Battletech Shattered Sphere: The Arcadian Free March

[Big Steve]

Salem
North America, Terra
Terran Union
8 July 3033


When Doctor Rachel Proctor-Smythe was a young girl, she first met her cousins on her father's side of the family when they visited Roslyn. The Smythe children, mostly her age or younger, were astonished at the size of the buildings, and the sheer number of them, to be found in Roslyn and the Laughlin Capital District. The awe in their eyes at something she took for granted astonished her, although she inevitably understood it later in her life when her parents moved her to the Smythe estates on Ford. While Ford had some cities of note, none compared to the grandeur of Roslyn, especially not the rural district that her grandfather the Baron governed, explaining her family's astonishment.

Now it was her turn to feel the awe.

The cities of Terra made even Roslyn look provincial. Rebuild from the devastation visited by Amaris' takeover and the SLDF's campaign to end his reign of terror, they were gleaming works of art, great spires of ferro-crete, glass, and alloy steel in numbers that surpassed any of the cities Rachel had seen in her life. Geneva, Seattle, Dakar… they'd all been treasures to visit.

Boston, the northern nexus of the great "Bos-Wash Megalopolis" that stretched down to the former American capital, was no less grand. Even this far from the city center, in the township of Salem, she could see the great buildings of Boston stretching into the sky.

Salem was quaint by comparison, like the town her father was given to govern when she was fifteen years old, or its namesake New Salem back on Arcadia. Yet even here, holographic displays and high-definition holovisions were everywhere. Automated taxis provided the residents easy transportation (and visitors too, much to her thanks) around the cozy town, which she felt was being intentionally kept cozy instead of allowing it to grow to become Boston's appendage.

She walked along the main street before deciding to try a local family restaurant. Inside a smiling young woman of light brown complexion invited her to sit. Rachel expected to be handed a laminated menu or invited to view a digital screen, but instead the waitress tapped a small stand on the table. A holographic menu appeared. Not just a list, but with images of the meals. "Would you like anything to drink while you decide your order, ma'am?"

"Ummm… tea. Warm, with a touch of milk," she asked, her eyes still wide at the casual use of such an intricate holographic display.

The waitress tapped at a holographic interface on the tablet she was holding. A curious look came over her. "Is something the matter?"

"No, I just…" Rachel tapped at the menu, changing the page. A second tap created a realistic holographic image of a particular meal. "I'm not used to holographic restaurant menus, that's all."

"Really? Just where do you come from then?"

"Arcadia."

The girl's face twisted into a brief expression that told Rachel she was trying to think of worlds she knew of. "Arcadia… oh, the Free March!" The girl grinned. "Right. Sara Proctor's homeworld. I love those holovids."

Rachel blinked. She knew there were vids of her great-grandmother's life. As a child she remembered the interviewers talking to her great-grand aunt Zoe and her older cousins about them. A docudrama vid series came out, in fact, as did a rather more controversial vid by Pingree-born surrealist Cesar Jorge Motonow that the Proctor family nearly sued over before being prevented by political concerns. But would they have seen them on Terra? "Are you talking about the Motonow film or the Louganis?"

"Huh? I'm talking about the new one from a few years ago, by Michelle Emmerich. You haven't seen it?" When Rachel shook her head the girl laughed. "Oh, right, it was filmed with that new Holo-Real format, you probably don't have those viewers out there yet. You can probably order a viewing in whatever hotel you're staying in. It's an awesome vid, like two hours long but still. I think you'll enjoy it. They even filmed one of the scenes here in Salem, the bit where Sara is investigating her family roots back here and everything and ends up meeting Major Fetladral." She looked up at a newly-arriving customer. "I'll be back with your tea and to get your order."

The girl walked away, leaving Rachel to look over the holo-menu interface. Her appetite felt a little weak now and she couldn't escape the feeling that she'd just been condescended to by the younger woman. Might just be my imagination, she thought, although… no, don't worry about it. See to your needs now.

The young woman returned with her tea and Rachel decided on her order.




After her meal, she continued her trip through the town. A few sites in town made reference to the "Salem witch trials" of 1692, in which over a dozen people were executed under accusation of using magic or witchcraft. A site that named the victims was called the Proctor Ledge, of interest to her given the reference to the family, and the main historical center even had a pamphlet claiming that William Proctor's blood relations were the ancestors of her own family line.

She wasn't sure of that, given the surname "Proctor" was not a unique one - of course, neither was "Steiner" - but it was interesting to think about. Plymouth Peninsula's settlers came from this region hundreds of years ago, after all. They named their towns and cities off the towns and cities of New England. And given how many centuries this came after the death of William Proctor, well, by then the family could have easily spread and mingled with others to the point that he was indeed a distant ancestor of her own.

That said, while the prospect of her family roots coming from this place, and at that time, right now the two regions were greatly different. New England was half-metropolis now, while even Worcester was only a hundred thousand people in size. To this day Plymouth was a rural region and its people, her people in many ways, liked it that way. Whatever these people were once like, they're urban now, like so much of Terra, we have not gone so far.

These considerations were just clearing her mind when she arrived back in Boston. Her aunt's generous stipend meant she could afford a fine hotel, if not a five-star establishment, and she enjoyed the comfort of the suite she'd been given. She still had a couple of days before she could catch the passenger shuttle to the liner Marigold that would be her ride back to Arcadia. For now, she might as well enjoy Boston a little more.

And, out of curiosity, watch the movie suggested.

Two hours and forty minutes later, Rachel contemptuously shut off the holovid display with a remote. She felt furious for her great-grandmother, for the people who fought and died alongside her, and for her entire people. The movie was an insult.

Titled "The Liberator", it'd seemed good in the opening parts. The actress playing Duchess Sara resembled her strongly, and she portrayed her fairly… at first. But then another actress entered the film, playing a character named Major Tamara Fetladral, a MechWarrior of the Terran Union on indefinite leave after a traumatic experience, and the entire thing became an insult. While Sara was set up as the hero of the story, the subtle implication throughout was that Tamara Fetladral was the reason Sara won. Fetladral helped assemble the army and provided the best troops, including convincing the Warrior Monks to join the cause. She suggested the plans of attack, the decision to assault Leuktra immediately instead of safely disembarking in the remaining Greek territories and the liberation of Mull. At Worcester she saved Sara from Tabot, not William Corey, and she was the one who proposed using Sara as bait at Parnon afterward to catch Tabot in the trap. She lets Sara get the killing blow on Tabot and take all the credit, supporting her friend - as the two are depicted as close friends - in becoming Duchess before departing for Terra and a new tour of duty with the Terran Union forces.

Rachel quickly, and furiously, checked the net for information. Tamara Fetladral's only entries were from the movie. I thought the name was unfamiliar. I remember the stories of great-grandmother Sara's struggles. She had some Terrans in her forces, yeah, but not someone like this 'Major Fetladral'. This woman didn't exist!

And then it all clicked for her. The waitress in Salem. The movie. The way people here looked at her. The people of Terra were, bluntly, utterly convinced of their own superiority to the rest of the Inner Sphere. The rest of them, people from Arcadia and Donegal and New Avalon and Tikonov, they were all pitiable neo-barbarians, to be pitied as less advanced or despised as the ones who ruined the beloved Star League (and sometimes both). Nothing they did mattered, nothing they accomplished could be of consequence unless a Terran helped do it. So why shouldn't they be shown as truly responsible for the great deeds of Inner Sphere neo-barbarians?

It sickened Rachel and it depressed her. For years she'd thought of the Terrans as the island of stability in the Inner Sphere, the one state that refrained from war and kept the violent rivalries of the Successor States from getting out of control. They were the protectors of knowledge. Humanitarians who upheld law and sheltered the innocent. She never knew, or at least understood, that it came with conceited arrogance and presumed self-superiority.

It's what they want us to see them as. Maybe they even think it's what they are. But there's this side to them too, that takes their better technology and assumes it makes them better people.

She reached for her noteputer, suddenly uninterested in touring any more of Boston. She'd had enough of the Cradle of Humanity now. Maybe I can get that shuttle a day early and settle on the Marigold before it starts burning for the jump point.

 

[Big Steve]

Arcadia


Single star system
Spectral type: G4V
System Position: 3rd
Moons: 1, Artemis
Surface Gravity: 1.02 g
Atmospheric pressure: Standard (breathable)
Equatorial temperature: 35 degree Celsius (Temperate)
Surface water: 76%
Highest native life: Mammals, avians, reptiles, aquatic
Founding: 2230

Ruler: Duchess Sara-Marie Proctor, March-Princess of the Free March
Capital: Roslyn (Planetary), Laughlin Capital District (Free March)
Population: 4.08 Billion (3030 Census)
Socio-Industrial Levels: B-B-C-B-A


First explored by Henry Sinclair of Skye in 2229, the planet's raw appeal as a garden world and breadbasket prompted its naming after the classic image of unspoiled Greek wilderness. Arcadia was initially a trading outpost of Skye. The initial settlers were of Gaelic extraction - Scots and Irish - but quickly joined by North Americans primarily from New England and Nova Scotia and a concentration of Greek settlers. The main continent, named Islay, enjoys several fertile river valleys and concentrations of fisheries off all coasts save the Arctic coast. Islay stretches from the Arctic to twenty degrees south of the equator, a continent of a land mass on par with Eurasia. Across a two hundred kilometer strait to the southwest is the primary continent of the Southern Hemisphere, Munster (originally South Uist), a continent equal to both Americas in proportion but entirely below the equator save for an equatorial peninsula formed by the northern extension of the continent's primary mountain range, the highest on Arcadia. A second continent named Mull, about one and a half times the size of Australia, is to the east of Munster, while the secondary continent of the Northern Hemisphere, Constantine (originally North Uist), is to the north and off the western coast of Islay. The largest sea, the Arcadian Ocean, is to the west of Constantine, north of Mull, and east of Islay, and is home to a number of volcanic islands, although it does not have the "ring of fire" that the Pacific basin has on Terra.

In terms of population, Islay is the most populated. The bulk of the population is on the east coast, where the planetary capital of Roslyn and the major commercial and cultural city Sannazaro are the main metropoles. To the northeast of Sannazaro, the Plymouth Peninsula juts out into the Arcadian Ocean and is a colder temperate region that's home to North American-descended settlers with cities named for New England cities. In the heart of the continent rich farmlands fed by several river systems give the planet the bulk of its wheat, barley, oats, and other grain production, including grains native to Arcadia. The Pan River, the longest river on the planet, is central to several of these systems, with the largest network of tributaries, and the city of Mantinea to serve as the center for the agricultural areas. West of Mantinea the population of Anglo-Scot Arcadians diminishes compared to the Greeks. Constantine, along with the districts on Islay's western coast, are the homes of Arcadia's Greek population and their largest city, Arcas, while Munster has the largest Irish-Arcadian population. Mull, due to the weather patterns and mountain layout, is primarily arid and semi-arid high plateaus with some lush farmland on the eastern and northern coastline. The interior of Mull is inhospitable desert, the worst on the planet, but home to some of the best concentrations of strategic minerals and resources Arcadia has, retaining their richness even after nearly seven centuries of extraction. The interior population is almost entirely transient to provide for the mines, although settlers from Ethiopia, Somalia, and similar lands of East Africa have made several small towns and cities to support their agrarian lifestyle. The Afro-Arcadians provide a significant share of the military volunteers from Arcadia by proportion of population. They and a small population of Melanesians and Anglo-Arcadians provide the majority population for the various Arcadian Ocean island chains. The most unique of these are the Iaukean Islands, an archipelago of tropical and subtropical islands equal in biodiversity and size to the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos on Earth. They were initially settled by American Pacific Islanders and Hawai'ians but since joined by Balinese and Papuan peoples. Over the centuries a unique culture has formed among the island dwellers, who speak both English and a particular patois of English, Hawai'ian, Samoan, various Papuan languages, and Balinese, making Iaukeans one of the most unique ethno-linguistic ccmmunities in the entire Inner Sphere.

Arcadia remained a world of the Federation of Skye until the formation of the Lyran Commonwealth. Over the centuries it remained a border system with the Free Worlds League, becoming a battleground for a time during the Age of War. Under the Star League the system flourished, becoming a designated SLDF supply world with an SLDF-subsidized shipyard built in orbit of Artemis to take advantage of the moon's rich veins of minerals, including germanium. Star League technology enabled the automation of mines in the Mull interior, allowing the mineral wealth of the planet to be extracted without subjecting Human beings to the temperature extremes there, where in the daytime temperatures could spike into the lower fifties (Celsius) while at night they plunged to zero and below.

At the fall of the Star League House Marik's troops made repeated raids, damaging the Artemis Yards and on-planet military facilities, although Arcadia was spared the use of nuclear weapons that ravaged other worlds. Nevertheless, the planet's economy suffered severely in the coming decades, as the First Succession War quickly gave way to the continued horror of the Second. Skye's separation from the Lyran Commonwealth in 2849 began a period of chaos that came to Arcadia with the collapse of House Steiner's authority. The ruling family of the time, the Duncans, had increasing difficulty keeping order as pirates multiplied in the absence of organized military authority. Mercenaries, mostly the broken remnants of LCAF and FWLM units gone rogue, were hired to supplement the Duncans' house forces.

This ultimately proved disastrous. The mercenaries known as Lange's Lashers, under their commander Norman Johns, grew discontent with working for the Duncans. Conspiring with mercenary units across the planet, Johns suddenly and with great violence sacked Roslyn and the Ducal Palace, killing the Duncan family to the last child. He proclaimed himself ruler and immediately started warring with the other nobles of the planet and mercenaries who were jealous of his rise, each side raiding one another for access to resources. When this raiding led to the destruction of the Star League-era mines in Mull and numerous other assets, the planet's economy collapsed.

This began what Arcadians would later lament as "The Age of Chains". As the technology for resource extraction declined, raw manpower became necessary to see to the farms and mines. Johns and his peers among the mercenary warlords and the nobility began conscription of labor in their holdings. This conscription grew in scope and in duration, with allies often selling the labor of their talented workers to one another. It didn't take long for this to outright escalate to chattel slavery. Raids were soon targeting the planetary population as much as their food and minerals, especially for those warlords who controlled mines in Mull that now had to be operated by manpower, not machines.

The Age of Chains defined two generations, considered as roughly beginning around 2870 with Johns' "Labor Decree". By 2890 ownership of another human being was a mark of privilege among the warlords and their officers, whether they came by military compulsion or from desperate Arcadians selling themselves to provide for their families. History would know these warlords as the "Slaver Lords", a title they obviously never adopted among themselves. Only on Constantine and the Greek-majority districts of Islay did this system never take hold, and in Mull and the Iaukean Islands the local nobility and population sustained a decades-long guerrilla war against the Slaver Lords' forces.

By this time, Norman Johns was dead, killed in a 'Mech duel by an ambitious young officer in Lange's Lashers, Carl Tabot. A MechWarrior of consummate skill and the owner and pilot of an SLDF ZEU-5T Zeus Assault BattleMech, Tabot seized control of Johns' holdings, using assassination and murder to eliminate rivals in the Lashers while expanding his control to include the Plymouth Peninsula as well as the eastern districts of Islay. Taking the title of "the Prince of Sannazaro" and making the northern metropole his capital, "Prince Carl" was ruthless in expanding the forced labor system and the institutions of slavery, which he saw as the natural conclusion to the feudalism gripping Arcadia and the rest of the Inner Sphere. From 2888 to the 2920s, he expanded his holdings to include all of Mull's interior mines and half of Munster, declaring himself "High Lord of Arcadia" in 2921. He was without reservation a tyrant, and a bloody-handed one. Every year thousands of people, Arcadians and captives from neighboring worlds, perished in the mines of Mull from heatstroke, dehydration, exposure, or from the wounds inflicted by the cruel punishments of Tabot's taskmasters. Towns and cities that resisted the yearly culling of conscription were subjected to the equivalent of a medieval sacking, their populations carted off into slavery.

The bloodshed was about to get worse. In 2921 the nobility of Constantine refused to submit to his demand to recognize his proclaimed sovereignty and provide their citizens as slaves to Tabot's holdings. In retaliation he employed a DropShip-carried force that sacked the continent's second largest city, Levidi, and took the citizenry into slavery, including the Count of Levidi's entire family. This sparked a savage war against the rest of the Greek enclave that tied up the majority of his forces for the next five years. For all their inferiority in resources, including BattleMech and Aerospace weaponry, the Greeks fought with courage and delayed Tabot's advances repeatedly, suffering great cost in human life as they did. By 2926, their Islay holdings had fallen, as had half of Constantine and most of the outlying New Cyclades Islands. The fall of the city of Maui cost them access to the support of the Iaukean nobility, who continued their own bloody struggle as best as they could. Tabot was at the cusp of subduing all of Arcadia.

The turning of the tide came from an unexpected source. In February 2926 a fleet of DropShips arrived in-system and burned in, the largest grouping of incoming forces seen since the collapse of the Lyran Commonwealth. At the head of the armada was an unassuming cargo DropShip called the Melanie, and her master was a daughter of Arcadia's Plymouth Peninsula and, as chance would have it, an escaped household slave of Tabot himself. That woman was Sara Proctor, a traveler and adventuress of some fame to the Inner Sphere. Now wealthy from the proceeds of her adventures and the trading expeditions of the Melanie, she invested most of that wealth in the armada at her back, bearing with them an army of trained MechWarriors and combat troops from across the Inner Sphere, including the bulk of the legendary Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. When challenged by the system traffic controllers, Proctor openly broadcast her intent to destroy the forces of the Slaver Lords, end Tabot's rule, and "restore peace, freedom, and tranquility to our mother world". Enraged at her impertinence (and remembering her as one of his escaped slaves) Tabot ordered a fighter strike, but his three wings of run-down aerospace fighters soon found themselves in mortal combat with her aerospace contingent, led by a wing of the famed Heaven's White Ascenders. Tabot lost the bulk of his air power in a single engagement while the Greek-Arcadians broadcast their willingness to host Proctor's troops.

Instead of merely landing in their territory, however, Proctor's forces struck from orbit, hitting the occupied city of Leuktra on Islay's western coast. The battalion of BattleMechs and attached armor and infantry left by Tabot to inhabit the major city fought a ferocious action, but with the heroism of the Warrior Monks and Proctor's personal advance on the field piloting her Crusader 'Mech, they fell in two days of fighting. Not only did the battle result in the liberation of Leuktra and the annihilation of Tabot's forces there, it first demonstrated to the people of Arcadia that the commander of the Liberation Army was a skilled MechWarrior in her own right.

This was the opening shot of the Liberation War, a two year struggle for control of the planet's vital points between Tabot's forces and Proctor's. Tabot rallied mercs to his side as well and won support from the Duke (or Amir) of Dar-es-Salaam, who assigned a battalion of his personal 'Mech regiment to Tabot's aid. Proctor, her war chest enlarged by the Greeks and by the admiring Duke of Gienah, Mordecai Shaltiel, maintained her own mercenary forces while purchasing weapons and equipment off the Inner Sphere markets for Arcadian volunteers.

The conflict raged on every continent as Proctor's fleet of ships allowed her to deploy rapidly against Tabot's key assets, while Tabot used lightning raids and retaliatory massacres to cow the populace from openly supporting her. The first great blow for Tabot came in October 2926 with the loss of the McCreary Germanium Mines in Munster, giving the Liberation Army a new source of income and denying it to Tabot. At the start of 2927 Tabot attempted a hammer blow on Arcas itself, looking to crush the center of the Greek-Arcadian lands, but a stout defense by the Greek forces and the newly-arrived Douglas' Highlanders mercenaries not only saved Arcas, it tied down Tabot's forces long enough for Proctor's troops to launch a large-scale offensive on Mull, liberating thousands of suffering slaves from the mines and cutting off Tabot's main source of several valuable raw materials. With his resources cut and his troops in shambles, Tabot was compelled to withdraw past Mantinea on Islay and take all of his garrisons from Munster and Mull. In April he lost his positions in the Iaukeans, losing the city of Maui to a combined force of local guerrillas and the Warrior Monks.

