Blood on the Horizon (Battletech SI)

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty: Shot in the Dark

Major Constance Vaultaine worried her lip as she looked over the tactical workups and the information she had on the battalion that had made landfall half a week ago. The Marksman were another battalion, and on any other day that wouldn’t worry her. But they had refused to move into the city. Instead, they used some strange light ‘Mech ‘ in order to reach out and take out fixed defenses with PPC’s and LRM’s and then backed up out of range whenever they moved someone to pursue.

It was infuriating, to know that your enemy was up to something but be unable to figure it out. The enemy had artillery, they had used it to great effect against the Lancer’s not even a full year ago. So why hadn’t they tried the same sort of trap on her battalion? She didn’t know and it made her angry.

“Knock Knock.” Someone tapped twice on the door to her office. Even this late at night, there may be someone who had intel for her.

“Doors open.” She responded, glancing up just in time to note that this wasn’t one of her men. Before she could scream for help or anything, she was wrapped in the metal beings arms and getting placed in a choke hold. Major Vaultaine struggled, she tried everything she knew about close quarters combat. She threw elbows into the thing's face, she tried the groin, everything. Her struggle only made her grow weaker faster, and she was still struggling when everything went black.





Captain Paige was both exhilarated and scared for her company at the same time. Their job was to capture the enemy dropships and there were three of them there. The Lothar’s Fusiliers seemed to primarily be a ‘mech oriented battalion and as such only had three Unions to lift off with. Captain Peterson wanted the enemy grounded and unable to flee, and so her and her company had been tasked with this job.

Staff Sergeant Nathan Rook used hand signals to stop his fireteam from moving. There were some of the Union’s crew above them that he could see with his thermal vision. When their backs were turned two of his fireteam went up. They knocked the crew members unconscious. Bound and gagged them, and placed them in a cargo bay. Which Rook then locked from the outside. Moving through the ship, the various members of the Fireteam subdued the crew in sets of two and three until all 42 of the Union’s crew members were bound, gagged, and thrown into the same cargo bay that they stripped of anything that they might use to escape.

When they reached the bridge, Sergeant Rook signaled for his team to guard the entrance while he used his technical expertise to get into the Union’s systems. He navigated through the various logs, stripping valuable data on the Fusiliers and the CCAF in general. He also locked the current crew out of the systems with an override that had been provided by Lieutenant Dunham before he had left for the Concordat.

Risking an comm channel for the first time tonight, he used his Mithril’s slightly limited comm gear (He would have to report that to be improved on the next generation of armor.) “Longshot Actual, this is Longshot two reporting mission objectives seized, awaiting further instruction.”

“This is Longshot actual, Longshot two, proceed with secondary objectives.” Captain Paige responded.

Sergeant Rook clicked his comms twice for confirmation and then told his Fireteam to move on to their next objective.





Lieutenant Packer and his Fireteam moved quickly through the night. They needed to take the comms center and get ready to call for the rest of the Marksman when ordered to by Paige or Peterson. Stacking up on the Comms center’s main door, they broke the lock, and then eased the door open before moving in.

Packer had traded Rook to Paige in exchange for Mathis on this op. Sergeant Mathis was the single best entry person they had in the entire battalion. He loved being on point in a room and always knew what to do and where to go. Mathis noted the empty entry room, checking his corners and any desks that someone might hide behind before setting up on the next room. Using a fiber optic cable and camera to see if there was anyone on the other side. Noting that there were two techs monitoring the Comms systems, he signaled that to the team and had them stack up behind him. They breached the room quickly, using their speed and the element of surprise to subdue the techs before they could sound an alarm. Thankfully, they hadn’t had time to log out of the communications and now they were listening in on all of the Capellan’s communications in the city.





“This is the hardest part.” I observed to Sheppard over laser comms through my Warhammer. “The waiting and not knowing if everything is going according to plan or not.”

“Yeah.” Sheppard replied. “The waiting is what gets everyone. Everyone always talks about the exciting bits of combat, the ‘Mech combat, the aerospace duels. They always forget about the waiting and the in-between.”





“Well, I think Peterson’s plan has the best chance of success with minimal casualties.” Sheppard observed. “He really put this thing together in a hurry.”

“Well, he was a lead in the development of Mithril.” I stated. “It makes sense he’d want to be able to take advantage of it while we are still ahead of the curve.”

“I guess I didn’t see it that way.” Sheppard said. “I know that the cross training helped keep any issues between our various companies down, but I haven’t done infantry stuff in too long.”

“That, and you were gone when we went over the potential uses for it.” I made my Warhammer shrug. “It’ll take time for us to make use of Mithril properly.”


“Well, we’ll basically be setting doctrine for it so I better learn quickly.” Sheppard offered, and then paused. “We should be getting some sort of message soon.”

We went silent for a good five minutes after that, just taking in the silence of the hills and forest around us.

“This is Sniper One.” Our comms system alerted us to a new transmission. “We have seized all primary objectives and are moving to take secondary now. Move in at your discretion.”

We didn’t respond aside from basic acknowledgement of the transmission but began to move in conjunction with the forces we had to the rendezvous point. If they had accomplished the main objectives, that meant that most of the ‘Mech forces were stuck in their bays, the dropships had been seized, and the command staff were either captured or killed.




Captain Peterson was grateful for the advantages that the Mithril powered armor provided his infantry more and more as the night wore on. After they had accomplished their main objectives, they had broadcast a surrender message to the entire city. “This is Captain Peterson of the Marksman, we are a Mercenary company in the employ of the Federated Suns, we have taken your base, and are asking you to power down both your ‘Mechs and vehicles and lay down your arms. If you do so, you will be treated according to the Ares Conventions and you will not be harmed. Resist, and we will respond in kind.”

Most of the enemy had surrendered rather than face superior numbers on every front. That being said, there were a couple of lances of medium and light ‘mechs that hadn’t surrendered, instead; the couple of Firestarters that made up half of the eight ‘Mechs had started to set fire to parts of the city. Heading towards the abandoned factory as they did so. Luckily, the Colonel and Sheppard had anticipated something like this and had a couple of fireteams of Marines and the heavy fireteam moving to intercept. The fireteam of Marines jumped onto the back of a firestarter, broke open the hatch, and chucked a grenade in, using their jump jets to get out of the way before the Firestarter just stopped in its tracks. They managed to take out two of the light ‘mechs before they had to take cover and disappear. The rest of the forces, focused fire on one ‘mech at a time, starting with the Firestarters, and taking them down one by one, until they had stopped destroying the city of Macbeth.




Two days later…

I moved my ‘Mech through the city, heading towards the factory that had been shut down a hundred or so years ago. I had been told that they had a report for me and I wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that I was safe taking a regular vehicle across the city despite us saving them from the rampage of Capellan Firestarters. Reaching the perimeter that we had set around the factory that we were preparing to loot, I crouched my ‘mech down, powered down, popped my hatch, and lowered the ladder. Climbing down, I was met by the head of this project. A woman by the name of Adamina Rogers. When I reached the ground, she promptly handed me a ‘Noteputer with notes on it and led me to the inside of the factory.

“We first examined the factory to determine if there was anything left by the Cappies that we could use to expand Mithril production. Most of the factory is intact, with parts of it being defunct and destroyed from age or looters. Given we need to retool the factory anyway, we found that we should be able to strip this thing to the bedrock and repurpose it entirely for Mithril production.” She gave a very long winded spiel.

“I thought the factory was supposed to produce tanks.” I thought out loud, quite a bit curious.


“It was, most of the machines that we need were used for small things, and will do whatever the computer tells them to do as long as it has enough spare parts to keep going. We could set up two to three lines of production with what we have in this factory. And it would enable us to take the strain off of the Argo’s R&R systems.” She said in reply.

“How long will it take to take the factory apart?” I asked.

“Give us a week and the Jackwagon nearby and we’ll have everything ready for you.” She said.

“You have five days, I’m pretty sure we’re on a time limit here.” I replied.


Authors note: The roll for the factory was a 13. So a decent bit was left behind for us to scavenge. But not as much as we’d hoped for.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-One: War Machine
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation February 21st, 3007


“How in the hell did you make that work?” I asked the scientists on the Jackwagon that we had brought with us. “There’s no way you should be able to fit a working factory into this thing and still have it churning out what we need…”

“Well, we had experience with the Argo’s systems and refitting this machinery is actually easier than the Argo’s systems.” Adamina Rogers replied. “We’ll be able to put out the pilot suits and more Mithril at a rate of five or so a day as long as we get the materials.”


“You’re fucking insane.” I replied. “And I love it. I’m going to need ya’ll to churn out as many of them as possible and then move over to the designated zone.”

“Why Colonel?” She asked. “Is there something that happened?”

“McCarron’s Armored Cavalry just hit New Valencia and the Wolf’s Dragoons there.” I replied. “They may have a regiment swing by in order to check on the forces here.”

“Oh…” She replied, her mouth hanging open for a minute. “I’ll get to work on those suits now.”

She hurried back into the Jackwagon in a big hurry and I turned to Sheppard who was next to me.

“So, we have to prepare to potentially hold this planet against one of the biggest merc groups in the Inner Sphere.” Sheppard shrugged Nonchalantly. “I hope we have one hell of a plan.” he turned and looked me square in the eye. “We’re going to need every sneaky and underhanded trick in the book if the Big Mac decides to put a regiment here.” He got serious.

“Well…. I have an idea, but it might not sound all that good out loud…” I said.

“Well, if it’s stupid and it works.” Sheppard repeated the age old saying.

“Then it isn’t stupid.” I finished.

“So, we’re going to need the Marines and some of the Infantry for this.” I said. “And we may have to sacrifice those three shiny Unions we just stole.”

“You’re gonna use the Unions to support Strider and Wardog aren't you?” Sheppard asked.

“I’m going to send the Unions out on what will look like a suicide run.” I said flat out. “They’re going to go in and shred everything they can get into their firing envelope. Our people in Mithril can survive in Vacuum long enough for the Leopard’s to come pick them up. They have a minimum of three hours of air before you tie in extra tanks we can have in the center of the Unions.” I said.

“Even if we lose the Unions, they were never ours in the first place.” Sheppard agreed, “If we can manage to thin out even a battalion, we’ll have lowered the firepower they can bring to bear.”

“Exactly.” I said. “ We’ll have to workshop it and only let Volunteers go, but if we can limit the Big Mac to two Battalions against what we have here, we can at the very least hold them down until we can get some reinforcements here.”

“Wait,” Sheppard said. “I’ve got something similar, and we’ll still need the volunteers along with some really good math, but if it works, we should be able to do a lot more than just bring them down to parity.”

He stopped and grinned the grin of a genius or madman. I wasn’t quite sure which.

“We’ll have a little under a month if we do this right.” Sheppard said. “Let’s make the most of it.”





March 1st, 3007

The Jabberwocky and Daedelus industrial mechs we had brought with us were a literal Godsend. We had built what was quickly turning into a Castle Brian in Miniature. We had our Partisan Tank coordinating the fixed defenses we had stolen from Macbeth and the Capellan base with its targeting computer and had our main combat Dropships under that umbrella while the Buccaneers, Mule, and the Messenger were going to be hidden on one of the other continents. . We had our Tanks dug in, and areas where ‘Mechs could be used as QRF’s set up. Our Mithril suits had paid off here as well, by being able to keep the Industrial mechs stocked with whatever resources they needed.


While all of the construction had been going on, some of our Dropship engineers had been going over the Fusiliers Unions and making them look like they had sustained damage, and Staff Sergeant Rook had even put system restrictions to sell the act even further. When we got word from one of the Federated Sun’s worlds that the 2nd McCarron’s Armored Cavalry had split off from the rest of the unit, we knew that they had more than likely been diverted to check out what had happened to the Fusiliers that had been stationed here.

I had been pitching in where I could, but most of my days had been spent deep in planning. If we were going to defeat one of the premier Mercenary units of the Inner Sphere then we were going to need to play dirty. We had gotten word that the Wolf’s Dragoons had damaged some of the 2nd but not enough to make that much of a difference to a unit like ours.

Sheppard had been training mech pilots with McKay and Lamb for the past week. While everyone got basic piloting and gunnery training, we were going to need every machine in this fight that we had.

Our techs had gotten some crazy ideas that we had taken to implementing as well. Their bright idea was to have some of the Cappie’s mechs and our own be powered down and to have them look like we hadn’t gotten to salvaging them yet. They would wait until the opportune moment to ambush and the rest of our forces would be covered in fake scratches, and messed up looking tanks.


All sorts of nasty things laid in wait for the Big Mac, but none were going to be as destructive as the culmination of mine and Sheppard’s combined plan.


Authors note: If anyone has an idea that hasn't been considered yet, it may end up a part of the lunch menu next chapter... Let me know what you think we set up...

