am I coming through clear?”
The signal was still voice only which suited Sheridan fine, he didn't particularly want to risk the new arrivals spotting something useful in the background on the bridge of his ship.
“Colonel Wolf, loud and clear.”
“Good, I'm glad you agreed to this talk, Captain. So much easier than flipping signals back and forth every five minutes.”
Sheridan had been so used to Tachyon based comms, adapting to light lag had been a bit of a challenge, but he chose to see it as recreating the way the pioneers had done it back in the early days of space travel.
“I can imagine you have some question you'd like to ask.” Sheridan started with the obvious. “Before you do, my government wishes to state very clearly that we have no hostile intent toward you or your command.”
“That is certainly good to hear, Captain.”
“That said if your intentions here are hostile, well, you know how this kind of thing goes.”
“Then let me put your mind at ease Captain, we're not here looking to fight you.” Wolf spoke evenly and confidently, if he was uncomfortable staring at a 1,200 metre long heavy cruiser, he gave absolutely no indication of it. “My mission is one of Pirate hunting, but it looks like we're a little late to the party.”
“Well, apologies for that Colonel, if we'd have known you were coming we'd have saved a few for you.” Sheridan got the sense Wolf was a professional, both a soldier and a leader, so he had no need for pretence.
“Plenty more out there for us, we're not greedy.” Wolf replied, still getting a feel for the situation. “Can I ask why, Captain?”
“Why are we here?”
“Yes.” Wolf's voice became more pointed and serious. “We are here because Prince Davion needed the pirates raiding him dealt with, but until now didn't have the forces to spare. For us this is a contract, for him his duty as a Prince. But what about you?”
“It's our duty too, and our responsibility.” Sheridan had been very carefully briefed on exactly how much to say, what approved information to offer, and what to avoid like the plague. “We have some commitments nearby and were raided by pirates from here a while back.”
That was of course true, if the Lucky Dip and her two very optimistic dropships counted as a raid.
“I see. So your response was to obliterate the entire pirate armada and steal one of their planets?”
“Not just one planet.”
He couldn't see the man, but Sheridan swore he heard a little scoff of amusement.
“I respect your dedication to the task, Captain. This does however leave my side with a minor problem. I have a contract to destroy the ability of these pirates to raid into Davion space. You seem to have handled that here, but my contract remains unfulfilled.”
“If the pirates are broken already, then surely your contract is complete?”
“It's a matter of honour Captain, we came out here to kill pirates and that is what we will do. New Haiti was the jumping off point for most of the larger raids, but it seems Tortuga is where the bulk of the surviving pirates are now. That's where we will go to finish our contract.”
“I can follow your reasoning.”
“I think Captain that perhaps we might be able to assist each other, we seem to have a convergence of interests.” Wolf brought up the topic Sheridan had been expecting. “Would it be possible to negotiate with your leadership?”
“I am authorised to escort you to the planet for a meeting with General Fraser, if you would like?”
“Excellent news Captain, I think your General might find my suggestion extremely beneficial.”
Earthdome
Geneva, Switzerland
Waiting for news had been the most difficult part for the President, it always was. She had the responsibility for initiating this operation, for putting loyal sons and daughters of Earth into harm's way, and she would carry the blame if they failed to return home. The initial attack had ultimately gone well, casualties were higher than expected but less than feared, but now with a third party involving itself their worst fears were starting to be realised. There was the distinct possibility of escalation well before the Alliance was prepared to face it. Her policy of engaging the pirates was in real danger of backfiring.
Instead of the usual conference room today they were in her office, the great seal of the Alliance hanging behind her desk framing the gaunt woman, the worries of decades etched on her face. Around her were representatives of her military, diplomatic and scientific departments.
“Negotiations are scheduled for later today.” The Alliance's Ambassador at large, David Sheridan, brought her up to date. “I can ask General Fraser to delay things until we can get a full team out there.”
“It will depend on this Colonel Wolf's proposal.” General Denisov considered carefully. “Our intel mentions his group a few times, very well equipped mercenaries. I don't think he's interested in picking a fight with us, and I don't think he's going to be interested in diplomatic relations.”
“What could he want then?” Levy ran through some options in her head. “A forward base for a while? Fuel and supplies?”
“All possible, we'll know later today.” The old General had nothing more to say. “We've also completed our after action report for Operation Tripoli, the summary is here Madam President.”
The full report was presumably a massive document filled with technical analysis, President Levy only required the few sheets of summary to keep her up to date. She skimmed through and gave her attention to General Sikander Singh, the slim officer's khaki uniform distinguishing him as the commander of the army.
“What are your recommendations, General?”
“In the short term Madam President, we need to reissue our shaped charge munitions and update our heavy missile technology.” Singh was surprisingly soft spoken. “When fighting the Minbari, we found that by far the best weapon were sabot rounds, relatively small but very fast darts of metal optimised to pierce armour and damage the interior of an enemy vehicle. Our shaped charge shots were just too slow moving to accurately hit the Minbari grav tanks and the Minbari armour was very effective at dispersing the explosive component.”
“Would they have helped against those robot war machines?”
“Probably. Our sabot rounds were not useless but they simply didn't inflict enough damage before the enemy was able to close the range. We'll need to conduct more analysis but it appears the armour materials on these Battlemechs were resistant to the piercing ability of our sabots, robbing them of their main advantage. We had to hit the same part of the machine a few times to break away the structure and begin inflicting internal damage, and unfortunately our tank crews aren't trained that way.”
“For the last two and a half centuries, the golden rule of tank combat has been to get the first shot in, and to make sure it's a single hit to kill.” Denisov helped the President. “As we moved out into space we found all our adversaries had the same idea, even the Minbari, so we simply refined our doctrine and carried on.”
“We're going to need a completely new doctrine to handle mechs, especially if they are common in armies across this new galaxy.” Singh reasoned. “One with a strong focus on inflicting as much damage as possible as rapidly as possible.”
“To that end, Madam President, we have two procurement goals.” Denisov fished out some more papers. “A new type of heavy tank, specifically a mech killer.”
“Our existing tanks can't be modified?”
“Not to the degree we need.” Singh shook his head. “Switching out the ammunition on our Thor tanks will help, but our tanks are designed for precision long range engagements. They simply don't hit hard enough, or just as importantly fast enough, to handle this threat.”
“Likewise Madam President, while our Odin tanks do hit very hard, and we are recommending full scale production of them too, they are built on the same hull as the Thor and lack sufficient survivability.”
“Like all of our vehicles, they are optimised to resist kinetic weapons, again as all of our enemies up to the Minbari used kinetic cannons.” Singh clarified. “That is something we need to adapt to.”
Levy looked at the papers which contained a helpful engineers sketch with various annotations.
“The Siegfried?”
“Yes Ma'am, to maintain the mythological naming convention.” Denisov nodded. “We have two proposals, an ideal heavy tank and one we can put into production at the earliest date. The Siegfried is our urgent design using off the shelf components for rapid development.”
It certainly looked intimidating to President Levy's civilian eyes, a large vehicle dominated by two extremely large looking cannons.
“Will it be good enough?”
“We believe so.” Singh confirmed. “The cannons are the same type we use on our ocean going cruisers, 175mm BilPro naval artillery. We already have a production line for them, in fact our goal is just to use the entire turret mechanism unmodified and put it on a tracked chassis. The guns, their mounts, the turret ring, the autoloaders, we'll just put them in tanks instead of ships.”
“Does it need two guns?”
“The warships use the guns in pairs so it's cheaper and quicker just to take the already in production system and use it as is.” Denisov explained. “If we reduce it to a single gun we'd need to redesign the mounts and autoloaders. It would make the tank smaller, but also more expensive and delay the project by months.”
“There's also the rate of fire element.” Singh added. “Two guns gives us double the rate of fire, and while a single rapid firing gun would be better, our autoloading technology just isn't there yet. Not for guns this big.”
“The chassis is a heavy excavator hull that we developed years ago for construction work on high gravity planets, very large and very sturdy.” The senior officer wrapped the description up. “We'll add as much armour as we can, but we need to balance that with keeping it air portable. On the plus side, it will use naval armour piercing shells which are designed to punch through heavy armour and then explode inside a target, that should ruin anyone's day.”
“They also tend to be rocket boosted, at sea that gives the shots more range, but for us it adds muzzle velocity without worrying about recoil shaking the guns loose.” Singh winced at the idea. “It's not an ideal solution, but we can have a prototype within two months and if it works full production after another four.”
“Alright.” Levy nodded. “What's your ideal solution?”
“That would be Brunhilde.” Denisov handed over the last of his papers. “This is actually a design we drafted last year after we managed to get some data on the Minbari super heavy assault vehicles. At the time it was not considered practical, but things have changed.”
This particular design did look considerably more aggressive. While the Siegfried was pretty much a regular tank supersized and given another cannon, this vehicle was more ambitious featuring articulated bogies for the tracks, a very low profile design, and a pair of absurdly huge cannons. It certainly followed a theme.
“As you may recall Madam President, the Minbari super heavy vehicles shrugged off almost anything we could throw at it. Our urgent solution was the Odin, a big gun on an existing hull, but long term we wanted a vehicle that could outmatch the Minbari in every metric. Speed, protection, and of course firepower.”
“The main armaments are 155mm Gauss guns, those weapons are currently only in prototype stage.” Singh pointed out on the illustration rather unnecessarily. “Once completed, they will be the most potent land based weapons known to exist, We can hopefully go back to one shot kills against all expected targets.”
“The Brunhilde will also be fast, the wide tracks and independent suspension will allow it unrivalled mobility, and it will use warship grade armour.” Denisov rounded up. “Not to mention next generation sensors and computer controls.”
“How long until these can be built, General?”
“Two to three years, possibly more if we run into difficulties.” Denisov answered apologetically. “Which is why we need the Siegfried, good enough now is better than perfect tomorrow.”
“It is also too large and heavy for our existing landing shuttles.” Singh chipped in. “So part of the project will also be a new heavyweight landing craft.”
“Erm, hello, excuse me?” A small hand was raised from the opposite side of the room. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Doctor Ginelli.” The President looked away from the assorted description of weapons.
“You remembered me?”
“Very hard to forget you doctor.” Levy smiled but whether it was a compliment or not was far more ambiguous. “Did you have something to add? Please go ahead, I want to hear thoughts from all my advisors.”
“Well, the tanks look great and sound useful, but why don't we just make our own battlemechs?”
The two Generals gave her a blank expression before Singh spoke up.
“We don't need them, the tanks will do the job.”
“They are certainly great at shooting things, but they're not as versatile or mobile on the attack. Mrs. President, we've seen that in the hands of barely literate pirates mechs can be extremely destructive, imagine what we could do with them.”
“At this point we don't know if we can even make our own, our analysis of the wrecks showed several pieces of technology we have no references for.”
“Yes, mostly to do with the motive elements.” Ginelli remembered the notes. “I'm confident with proper study we could crack these secrets, and honestly Mrs President we really need to try.”
“I disagree Ma'am.” Denisov countered. “It's better to refine and advance systems we know to be successful. Heavy tanks, superior missiles, and if possible increased funding for our next generation of Starfury which will have atmospheric capability.”