Yet he wasn't beaten, as among other things, he still had the Rayhan Cavalry's battalion of heavy and medium BattleMechs as a reserve. With them he delivered a harsh blow to a feeler attack against his positions that May. When Jonesburgh, one of the cities in Southern Islay, rose up against him, he sent them to crush the city as punishment, while ordering other troops to move to Mantinea and executed the former slaves there. Proctor's main forces saved Jonesburgh and compelled the Dar-es-Salaam troops to withdraw, but that left them unable to aid the former slaves in Mantinea. They would have been slaughtered by the thousands if not for the Warrior Monks of St. Cameron. Two battalions of Monk MechWarriors met four times their number at Mantinea, backed by tanks, airbreathing jet craft, and mechanized infantry, and repelled them repeatedly until, after several hours of intense fighting, the last Monk fell to Tabot's troops. Regardless, their sacrifice saved Mantinea, as Proctor's forces arrived by DropShip to repel the battered Tabot troops before they could commence the slaughter. Their losses proved so significant that in an act of daring, Proctor bypassed their positions in the interior plains and landed a force at Roslyn, the former planetary capital. Her troops swiftly secured the city and surrounding area, giving them not only a foothold in Eastern Islay but forcing a complete withdrawal from Southern and Central Islay by Tabot's forces. He'd taken a potentially crippling foe.

The liberation of Roslyn also brought with it possession of the old Kong Interstellar Defense Works of Roslyn, a Star League-era factory complex contracted to build Black Knight BattleMechs and Zero light aerospace fighters for the SLDF. While the fighter construction machinery was damaged and couldn't be restored at the time, by the end of the year a volunteer engineer from Terra and other experts had the Defense Works producing the Black Knight for the Liberation Army. Proctor was given the first machine off the line, although she still piloted her Crusader.

With potential defeat staring him in the face, Tabot decided the quickest way to end the war was to kill his personal nemesis. After gathering his troops, he launched a massive assault on Plymouth Peninsula, declaring that unless Proctor surrendered he would kill every living being and burn down every town. His troops hit with enough force to brush aside Nathaniel Proctor's Light Horse of New Salem regiment, although the skirmishers did take the lives of several Tabot officers in the fighting, and readied to enact the decree.

Proctor took the field with the bulk of her army. In the Battle of Worcester, the Liberation forces and Prince Tabot's armies met in a savage brawl that left the city mostly destroyed and inflicted severe losses on both sides. While Tabot's troops were forced to retreat ultimately, Tabot nevertheless nearly managed his victory. During the battle, his command unit sent repeated attacks on Proctor's personal unit, weakening her command company, and allowing Tabot and his SLDF-era Zeus to ruin her weakened BattleMech. Only by the self-sacrifice of a companion and the efforts of the bodyguard company of the Baron of Kalios, Ioulianos (Julian) Kalides, saved her life after her Crusader was left utterly destroyed.

Yet she did survive her injuries, and the victory cut yet further into the lands held by the most powerful, and now last, of the "Slaver Lords". Tabot was reduced to Poussin and Sannazaro along the eastern coast. But these two metropoles still had significant industry, including a factory complex for building BattleMechs, and the Murray Mountain Range served to limit the points of advance. With a defense in depth and heavy employment of anti-air, Tabot could buy time, and indeed tried to, seeking more aid from the ruler of Dar-es-Salaam and the loyalty of pirates and mercenaries desperate for plunder. If given time, he could rebuild his forces and yet drive back Proctor's army.

As it was, it took Proctor two months to recover from her wounds at Worcester, but after she did, she took the field again and, with the Greek commanders, hatched an offensive plan. In March, her troops struck at and seized several locations within Tabot's defensive perimeter, laying siege to his lines from multiple directions with her superior DropShip assets.

Yet Tabot felt confident. Just as his resources were waning, the sheer number of troops necessary to garrison the planet were exhausting Proctor's. He saw the attack as a desperation bid to overwhelm him by forces too spread out to do so effectively, and upon hearing Proctor's unit was within his defensive perimeter, set out with his own personal unit to finish what he started at Worcester. He considered himself the superior MechWarrior and strategist: it was time to kill his would-be usurper and take back the world that was his by right of his martial power and skill.

Unfortunately for him, Proctor anticipated his reaction. As soon as he came down on her troops and the remaining Warrior Monks, they fell back on the defensive to draw him in. Tabot, determined to kill her - by then unhinged by the very mention of her, witnesses claimed - drove on… and right into her trap. Reserves hidden from his troops came in and trapped his unit, subjecting it to deadly fire from all sides. In the fighting Proctor challenged him again, this time in her new Black Knight. Though her machine gave up five tons on his, it was still another SLDF machine, and the two were close enough that talent told. And hers, in the end, proved the superior talent. At the town of Parnon west-southwest of Sannazaro the self-proclaimed "High Lord of Arcadia" was slain by his own former slave. The Age of Chains was over.

The death of Tabot was the effective end of the war. While his son Matthew and his most loyal officers fled the planet with the aid of the Dar-es-Salaam troops rather than surrender, many of his troops preferred a hope of amnesty instead of guaranteed death with further resistance. Across the planet celebrations broke out at the success and the end of the Age of Chains. Sara Proctor, now widely known as "The Liberator", was the most beloved woman on the planet.

With the full support of her allied nobility, as well as the leaders of Jonesburgh and other cities and towns saved by Proctor, Sara was declared the Duchess of Arcadia by acclamation in the first Arcadian Council of Nobles meeting in decades, overcoming resistance from traditionalists in the Islay and Munster nobility. To assuage the protocol officers and the sentiments of those traditionalists, the rightful Count of Plymouth, a returned exile named Randolph Carter, named her the Baroness of New Salem first. In a political move to consolidate support among the nobility, she accepted the Baron of Kalios as her husband. Their first son, named for her slain companion William who died at Worcester, was born in 2931, and they would have two more children - Jacob and Zoe - to round out the ruling family.

Duchess Sara looked to the rebuilding of Arcadia, cutting military spending as far as she could while still retaining two veteran regiments, the Arcadian Guards and Arcadian Rangers, to see to pirate attacks and planetary defense. Her first decade was a time of recovery and rebuilding the destroyed cities, finding homes for war refugees, and other necessary works to revitalize the planet, and while it led to the exhaustion of the planet's wealth, the Arcadian economy was on the rebound by the late 2930s. An indebted world, Arcadia's nascent industrial sector soon exported to less industrialized worlds while her plentiful agricultural bounty fed worlds as far as Bolan, providing C-bills for her treasury to repay reconstruction loans before they broke the planet's credit. Investment ensured the shipyards at Artemis were brought back online enough to resume civilian DropShip and JumpShip production, funneling more C-Bills into Arcadia's recovery coffers. By 2956, Arcadia was the greatest economic power among the independent worlds between Bolan and Hesperus, and her cities grew with immigrants fleeing the chaos and strife of the rest of the Inner Sphere.

This economic and growing military power attracted attention, and interest. Diplomatic talks began and in that same year, soon after her 66th birthday, Duchess Sara was named ruler of the newly formed Arcadian Free March, taking the title of March-Princess.

Much of the history of the following decades is the history of the Free March, not simply Arcadia itself. Nevertheless Arcadia has flourished as the capital of the Free March. It barely had a population of one and a quarter billion by the end of the Age of Chains, but a post-war baby boom and immigration brought it past three billion by the end of the Liberator's life in 2986. The population boom has waned since, but it still grows, with the Arcadian population ticking in at just over four billion at the 3030 census. To the rest of the Inner Sphere, Arcadia is a vibrant planet with a prominent and advancing industrial sector, and an agricultural bounty that has not failed.

There is hope that advancing technology will yet see a reactivation to the Star League-era automated mines in Mull, providing rich resources to reduce reliance on imports from the rest of the Free March.

A sense of destiny pervades the myriad peoples of Arcadia, be they ranchers in the semi-arid steppe of Mull or the humble townships and farmers of Plymouth. The Age of Chains and the Liberation have shaped Arcadian society, giving them a firm commitment to the principles of liberty they consider a God-given right and a refusal to bow to the whims of tyrants ever again. The motto of their rulers is the motto etched in the hearts of every Arcadian: Audemus Jura Nostra Defendere. "We Dare Defend Our Rights". The planetary flag's re-design best reflects their view of their experiences of the 29th and early 30th Centuries: a fiery phoenix with wings spread set against a forested, snow-capped mountain.

 

[Big Steve]

Ducal Palace
Roslyn, Arcadia
Arcadian Free March
8 October 3033


Sara-Marie looked over from her latest report from Sir Ian, the ambassador on Bolan. The Marians were strengthening their grip on the planet, but had yet to finish off the defenders. The government there was pleading for Arcadian military intervention and offering a lot for it.

She wanted to. Greatly. This seemed the kind of thing the AFFM was meant for, not scooping up independent planets. But there was just no changing the facts: the line forces of the March weren't in a position to intervene decisively unless the Marians halted their campaign on Bolan. Too many regiments were rushed to the Rimward frontier in April to secure the border with the Marik Commonwealth, and the complicated jump route meant it took four jumps from Kitzingen alone. The people of Bolan will pay the price for that decision.

Her secretary indicated an awaited arrival. The door opened and admitted Duke Simon Allen, the ruler of Togwotee and Lord of the Privy Council, effectively her co-head of government in many ways as he managed the day-to-day matters for the Officers of State. He was a man of handsome, bronze features, his face weathered from age. He kept his graying dark hair in a long ponytail.

The Allens, originally from the Nimiipuu tribe of the Pacific Northwest on Terra, had over the years wed into the other Native American tribes that provided the first settlers to Togwotee, a planet they shared with Australian aboriginals, Ainu from Hokkaido, and various Siberian peoples. They'd ruled the planet since the 26th Century as subordinates to the Mariks before their time as an independent world beset, like so many, by pirates and rogue mercenaries that were little better than pirates. It was these groups that compelled her father to secure the planet and win House Allen's world for the Free March.

His brown eyes focused on her as he approached. "Serene Highness," he said politely. "I'm due to return to the Capital District soon for a meeting with the Cabinet, but I thought you might like to know that the arrangements have been completed for the expansion of the Assembly and Ducal Council. The funds for the new Legislative Hall are granted and the contracts being prepared."

"That is good news. I was worried at hearing that use of the current chambers could not be permanent."

"We have alternative arrangements in hand until construction is advanced enough to allow the use of the new Hall. It should reassure the populace that the Free March's constitutional government will continue to function."

She nodded. "Do you think I was wrong to let the military seize so many worlds, Your Grace?"

He inclined his head. "I believe you allowed them to place you in a position of fear. But I cannot dispute the wisdom. Were it just your cousin, Lord Alexander, I would have been less supportive. But General Harding has better judgement, and even he supported it. Her Grace the Duchess of Hyde argued quite persuasively with some very convincing evidence when Duke Abdulla raised the matter in the Ducal Council, or so my daughter Tsianina told me."

"How is Her Ladyship?"

"Pregnant with her second child," said Simon, gladly. "Her mother is quite proud to be a grandmother again."

I wonder if I will live long enough for my children to give me the same, wondered Sara-Marie, but she showed no sign of that thought while giving her reply. "Please, when the time comes, let me know, I would like to give her a gift."

"I will. To return to business, Serene Highness, I am pleased to report we are seeing greater support in the Assembly for your operations. While there are those who believe it wrong that we have expanded so swiftly and so violently, many are coming around to the economic benefits of securing our frontiers with other organized states and eliminating potential gathering points for pirates. The insurance companies are lowering their rates again for interstellar shipping and the economy is improving."

"That does always tend to get approval," Sara-Marie noted. She returned to her chair. "I'm pleased if we can keep our people happy. And… I would rather our troops be home, you know. That my sons and daughter were not be going into danger. But our neighbors will not allow that. We were facing inevitable conquest if we did nothing."

"Conquer or be conquered. It is the way of the Inner Sphere, and has been for centuries," Allen noted stoically. "My people are aware of the harsh compromises that must sometimes be made for survival. I do not envy your choice, and I am pleased to see you share my misgivings. I worry that Lord Alexander and the other expansionists will yet push us into further conflict."

"As in, you worry they will strike at the Marians?"

"Oh, the Marians would have it coming, if we have the strength," Allen said angrily. "They are a cruel people. No, my worry is that if the Skye War resumes, the military will push you to intervene in order to gain favor with the victor, or to snatch worlds."

"Even my cousin is leery about such action." Sara-Marie thought about his report from the other day. "We are not ready for any kind of major interstellar conflict, and he knows it."

"But if an opportunity arose, a chance to seize worlds cheaply against a faltering foe, he would push for it."

"Perhaps. And I… I may even agree, God help me." Sara-Marie lowered her head. "I don't like wars, you know. I was so afraid for my father and cousins when I was growing up and they were off fighting Dar-es-Salaam. Now it would be my children in the combat zone, and the children of so many of our people. But I can't let our people be conquered either, Your Grace, so if I must…"

"Again, my people are aware of these kinds of moral compromise. I would want you to have us survive too, Serene Highness." Allen nodded. "And I would pray that our souls could carry the guilt of what we must do in the meantime."

 

[Big Steve]

Ida Ayu Ngurah College of Chemistry
University of Sannazaro
Sannazaro, Arcadia
Arcadian Free March
28 October 3033


Dr. Charles Evans Garimara was a patient man. The Togwotee-born scientist, of Koryak and Australaboriginal descent, served as the Dr. Lawrence Hoffman Chair of Chemical Studies for the Ngurah College, a prestigious position in the Free March's university system.

And yet, one did not get to that kind of position by being a font of patience. It came, often enough, by applying one's patience as an edge.

Susan Campbell was the graduate student currently in his sights. She was an Anglo-Scot of Islay, a very local girl all things being told, that showed promise in both inorganic and organic chemistry. Right now she was scribbling notes slowly on a pad of paper while observing the readings from the thermometers and other sensors attached to a closed system circulating a chemical compound through a heat source. "Anything, Campbell?" he asked.

"Not yet, sir," she said, somewhat sheepish. At the age of twenty-five, she was currently enrolled in a pre-doctorate program. "I'm not sure this is the mixture we're looking for."

"It performed well in the toxicity tests. I take it we're not showing sufficient convective properties?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. While it would function as internal coolant, it simply doesn't absorb ambient heat in the way necessary for 'Mech operations." Campbell set her pencil down. "I think we've strayed too far from the base compound. We may have used the wrong reagents."

"There aren't many that will reduce the toxicity of those chemicals when exposed to tissues." Garimara drew in a sigh and rubbed at his gray eyes. As much as I want to get our AFFM liaison off my back, I have to remember this is about saving lives too. Too many 'Mech and fighter pilots die from coolant poisoning through wounds. "Alright, get the others. We'll go back to the drawing board."

"Of course, sir." Campbell shut down the system and slid out of her chair. After taking several steps the blonde turned back to face him. "Sir, given everything happening… are you okay with working with the AFFM? I mean, as a member of the Sannazaro Pacifist League?"

Garimara nodded. "Normally, I wouldn't be. Especially not with the AFFM's campaign this past year. But this project will save lives, not take them. My conscience is clear."

Campbell nodded and left the lab. Garimara turned his attention to the teal-toned liquid no longer circulating through the clear tubes. We'll figure this out, in time. And I'll save lives. That's the important part. I'm saving lives.

A small voice inside of him rejected that argument. You mean you're saving the lives of soldiers who take the independence and lives of others, a part of him replied. You're compromising too much, Charles. You're enabling the military's campaign of aggression with this.

"I'm saving lives," he insisted verbally. "That is the purpose of science. I can't help the rest. I can't be responsible for what they do with their lives. That is on their souls."



Testing Lab, Raytheon Directed Energy Labs
Patuxent, Concord
Arcadian Free March
2 November 3033


The testing lab was lined with ablative materials in the event of an accident, allowing for the scientists and engineers within to test their models without the worry of harming something outside. Right now a group of jumpsuit-clad technicians, some in AFFM BDUs, were joined with white-coated engineers and scientists and a red-uniformed Colonel from AFFM Supply and Procurement, Layla MacCann. A brunette of forty-one and native of Concord, she was seconded from the Engineering Corps to see to the projects Raytheon was pursuing with AFFM funding.

She watched quietly as the the technicians and engineers finished their work on the large pulse laser assembled on their side of the lab. Distant slabs of military-grade armor and structural alloy were marked with a crosshair. Dr. Manfred Bauer of Zwenkau stepped up beside her. "We believe we are making great progress on enhancing the coherency of the stream," he explained. "Targeting improvement will increase the effectiveness of the weapons' combat range over the old Star League pulse lasers."

"Old" Star League pulse lasers, of course, were still a damn useful weapon, one that only recently became readily available (if still pricey) thanks to increased Terran exports and the re-establishment of technology levels through the early decades of the 31st Century. While a regular laser was one concentrated beam, pulse lasers dispersed their energy over time in a series of pulses that "bit" into armor, allowing vaporized armor to disperse in the milliseconds between pulses and thus improving their penetration characteristics over regular lasers. They generated greater heat due to the lengthened firing time as a trade-off, and the need to keep the laser on target for a longer period of time reduced their effective accuracy (even if lasers, as light-speed weapons, moved so swiftly they couldn't be dodged as if they were missiles). Part of the project was to see about keeping the same penetrative capacity, if not improving it, while increasing accuracy through a variety of methods.

"Given the resources we've invested in your project, Dr. Bauer, I'd like to report to my superiors that progress has been made," said Colonel MacCann.

"Of course. Please, this way…"

She joined him and the others behind the protective screen. It would stop them from being blinded by the shot. Once the lab was secure and ready, one of Bauer's subordinates gave the order. "Commence test firing."

"Commencing test firing… now."

At the stroke of a key, an emerald beam formed. Within it the light waxed and waned repeatedly, in spaces of less than a second, creating the illusion of a series of "darts" within the beam as it struck the armor and structural plate at the opposite side of the lab. A white-hot glow lit up the lab briefly before the laser's discharge stopped, leaving the metal to cool back down to red, orange, and finally, the same dark gray it was before, if slightly off-shade.

"Looks like we've gotten about five percent higher penetration," a technician said. "Power input is normal, heat output as expected."

"Congratulations, Doctor," MacCann said. "It looks like you're on the right track."

"We still have much to do before we can confirm these weapons are ready for combat," Bauer noted. "But I am happy to hear you approve of our progress."

"Keep at it." MacCann was already mentally composing her report to her superiors on the progress of the extended range pulse laser project. "The Free March owes a lot to scientists like you, Doctor."

"Protecting others is a proper purpose of science, Colonel," Bauer replied. "And in the end, we just help you do the job.

 

[Big Steve]

Ducal Palace
Roslyn, Arcadia
Arcadian Free March
6 November 3033


The young couple that Lord Prestwick guided into Sara-Marie's office were nervous, that much was plain. Lord Nicolae Marghiloman was a man of bronze complexion, with dark hair and light brown eyes, about Thomas' age. The son and heir of Duke Constantin of Gypsum, he was meeting her with his wife, Lady Lalitha Vemulakonda-Umayr, a younger daughter of the Princess of Bolan. "Your Serene Highness." Lord Nicolae spoke English with a Terran accent, but not without a thickness from his world's majority language of Romanian. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with us."

She nodded. On the nearby couch, Lord Alexander and General Harding were seated, just ending their briefing on the recent surrender of Radostov following a short but fierce firefight outside of the capital city of Radíkovice. They watched intently while Lord Prestwick remained silent beside the couple. "Your Lordship, Your Ladyship, I understand you departed Gypsum swiftly and on short notice?"

"We have, Your Serene Highness," Lalitha answered. She wore a crucifix necklace, an Orthodox-style one, around her neck. Whatever her religion on Bolan, she'd converted to her husband's, the Romanian Orthodox Church of Gypsum. "Aboard a private vessel to avoid Marian interception. I, we, have come to plead with you to intervene against the Hegemony. Even now they embark on the enslavement of our people. Bolan has all but fallen to them, and my mother will be one of those they ship to Alphard, that I am assured of." The two went to a knee. "We beg Arcadia's aid, in the name of your saintly grandmother, to help us save our people. Send your regiments to Bolan's aid!"

Sara-Marie pursed her lips. She breathed out a sigh. "I cannot. The Free March's forces are exhausted from the year's campaign. Our supplies are low, our units still awaiting replacements for losses. I cannot commit enough troops to save Bolan."