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Two: For the Glory
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 4th, 3007

“Marksman!” I called out over the assembled battalion. “I know that all of you have been working hard. And I thank you for it. We turned a hill and some dirt into a fortress to be proud of.” I stopped talking to take in their reactions. “We are almost certain to be hit by at least one regiment of McCarron’s Armored Cavalry if not more. They may outmass us, but we’re gonna tear them to shreds.” I paused and gave a massive grin. “How do you eat a Big Mac?” I asked.

“One bite at a time!” The entire Battalion responded. That having been said repeatedly over the last month.

“We’re gonna eliminate the aura of superiority the Big Mac has for the rest of eternity.” I said. “Volunteers, board your dropships.” I told the ones who had volunteered for the crazy mission that Sheppard and I had put together over the past month. “Battalion!” I called, and the entire Battalion came to parade rest. “Attention, Present Arms!” The entire Battalion turned and saluted as they boarded the Fusiliers unions.

After the Unions launched, the battalion dispersed back to their work sites. We still had a lot of prep to do.




April 13th, 3007

Empty space rippled as a trio of Invaders appeared at the jump point of the Tybalt system. After a second of orientation, nine Dropships detached and started burning for the lone habitable planet that the system was named after. Two Overlord dropships lead a pack of seven Union’s, meaning that if they made landfall, that the Marksman were going to have to deal with a hundred and fifty six ‘mechs at the minimum. But, Captain Sheppard and Colonel Hull schemed for weeks, coming up with a plan, a plan that was about to be executed.

“This is Captain Xang of the Lothar’s Fusiliers, we have been reduced to a company of ‘mechs and are retreating back to Capellan space.” One of the trio of unions in Fusilier’s colors and IFF codes said as they neared the group of Dropships beginning the nine day burn for the planet. “Permission to use your Jumpships to regroup with the rest of our regiment?”

“This is Colonel Lear of the 2nd McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, you may not use our dropships. Instead, you may burn towards Tybalt with us as we reclaim this planet.” The CO of the regiment said. His fleet of dropships slowed down so as to allow the trio of Unions to get in formation.

“Moving into formation Colonel, we’re eager for some payback on these Marksman Bastards.” The captain responded as they moved into the position indicated. “Thanks for the opportunity.”

After remaining in position for couple of days, all hell broke loose. The trio of Unions that the Marksman had commandeered started laying into the dropships nearest them, targeting their drives, and laying into every single dropship that was in range. One of the unions, the one closest to the two Overlords, crippled the drive on said dropship and managed to wound a union before slowing down due to enemy fire and dropping out of the fight, spewing oxygen and fuel.

The second one, managed to ram itself into the Union next to it, sending the two of them careening into a third and spinning off uncontrollably into the abyss. The third just assisted the other two before being damaged enough to cause it to drop, powering down and simulating complete reactor failure.

All in all, the Big Mac lost an Overlord, and two Union dropships, with damage spread throughout the rest of the dropship fleet. After slowing down to make sure there weren’t any other surprises, and picking up survivors from the lifeboats, the Big Mac’s second regiment continued on towards Tybalt. They had been punched in the face, and now they wanted payback.




April 21st, 3007

“How much are we going to lose?” Major Marcus Barton, the now acting CO of the second regiment of McCarron’s Armored Cavalry asked. “Sir, we’re going to be able to get your people on the ground, but I don’t expect to be able to lift off again.” The tech sighed, “They just caused too much damage, and we don’t have the spare parts with us to fix it unless we are able to get help from the rest of the Confederation.”

“Well, get us on the ground first, we’ll do the rest,” Barton said, seething with rage. “We got sucker punched but we’ll win this fight in the end.”

The group of dropships made landfall uncontested, some of them landing to never be able to take off again. The spaceport was empty, and so was the entire area, as the second moved off of their dropships and formed into their lances, they noticed burn marks and holes towards the factory district of the city.

“Second Battalion, I want you to head over to the factory district and check it out, it looks like a fight took place there recently.” Major Barton ordered the Battalion that had suffered the least amount of losses. “Copy that sir, moving to investigate.” The CO of the battalion responded and his ‘mech companies started to move over in that direction.

“First Battalion…” Barton started to say and then stopped himself. First Battalion was gone, only a few of them had made it out on the lifeboats when the Overlord lost atmospheric pressure. “Third Battalion, I saw what looked like an armored outpost on the pictures we took on our way in, us, Fourth Battalion, and what is left of Fifth will head in that direction.




I hated having to play dead. We had arrayed our ‘mechs in ways and created scorch marks and false armor damage so as to look like a major fight had happened in the factory district. And we also had a couple of Archers at other points in the city sighted in on the entrance so that the enemy couldn’t escape once we engaged. I was leading this ambush in my Warhammer, while Sheppard was back in his Marauder at the mock Brian Outpost we had built.

I had all of the Enforcers, the Quickdraw, our Black Knight, and the rest of the heavy mechs that we had taken off of the Fusiliers hands involved in this ambush. We had an overstrength company of ‘mechs here and a jammer that we had set up to prevent their comms from getting out. Hidden on the rooftops were Captain Paige’s company of Infantry, ready to leap onto cockpits and take out whatever they needed to.

Watching as a BattleMaster and Cyclops made their way into the factory district, I felt my armpits start to sweat. We would need every scrap of luck that we had ever had in order to survive this. As soon as the last ‘mech crossed into the perimeter we had set, Captain Paige flipped the ECM suite we had hidden in one of the industrial buildings on and we powered our reactors up. As soon as I had power to my weapons systems, I brought both of my PPC’s to bear on the Battlemaster in front of me, striking his left shoulder at the same time both of the Enforcers hit him with their AC/10s. I used the advanced computer in my Royal Warhammer to coordinate with our mechs and had Captain Paige and her troops start to jump onto what mechs they could.

I leaned out of the way as an AC/10 from the Cyclops thundered towards me. Snap firing a PPC at his leg before turning and hammering the Battlemaster I was dueling with a brace of lasers and SRM’s. Armor melted off of the Battlemaster as I kept up a flurry of weapons, not caring if people could tell that I was running cooler than a Warhammer should. Ducking under a set of SRM’s, I let the Enforcers continue to take on the now wounded Battlemaster before moving towards the Cyclops that was trying to shred the Quickdraw in our unit. Not caring that my Mech didn’t have hands, I slid into the Cyclops, sweeping the legs out from underneath them while they were trying to target one of my people. Leaning over the now downed ‘mech, I stepped on the cockpit and moved on. I didn’t have time for grandiose gestures, mine and my peoples lives were on the line.

While I was taking the point on the mech forces, Paige and her Mithril clad infantry had dropped onto a good ten or so mechs. Some of her people had satchel charges that they stuck to the cockpit before using their jump jets to get away before the explosion, and some of her people just pried open the cockpit door and threw grenades in. The Colonel wasn’t picky as long as the enemy died.

Along with the mechs that her infantry were dealing with personally, some of her combat engineers had buried long metal tubes in the ground and placed explosives on the bottom of the tubes. They had then filled the tubes with debris, and all sorts of vicious things that would cause damage to a mech. The Black Knight of the group had lured a lance of lighter mechs into position over said tubes before her engineers blew them. Watching the legs get completely blown off of a lance of ‘mechs was a glorious thing but their job wasn't done yet.

One of the enemy Battalion had been trying to nail down the building that the ECM was coming from and when he had figured it out, he crashed his Banshee into it repeatedly, trying to bring down the building and to get the assistance that his Battalion would need in order to survive. Unfortunately for the Second Battalion of McCarron’s armored cavalry, they couldn’t get the help they needed. And because their comms were jammed, they weren’t even able to surrender…





Sheppard sat in his Marauder, enjoying the coolness of his new pilot’s suit of Mithril. He got to be in charge of the Outpost, and he knew that he was going to have to hold out against a much larger force. Fortunately, Captain Rose had dug in and gotten the artillery sighted in on the few places that any enemy could approach from. Using the Daedelus and Jabberwocky industrialmechs, they had been able to create artificial choke points, and because of the Partisan Directed fixed gun emplacements, no one could attack via the air. And on top of that, there were quite a few traps set for the Big Mac as they tried to advance on the Marksman’s new homemade Brian Outpost.



Major Barton was pissed, first they had lost all contact with Second Battalion, then, he had lost a lance of Heavy mechs to a makeshift minefield and a flurry of LRM fire that no one knew where it came from. This slowed his regiment down and gave the enemy time to prepare.

“Anyone got an estimate on how far out the outpost is?” Barton asked his recon lance.

“Yes sir, we’ll reach the clearing in two clicks.” The lance of Bugmechs being lead by a Firestarter replied.

Barton kicked his Atlas up to its top speed of 54 km/h. “Big Mac!” he called on the radio, “Let’s make these bastards pay.”






“Fuck!” Sheppard exclaimed to himself as the full array of the enemy showed itself around the outpost. “That is a lot of metal.” He muttered.

The Big Mac forces charged, seeing as the fixed defenses were being focused against air assets in particular. Sheppard and his lighter mech forces opened fire at their maximum range. Sheppard alternated his PPC’s at targets of opportunity while the Toro’s and Griffins focused fire on one mech at a time. Unfortunately, there was just too much of a mass differential, and the assault lances crashed into and through the gates that they had set up. The arty had softened some of them up, and the armored battalion had helped, but there were just too many big mechs.

Sheppard slagged the cockpit of a Quickdraw, and then turned to see an Atlas kick the rest of the gate down and break one of his Toro’s with its AC/20. It followed that up by wrecking the PPC of a Griffin with its Medium Lasers and SRM’s. Sheppard backed his Marauder up, firing his AC/5 and medium lasers as fast as they could cycle. But then the Atlas turned it’s attention to Sheppard’s Marauder, seeing as it was the biggest mech it could find in the area. It wrecked his left hand PPC and Laser with its AC/20 and stripped armor away from his torso and legs with its medium lasers. Sheppard backed away, trying to generate range for his remaining PPC but it wasn’t enough. One more AC/20 tore its way through his Gyro and he blacked out as his mech struck the ground.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Three: Aftermath
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 21st, 3007

“It has been a really long day.” I thought to myself as I moved my Warhammer towards the outpost we had set up. I had managed to get a fireteam of Heavies that still were mobile and could fight, but we were hurting. Thanks to the pilot suits, we didn’t lose any of our pilots, but we didn’t have the time to salvage before going to help Sheppard.

After the ambush that had shattered a Battalion of the 2nd Mac, I had sent Captain Paige and her company to take the enemy Dropships. I wanted them stuck here with us until we had bled them dry.

“Marksmen, give me your overall status and ammo reserves.” I told the fireteam moving with me.

“Marksmen Two, Armor is yellow across the board, no ammo here, I’m a laser boat.”

“Marksmen Three, Armor green, I’ve got enough ammo for three volleys and then I’m down to lasers.”

“Marksmen Four, I’m exposed in some areas but have enough ammo for ten volleys.

“Marksman Five, I’m limping, but my ammo reserves are good.”

“Marksman Six, I’m missing an arm, but ammo reserves are good.”

While we made our way to the outpost, I got in contact with the one fireteam that had made it out of the outpost and the LRM carriers we had left in the city. It was an eclectic mix of Mechs and vehicles, almost all of us were damaged in some way, and the LRM Carriers were the only things undamaged. Put together, we had almost a full company of forces.

Hailing the Dropships that we had, I redirected them to land in the Industrial district. I needed the downed ‘Mechs' up and running again so that we could finish off the rest of the 2nd Mac.

After navigating the city, we came out of the woods onto what looked like a scene out of a Peter Jackson film. Leading up to the outpost we had built, there were heavy and assault mechs lying in craters from artillery and LRM fire. It looked like Sheppard had at the very least put up a decent fight. Staying at maximum range, we just kept an eye on them. We hadn’t left any repair facilities for them to use, and they would have to break for their dropships if they wanted to make repairs or resupply on munitions.

And we would stand in their path. If they took long enough, the automated repair bays that we had on some of the dropships would have the mechs that we had taken out earlier back in service and ready to chew on some more of the 2nd Mac.

And so, we waited. I stood there in my now blackened and damaged Warhammer, just watching. Waiting for confirmation from Paige that we had taken their dropships, waiting for the 2nd Mac to try and talk to us. We just waited. After a couple of hours, there came a comm from our outpost.

“This is Major Barton of the second regiment of McCarron’s Armored Cavalry.” He said. “To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking to?”

“This is Colonel Mark Hull of the Marksman.” I replied. “Is there something you wanted to say?” I taunted.

“We broke your base here. And we’re going to break you.” Barton replied. “After we’re done with you, the Marksman won’t even be a name on the MRB’s board. It’ll be like you never existed.”

I waited as he ranted angrily for a little while longer. “You done?” I asked. “Because I’m not here to talk right now.”





Sheppard slowly regained Consciousness, he moved, turned and looked around his cockpit. His Mithril was intact, and there weren’t any enemies trying to break into his ‘mech, so he assumed they thought that he was dead.