“What do you think Professor Klein?” Levy turned to her most senior scientist. “Is it worth trying to replicate this new technology?”
All eyes turned to the grey haired man, not so eye catching as his younger eclectic colleague but commanding respect as Earth's most accomplished physicist. His theories on gravitons had been groundbreaking and were on the brink of cracking one of the most massive technological developments of the era, true artificial gravity.
“I think both suggestions are correct.” He concluded plainly. “We need those tanks and they will be ready first, it should be our priority. Even if we do find a way to build mechs, those machines will still need combined arms support, therefore the new generation of tanks is certainly not a dead end.”
“But you think mechs have potential?” The President pushed.
“I do, there is a reason they are so prized and widespread.” Klein nodded. “At the very least we will find ourselves fighting against them time and again in the future, the more we know about mechs the easier those battles will be.”
“So you propose studying them?” Singh nodded. “I already have our engineers breaking them down, I'd welcome some help but I would have thought this sort of reverse engineering was beneath your team.”
“My people are fully committed to Project Warlock, but Doctor Ginelli is free.”
“No, I'm not.” She shot him a look. “Did you just fire me?”
“Your work on the jump drive is done, your team can finish the rest.” Klein smiled. “And I know how much you like this sort of thing.”
“But Dr Ginelli is a Hyperspace Physicist, not a weapons engineer?” Denisov frowned. “Is she best suited?”
“As a team leader and driving force behind the project, yes. Think of her more as a manager and motivator.”
“Manager?” Denisov looked like he was trying to swallow needles. “Your call, Madam President.”
“I'm happy to follow Professor Kleins advice, but are you sure the work on the drives is done?”
The older scientist yielded the floor to his younger increasingly agitated subordinate.
“The teams looking at the local FTL system have made some key breakthroughs, yes.”
“What she means,” Klein cut in, “is that she has personally cracked the principles behind these devices and worked out a way to build our own.”
“Really?” Levy raised an eyebrow.
“Well, I mean...” Ginelli stuttered.
“Yes, she has.” Klein answered for her. “And if that's not worth a Nobel prize nothing is.”
“I guess I wasn't getting one for zapping us all out here in the first place.” She winced inwardly. “But yes, I figured out the Germanium.”
“That would be the Germanium Alloy core each local FTL drive requires.” Klein added helpful notes, a teacher assisting his student.
“Yes, well, at first we all thought it was just a way to store the charge which is used to activate the hyperspace shunt.” Ginelli started, licking her lips. “I can explain this better if I had coffee.”
“No, you can't.” Klein said firmly. “Go on.”
She looked incredibly wounded and desolate for a moment, then pressed on. “All the navigators and engineers from the captured jump ship, they all said it was for the power charge, but when we swapped out the core and used our own capacitors, nothing happened. We delivered precisely the same charge, but it didn't initialise.”
She rubbed her eyebrows, thinking through the compulsion for caffeine.
“Then we learned more, like if you put two Germanium cores next to each other they also prevent a jump. That made no sense, because even an inert core had an effect. Turns out this particular alloy in this particular concentration when energised in a very specific way, turns into a tachyon calming device.”
“Can you explain that for those of us who aren't Hyperspace Physicists?” Levy asked.
“Yes, sure, well it's a bit like this. Tachyons are everywhere whizzing around us, through us, everywhere. We couldn't prove this until a century ago and from what I can tell nobody here has the instruments to detect tachyons, at least not anymore. The KF drive system basically works by creating a small pocket of hyperspace around a vessel and shunting it to another point in space. It is, as far as I can tell, using hyperspace as we know it, but it's a different dimension of hyperspace, far more compact and hence faster. Okay so far?”
“So far.”
“Right, well then, the issue I found was that this KF pocket is incredibly fragile and it can be easily disrupted by all the background tachyons. It stops the pocket from forming and you don't go anywhere, that's why my first attempts failed. So I go look at the Germanium, and it turns out this very specific alloy given a specific slow charge acts as a sort of lightning conductor, drawing in background tachyons and basically clearing the air for the KF pocket to form. That was the secret! The Germanium core created the right environmental conditions for the KF field, and that's why two cores near each other prevent a jump, they muddle each other and stop the clean redirection of tachyons.”
“Incidentally Madam President, we are looking to see if this principle can be used to prevent accidental jump ins or outs of Sol.” Klein nudged into the story. “Given the value of keeping our location secret, it may be wise to ensure nobody who arrives here can leave without our approval.”
“Isn't the reason we're all here right now down to manipulating background tachyons to inhibit FTL travel?” Denisov didn't frame it as an accusation but it may as well have been. “I don't think we want to do this again.”
“It would be on a vastly smaller scale.” Klein expanded. “And only after much study.”
“Anyway.” Ginelli wasn't finished. “Knowing that the secret was clearing the area around the KF field of background tachyons, I found a way to do it without Germanium.” She grinned, immensely proud. “We just use the tachyon directors from our own jump drives, easy.”
“Imagine for a moment that not everyone knows how easy it is, Doctor.” Levy gently reminded.
“Oh, right. Well our jump drives blast a stream of tachyons at some energised Quantium, the quantium creates a quantum twin for said tachyons in hyperspace, that's what quantium does, it exists both in and outside hyperspace simultaneously when energised. Anyway, we blast these tachyons, focus the stream ahead of a ship and where the two stream of twins meet, one in hyperspace and one in real space, they react and make a vortex. Simple as that.”
“Yes, simple as that.” Levy gave up.
“The important bit is the tachyon stream, or more exactly the energy fields we use to move those tachyons. We can manipulate them, direct them. In our drives, we want to concentrate them, but in a modified KF drive we do the reverse, we disperse them. We clear the sky so the KF pocket can form. That's it.”
“The bottom line, Madam President,” Klein rode to the rescue, “is that we can now in theory build a Kearny Fuchida hyperspace shunt without needing Germanium, or Quantium, or any lengthy recharge times. Just existing common materials.”
“Your saying you solved our hyperspace problem?” Denisov immediately perked up. “Unlimited FTL drives?”
“In the sense we can build as many as we want? Yes.” Klein confirmed. “Right now, range is still limited to thirty or so lightyears while we figure out the navigation specifics, but recharge times are probably going to be comparable to our existing Jump engines. Twenty minutes or so.”
“Fun fact, there are no actual range limitations as far as I can tell.” Ginelli chipped in excitedly. “It's just how well you can calculate your destination and regulate the energy input. It is extremely probable that there are ships that messed up their jumps billions of light-years away. Beyond the observable universe, which is incredible.” She paused for a second. “Though obviously not for them.”
“We are still in the testing phase, but the physics is good, the underlying principles sound.” Klein nodded his head. “This will work.”
“Perhaps I was wrong about you Doctor Ginelli.” Denisov half smiled at the hyperactive scientist. “Well, no, I was right, but in addition to that, you are an actual genius.”
“It's good news, very good news, but I've heard the word tachyon so much I'll have to think about it all later.” Levy exhaled. “Let's take a break here, meet back this evening after we know what's happening on New Haiti.”
“Very good, Madam President.” Her advisors all began to stand, Levy making eye contact with the young scientist and giving her a genuine smile.
“You did well, you might just have increased our odds of survival considerably.”
“After I put us here...”
“After you managed to grant us a reprieve from extinction at the hands of the Minbari.” Levy corrected. “This must have taken a lot of work.”
“A lot of coffee.” She grinned impishly. “I'd like to get back to studying what made us arrive here in the first place, I still can't figure it out, but maybe the Professor is right. Maybe I need a different project. Like big stompy robots.”
“Oddly enough, I think that might be exactly where you belong right now.” Levy still managed to find a little joy in her exuberance despite all that had happened. “Celebrate your success doctor, I think we're here for the long term and our goal now is to make the best of it, to thrive here. You've helped make that real.”
“So you'll let me experiment with giant heavily armed robots?” Ginelli asked hopefully.
“I think you've earned it.”
New Haiti
Jaime's Leopard took its time on the approach, probably a little longer than it had to, as he made sure the ship got a good look at the city and it's surroundings. He guessed that his hosts were expecting him to take a good look at their operation, so why disappoint them? The dropship roared in and circled the landing zone, still rather rustic for a space port, but at least the new owners of New Haiti had implemented a functional air traffic control system. He landed gently, dropping the side personnel hatch and stepping down into the still humid and somewhat uncomfortable environment.
“Colonel Wolf?”
He recognised the voice greeting him, turning to spot a reasonably young officer with a crew cut and a neat blue uniform. It wasn't any uniform he recognised, but that wasn't surprising.
“You must be Captain Sheridan, I appreciate the escort.” Jaime gave the slightest nod of the head maintaining an easy polite attitude. “I'm honoured to have a full Captain meet me, a warship Captain at that.”
“I need to talk to the General too, saves time.” Sheridan lied, not very convincingly. Jaime suspected he wasn't trying to hide it. “Shall we?”
They climbed into a very basic utility truck, plain grey with no doors and only the most basic of seating. It handled the mud effectively enough, pulling away from the dropship and beginning the careful journey across the field.
“You came alone?” Sheridan fought with the steering wheel.
“Call it a gesture of trust.” Jaime smiled slightly. “And an acknowledgement of the power dynamic. You have warships, I don't, so even if I brought my entire force and marched them all up to your front door, it wouldn't change a thing. I'd be just as much at your whim then as now, except if this is a betrayal, it would cost the lives of my best warriors.”
Sheridan appreciated the candour.
“Warriors, not soldiers?”
“Warriors.” Jaime confirmed. “I'm aware there's a lot of semantics about the difference between soldiers and warriors, they're just words. As a combat unit, you'll have to look hard to find any as good as my Dragoons.”
“Maybe not too hard.” Sheridan glanced at some passing Earth Force troops. “But I have heard your unit is about as good as mercenaries come.”
“They're as good as anyone comes.” Jaime replied with obvious pride and utter conviction. “I was actually looking forward to breaking some pirates, always rewarding to kill an enemy who deserves it.” He peered out at the distant pirate dropships sitting on the edges of the field. “And nice to claim some of the spoils of war, those Jumpships in orbit too?”
“Not like the pirates are going to be needing them.”
He cleared the landing field and found a stony road, not exactly flat and well maintained but better than mud. He picked up speed, churning up a cloud of yellow dust behind the vehicle.
“Never heard of the Earth Alliance before.” Jaime mentioned casually, but his eyes were keenly looking for a reaction. “Are you new to the region?”
“Fairly.” Sheridan kept it cool, his father was legendary for his poker face and at least some of that had been passed down. He'd never mentioned the name, and all comms were secure tachyon based systems, so he had probably not hacked them. Best guess was he had seen it stencilled on the side of something. “We kept a low profile.”
“Very low profile.” Jaime agreed. “There's no mention of you anywhere, not even a rumour. Well,” he smiled, “beside the usual stories of lost colonies and massed fleets in the deep periphery.”
“A couple of people thought we were Kerensky's exiles come back with a vengeance.”
“Really?” Jaime seemed to like that idea. “Imagine that.”
He followed the road deeper into the town, the poor condition of the settlement obvious to see. They drove past a tank, the crew watching them go by quietly, mildly interested in Wolf's different uniform.