In those pale green eyes of the Lady Lalitha, Sara-Marie saw the panicked terror of a daughter fearful for her mother and the rest of her family. "They will disappear into Marian slavery, Your Serene Highness. Please, there must be something you can do! Appeal to your neighbors! Surely the Mariks or Steiners—"

"They will not. I already asked." Sara-Marie reached down and lifted the young woman up even as she began weeping. "There is nothing more we can do for the time being. It will take us time to rebuild our supply stockpiles and expand our army."

"And in the meantime, my family, my people, will suffer." Lalitha set a hand on her belly. "My child will never meet her grandparents, aunts and uncles."

A sharp pang filled Sara-Marie's heart at that. Her own father only ever knew his grandson as a small child, and never met the four other grandchildren she gave him. And she had oh so few memories of her own grandmother Sara, the Liberator.

She traveled while pregnant?! was the other thought. It wasn't impossible, but there were longstanding taboos about embarking on interstellar journeys while carrying a baby. She is likely only a few months along, but that they would endanger the future ruler of Gypsum like this… It spoke to the desperation of husband and wife both, and their terror for the future of their families and their worlds.

She glanced toward Lord Prestwick, who shook his head, and toward the generals. There was a glint in Lord Alexander's eye, but Harding said nothing.

"Serene Highness, my father swears fealty to you."

Lord Nicolae's words drew Sara-Marie's attention back to her visitors. "Pardon?"

He was already on a knee beside his weeping wife. "My father, Duke Constantin, swears House Marghiloman's loyalty to House Proctor. We have already brought over the troops the Principality assigned to our world as a defensive garrison. We pledge them to the Free March, as we do our world. Please, it is the only way to save us from the Marians."

Sara-Marie glanced at Prestwick, who nodded. "We received the missive from ComStar after their arrival. Duke Constantin has pledged Gypsum to the Free March legally. Bolan has registered no objection, although Princess Amita is undoubtedly not in a position to do so."

"Then we should reinforce them," said Lord Alexander. "Radostov is already ours. Duke Benes signed the instrument days ago. We can transfer the Arcadian Guards to Gypsum immediately, or at the very least dispatch the Navy's combat ships. One unit at each jump point, and troops to follow toward and after the end of the year."

"We should be careful, Imperator O'Reilly may take it as an act of war," Lord Prestwick warned.

"Then he makes a further mockery of his own claimed casus belli," Lord Alexander retorted. "Bolan has all but fallen. The attack on Promised Land is more than avenged. If Gypsum's rulers and people wish to transfer their allegiance to the Free March, it is a rejection of the Principality. And we are well within our rights to do so."

"I doubt he will see it that way."

"So I should refuse them? Is that what you are saying, my Lord?" Sara-Marie asked, her eyes still on the pleading couple.

Prestwick swallowed and shook his head. "I believe we should consult the Privy Council and the Assembly before risking war with the Marian Hegemony."

"The Assembly is out of session for the year," retorted Alexander. "If we are to secure Gypsum, it must be now."

"And it will be," Sara-Marie said. She took Nicolae's hand. "I accept your family's vow, Lord Nicolae. Rise as my vassal and a citizen of the Free March."

Prestwick sighed. Satisfaction glowed in Alexander's sapphire eyes.

Noting her Foreign Secretary's reaction, Sara-Marie directed a look at him. "'Audemus jura nostra defendere', my Lord."

"'We dare defend our rights'," he replied automatically, having learned Latin at Harrow in New Cambridge while a young man. "You may have just committed the Free March to war, Serene HIghness."

"If the Imperator would declare war over this, my Lord, he would eventually have done so anyway." Sara-Marie turned her attention to Lalitha, who was still trying to restrain her sobbing. She suspected at least some of it was an… exaggeration, perhaps. An attempt to persuade through pity. But the sentiment was clearly real regardless of that. "As for your family, Lady Lalitha, I will pledge this. The Free March cannot save Bolan right now." Her eyes focused on the younger woman. "But we may be able to save some of her people. This I promise, with God as my witness."

"Thank you, Serene Highness," Lady Lalitha answered.

"Lord Prestwick, have my chamberlain attend to them. They are to be given a suite in the Guest Wing of my palace, and arrange for Lady Lalitha to receive medical attention."

"I will inform Lord Maile at once. Your Lordship, Your Ladyship, please follow me." With that he led the visitors out.

"What are you planning, Serene Highness?" Harding asked. "We'll never preserve Bolan from conquest, and retaking it would precipitate a full-scale war."

"I agree. We are not going to retake Bolan after it falls." She gave him and ALexander an intent look. "But we're not going to abandon them to Marian cruelty either. Attend me, gentlemen. We have an operation to plan."

 

[Big Steve]

Legislative Hall
Radíkovice, Radostov
Arcadian Free March
6 November 3033


The fight into the heart of Radíkovice took only a few days in the end. The Planetary Council stood down its forces after the Arcadian Rangers dropped a company of medium 'Mechs into the city.

Another world taken. Dani drew in a breath while keeping her spine straight and at attention. Her dress uniform was like the normal Free March red, but with golden epaulettes and other finery. The Bronze Wing and Good Conduct Medal over her left breast glinted in the light of the ceremonial Hall. She watched Prince Thomas, Brigadier van Reiterr, and Colonel Kelly at the central table along with Admiral Andros and the command officers of tthe Rangers.

Radostov didn't have nobles, as it turned out. The planet barely had unified government. The Czechs were a plurality of the population at about one third, but there were also Poles, Lithuanians, Slovaks, and Ukrainians in roughly equal measure. Their noble class was broken by the 2nd Succession War and by all accounts their entire government was entirely commoner, with democratic election by ballot for all posts. I wonder how much that will change? Will they be given a Duke to represent them? Or some other arrangement?

With a signature, the people of Radostov signed away their independence, becoming part of the Free March.

Even with the Rangers' maneuver, it feels like they folded a little too quickly. But I suppose they don't want us too weakened to fight the Marians.

The Marians. The name was on more lips lately. The Periphery Bandit Kingdom becoming, well, an empire, fitting given their dedication to organizing every facet of their society to resemble Ancient Rome. Including, as it were, the existence of chattel slavery.

The very thought made Dani shudder. It sounded like a living death. Your very name taken from you and being made into nothing but a living machine performing labor until you wore out and died. Assuming you weren't killed in some other grisly manner.

A chill filled her. Imagine if we fell to them. They enslave POWs. What if they took Becca?... no. No. I will not let that happen!

The signing completed. There was polite applause while, outside, the Free March flag was brought proudly to a new, higher position over the horizontal tricolor of Radostov.

Another world for the Free March. With what they're saying about Gypsum… that's twenty. We've doubled in size since the beginning of the year. How many more worlds will we take? Or will we be too busy fighting the Marians?

She couldn't be sure of the answer, but she knew one thing. While she never wanted to be a soldier… against the Marians, she'd be damned proud to say she fought to stop them from enslaving another human being.


Outside of Bukovic, Medzev
Independent World
16 December 3033


Prince Mark kept his Fusilier upright and moving, barely evading the salvo from the Hunchback slipping through the gray trees along the road. He tried to get his own auto-cannon to bear, but the other 'Mech's position and the trees spoiled his shot. He held back on applying the trigger and examined his flat display. The icon for the enemy machine was near the upper left quadrant. At various points elsewhere were the three icons for his lancemates. Lieutenant Vickers was in a Centurion, Lieutenant Selassie piloted a refitted Crab, and Lieutenant Neumeyer had a Shadow Hawk. None of us have a heavy gun like that auto-cannon… but if I can get him… "Bravo Lance, I'm assigning you positions, hold to them and be ready for an opening!"

"Roger!"

Alright, you bugger. Just keep coming forward…

Generally, someone in a 'Mech below assault tonnage was not supposed to expose themselves to a Hunchback, or any AC/20-mounting war machine. Nevertheless Mark did just that, moving his Fusilier into a vulnerable position. He could imagine his lancemates' worry, but they were a good lot. They'd be in position.

C'mon… there!

He turned in time to get off his short-range weapons just as the Hunchback pilot fired theirs. Their exchange of laser fire resulted only in ruby beams slicing off bits of armor. His autocannon, set up for a double shot, delivered a hammering to the Hunchback, blasting up its left elbow joint.

The AC/20 mounted on the machine's right shoulder fired, spitting a gout of golden flame behind the shells meant to wreck his 'Mech. The world shook vigorously and an indicator went red. The autocannon shot tore through his machine's left hip and up the side, locking the actuators up and stripping myomer necessary to keep the mechanical limb going. The impact was such that it took all of Mark's concentration to keep his 'Mech standing.

A moment later the fury of Bravo Lance descended upon their target. Autocannon shells, missiles, and laser fire struck the machine from multiple directions. The enemy pilot took so much damage and such a kinetic impact that his wounded 'Mech toppled over, and just as Mark recovered his balance. He swung the Fusilier over again and moved his crosshairs to focus on the opened up right side of the machine. "Surrender, we've got you dead to rights!" he called out on an open broadcast.

The Hunchback started to rise.

Mark wouldn't take any chances with his subordinates. He fired his medium lasers once more. Twin ruby scalpels cut into the Hunchback's open wound, finding her fusion engine… and her ammo bin.

The explosion nearly blew Mark's 'Mech over. He barely held it steady while shrapnel and debris pelted him. The flame and hot metal ignited a number of trees and some of the undergrowth.

When the dust cleared, the broken fragments of the Medzev Defense Brigade BattleMech were all that was left. There's no way the pilot could have survived.

"Well done, sir," Lieutenant Vickers said. Paul Vickers had an accent like Mark's father, being a son of the Baron of Sheffield. "We got him. I'll report to Captain Harrow now."

"Alright everyone, fall in," he said. "We've still got some work to do." I'll make you proud of me, Mom, Dad. I'll get that promotion...


National Palace
Brno, Rosice
Independent World
29 November 3033


The roar of DropShips split the air over Brno. From a balcony the old ruler of the planet, Duke Haclev, could see the distant bursts of explosions. Half of his defenders were already captured or slain, and keeping the enemy out of his capital was not going to be possible for much longer. "We have fought for the honor and pride of Rosice," he said aloud. "It is time to lay down our arms and accept the inevitable."

"They only have one regiment, Your Grace," insisted General Zeman. "If we hold out, we may inflict enough damage to compel our foes to withdraw."

"Then they will come back with more troops. Or they will not come back at all and the Marians will come. Are you telling me you would rather trust them?"

There was silence at first. "Your Grace's family has ruled our world for five hundred years, it pains me to see us brought low by these upstart Proctors."

"All nobility begins as the Proctors did, General. All of us," the old Duke pointed out. "Perhaps they will take us far, or perhaps they will not. For now, though, the killing must stop, and I will do as I must for our world in their counsels. Give the order. Our pride has killed enough today."

Nothing more was said. The order was, reluctantly, given.


AFMS Ranger, Burning To Zenith Jump Point
Sierpc System
Arcadian Free March
3 December 3033


The brief fight for Sierpc ended with the surrender of the Duke, Constantin Zuk, and Princess Melissa contributed nothing to the outcome. The aerospace contingents that defender Sierpc were swept aside easily by the Proctor Light Horse and 3rd Regiment's attached aero-wings, leaving the Ranger's craft to perform CAP duties and launch the occasional strike mission, mostly by the light and heavy fighters.

While she had no opportunities to add to the marks on her fuselage, Melissa appreciated not having to fight this time. A part of her still wondered about the rightness of it all. Taking the independence of other worlds, even if it was to protect them from the Marians ultimately.

She walked along the ship's drive-ward hull and found the corridor to the office area. At the appointed time and not a second after, she was in Commander Karl Reiher's office. Her hand came up in as perfect a salute as she might ever manage. The wiry man from Hyde spoke English with his usual German accent. "Ah, Lieutenant," he said, saluting back and signaling for her to release her salute. "I wanted to speak with you now that the operation is over."

"Was there an issue, sir?" Melissa kept her face neutral, wondering why he'd want to talk to her now. Flying CAP was the only thing she'd done during the brief campaign for Sierpc.

"None. You handled your duties as well as ever," he said. "No, I wanted to speak to you of your yearly performance evaluation. This has been a hectic year. Our tempo of operations was the highest we've ever seen as a crew, and I know a number of our pilots were burnt out by the experience. How do you feel?"

"Honestly, sir? A combination of thrilled and utterly exhausted," she admitted. "The fight at Arganda was particularly involved, but flying all of those air support missions for the dirt pounders and working in atmosphere has definitely been taxing at times."

"Honest and to the point. I like that." Reiher folded his hands on the table. "I'll tell you now, Lieutenant. Squadron Captain Harrison and I have discussed the matter, and we've come to a decision. Your conduct has impressed us, and at my recommendation, Captain Harrison is submitting your name to the Promotion Board."

Melissa swallowed. I'd be made a Squadron Captain. I'd be responsible for the lives of four more pilots, not just myself and Fariq. Can I do that?

A part of her wanted to politely reject the idea. She didn't want to command a Squadron. She wanted to fly, and that was it. But rejecting the responsibility would inevitably end the flying. "Up or out" was what it was called, and rejecting promotion when offered was a sure way to get filed in the "out" column. And then where would she be? I can't exactly go mercenary, being the March-Princess' daughter, and becoming a test pilot… that just wouldn't be enough.

"I'm honored, sir," she answered after a short silence. "I won't let you down."

"See that you don't, Lieutenant. We both know there will be those who denounce your promotion as brought by social rank, not merit. Prove them wrong, for all our sakes."

"I will sir," she assured him. "I will. I'll make you and Captain Harrison proud."



Ducal Palace
Roslyn, Arcadia
Arcadian Free March
6 November 3033


The guest suite assigned to Lord Nicolae and Lady Lalitha was a spacious, luxurious space, made for visiting dukes and duchesses from within and without the Free March. The two spent a short time examining their surroundings before Lalitha let out an exasperated cry and sat down. "I've never humiliated myself so greatly in my life!" she insisted. "My mother would have wept in shame at it!"

"It is fine, my Lady," Nicolae said, sighing. His father's ambition to grow closer with the Umayrs had blown up in their face, certainly. Especially his. The Marians would never let him live, even if Gypsum voluntarily went over. "It is what we knew was necessary." He walked over to sit beside her and took a hand. "For our families, and for Bolan. This may be what brings them into the war whether they like it or not."

"Still…" She blushed. "Acting like some Bollywood drama princess, it was disgusting, my Lord. We are the Umayrs of Bolan, we aren't supposed to behave so...basely."

"True. And the Marghiloman family feels much the same. But our situation requires is to appeal to the March-Princess, and for all her high rank and the ceremony of her station… these Proctors are not us." Nicolas smiled with self-assurance. "My father was right about them. He told me the only Proctors he knew with the comportment of an actual nobleman was March-Prince William and his brother. The rest are sentimentalist commoners risen to the higher rank of society. And commoners are so easily led by their emotions. The right tears, the right words, and you have the March-Princess' heart in your hand."

"Can these soft-hearted people save us?" Lalitha asked. "Or will the Marians crush them too?"

"Maybe, maybe not. But they are our best, really our only, chance." Nicolae grinned. "And I saw the eyes of those generals. The man, Lord Alexander Proctor, he is someone we can work with. Single-minded, devoted, he has the steel to see to the war when it comes for them."

"I hope you are right, my Lord." She sighed. "In the meantime, I must find one of the servant girls. I need a bath, and I have a craving for that disgusting ice cream again…"

 

[Big Steve]

I added a link to the map of the alt-Inner Sphere to the OP. And here, too, just 'cuz.

Clan Invasion Jump Calculator

explorercorps.github.io

 

[Big Steve]

(Written with the input of Fulton)

Bolan City, Bolan
Marian Occupation Zone
14 December 3033


Built to replace the nuclear-ravaged former capital of Kolkata (or Calcutta for English-speakers), Bolan City was meant to be free of the inter-city strife that characterized the Indian and Pakistani-descended settlers of Bolan for so many centuries. But even before the coming of the Marians, the city was marred by casual violence as new residents brought their prejudices and feuds with them. The Umayrs cracked down as best as they could, since division on Bolan could undermine their Principality, but there was no subduing such old fury.

The Marian invasion helped to prove this. Families and cities that felt the Umayr slighted them put up only token resistance before offering their submission to the Imperator Sean, who rewarded them with promises of elevation in importance, access to resources, and the enslavement of their enemies.

That last directive was being carried out even now. The Marian forces were on the lookout for any former Principality soldiers trying to hide in the populace, as by law their resistance permitted their enslavement, and given how their resistance had upset Sean O'Reilly's timetable for conquest and enabled a world to slip from his grasp he was in no mood for leniency. Everyone knew that the Princess of Bolan, Gita Umayr, was among those held in the camps outside of the city. In time, once the routes were secure, she and many others would be shipped back to Alphard to be distributed to the Imperator's followers and allies as trophy slaves. Many thousands more - prisoners-of-war, citizens who offended the Marian occupiers, enemies of their collaborators - would be sent to the mines fueling the Hegemony's rise.

Since one of the things that might get the attention of the slave-catchers was prowling about the city at night, the dark-clad figure moving from rooftop to rooftop had special reason to be concerned when challenged by a patrol of infantry from the Limitanei. They chased along the street, blowing a whistle and brandishing rifles. The night air split occasionally with a crack from a chemical-propellant rifle.

So much for a nightly stroll… the figure thought before leaping for another roof. A hand scrambled for purchase as the soldiers appeared below. Just as they fired the figure was up and over the rail, the brick of the building deflecting the bullet. Almost there…



Legionnaire Rufus Lear was not a happy man. A plebe made into an officer rarely had chance to be happy, as their lot was typically units such as this; the worst men the conscript enforcers could find, rarely better than slaves and twice as sullen, and as plebes particularly jealous of those of their class who rose above the dross of the Marian Legions.

Bolan City increased his unhappiness. The fighting was over but yet had scarcely begun. He and the others kept order, but they couldn';t be everywhere at once, and violence and street killings were claiming the lives of Caeser's new subjects every day from the locals' detestation of one another. It seemed to bring a lie to the Spheroids' claims of being morally and culturally superior to the Hegemony and other Periphery dwellers, and that, at least, was something Lear could get behind.

But right now he had other matters. The prowler on the rooftops was in violation of curfew. And if they were a spy of some sort, or an escaped slave or soldier, well, that would at least look good in a report for Lear. Enough of those might get him a new assignment, perhaps to a line unit, and not these damned fools.

He watched the attempt to shoot their quarry fail. "You slugs!" he bellowed. "Most slaves could make that shot!" And could they…! "Go! Go go go!" He motioned down the alley, noticing the shadow on the roof moving.

His Contubernium followed with all the urgency he expected: very little. The dross of the Legions indeed… Gods grant me patience.

Despite the laggardness of his men, they were catching up to the figure, who turned a corner and jumped to another structure. Lear frowned. They were entering the Foreign Quarter, the part of the city where those from outside the Principality stayed. If they went too deeply in they would likely run into a force from the Auxilla Peculiari, and then his troops would reflect poorly on him and undoubtedly lead to a bad report. They had to find the prowler now.

"Legionnaire!" A tan-skinned woman with a scar on her face indicated a rooftop. "There! I saw it slip into that house!"

"To me!" Eager to investigate, Lear stormed up to the front door of the house and slammed on the knocker. He heard movement from within and braced himself should this prove a safehouse for rebels or runaway Bolanese soldiers or the like. "Be ready!" he warned his men.

The door opened and a black-suited man appeared, on the thin side with a balding head. "Pardon me?"

"We've come to search this premises for a suspected criminal," Lear declared. "I am Legionnaire Rufus Lear of the Limitanei Mobili LXI and have the authority under the Hegemony's martial law decree."

"Ah. Allow me to get the lady of the house then." He turned his head to look inside. "Lady, we have more guests."

Lear nearly burst his way inside. "I will not accept detainment. Allow me…"

"Ah, what do we have here?" The woman who appeared from the stairway inside looked like a porcelain doll brought to life. Striking green eyes with dark hair cut short, and not just short but in a specific way that brought to mind a bowl cut for men. Her lips were ruby red, clearly cosmetically made up, and she had a lithe body that her silken dress flattered with its glittering teal color. "Legionnaire, isn't it?"