“Fuck!” His leg was pinned underneath a massive layer of his broken cockpit. Looking down, he saw that his Marauder had fallen face first over one of the tunnels that they had dug for the Infantry to use to move back and forth. Seeing rubble shift, he made sure that Peterson’s infantry saw him and remained quiet when they got there to remove him.

After freeing his leg, Sheppard used the two Infantrymen’s aid to limp into the tunnel.

“Set him down right here.” One of the medics assigned to Peterson’s company directed the two of them. “He’s not in critical condition so he’ll have to wait a bit.”

The Infantry company had made it into the tunnels without being seen by the 2nd Mac. And they had collapsed the tunnel entrances in a way that made them look impenetrable. While the 2nd Mac had been taking stock of the outpost, Peterson’s company had been going and retrieving the pilots and tankers from their destroyed vehicles and sneaking them back into the tunnels to render medical aid.




“This is Captain Paige.” I heard over my Comms systems. “We captured the enemy dropships, and we have word that our people in space have been recovered.”

I jolted awake at that. “Did we get any word back from Davion Command on who they were sending?”

We had sent an HPG as soon as we got word that the 2nd Mac was probably on their way. And had been waiting on a response ever since.

“No sir, and I did send someone to check with Comstar and see if there was a response.” She said.

“Sir, I’m going to task the VTOL’s to keep an eye on the enemy. You and the people with you should come back here for repair and refit.” Paige said.

“Copy that.” I responded. “We’ll remain on task until they show up.”




April 24th, 3007

Having automated repair bays working alongside good Astechs felt like cheating sometimes. In two days, we had repaired a third of the Battalion we had taken out and put pilots into them along with repairing a good chunk of our heavy forces. I had been on standby in my Warhammer since it had been reskinned with armor and my SRM’s refilled.

Our Leopards that had retrieved the people from the Unions had made landfall a couple of hours ago and everyone was trying to rest before we were pushed by either the 2nd Mac, or reinforcements showed up. The 2nd Mac had taken the outpost we had made and were using any of their mechs that had hands to get it at least partly functional again. We knew that they didn’t have any repair facilities available so they were going to have to make do with stripping things from the fallen mechs in the area.





April 25th, 3007

“This is Colonel Jaime Wolf of the Wolf’s Dragoons.” Echoed through an open channel on my comms system.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Four: Vengeance
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 25th, 3007

“Alright people, we have a couple of hours before the Wolf’s Dragoons make landfall.” I briefed the mechs and artillery I had with me. “I want the 2nd Mac dead and gone before they get here.”

I was leading the mechs we had managed to get back up and running to the outpost. We were going to bait the 2nd Mac into a rage and throw our arty along with the LRM carriers at them from range. In order to do this though, I was going to need to expose myself. As we neared the clearing, I began broadcasting on an open channel.


“This is Colonel Hull, I broke your assault battalion, and I’m going to shatter you before the Dragoons get a chance to pick at your corpse.” I called out, walking out in my Warhammer challenging them. “You a coward Barton? Or just scared?” I taunted, watching as an Atlas was doing the little things that indicated what a pilot might do via the linked neurohelmet.

The Atlas clenched and unclenched its fists before moving forward at its maximum speed. “This is Major Barton, I’m going to crush you beneath my Atlas’ boots and wear your Warhammer as a cape!”


We both circled around the open field pocketed with craters and shattered mechs and vehicles. I wasn’t concerned about facing Barton, he was angry and I was cool, I was freshly armored up, and he had visible damage to parts of his Atlas. While I might despise these sorts of duels on a personal level, I couldn’t deny that it was going to be necessary in order to make sure that the Dragoons didn’t get the credit for our work.


As soon as we were both in the field facing each other, I began throwing PPC fire at his AC/20, I needed that weapon out of commision if I wanted to win this fight. At this point, it didn’t even matter if people could tell that my mech was a Royal variant with Freezers. I kept up a rate of fire with my PPC’s as I closed in that would have melted a regular mech. I knew I was going to be paying the price with my Warhammers myomer muscles later, but this fight was the fight for Tybalt. As soon as I was in range and knew that the AC/20 was down, I dropped my Warhammer into what looked like a baseball slide, coming around at the rear armor and worrying it with some SRM’s and medium lasers before peeling off again.





Barton spun around and let loose with a brace of medium lasers, smiling a shark-like grin as he watched them converge on one of the PPC’s that had been melting armor off of his Atlas.

He then closed in and began to try and hammer the lighter mech with his Atlas’ fists. Laughing to himself as one of them connected and shattered armor on the left shoulder that he spat some SRM’s at.

Barton had been angry originally, but now he was in the zone, he had the heavier mech; one that was built for this kind of fight, even without the AC/20 that normally came with it. And he was still congratulating himself when the Warhammer lashed out with a kick that tore his knee actuator off of his mech.





I had been dodging fire for too long, some of the lasers had come dangerously close to my cockpit. I had been worrying the Atlas in several different places, making sure to make it look like I was spreading out the damage when really I had focused my Machine guns on his right knee, and as I kept harassing the Atlas, I noticed when the actuator had begun to spark, Seeing that I had this one chance, I threw my Warhammer forward, heedless of any shots that might strike me and kicked the Atlas’ knee.

The Atlas knee actuator groaned for a minute before it buckled and fell to pieces. Barton fought to stand on one foot and maintain balance, but he was already crashing to the ground. I walked up, placed one foot on his mech and pointed my remaining PPC directly at his cockpit. At this range it wouldn’t be able to fire, but it would still kill Barton.

“Surrender.” I said over the open comms. “Or don’t. I don’t give a damn either way.”

“Stand down.” Barton coughed over the comms. “We surrender.”

With that, the remaining 2nd Mac powered down and popped their hatches. When the surrender order had been followed, my Mithril clad infantryman that had been in the tunnels below came out, one platoon saw to it that the wounded were taken our dropships, while the rest of them took custody of what was left of the 2nd regiment of McCarron’s armored cavalry.





April 26th, 3007
“We don’t need you, Colonel Wolf.” I said to the man across the table from me. “We held this world and took out a third of the Big Mac.”

“We’re only asking to take part in salvage operations.” Wolf replied.

“I. Do Not. Care.” I enunciated each word. “My people did what yours couldn’t, and unless Ian or Hanse Davion show up to politely ask otherwise I’m going to continue making this my business.”

“Colonel Hull, be reasonable about this, you’ve got wounded and don’t have the manpower to use this amount of equipment.” Colonel Jaime Wolf continued to push.

“I just fought off a reinforced regiment with a battalion and shattered it.” I said firmly, “You and all of your equipment do not scare me. Now fuck off unless you have a Davion that you can pull out of your ass.”


Right as I said this, Ian Davion walked into the room. He had a metal bowl in his hands and he sat at the table between me and Wolf before reaching into the bowl.

“No, please continue.” The First Prince said as he munched on some popcorn. “It’s just starting to get interesting.”


“Prince Davion.” Both myself and Wolf made to stand up and greet him.

“Sit down.” Ian said, and so we did. “Now, what seems to be the issue here?”

“ I want to take both Overlords and one of the Unions as my salvage rights. I’m willing to cede pretty much everything else, but Colonel Wolf here, thinks that my unit can’t maintain an Overlord for long.” I said. “I also want the mechs that were still on the Overlord that’s in space.” I folded my arms. “The two of you can debate any other salvage you find aside from my company's mechs.”

“That’s all?” the First Prince raised an eyebrow. “Done, are there any other issues?”

“None sir.” I said, shaking my head. “As long as the scheduled meeting takes place tomorrow I’ll be set.”




April 28th, 3007

“Sheppard!” I greeted as he used a wheelchair to leave the medbay, assisted by his Girlfriend Sergeant Erika Lamb. “How’s the leg?”

“It sucks.” He replied, and then his face turned solemn. “Rose didn’t make it though.”

“Damn.” I said. “I thought she looked fine.”

“She was supposed to be fine, but apparently she didn’t tell anyone that she had broken a rib in time. She bled out internally.” Sheppard replied.

There were a host of us with injuries, both minor like the torn ligaments and sprained ankles, and major, like Captain Petersons eye, or Sheppards now missing leg. We were currently waiting for Dunham to show up with the Argo and the advanced medical facilities there. Until then, we had commandeered one of the civilian hospitals and were going to be using it for now.





May 1st, 3007

“We are the luckiest people in the Inner Sphere.” Jewel observed to Bruce as they conducted a damage and repair assessment of the Overlord in the void. “There’s only one panel we’ll need to replace in order to get this thing able to be moved to a shipyard for further repairs.” She held up her ‘Noteputer to show Bruce the section she was referring to.

“Must have been a golden BB.” Bruce said. “I’ll get the details sorted and we’ll start working in an hour.”





On Tybalt…

“So…” Ian Davion sat across from me in my Office on the Messenger. “You’re willing to license these to us for manufacture?” He gestured to the Mithril plans in front of him.”

“Yes we are.” I said. “We also have licenses worked out with the Concordat and TTI.”

“Hmm.” He stroked his chin. “You have partial ownership in a factory or two on Taurus, correct?”

“Yessir.” I replied. “We’re trying to make some extra income.”

“Well, I’ll look over the contract, but I’m giving you a solid yes on that.” He chuckled. “Those battleRoms you showed me proved their worth.”

“Understood.” I made to stand up and he waved me to sit down again.

“What do you want?” The First Prince’s normal smile turned serious. “I can give you almost anything you want for accomplishing what you just did. A landhold, a planet?” He paused. “What is it that you truly desire?”

I almost answered, and then paused to think. “Give me a year and a half, three Mules, and two Mammoths.” I smirked. “When I get back, I want Kentares.”

Silence reigned in the room for a good five minutes before the First Prince responded. “Kentares?” He asked. “You’re sure you want Kentares?” you could hear the surprise in his voice.

“Yes sir, give me what I just asked for as a bonus, and I’ll come back ready and willing to get to work.”

“Done.” He stood up and shook my hand. “And I’ll do one better.” he grinned. “I’ll give your people the priority for repairs on the Overlords and one of the Invaders to carry them to New Avalon for you.”

 

[Bear Ribs]

Huh, did not see settling on Kentares coming.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Huh, did not see settling on Kentares coming.

No one ever does.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

No one ever does.

Kentares is like the Spanish Inquisition?

Makes sense. 😎

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Five: Achievement unlocked…
Tybalt, Federated Suns May 5th, 3007

“You want to work for us?” I asked the redhead sitting in front of me. “You’ve already got a decent paycheck with the Dragoons, why come work for us?” I paused. “We don’t really do things the way the rest of the Inner Sphere does.”

“I know,” She replied. “I just want to get a glimpse of what a smaller company might look like.” She then smirked at me. “And, it’s not every day you watch a Warhammer drop an Atlas.”

“Alright, you’re hired provisionally,” I said. “We'll put you through our basic after we get to a different world and settle down for a bit.” I stood up from my desk and shook her hand.

“See you Colonel.” She said, and glided away.


I just facepalmed after my door slid shut. “Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked Sheppard who was seated next to me in his wheelchair.

Sheppard had just grabbed his ‘Noteputer 'and started hitting it against his forehead again and again. “He’s an idiot Jack. But he’s our idiot.” He kept repeating until I snapped him out of it.

“You with us Jack?” I asked, making sure that his injuries weren’t flaring up.

“Huh?” He stopped and realized what he was doing. “Yeah, I’m good.”


“Alright then,” I said. “We’ve got to meet up WIth Dunham and Frye along with our gear. I’m planning on sending Jewel and Paige with the Overlords to get them repaired before we head over towards the periphery.”

“Sounds good.” He responded. “Where we going to set up shop in the meantime?”

“I was thinking a return to Pierce was in order.” I responded. “They should be fine with us renting out some facilities to use as a base camp temporarily.”

“You talked it over with the First Prince right?” Sheppard asked. “Yes, I discussed some R&R while he got our bonus ready. Pierce is a bit far, but a lot of our vets are from there and they’ll enjoy the visit.





May 20th, 3007.

We were finally lifting off of this misbegotten rock. Lieutenant Dunham and the refitted DroST’s along with the Argo had arrived in system around five days ago. Captain Jewel and her team had gotten the Overlord and one of the messed up Unions capable of holding atmosphere and at the minimum making the jump to New Avalon.

The plan was to have the DrOST’s transfer over to our Leviathans, while the Overlords took the King Henry V to the New Avalon Shipyards in order to get them fixed up. Jewel was going to head up that mission while the rest of us began the long journey towards Pierce.

Before I boarded the Messenger though, Prince Ian Davion grabbed me by the shoulder. “New Avalon for Christmas next year,” he told me. “Don’t be late.”


He left me with those words as we burned for orbit.




May 29th, 3007.
We docked with the Whirlwind at the same time the Argo did. Allowing us to transfer the wounded over to the advanced facilities on board the Argo. We had also transferred the bodies of our fallen brothers and sisters to the Cargo holds. I had written personalized letters to each of their families, and would be sending a part of the bonus that the Davions had given us to each of the fallen’s families.