“The pirates let this place go to hell, ran it into the ground.” Sheridan shook his head. “Perfectly decent planet like this? Might not be paradise, but a decent government could make a lot out of it.”
“Maybe.” Jaime nodded. “But you'd have to find a decent government first.”
“How about your employer? Prince Davion?”
“There are worse out there, but these are not golden days for the Inner Sphere. They have fallen far.”
“They?” Sheridan caught.
“My people are from the Periphery, just like you.” Jaime answered easily. “But we all have a job to do, mine involves fighting for money.”
“Just for money?”
“That's the job, but, well, sometimes its nice to be paid for your hobbies.”
Sheridan pulled onto the main highway, finally picking up some real speed.
“Not to be obvious, and I bet everyone asks you this.” Jaime continued. “But where did you find a squadron of warships?”
“They came with the uniform.”
Jaime gave him a look, nodding in understanding. He didn't expect that information to be volunteered nearly so easily. “Pretty nice perk of the job. I know my history Captain, I'm actually pretty well informed on warships. Never seen your designs.”
“No reason you should have.” Sheridan shrugged. “And yes, that is far beyond the scope of this meeting. As is any information about where I'm from and what my long term goals are.”
“Just my nature to be curious, actually I'm glad.”
“Why?”
“If you just told me everything to try and impress me, I'd have told you to turn this truck around and put my straight back on my ship.” Jaime answered honestly. “I am a mercenary Captain, but I have standards and I do not suffer fools. I look forward to where this is going.”
Sheridan swung the jeep round and into the central plaza, the somewhat battered governor's residence still overlooking the cobbled square. A pair of tanks greeted them, with several infantrymen stationed in key locations. Jaime quietly observed their deployments, tried to get a sense of their professionalism and demeanour in how they stood and acted, deeming them satisfactory.
They pulled up, broken glass crunching under the wheels.
“We still need to figure out where all the street cleaners went.” Sheridan stepped out first. “This place hasn't had a good sweep in about two hundred years.”
“Maybe that'll change.” Jaime observed. “Any trouble from the locals?”
“Nothing yet, I think a lot of them still don't understand what happened.”
“Hard to build an independent proud population out of such a broken people.” Jaime glanced around. “Why even try? Aren't there other things to spend your resources on?”
“Like all the other powers out there?” Sheridan guessed the logic.
“That's the way it is, way it's been for a long, long time.”
“But it doesn't have to stay that way.”
He led the Colonel through the main entrance, a pair of sentries standing to as the officers walked by into the large lobby. The troopers had tidied it up, which basically meant piling all the junk in one room out of the way, but it at least meant the two visitors didn't trip on anything. They arrived at the governor's office, the door pushed closed but unlocked on account of the mechanism having been shot off. Sheridan knocked anyway and waited.
“Come on through, it's about as unlocked as it gets.”
Sheridan pushed the door aside and let Jaime go in first, the office absolutely empty apart from a desk and a few mismatched chairs retrieved from different parts of the building. Most of the windows were boarded up, but enough sun shone through to highlight all the dust in the air.
“Colonel Jaime Wolf, Wolf's Dragoons.” The officer formally introduced himself.
“Brigadier General Robert Fraser, Fourth Assault Brigade.” The host responded. “Grab a chair Colonel, you too, Captain. I have water if you can stand it, the fella who used to live here left some booze, but I'm pretty sure you could fuel a jet fighter with it.”
”I'll take a pass.” Jaime smiled slightly and settled into a colourful wooden chair, Sheridan and Fraser forming two other points of a triangle. “But thank you for the offer.”
“Well Colonel, I understand you wanted to talk about something in person?”
“I did, I could have asked over the radio but I wanted to actually meet you first. As I am sure Captain Sheridan has already figured out, I put a lot of stock in the people I work beside. I am a mercenary, but I can afford to pick and choose my jobs, and who I fight beside.”
“Is that why you are here?”
“I have a simple proposal General, one that benefits us both, makes my employer happy, and fulfills the terms of my contract.” Jaime got to work. “I want your forces and mine to attack Tortuga together.”
Fraser looked over to Sheridan, then back to Jaime with a look of mild amusement.
“Quite a suggestion out of nowhere Colonel.”
“I wasn't sure I wanted to make it until I got a better sense for who you are, and just as importantly why you are here.” Jaime spoke honestly. “But I can tell your soldiers are competent, well equipped for a mobile force, and your intentions are honourable. As I told Captain Sheridan, I have standards.”
“I appreciate your assessment, but we don't need help crushing Tortuga.”
“Of course you don't and neither do we.” Jaime acknowledged. “That's not the point, this isn't about the stronger aiding the weaker, it is two warriors fighting shoulder to shoulder against an enemy that deserves death.”
“Sounds poetic, but if I can speak plainly?”
“I'd be disappointed if you didn't.”
“We know your name, some of the hype surrounding your boys, but we don't know you. Why would we trust you to fight beside us?”
“I am sure my regimental commanders will ask the same thing, and I will tell them that there is honour in a worth battle with a strong ally.” Jaime smiled. “And then I'll tell them that we could use your artillery and air support, because even though either of us alone can win this battle, it will be vastly easier if we work together. And of course, less costly in lives.”
“That all kind of relies on if you are as good as you say you are.” Fraser held firm. “It's a lot to risk. We only have your word you are here to kill pirates, can I be sure you won't turn on my boys and girls once the shooting starts?”
“If we did turn on you, I am sure Captain Sheridan's big guns would quickly punish us for our rank stupidity.” Jaime noted. “Your forces lack a battlemech contingent, you seem like a reconnaissance in force rather than a full planetary assault unit. I can give you the hammer you need, two full regiments of elite combined arms troops. In return you support us with artillery, airpower, and additional infantry regiments for urban combat.”
“And after Tortuga falls?”
“My people go home, our contract fulfilled. That's all.”
“And if your employer asks what happened out here?”
“I'll tell him.” Jaime said true. “I can't lie to the man paying my wages, and I don't think I need to.”
“Well I can't deny some heavy armour would be very useful. I'll need to talk to my superiors, I'm expecting to be relieved which would free my unit up. Perhaps a joint operation might be to our benefit.”
“I think it would be General.”
“I'll let you know in the next few days, Colonel.” Fraser gave a nod. “Feel free to look around town while you're here.”
“That would be... thrilling.”
Fraser broke a laugh. “Aye, you're not wrong Colonel. I'd offer some hospitality if I had it but...” He trailed off, waving his hands around the room.
“No apology needed.” Jaime stood. “I'll head back to my ship.”
“I'll get you a driver. Hey! Jack! Get Colonel Wolf a ride back to his boat!”
“Yes sir!” A voice answered faintly from beyond the door.
“Well I hope to see you back soon Colonel Wolf, frankly I am very keen to see your people in action.”
“That works out well, we're very keen to be in action. Good meeting you General.” He shook hands confidently. “And you Captain Sheridan, until next time.”
The two officers let Wolf leave, giving him plenty of time to drive off before sitting back down.
“He knows we're not local, and he knows we're called the Earth Alliance.”
“Did you tell him?” Fraser frowned. “Nah, he probably read it on the side of your ship. That just proves he has eyes.”
“He's sharp General, maybe he is doing this to reduce casualties among his men, but I also think he's measuring us up.”
“No doubt about it.”
“So we refuse his request?”
“No.” Fraser shook his head. “We take it, we go in alongside him, and we give Tortuga a damn good thrashing.”
Sheridan shifted his weight a little, not sure what the play was.
“General, we should be careful trusting him. Our orders are to guard information about ourselves. I can guarantee you that man is smart enough to walk away with a hell of a lot more than we want him to.”
“Maybe so, it is a gamble, but this is also our best chance to see what a professional mech army can do without risking ourselves in the process.”
Sheridan began to understand.
“I lost thirty tanks to four mechs Captain, and while I am confident that won't happen again, I was up against pirates in old machines. Imagine if they had been real soldiers, if they had coordinated their attacks, supported each other, employed real combined arms.” Fraser grimaced. “Nah Captain, I don't think command properly realises yet how serious the situation is.”
“So we go in with these guys, record every second, and then make sure the Joint Chiefs see what we'd be up against in a real war?”
“Got it in one, Captain.” Fraser smiled. “We see the capabilities of a professional mech force, see how good well maintained machines are, what sort of performance real soldiers can deliver. We'll gauge their tactics, see how they implement combined arms, follow their command and control. This is an immense opportunity, and while there is risk on our side, the benefits vastly outweigh them.”
“Understood General, anything I can do to help?”
“I'll handle it. I'm sure this will be a presidential decision so I'll call home soon, then pretend it took two days to get an answer. Should also be enough time for Second Corps to arrive and garrison this place.”
“There is one issue General.” Sheridan raised. “We're not even a quarter the way to Tortuga with the Explorers, we can't deploy for another few months.”
“Plus we don't want them learning about hyperspace.” Fraser nodded. “I know Captain, already thought about that.”
“So how do we get there sir?”
“We have you to thank for that Captain, how many jumpships did you snatch from those bandits?”
Jaime Wolf thanked the driver as he got out of the jeep and walked the last few paces back to his dropship. He was smiling, a smile that grew wider as he spotted a familiar figure waiting for him.
“Did they buy it?”
“No, they did not buy it.” Jaime answered. “They didn't need to, these are professionals, I didn't need to bullshit them.”
Natasha Kerensky just gave him a shrug. “So we on then?”
“Yes, we're on. The General's making us wait but he's already made his mind up, he's only got a light force here, he's going to need us.”
“He doesn't need a mech assault, he's got warships.”
“Which they use very sparingly.” Jaime observed. “Their Captain is an idealist, it's actually refreshing. I don't think they want to throw down massive firepower, they want to do this clean. They see themselves as liberators fixing things, not conquerors.”
“So they're Davions then?”
“Maybe, but I don't think so. There's far too much wrong here, everything is familiar, but it doesn't exactly fit.” He felt like he was holding several pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, enough to make a picture revealing some of the whole, but with no clue how much was hidden.
“Well while you figure it out, I'll just be killing pirates and making us look good, fair?”
“Fair.” Jaime allowed a slight chuckle. “Anyway, let this be a lesson on the value of doing things by the book.”
She gave him a sharp glare. “I’m not going to say it.”
“To think some of my senior commanders wanted to just jump in here blind because it was only a bunch of pirates.” Jaime let himself enjoy a little teasing. “Can you imagine?”
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “You were right. Did they notice?”
“I don’t think so, they probably thought our jump scout was just another ship out of Tortuga gathering intel for their counterattack.” Jaime reasoned. “They weren’t expecting us.”
“They’re definitely not local, no drop ships, no docking collars on their warships.” She nodded across the field. “And check out those pirate mechs they captured, they’ve got no idea how to move them.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.” Jaime agreed. “And you saw their warship, the Lexington? She’d been heavily repaired, very recently too, the different patterns in the metal made it obvious. How many people do you think can do that to a warship?”
“No one we’ve met.” Natasha understood. “So we’ve got a completely unknown group with no records anywhere, no point of origin, no clue on their agenda, who have access to warships and who have just been fighting someone else out here who was tough enough to shred their flagship. That about cover it?”