"Legionnaire Lear, of the Limitanei Mobili LXI," he repeated. "We were in pursuit of a criminal that has likely ended this house." Assuming they haven't fled yet… but I can't back down now. "You will cooperate with our search, citizen."

Ice glittered in those eyes. "Nobody is in this house but my servants and myself, and if you know what's best for you, Legionnaire, you'll move on. I am a noble of the Free March, not a citizen of your Hegemony, and I know my rights."

Lear forced back the snarl he felt. As far as he was concerned, Inner Sphere nobility weren't even worth making into slaves. They were soft, weak, and better off dying. "The Hegemony does not recognize your 'rights', woman, and you will cooperate or I'll have you dragged off."

"Oh, you will, will you?"

He stepped to the threshold of the door. "I will. Your Free March has no soldiers here to protect you, woman."

She grinned, and that told Lear something was wrong. "Ah, but I don't need them to, the Hegemony's soldiers are so much more effective at that right now. Oh, Legatus, a pleasure to see you've made it."

Lear was certain it was a trick. It had to be. But then, surely enough, it wasn't. "Lady Phryne." Behind him a voice with an Alphard Latin accent spoke clear English. He turned and faced a man in formal HAF uniform, a silver-and-black triangle with a star marking his rank as a Legatus, the leader of a Cohort. Lear saluted instinctively as the dark eyes of the man scanned him intently. "Legionnaire. This isn't your posting. What are you doing here?"

"Sorry, Legatus, we were pursuing a suspected criminal or escaped slave, one of my soldiers noticed them enter this property." Lear read the name plate on the uniform. Legatus Humphreys… oh no. The Humphreys, distant relations to the rulers of Andurien, were among the most powerful families in all the Hegemony, and the only one still on the planet was Horatio Humphreys, commander of a cohort of Legio V. "We came to search and…"

"...and to harass the Lady Phryne. She is an Arcadian Baroness here on business, you fool! She's not going to be sheltering escaped slaves or criminals! You're humiliating the Imperator with your conduct!" Humphreys glared at him. "Now leave. Undoubtedly whatever street rat you've wasted time chasing has doubled back to where they were going while you dawdled!"

There was no point arguing. Lear gave the proper Roman salute. "Yes, Legatus, we obey!" He turned to his troops and bellowed, "Back to our patrol, you miserable lot!" He led them away.




After an enjoyable dinner and a cultured discussion, the Legatus departed as well, and the Lady Phryne - Her Ladyship Phryne Fisher, Baroness of Greenwood from Ford, daughter of the Baron of Richmond - returned to her boudoir. "I'll see you in the morning, Mister Butler," she called out.

"Of course, Ladyship." The old AFFM veteran went back down the stairs, off to aid his wife in cleaning up the night's meal before retiring themselves.

Once in her private chambers in the house she'd rented over a year before, the Lady Phryne turned her attention to the dark suit she'd discarded before the Legatus' timely arrival. It would have indeed been a difficult matter had Legionnaire Lear forced himself into the house and searched her rooms. Being a foreign noble was not an ironclad protection from arrest… or remission to the slave-gathering camps.

Brutes. Of all the world's great cultures the O"Reillys might have emulated, why did they have to pick Rome? The Romans had their good side, of course, but they were not a pleasant people! Which, I suppose, is the point of it all when you're a Periphery warlord with delusions of grandeur.

She took a moment to find the data disc she'd been provided by her contact. By the time she found it the door was opening. It wasn't Mr. Butler or even his wife, but another occasional member of the household. Their eyes met. "Dot."

Dorothy "Dot" Williams nodded. She was in the kind of clothes a proper young Arcadian woman - or rather young woman from Ford - would be found in even on Bolan, modest and comfortable. It gave her a way of avoiding attention, which was important given their work. And it could be quite… fatal.

Phryne prided herself with a certain streak of cool nerve when it came to the need to deliver a bullet into someone, but her contact with SIS could shoot a man dead and not twitch a muscle. She'd just go on her way until she found a Catholic priest to confess to, deflecting the moral injury of manslaughter by her certain knowledge that she was doing God's work in fighting the scum of the Inner Sphere (and now Periphery). It's times like this I wish Claire Westin was available. Although her infatuation with explosives can be just as disturbing and far more dangerous.

Phryne handed her the disc. "Everything the Director will want. The camp location, and confirmation that the Umayrs are still held there."

"Thank you." She slid the disc into a compartment hidden in her personally-knit cardigan. "Any luck on the other matter?"

"I'm tracking some leads, but I can't guarantee anything. And the way things are going, we'll have to leave before I can finish. It will be hazardous to our health to remain, especially with Gypsum going over and denying O'Reilly another conquest."

"Arrangements have been made. A Steiner-crewed DropShip leaves two days after Christmas, you and your household will be out of the system just after New Year's."

"Good. I rather miss Collingwood." The other woman turned to leave. "You're not remaining here, are you?"

"Long enough," Dot answered, smiling. "I'll see you back at the house when I'm done, if God's willing anyway." With that she walked out.

Phryne decided she wanted to go to bed. But first, she wanted a nice bath, with all the usual scents and oils to wash off the smells of Bolan City. She prepared it, undressed, and slid into the tub to enjoy the warmth and fragrance. She laid her head back in the hollow for it at one end and sighed. I really should just go back to being a private detective. How do I always let Sir James talk me into this spy business?

Because of the rush, the feeling of danger and the thrill of overcoming it, she reminded herself. And that rush is what makes life worth living.

 

[Big Steve]

Szabo Mountain Lodge, Near Radíkovice
Radostov
Arcadian Free March
31 December 3033

The Szabo Lodge was a far cry from the Heiermark in Sannazaro, but in its own way, it served the needs of Dani and Becca even better. Their share of combat in the taking of Radostov gave them a place in the New Year's Leave lottery and they'd won. Given the particularly conservative social views of the locals, they'd gone out of the city and to the mountains outside of Radíkovice to spend an evening with a local dessert wine, a meal of Eastern European cuisine, and one another's company.

By Arcadian time it was nearing midnight. They had a timer set to tell them when the appointed hour came and were cuddling in the afterglow of their lovemaking as the minutes ticked down. Dani moved a stray lock out from Becca's eyes and leaned over to kiss her lover's forehead. "It's been a crazy year."

"It has."

"But at least we don't have to be paranoid. Colonel Kelly's taken a weight off of us. They know, and they don't care."

"She doesn't care," Becca corrected. "Others will. My parents for one."

"We can always adopt," Dani pointed out.

"It's more than that. You know it is. And there's no guarantee we'll even be in the same unit next year…"

"Where do you see us in five years, babe? Hrm?" Dani put a hand on Becca's cheek. A frustrated tear was already falling from her lover's eye. "I mean, when we've given the required time and we can change tracks or retire?"

"I…" Becca shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."

"I don't either, but I have some ideas. Go back to AMSA, get my engineering degree, go into the Engineering Corps, make Colonel and retire. Or maybe stay a line officer and see what I can do." She shrugged. "Either way, I'd like it if you were still there with me."

"If I can be, I will. That's all I can promise," Becca answered. "There's no telling where we'll be in five years, I mean. We could be in different units. One of us could be dead, or both, or suffering in some hellhole mine on a Marian world. Adonai alone knows what will happen…"

"I know what can happen," Dani answered. "What I'm saying is that I don't care. I'm willing to take the chance, whatever I pick for my future, and I want you with me. Do you feel the same way?"

"I do."

The voice was firm, but there was an uncertainty in it. "Do you, Rebekah Shameel, want to be with me until the end of our lives?" Dani asked. "Because that's what I'm asking. That's what I want with you, but you have to want it to."

"I do, I just…" Becca sat up in the bed, prompting Dani to turn slightly to keep her eyes on Becca's face. Becca wasn't looking her way and seemed deep in thought before she spoke. "Tomorrow is not guaranteed. I remember Rabbi Arad telling us that when I was young. Whenever a relative or friend died, anyone from our kibbutz, he would say the same thing. 'Tomorrow is not guaranteed.' So I don't think about it too much. I know what I want to do, but I know I might not get to. So all this planning out… I just can't. It's too easy to think of how it might not come, no matter how much I want it to." She felt Dani's hand grip her own and turned to resume eye contact. "You've been wonderful to me all this time. I love you, Danielle Verdes, and I do want a future with you. But I don't want it to hurt more if tomorrow doesn't come."

There was silence between them. That silence broke with the sound of firework explosions. The holovid on the far table lit up with a graphic of firework bursts and the words "HAPPY NEW YEAR! HELLO 3034!" in bright blue and red color. The two stared at it for a moment, listening to a rendition of "Auld Lang Syne" playing from the vid speakers.

When it was over Dani sat up and wrapped her arms around Becca. "We've had a hell of a year, lover," she said. "Four worlds in twelve months."

"Yeah, and maybe more next year. Maybe war with the Marians, or Hesperus or the Mariks…"

"Maybe a lot of things." Dani pressed her lips to Becca's, which became a long, sweet kiss. "So, even if tomorrow isn't guaranteed, let's see what comes today. And by that, I mean, you, since I'm going to make love to you again."

Becca giggled at the joke and returned the kiss with some fervor. "You'll have to wrestle me for it, I was supposed to be the one making love to you first."

"Hrm… I think I can accept those terms…"

Another long, sensual kiss began. And since both would, objectively speaking, win, the wrestling part proved rather irrelevant.



Arcadian Guards Bivouac
Radostov
Arcadian Free March



The final hour of 3033 found Prince Thomas in his office, going over his end-of-year paperwork. Primarily consisting of personnel reviews and the monthly requisitions reports for Supply and Procurement, it was something to keep busy with as he considered the word from home about Abigail going to a veterinary school on Concord.

He didn't know whether to be happy for Abby or angry at her. His baby sister, always so gentle for such a big girl, would be wonderful as a veterinarian. But she was a Princess of the March, a Proctor. Proctors served in the armed forces. They served to protect their people and ensure another Tabot never arose. How could she reject that obligation, and how could Mother let her?

Mother was always soft on her and Willy. On us all, really…

He noticed a shadow behind him. "Well, you're either my cousin Angelina come to talk, or an enraged Radostavian republican who wants to kill me to avenge his world's defeat. Because I damned well know my pilots are sloshed to hell by now."

The tone of the giggle was answer enough. "You're gaining quite the sardonic wit for such a serious officer," Angelina said, walking up beside him. "Which is good. We can't have you turning into Father."

"What's wrong with Lord Alexander? He's a fine officer and I'm proud to have him as a cousin."

"Oh, he is, but he's also so very dour and foreboding. Mother always said she didn't marry him for his sense of humor."

"I suspect the Landgravine Lowen married him for the prestige," Thomas noted wryly. "No offense meant."

"None taken, Mutter is a climber by her own admission." Angelina pulled up a chair and glanced at his desk. "I had that done a day ago. Why did you wait so long?"

"I saw no point in rushing it."

"And what about your pilots?"

"On leave."

"But you didn't go join them?"

"I can't." At seeing his cousin's skeptical expression Thomas sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I'm not just their company CO, Angelina. I'm the Heir of the March. If I were there they'd be censoring their speech and not enjoying the time because they'd feel me watching. So I'm going to do them the favor of letting them enjoy their New Year's."

"You underestimate your pilots. Whatever you are, you're still their CO, and you still fight at their side. That matters to them. You need to start seeing yourself the same way too."

You make it sound so easy, Angelina. It's not. It's never been. They'll only resent me if I try to be 'one of them', because they know I'm not. It'd just be patronizing.

The look on his face gave away something of his thoughts. "Ah, His Highness the Prince Thomas, still so serious." Angelina put her hands together in front of her, her elbows against the arms of the chair. "It's New Years, you should be doing something else besides paperwork. Especially since I won't be here next time."

Thomas blinked. "Why so macabre? I know about the operation, but I have no doubt you'll walk out of it."

"Hopefully so. Colonel Kelly would be disappointed having to fill the position again."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that after whatever's coming when we leave here, I'm being sent back home," she answered. "I'm going to be a regimental staff officer for the 1st Cuirassiers Regiment."

Thomas stared at her for a moment, wondering when she would reveal the joke. When all he got in reply was a steady look he realized it wasn't a joke. "What, really? The 1st Cuirassiers?"

"Yes. They'll be using Defense Works gear anyway, so my 'Mech will fit right in. Colonel Kelly's getting the regiment and asked me to oversee her Command Company. I'm likely to make Major in a year when the unit's ready."

"Oh. Well, congratulations." He grinned at her and offered his hand. "To both of us making Major before 30?"

"Agreed." She took his hand and shook it. Once they'd completed the shake she gripped the arm and pulled him to his feet. Thomas' reflexes let him roll with the unexpected movement and not fall flat on his face. "Now, why don't you come join me and my pilots, and let's have a final New Year's, cousin."

Thomas almost refused until he noted the determined look on her face. He sighed softly and smiled. "Sure, let's. The paperwork will be here tomorrow." He followed her out.

 

[Big Steve]

AFMS Ranger
Nadir Jump Point, Kitzingen System
Arcadian Free March
29 December 3033


Gravity aboard the Ranger was non-existent as the ship loitered in the vicinity of the Eagle and the gathering flotilla of JumpShips. Melissa remained in her chair through the aid of a strap. The screen showed the Christmas message from home, relayed to the ship from the ComStar station on Kitzingen. It's going to be a year before I get to go home, she thought. Two years of active duty without leave. But at least they'll give me a planetside assignment when it's over. I've served my four year carrier stint.

Her noteputer lit up. A personal message from Captain Harrison, instructing her to come to Commander Reiher's office. Recognizing it for what it likely meant - final word from the Promotion Board - Melissa felt a sensation in her stomach, a fluttering feeling she didn't really like. She didn't know what outcome worried her more: that they rejected her, or that they said yes.

Still, there was no putting it off.

She freed herself from the chair. With practice born of her years on the Ranger she bounded through the zero-G to the door, timing her acceleration and movement just right to take hold of the zero-G guide rail outside. She used it to travel up the corridor and out of the pilot quartering. The ASG administrative offices flew by next until she arrived at Reiher's office.

Inside were Reiher, Squadron Captain Wendy Harrison - a dark-haired woman from Arcadia - and Lieutenant Commander Stepan Krupin of Giausar, commander of the 8th Naval Aerospace Wing. All were in zero-G chairs with harnesses on their hips to hold them in. After arresting all of her inertia to remain still at the entranceway, she looped her left arm around the zero-G bar there while using her right hand to salute. "Sirs, Flight Lieutenant Proctor reporting as ordered."

They nodded and gestured toward a fourth chair. She pushed herself forward and effortlessly gripped the chair to slip in. A moment's work secured her in place.

Reiher and Krupin nodded to Harrison. She nodded back before turning her dark brown eyes on Melissa. "Lieutenant, we heard back from the Board. Allow me to be the first to congratulate you. As of New Year's, you are Squadron Captain Princess Melissa Proctor."

Melissa let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Thank you, all of you, for this opportunity. Am I going on the ASG reserve or is there a Squadron available."

"Captain Kropatkin of the 26th Squadron is heading home before we jump for Uzhgorod. I'll be assuming command," Harrison said. "The 25th Squadron is yours, Captain Proctor."

So I'm staying with the others. "I'll keep them safe, ma'am. I promise."

"I trust you will, Lieutenant." Harrison nodded to the others.

"We are having a ASG command officers meeting on January 2nd," Reiher said. "Squadron COs and above. We expect you to be in the pilot briefing room at 0800 ship time. Zero Eight Hundred sharp."

"I'll be there," Melissa vowed, even as her mind warred between the part of her jubilant at the promotion and the part quailing at the responsibility. All she really wanted to do was fly the void…

But I have a responsibility. And Mom and Dad will be so proud! Thomas too! She allowed herself a small smile. Make Captain soon, Mark. We have to prove we're up to this!


Free March Army Bivouac
Medzev
Arcadian Free March
31 December 3033


Word was spreading that the 1st Free March Cavalry were heading off-world. A mercenary unit from some minor contractor was already burning in and due to deploy on the day after New Year's, at which time Mark and his unit would already be embarked and ready to launch. He'd heard a dozen rumors about their next destination. Some said they were heading back to Rexburg, others thought the Marik border, and yet others claimed to have heard this or that plan to commence an operation against the Marians.

He knew his parents would be ashamed to know that he was hoping it was the latter. Not only did they need to be stopped, Mark hoped he'd get a chance to help do it. Another opportunity to show what he could do.

A Christmas message from his parents played. It was affectionate, and kind, and virtually the same thing they'd said to him last year when he was on McAffe, and the year before that when the Cavalry were posted on Hyde. He wondered if they realized how similar each message was. How it made him feel, as if he were just a chore and not their son…

Don't blame them, Mark. They love you. You know they do, he admonished himself. He switched to another message, a simple text one sent via Kitzingen from Melissa's ship.

Got the promotion, brother. Let me know when you get yours! - Melissa

Mark had to smile. Melissa deserved it as much as he did. Life on a carrier was hard, given all the zero-G and the conditions. How she puts up with it...

There was a knock on the door of the prefab officers' barracks room. Since he was the only officer currently present, he turned. Major Mnyampala stood at the door. "Lieutenant," he said. "Have the layouts done?"

"I do, sir," he said. "It's similar to how we packed on Rexburg. We'll be able to combat deploy right away, wherever we go."

"Good."

Mark couldn't hold himself back. "Sir, the Promotion Board, have you heard back?"

"We did." Mnyampala's face remained blank and Mark's stomach twisted. "You were rejected, Lieutenant. I'm sorry."

Now his stomach burned. Mark felt his jaw clench involuntarily. "I… was rejected? Even after my engagements here on Medzev? Or the fighting on Rexburg? My work on our embarkations?"

"Yes. There were only so many Captaincy slots open, and the Board's reply was that there were more deserving personnel who'd put in their time at Lieutenant. They've agreed to reconsider you in three months' time."

A raw fury built up in Mark's heart that all of his discipline failed to restrain. "Right. Of course. I'm only twenty-four, I've still got time, right? There've got to be deserving officers older than I am." But not in the Aerospace Forces, I guess, he groused mentally.

"Something like that."

"My brother was twenty-four when he made Captain," Mark said. "My sister, my twin sister, she just made Squadron Captain. And here I am, still below them."

"A lot of deserving personnel revealed themselves, and we've been fortunate that casualties among the company commanders have been light over the year's campaigning. Keep heart, Lieutenant. You might yet make Captain before your twenty-fifth birthday." Sensing his young officer wanted to remain alone for the moment, Mnyampala departed the barracks.

Mark turned back to his desk. Melissa's message looked back at him. Taunted him. Of course. Isn't that how it always goes? Melissa always gets her way first. It was a bitter thought and he chastised it as unworthy.

But yet the frustration, the resentment, it festered. What did he have to do to get the recognition he deserved? To be seen as the scion of Sara Proctor's line that he was? Did he have to charge a dozen Marian BattleMechs? Survive a week in the wilderness in SERE conditions? Conquer a world by himself? What did he have to do to be equal to his damned siblings?!

"I'll make it," he assured himself. "I'll be just like grand-uncle Jacob. I'll make it to the top!"

 

[Big Steve]

Gienah

Single star system
Spectral type: G3V
System Position: 4th
Moons: 2, Solomon and Ishmael
Surface Gravity: 0.96 g
Atmospheric pressure: Standard (breathable)
Equatorial temperature: 41 degree Celsius (Temperate)
Surface water: 72%
Highest native life: Aquatic, reptilian, insectoid
Founding: 2248

Ruler: Duke Barak Shaltiel, Duke of Gienah
Capital: Eilat
Population: 2.51 Billion (3030 Census)
Socio-Industrial Levels: B-B-D-C-C


Discovered by Henry Sinclair of Skye, Gienah was a harsh world at its discovery. Geologists and geophysicists estimate that it is millions of years younger than Earth, with one large supercontinent dominating one hemisphere of the globe while the other hemisphere is primarily ocean and some island chains. The coasts of the planet are relatively fertile but can face severe storm activity coming off the ocean, and the island chains and subcontinent on the opposite hemisphere are battered by tropical weather that can see hurricanes twice as large as standard Earth storms and with sustained winds exceeding 320/kph in strength. The vast inland of the supercontinent is a series of mountain ranges and arid or semi-arid steppe, with patches of desert and small inland seas dotting the interior.