“Get well soon.” I told the wounded senior staff as they were taken over to the Argo. Sheppard just flipped me off, while the rest of them responded with affirmatives.

Currently, I had a lot of XO’s filling in spots that normally the senior level staff were on and once we had charged the K-F Drives, we would be splitting up. The Leviathan with the Argo, the Unions, the Triumph, and Both Buccaneers along with one Leopard and one Leopard CV. We weren’t taking chances on the Capellans taking a shot at us.

While Sheppard and most of the newer veterans were going to Pierce to set up a temporary training camp, I was taking the other Leviathan and the rest of the dropships and heading for where I had left the Manassas. It was time to go Lostech prospecting.





Location: Classified, somewhere on the Taurian Concordat and Davion border. Date: October 31st, 3007

All of the company I had brought with me watched with bated breath from their dropships as the depot’s bay doors slid open to reveal the two Warhips inside. The senior staff and other people entrusted with the info had believed me, but seeing it was a whole different ball game.

“Now that is a ship.” Lieutenant Packer observed, he was currently serving as my temporary XO.

“She’s beautiful ain’t she.” I responded. “Take us in slow to the docking bays. We’re gonna have a lot of work cut out for us on getting the advanced stuff off of the Confederates.

The pilots of the various Dropships. (the Bittersweet, Puma, and Messenger) eased us in and docked fluidly. When we were docked and the bay doors shut down, I sent the SLIC codes to repressurize the bay. Once everything was set, we all left the various ships in order to get to work.





Personal Journal: November 5th, 3007

I had almost forgotten what the massive Warships looked like until I saw them again. As soon as we had docked, we began to work. Maneuvering the Confederate Dropships off of the Manasses one at a time in order to unload the cargo stored on each one while also gettin the Unions off of the Age of Discovery in order to transfer everything over. Thankfully, we were able to fit everything from the Confederates, and a good chunk of the spare parts from the Manasses. (Freezers, Endo-Steel, Ferro Fibrous, ER weapons and Gauss Rifles, the Manasses had a lot of these things on it.) I also made copies of the Manufacturing core that the Manasses had to take with us and all of the scientific journals, the research that I had done everything that we could. The Age of Discovery still had some things I had apparently missed in its cargo bays, including enough Freezers to outfit an entire regiment of Assault mechs. Anyway, our next stop would be Pierce in order to unload everything we had stripped from this depot. And then we would hit a couple of the others that I had the coordinates for. Even if it was just spare parts, it would be worth it…

Authors note: I'm on a roll today if you couldn't tell...

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Six: Land, Loot, Survive…

Pierce, Federated Suns December 4th, 3007

“Why am I doing this?” A redheaded woman asked as she pushed the dirt.


“Because here in the Marksman, every single one of us learns how to be an infantryman. You will learn how to deal with Battlemechs, other Infantry, and how to deal with armor and come out not only alive. But victorious.” Captain Sheppard told the entire platoon he was training with. His prosthetic needed to be calibrated and what better way than to get some work done at the same time. “While you are a part of this unit, you will develop interpersonal skills. All of us are capable of using armor and weapons, and a good handful of us are neurohelmet compatible and will go on to cross train into the mech piloting section.” He explained “But first, you and everyone else here will start at the bottom just like the rest of us did.”

“I bet Colonel Hull didn’t have to do this.” one recruit muttered to another one.

“I heard that.” Lieutenant Mathis said. Crouching down next to the two recruits. “I’ve been with the Colonel from the beginning. And he was the one that instituted and started this training.”

He dropped down and started doing the exercises with the two recruits. “The Colonel actually out performs many of us in our individual tasks simply because he works harder to learn and be better at them.” He said calmly while continuing to do all of the different sets that Sheppard was putting them through. “I am an Infantryman, I love my job and I’m still a trained astech.”

Mathis stopped doing the exercises when it was called for. Not a drop of sweat on him or even a hint of being out of breath. And raised his voice to finish what Sheppard had been instructing them on. “Here in the Marksman we do not expect perfection!” Mathis called out over the massive training ground in a booming voice. “What we do expect is that you always perform at your personal best. What that looks like is different for all of you. But the foundation for learning your limits starts here, at infantry school.”




December 5th, 3007 location classified.
This was going to be the second depot that we were going to hit. The material we had gotten from the Manassas and Age of Discovery was going to keep us set for a while. But this next deep space depot looked slightly different from the first one we had stripped. Entering the SLIC captain’s codes, Packer and I watched as the bay doors opened.

“That thing is massive.” the pilot of the Messenger observed, looking at what the computers were telling him was a Texas class Battleship. As they eased in, they noticed why it had been parked in the depot. A portion of the side had been ripped off, exposing the interior to vacuum. The thing that stuck out to us was the massive Colossus dropship attached to its hardpoints.

After we had docked, we began to get the station powered up again.




Pierce, Federated Suns December 15th, 3007

“So you have strong bodies.” Sheppard said, drilling the recruits. “That means nothing. A strong body leads to weakness if it doesn’t come with a strong mind.” He started to teach the basic organization of the Marksman.

“Who can tell me the basic formation used in the Inner Sphere?” He asked the classroom in front of him.

“You recruit.” He selected one at random.

“It’s a lance sir.” The recruit responded.

“That is correct, and you would be right….” Sheppard paused. “If we worked like the rest of the Sphere. In the Marksman, we use what we have labeled the Fireteam.” He stopped to let them digest that.

“The fireteam is a six unit measurement that is used for all of our formations barring aerospace and dropships.” He turned to see a redhead giving him a slight glare. Then shrugged and moved on. “Can anyone explain why we use the same unit of measurement for all of our forces including infantry.”

No one answered or put their hands up. “It’s to help generate unit cohesion and better decision making.” Sheppard answered.

"How does it help with unit cohesion if no one knows what their proper duties are?" The redhead asked with an angry look on her face.

"Well, while we do ensure the cross training is kept up to date, you will pick a primary focus and a secondary while you are here in the academy." Sheppard said. "For instance, I myself have a primary focus on Mech piloting, with a secondary in armor and I maintain my infantry qualifications at the bare minimum expected level." He paused. "Colonel Hull on the other hand, has chosen to cross train in everything. He is certified to do any of the jobs that are required in the Marksman, from the garbageman to the K-F drive engineer."

"Can anyone tell me why the Colonel would devote so much time to training in this way?" Sheppard asked, and then answered his own question when no one did. "He does this because of something he once told me. "I cannot ask anyone under my command to do something I am not willing to do myself." Sheppard paused his lecture here to let it soak in. "Colonel Hull, is one of the most talented Mech Pilots I have ever seen, a decent cook, and an awful driver.... But he wasn't willing to let that be enough. His personal best is by knowing all of you, and what your job entails and knowing where to put you so you feel like you are not only contributing something to the unit... But that you also feel valued for you to know, that once you are a part of this team, that you are a family. Cross training is a part of this because it builds those interpersonal relationships that a tight knit unit relies on in order to survive."

Looking at the clock, Sheppard almost fell over distributing the various study pages he had printed out. "Sorry for that ladies and gentlemen, I may have started rambling a bit there." He met the redheads eyes. "Kerensky, my office after the sims."


December 15th, 3007 location classified.

The Texas was a bust, the fusion reactor wasn’t even able to be powered on and we had to manually remove the Colossus and Overlord from the drop collars. On the Colossus, we found a complete RCT. A good portion of them were Royals intended to liberate the Terran Hegemony, but after an RWR lucky nuke rendered the Texas inert, the SLN had towed it here and forgotten about it in the aftermath of the Amaris Civil War. The Overlord simply had a Battalion of Light mechs and some Aerospace fighters in their bays to support. Getting everything out of the depot, including all of the spare parts we could find, we headed for the Whirlwind. It was time to return to Pierce.




Pierce, Federated Suns, December 31st, 3007

“You look miserable here.” Sheppard told the redhead seated at the table across from him. “If you want to quit and go back to the Dragoons, the Colonel left the offer open.”

“You think I want to quit?” Natasha Kerensky snarled. “No, I just do not really understand why you do all of this “Cross training”. It goes against everything I have ever known.”

“Do you want to see what cross training looks like for real?” Sheppard asked, as he had her walk with him to the armor asset bay. Seeing the two Pegasus hovercraft that they somehow always managed to recover he grabbed the keys to one of them and gestured for Natasha to get in.

“Have you ever driven a tank or a car?” Sheppard asked.

“No, never.” Kerenksy replied.

“Well, take it slow, ease the throttle forward, and we’ll get started.” He instructed.

Taking the copilot seat, Sheppard began to instruct on the different controls before letting her handle it.

“This is so different from my Marauder.” Kerensky observed. “It feels different, like the controls are both less and more responsive somehow.”

“That’s because it is both. Tankers have to rely on what their instruments tell them, they don’t have clear cockpits, and they’re not able to compensate for things with a Neurohelmet like we as mech pilots are.”Sheppard continued in his instruction, having had to break quite a few of the mechwarrior “mafia” out of their own heads.

“Now, take it as fast as you feel comfortable going.” Sheppard said, triple checking his harness.

The Pegasus flew forward, and Kerensky maneuvered through the tanker obstacle course as fast as the Pegasus would allow. Letting out a whoop of joy when it reached its maximum speed. Powerslides, everything she could think of, she put that machine through until they were running low on fuel.

“So,” Sheppard began. “What do you think?”

“When can I learn how to drive the big ones?” Kerensky asked. The grin on her face was prevalent.

“Well, improve your cross training scores, and we’ll get you qualified on all of the hovercraft at least.” Sheppard finished.




Pierce, Federated Suns January 31st, 3007

"Natasha Kerensky, for achieving victory over overwhelming enemy forces in both simulations and live fire exercises, we hereby promote you directly to Lance Corporal with all that that entails." Sheppard said from his podium as Kerensky walked up and received her rank insignia. Returning the salute he gave her before carrying on with the rest of the graduation ceremony.


Natasha was strangely happy with her decision to leave the Wolf’s Dragoons for a bit. While she had initially raged at the thought of needing to be retrained, the Marksmen trainers had a method to their madness and had beaten down enough of her pride that she had a new viewpoint on it. Now, she would still prefer to be in her Marauder, but now she understood how to best use her armored vehicles and the Infantry that may end up under her command as a Lance Corporal. And if she maintained her qualifications in order to be able to take the VTOl's and various Hovercraft out for "Test drives" then that was nobodies business but her own.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Setting up (Shop)

Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns. June 7th, 3008

It had been a long six months. After looting two of the half dozen depots I had on my list, we had just about run out of lift capacity, having to quite literally squeeze one of our Leopards into a bay before leaving to meet up with the rest of the Marksman on Pierce. We arrived right in time to see our second Invader show up with the two freshly repaired and painted Overlords we had stolen from the 2nd Mac.

We made landfall on Kentares IV about a week and a half ago, landing in one of the abandoned cities that we were going to do our level best to restore. I made sure that the Jabberwocky’s and Daedalus were the first out. We had given the Industrialmech pilots a set of blueprints and told them to scavenge whatever they needed from the city in order to build the fortress we needed/wanted.

It’s always interesting how technology both advances and regresses all at once. For example, where sometime around the industrial revolution walls had become obsolete, and with the advent of aircraft following World War II, there was less entrenching involved as the tank improved. But the further into the future you get, the more necessary these things become until they are once again rendered obsolete.

With that bit of woolgathering finished, I climbed into my shiny and new Warhammer WHM-6RM and made my way back to the prefab buildings we had set up temporarily while we were working on the main base.

Everything was starting to come together nicely, and while I was definitely paranoid, I was also doing my best to prepare for every eventuality. Dunham had negotiated with TTI and the Calderons, and they would not only be putting a Mithril plant in addition to the Toro plant, but they had granted me a license to manufacture Toro’s of my own and TTI had sent people with Dunham to help open a branch into the Federated Suns. It turns out that me having returned a large portion of their national pride and talked Zarantha into improving relations had resulted in a much more profitable relationship between the two nations.

The TTI people had identified a couple of factories that they would like to begin reconstruction on once the main base was set up and the defenses running. And it would take a year or so to get those factories up and running. In the short term, we had taken the factory that we had taken off of Tybalt and were assembling it into an abandoned factory. We were going to be churning out the Mithril suits for infantry, pilots, and vehicles for as long as we could keep up production.

Our new Colossus was being used as housing for now, while the air base that we had repurposed was launching flights of new trainees all the time. Wardog and Strider had complained for all of ten minutes before they hopped into their shiny new birds and had begun to turn tricks like nobody's business. They enjoyed training people, both those new to piloting aerospace, and those that had been in the business for a while. Wardog and Strider were hands down some of the best pilots in the ‘Sphere, and they had proved it time and time again.





Just because we were all pitching in to build new facilities, didn’t mean that we were slacking on training, both the new recruits and our veterans were training with the new equipment we had, and getting set up just in case the Draconis Combine decided to drop down for a raid. On top of training, we were upgrading our mech forces over time and those we weren’t upgrading, we were incorporating into lances where they could still make use of the advanced tech we were putting into use.