“Aren’t you glad you came along now?” Jaime arched an amused eyebrow. “Life needs a good mystery, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” She deadpanned back at him. “Yay.”
“Let's eat, keep an eye on things.” Jaime decided that was probably enough for now. “We might finally have something useful to report.”
Tryglaw
Well-known member
Very nice chapter, though given they are Clanners freshly into the IS, they should be using Clan cant, if only between themselves. So more "quaif?" and "neg" / "aff" as question and negative / positive reply, and less "yes?", "no" / "yes".
Otherwise yes, EA may well pass off as parallel develpment of a colony separated before dropships and docking collars became the norm in the IS.
For EA tanks (LOL at EA building what is pretty much 3rd German Reich P.1000 "Ratte" Landkreuzer in spaaaceeee - now they just need to include surface-to-space armaments, a duty-fixated AI system, and the Dinochrome Brigade will be good to go...
), it's weird they're not even considering ones armed with lasers / charged particle weapons, especially as they have the former on their "flak panzers" and the latter defending ground installations.
In unrelated news, this here pic on Sarna.net really cracked me up:
Otherwise yes, EA may well pass off as parallel develpment of a colony separated before dropships and docking collars became the norm in the IS.
For EA tanks (LOL at EA building what is pretty much 3rd German Reich P.1000 "Ratte" Landkreuzer in spaaaceeee - now they just need to include surface-to-space armaments, a duty-fixated AI system, and the Dinochrome Brigade will be good to go...
), it's weird they're not even considering ones armed with lasers / charged particle weapons, especially as they have the former on their "flak panzers" and the latter defending ground installations.In unrelated news, this here pic on Sarna.net really cracked me up:
AJW
Well-known member
Nice update.
What is interesting is how quickly EA has figured out how KF drives work and that using there own technology they can build drives that don't need germanium cores. When you think about it it's understandable that they would figure it out given that they have a much greater understanding of tachyon physics and hyperspace in general. The fact that they can build jump drives alone is going to have everyone from the Successor States of the Inner Sphere to the Clans wanting to do business. Especially as it should soon become obvious that a direct attack would be beyond foolish given that the EA has warships - lots of warships.
What is interesting is how quickly EA has figured out how KF drives work and that using there own technology they can build drives that don't need germanium cores. When you think about it it's understandable that they would figure it out given that they have a much greater understanding of tachyon physics and hyperspace in general. The fact that they can build jump drives alone is going to have everyone from the Successor States of the Inner Sphere to the Clans wanting to do business. Especially as it should soon become obvious that a direct attack would be beyond foolish given that the EA has warships - lots of warships.
This bit of the story is taking ~2 years after the Dragoons arrived in the Inner Sphere, so they should be more acclimated to not using Clan speak.
Also, doing that would make the consistency of their cover non-existent.
Mmm... not necessarily.
I definitely agree that B5 humanity having experience with hyperspace from their own universe helped speed up the process.
But a lot of BattleTech tech history reads like everyone is either stupid, or just so much rolling corruption and deliberate sandbagging that technological progress stagnated beyond any reasonable amount of time. For example, there's literally zero reason that the Multi-Missile Launcher, which shoots the SRMs and LRMs that have been size standardized in the Star League era, was invented in 3060, when it would make perfect sense for the Star League to invent that. And so on and so forth.
Doc Ginelli and Doc Banzai need to meet and have kids. God, they'd be dangerous together!
Tryglaw
Well-known member
As I said, between themselves...
Doomsought
Well-known member
The core acts as an amplifier as well as a stabilizer, the jump field initiator can jump on its own, but it would not take the rest of the ship with it and would render itself and its housing into gravel.
They don't prevent eachother from jumpiong, they resonate creating destructive interference, which resutls in rather destructive gravitational distortions.
I suppose we should all ask ourselves, does Jamie Wolf look like Sean Connery? Because reading his lines I "hear" them in Connery's voice as per "Hunt for the Red October".
Yes. Yes he does. Both Count and I insist on this strongly.
B5 Space Tech Info
Some more info I've scraped up:
Blast Cannons
These chemical propellant cannons are the most primitive naval weapon in human space, and legally the smaller ones are considered asteroid mining tools. These weapons are legally protected by treaty with the Belters of Sol, who can mount as many of these multi purpose cannon as they want so long as they're not heavy class. Because of the slow projectile speed the standard munition for Blast Cannons is cluster shells to give better chances of scoring a hit at range. These are Naval scale LBX cannon, and they can fire armor piercing and explosive shells in addition.
Railguns
Kissing cousins to Gauss Rifles, Railguns use huge pulses of electricity down conductive rails to propel a projectile at hypersonic speeds. Power hungry, heavy, and relatively slow firing these weapons were at one point the peak of human weapons technology and still hit with authority. However the advent of directed energy weapons saw to it that Sir Issac Newton was not the deadliest son of a bitch in space.
Plasma Cannons
Much like how every race that discovers fire develops tea lights, every race that discovers high energy plasma at some point tries chucking a ball of it at their enemies. Plasma dissipates quickly, travels slowly, and isn't particularly damaging. However it tends to find every gap in the target ship's armor, and some species find the screams of their enemies burning alive cathartic. Early human ships relied on plasma weapons, but they were quickly phased out. Turns out naval scale Flamers aren't that practical, but they send a message when fired at ground targets.
Laser Cannons
Laser Cannons are the last word in precision ranged fire. They're also some of the most advanced energy weapons purely developed with human science. Nothing travels faster than a coherent beam of light, and the interceptor systems used by most races can do nothing to shoot down the beams. However the raking beams need to be held on target for their full damage potential to be dealt, something that's easier said than done in a chaotic space battle.
Particle Beams
When the Centauri stumbled on earth they tried to convince humanity they were a long lost colony of the Centauri empire. The con didn't hold up, and they traded away some glass beads and baubles to make sure there were no hard feelings from their prank. That's how humanity gained access to jumpgate technology and the humble light particle beam. Once you figure out the trick, particle beam weapons are cheap, reliable, and some of the most efficient weapons around. They scale down as small as infantry rifles all the way up to super heavy ortillery that can wipe out most of the east coast in one shot. If humans built it, it's got at least one standard particle beam on it.
Interceptors
With races flying around throwing antimatter bombs and worse at each other, it didn't take humanity long to realize they needed something more than slabs of armor to defend themselves. The Centauri had this nifty little Twin Array, and humans took that concept and ran with it. By abandoning any ranged offensive capabilities, Earthforce made one of the premier point defense systems. The newest version is the Heavy Interceptor, designed and deployed on huge stations and ships in the middle of the war to give them some chance against the Minbari Nial heavy fighters.
Pulse Cannons
You can say a lot about the Dilgar, but there's no denying that their war machine was able to grind through a half dozen races in shockingly little time. Humanity's iconic Star Fury fighter was designed to overmatch Dilgar heavy multi role fighters and was armed with reverse engineered Dilgar pulse cannons. Pulse Cannons are the most advanced and damaging weapons currently available to humanity, their only drawback their somewhat limited range.
These chemical propellant cannons are the most primitive naval weapon in human space, and legally the smaller ones are considered asteroid mining tools. These weapons are legally protected by treaty with the Belters of Sol, who can mount as many of these multi purpose cannon as they want so long as they're not heavy class. Because of the slow projectile speed the standard munition for Blast Cannons is cluster shells to give better chances of scoring a hit at range. These are Naval scale LBX cannon, and they can fire armor piercing and explosive shells in addition.
Railguns
Kissing cousins to Gauss Rifles, Railguns use huge pulses of electricity down conductive rails to propel a projectile at hypersonic speeds. Power hungry, heavy, and relatively slow firing these weapons were at one point the peak of human weapons technology and still hit with authority. However the advent of directed energy weapons saw to it that Sir Issac Newton was not the deadliest son of a bitch in space.
Plasma Cannons
Much like how every race that discovers fire develops tea lights, every race that discovers high energy plasma at some point tries chucking a ball of it at their enemies. Plasma dissipates quickly, travels slowly, and isn't particularly damaging. However it tends to find every gap in the target ship's armor, and some species find the screams of their enemies burning alive cathartic. Early human ships relied on plasma weapons, but they were quickly phased out. Turns out naval scale Flamers aren't that practical, but they send a message when fired at ground targets.
Laser Cannons
Laser Cannons are the last word in precision ranged fire. They're also some of the most advanced energy weapons purely developed with human science. Nothing travels faster than a coherent beam of light, and the interceptor systems used by most races can do nothing to shoot down the beams. However the raking beams need to be held on target for their full damage potential to be dealt, something that's easier said than done in a chaotic space battle.
Particle Beams
When the Centauri stumbled on earth they tried to convince humanity they were a long lost colony of the Centauri empire. The con didn't hold up, and they traded away some glass beads and baubles to make sure there were no hard feelings from their prank. That's how humanity gained access to jumpgate technology and the humble light particle beam. Once you figure out the trick, particle beam weapons are cheap, reliable, and some of the most efficient weapons around. They scale down as small as infantry rifles all the way up to super heavy ortillery that can wipe out most of the east coast in one shot. If humans built it, it's got at least one standard particle beam on it.
Interceptors
With races flying around throwing antimatter bombs and worse at each other, it didn't take humanity long to realize they needed something more than slabs of armor to defend themselves. The Centauri had this nifty little Twin Array, and humans took that concept and ran with it. By abandoning any ranged offensive capabilities, Earthforce made one of the premier point defense systems. The newest version is the Heavy Interceptor, designed and deployed on huge stations and ships in the middle of the war to give them some chance against the Minbari Nial heavy fighters.
Pulse Cannons
You can say a lot about the Dilgar, but there's no denying that their war machine was able to grind through a half dozen races in shockingly little time. Humanity's iconic Star Fury fighter was designed to overmatch Dilgar heavy multi role fighters and was armed with reverse engineered Dilgar pulse cannons. Pulse Cannons are the most advanced and damaging weapons currently available to humanity, their only drawback their somewhat limited range.
The Military Hel-Track system: The Hyperspace echolocation system in its purist form is used from within hyperspace to track mass-shadows and the like through hyperspace. As the exploration-based science was placed in the hands of different governments, IPX was satisfied that no galactic power would be able to use the technology for warfare purposes with any more efficiency than current systems provided-otherwise they would have charged more.
The Earthforce secret project that combined shadowtech and Earther science, the Nemesis, augmented the existing HEL system with powerful Shadowtech hyperspace drive cells. While the powerful bio-mechanic organelles allowed the horrible cruisers to come and go as they pleased, they were not powerful enough to pull the entire cruiser between the spaces in the same manner. However, they were powerful enough to force the HEL's tracking beam through hyperspace and back again... even if the Nemesis was in Real Space! This powerful adjustment allowed for real-time tracking of enemy vessels at extreme ranges during combat, essentially ignoring the jamming and ECM suites of other vessels altogether.
The Earthforce secret project that combined shadowtech and Earther science, the Nemesis, augmented the existing HEL system with powerful Shadowtech hyperspace drive cells. While the powerful bio-mechanic organelles allowed the horrible cruisers to come and go as they pleased, they were not powerful enough to pull the entire cruiser between the spaces in the same manner. However, they were powerful enough to force the HEL's tracking beam through hyperspace and back again... even if the Nemesis was in Real Space! This powerful adjustment allowed for real-time tracking of enemy vessels at extreme ranges during combat, essentially ignoring the jamming and ECM suites of other vessels altogether.