While colonization efforts were initially moribund for the rest of the 23rd Century, aid came in the 24th in the person of Dr. Eli Shaltiel. An Israeli geophysicist who studied the fossil record of excavations of Gienah, Dr. Shaltiel theorized that the planet was much greener as recently as 50,000 years prior to discovery. A large inland sea provided a wider rain cycle to the supercontinent interior, as well as providing for wider river and lake systems. This sea drying up prompted the desertification of the interior and altered the planet's weather patterns, causing it to become a much drier planet. He decided the cause was most likely a massive comet or asteroid strike that boiled away much of the inland sea, a disputed theory until evidence confirming its feasibility was found in analysis of iron in the basin.

Regardless, Shaltiel also saw opportunity. He invested in the Gienah Colonization Charter Company and promoted the immigration of Israeli Jews, particularly those from the Negev who knew how to coax food and life from such dry lands. Joined by populations of Egyptian Copts, Kurds, Turks, and other peoples of the Levant and northern Southwest Asia, the Israeli colonization soon proved Shaltiel's expectations true as they employed techniques to provide for food self-sufficiency despite the difficulty of securing arable land. With the approval of the residents he named the main continent Tikvah, "Hope". The coastal areas received the majority of the colonists, who founded the planet's eventual capital, Eilat, as well as Athanasius - site of what would become one of the most splendid Coptic Churches in all of the Inner Sphere, and the home of the Coptic Pope during the Amaris Civil War - and Amed, capital of GIenah's Kurdistan region.

On the opposite hemisphere the fertile temperate zone of the northern island subcontinent of Boreala was settled by European and American Ashkenazim and some non-Jewish settlers, the latter mostly of Afro-American origin. It was this group that founded the twin coastal cities of Garvey and Armstrong, today two of the biggest metropoles on the planet because their location is north enough that the tropical weather systems render them nothing but especially severe thunderstorms.

Coping with the powerful storms of the tropical and subtropical regions made the equatorial island chains of Arad and Islas Verdes difficult to settle, and several attempts suffered catastrophic damage until new developments in ferro-crete allowed residential buildings sturdy enough to withstand even Gienah's colossal storms. The cities here, settled primarily by immigrants from Thailand and Burma, are known for being more concrete hives than normal cities, with entire concourses and roads entirely enclosed in ferro-crete and other sturdy materials to protect from the yearly storms. The major city of Chiang Mai was once listed by the Star League Travel Office as "one of the most unique architectural developments in the Inner Sphere", although many visitors thought it nothing more than "a collection of ferro-crete blocks".

Dr. Shaltiel's expectations proved greater than he might have dreamed when prospectors checking for oil deposits solved a lingering mystery of the impact theory: where did all the water go? As it turned out, what didn't form the small inland lakes and oases flowed into the ground and, over thousands of years, formed massive underground aquifers. Two decades of testing that went beyond Shaltiel's lifetime would find an entire underwater ocean of freshwater beneath Tikvah's surface. Tapping this water allowed for the kibbutzim of Gienah, and other communities, to expand their farming operations and provide more freshwater for use, enough that they did not become a system highly reliant on the Ryan Cartel's ice-ships or desalination complexes like similarly-dry worlds.

In the centuries after settlement Gienah grew links with the Federation of Skye and ultimately the Lyran Commonwealth, putting them in the crosshairs of House Marik during the Age of War. Gienah was one of many worlds to face foreign attacks, ultimately with BattleMechs. The creation of a system of nobility ultimately led to Levi Shaltiel, great-grandson of Eli, to being named the Duke of Gienah by Archon Katherine Steiner in 2409.

The Age of War brought disruptions to the planet, the greatest of which was a long delay on Eli's most fond wish: restoring the inland sea to the extent it would shift the planet back toward its original climate. A combination of water taken from the system's Oort cloud and the underground aquifers, if delivered steadily enough, could replace the lost sea. Over the course of generations this would transform Gienah's weather patterns, increasing rainfall and turning the desert and steppe into green plains. It would fall to one of his descendants, Duchess Miriam, to see his dream to completion. In 2594, with the Reunification War in its final years and the Star League forged by the experience, she petitioned Archon Viola Steiner-Dinesen to fund a centuries-long program to refill the inner sea. The Archon demurred due to the expense of subjugating the Rim Worlds Republic and other priorities, but allowed Miriam to petition First Lord Ian Cameron. Miriam knew her man, with her plea making clear the scope of the undertaking, the challenges, and the accomplishment when it would be done.

Although his life was in its final years, Ian took up the offer, arranging a large grant of Star League funds to ensure Gienah could begin the operation of creating the "Cameron Sea" as one of the greatest efforts at geosculpting the Star League would ever attempt. Ice-hauler ships from the Ryan Cartel were hired and shipped to Gienah to begin regular routes to and from the system's Oort cloud and asteroid belt, hauling massive blocks of ice, while specialized container vessels were employed to get the ice down to the selected gathering points, to be joined with water pumped from the aquifers. The remaining inland lakes were the starting points for the procedure, with specialized monitoring stations used to ensure that the rate of water lost to evaporation was not exceeding the water coming in. Soon uninhabited systems nearby were being harvested of remaining ice asteroids and Oort cloud bodies as well to ensure the water supplies were being kept up.

The effort was controversial on Gienah, as it came with tighter restrictions on use of the aquifer. 2638 would see Miriam's son Duke Yaakov be forced to call out the SLDF garrison to deal with a violent uprising in the Negev District due to the lowering of the local aquifer table, and the project remained controversial throughout its running time. But once the effort was started, stopping it was dangerous. Even before the project the projections were that the water use was depleting the aquifer due to the lack of oceanic rain to help replenish it. The commitment was made and the planet's future required seeing it through.

Fortune, or divine providence, was with Gienah, it would turn out. By the mid-28th Century the water-intake was high enough that they reached their saturation point - the point at which the inland sea was large enough to generate rain activity sufficient to not dry out - just one year before the Amaris Coup. The collapse of Star League aid stopped much of the process as Gienah, while developing, lacked the resources to keep the iceship fleet going on their own. The progress on the matter slowed to a trickle over the next decade as Kerensky fought Amaris.

It ended with the fall of the Star League, and the Marik invasion of Gienah and other nearby worlds to relieve pressure on the Bolan Thumb. For two years Marik forces occupied Gienah, confiscating the remaining ships for use in maintaining their own forces, and the returning LCAF forces would destroy that infrastructure in defeating Marik. Gienah no longer had the means to keep the project going. Eventually the sea would partially alter the planet, but not as greatly as it would if it were properly filled in.

The incident also soured the local populace on the Lyran Commonwealth. Over the following decades, as the First Succession War raged, Lyran recruiters found fewer and fewer Gienahites were willing to enlist. There was little love for Marik either, and a small independence sentiment grew. When the Second War ignited after just a few years of peace the movement exploded in popularity. Loki went to the extent of establishing major facilities in Eilat, Garvey, and Chiang Mai to suppress the movement, and Duke Shaul was forced to send his eldest son Yaakov to Tharkad as a hostage.

In the end, the break happened anyway. The Lyran Commonwealth's disintegration began in 2847 with the breaking away of several Periphery worlds, but Skye's open revolt from Steiner rule two years later opened the floodgates. Popular furor compelled Duke Shaul to dissolution regardless of Yaakov's fate, although Yaakov's miraculous return six months later in the chaos of the fall of Tharkad would gratify the populace.

In the ensuing years of chaos, Gienah remained an island of stability. The planet's aerospace industries, formed to support the geosculpting project, produced enough fighters to give Gienah a strong aerospace defense force, supported by recovered BattleMechs and some very slight 'Mech production in Garvey. The Gienah Heavy Fusiliers and other such units ensured a robust defense against the pirate, mercenary, and rogue LCAF and FWLM raids that became endemic around the former border. Starting in 2887 the warlords of Arcadia began raids against the planet as well, as would the Rayhans of Dar-es-Salaam and the more violent of rulers on other adjacent planets, but the Shaltiels and the Gienah Defense Force beat back every attack. Duke Mordecai would provide volunteers and funds to Sara Proctor's campaign to liberate Arcadia to end the worst of these raids, and her victory and ascension to Duchess of Arcadia gratified him. Arcadia and Gienah signed an alliance that would form the core of what became the Arcadian Free March.

Gienah is rightfully considered the second world of the Free March due to its status as a founding world. The aerospace industries on the planet provide the AFFM with unique models and units, particularly in light of advancements and the recovery of Star League-era technology. The planet's industries are some of the best outside of Terra, if hampered in raw productivity by the inability of the existing mineral reserves to meet the capacity of the planet's industrial sector. The relative peace of Gienah compared to neighbors allow it to sustain a fairly heavy population through the post-Star League era despite the continued lack of steady rainfall, and agriculture produces just enough that the planet can feed itself reliably at its current population, although further immigration may necessitate greater food imports.

Estimates are that another century will pass, at minimum, before the partly-filled Cameron Sea starts reverting the planet to its pre-comet strike biome. Gienah has attempted to gain funding from the rest of the Free March to resume the project at least partially, but the resources simply aren't there.

Whatever the disappointment of this failure, Gienah remains a steadfast supporter of the Free March as a sovereign entity. After the chaos of the "Third Succession War" era, the myriad nations of this rugged world look to their future with the same feeling Dr. Eli Shaltiel had when he named its supercontinent centuries ago: hope.

 

[Big Steve]

So, the end of 3033 sees the Arcadian Free March having more than doubled in size, conquering 20 planets (and giving 2 up for 1 to avoid hostilities with the Marik Commonwealth), having 1 willingly swap allegiance, and being given 2 in the final months by Defiance-Hesperus, another neighbor, as both gift and incentive to side with them against Marik instead of Marik against them.

It's been a hard-fought year, with all ten line regiments fighting in at least one campaign. Three aerospace wings (lightweight) have been wiped out in hard fighting. A number of units took losses in various campaigns and taught vital lessons to the AFFM.

And to top it all off... the Free March is in even greater danger. From the Periphery, the legions of newly-minted Caeser of Alphard, Sean O'Reilly, have marched in an uninterrupted string of conquests. The Circinius Federation is reduced to a shadow of its former self, its capital and many worlds conquered, and the legions of the Marian Hegemony went as far as Timbiqui... and now, Bolan. The Principality of Bolan is collapsing, their capital world virtually fallen by the end of the year, as well as other key worlds. Collaborators on each world win patrician status for swearing allegiance to Caeser, and the power to condemn rivals and foes to slavery in the Hegemony, a fate that also awaits any who resist in battle and the rulers of conquered worlds that do not submit. The Hegemony are allied to their neighbors in the former Free Worlds League, the Kashamarka Antisuyu and the Rim Commonality, securing their borders and freeing up troops for offensives to Coreward. And... they are now the Anti-spinward neighbors of the Free March, their legions numbering the equivalent of at least seventeen regiments of BattleMech line formations and numerous militia-quality forces.

Nor are things any happier closer to home. The Terran Union-imposed ceasefire between the Marik Commonwealth and Defiance-Hesperus Consolidated is ending. The Skye War may yet resume, and both sides seek allies, including the Free March.

And so 3034 now dawns, and with it, the continuing bloody spiral of the Second Age of War...

 

[Big Steve]

AFMS Liberator, Zenith Jump Point
Gypsum System
Arcadian Free March
21 January 3034


The command of OpForce Tubman went to Vice Admiral Dame Julia Andros. For her part, the Concord native wasn't sure why she'd been tapped. The daughter of a family living in Kansas State on Concord, ambition and a desire to see foreign stars brought her into the naval college at AMSA, and now thirty-three years later - after years of everything from boring picket duty to commanding ships into action against pirates or other forces - she was a Vice Admiral and a Knight of the March.

And it all lead me to this.

Being on the command bridge of the Liberator brought back memories. Twelve years ago she'd been Captain of the Liberator for a 20 month stint before putting in time as a Naval College instructor and getting her first star as a Commodore. And like her successor, Captain John Campbell, it was the highlight of her career. A Star League-era WarShip, it seemed to come from another, better age, even if people on Concord knew it to have been a tainted age.

Beside her, the commander of the ground element stood with a rigid back and a firm countenance. Major General Olivia Armstrong, Baroness of Briggs, was from the Arcadian nobility, even wearing her family's coat of arms as a sigil on her uniform depicting a roaring bear standing on two feet. She wore the red of the AFFM as if born to it, wearing her officer's sword even here on the deck of a WarShip. Her hair was still a rich yellow tone without a trace of gray or white yet showing. Normally she would be staying on the Liberator to serve as Chief of Staff to the whole force, but with six regiments and attached assets under the command, she would be transferring to the Galatine and landing when the time came.

"I want readiness signals from all ships," Andros said aloud. "Zero hour is here." She checked the timer. Five minutes left.

Over the next few minutes, the fleet checked in. The Liberator's sister ship, Guardian was fine, as were the three corvettes Harrier, Hawk, and Falcon and their carriers, Audacious, Reprisal, and Formidable. The plethora of JumpShips, military and hired civilian, had many more DropShips attached. Some were loaded with troops. The others had vital supplies aboard to fulfill their mission.

Last year we were on the offensive, swallowing world after world. I wonder what this year will bring. At least we have a better cause than expansion…

"Admiral, all vessels report ready," said her comms officer.

The ship's astrogation officer spoke up next. "Engineering reports a full charge in the K-F drives. We can jump at your mark."

We do this right. Not a moment too soon. "Jump on my mark."

The bridge filled with anticipation and tension as the clock ticked to zero. Everyone knew the stakes. What was on the line. They were ready to do their duty and get the troops where they needed to go.

The timer hit thirty seconds. Twenty. Fifteen. Ten… nine… eight…

At five, she took in a breath. At one, she spoke.

"Mark."

By the time the clock hit zero, energy was already surging into the Liberator's K-F drive. Everyone felt the familiar displacement that came from violating Einstein's laws before reality re-asserted itself.

Their destination system appeared on the central holotank. Andros didn't miss a beat in giving the order. "Commence entry burn, all ships."

The vessels maneuvered to the programmed course and commenced the ordered burn, keeping formation as they did so. Admiral Andros watched with satisfaction as the holotank updated to show their projected course intersect with the planned destination.

Bolan.



Ducal Palace
Roslyn, Eastern Islay
Arcadia
Arcadian Free March


The time difference meant it was the middle of the day for the March-Princess. Sara-Marie had a number of issues of state she should be handling, including planning for the year's Liberation Day celebrations and her imminent Speech from the Throne to the assembled Legislature.

But at the moment, all she could do was stare at the central holotank in her personal Military Operations Center in the heart of the palace. While red-uniformed AFFM personnel, mostly intelligence and analyst officers, went about their business, she watched the icons for most of the Free March Navy and what were the best regiments of the Army make the transition. One moment they were at Gypsum; the next, Bolan.

"Serene Highness."

She turned. Her cousin, Lord Alexander, stepped up beside her. His eyes were tight with worry. "Our children march off to battle once more," he said. A low sigh came from his throat. "Sometimes I think of asking Parson Howard just how it is that God can let things get to this point. Parents sending their children to fight and maybe die, all because a spoiled brat feels the need to conquer and enslave a people to prove his might."

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," she murmured in reply, knowing that their pastor, the white-haired Parson of the Palace, would say the same. She made a mental note to check in on him and seek counsel. "All we can do is pray that they come out safely, and that our efforts are not in vain."

"We worry ourselves sick over the Skye War, and who is it we first draw our swords on? A nation acting like the damned Romans." Alexander chuckled sourly. "Even now I worry that our calculations are wrong. The Marians may escalate this to all-out war, and while I tell myself it is proof they would have come for us anyway, well, sometimes I wish I might have talked you out of this."

"A part of me wishes you had. What of our other preparations?"

"The militia overhaul continues. The fissioning of our existing brigades is complete and we are employing hired transport assets to re-deploy them across the March, although most of our activity will come once this operation is complete and we can disperse the transport fleets to accelerate re-deployment. As for other matters, Colonel Sinclair is hard at work on establishing the new Striker Regiment on McAffe, and Brigadier Lockhart already has the 1st Cuirassiers set up to occupy Fort Defiance until the return of the Arcadian Guard. The battalion of Black Knights the Defense Works constructed last year will serve as familiarization training for the MechWarriors of the regiment until the other machines for the unit arrive."

"And the Bolanese troops?"

"Colonel Jackson is taking a portion of the AMSA training cadre to Gypsum to train the Gypsum Division battalions up to standard while the upgrade kits are applied to their machines, and we have orders contracted to build line-quality BattleMechs for the regiment of Bolanese MechWarriors who got to our space. We'll be raising new support units to join them all at the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, the Gypsum Hussars, the Bolan Rangers, and the Free Bolan Cavalry Brigade will be added to the rolls on the first of next year, the same as the 1st Cuirassiers and the Striker Regiment. Additionally, that fighter wing that got away is being assigned to the Free March Cavalry for the time being, bringing their aero group up to full strength as we now consider it."

"And the other militia forces who escaped?"

"We've organized them into the 1st and 2nd Bolan Irregulars, they will be garrisons on the new border with the Hegemony," he replied succinctly.

"Thank you," she replied, grateful for the chance to speak of something other than the fear on her mind. Her eyes, however, could not pull away from the lit up dot of light on the tank that represented Bolan. Almighty Jehovah, Lord of Hosts, I pray to You to stand with our armies as they fight in a cause worthy of You. In Your name, Amen.

 

[Big Steve]

Planetary Defense Command, Bolan City
Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
21 January 3034


Princess Amita Umayr, Heiress-Apparent and currently Regent for the small, pitiful remains of the Principality of Bolan, climbed down from the cockpit of her family's wrecked Phoenix Hawk LAM with death in her heart and on her mind. Death was their only future, it seemed. Either the death of body and mind, to move on in whatever cosmic joke existence brought forth for Humanity, or the living death of slavery, of being reduced to a piece of property. Being chattel.

Her feet hit the ferrocrete of the PDC 'Mech hangar and she looked up toward the machine her family inherited from the fallen Star League. The Phoenix Hawk LAM was a rare machine, a BattleMech that could transform into an aircraft and back, but this one wouldn't be doing transforming any time soon. The delicate conversion machinery was damaged by fire from the Marians, or rather their Boyz Movers mercenaries, and the parts needed to fix the machine were lost to the Marian advance. Given the state of things, she shouldn't even be piloting the machine, barely-armored wreck that it now was, but it was still one of the relatively few 'Mechs capable of walking and firing thanks to its energy complement.

The hangar once held an entire battalion of the 1st Principality Guards. Now it held about a company and a half. Lieutenant Choudhury's damaged Commando was to her immediate side, and Captain Khan's Warhammer on the other was missing both arms. Their MechTechs worked feverishly on both trying to fix them, but parts were getting as low as food. Even fuel was going to be an issue soon.

The Marians have us. We can't win. But to surrender, after all this… to waste all of those lost lives, and commit myself to those damnable pens where my parents and brother are kept. She wanted to cry at the cruelty of it all, but her upbringing kept her locked down. She couldn't. Not in front of her troops. Not with the few remaining men and women fighting to protect their world and their comrades from these Periphery bandits with delusions of civilization.

She entered the locker room, put up her cooling vest, stripped the sweat-soaked clothing off, and took to the showers. The water was barely lukewarm. The reactors were at fifty percent capacity to save fuel, and the hot water heater was one of the bits where they were making that power stretch out. Feeling the chill on her dark olive skin made her miss warm baths in the palace, as much as she'd disliked living there instead of in the field. But she made the best of it, using the sliver of remnant soap in her things to wash off.

Once done she left the stall, one towel draped around her torso to cover her from below the shoulders to the middle of her thighs, the other holding her damp black hair to dry. She took a seat on a bench and thought of her family. Jagdish was alive, they said, in the slave pens with their parents, while Rama was here, an eighteen year old boy whose dreams of martial glory were now a horrific nightmare. Lalitha was safe, offworld, probably on Arcadia by now. Word came from ComStar that Duke Constantin's world of Gypsum successfully transferred their allegiance to the Free March and that the Marians, aside from a mild protest through their allies in the Kashamarka Antisuyu, were respecting that. A free Umayr line, although her children will be Marghilomans, not Umayrs. But still free…

Should I kill myself? Just… take a bullet and end it? Spare my family the dishonor of whatever awaits me on Alphard, under that spoiled brat playacting a Roman Emperor? ...no. Whatever else, I am kshatriya. I am a warrior and I will not abandon my comrades in such a cowardly way. If we die, we die together in battle with the foe.