We had a lot of metal now, and our main job before Christmas was to get our meat trained up while we were still on a rest period. Because as soon as I put our unit out for contract again, the Davions would have us raiding.





“How do you still manage to do that?!” Major Sheppard shouted as he jumped out of the simulator, he had finally done enough therapy that they (the doctors) were letting him get back into a combat role instead of the teaching/admin role he had been in for the past eight months.

“Well, I finally have both the speed and armor to do some of the crazy things I’ve always thought about trying but couldn’t because I didn’t have the speed or armor.” I replied, cackling a little madly. I had been in the simulators all day, doing a sort of battle royale per se. I had started with Sheppard’s Fireteam and was now working my way through one of our mech battalions. One by one they came, and I began to dismantle egos. I didn’t care if one of my people managed to beat me, but I didn’t need ego destroying the camaraderie I had built up and maintained.




An hour later…
At this point, there was a live tri-vid of the simulation battles, with people taking bets and shots based on what Hull or his opponent was doing. The ones that had managed to get close to taking him out had been a tanker crew driving a Manticore in an urban setting. They had used their small profile and led Hull around for a merry chase as they stripped armor with their PPC and LRM’s. Hull had managed to close the gap on them, but not before they had nearly cored his mech with a skilled gunner.

The Colonel had actually climbed out of the sims at that point and walked over to congratulate them for almost winning the scenario.

He had then climbed back into the simulator and gotten back to it. He had basically stated he would be in the sims until someone managed to take him out.

It had been hours. People had come close to taking out the Colonel, but somehow he always managed to dodge the worst of it and come out on top. It was almost like his Warhammer was responding before he was sometimes, and it was uncanny. Finally, a Demolisher tank team led by Lance Corporal Kerensky had managed to barely eke out a victory over the Colonel.
The entire regiment cheered and threw Kerensky and her crew onto their shoulders and carried them to the table that had the liquor and beer on it and began to pile drinks on them for being the team to finally beat the Colonel.





“Dammit.” I said to myself as I woke up with the beginnings of a migraine. “I knew I overdid it yesterday.” I shuffled to my closet and got out a fresh uniform, laying it out over my bed before heading to the bathroom for a five minute shower.

Once I had a fresh clean uniform on and was showered, I headed for the command center we had put together to see how the regiment had recovered from yesterday’s spontaneous festivities. Walking outside and wincing from the frequency of the light, I reached into my pocket for the sunglasses I was rarely without only to find nothing.

“Oh.. that’s right, that red headed she devil took my sunglasses as part of her bet.” I started muttering to myself. That had been my only pair of sunglasses from the 21st century. And now I was going to be stuck with 80s styles. “Oh well,” I shrugged to myself. “I guess I’ll have to find a pair of aviators.”

I finished my walk to the CIC and took a seat at my desk, enjoying the fact that we had proper aides to sort through the paperwork again. I took care of the small amount of documents I had and then went to check on the fort we were building. Our engineers had been told to go wild, and I was finding that if I had wanted this done fast I should have gone with civilian contractors instead of the combat engineers I had.

I moved through the regiments various quarters, observing training, maintenance, and whatever else they were up to. The NCO’s and regulars were the beating heart of a unit and I needed to constantly keep my finger on the pulse. One of the constants I got was to import more of the coffee that I brought with me. Apparently that brand only did limited edition stuff and I had lucked out when I found a stash of it.


One of the things we had implemented while the cities around us were abandoned was to do urban environment training, this was for our Mithril, our tankers, and our mech Pilots. So once a week, we ran a simulated urban training scenario and looked to see how we could improve.





Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns. July 15th, 3008

“Dear Colonel Mark Hull,

“I, Ian Davion and brother Hanse Davion, would like to cordially invite you to spend Christmas on New Avalon with us. Please make all of the preparations necessary and depart with all due haste. Thank you, Ian Davion. PS. Wear your uniform"

There was a bunch of other stuff in the letter, but it basically amounted to “You can bring an escort, but it can’t be massive.”

I got together with the Senior staff and put together a team that would go with me. I was going to take the King Henry V and the Messenger as my dropship and jumpship. And I had a “Bodyguard” team of four people. I was going to be lifting off in a couple of hours and I had handed a series of operational plans to Major’s Sheppard and Peterson expecting them to be able to handle the construction and training while I was gone again.

Authors note: I'm tapped out for the day/night ladies and gentlemen. I'm about to crash. (You know you're tired when you're leaning over a computer cackling to yourself as you type an inside joke)

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Tell me, have you heard of...
New Avalon, Federated Suns December 10th, 3008

“This is the Dropship Messenger, requesting a flight path.” The pilot of the Messenger commed the main space controller for the New Avalon system.

“We see you Messenger, move to the designated spaceport in the order that we send you.” The traffic controller told my pilot and we waited until we received the coordinates and the order we were given.

Once we had an order to descend and move towards the planet below. We now had seven days in which to spend time doing nothing but prepping for politics. And trying to figure out how to avoid offending people by my thoughts on the Star League.





December 17th, 3008

Even though we were personally invited by the First Prince to New Avalon to celebrate the season, we still had to go through all of the standard protocols that everyone else had to go through. This included checking all of the stuff we had brought with us through customs which included the gift we had brought for the Davion brothers.

When we exited the Messenger and began to make our way to a hotel that had been recommended to us. When we left the spaceport, we began to be blinded by flash bulbs and all sorts of questions. The reporters had somehow gotten word that I would be coming to New Avalon and were waiting in ambush…

“Colonel Hull! New Avalon News here! Can you tell us what it was like to be a part of the destruction of the 2nd McCarron’s Armored Cavalry?”

“Colonel Hull! New Valencia Associated Press. What was it like being rescued by the Wolf’s Dragoons.”


The questions kept coming so I stopped trying to fight through the reporteres, and decided to just hold a miniature press conference there.

“Stop!” I barked in my Command voice and watched as the crowd of reporters stilled. “I will answer your questions, but I will do it in order and one at a time.”

I pointed at the first person who had asked a question. “You first Ma’am.”

“I’m Felicia Land with the New Avalon News network.” She said, “Can you tell us what it was like being a major part in the destruction of the 2nd regiment of McCarron’s Armored Cavalry?”

“It’s something that can't really be put into words, but I think a quote from an old Terran commodore suits it best. “We have met the enemy and they are ours.”. I paused and took in the moment of silence. “Next question.”

“Marian Dance, New Valencia Associated press.” he said. “What was it like being rescued by the Wolf’s Dragoons?”

“Rescued?!” Lieutenant Mathis, the head of my bodyguard detail, spoke up. “ What fucking rescue? We didn’t need rescue, we weren’t trapped on Tybalt with the 2nd Mac, they were trapped there with us and we were making them bleed.”

This caused an uproar, and the various news organizations talked over one another until a Davion security team escorted them away.

One of the security team members doubled back and told me that there was a discrete car waiting out front, and that the Davions had arranged for a stay in the New Avalon palace complex.

Climbing into the unmarked black sedan, my four escorts and I enjoyed the relative quiet for a time.




A couple of hours later…

Security in the palace complex was no joke, we had been going through the layers of security since we had arrived through the main gates. We had been checked over for weapons a minimum of three times. (Mathis had tried to convince them to let him keep some of his hidden weapons, but it didn’t go over well.) We had gone through virtually every test that had probably ever been thought up.

When we were finally through security, (If I went through another scanner I was getting my team checked for signs of cancer when we got back to the Argo.) We were directed to a side room and instructed to wait.

There was a version of a miniature Fridge there, and they had small bottles of water laid out along with assorted alcoholic beverages. I merely grabbed a bottle of water and took some sips before taking a seat on one of the various couches. After waiting for a period of about fifteen minutes or so, the door opened to reveal a butler/aid who instructed me to follow him.


I followed the man down the winding corridors, finally reaching one final security checkpoint where they did one last sweep before allowing me into an office. There was an obviously well used desk in there, ornate and hand made, but that desk wasn’t in use, instead,there was a smaller side desk where Ian and Hanse were looking over paperwork and arguing about something or another. When they saw me, they both stood up to greet me.

“Colonel Hull,” Hanse greeted me with a firm handshake. “A pleasure to see you again.”

“Hull.” Ian said and shook my hand immediately after Hanse was done. “Take a seat.” He sat down, moved the thing that Hanse and Ian had been arguing about out of the way and gestured for myself and his brother to sit.

“You wanted to see me?” I asked, as I took a seat in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs.

“Yes.” Hanse and Ian looked at each other before Ian nodded to Hanse. “What is your real backstory?” Hanse asked outright. “No one, not even a confirmed time traveler should have been able to access the gear that you magically produced over the last couple of years.” Hanse paused and stroked the small beard he had grown since I last met him. “Ian and I like you, but unless we get the truth we will not be able to trust you.”

I sat there for a moment, gathering my thoughts and decided to let them know at least part of the truth.

“I was a part of the Star League Intelligence Corps towards the end of the Amaris Civil war.” I then told them my story making sure to leave out things like the Manassas, the locations of them where I had stashed it and the other depots, and my extradimensional origins.

“That…” Ian leaned back in his chair. “Is a lot to digest.”

Hanse just sat there quietly, mulling over everything in the space of his own mind.

“Is there anything that you can give us that would help us recover any Lostech?” Hanse asked after a second. “Anything that can help prove that what you say is true?”

I paused, thinking it over before nodding to myself and smirking at the two brothers while stroking my beard mysteriously. “Tell me, what do you know about a world called Helm?”




Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns December 17th, 3008

“Kentares is beautiful.” Sheppard said to his girlfriend Erika Lamb, was sitting beside him while she picked at his false leg.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t go for a cloned leg?” She replied. “Not that I hate the prosthetic or anything…” She tried to wave off any offense as Sheppard just laughed.

“No, it’s just that I find it funny that you took this long to ask.” Sheppard pulled the shorter brunette into his arms and placed his head on her shoulder. “I’ll change to a cloned leg if you want.” He said. “But I wanted to get back to what I was faster, and we couldn't afford the downtime as a unit then.” He laid a kiss on her cheek and eased down onto the blanket beneath them to look at the gorgeous sky.

“I think I’d prefer your regular leg back.” Lamb responded, having taken a moment to think about it while relaxing back into her lover's arms. “I know it’s silly, but it bothers me that it’s missing sometimes.” She rolled over onto her side and made sure he could see her face. “I will still be with you regardless of your decision. But I miss the warmth of you having two legs and I hate how the prosthetic sometimes causes you pain even though you try to hide it.”

She stroked his slightly worn face and smiled gently at him. “I want you whole and to not feel pain. That’s why I want you to go with the cloned leg.” She then smirked. “Besides, you’d enjoy using the downtime to go and instruct the new recruits.”

Sheppard just chuckled and poked her in the side, starting a slight tickle war that went on for about five minutes before subsiding. “Alright Erika.” He got serious. “I’ll talk to Hull when he comes back from New Avalon and have him put me on training rotation until I get used to the cloned leg.” Then his eyes twinkled a little bit. “But you’re the one that has to break the news to Peterson’s wife.”

Erika’s eyes widened at that. “On second thought, you can keep the prosthetic….” She tried to argue against her previous case, not wanting to be glared at by the new mother.

“She’ll kill me.” Erika said. “You can’t do that.”

“She won’t kill you.” Jack waved his hand nonchalantly. “She just seems scary, she’s really sweet though.”


“Yeah, I know.” Erika said. “I just don’t want to cause a rift between her and Thomas.”

“You won’t,” Jack stated. “She’ll understand, after all, Paige and Mathis stepped up while he was in recovery for his eye surgery.”




“I forgot how much paperwork Sheppard and Hull handle.” Peterson said to his wife Francesca Jones who was sitting on the couch in his office, nursing their three month old son while he was finishing up the last of the paperwork.

“Hey you.” Francesa said while Thomas looked at his wife questioningly. “I love you!”

Thomas just smiled back at her. “I love you too. Let me finish this last couple of pieces of paperwork and I’ll burp him for you.” He took a couple of minutes to read over the submissions before sorting them into three piles, accepted, for further review, and rejected and when he was done, he went over and began helping his wife take care of their son.

Authors note: I know that it was a bit of cuteness overload there at the end, but this story isn't just about Hull...

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Title Pending(I still haven’t thought of one… edit: 1k words and still don’t have one)

New Avalon, Federated Suns, December 29th, 3008

“You’re going to need to send someone with my message to the rest of my unit.” I told Ian and Hanse, we had been sitting and plotting for a good week or so now. “They can spend the time training and building up further defenses while I’m gone, but it still doesn't look good for a unit to be without its commander for a while.”

“We’ll put the Marksman on a garrison and defense contract with raiding clauses.” Hanse said. “And we’ll have it in there that we’re borrowing you for consulting work with the Third Davion Guards RCT.” Hanse paused. “It’ll work as a cover pretty well if we disguise the Third being gone on training exercises to see if we’re going to adopt the Marksman’s unit organization or not.”