Hyperspace is a parallel dimension which lies very close to our own. For this reason you can navigate with some accuracy in hyperspace and know, approximately, where you will come out in normal space. There are dangers to traveling in hyperspace, however. It lies close enough that large gravity bodies in our dimension affect it. This has the effect of creating currents which can, if the crew is not alert, drag a ship far off course, becoming lost in hyperspace forever. Sensors are nearly useless due to these same currents, so tracking down a lost ship is nearly impossible, more a matter of luck than skill or technology.
Access to hyperspace is achieved by warping the fabric of space and creating a tear, sometimes referred to as a vortex (or more commonly as a jump point ), which leads to hyperspace. This process requires a tremendous amount of energy, so much so that only the largest or most advanced ships can carry the jump engines necessary to do so. Large ships (capital ships, heavy com bat vessels, and some other ship types) are the only craft capable of opening their own jump points. In addition, the various spacefaring races have established fixed jump gates (basically a skeletal structure with a reactor dedicated to the task of creating vortices on demand) at key points throughout their territory.
When a ship moves into hyperspace, it can cross the void between star systems in a few days or weeks, instead of the decades it would take in normal space. Note that the ship does not actually move faster in hyperspace; it merely moves a shorter distance.
Only a few ships, generally those which are equipped with their own jump engines, can move at will through hyperspace. Even these ships tend to avoid this as it can be dangerous should equipment fail. All other ships are restricted to following established hyperspace beacons.
All fixed jump gates house one or more hyperspace beacons . Each of these beacons is linked to another at another jump gate some distance away. A given beacon will only trace a line to one other beacon. These lines are generally referred to as hyperspace lanes . Ships in hyperspace follow these beacons from one gate to another, often having to move through several different jump points to get to the desired destination, much like changing planes several times when you fly today.
A jump gate can only support a limited number of hyperspace beacons. Too many beacons will cause the signals to interfere with one another. Jump gates must also be placed far apart from one another or the same effect can occur. This means that there are many cases when a ship must cross open space for several days to reach the next jump gate necessary to continue its journey.
Movement within hyperspace varies in several ways from that of normal space. It can be likened to an endless river, with currents and eddies which can change capriciously. There can even be dangerous anomalies like "rapids" and "whirlpools." these anomalies are handled automatically by a ship's navigation systems. Only rarely are currents encountered which are too strong to overcome. Fortunately, ships can detect these currents before they enter and wait for them to calm down before proceeding.
Access to hyperspace is achieved by warping the fabric of space and creating a tear, sometimes referred to as a vortex (or more commonly as a jump point ), which leads to hyperspace. This process requires a tremendous amount of energy, so much so that only the largest or most advanced ships can carry the jump engines necessary to do so. Large ships (capital ships, heavy com bat vessels, and some other ship types) are the only craft capable of opening their own jump points. In addition, the various spacefaring races have established fixed jump gates (basically a skeletal structure with a reactor dedicated to the task of creating vortices on demand) at key points throughout their territory.
When a ship moves into hyperspace, it can cross the void between star systems in a few days or weeks, instead of the decades it would take in normal space. Note that the ship does not actually move faster in hyperspace; it merely moves a shorter distance.
Only a few ships, generally those which are equipped with their own jump engines, can move at will through hyperspace. Even these ships tend to avoid this as it can be dangerous should equipment fail. All other ships are restricted to following established hyperspace beacons.
All fixed jump gates house one or more hyperspace beacons . Each of these beacons is linked to another at another jump gate some distance away. A given beacon will only trace a line to one other beacon. These lines are generally referred to as hyperspace lanes . Ships in hyperspace follow these beacons from one gate to another, often having to move through several different jump points to get to the desired destination, much like changing planes several times when you fly today.
A jump gate can only support a limited number of hyperspace beacons. Too many beacons will cause the signals to interfere with one another. Jump gates must also be placed far apart from one another or the same effect can occur. This means that there are many cases when a ship must cross open space for several days to reach the next jump gate necessary to continue its journey.
Movement within hyperspace varies in several ways from that of normal space. It can be likened to an endless river, with currents and eddies which can change capriciously. There can even be dangerous anomalies like "rapids" and "whirlpools." these anomalies are handled automatically by a ship's navigation systems. Only rarely are currents encountered which are too strong to overcome. Fortunately, ships can detect these currents before they enter and wait for them to calm down before proceeding.
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Chapter 10
10
Raider's Roost
Capital of Tortuga
“I just... I just feel used. Like, I am valuable, I am important, I have skills. So why don't I feel that way? I love my job, but I hate my job. Does any of this make sense, Al?”
“Of course it does Bonny, you need to be less harsh on yourself. You are just trying to live your best life, trying to do what you love and your boss is pushing you down.”
“You think so, Al?”
“You belong in the sky, Bonny, you are an amazing pilot.”
“You really think so? Even though I just fly a passenger shuttle?”
“You fly the family of Ripper Sacha, the second most powerful pirate lord on this rock. It is a position of incredible responsibility and trust. You deserve it, and let's be honest, anyone called Ripper is unlikely to be a caring and considerate boss.”
She giggled sheepishly, her friend brushing his fingers through her hair. She hadn't known him long, barely a few days, but she could already easily see herself spending her whole life with him. She was in bliss, every second in his presence was pure joy.
“Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow.” He exhaled heavily. “I must leave, will you be alright without me?”
“I will Al, I promise.”
“Good, you are a useful person Bonny. You'll probably be called to work soon, to evacuate Ripper and his family. Do you remember what we discussed?”
“The alternate flight path.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.”
“Repeat it to me, so I know you were listening.”
“I take off, fly for the shelter as usual, but when I reach three thousand feet I point the nose at the ground, open the throttles and try to break the soundbarrier before landing.”
“Perfect.” Al smiled widely, it was not a smile for her. “Make sure his whole family is aboard, and lock the door behind you.”
“I will Al, I promise.”
“Good, then I must go and start work. I think today will be very busy.”
He walked to the door and opened it, Bonny could no longer hold back.
“Al, I love you!”
“Of course you do.” He smiled back. “Be seeing you.”
Above Tortuga
The actual deployment was pretty straightforward, the combined force jumping in neatly at the pirate point over Tortuga in a clean display of precision navigation. Hitting a pirate point wasn't the easiest thing to do, and the one at Tortuga was particularly challenging as the planet had multiple moons, making the interaction or gravitational forces excessively complex. Captain Sheridan had provided the coordinates, officially from data recovered aboard the captured pirate jumpships, but truthfully from the mix of advanced computational power mixed with real time sensor monitoring.
Nobody was waiting to meet them, no defences were on standby even if they had known exactly where and when the invasion fleet would arrive. The last of the Aerospace fighters had already made their move, docking with the Pirate King Kalvin Bar-Dyness' last surviving jump ship some days ago and by now in position to leave at the solar zenith. The only reason more rats hadn't abandoned the sinking ship was simply that there was no other way off.
Both halves of the invasion force had brought an identical number of drop ships, though Colonel Wolf's contingent was much cleaner than the repurposed Pirate units Fraser was using. Aerospace fighters deployed on behalf of the Dragoons to form a screen ahead of the troop laden transports, both contingents rapidly and perfectly aligning toward the planet and assuming drop formation. While the Earth Force pilots had only had a week to get to grips with their new vessels, the principles were simple enough and easy to adapt to.
“General Fraser, are you prepared?” Jaime Wolf opened a channel from the cockpit of his Archer, already set to lead his people from the front.
“Colonel, we can begin our advance, but make sure to follow the timetable precisely.” The voice of the Earth Force General hissed and crackled. “This operation is timed down to the second without much margin for error. I'm trusting your warriors are as disciplined and skilled as you say they are, Colonel Wolf.”
“You have my word.” Jaime assured. “Are we waiting for additional support?”
“There are other assets in play.” Fraser confirmed but kept it ambiguous.
“Should I warn my pilots to be alert for a warship to support us?”
“Only as a matter of last resort.”
“I see.” Jaime kept his tone steady. He had expected his allies to throw in a decent sized assault force, warships, aerospace fighters, waves of dropships or at least their drop shuttles. He had not expected them to send a couple of stolen, make that liberated, jump ships and some ragged looking Overlords. He could think of several reasons for it, ranging from suspicion to paranoia. Most likely they didn't trust Wolf, which at least meant they were cautious and he could respect caution in a warrior. But not at the expense of being bold or risking the mission by deploying insufficient firepower.
“We'll hold to the schedule General.”
Raider's Roost
Capital of Tortuga
“We are immortal!”
Two dozen voices roared back, the hall reverberating with the din.
“We are unstoppable!” Dirk the Knife, Bosun of the Bloody Bastard gang, stretched out his arms, the hefty Pirate Lord whipping up his commanders to a suitable frenzy. “We are unequalled!”
His cadre roared back, waving goblets of very potent rum as was their tradition, most already drunk on the locally produced rotgut. Dirk didn't really care, he hadn't hired these men and women because he wanted cold clinical planning. They weren't clear headed, meticulous warriors, they were psychopaths. These were the first into action, inspiring the lesser troops to follow them. They lead in the simplest possible sense of the word, which was usually enough to get the equally drunk or drugged up rank and file to throw themselves at a problem.
Normally it was enough to overwhelm an enemy in crazed thugs, bury them in dead bodies, but if they were about to face Wolf's Dragoons, then no amount of human waves would win the day. However, it would buy Dirk time to get out of town and vanish into his safe house until all this blew over.
“Drink your fill! Plenty more when we've pushed those pansies off our planet!” He grabbed another cup from one of the serving wenches, raising the cup high and then downing the whole half pint in one go, a significant amount running down his straggly rough beard. “Bleed them, my boys! Bleed the bastards dry!”
With a final roaring cheer, the host downed the last of their rum and thundered out of the building, each one of the gang laden with a massive selection of weapons and thrown together body armour. They were worthless out in the open, but absolute nightmares in the close confines of city streets or the corridors of a spaceship. They'd do their job, probably give any Dragoon infantry a bloody nose, and then never need a cut of the spoils when the invaders left and the power games began again.
He guessed it might take a few months, but this wasn't the first raid he'd endured, they were a good way of removing opposition and clearing the path to advancement. Kalvin was done, wherever he was. Dirk suspected the current Pirate King wasn't going to make it to sunset, and odds were a bunch of other Council members were about to get mauled. All he had to do was hide out, wait, make sure he had a few allies left, then make his move.
It wasn't a bad plan, he was actually quite enthusiastic about it, which is why it took him a few moments to notice the pitter patter of blood hitting the floor at the tip of his boots. It took a while to figure out where it was coming from, he wasn't injured or in pain, but that was definitely blood spots falling to the ground. It could have been the alcohol impairing his cognitive functions, but he hadn't drunken nearly enough, something was wrong.