"Amita!"

She turned toward the exit of the locker room. Rama rushed in wearing the one-size-too-big military uniform they'd found for him. He was supposed to be starting his military education. Would have, if the Marians hadn't come. They shared the same shade of green in their eyes while Rama was of a lighter skin tone. Facial hair was growing on his chin, although not with consistency. "Amita, you should come."

Her first thought was that the Marians had penetrated their defensive line, and that the final destruction was upon them. Or maybe her officers were losing heart and ready to surrender. "Why?"

"A fleet of ships just jumped in system!" Rama cried out. "We're saved!"

No. It was foolish. The Marians were rotating troops in and her overeager brother was grasping at a false hope. That was what it had to be. Nothing else would happen, nobody else would come…

...would they?

For a moment she let herself hope, enough that she stood. "I'll get my uniform and join you." He remained a constant buzz of excitement while she got dressed in the tanned uniform of the PBAF, taking care with the insignia marking her as a Captain of the Principality Guard. She felt the eagerness and hope around her as they journeyed to the command center, but dared not let it take her over. Someone would have to bring them down from their disappointment.

At the entrance she was saluted. Lord Raju and Lord Indra, the two generals not dead or captured, stood by the holotank in the center of the room. The power flickered briefly before a technician zoomed in on an image coming in from a perimeter satellite out at the Bolan Nadir point.

A gasp came from Amita's throat. There were a lot of ships. More than Bolan could possibly still have. More than the Marians were said to have. Could it be? Are we getting aid at last?! "Are we getting a communication? Do we have IFF codes?"

"Checking now… confirmed." The young woman looked up from her station. "Codes are coming in. Highness!" the tech looked up and Amita could see the hope on her face. "Arcadian IFF codes, Highness."

The perimeter satellite took time to relay the visual. It showed a formation of combat vessels. Amita felt her heart swell at the sight of two Star League vessels and a pair of what looked like ultralights, Arcadia's corvettes. Two aerodyne-like DropShips of significant size accompanied them with a screen of Lightning and Zero fighters. Numerous DropShips came up in the rear, spheroid and aerodynes, including a large one that looked like a Fortress-type ship. Toward the rear another corvette and carrier DropShip watched the van.

They came, she thought. They… they actually came! Hope swelled inside of her. A force that large, the Marian Navy couldn't fight that. And they must have five regiments at least!

"Do we have active communications?"

"We don't have access to an HPG to reach them, so radio only. It'll be hours before we get a reply."

"Let me know when it comes."



Five hours passed before Princess Amita got the call. She returned to the PDC's command chamber and received a printed note. The contents made her brow furl. "They want us to prepare for an evacuation?" She glanced at Lord Indra. "What is this? Aren't they coming to drive the Marians off of Bolan?"

"I discussed the matter with General Vajpayee before we received the message. One of the possibilities was that they did not come to drive the Hegemony off but to extract the royal family and our surviving troops," Indra replied.

"But… why? With their forces we could force them out!"

"For now, perhaps, but in the long term? The Marian Hegemony has no other borders requiring significant defense and a larger number of line units than the Arcadians. They are already taking a risk coming to our aid as they are. They are unlikely interested in fighting a wider war."

"So it will be for nothing!" she shouted. "All they're doing is giving us the means to retreat, to become exiles! Bolan will still fall and this, our comrades' deaths, will be for nothing!"

"Hardly, Highness." Indra's voice was harsh. "They are our last hope, and I'm taking it. I've already given the order to prepare for the evacuation and to halt all counter-raids on the Marians. We'll preserve our lines against any renewed attack and await Arcadian rescue."

She narrowed her eyes. He was her superior officer in the military, but as she was acting Regent (for what little was left), she had political authority he lacked. She could countermand the order. If I didn't mind undermining our remaining troops. "So we run?"

"No, we survive," he said. "Our comrades' deaths will not be in vain, as we will get off this world with you and your mother and your brothers. The Umayrs may go into exile, but in exile they will be a symbol of resistance to Marian occupation. In time, with aid from the Arcadians and others, we might yet return. It is a damned better alternative than surrender and you know it, HIghness."

Amita bit into her lip. It's not good enough! Our people deserve more! They deserve better! But deep down, she could see his point. We live to fight another day, just as we are already doing. Survive today to keep the hope alive of winning tomorrow…

Very well. That is our duty, and I will see it through. It is the only way to honor my comrades now.

 

[Big Steve]

Hegemony Slave Processing Center, Bolan City
Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
28 January 3034


The Princess Aahana Memorial Stadium, built for Bolan's beloved football competitions and for other events, was repurposed to less-festive means by the Marian legions upon their arrival: it was the location they employed for processing prisoners of war and marked captives for export to Alphard as slaves. Here the captives, clad in white tunics and little else, were held in pens while the legions awaited the final fall of the Bolan's last defenders in the heart of the city.

Among them was Gita Umayr herself, the Grand Princess of Bolan. Caught in a Marian ambush while visiting the troops, she was consigned to this place to await the same fate as her soldiers and many others, all while some of her own people changed their coats and sided with the invader to win favors. They gave her no special confinement, simply leaving her in a pen with several other captives, a collection of military personnel and captives from other major cities selected for enslavement by the collaborators aiding the Marians. Twenty people per pen, with mats for sleeping and buckets for other matters. Collars marked whether someone was to be given as a slave to a Marian-supporter among the planet's population or shipped to Alphard once the campaign was over. Her own collar was a special sigil, marking her for delivery to Caeser Sean himself. He wants me and my family for trophies, she thought bitterly, knowing her son Jagdish was in another pen and her husband Mohinder reportedly in the infirmary from a failed suicide attempt. She glanced down at her cot, made of plastic with paper sheets so she couldn't make a working noose out of them. Even her tunic, while cloth, was of a lightweight material that ripped when she tried to strangle herself.

If all else fails, maybe one of the others will strangle me, she thought. Then I won't be a trophy. Amita will have our crown and might yet escape to join Lalitha…

"Do not lose hope, Highness." The voice was that of General Lord Sandip Nibhanupudi, captured when she was. He drew closer to her. "I overheard a new captive in another pen. A fleet is burning in to aid us."

"Do not dash my heart with hope, General," she said bitterly. "We sought aid before, and none came. Our armies are broken, our ships fled or captured or destroyed. Who would bother to aid us now, with our defeat all but assured, when they would not come three or six months ago?"

"It is no mere rumor. You can see it in our guards. They're nervous. They're expecting combat."

She tuned Lord Sandip out and uttered another prayer that Amita might yet get away, that maybe some loyalists would get her on a DropShip and a friendly JumpShip would take her away. Exile would be bitter, but it was better than their fate on Alphard.

It was odd. As her children grew up she saw them only occasionally, usually to admonish them as to their duties and insist they behaved with the right comportment. But now that she faced the end of their world, she regretted it all. Amita, Jagdish, Lalitha, Rama, all of those little ones she had, all the pride she had for them, but how much did they know it? How much of a mother had she been?

Such is the price royalty has always paid. My father was no different toward me, nor his parents to him. We have Duty to attend to. Our children learn the same. But now… now it is all so hollow.

"Highness." The word was said in a hushed tone, but there was energy in it. Lord Sandip gestured upward. "Look."

She did. Through the transparent plastic at the top of the slave pen she looked up at a twilight sky beset with crimson, the kind her ancestors might have seen in the heart of India millennia ago.

But now the crimson sky was lit up with ruby and emerald and sapphire beams that lashed out faintly, joined by the occasional cerulean bolt. Every few seconds a ball of fire formed.

Can it be? she wondered. Has someone truly come?

At first nothing else seemed different. Not until the roar of fusion jets filled the air. Tracer fire lashed out from the Marian anti-air units near the stadium, accompanied by streaks of missile fire and energy weapons that lashed downward. The roaring got louder and louder…

And then it came into view. An aerodyne DropShip, its surface bristling with autocannon and laser emplacements, coming toward them from the north while sapphire beams and golden flame lashed at unseen foes. The vessel was painted a fine azure, with an insignia that Gita couldn't quite make out from the angle. It flew overhead, doors opening. From those doors figures, humanoid but not quite human, jumped out. Jets of flame erupted from their backs and she realized they were jump infantry… no, not jump infantry, battle armor infantry.

The air filled with quick thunderclaps. Cries of pain and surprise echoed through the air. Gita's head turned left and noted a couple of the miles running forward, rifles at the ready. The lead Marian went down in an explosion of blood from his chest. The second had only a moment to react to his friend's death before his head exploded. The result left a grisly smear of red and gray on the transparent plastic wall of the pen.

For all Gita had no sympathy for her captors, she felt sick at the sight of it and forced herself to turn away. Even then she still closed her eyes, as if willing the sight to vanish from her memory.

It did not.

This is what happens. All of those years, selling weapons from our factories… and this is the result. I am just as responsible, I should be facing it, but yet I can't. I can't face that… that grisliness…

"Highness!"

The firmness in Sandip's voice brought Gita back to her senses. She looked up to see her fellow captives, all of them, were assembled around her such that nobody outside could see her. Sandip was crouched at her side. "Please, pull yourself together, Your Highness. I know it's terrible."

"I…" An instinct to lash out at this man for humiliating her came, but she quashed it. He is protecting me. Be grateful. "Of course, General. My thanks."

"They're coming!"

The group dispelled, allowing Gita to see some of the nearby pens were already open. Men in sky blue and dark red battle armor approached. The left arm of the human-shaped armor ended with a vicious claw of five sharp fingers that could shear through even 'Mech armor and the barrel of a light machine gun. The right arm had a standard five-fingered hand with a large cannon barrel built into it, although she wasn't sure if it was a laser aperture or some other weapon. The stock of a rifle of some sort was visible over the left shoulder. The suit helmet's black visor prevented her from making any eye contact with the occupants.

One of them opened the pen up by ripping through the plastic with its claw and tearing the door off. "Everyone out, single file," a female voice ordered, her voice crackling slightly through the external speaker of the armor. "It's safer inside the structure interior than out here."

"Who are you?" Gita asked.

"Major Catrina Michaels, Arcadian Rangers Armored Infantry Battalion," the woman replied. "Your Highness?"

Gita nodded. She imagined that facial recognition systems were alerting her liberators to her identity, however ragged she looked. "I am Grand Princess Gita of Bolan, yes."

"If you'll follow me, Your Highness, we'll see to your safety. Major General Armstrong's given explicit orders for you and your family to be secured and kept under protection, the same for all of your senior advisors."

The Arcadians have their own motives then… But very well. They don't take slaves at least. "I am at your disposal, and would very much like to see my husband and son, when you find them."

"Lieutenant Nowitzki!" Michaels turned to another squad of armored soldiers. "She's the Princess of Bolan. Help her find her family and get them into the structure, ASAP."

"Yes, Major!" a German-accented voice replied.

 

[Big Steve]

Fort Patton
Gainesville, East Appalachia
Concord
Arcadian Free March
6 January 3034


Once a relatively small university town in on the eastern half of the Appalachia continent, Gainesville was now firmly a military town thanks to the AFFM's construction of a major garrison and training base at Fort Patton. Now the locals were treated to the occasional sight of light and medium-weight BattleMechs tromping around fenced-off training fields for maneuvers and mock combat (much to the thrill of the local children, who happily picked their favorite machines to cheer for).

The number of 'Mechs around went down in the last year, with the two regiments posted to Concord off claiming worlds for the expanding Free March. Now the machines were those of the militia, both the day-to-day regulars and officers keeping up their piloting time for qualification reasons.

One of those cases was on base now, but not in a cockpit. Within the administrative wing of Fort Patton sat the AFFM Military Court of Concord, responsible for trying military personnel for military and regulatory offenses. Given their presence, Fort Patton was also home to the main Judge Advocate General office on Concord.

Major Alexander Penton was one of the senior officers on the staff. At the age of thirty-two, and at Major rank for a year now, he was a large man with broad shoulders and a solid build. Dark brown hair was kept combed toward his right temple and to regulation. Light brown eyes used to scanning legal paperwork and case notes were joined with a face of strong cheekbones and a jaw that slightly jutted outward.

Yet for his physically intimidating appearance, Alex was more of the intellectual than the physical. He had the merits and citations to prove it, including occasional contributions to the Free March Legal Review concerning military law and legal procedures. He was likely to make Colonel by forty and end up running a JAG office of his own.

A young man, a yeoman with Lance Corporal stripes, delivered a small stack of printed papers to him. "Colonel MacIntyre says you were handling the Barsdale case. This is the latest series of motions."

A sigh came from the older man. "It must be nice being the son of the grandson of a count," he grumbled. "It seems like their legal strategy is to bury us in paperwork until we give up the prosecution."

"Is it a big deal, sir?"

"Given Major Barsdale assaulted two of his fellow officers and sexually harassed another, yes, Lance Corporal, it is a big deal," Alex said pointedly. He took the papers and set them to the side. "I'll give this junk the attention it doesn't deserve once I'm done with the Sergeant Johnson case."

"The deserter, you mean?"

"Yeah, that one." He wanted to rub his forehead. Sergeant Johnson, while a volunteer to the militia, had deserted upon receiving orders to join the militia brigade being dispatched to Amity to fight the insurgency there. "He's claiming conscientious objector status, that he objects to the Free March's use of military force on independent worlds."

"Huh."

Alex saw the flicker in the young man's eyes. "Yeah, I get the sympathy for him. But he still chose to volunteer, and to accept we might employ him in ways he didn't expect. We have to pursue the case."

"Of course, sir." The young man turned to leave before stopping. "Oh, you have a visitor, sir."

"Send them in."

He was expecting someone from the Free March Legal Review, or the Concord Republican, or perhaps any of the other magazines or periodicals that paid any attention to military law and the AFFM in general. He returned to his work on the Johnson case expecting to deal with a reporter.

So he was quite surprised to find a man in AFFM duty reds, a MechWarrior's crossed saber insignia and the "gold bird" of a Colonel on his uniform. He rose and saluted the bald dark-skinned man. "Colonel Sinclair?"

Colonel Charles Sinclair smiled and returned the salute before entering the room. He was much older than the usual Colonel, now in militia service before mustering out. In his prime he'd fought in both the Arcadian Guards and the Arcadian Rangers, as well as a stint in the Proctor Light Horse. "So, still pushing paper instead of serving in a line regiment?"

"The law's my calling, sir," Alex answered, knowing that was an answer in more ways than one. "I'm keeping my MechWarrior qualifications by training in militia machines, but I doubt I'll be tapped for a line regiment." They won't want a JAG lawyer as a battalion XO, that's for sure. "Sergeant Major Kirkman thought he was doing me a favor, I suppose, messing with the results and keeping me from qualifying for the regiments. He thought he was doing us all favors…"

"There's no telling how many natural MechWarriors the Free March lost out on due to Kirkman." Sinclair's voice was tight with disapproval. "I'm just glad we caught him eventually."

It'd been the great story of 3029 for the Free March military. After years of investigating anomalous results, the Oversight Office found out that Command Sergeant Major Paul Kirkman, a long-service corpsman still serving at Ayrshire Military Sciences Academy in the infirmary, had spent over fifteen years falsifying neuro-aptitude test results in some cases, reducing scores on cadets he felt would contribute to the non-combat services better instead of being cajoled into MechWarrior service. Upon being found out, Kirkman plead guilty and issued a statement at his court-martial lambasting the AFFM's Education Department in general, and AMSA in particular, for being "obsessed" with the "MechWarrior uber alles" attitude, accusing the officers of the academy of using undue pressure and even threats to push cadets into signing up for MechWarrior duty instead of professions they had interest in.

By then the AFFM ordered the re-testing of all active service personnel who'd tested too low while Kirkman was on duty, including Alex, at the time a Captain in the JAG Office. When his new test showed he was in the top one percentile of pilots, he was marked as one of the "Kirkmanned" officers: someone who could have been serving in the regiments and was instead relegated to staff duty or other work.

Ironic that we've been proving him right with everything the AFFM's done since...

"It's a damn shame, what he did to you. You did well in your exams on tactics and logistics back at AMSA, enough that I think I'm justified in saying you missed your true calling."

"Considering you were my instructor in those courses, thank you." He extended his hand and let the older one shake it. "So, is this a social call or another attempt to talk me into applying for line service?" He already knew the answer to the question since Colonel Sinclair didn't do social calls when anyone was on duty.

"I'm getting a regiment, and I want you as a battalion XO, Major. Maybe even a battalion CO when all is said and done."

Alex blinked. "You want me in the command staff of a line regiment? Wait, which regiment are you getting?"

"A new one. One that I think will earn your interest." He handed Alex a tablet.

Alex looked over the digital screen and the text displayed there. His jaw dropped slightly. "These… these are the notes I drew up back in Advanced Tactic Studies. I mean, the unit TO&E list, the operational role, the doctrine… I wrote all of this."

"You did, and a few of my other students have made similar proposals," said Sinclair. "A heavy unit for strike missions that can transition to line combat, without some of the support elements typically employed in our line units."

Alex kept surveying the notes. "Two regiments of infantry, one jump and one battle armor, a combination of faster and tougher mediums and heavies… they're really doing this?"

Sinclair nodded. "And I'm getting the command."

A low laugh came from Alex, followed by a grin. "Finally, sir. You earned that star a long time ago. Congratulations, Brigadier Sinclair."

"Thank you, Major Penton." Sinclair leaned forward. "I want you leading one of my battalions. Now, I'll never get them to write off on it now, even if these are your notes, but put in service as a battalion XO while the unit musters this year and maybe next year, or the one afterward, I can get you into that CO slot."

"I'm happy here, sir. I'm…"

"...content, yes. I can see that. But this isn't like it was in '29, when you turned us down the last time. The Inner Sphere is at war. To protect our worlds and our way of life, our families, we need every pilot we can get on the line. You could be one of the best, and you'd done more with this unit concept than most of my senior staff currently assigned." Sinclair leaned forward. "I don't expect an answer today, but I need it by the end of the week. I'm due to leave for McAffe in six weeks to oversee unit establishment training." Sinclair's glance at his noteputer was the universal gesture of "I'm leaving now". "Well, I have a few matters on base to see to. Link me when you're ready to give an answer."

"I will, sir." Alex rose and accepted his old teacher's hand one more time. "And whatever I decide, thank you for the opportunity."

"I just hope you take it," Sinclair asked before putting his cover back on his bald head and walking out.

Alex returned to his paperwork, as best as he could anyway, given everything he had on his mind.



After doing the office work Alex decided to unwind at the Fort Patton Officer's Club. He took a seat at the bar, ordered a Murray's and a grilled chicken dinner, and started in on the beer as soon as the cold bottle was in his hand. He'd only have one so he could drive home after the meal, but given the thoughts stirred up by Sinclair, he needed it.

Years ago, as a teenager admitted to Ayrshire, he dreamed of becoming just that. A skilled MechWarrior and officer fighting to protect the Free March from aggression, and dabbling in law on the side. The neuro-aptitude scores being too low were a sting to that 19 year old Alex, but for a long time adult Alex was grateful. He'd found another way to fight with the law, ensuring equal protection in the military courts for his comrades, commoner and noble alike.

Then Kirkman's deceit was discovered and his re-evaluation showed he could have been in the field. He might've made the Arcadian Guards or 1st Free March Cavalry straight out of Ayrshire, in fact. He'd be one of those heroes holding the line, not a "staff weenie" lawyer filing briefs and doing paperwork.

Conversely, I'd be helping with the expansion campaign, forcing other worlds into the March.

That thought gave him mixed feelings. Too many of the independent worlds lacked the means to resist pirates, others fell under tyrannical local rulers. The Free March would be better for them. But who were they to end those worlds' independence? To compel them into the Free March?

This is all above my paygrade. I just have to figure out what to do with Chappy's offer.