“That should work,” I thought out loud. “I’ll send a handwritten and encoded letter to my XO and a recorded message for them along with the contract details.”

“Being gone for a year isn’t very good optics though.” I said. “If the Third and I are gone for a year people will start to wonder.”

“You raise a good point…”

We continued to hammer out the fine details of our planned raid over the rest of the days until the new year. After we had gotten the details set we had made “Public” the details of the Marksman’s contract and that I was being granted a title and a landhold as a result of destroying a third of the Big Mac.




January 1st, 3009
“Make sure this gets to both Major Sheppard and to Major Peterson.” I said, handing Mathis a sealed note and a package to go with it. “I’m counting on you to make sure that the Messenger gets there in one piece while I’m gone and to help everyone hold down the fort.”

“Yes sir.” Mathis replied. “Anything you want me to tell them that’s not in the letter?” He asked.

“Just to keep up the good work.” I said, “Thanks for all of your hard work Mathis, make sure you take a vacation when you get back.”

“I’ll take a week or two off before getting back into it.” He replied. “See you when you return Colonel.” He came to attention and gave a snappy salute before boarding the Messenger and getting ready to take off.




A couple of hours later… 3rd Davion RCT dropship…

It was kind of funny. After I had decided to tell the Davions about Helm a few months ago I had gone over the SLIC records at my disposal all over again and had actually found documentation regarding the Brian and the cache within. The irony of it was not lost on me at all.

Shaking my head, I stopped woolgathering and made sure my harness was strapped in tight and there was no fraying. After all those years ago and the destroyed Quickdraw I was still paranoid that I would lose my footing and die if my straps snapped like that pirates did.

Hanse just grinned at me from his seat across the room from me. “You okay there?” He asked. “You look a little bit concerned.”

“One the first mech kills I got before making Ace was on a Quickdraw being piloted by a pirate. They didn’t maintain her straps and when I took out the ankle…” I trailed off.

“The straps snapped and she died in some horrific way I imagine.” Hanse finished, nodding in understanding.

“Yeah, ever since then I triple check any straps before I go anywhere.” I said, not caring if it made me seem paranoid.

“I’ve seen stranger rituals from career soldiers.” Hanse said, “We’re going to be here for a while, so tell me… Why did you decide on a six man team…”





Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns January 2nd, 3008

“Put your backs into it!” Sergeant Kerensky yelled at the platoon she was training. “I wanted this wall up yesterday!”

The Marksman had made helping the construction of the base a part of the physical conditioning for the new recruits.

“Now go drink water!” Kerensky yelled’ “You have a sixty second water break and then we’re heading out to the field!” She had really started to enjoy this. The Clans had never had a boot camp sort of experience, and watching people that she was in charge of teaching learn, develop, and grow was extremely satisfying. Well that, and she got to yell at people.

“Get in Formation! Move it people!” The platoon stumbled into formation and began to run towards the field that had been repurposed into an advanced obstacle course.

“Drop and give me fifty push ups, and then hit the course.” Kerensky ordered. She wanted them exhausted before they hit the course so she could use it as a lesson. She then traded places with her DI partner and went to wait at the end of the course.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Kerensky heard from her DI partner on the other side of the course. “Swing your legs over that log! What do you mean you can’t do it?! Go to the back of the line!”





The sounds of drill instructors made Sheppard smile. He might actually request permission to be permanently placed on training rotations to help get the next generation of Marksmen set up. Plus, he actually enjoyed teaching and was good at it to boot. Parker would do a good job at filling Peterson’s shoes and Peterson was already a second XO in all but name anyway.

“I’ll have to write down some changes to the command structure soon.” Sheppard said to himself as he wrote that down.

“Hey Peterson!” He called as he saw the other man walking somewhere. “Can I talk for a second?”

“Yeah Sheppard,” Peterson replied. “What’s up?”

“I’m thinking about stepping down in order to man the home base and training facilities.” Sheppard told him directly. “Would your wife be opposed to you becoming XO?”

“Probably wouldn’t be opposed at all actually.” Peterson responded. “We have both been enjoying the time together while on garrison, and she likes that I love my job….” He paused “Give me a day or so to talk it over with Francesca and I’ll get back to you.”

“Alright then, I’m headed to the Argo in a couple of hours to get the work up done for the cloning.” Sheppard said, having gotten approval to get the operation done.

“Make sure you get the head doc!” Peterson called over his shoulder, “I know she’s scary, but she’s also the best.”




March 14th, 3009

“Why a Treble clef necklace?” Hanse Davion asked me as I spotted for him in the ship's gym.

“It was a Christmas present from my little sister.” I said, helping him rack the weights he had been using.

“Ahh,” Hanse replied. “I’m sorry..”

I stopped him from making any apologies. “No need to apologize Hanse,” I said, getting set for my own reps. “It’s not the first time I’ve been asked, and it won’t be the last.”

“And I guess you left a wife behind as well?” He asked, figuring he might as well be blunt about it.

“Yeah,” I said wistfully. “She would have never believed me if I told her that this would have happened.”

“Do you have a picture?” Hanse asked curious to see what kind of woman would marry a man like Hull.”

“I do actually,” I pulled out a picture that I had printed using some of the devices on the Messenger years ago and handed it to Hanse. It was a picture I had taken when she wasn’t expecting it, and even though it didn’t capture her when she was dolled up, or in fancy clothes or a dress, It was a picture of her on my parents farm, holding a hunting rifle slung across her back and telling me not to take a picture. “I’ve got better ones saved somewhere.” I told Hanse, “But this one is my favorite.”


“Do you have anyone you’ve got an eye on?” I asked Hanse, trying to get to know him better.

“Well, there is this one girl…” He said

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Forty: A roll of the dice

Helm, Free Worlds League May 17th, 3009

“We managed to get the key right?” I asked Hanse, wanting to ensure that we didn’t get buried in a Castle Brian by accident.

“We got the key.” He replied. “We’re going to need your help to locate the area the cache is in though.” He said,

We got both the maps from the key and from the most recent planetary survey and compared them while I consulted my SLIC notes. “Follow the river.” I told the tech after I had consulted my notes, “There stop.” There was a small building, almost a shack that was outside of a mountain. “That’s the area the Brian is in.”

After I had pinpointed the general area of the hidden Nagayan Mountain we descended into a nearby valley.





“Thanks for the mech.” Hanse said, I was currently riding in his jump seat. “Never had the chance to drive a “Royal” before”

“Really?” I asked as we neared the lone building by the side of the mountain. “I figured that you’d have access to all sorts of Lostech.”

“Last time I checked, my name was Hanse.” He replied with a smirk on his face. “Not Ian.”

“So Ian has a Lostech mech than?” I asked.

“I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations as to what the Davions pilot.” He replied with a chuckle. “Aside from this baby of course.” he patted the side of the TDR-5Sd that I had gifted the Davions for Christmas. “Why didn’t you bring your mech?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“The techs were still figuring some things out when I left.” I responded with a shrug. “That, and I didn’t want to have people trying to steal my mech thinking it was the one I took an Atlas down with.”

After fifteen more minutes of conversation and plodding along, we reached the shack and Hanse made his mech crouch so that we could use the ladder to get to the ground.

“Think this is it?” Hanse asked, looking at the strange square prefab in front of us. Little more than a shack. “I didn’t think ancient Star League facilities had gate houses that looked like this.”

I just gave him a look™. “You would be very surprised.” I said as I walked in. “Hand me the case?” I asked, and Hanse passed me the key.

“Moment of truth.” I said, as I placed the key into the slot in front of me. There was a moment in which nothing happened, and then the ground shook, and a part of the rock face began to split apart.




An hour later…

“Is everyone here?” I asked, as the rest of the column finally arrived. The Third had left behind a good portion of their people and metal on garrison in order to make the most out of their lift capacity.

“Yes Hull,” Hanse rolled his eyes at me. “That’s everyone. We can go inside now.”

With that, we slowly walked the Thunderbolt into the Nagayan Mountain, flipping the spotlight on so he could see.

“Holy Shit!” one of the mechs behind us whispered over his open comms as we saw the rows and rows of SLDF mechs that the various spotlights illuminated. .

Hanse just snickered as various other phrases echoed over the open comms channels. After making sure the entrance was clear, we went through the kneeling and dismounting the Thunderbolt once again.

We then spread out, looking for the main computer so as to not accidentally trigger the self-destruct.

“Hull, over here!” Hanse yelled from the far side of the cavern. “I think this is it.”

I made my way over to him and saw a massive computer screen in front of me. “Yeah, I’d say this is the right place.” I walked up to it and inserted the Helm key into the computer and watched it boot up. The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty’. James Madison. Popped up on the screen in front of me. Then the standard OS of the Star league appeared in front of me. The facility also started to bring lights online and everything was starting to be unveiled.




Two Days later…
“We could finish the Capellan Confederation in less than a decade with the spare parts alone here.” Hanse said as he examined a copy of the manifest I had printed out.

“Well, It’s a good thing we brought all of the dropships then isn't it.” I said, putting the copy of the core I had just made into a sealed crate along with the sixteen others I had made. “Make sure you split these up, I want every dropship out of here to have at least one of the cores.” I told the two aids I had borrowed to assist me in getting everrything together on this. “These are worth more than all of the equipment in here.”

I had brought enough computer cores to copy the whole library at least twenty times over, in every format it could copy them to, including the original. I had sixteen of them in the common format used today, and four of them in various other formats, such as the computers aboard the Messenger.




May 24th, 3009

We were lifting off now. We had to ditch pretty much all of the autocannon, SRM, and LRM ammunition in order to squeeze some of the tech in, but in the end, we managed to fit the most important parts of two brigades onto the dropships we had brought. We were stacked on top of eachother, and we had to leave some of the mechs that were still common in the Fedsuns behind, but we had made it out with a lot of material and over thirty copies of the computer core.

When we got ready to leave, we triggered the explosives we had set on the core and the material left behind and watched as the sea returned to the surface of Helm.





Hilton Head complex, Terra May 30th, 3009

“What do you mean there’s a sea on Helm again?” The Primus, Julian Tiepelo asked Precentor Helm.

“Primus, we woke up this morning and the Yehudan Sea was back.” the panicking B station precentor was panicking.

“Precentor,” Tiepelo lowered his voice in order to help calm the man down. “It was probably something the SLDF did that finally collapsed on them. It would hardly be the first DoME project that failed after the destruction of the Succession wars.”





Atreus, Free Worlds League June 15th, 3009

“What do you mean the Yehudan Sea is back in place on Helm?” Janos Marik asked the SAFE agent briefing him. “It was there last month wasn’t it?”

“Yes Captain-General,” The agent replied. “We fear the rumored cache may have been found and taken by someone.” the SAFE agent replied. “But we don’t have any evidence to prove that theory correct as of yet.”

“Well, then don’t come back with this kind of BS without evidence to back it up!” Janos Marik exclaimed, standing up from his desk.


Personal Journal: October 25th, 3009
Well, I did it. I managed to get the Helm cache, and as far as MIIO can tell no one is the wiser. We have enough cores to scatter out, and Hanse and Ian will be establishing NAIS as an attachment to NAMA within the next couple of years. I was allowed to take a lance of Royal Assault mechs with me as initial gratitude, and Ian had sent a message to Zarantha Calderon requesting a face to face meeting to take place in the next couple of years facilitated by yours truly. I had warned Hanse and Ian about Comstar wrecking efforts to recover lost technology and showed them the copies of secret operations and communiques I had made using the Messenger’s facilities and so they were taking every precaution possible as far as the security of the cores was concerned and would only be bringing in various companies as necessary. I requested permission to buy out Salvatore Incorporated and received an affirmative as long as I could get the production lines up and running again. Thankfully, with the Mithril production starting to take off and our investments in TTI starting to pay off, we would be able to buy them outright and begin the process of getting our own dropship lines up and running again soon. I also was able to bring two of the copies of the data core with me to install in the heart of my base on Kentares IV.

Authors note: The dice were kind to Hanse... and I hope you guys like that I gifted one of the last remaining Davion Thunderbolts in existence to Hanse. I know it's not his Battlemaster, but I think it suits him.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Forty-One: Getting (Back) to work.
Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns December 24th, 3009

“Yall did a really good job.” I looked at the massive fortress before me.

The combat engineers had gone all out and made a fortress complex that could contain an entire three regiments of forces. There were layers of walls, tunnels, and underground areas for both repairs and future factory expansion. The TTI people had the engineers prep an entire area for them and had gotten to work on building the factory that was planned to go here.

Meanwhile, Mithril production had gone up, and we were sitting on a very large surplus of M10A-Mithril armor. We had taken some things into consideration over the last year, and had been producing M11A-Mithril for the last six months. Enough to entirely refit our forces with the improved armor.