He touched his nose, his fingers coming away bloody. He could taste the iron rich substance running down the back of his throat, clumping on his beard, it wasn't dripping now, it was a stream. Within twenty seconds he'd gone from laughing to spinning, the world blurring as dizziness overwhelmed him. At some point, he figured out to, his surprise, he was on the floor staring up with no idea how he had got there or how long it had been. He was vaguely aware of another person, the serving wench standing next to him staring down. He tried to speak, to grab her, to make her get him some help. Nothing happened, no words, no movement, the world just became ever more distant until he saw nothing anymore.
“Zero, two.” Agent Samantha Kyle tapped the communicator disguised as a bracelet on her wrist. “Primary node eliminated, secondary is taking a while.”
“Why?”
“Poison was applied through alcohol, but the assault squad leaders have taken some type of drug. Expect poison to still work, but need to add several additional minutes.”
“Received. Proceed to next node.”
“Moving.”
“Dropships are forming up above us, my money's on that they're gonna hit the spaceport first.”
“Course they fuckin' are, only thing worth havin!”
Miles 'Out' Masterson spat out some chewing tobacco into the corner of the control room, the radar screens giving him a decent view of the impending attack. The room itself was surprisingly large and once upon a time had been a fully functional planetary defence centre with linked sensor stations, weapons batteries, and aerospace bases. Today, it was eight men with four functional consoles and a single ground to air weapons cluster.
“They ain't moved yet Bosun, they just be sitting there.”
“They'll come.” Miles was certain. He was an older man, like his small staff and the actual gun crews on the edge of town manning the defensive battery, he had been a pirate until injury took him off the front lines. Too wounded to fight and too poor to retire he ended up serving the Dominion in this far less glorious capacity. “Them guns ready?”
“Aye boss, guns ready. Have to wait 'til they get a lot closer though.”
“Make sure they don't spaff all their ammo on...”
He was interrupted be a series of electronic sounding hisses mixed with the whines of a device powering up. He spun at once, and on the pistol hanging at his waist, but saw nothing. Miles turned again, eyes zipping around the run down command centre trying to decide where that noise had come from. It sounded close, but nothing looked different. He was paranoid enough to know it wasn't his imagination, something was definitely feeling off.
“Watch those ships, I'm going to check something.”
He made it one pace before the air exploded in searing plasma, a stream of red blowing energy bolts the slammed into his chest emerging out of thin air and dropping him before he had any idea he was under attack. In the same instant, several more bursts of plasma ripped across the personnel manning the consoles, the entire room filled for a few seconds with the sizzle of plasma bolts and then total silence.
“Zero, One.” A voice spoke from nowhere. “Node eliminated. Moving on.”
Ben Groves materialised from nowhere, dragging back the fabric hood covering his face and allowing the Black Light holographic camouflage to do its job. Around him the rest of the commando also became corporeal, half of them taking overwatch positions, while the other half began rifling through equipment packs and fishing it small demolition charges.
“Blow the consoles and lets go.” Groves oversaw the team, the highly trained special forces finishing the task in seconds. He tapped his wrist communicator to open a fresh channel. “Team two, this is one, control centre is down. Blow the guns, then head to the rally point.”
“Copy.” A voice responded. “Already on our way out.”
“All set.” The Commando leader reported. “Timers set.”
“We'll head to the rally point.” Groves moved onto the next part of his mission. “How's your power?”
“Good for another two hours.”
“Alright then.” Groves dragged his hood back over his face. “Disappear.”
The distant rumble of explosions rolled over the city, disturbing the flocks of pigeons and rats that scurried for deeper shelter. Black smoke rose on the horizon, signalling the end of the only anti dropship gun battery in the hemisphere, the Pirate Kingdom not well known for long term forward planning. While the leadership had known trouble was coming for a while, this was the first sign most of the general population had been given that things were about to change.
None of the Council of Damned, the most powerful of the Pirate band Captains that exerted influence over the Dominion, had any illusions that they could stop a planetary assault, especially not one spear headed by Wolf's Dragoons. Their space assets were mostly gone, along with nearly half of their mechs. They still had about sixty thousand men under arms, many of them pumped full of so many drugs, they'd willingly try to wrestle with a battlemech, but they were very much just a distraction. The game here was well and truly done.
The older and smarter of the Captains had long known this was a possibility, that sooner or later they would push one of the bigger powers to the point they'd lash out and send a real army to deal with them. Consequently, each had his or her own escape plan, be that a safe house or a hidden bunker or a secret way off the planet they would initiate the second it became obvious they were in danger. The Pirate King himself was already long gone, taking the last pirate jumpship with him, but there were still enough civilian owned jumpships that had trade contracts with the pirates to provide an escape route for those who could afford it.
Now it was obvious war was coming, the spaceports would soon be flooded with people trying to escape. The Pirate Lords had the advantage of a head start and of course plenty of people with guns to ensure they got their seat on the last transport out.
Agent Jiang Li watched from the edge of an alleyway teeming with discarded rubbish and people. The assorted beggars and homeless watched the rising smoke with wide eyes, many grabbing their scant belongings and retreating further into the shadows, hoping to be further forgotten. Jiang pitied them, he'd lived among them on and off while conducting surveillance, one of his many disguises, and had come to know several of the unfortunates. Some were escaped slaves, others failed pirates, some were factory workers or farmers whose livelihoods had been stolen or destroyed by gangs of thugs. Nobody cared, they were just left to starve.
One of the Pirate Lords who lived at the top of the broken system was visible in the distance, throwing chests filled with treasures in the back of an expensive looking car. It was bitterly amusing watching a pirate hauling literal wooden treasure chests from an expensive looking town house barely fifty yards from a homeless colony. The Pirate assembled his bodyguards, distributed handfuls of gold to ensure their loyalty, and then loaded everyone up into a small convoy of armed trucks with his luxury car in the middle.
Jiang wondered what the overall plan was, surely the body guards knew those wooden chests were filled with actual pirate treasure? Did this Pirate Lord really think they were going to defend him for just a few palmfuls of gold? Did he have another plan to make sure they didn't just slit his throat and keep the treasure themselves once they used him to reach safety? It was literally a cut throat kingdom. Jiang knew of at least three Pirate Lords who were already dead, victims of rivals once the anarchy had started. He knew the Pirate King had already run with his crew, and he knew that by now he had almost certainly been murdered by his second in command, the smart but psychotic Paula Trevaine.
Part of him wanted to follow the convoy and see how the inevitable betrayal unfolded, but he had other more urgent responsibilities today. So instead, he stayed where he was shrouded in rags, one more beggar beneath notice, and he watched the convoy set off. He watched it travel to a safe distance, a location with thick walls and no innocent people nearby, and then he watched as the bomb he'd placed under the driver's seat detonated in a flash of dirty grey smoke and shrapnel.
Jiang had no idea what the pirates considered to be security. He had ultimately decided that it was just fear, terrifying people to the point that nobody dared move against them for fear of the consequences. Killing a pirate lord would bring all the others down on the perpetrator, the leaders not defending their dead rival, but very keen to defend the system. Of course, the whole thing fell apart when it collided with a group that had no fear of these jumped up criminals, and that warmly welcomed the immediate violent counter attack. It kept the power games isolated within the ruling council, which also meant that once eliminated, there was nothing to replace the pirate lords. They never delegated authority, there was no real backup or bureaucracy to carry on automatically, remove the head and the Dominions became paralysed.
That was the sum of their work, nine months of study, infiltration, mapping out places and persons of interest. They knew the fine details of every person of significance, the whole Council of the Damned. Where they lived, what they ate, who they kept close and who they feared. They knew which car they preferred, what mistress was visited on what day, which vices were most favoured and which were hidden. Jiang's people knew where all the secrets were buried, where the vulnerabilities lay. It had been painfully easy, given the absolute lack of even basic precautions. Only one Pirate Lord had been cautious enough to really hide his business and he had met with an accident early in the mission. An easily arranged accident.
In the end it was nice bit of exercise, a practice run before deploying into the far more challenging arena of the Great Houses. Their job here was now almost complete, the main Pirate Lords were dead, their defences shattered, their secrets learned. All that remained was to gather the teams, collect all the data they had stowed away, and wait for retrieval. A lengthy debrief waited, probably months of questions and talking to the next wave of operatives to prepare them for life in this new reality. Oh, and a bunch of precise brain scans to make sure Psi Corps hadn't messed with their minds.
Al Bester had been an incredibly useful asset, but at the same time skin crawling to be around. Jiang suspected it was deliberate, that Bester found amusement in making others uncomfortable. All human telepaths had to follow very strict rules and laws regarding their abilities, this mission had broken them all several times over. It was very morally questionable, but by far the worst thing was how easily Bester had done every dark deed asked of him. Jiang knew people, and he knew this was not the first time Bester had used his telepathy to destroy lives.
There was a clatter of gunfire as the bodyguards started killing each other over the treasures in the now burning luxury car, slaughtering for gold and jewels as was the stereotype. Already the homeless masses near Jiang had become aware of the opportunity. They could see the scattered gold after the explosion and were gathering, eyes wide in wonder and greed. The bodyguards had no idea of this danger, they would kill each other and the handful of wounded survivors would be beaten to death by this gathering horde. Perhaps there was some justice there, but Jiang had no desire to see it. He was done with this planet.
The countdown reached its conclusion, the very second it did, both squadrons of dropships burning into life and angling for the planet. Wolf's forces took the lead as was their duty as the primary assault force, with the Alliance units following on. Their landing point was the primary spaceport outside of Raider's Roost, an obvious target but again, Wolf didn't mind that. Let the pirates try and stop them, his people could use the exercise.
His cockpit displays flashed a message up on his HUD, a relay from the dropship sensors informing him of multiple explosions on the surface among the planetary defences. He smiled slightly, the pieces falling into place.
“General Fraser, my compliments.” He communicated. “I see the strict timetable was for more than just rigid procedure.”
“Makes life a little easier for both of us.” The General answered, clearly quite pleased all had gone well. “That should remove the planetary defences, centralised control facilities, and any senior leaders who might have rallied the ground forces against us.”
“Almost takes the challenge out of it.” Wolf's voice had a slight tinge of disappointment. “I still have six mobile groups including an understrength battalion of mechs. That should keep us busy for an hour or so.”
“My people will secure the spaceport and roll out artillery and gunships, if you need them you have the frequency, they'll respond to your fire missions.”
“That will be very useful, I'll see you on the ground General.”
“Good hunting, Colonel Wolf.”
He closed the uplink, his lance comms still open. “Did you get all that?”
“I heard.” Natasha displayed little interest in the manoeuvres. “He's still holding back.”
“He doesn't want us to know his full capabilities, just like we're keeping secrets ourselves.” Wolf chuckled. “The games we play.”
“So what's the order? Do we go full assault on these scumbags?”
“Of course we do, let our new friends watch, we'll give them a taste of what we can do.” Wolf nodded. “Then once they understand, let's see if we can keep communications open. When our contract with the Davions is over we should see if we can find work out here.”
“Instead of the Capellans?”
“We can do both, a small detachment out here perhaps, while our main force remains in the Inner Sphere.” Wolf mused. “This is part of our mission, we have no idea if this is a tiny faction that got lucky holding on to a fleet, or the vanguard of something far more serious.”
“Maybe they have the same mission we do, testing the great houses to see if they can put up much of a fight?”