A figure slipped up to the bar, three stools down. He turned and noted the presence of his auburn-haired superior officer. Colonel Leah MacIntyre was a local, from the Appalachia continent, a light-skinned woman with a round face and sky blue eyes, and if forced to tell the truth, Alex would admit he spent every day wrestling with the fact that he was strongly attracted to her.

It was wrong. She was his superior officer. She was seven years older than him. And, right, she was married. Separated, in the middle of a divorce, but still married, to a contractor on the opposite side of Concord.

As always he reined in the part of him that remembered it'd been a while since he'd enjoyed amorous relations and would pick MacIntyre as the preference to end that drought. "Colonel."

"Major." She nodded at him. "How's the Johnson case?"

"He wants his day in court," Alex answered. "I figure McCormick can prosecute and Bibbs can defend."

"Bibbs?"

"Yeah, she's got the passion and she's read up on the law. Johnson deserves that, even if he's got little hope of an acquittal. And McCormick is due for a prosecution run."

"He is, but not this one. I'd prefer him on the Barsdale prosecution."

Alex sipped at the beer. "I was going to handle that one myself."

"I know what his team's doing, I can't have you tied up on dealing with the endless motions and briefs," she replied. "McCormick on Barsdale. He's good at cutting through the bullshit. You'll get yourself tied up in it trying to argue the principles."

"Harsh, ma'am." Alex smiled despite that. He probably would. "You know me too well."

"That you keep forgetting this isn't law school and you're not a student debating the ethics and principles of the law with your professors?" She cackled. "I think everyone knows that. No, you handle Johnson. A clean, ethical prosecution. He deserted, he admits it, case closed."

"Just the tricky matter of negotiating the conscientious objector status. Bibbs will argue that it applies and that Personnel was legally bound to reassign him."

"And she'll lose, because it'd give leave for everyone to shuck combat duty." MacIntyre motioned to the barkeep. "Murray's, please."

"I will," the barkeeper said, "when you two remember this is the OC, not your damn conference room."

"Fine. No more talking shop." MacIntyre tilted her head and looked back to Alex. "So, you seem bothered. Even before I told you to change cases. What's up?"

"Chappy came by to see me today." Alex took another drink.

"Sinclair? That old warhorse? What did he want? Another 'join the line forces' argument?"

"He wants me in a new regiment he's been ordered to assemble," Alex answered. "Battalion XO at first, but he figures I'll make Battalion CO in a year or two."

"You'll make silver bird by thirty-five anyway, the way you're working JAG," she pointed out. "Might even get your gold bird by forty."

"Might. I wasn't tempted, not until he told me what was up." Alex set the beer down and folded his hands. He turned his head to face her. "They're my ideas for a unit, Colonel. The Strikers. I proposed them back as a fourth year cadet. He's forming my unit."

"Oh." MacIntyre blinked. "So what, that means you have to join?"

"It means my ideas are being accepted by the Command Staff. And here I am, asked to participate, and I'm not saying yes."

"But you're not saying no? Ahhh…" MacIntyre nodded to herself and grinned. "Those old dreams of being a military hero coming back?"

"A bit, yeah. A chance to serve in the line after all, not just doing weekly 'Mech piloting sessions to keep qualifications."

"You're on course to rise high in JAG, Alex. I wasn't kidding about making Colonel by forty. Hell, you might even get judicial status. You've got the right mindset to be a military judge."

"He thinks I've got the right mindset to be a field officer," Alex replied. "So here I am, caught between my two passions."

"The law's less likely to kill you. And you don't have to kill anyone yourself." Her eyes focused on him. "Could you do that, Alex? Pull the triggers on those weapons, knowing that you're possibly going to kill another human being? Don't answer yes or no, just think about it. We've all heard the stories about hotshot pilots in AMSA freezing up the first time they're in a firefight."

Kirkman, Alex thought. How ironic. That's how Kirkman lost his son, it's why he did what he did.

MacIntyre continued, oblivious to his thoughts. "You've got a quick mind and you think on your feet, sometimes a little too much, but can you do all that while killing people?"

He maintained eye contact, feeling the force of her personality behind those eyes, and certain thoughts came to mind. He pushed them aside for the instinct-driven crap they were and considered the matter. He wasn't just an AFFM officer, he was an Officer of the Court. And didn't he love it? The great issues in legal ethics, where the spirit and the letter of the law were weighed and the contradictions measured, those things drove civil society and the military alike. He thrilled at it.

So why throw it all away to go tromp around in a war machine, dispensing death and destruction?

The barkeeper approached with his food, and a plate of steak and potatoes for MacIntyre. There'd been no need to ask for her order. He felt hungry enough that he turned his attention to the grilled chicken plate. The choice of Chappy's way or MacIntyre's way could be answered later.

 

[Big Steve]

Fort Patton
Gainesville, East Appalachia
Concord
Arcadian Free March
30 January 3034


The on-base stockade typically housed temporary prisoners. It was the location for Fort Patton's "Drunk tank", or for temporary confinement on relatively minor disciplinary matters. Yet it did have a fully functional jail for longer incarcerations, as well as for holding those on trial and deemed flight risks.

One of those so-held was Sergeant Theodore Johnson. Just a couple years older than Alex, he now sat across from him in a prisoner's jumpsuit. Beside him Lieutenant Lana Bibbs sat with a noteputer and notepad ready, a pretty young woman who had her own bright future in JAG with how passionate a courtroom advocate she'd proven. Alex sat down opposite from them, setting his briefcase down. "Lieutenant. Sergeant."

"Major, sir." Bibbs nodded. She reached for her own case. "For starters, we're filing an appeal on Colonel von Eilenburg's ruling. His dismissal of the conscientious objector defense would undermine the status for thousands of AFFM personnel who serve in non-combat capacities." She pulled out the formal brief. "I'm preparing a similar filing in the Union courts here on Concord."

"You and I both know that won't fly, they'll refuse to hear on grounds of the AFFM's jurisdiction," Alex replied. "As for the appeal, even if it passes, it won't solve the main issue. Concord is not a conscription planet in the Free March. Your client was not required to serve and cannot claim compulsion in that respect. He volunteered for duty in the Free March Militia."

"Militia, who are not supposed to participate in off-world operations," Bibbs retorted. She was frowning. "You and I both know the Command Staff violated decades of AFFM practice in using militia brigades in offensive operations."

"And we both know, or should know, that you're talking about practices not codified in military regulations. The March-Princess and her senior officers were and are within their rights to employ militia offensively under the law." Alex folded his hands on the table. "You can continue this case, Lieutenant, but to be honest, you're not going to win it."

"I'll do what I must to defend my client, sir," she replied succinctly.

"Oh, give it a rest," Johnson sighed.

"Sergeant, please…"

"No, Lieutenant, don't do that," he said, his tone a little harsh. "I like you, ma'am, but I'm tired of this. I didn't sign up in the Militia to steal the freedom of other worlds, dammit, and I wasn't going to start! As far as I'm concerned, Concord should walk out of this entire Goddamned realm before letting the nobles on Arcadia spill our blood to pad out their little empire. I'm not pleading guilty, I want my day in court, whatever you think."

Bibbs bit into her lip and shook her head. She'd undoubtedly had issues like this before.

"And as for you, Major?" Johnson smirked at him. "I remember you. The "Lawyer MechWarrior". You go off and stomp around in one of those noble-enabling tin cans for a few hours a week and think that makes you a soldier? You've not seen shit, Major, and that's a fact, and the fact you're still here after finding out what Kirkman did to you proves you're just a chickenshit."

"Sergeant!" Bibbs protested.

"Yeah, I deserted, and I'd desert again, and it doesn't make me a coward!" he continued. "I'm standing for something more important than your precious Free March. I'm standing for principle, for people getting to run their lives their own way. And you know the funny thing? If you'd told me I was doing something like that Bolan thing on the news, I'd have stayed! I'd have fought to help the people of Bolan against the Marians! That's a better cause than crushing Amity's patriots just for wanting to continue ruling themselves!" He snarled at Alex. "And there you are, Major. While people are fighting and dying to save the people of Bolan, where the hell are you? Oh, right, you're a dozen jumps away from the fighting, passing judgement on me. I've got one thing to say to that: Go to hell, Major." He stood. "I'm done."

"Sergeant, we still have to—"

"Do what you want, Lieutenant, I'm going to prison for a long time, and I don't care." He walked to the door where the MPs awaited and knocked. "Take me back to my cell, boys, I'm done with this chickenshit."

The guards didn't react right away, but at Alex's nod they did as asked and took him away. That left him with Bibbs. "I'm sorry for that, Major," she said. "He's very opinionated. I could barely convince him to let me stay on as his defense attorney."

"So he's going for civilians?"

"The Pacifist Action League is talking about giving him a lawyer, yes. So is the National Restoration Committee."

Alex sighed. The former was a Free March-wide anti-expansion, anti-military civil action group, openly suing in the courts to end conscription and drafting on the planets that still practiced it, while the latter were a hardcore Republican group dedicated to removing the last vestiges of Concord's nobility from its days in the Free Worlds League, if not Concord's part in the Free March as well. "The PAL and NRC aren't interested in his welfare. He's just a martyr for them to rally around for attention."

"He's ready to be that martyr, sir, and I can't stop him."

"Ultimately, we serve at their disposal, even if they're being fools." Alex set his hands on the table. "Alright, Lieutenant. Is there anything else, or should we adjourn?"

She shook her head. "I can't make any pledges without consulting my client, so it looks like we're done."

"Then good day, Lieutenant." He stood up. "And good luck with the Sergeant."

"Thank you, sir. I think I'll need it."



Given he'd cleared three hours of the day's schedule for the Johnson interview, Alex found himself with nothing to do until after lunch. He decided to go ahead and get his weekly hour in on the militia's 'Mechs.

Today many of them were on maneuvers, but the crew chief of the hangar found him an Enforcer that was freshly repaired. The old machine still had a missing armor plate on the hip, but it would do well enough for a run through the qualification course. He climbed in, threw the lever on the reactor, attached the coolant lines to his cooling suit, and put on the bulky neurohelmet. This was one of the older models, the ones that covered the shoulders as well as the head, bulky and uncomfortable until you got used to the weight. Since the machine wasn't assigned to a single pilot it was set to check the base roster for recognition codes. He gave his, a simple alphanumeric sequence, and the systems powered right up. He finished strapping into the command couch and went to work on maneuvering out of the hangar.

Riding even this old, fifty ton machine - a product of the Tikonov Union's factories on Archenar - gave him a thrill every time. He could see why so many MechWarriors became something like addicts, and losing the ability to pilot drove them into such despair. The machine stomped its way forward, going from 20 k/ph to 30 and up past 60 as he put it into a run for the qualification course.

The course was for the militia pilots to keep their edge, whether they were old veterans of the line units in their final service years or fresh enlistees who hadn't gone through OCS yet. He went through the course easily enough. Every sharp curve, every turn meant to force a pilot to keep the machine's balance with their own sense of balance, felt as natural as walking to him. The scuffs in the ferro-crete and the nearby grass spoke of pilots who were not so capable.

After a run through the ;'Mech obstacle course and the jumping section, he went for target practice. Militia didn't get live fire exercises, they used simulated fire, and he ran the firing course well enough. "Nice aim, lawyer," a voice squawked over the radio. "We'll want that in the field."

Alex furrowed his brow. "Chappy? Isn't the 3rd's regiment out on maneuvers?"

"They are, but I've got Lt. Colonel Hutchins minding them. Figured I'd see how you were doing, and what was taking so long on your answer."

"It's a lot to think about," he protested, firing as he did. His shot was slightly off, but the simulation still gave him credit for a partial hit. He kept the Enforcer stable in a trot over an obstacle and came up on a high shot. His joysticks moved the crosshairs over it and he squeezed a shot. Simulated shells from his autocannon hit dead on. "I know field service officers think we've got it easy, and they're right in a lot of ways, but this isn't easy work, Chappy. I'm still considering the offer."

"I hope you're a more decisive officer in the courtroom… or the field. And watch that final shot!"

Alex heard the warning just in time. The final shot of the course was the trickiest, meant to force militia pilots to remember the use of their arms. One target to each side coming too fast for a torso swivel. He spread the Enforcer's arms and fired the weapons in the simulation. A sapphire beam and a burst of shells struck both within the inner circle. They weren't bull's-eye hits, but they were good ones.

"Well done, Major. You've got a lot of skill. But it's up to you where you use it. See you in the bay."

Alex let out a breath. He's right. I've been delaying my answer and I shouldn't be. I need to pick one way or the other.



He returned the Enforcer to its place in the bay, did all the post-exercise checks, and left the neurohelmet behind before clambering down the gantry beside the Enforcer's cockpit hatch. Sinclair was waiting, wearing his own cooling suit and holding a digital tablet. "I'm looking for my qualification run next," he said, "but I figured I'd show this to you."

Alex accepted the tablet. His course data showed on the screen. "Made a good run," he said.

"That, Major? That's not just a 'good run'," Sinclair said. "That's the kind of performance they demand of MechWarriors in the Arcadian Guards."

Right. "I admit I've had my doubts," he answered, thinking to what MacIntyre said to him that night in the OC. "I've never fought a battle. I don't know if I can kill people."

"Few do, and those're the ones who the rest of us worry about," Sinclair replied. "Is that what you're worried about? Not being able to pull the trigger?"

Alex nodded.

"Well, let me tell you, we all go through it." Sinclair smiled. "Had a classmate at AMSA back in the day, that was his big fear. He got an assignment to the old Strikers, the 3rd Battalion, but he was always worried he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger when he got into a fight. Then in '02 some raiders from Bolanese space hit Zwenkau, and his unit went in to help fight them off. He froze up a bit, right until a Hunchback blew up the head module of his friend's Stinger. Want to know what happened then, Major?"

"Sure."

"He lined up the shot and put a PPC bolt right into the other guy's cockpit," Sinclair said. "And he didn't feel a damned thing afterward. Never had a problem again."

"Right. And your friend now?"

The smile vanished. Grief showed in the place of the earlier mirth. "Hollabrunn. The Cutter Brigade. The sons of bitches took him and his lance apart while they were on a routine patrol. Dragged them out of their broken 'Mechs and didn't leave anything proper for burial."

"Right." Alex remembered the Cutter Brigade's rampage on Hollabrunn. It brought that planet's admission into the Free March in the end, but only after the devastation of large areas of the world's countryside and the slaughtering of thousands by what was effectively a half-pirate merc band of psychopaths bent on removing every living person from the planet as payback for an imagined slight by the Landgrave of Hollabrunn. The Free March went in hot and smashed the brigade, but not without losses, as Sinclair just made clear.

"Truth is, Major, nobody knows. The guy you think is a born coward might be the one who doesn't lose a wink of slepe at night, and the take charge fellow can't take the shot if his life, or yours, depends on it. I can't promise which you'll be, just that you've got the chance to be a part of something big. You've got a talent beyond the courtroom. Please, put it to use."

With that, he walked away.




After getting back to his on-base housing, Alex made a quick dinner and turned on the holovids. The planetary news had nothing entirely major - the biggest thing was a scandal in Oneida about land rights for an oil rig and local politicians taking bribes - but the Inner Sphere news segment was all on one thing.

Bolan.

Despite the infrastructure damage there ComStar's HPG was still broadcasting, and it was giving bandwidth to Arcadian news crews embedded in the task force. The fighting, or at least the fighting on the screen, looked fierce, primarily BattleMechs engaging in fire while civilian vehicles raced past, trying to get out of the firing field. He watched a Marauder in Arcadian markings take up a position between the road and what he assumed were Marian BattleMechs. The autocannon mounted above the cockpit spat a burst of five shells that blasted entire chunks of armor from the arm of an approaching Centurion. The opposing 'Mech retorted with its own, heavier autocannon. A series of blasts blew armor and material away from the Marauder's torso and shoulder area, exposing some of the structural myomer on the arm. Regardless of the damage, the Arcadian 'Mech opened up with its arm weapons. PPC fire bathed the Centurion in cerulean light. Thick orange droplets of molten metal fell to the ground around it. A third PPC shot, from an approaching Black Knight, blasted off the left arm of the medium 'Mech.

The Centurion had its own friends, though, as an Orion 'Mech stomped up and unleashed a barrage from its hip-mounted auto-cannon. The left arm of the Marauder seemed to be nearly torn off from the impact. Missiles crashed into the machine and seemed to nearly topple it, but it righted itself and brought its right arm up. A blast from the PPC streaked through the air and struck the Orion in the torso, just above the side auto-cannon. Its armor blew and melted away in rivulets in the seconds before a blast blew apart the side of the 'Mech, sending its arm flying off. As the Marian pilot struggled to keep the machine standing, missiles descended and slammed repeatedly into it, one by one by one until the machine toppled from the sheer pummelling.

The Centurion fired with its own missiles and a pair of ruby beams. They cut cleanly through the Marauder's damaged left arm, severing it below the shoulder, and the missiles pummelled the faltering 'Mech. A few flew past, landing amid the road. The camera shook violently and fell, after which the signal ceased.

It was only then that Alex realized how tightly he'd been gripping his chair arms. He forced himself to breathe and felt his heart only now start to slow. The entire scene felt unreal to behold.

Something hot burned inside him at that moment. He could see himself in that Marauder, fighting to protect people just trying to escape an impeccable foe, holding the line against increasing enemy forces, and as terrifying as it sounded… it also sounded right. He knew in that moment he could do it, were he in a machine and in that situation. He was certain of it.

Can I just sit here? I've got the skills to be there, to be another pilot fighting the good fight. What am I doing here?

Your duty. The other side of him was quick with the admonishment. You have a responsibility to the others too. To the Law you've devoted so much time to.

They don't respect the Law! They enslave prisoners of war, in violation of centuries of practice! If you want to stand for the Law, stand in the field! Be what you were meant to be, dammit!

He drew in a breath and considered what he was thinking of. Once he gave the word, he was committed. He'd be out of the office, out of the courtroom, out of the law libraries and all the things he enjoyed in his life. He'd be going from system to system, fighting the enemies of the Free March. Risking his life over and over again, with each battle potentially his last.

But I'd be fighting for something worth it. I'd be fighting for the Law. For our rights.

He spent the rest of the night wrestling with the choice. He slept, or rather tried to sleep, while the conflicting thoughts warred in his mind.

As Concord's G3V star shined its first daily rays into his window, Alex sat up in his bed. A part of him didn't want to do this. He enjoyed the intellectual and ethical challenges in his current career. Why risk it all?

He picked up his phone and keyed the number. After a few tones Sinclair's voice was on the other end. "Good morning, Major," he said. "Made up your mind?"

"I'm in," Alex replied.

 

[Big Steve]

Because of the way this game's done, the operation's already been decided. All the dice rolls have been collated and the results decided upon. The Arcadian Free March can be rightfully said to have given the Marians a punch to the face, although the legions of the Hegemony gave some pain right back.

I've already done a post about the outcome on SB, but for this thread, for the sake of continuity, I'll hold it back until I write the actual Bolan scenes I have in mind. I may also link the Marian player's. We were fortunate that the rolls allowed for a really narrative engagement instead of the result of both sides botching and/or critting.

 

[Big Steve]

Posting this all as one post, it's in five parts on SB.


Bolan City, Disputed Territory
Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Hegemony
29 January 3034


The last twenty-six hours of Dani Verdes' life had been the greatest ordeal she'd known since her mother drove her from the house at the age of eighteen.

Combat wasn't new. She'd seen it on Fianna and Radostov. The intensity, however, that was new. The planetary defenders of those worlds had barely been live fire exercises compared to the ferocity with which the Marians resisted their expanding landing zone. Even where their machines were sometimes subpar, they fought tenaciously and forced the Arcadian troops to earn every meter in fire and blood. It was already being said that the Arcadian Rangers' battle armor contingent took half the unit in casualties during the fighting, and as Marian reinforcements moved up that was sure to get worse.

She had other problems. Charlie Company's job was to hold a major throughway that would link them to the city center and the Bolanese defense perimeter. The Marians undoubtedly realized what that meant, so over the last several hours they'd send a couple of company-sized attacks to test the defenses… and were now putting what felt like an entire battalion in the field against them.

A shot from a Bulldog battle tank chipped armor from the hip of her Marauder. She might have shot the thing with a PPC, but she was already running hot from finishing off a Marian Grasshopper and her heat levels wouldn't let her fire just yet, not without risking an ammo cookoff. She maneuvered her 'Mech to the side to avoid at least some of the incoming missile salvo from the tank.