The M11A had quite a few benefits over the M10A. Among them was the ability to use MPPC’s and had better communications and a slightly longer battery life. It was able to maintain a speed of 17 km/h instad of the previous 15 and still was able to take limited mech fire.

We had also trained up an entire regiment in our way of doing things, and if what Hanse had told me before heading back to New Avalon to redistribute the new gear was correct. We would be doing some raids into Combine space soon.

Either way, it was good to be back.




January 1st, 3010

I had decided to welcome the new year by having another simulation contest. This time, we were going to be having it televised, recorded and broadcast. This was going to be one of the ways we generated interest in moving to Kentares IV again.

This time I didn’t last as long. I was in the running for two hours before being killed by a simulated Alacorn (One again led by Kerensky…) nailing my Warhammer with a headshot before I could get away in time.

It had actually surprised me that Natasha Kerensky had decided to stay here with us. She had not only stayed with us, but she had (After resistance in the beginning) thrown herself into the cross training like a woman possessed. She was learning everything she could, and I was worried that she would take it back to the clans if we pushed her way.



1 week later…

“Lance Sergeant Kerensky!” I stood up and greeted her as she came into my office. “I see that you’ve settled in quite well.”

“Yes actually.” She smiled openly. “I wasn’t quite sure about how the Marksman did things at first, but now I am completely sold on the idea.”

“That’s really great to hear.” I said honestly. “We love it when people become part of the family.”

“Is there something specific you wanted to talk about Colonel?” She asked, “Because I have a tank platoon to get trained up.”

“Yes actually.” I said. “The Wolf’s Dragoons left for some sort of supply run about a year ago and I was wondering why you didn’t go with them? You could have requested leave at any time.”

“Honestly.” She said with a sad smile. “I feel like I belong here more than with them. I may have spent my whole life with them, but this is where I truly feel like I belong. There’s something about the Marksman that is just different from every other unit I have ever interacted with or been a part of.” She then paused to take a breath. “Whatever that difference is, it makes me feel like I am just Natasha, not a name attached to Aleksander Kerensky.”

“Well,” I gave a soft smile. You know what that is called?” She shook her head. “It’s called being a part of the family.”

“You, Natasha Kerensky are important and have value because you are you.” I stated outright how I felt about each of the Marksman in my employ. “Every single person in this unit is valuable not just because they fill a role here. But because they have intrinsic value because of who they are.”

Natasha just soaked in my words like a sponge. A strange look in her eyes. “Colonel.” She said as she stood up. “I want a match, mech on mech.”

“Sure,” I chuckled. “I’ll pencil you in for next Saturday.” I showed her the calendar on my desk and how it now said “Duel with Kerensky” for the next weekend. “Go take care of your tankers Kerensky. We’ll be deployed sooner rather than later.”

With that, she turned around and left my office. And left me shaking my head. That was odd, and the last thing that I expected out of the ice cold woman I had met almost two years ago.

“Oh well,” I shrugged to myself. Something for future Mark to worry about. And I got back to my paperwork.


Davion Palace New Avalon, Federated Suns December 24th, 3009



“You found how many regiments in the cache he was talking about?!” Ian asked incredulously, pointing at the sheet of paper detailing the exact numbers of their raid.

“Two whole Brigades worth Ian, along with a data core containing pretty much everything lost in the Succession wars.” Hanse stated.

“We need to give him more than he has asked for Ian” Hanse said. “This alone will mean that we can push back both the Capellans and the Combine. Not to even mention the core.”

“I know Hanse.” Ian shoved his chair back violently. “Give me some space to think.”

“We’re going to need to create a new March position soon.” Ian decided. “We need to get this equipment distributed, and hit the Capellans now while they’re reeling from the losses of New Aragone. “Hanse, I’m promoting you to Field Marshal of the Third Davion Guards effective immediately.” he then pointed at Tikonov on the map of the Inner Sphere on his wall before sinking into his chair and thinking deeply.

“Hanse, what would you need to take Tikonov?” He asked, extremely serious. “Because I need to buy time to get the six regiments of gear in the right place.”

Hanse thought about it for a good five minute before replying. “Give me the Third and enough of the cache to bring us back up to full strength, I want the Heavy guards, the 6th Syrtis Fusiliers, and the Marksman along with two regiments of the Eridani Light Horse. Give me that, and operational command, and I’m confident that we can take the planet. I want the infantry outfitted with Mithril though.” Hanse smiled darkly. “I have ideas for what to do there.”

“Done, I’ll have the contract on its way to Hull by the end of the day.” Ian got an extremely serious look in his eye. “I’m gonna need to talk to Calderon sooner, if I can organize a hit on the capellans from them at the same time as you hit Tikonov, we can stymie reinforcements until the planet is ours.” Ian got up and began to pace again. “Hanse, I’m going to make him a bloody Duke. But are you sure you can pull off Tikonov?”

There was silence as Hanse went over his plans again. “Yes Ian, I’m certain that we can pull this off.

“Hanse, you have six months. Six months to get everything together and move on Tikonov. Ian said.

“I’ll get right on that.” Hanse replied, and walked quickly to the exit of the office. He had work to do.




Authors note: So, after addressing something made in the comments earlier, I’m going to explain it here for the people that just navigate through threadmarks instead of combing through the actual thread for the golden nuggets of truth. The Factory complex that I bought that was mentioned in the previous chapter is literally 500KM squared of dropship constructing and testing facilities. And only one line is working right now. This purchase will allow me to begin production of not only Vengeance aerospace carriers, but also build and produce the new Sting class of dropship that started out life as a DroST and ended up as a Powered armor deployment and support dropship. The Sting class is literally designed to deploy power armor while hovering and then blanket the immediate area (Ground or Sky) with fire and to be able to provide close Air patrol and support to said power armor as necessary. I didn’t get short changed or anything on the cache. I have four copies of the memory core, and I have access and the rights to produce/use anything I want from said core. The Taurians did end up giving me a title and so I temporarily moved a company of mechs and tanks over to the factories there to guard my “small” landhold. (Apparently saying no didn’t really matter to Zarantha because when Dunham showed up to talk to TTI about the Mithril line we wanted them to produce she threw it at him and told him to deliver it to me.) Zarantha has also begun negotiating with the Fedsuns in order to be good neighbors. Better a friend and trade partner on the border than an insane potential enemy. I also managed to get a Snowden promised to be sent to help with processing materials for the new factory that TTI is building on Kentares IV. By the time I’m done, the Texas expy and the British/French (What are the fedsuns really?) in space will be best friends ready to take on the Inner Sphere and the Clans… That is all.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Forty-Two: The difficult we do immediately, the Impossible takes a little longer.

Kentares IV Draconis March, January 14th, 3010

“Why?” Sheppard asked.

I just raised an eyebrow. “Why what?”

“Why do you have a Farm in the middle of the base?” He asked, clearly struggling not to throttle me for my latest bout of sanity.

“Well, I for one happen to enjoy farm fresh eggs and meat.” I shrugged. “And it’s not like there’s a whole lot of options on that front around us.” I gestured at the rusting cities and factories in the distance.

“But starting your own farm instead of hiring someone?” He questioned.

“Jack, I was raised on a farm back on Terra before I left to do freelance work on computers.” I said. “This is nothing new to me, and in fact is really relaxing when you get down to it.”

He followed me to my coop where I was collecting the morning group of eggs. “Don’t you have that match against Kerensky later today?” Sheppard asked. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for that?”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “But that’s not until this afternoon. I was planning to do a barbeque afterwards.”

“With Kerensky?” Jack asked for clarification.

“No,” I said. “I’m doing a get together with the senior staff and NCO’s.”

“And why am I just finding out about this now?” Jack asked. “You know I don’t turn down those baby back ribs that you make.”

“Well, I kept trying to invite you over the last few weeks, but you were avoiding me after dumping that tray of paperwork into my office and then blocking the door.” I gave him a slight glare at the last bit. “I would have done the paperwork without being locked in there you know.”

“Yeah, you’re not looking for payback are you?” He asked as he followed me into my house.

“If I were, you would never know.” I said while putting my fresh eggs away into my refrigerator. “Payback always comes when least expected.”




In the Afternoon, Mech training area.
“Are you sure you want to do this in that?” I asked Natasha Kerensky. “I mean, we haven’t had time to upgrade your Marauder yet.”

“I am confident in my skills as a mech pilot.” Kerensky said, giving me a death glare. “Let’s see if yours are up to the task.”

“Alright then.” I said, raising my hands and backing off. “Your funeral.” I muttered underneath my breath.

We both climbed into our mechs, and triple checked to make sure that everything was set to “Training” mode.

After I had powered everything up, and safed everything, I moved my Warhammer out of the bay.

“Alright, I will be your referee for this match.” Sheppard broadcast from his shiny Cyclops. “I will be running all of the simulated munitions through my computer in order to ensure a fair match.”

I moved my Warhammer to the opposite side of the training field, making sure that my mech was tied into Sheppard’s systems. I actually moved a little bit further out, Kerensky’s Marauder might be a decent heavy mech, and it might outmass me by a solid five tons, but I had more armor, better weapons, and I was a good deal faster. I mean, we hadn’t exactly published my Warhammers specs anywhere, and I was going to use that to my advantage.






Natasha Kerensky was angry. She thought she would have the advantage in armor and range, but she had been sniped at with PPC’s from well beyond the range hers were effective at. And, to make matters worse, the Colonel was moving far faster than any heavy mech of its weight outside of the clans should. He just kept dodging in and out of range, he would hammer her with PPC’s, almost literally skate his mech around, and then duck back out of range.

“Fucking Lostech Bullshit.” the words that no clanner had ever said before and would never say again left her lips as she pushed her Marauder forward at flank speed.

She pushed into her range bracket and cackled to herself as she nailed his right arm ERPPC. Reducing it to slag and stalling him for a second as he tried to figure out how she had closed the distance on him.

After wearing eachother out at maximum range, Natasha had had enough. She pushed forward and tried to engage Colonel Hull’s Warhammer in melee, only to find that that was where he truly excelled.
After several minutes of dueling at close range, they both were both moving to end the fight when Sheppard called in on the Comms.

“Stop the exercise!” Came over the open comms channel. “We have a priority message from New Avalon for the Colonel.”

“Alright, moving to the Messenger now.” I said. Shifting my brain out of combat mode and kicking it back into logical thinking mode.



At the barbecue a couple of hours later…
“So, what was so important that our duel had to be interrupted?” Kerensky asked as she loaded up a plate with two bacon cheeseburgers and a lot of fries from the grill and fryer in front of me.

“It’s not classified, and we’re going to be announcing it to the group later anyway.” I shrugged as I flipped a burger and moved a sausage over to the table next to me. “Hanse and Ian Davion have a job for us.” I said, “And we have three months to get ready for it.”

“What kind of job Colonel?” Packer asked as he helped himself to a couple of sausages and a small stack of ribs.

“Ian wants Tikonov.” I said, and closed the grill to let the next set of ribs cook properly.

“Could you say that again?” Major Packer cleaned out his ear with a pinky. “I think I just heard you say that the First Prince wants Tikonov taken.”

“You heard right.” I said, absently checking the time left on the ribs. “It can be done, and we have the best chance of it now versus any other time.”

“And why would that time be now?” Lieutenant Colonel Peterson asked me. He had an inkling of an idea but wasn’t one hundred percent sure.

“Mithril will be more devastating now then it will be later on.” I said. “If Ian and Hanse buy all of the suits we have to spare and get people trained in them quickly enough, we can use it to overwhelm and surprise the regiments of Infantry on Tikonov.” I stopped talking in order to open the grill and take off a rack of ribs. “On top of that, after what we did to the 2nd Mac, MIIO and DMI have some reports that there may be less forces there at this time.”


“I see what you mean about the right time.” Peterson said, chewing thoughtfully on a hot dog. “ but we’re gonna be in for one hell of a fight.”

“Well, we’re the Marksman.” Sheppard said with a cocky grin on his face. “The difficult we do immediately….” he trailed off. Repeating a saying that the R&D team had come up with and spread throughout the team. “The impossible just takes a bit longer.”





May 25th, 3010.

We were at the jump point with two combined armed regiments, Our fleet of Dropships was being led by the Colossus we had found and despite it being Lostech, we were going to need it if we wanted to carry everything we had with us. Our Mithril clad infantry had been spread throughout the fleet, and we had four companies loaded onto our Sting class dropship/gunships.

In less than a month, we would be heading to Tikonov come what may.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Forty-Three: A Hope in Hell
Caselton, Federated Suns June 10th, 3010
(Onboard Hanse Davions dropship for planning before moving onto Tikonov)


“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” Hanse Davion asked me. “I believe you said you were looking into dropping Infantry from orbit?”

“Yes, I got to test one out before we left.” I grinned widely. “We’re going to start training specifically for them soon and make it into a volunteer only unit.”

“What would you even call Infantry dropped from orbit?” Field Marshal Felsner of the Davion Heavy Guards asked.