“That's what I was thinking.” Wolf agreed. “We'll play along, earn some trust and go from there. Right now though, we have a contract to fulfil. You know what to do.”
“Thought you'd never ask.”
Even before the Commando raid, there was nothing Tortuga could realistically do to even slow down Wolf's Dragoons. The dropships arced down through the sky, blazing a trail as they touched the atmosphere, their crews aiming to put the orbs down as quickly as possible. Ahead, the Aerospace fighters took point, preceding the troop ships and clearing the way for a safe drop. The Pirate space fighters were long gone, only a handful of atmosphere only jet fighters rose up to meet the incoming attack, all of them dispatched with negligible effort by the Dragoon's escorts.
One by one each ship touched down, engines burning hard to halt the descent and put each vessel down safely. This wasn't a true hot drop, Wolf didn't need to throw his jump jet powered mechs on the way down to clear a landing site and could take a little time organising his units. The various Lances deploying rapidly and setting off to march for the city.
“Primary target is hostile mech company at twenty two miles north.” Wolf read the data flowing in to his command system, the venerable Archer stepping aside to clear the way for more units. He liked to lead from the front, but strictly speaking this wasn't his operation. He'd leave the actual tactical elements to his Regimental commanders, content to keep his Command Lance in reserve watching the big picture. “Then we'll secure the main road into the city and let the infantry advance.”
“Fraser's ships are touching down, do we wait for his tanks?”
“We don't need them for this part of the mission, but they'll be handy to back up the infantry.” Wolf reasoned. “Audacious, not reckless. Advance and engage.”
Raider's Roost
Capital of Tortuga
“I just... I just feel used. Like, I am valuable, I am important, I have skills. So why don't I feel that way? I love my job, but I hate my job. Does any of this make sense, Al?”
“Of course it does Bonny, you need to be less harsh on yourself. You are just trying to live your best life, trying to do what you love and your boss is pushing you down.”
“You think so, Al?”
“You belong in the sky, Bonny, you are an amazing pilot.”
“You really think so? Even though I just fly a passenger shuttle?”
“You fly the family of Ripper Sacha, the second most powerful pirate lord on this rock. It is a position of incredible responsibility and trust. You deserve it, and let's be honest, anyone called Ripper is unlikely to be a caring and considerate boss.”
She giggled sheepishly, her friend brushing his fingers through her hair. She hadn't known him long, barely a few days, but she could already easily see herself spending her whole life with him. She was in bliss, every second in his presence was pure joy.
“Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow.” He exhaled heavily. “I must leave, will you be alright without me?”
“I will Al, I promise.”
“Good, you are a useful person Bonny. You'll probably be called to work soon, to evacuate Ripper and his family. Do you remember what we discussed?”
“The alternate flight path.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course.”
“Repeat it to me, so I know you were listening.”
“I take off, fly for the shelter as usual, but when I reach three thousand feet I point the nose at the ground, open the throttles and try to break the soundbarrier before landing.”
“Perfect.” Al smiled widely, it was not a smile for her. “Make sure his whole family is aboard, and lock the door behind you.”
“I will Al, I promise.”
“Good, then I must go and start work. I think today will be very busy.”
He walked to the door and opened it, Bonny could no longer hold back.
“Al, I love you!”
“Of course you do.” He smiled back. “Be seeing you.”
Above Tortuga
The actual deployment was pretty straightforward, the combined force jumping in neatly at the pirate point over Tortuga in a clean display of precision navigation. Hitting a pirate point wasn't the easiest thing to do, and the one at Tortuga was particularly challenging as the planet had multiple moons, making the interaction or gravitational forces excessively complex. Captain Sheridan had provided the coordinates, officially from data recovered aboard the captured pirate jumpships, but truthfully from the mix of advanced computational power mixed with real time sensor monitoring.
Nobody was waiting to meet them, no defences were on standby even if they had known exactly where and when the invasion fleet would arrive. The last of the Aerospace fighters had already made their move, docking with the Pirate King Kalvin Bar-Dyness' last surviving jump ship some days ago and by now in position to leave at the solar zenith. The only reason more rats hadn't abandoned the sinking ship was simply that there was no other way off.
Both halves of the invasion force had brought an identical number of drop ships, though Colonel Wolf's contingent was much cleaner than the repurposed Pirate units Fraser was using. Aerospace fighters deployed on behalf of the Dragoons to form a screen ahead of the troop laden transports, both contingents rapidly and perfectly aligning toward the planet and assuming drop formation. While the Earth Force pilots had only had a week to get to grips with their new vessels, the principles were simple enough and easy to adapt to.
“General Fraser, are you prepared?” Jaime Wolf opened a channel from the cockpit of his Archer, already set to lead his people from the front.
“Colonel, we can begin our advance, but make sure to follow the timetable precisely.” The voice of the Earth Force General hissed and crackled. “This operation is timed down to the second without much margin for error. I'm trusting your warriors are as disciplined and skilled as you say they are, Colonel Wolf.”
“You have my word.” Jaime assured. “Are we waiting for additional support?”
“There are other assets in play.” Fraser confirmed but kept it ambiguous.
“Should I warn my pilots to be alert for a warship to support us?”
“Only as a matter of last resort.”
“I see.” Jaime kept his tone steady. He had expected his allies to throw in a decent sized assault force, warships, aerospace fighters, waves of dropships or at least their drop shuttles. He had not expected them to send a couple of stolen, make that liberated, jump ships and some ragged looking Overlords. He could think of several reasons for it, ranging from suspicion to paranoia. Most likely they didn't trust Wolf, which at least meant they were cautious and he could respect caution in a warrior. But not at the expense of being bold or risking the mission by deploying insufficient firepower.
“We'll hold to the schedule General.”
Raider's Roost
Capital of Tortuga
“We are immortal!”
Two dozen voices roared back, the hall reverberating with the din.
“We are unstoppable!” Dirk the Knife, Bosun of the Bloody Bastard gang, stretched out his arms, the hefty Pirate Lord whipping up his commanders to a suitable frenzy. “We are unequalled!”
His cadre roared back, waving goblets of very potent rum as was their tradition, most already drunk on the locally produced rotgut. Dirk didn't really care, he hadn't hired these men and women because he wanted cold clinical planning. They weren't clear headed, meticulous warriors, they were psychopaths. These were the first into action, inspiring the lesser troops to follow them. They lead in the simplest possible sense of the word, which was usually enough to get the equally drunk or drugged up rank and file to throw themselves at a problem.
Normally it was enough to overwhelm an enemy in crazed thugs, bury them in dead bodies, but if they were about to face Wolf's Dragoons, then no amount of human waves would win the day. However, it would buy Dirk time to get out of town and vanish into his safe house until all this blew over.
“Drink your fill! Plenty more when we've pushed those pansies off our planet!” He grabbed another cup from one of the serving wenches, raising the cup high and then downing the whole half pint in one go, a significant amount running down his straggly rough beard. “Bleed them, my boys! Bleed the bastards dry!”
With a final roaring cheer, the host downed the last of their rum and thundered out of the building, each one of the gang laden with a massive selection of weapons and thrown together body armour. They were worthless out in the open, but absolute nightmares in the close confines of city streets or the corridors of a spaceship. They'd do their job, probably give any Dragoon infantry a bloody nose, and then never need a cut of the spoils when the invaders left and the power games began again.
He guessed it might take a few months, but this wasn't the first raid he'd endured, they were a good way of removing opposition and clearing the path to advancement. Kalvin was done, wherever he was. Dirk suspected the current Pirate King wasn't going to make it to sunset, and odds were a bunch of other Council members were about to get mauled. All he had to do was hide out, wait, make sure he had a few allies left, then make his move.
It wasn't a bad plan, he was actually quite enthusiastic about it, which is why it took him a few moments to notice the pitter patter of blood hitting the floor at the tip of his boots. It took a while to figure out where it was coming from, he wasn't injured or in pain, but that was definitely blood spots falling to the ground. It could have been the alcohol impairing his cognitive functions, but he hadn't drunken nearly enough, something was wrong.
He touched his nose, his fingers coming away bloody. He could taste the iron rich substance running down the back of his throat, clumping on his beard, it wasn't dripping now, it was a stream. Within twenty seconds he'd gone from laughing to spinning, the world blurring as dizziness overwhelmed him. At some point, he figured out to, his surprise, he was on the floor staring up with no idea how he had got there or how long it had been. He was vaguely aware of another person, the serving wench standing next to him staring down. He tried to speak, to grab her, to make her get him some help. Nothing happened, no words, no movement, the world just became ever more distant until he saw nothing anymore.
“Zero, two.” Agent Samantha Kyle tapped the communicator disguised as a bracelet on her wrist. “Primary node eliminated, secondary is taking a while.”
“Why?”
“Poison was applied through alcohol, but the assault squad leaders have taken some type of drug. Expect poison to still work, but need to add several additional minutes.”
“Received. Proceed to next node.”
“Moving.”
“Dropships are forming up above us, my money's on that they're gonna hit the spaceport first.”
“Course they fuckin' are, only thing worth havin!”
Miles 'Out' Masterson spat out some chewing tobacco into the corner of the control room, the radar screens giving him a decent view of the impending attack. The room itself was surprisingly large and once upon a time had been a fully functional planetary defence centre with linked sensor stations, weapons batteries, and aerospace bases. Today, it was eight men with four functional consoles and a single ground to air weapons cluster.
“They ain't moved yet Bosun, they just be sitting there.”
“They'll come.” Miles was certain. He was an older man, like his small staff and the actual gun crews on the edge of town manning the defensive battery, he had been a pirate until injury took him off the front lines. Too wounded to fight and too poor to retire he ended up serving the Dominion in this far less glorious capacity. “Them guns ready?”
“Aye boss, guns ready. Have to wait 'til they get a lot closer though.”
“Make sure they don't spaff all their ammo on...”
He was interrupted be a series of electronic sounding hisses mixed with the whines of a device powering up. He spun at once, and on the pistol hanging at his waist, but saw nothing. Miles turned again, eyes zipping around the run down command centre trying to decide where that noise had come from. It sounded close, but nothing looked different. He was paranoid enough to know it wasn't his imagination, something was definitely feeling off.
“Watch those ships, I'm going to check something.”
He made it one pace before the air exploded in searing plasma, a stream of red blowing energy bolts the slammed into his chest emerging out of thin air and dropping him before he had any idea he was under attack. In the same instant, several more bursts of plasma ripped across the personnel manning the consoles, the entire room filled for a few seconds with the sizzle of plasma bolts and then total silence.
“Zero, One.” A voice spoke from nowhere. “Node eliminated. Moving on.”
Ben Groves materialised from nowhere, dragging back the fabric hood covering his face and allowing the Black Light holographic camouflage to do its job. Around him the rest of the commando also became corporeal, half of them taking overwatch positions, while the other half began rifling through equipment packs and fishing it small demolition charges.
“Blow the consoles and lets go.” Groves oversaw the team, the highly trained special forces finishing the task in seconds. He tapped his wrist communicator to open a fresh channel. “Team two, this is one, control centre is down. Blow the guns, then head to the rally point.”
“Copy.” A voice responded. “Already on our way out.”