“Well, I’m leaning towards Orbital Drop Shock Troopers myself. But the R&D team is still knocking around names”I shrugged. “The technology has existed for centuries, and with Mithril, we can make it a survivable and effective means of delivering infantry to places that need reinforcements or softening up.”

“I thought that’s what your new DroST refits were for?” Hanse asked, the Davions having purchased a license for it after we had put it out there.

“No, that’s for regular Infantry dropping and support.” I mean, they’re still there to help, but we’re not dropping them from orbit in a Sting.” I paused. “Well, not yet anyway.”

After the standard introductions and some woolgathering was done, Hanse began to brief us on his plans. It turns out, the rest of the Big Mac was on Tikonov while rebuilding after the losses we had handed them, along with elements of the Ariana Grenadiers, The First Chesterton Voltigeurs, and the second Ariana Fusiliers along with the eighty regiments of infantry that were almost always there.

“You sure that you’re up for being the bait?” Hanse asked me after the rest of the various CO’s had left. “I’ve got other plans that we can fall back on if we need to.”

“We can do this.” I told him. “We’ll pin down the Big Mac long enough for you guys to take out everyone else.” I smiled mysteriously. “Like we said at Tybalt.”

“What did you say at Tybalt Hull?” Hanse asked,

“The only way to eat a Big Mac is one bite at a time.” I replied. “And this time, I brought Lostech…”





Tikonov Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation June 18th, 3010

“Are we sure that this plan of Davions will work?” Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, the CO of Marksman’s first regiment asked over the comms system. “I mean, the Big Mac can’t be that angry at us can they?”

“Sheppard, do I need to play that audio message again?” I asked, as we burned into the atmosphere of the planet below.

“Yes actually, hearing the man literally spitting mad was quite funny.” Sheppard replied.

“Well, we’re going down after the second wave. How’s your XO doing?” I asked. We had expanded pretty rapidly and a lot of our vets had been promoted to officer and senior NCO positions.

“She’s handling it pretty well,” Sheppard said. “I’m just glad that it helped her shape up a bit.”

“Yeah, Mckay has come quite a long way.” I responded.

“By the way, Colonel.” Major Packer said. “Aren’t you going to respond to Archibald McCarron’s message?”

“Respond?” I asked. “I’ll respond after we’re on the ground, we’re playing distraction remember?”

Hanse had sent us first, to begin drawing the defenders of Tikonov out, and he had requested that our Sting class dropships with their battalion of Mithril PA infantry aboard be with him in the second wave. Wardog and Strider squadron and all of their trainees had proven their worth on the way in. With the Lostech birds, and having extra firepower, the Outworlds Alliance Aces had proven just why they were some of the deadliest pilots in the Inner Sphere, they had shattered virtually every single fighter and dropship sent at us. With minimal casualties on our side.




Marksman Drop Zone Tikonov Tikonov Commonality, Capellan Confederation

“This is Colonel Hull of the Marksman Mercenary company.” I broadcast on all open frequencies available to me in my Warhammer, Captain Dunham was going to be in the Mobile HQ with me coordinating between both Regiments. “I heard the Big Mac was on planet and decided I wanted another bite.” I paused for effect. “But I heard that Archibald McCarron was too much of a coward to come face the Marksman after what we did before.” I chuckled audibly into the mic. “I mean, he couldn’t even work up the nerve to hunt us down afterwards.”

I cut the channel off. I knew that he was going to take the bait, and if the Mac was going to draw in anyone else than Hanse’s plan would go off really well.

“Alright people.” I broadcast on the Marksman’s encrypted channel. “We’ve just made the Mac angrier than they’ve ever been. Expect extremely aggressive behavior and for them to almost exclusively target whatever formation I’m in.”

“I’m going to be broadcasting through all of this so as to focus their attention on me. Follow your CO’s lead, they know what to do.”




June 20th, 3010

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” I said to myself as I fired one of my ERPPC’s at the headhunter lance chasing after me. “That’s the third Lance today.” I kept dodging fire, and stringing the enemy lance along until they were in position. There were nine sharp hypersonic “Cracks” as the lance chasing after me were met by nine hypersonic projectiles, shredding armor and causing the lance of heavy mechs that had been chasing me to lose armor, legs, and in once case to just drop and bury itself into the ground due to it missing a cockpit. The heavy lance tried to turn around and run, but were savaged by PPC fire from the two supporting Manticore’s and the Marauder that were coordinating with the three Alacorns. I had “Borrowed” the fireteam from our First regiment after dealing with the first Lance of heavy mechs that had been assigned to “Headhunt” me.

I had really pissed the Big Mac off, because they had thrown themselves at us heedless of our Lostech advantage and were paying for it in the sheer numbers game. Mithril also was a great equalizer and had been helping to put some of the enemies own metal into our fight. Over the past two days, we had been funneling the enemy into killzones generated by their near suicidal focus on me. The various mechs and gear we had grabbed from the SLDF depots had made a tremendous difference. Now we just needed Hanse and the rest of the Tikonov invasion force to complete their objectives.


Stopping next to the Marauder, I waved my ERPPC in thanks to the leader of the fireteam before heading over to the mobile HQ again.





June 23rd, 3010

“Sheppard I need you to push in the rear right now!” I ordered from my Warhammer, coordinating long range fire from the fireteam I was currently borrowing. “We’ve got a short company of Assault mechs pushing our shit in!”

We managed to drop four of the twelve assaults and wound most of the others before I had the irreplaceable tanks fall back while I drew fire.

Crouching, I dodged an AC/20 shot that would have flat out killed me if it had connected to the cockpit that they were aiming at.

“Colonel McCarron is that you?” I asked the Atlas that was currently trying to cave my cockpit in. “Cuz if it is you then you need to hit the sims more. Your aim is trash.”

I slid out of range of a score of SRM’s and kept maneuvering out of range of his AC/20.

“You know who it is, Hull!” He roared in a rage at me. “It’s time for some payback!” His command Lance kept moving forward, leaving me very little room to dodge fire. Thankfully, I was still much faster than the average Warhammer and I now showed that as I moved away at flank speed away from the fireteam. I didn’t want them to pay for my strategy and tactics.

“I managed to get back out of their maximum range and turned around to start firing at the two lances chasing me. Crippling one of the mechs, and coring another with a golden BB. I had reduced them to a lance and a half before they closed in on me again. “You might get me McCarron,” I said. “But you and the rest of your unit won’t live past the week.” I taunted as I turned around and unleashed an Alpha strike on his Atlas. Shredding tons of Armor and bringing up my heat to a level that was starting to become uncomfortable.

“Sheppard!” I broadcast again, weaving out of the way of missiles and lasers. “Where the hell are you?!”

“We’re trying to break through now Colonel. “ I heard autocannon fire in the background. “They left a Battalion behind to stall us”

“Well, If you don’t get here in time,” I said as I removed a Charger’s foot from existence with a PPC bolt. “ Have Rook get onto my Noteputer. My last will and testament is in there.”

My mech staggered as one of the AC/20’s from the Atlas finally connected. Almost making me lose my footing. I was down a lot of armor, and one more of those AC/20s would probably core my mech.

I kept running, ducking behind a small hill, using it to absorb some of the fire before popping out of cover and trying to arc a PPC bolt into the cockpit of another mech. I failed, but that mech did duck back for a while and it let me move further out of range of the mech killers that were hunting me. I knew that there was a canyon wall I was going to run into if I didn’t stop soon, and that I would have to make my final stand.

“Why are you running Hull?” McCarron roared. “You not man enough to face me?”

“Man enough?” I asked, “Bitch please, you came at me with two lances of assault mechs and I only see you here with one lance.” I stopped my mech and turned around to face them. “My dead wife was more of a man then you are.” I chuckled to myself. “She sure as hell was a better shot than you at the very least.”

If I was going to die, then my last stand was going to be a story told for all of the ages…

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter Forty-Four: I heard there was a damsel…


If I was going to die, then my last stand was going to be a story told for all of the ages…

Then, an orbital deployment pod crashed into McCarron’s Atlas, and a Thunderbolt casually walked out of the wreckage, headshotting the mech next to it. “I heard there was a Damsel in distress.” You could hear Hanse’s shit eating grin over the comms channel. After he had broadcast that, another three mechs fell from orbit in formation around him and the fireteam I had coopted came in behind and finished off the enemy mechs left standing.

“Screw you Hanse.” I retorted. “I had them on the ropes.”

“Sure you did Hull.” Hanse walked his Thunderbolt past my and used the hand to pat the shoulder of my mech. “Sure you did.”

“How's the rest of the fight going?” I asked, if Hanse was deploying on us, that meant we had drawn in a lot more forces then expected. “Can you afford to come bail us out?”

“We already crushed the Grenadiers and most of the Fusiliers, while the ELH is working on the First Chesterton.” Hanse told me, “The Third Davion are acting as floating forces for rapid deployment.”

“You need to get back to your dropships and re-armour.” Hanse said. “I can see the sun through parts of your skeleton.”

“Yeah yeah,” I said. “I didn’t see you playing bait out there.”

“That’s because you make such good bait my friend.” Hanse chuckled. “I mean, I’ve heard stories of a certain “Canopian job” from some of your command staff.”

“Dammit Sheppard!” I muttered, “It’s always your fault.”

“Hanse,” I got serious for a second.”You got this area for now?”

“Yeah Hull, you did good.” Hanse said “Go get some rest while your mech is re skinned I’ll coordinate from here.”




July 15th, 3010


“How bad were the losses?” I asked Sheppard now that we were able to have a meeting for the first time in weeks.

“Well, the Infantry has taken the least amount of damage. Any infantry that see one of the two Sting’s basically throw down their arms and surrender at first sight now. But we’re going to be spending a lot of time in the repair bays.” He gestured to one of our tanks being repaired behind him. “Proper combined arms tactics limited our personnel losses by a lot but we’re going through our spare parts a little faster than expected.”

“Well, they did throw more people at us than was initially planned for.” I remarked. “On a side note, I heard Hanse’s plan to use the Sting’s to capture Earthwerks went well.”

“Yeah, Captain Mathis isn’t going to let us hear the end of it for years.” Sheppard replied.

“He’s not going to be doing a whole lot of bragging from what I understand.” I said with a serious note in my voice. “We’re going to be paying a lot of therapy bills over the next while. They shredded the regular infantry like they weren’t even there.”

“I heard the same thing from the Davion Heavy Guards infantry CO.” Sheppard said. “We’re going to have to make sure to get some more therapists then. Mental health is important in our profession.”

“Hanse said that the First Chesterton were on the ropes a couple of days ago, but I have the feeling we’re going to be here for a while.” I said.





Six months later…

“I really do think that might be the last of them.” Hanse said as we watched what we thought was the last Tikonov Militia unit on the planet throw their weapons down and power down their light vehicles from the mobile HQ.

“Don’t jinx it Hanse.” I said. “You’re going to be spending years checking for MASK spies and all sorts of assorted messes.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hanse replied. “I got a communique from Ian, I’m going to be the military governor here until things settle down.”

“Congratulations?” I said/asked. “I know it’s more work, but you’re probably the best choice for it.”

“I know this.” Hanse told me. “But If I’m not there to watch Ian, who knows what kind of trouble he’ll get into.”

“I’ll try to keep an eye on him, and be ready to bail him out if he gets himself into trouble.” I said. “And, I’m leaving extra Mithril here. I have a feeling that you might need it for pacification if things get really bad.”

“I’m not going to slaughter these people, Hull.” Hanse looked me in the eye.

“Hanse, they’re literally impervious to small arms fire, I don’t expect you to slaughter them, I expect them to be the best damn riot patrol ever made.”

“Oh, right; forgot who I was talking to for a minute.” Hanse said. “Your contract is up in a few months, so I’ll bend your ear for some ideas, and hopefully, we’re able to stop for a bit and repair and rearm.”

“Sounds like a decent idea to me.” I said. “Now, it’ll take some time, but I’ve got some ideas about the thug line…”




Two months later…

“Just so you know, I fully expect to be made godfather of any of your children after that rescue.” Hanse joked as we exchanged goodbyes.

“I didn’t need your help.” I retorted with a smile. “But thanks for it anyway.” we had rehashed the argument of whether I had needed the help or not multiple times by now.

“I’ll let Ian know that you’re doing well here.” I said. “And I'll do my best to keep him out of trouble.”

“You better.” Hanse replied. “Yvonne must be pulling her hair out, and she’s gonna need some help.”




Tikonov jump point March 25th, 3011

I was tired. It had been a long campaign, and I just wanted to collapse and then go work on my farm for a bit when we got back to Kentares. I was still daydreaming about rest when I got to my quarters and opened the door. “Sorry, wrong room.” I went to close the door and was yanked inside. After that, I wasn’t daydreaming much anymore.

 

[paulobrito]

Some crazy redhead in your room wanting some?

 

[MarkWarrior]

Some crazy redhead in your room wanting some?

Something like that. I’ve got a lot more to bring over, i just get caught up in writing versus transferring stuff over.