“All set.” The Commando leader reported. “Timers set.”
“We'll head to the rally point.” Groves moved onto the next part of his mission. “How's your power?”
“Good for another two hours.”
“Alright then.” Groves dragged his hood back over his face. “Disappear.”
The distant rumble of explosions rolled over the city, disturbing the flocks of pigeons and rats that scurried for deeper shelter. Black smoke rose on the horizon, signalling the end of the only anti dropship gun battery in the hemisphere, the Pirate Kingdom not well known for long term forward planning. While the leadership had known trouble was coming for a while, this was the first sign most of the general population had been given that things were about to change.
None of the Council of Damned, the most powerful of the Pirate band Captains that exerted influence over the Dominion, had any illusions that they could stop a planetary assault, especially not one spear headed by Wolf's Dragoons. Their space assets were mostly gone, along with nearly half of their mechs. They still had about sixty thousand men under arms, many of them pumped full of so many drugs, they'd willingly try to wrestle with a battlemech, but they were very much just a distraction. The game here was well and truly done.
The older and smarter of the Captains had long known this was a possibility, that sooner or later they would push one of the bigger powers to the point they'd lash out and send a real army to deal with them. Consequently, each had his or her own escape plan, be that a safe house or a hidden bunker or a secret way off the planet they would initiate the second it became obvious they were in danger. The Pirate King himself was already long gone, taking the last pirate jumpship with him, but there were still enough civilian owned jumpships that had trade contracts with the pirates to provide an escape route for those who could afford it.
Now it was obvious war was coming, the spaceports would soon be flooded with people trying to escape. The Pirate Lords had the advantage of a head start and of course plenty of people with guns to ensure they got their seat on the last transport out.
Agent Jiang Li watched from the edge of an alleyway teeming with discarded rubbish and people. The assorted beggars and homeless watched the rising smoke with wide eyes, many grabbing their scant belongings and retreating further into the shadows, hoping to be further forgotten. Jiang pitied them, he'd lived among them on and off while conducting surveillance, one of his many disguises, and had come to know several of the unfortunates. Some were escaped slaves, others failed pirates, some were factory workers or farmers whose livelihoods had been stolen or destroyed by gangs of thugs. Nobody cared, they were just left to starve.
One of the Pirate Lords who lived at the top of the broken system was visible in the distance, throwing chests filled with treasures in the back of an expensive looking car. It was bitterly amusing watching a pirate hauling literal wooden treasure chests from an expensive looking town house barely fifty yards from a homeless colony. The Pirate assembled his bodyguards, distributed handfuls of gold to ensure their loyalty, and then loaded everyone up into a small convoy of armed trucks with his luxury car in the middle.
Jiang wondered what the overall plan was, surely the body guards knew those wooden chests were filled with actual pirate treasure? Did this Pirate Lord really think they were going to defend him for just a few palmfuls of gold? Did he have another plan to make sure they didn't just slit his throat and keep the treasure themselves once they used him to reach safety? It was literally a cut throat kingdom. Jiang knew of at least three Pirate Lords who were already dead, victims of rivals once the anarchy had started. He knew the Pirate King had already run with his crew, and he knew that by now he had almost certainly been murdered by his second in command, the smart but psychotic Paula Trevaine.
Part of him wanted to follow the convoy and see how the inevitable betrayal unfolded, but he had other more urgent responsibilities today. So instead, he stayed where he was shrouded in rags, one more beggar beneath notice, and he watched the convoy set off. He watched it travel to a safe distance, a location with thick walls and no innocent people nearby, and then he watched as the bomb he'd placed under the driver's seat detonated in a flash of dirty grey smoke and shrapnel.
Jiang had no idea what the pirates considered to be security. He had ultimately decided that it was just fear, terrifying people to the point that nobody dared move against them for fear of the consequences. Killing a pirate lord would bring all the others down on the perpetrator, the leaders not defending their dead rival, but very keen to defend the system. Of course, the whole thing fell apart when it collided with a group that had no fear of these jumped up criminals, and that warmly welcomed the immediate violent counter attack. It kept the power games isolated within the ruling council, which also meant that once eliminated, there was nothing to replace the pirate lords. They never delegated authority, there was no real backup or bureaucracy to carry on automatically, remove the head and the Dominions became paralysed.
That was the sum of their work, nine months of study, infiltration, mapping out places and persons of interest. They knew the fine details of every person of significance, the whole Council of the Damned. Where they lived, what they ate, who they kept close and who they feared. They knew which car they preferred, what mistress was visited on what day, which vices were most favoured and which were hidden. Jiang's people knew where all the secrets were buried, where the vulnerabilities lay. It had been painfully easy, given the absolute lack of even basic precautions. Only one Pirate Lord had been cautious enough to really hide his business and he had met with an accident early in the mission. An easily arranged accident.
In the end it was nice bit of exercise, a practice run before deploying into the far more challenging arena of the Great Houses. Their job here was now almost complete, the main Pirate Lords were dead, their defences shattered, their secrets learned. All that remained was to gather the teams, collect all the data they had stowed away, and wait for retrieval. A lengthy debrief waited, probably months of questions and talking to the next wave of operatives to prepare them for life in this new reality. Oh, and a bunch of precise brain scans to make sure Psi Corps hadn't messed with their minds.
Al Bester had been an incredibly useful asset, but at the same time skin crawling to be around. Jiang suspected it was deliberate, that Bester found amusement in making others uncomfortable. All human telepaths had to follow very strict rules and laws regarding their abilities, this mission had broken them all several times over. It was very morally questionable, but by far the worst thing was how easily Bester had done every dark deed asked of him. Jiang knew people, and he knew this was not the first time Bester had used his telepathy to destroy lives.
There was a clatter of gunfire as the bodyguards started killing each other over the treasures in the now burning luxury car, slaughtering for gold and jewels as was the stereotype. Already the homeless masses near Jiang had become aware of the opportunity. They could see the scattered gold after the explosion and were gathering, eyes wide in wonder and greed. The bodyguards had no idea of this danger, they would kill each other and the handful of wounded survivors would be beaten to death by this gathering horde. Perhaps there was some justice there, but Jiang had no desire to see it. He was done with this planet.
The countdown reached its conclusion, the very second it did, both squadrons of dropships burning into life and angling for the planet. Wolf's forces took the lead as was their duty as the primary assault force, with the Alliance units following on. Their landing point was the primary spaceport outside of Raider's Roost, an obvious target but again, Wolf didn't mind that. Let the pirates try and stop them, his people could use the exercise.
His cockpit displays flashed a message up on his HUD, a relay from the dropship sensors informing him of multiple explosions on the surface among the planetary defences. He smiled slightly, the pieces falling into place.
“General Fraser, my compliments.” He communicated. “I see the strict timetable was for more than just rigid procedure.”
“Makes life a little easier for both of us.” The General answered, clearly quite pleased all had gone well. “That should remove the planetary defences, centralised control facilities, and any senior leaders who might have rallied the ground forces against us.”
“Almost takes the challenge out of it.” Wolf's voice had a slight tinge of disappointment. “I still have six mobile groups including an understrength battalion of mechs. That should keep us busy for an hour or so.”
“My people will secure the spaceport and roll out artillery and gunships, if you need them you have the frequency, they'll respond to your fire missions.”
“That will be very useful, I'll see you on the ground General.”
“Good hunting, Colonel Wolf.”
He closed the uplink, his lance comms still open. “Did you get all that?”
“I heard.” Natasha displayed little interest in the manoeuvres. “He's still holding back.”
“He doesn't want us to know his full capabilities, just like we're keeping secrets ourselves.” Wolf chuckled. “The games we play.”
“So what's the order? Do we go full assault on these scumbags?”
“Of course we do, let our new friends watch, we'll give them a taste of what we can do.” Wolf nodded. “Then once they understand, let's see if we can keep communications open. When our contract with the Davions is over we should see if we can find work out here.”
“Instead of the Capellans?”
“We can do both, a small detachment out here perhaps, while our main force remains in the Inner Sphere.” Wolf mused. “This is part of our mission, we have no idea if this is a tiny faction that got lucky holding on to a fleet, or the vanguard of something far more serious.”
“Maybe they have the same mission we do, testing the great houses to see if they can put up much of a fight?”
“That's what I was thinking.” Wolf agreed. “We'll play along, earn some trust and go from there. Right now though, we have a contract to fulfil. You know what to do.”
“Thought you'd never ask.”
Even before the Commando raid, there was nothing Tortuga could realistically do to even slow down Wolf's Dragoons. The dropships arced down through the sky, blazing a trail as they touched the atmosphere, their crews aiming to put the orbs down as quickly as possible. Ahead, the Aerospace fighters took point, preceding the troop ships and clearing the way for a safe drop. The Pirate space fighters were long gone, only a handful of atmosphere only jet fighters rose up to meet the incoming attack, all of them dispatched with negligible effort by the Dragoon's escorts.
One by one each ship touched down, engines burning hard to halt the descent and put each vessel down safely. This wasn't a true hot drop, Wolf didn't need to throw his jump jet powered mechs on the way down to clear a landing site and could take a little time organising his units. The various Lances deploying rapidly and setting off to march for the city.
“Primary target is hostile mech company at twenty two miles north.” Wolf read the data flowing in to his command system, the venerable Archer stepping aside to clear the way for more units. He liked to lead from the front, but strictly speaking this wasn't his operation. He'd leave the actual tactical elements to his Regimental commanders, content to keep his Command Lance in reserve watching the big picture. “Then we'll secure the main road into the city and let the infantry advance.”
“Fraser's ships are touching down, do we wait for his tanks?”
“We don't need them for this part of the mission, but they'll be handy to back up the infantry.” Wolf reasoned. “Audacious, not reckless. Advance and engage.”
Kujo
For the FEDCOM! For the Archon-Prince!
The Ironic thing is as close to House Davion as they are 'geographically' Bester's grandmother is a "Davion" as well. Family isn't the be all end all of your morals (see Katherine Steiner-Davion).
Speaking of Davions is Hanse going to be "Bill Shatner" like as Jamie Wolf being 'Connery'-equse?
Thank you.
I always saw Hanse as a Liam Neeson look.
AJW
Well-known member
Nice chapter,
Ah Bester being the character we all love to hate. Alfred Bester is actually a very complex character who genuinely does care for other telepaths and while like many Psi Corps he is a telepath supremacist he does still care about non-telepaths though more in a pet capacity.
One thing will be interesting is how everyone in Battletech reacts to telapathy when they find out about it. I imagine a fair few people from the Clans will be clamouring to get their hands on telepath DNA to include it in their next generation of bioengineered warriors.
Ah Bester being the character we all love to hate. Alfred Bester is actually a very complex character who genuinely does care for other telepaths and while like many Psi Corps he is a telepath supremacist he does still care about non-telepaths though more in a pet capacity.
One thing will be interesting is how everyone in Battletech reacts to telapathy when they find out about it. I imagine a fair few people from the Clans will be clamouring to get their hands on telepath DNA to include it in their next generation of bioengineered warriors.
AJW
Well-known member
Comstar is going to have quite a few seizures over EA technology from their much more efficient methods of FTL communication to what their weapons are capable of.