Several emerald beams speared the tank's front plate, hitting in close enough proximity that one drilled through and set off the ammunition inside the tank's body. The machine blew apart from the inside.

At Dani's side, Lt. Jonny Kono's Thunderbolt looked battered. The right arm was missing, depriving the machine of a large-caliber laser, but the trio of torso-mounted medium lasers could still fire for effect as they just had.

"I owe you one, Charlie One-Four."

"Don't mention it, One-Two. Just keep our Prince alive, ya?" Jonny spoke English with the particular accent of an Iaukean Islander, a unique people on Arcadia of combined Polynesian, Balinese, Filipino, and Papuan descent.

"Trying," she promised, turning her attention to a Centurion about to menace Prince Thomas. She fired on the machine with her autocannon, tearing armor from its torso and drawing its attention… and it's fire. Golden flame on its right arm accompanied the autocannon shells that stripped her left arm down to the myomer.

The arm was still functional, though, and with her heat reduced further Dani brought both of her arm-mounted PPCs to bear. The extended range Star League model weapons packed a punch. Cerulean energy flayed armor from the fittingly-named Marian machine. Two PPC hits were enough to worry a pilot in such a machine, but this one took a third, as Prince Thomas recognized the threat and fired a shot into his prospective attacker as well. Smoke billowed from inside the Centurion's torso. They'd hit something vital.

Another contact was already showing up in red on her secondary flat display. The holotank shifted to show the new threat; an Orion. Before she could adjust to meet it the hip-mounted autocannon of the heavy 'Mech fired. Only a last minute turn kept most of the barrage from striking in its entirety to tear the arm off, but she lost what was left of the armor and got a warning light for actuator damage in the elbow.

One PPC nearly useless… couldn't have fired again from the heat anyway. Dani brought her right arm up and squeezed off a shot. She thought she'd miss given the Orion pilot's movement, but it wasn't enough to keep her shot from playing over the side of its torso above the hip autocannon. The excited particles of the cannon burned deep into said armor…

In an expanding cloud of flame and metal, the entire side of the Orion came apart, sending the weapon-tipped arm flying away. Dani could hardly believe her luck. Got through the armor, hit his AC ammo. It all cooked off. Lucky shot!

The Orion's woes weren't over yet. A barrage of missiles descended on the machine, pummelling it with at least forty projectiles, over half of which connected. The pilot struggled in vain to keep his war machine from falling over.

The perhaps temporary loss of his ally didn't stop the Centurion from fighting back as well. After discharging their autocannon at Thomas' Black Knight, the pilot swapped targets and fired the medium lasers and missile launcher on the machine's torso.

The laser hits cut through the Marauder's left arm like a scalpel. The limb's indicator on her status screens went black, showing it as lost. Dani gave little attention to it as she was busy trying to keep her machine standing against the missiles pummeling it, seven in all. With some effort the Marauder didn't lose its footing.

"Charlie 1-2, watch your six," Jonny warned.

"What, we've got them behind us?!" Dani tracked the Centurion with her remaining PPC and autocannon. Shots from both blew into the torso of the machine. Its autocannon-mounted right arm fell dead, still attached to the machine but unmoving. Another barrage of missiles from the fire support unit hit the Centurion until it toppled, a smoking ruin made of its heart.

"Negative, 1-2," said Thomas, his voice grave. "There are civilians back there."

Dani had only a moment to see what he meant, but she gasped at it. WIth the other roadways blocked off or in Marian hands, this was the only feasible route for people fleeing the combat zone and the prospect of a Marian-ruled Bolan. Her sensors showed their vehicles as they raced along, trying desperately to not be noticed.

I don't know what the Marians will do to them, but they clearly don't care about shooting in their direction, she thought But someone has to. Remembering her place as Lance Lieutenant for Prince Thomas, she gave a firm order. "Everyone stay focused, and keep them off the road. We have to keep them off this road!"

The others affirmed the order. Despite the heavy damage to her machine, Dani pressed on through the fight.



For all his life, Angus Campbell never saw such ferocious fighting as this. The McAffe native had twenty years of experience that included being one of the few journalists that the mad High General Cutter of the Cutter Brigade allowed to remain embedded with his troops. He'd seen much of the heavy fighting on Hollabrunn when the Free March annihilated Cutter's psychopathic mercenaries.

But even their bloody demise didn't have the destruction that over six months of continuous warfare brought to Bolan. Bolan City had some intact quarters, but only those sections of the city that fell quickly to Marian invasion; this section and many others were filled with half-destroyed buildings or just outright piles of rubble.

Campbell and his crew were embedded with the Arcadian military for the duration of the campaign. After signing the usual forms affirming their awareness of the risks and that they would abide by the laws of war, they headed off under an escort of MPs and battle armored soldiers to get a glimpse of Bolan City. The residents were running low on food, as were the besieged Bolanese troops, and even the Marians were reportedly being careful with rations. Bolan was a dry, mountainous world, and it did not yield crops easily.

After some interviews and a near miss with a maniple of Marian soldiers, Campbell and his crew joined a convoy heading back to the Arcadian zone. The refugees in it were eager to take up the Arcadian relocation offer, especially those in the liberated slave camps.

Despite his hopes, they didn't make the journey quietly. They were partway out of the city when the first explosions were heard. Some drivers peeled off but most kept going, eager to get to safety as they were. The people here were used to explosions.

And then it came. A fierce fight on the northwest side of the road. BattleMechs - Arcadian and Marian - were in a hot firefight.

"Put th' bloody camera that way!" Campbell shouted at his man. Donald Kildare was the fellow's name, and he seemed determined to defy his own name by being, well, something of a pantywaist, Campbell thought. Sure, he was just brave enough to be here, but he didn't understand the nature of the job to know where to look.

Still, he did at least listen, and now their holo-camera was pointed squarely at the fighting. Campbell knew enough about the machines to recognize the Centurion - in Marian colors - and the Marauder, and it was the latter machine he had the focus put onto as the pilot pulled off some maneuvers and took some really skilled shots. The single shot that blew the side off another big humanoid 'Mech was a thing of beauty.

In fact, it was perfect. This whole thing was perfect. This was the kind of footage embedded journalists would kill to have to their name.

Missiles from the Centurion pummelled the Marauder while twin laser beams cut the arm off the machine. A couple missiles flew past and rained down around the road. A shockwave hit their vehicle and the driver nearly lost control.

Kildare dropped the camera and ducked back down. Campbell did look for cover for a second, after which he rose. "Well, get the camera back on!" he shouted.

"To hell with that!"

"Bloody useless…" Campbell picked up the machine himself. It looked like it was no longer transmitting, but it could record. He'd just have the rest of the footage sent out later.

Maybe I'll finally get a show of my own…


AFMS Galatine
Arcadian Landing Zone


The end of the second day of fighting satisfied Major General Armstrong. The Baroness of Briggs had her troops planetside without major losses and the Marian troops were just now starting to check their expansion. What forces had initially opposed them - mostly older and often beaten up machines - were falling back from significant casualties.

Still, she had concerns. The 5th and 6th Legions were only now starting to engage, spending most of the last day hotly engaged with Bolanese troops acting to tie them down. Once they were against the perimeter, it would be harder fighting to keep expanding that, even if they wished its expansion.

The campaign was, indeed, only yet beginning, and it was no time to get overconfident. The Marians had the edge in sheer combat experience, and it was up to the AFFM to overcome that. It simply remained to be seen if they would.


Marathi Ridge
Near Mumbai, Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
16 February 3034


After two and a half weeks of heavy fighting, something was bound to go wrong for the Arcadian forces. It was Prince Mark's misfortune that it came down on his unit.

The 1st Free March Cavalry Brigade's charge on Mumbai to open up an evacuation route won initial successes, driving back elements of the Marians' Legio V to approach within twenty kilometers of the city. It was only as they got into the outskirts that the Marian plan became evident. Legio VI and elements of what was left of the Gladiator regiments counter-attacked on the flanks of their advance. Now the 1st Launum Armored Cavalry were fighting desperately to keep contact with the vanguard formation, the Hyde Lancers.

The fighting was especially fiercest with Mark's company. While their air cavalry formations and aerospace support fought over their heads, his unit was busy trying to hold the Marathi Ridge's northern face against numerically-superior Marian troops. BattleMechs and tanks provided cover for the Marian infantry trying to get in close with their satchel charges and man-portable Inferno SRMs. The battle armor company assigned to back up 1st LAC fought them off as best as they could, but between the artillery shells and the fire from the 'Mechs and tanks, they were taking losses they couldn't sustain.

Mark's focus was on the enemy armor and 'Mechs, directing his lance's fire as best as he could. Vickers' Centurion's long range missiles battered a Marian Manticore tank with the cooperation of the autocannon and long range missiles from Neumeyer's Shadow Hawk. Selassie's Crab let loose a fusillade of laser fire on a Marian Assassin drawing too close. Mark brought his crosshairs over and triggered a full strike on the 'Mech from his Fusilier's weaponry. Autocannon shells tore into the machine's shoulder while the ruby beam of his left arm's laser narrowly missed the head.

The torso-mounted weapons hit home, the other medium laser and the PPC catching the Assassin in the knee. The pilot tried to catch himself, but couldn't stop the 'Mech from toppling over. Before he could rise Selassie and Vickers pumped laser fire and an autocannon burst into the machine's thinner rear armor. Fusion plasma briefly surged from within, signalling an engine hit, before ceasing. The 'Mech stopped moving.

The Manticore fired its PPC… and the cerulean blast went clear through Vickers' cockpit.

Mark's heart froze. His comrade was dead. Just… gone. Like that. Inside there would be nothing but some carbonized muscle and bone.

His 'Mech shook from the impacts of missiles. The Manticore fired some of them, but the others came from a Centurion coming up with the rest of its lance and a fresh platoon of Marian armor. Mark checked for his side. "Bravo Lance here, enemy reinforcements, artillery support requested."

"Already denied," Captain Harrow said. "Hold, Lieutenant. If we get pushed back the Hyde Lancers won't make it out."

"Everyone, fire for effect, starting with that damned Manticore!"

The lance heeded the order. Autocannon shells, long range missiles, and laser fire lashed out at the machine until its front plate disintegrated. Mark's PPC blew through the remaining structure and gave its crew the same terrible end that Lieutenant Vickers received.

The medium lance of Marian 'Mechs returned fire with vigor, scoring several hits on all three machines. Beneath their notice, the Marian infantry was coming up on the ridge line, a number of them already preparing their SRM launchers while another set up a recoilless rifle. The battle armored troops from both sides met in a fierce collision, ensuring neither could aid the 'Mechs or stop the infantry.

If only one of the anti-infantry lances were here, he thought, bringing his lasers down toward the ground. A flash of ruby left two dead Marians and a destroyed rifle. A second flash caught a trooper about to lug his Inferno launcher onto his shoulder.

But there were more, and their missiles started firing. A few missed, but those that hit left burning napalm on the surface of Selassie's Crab, the heat of the chemicals in the payload certain to make the 'Mech unable to maintain its firing rate. Until the fuel of the reaction was consumed, the Crab was going to burn.

His 'Mech stuttered as recoilless rifle rounds, armor-piercing ones, started chipping his armor away. Reflexively he triggered his PPC at one of the groups, killing an entire squad with the shot.

Only then did he realize his mistake. Or rather, his mistakes.

While his comrades kept up with his orders, the firepower they had to bear only resulted in a hobbled Vindicator, and the other 'Mechs were now in close range. Had he joined them, more damage might've kept them back. That was mistake one.

Mistake two was not recognizing the lack of medium laser ports on the Centurion.

Now that it had the range, its autocannon arm came up and fired. Mark moved his machine to evade with no avail; the Marian pilot's aim was still true. Powerful shells ripped through armor and tore some of the guts out of his PPC, rendering the weapon inoperable. He switched his autocannon to its expanded burst fire mode and pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

He noted the red light on his status screens. Ammunition jam!

"All lances, pull back!" Harrow ordered over the line. "Artillery strike inbound!"

"Pull back!" Mark shouted, sending his comrades and their supporting forces back over the top of the ridge. Still aflame, Selassie's Crab made it first, another recoilless rifle shot striking it in the shoulder as it got over the ridge line. Neumeyer's Shadow Hawk jumped into the air, flying backward with lasers and missiles firing even in mid-air as harassment fire more than effective shots.

That left his machine. He backed it up, firing his medium lasers again and again at the Centurion with its menacing heavy autocannon. Laser fire melted armor from his machine's torso as he did, but his armor held against them. He felt the Fusilier's feet crest the ridgeline and took a step down.

The Centurion's autocannon fired again.

The shells tore through the weakened armor on the Fusilier's leg and blasted the bone in two. Mark cried out in surprise as his 'Mech toppled over, a cripple with just one leg. The 'Mech being laid out on its back at least gave him the chance to shoot back, which he did as a speedy Assassin crested the ridge first. His lasers joined with Neumeyer's autocannon and Selassie's available lasers, melting scores of armor from the machine, but they hit nothing vital.

The incoming artillery strike did the rest. On the opposite side of the ridge explosion after explosion sent tremors through the earth, creating a wall of flame that Mark imagined could be a gate to Hell itself. The Assassin was caught from behind by anti-'Mech cluster rounds from the incoming artillery, blasting its weak rear armor and blowing the machine apart.

I hope the infantry got out too, Mark thought. I'm not sure what could survive—

An artillery shell went off overhead. For an instant there was a shower of glass and the feeling of sharp pain everywhere… and then nothing.



AFMS Galatine
Arcadian Landing Zone
17 February 3034


Major General Armstrong was not a happy woman.

The Mumbai operation was a disaster. The Marians sacrificed some of their garrison-quality units, and elements of what was left of their Gladiator regiments, to bring the bulk of both their main line legions down on the Free March Cavalry. Now the Hyde Lancers were virtually gone, with not even a company's worth of machines and pilots left, and the other battalions were so damaged they were effectively hors d'combat. Good for nothing but serving as walking wounded to help keep order for the evacuating civilians.

The presence of Admiral Andros was another matter of instinctive contention. As far as Armstrong was concerned, she should remain in space with her ships and leave the fighting to Armstrong and her staff, and having her come down for any reason felt like an intrusion by the Navy into Army matters.

The final reason for her unhappiness was why she couldn't blame Andros for her presence.

The two of them stood quietly in the tiny observation room for the Gallatine's surgical theater. Through the glass, Army surgeons were working feverishly to keep the March-Princess' son alive, with the outcome still uncertain.

"It was friendly fire?" Andros asked.

"An artillery round fell short," Armstrong said, her voice firm and subdued. "He was covering his lance's retreat and had his machine crippled, so he was not in the absolute safety zone. We also lost two squads of battle armor covering the retreat of their comrades."

"And now I have to report to the Command Staff what happened."

"War is chance. They'll understand," Armstrong said. "He's not the only man we've lost these last two days. The Marians have recovered their poise and fighting hard to keep us from getting into other cities. We're going to need to begin the withdrawal in the next two weeks to meet our timetable."

"We'll be ready to cover for you. The transports we sent back to Gypsum to unload the evacuees should be back by then."

"They'd better be, or we're going to have a tough situation."

"I've seen the tent cities and camps, I know. But we'll get them out. That's what we came here to do."

You mean my people will get them out, with their own blood and sweat, while your spacemen watch from beyond the killing. It was an unworthy thought, but a natural one. She wouldn't feel guilt over it. Although if those Marian warships get involved, the shoe will be on the other foot. Ha, that would serve me right, wouldn't it?

Quietly she turned her attention back to the theater, watching the operation unfold alongside Admiral Andros, and waiting to see if she would have to write a letter of condolence to the March-Princess herself.



Planetary Defense Command
Bolan City, Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
7 March 3034


There was scarcely a moment to rest at this point in the campaign. With time ticking down and military intelligence confirming Marian reinforcements were en route and would touch down by the end of the month, if not sooner, the order was given to end the evacuation. Now the Arcadian troops were beginning to contract their perimeter slowly, buying time for straggling evacuees to come in. Within four days, they would be lifting off.

Despite misgivings from Admiral Andros, General Armstrong herself permitted Brigadier van Reiter to leave Thomas in the frontlines, which was why his company was now in position at the Bolanese Planetary Defense Command. While the PDC was linked to the perimeter and had been for weeks, the focus on the other operations meant it was still as manned as when the Arcadians showed up. That would end today. Inside combat engineers from both services were making the final demolition procedures while on the outside the non-essential personnel and some of the remaining combat troops pulled out via APCs and commandeered vehicles.

"We came just in time," Dani said over the radio. "If we hadn't shown up, I doubt they'd still be here."

"Probably not. But it's best not to say anything," he replied.

"Didn't plan to."

Thomas split his attention between his personal screens and the tac-comm lines. The Marians were pushing aggressively not far from here, trying to fight their way to the major Bolanese factories, but their troops were putting up a stubborn defense now that they had Arcadian-provided supplies and repairs to fight with.

"They're fighting awfully hard for a delaying action."

So they are. What are the Bolanese up to?

The vehicles that came out now included cargo trucks bearing damaged yet serviceable VTOL craft. A line of repaired 'Mechs in the colors of the Principality Guard followed. Whatever their capabilities before the invasion, the Bolanese MechWarriors who survived the siege carried themselves like veterans, and Thomas would welcome fighting at their side any day.

His systems identified a particularly unique machine, a Phoenix Hawk LAM. He keyed over to the agreed-upon comm channel with the Bolanese. "Your Highness, good to see you in health."

"Your Highness. A pleasure to see you again, and my prayers for your noble brother's recovery." Princess Amita's voice was carefully toned as ever, her English spoken with a distinct Bolanese accent. "We are almost complete with our preparations. I will remain here until the last of our troops withdraws."

"Then we shall remain too," he replied. "My orders are clear in that regard."

"So they are. I admit that I welcome a company of BattleMechs with Star League technology as an ally, if only we had fielded such machines months ago things might be different."

The comment sounded innocent, but Thomas heard the edge in it. Nor could he be surprised. Had we come six months ago, we might have thrown the Legions off Bolan. We might not have saved the Principality, but we might at least have saved Bolan.

It wasn't that simple, of course. The invasion hadn't been expected, and the Arcadian military was already in motion surging rimward to make a border with the Mariks. Given the near-dozen jumps between those worlds and Bolan due to the placement of inhabited systems, they would've never arrived before October, perhaps November, well after most of the damage was done.

And it implied Arcadia could throw them back, a prospect that the recent weeks' fighting showed to be difficult. For all the disgust the Marians' embrace of slavery enkindled in the Arcadian people, their martial prowess was regrettably undeniable.

In the end, he let the comment pass without a word.

They waited in some silence as more vehicles and 'Mechs passed. In the distance a great explosion flowered over the Bolan skyline, quickly joined by more. Thomas watched with some incredulity at it. The Galatine couldn't be firing into the city, could it? Could the Long Tom even wreak such havoc?

"They succeeded. Good."

Amita's remark drew his attention back to her. "Succeeded at what, Highness?"

"My forces have set off demolition charges in our BattleMech factories. The Marians have inherited naught but rubble." Her voice had a bitter edge. "I will not deny we did not use those factories wisely, but the Marians would be even more undeserving of their output."

I can't disagree with her there, Thomas thought, and on both counts. Bolan caused so much trouble with its 'sell to anyone' policies…

As time passed more units came by, bearing battle damage. Thomas realized they must have been the forces holding the factories long enough for the engineers to do their work. Now they marched on to guard what proved to be the last convoy. After another ten minutes, several more APCs and personnel vehicles pulled out of the PDC.

"The charges are set, Your Highness. We should depart."

"Agreed. We'll take the rear."

Amita's 'Mech made a nodding motion. She and a lance of surviving Bolanese 'Mechs continued ahead of the last vehicles. Thomas' company took up the rear. As they got to the half-kilometer mark, the city around them lit up from a fireball, such that Thomas was certain the center of the Bolanese military was no more.

Bolan's industries are rubble now, as is the heart of her military. The soul remains though. I wonder how Caesar Sean will take it...



Arcadian Landing Zone
Near Bolan City, Bolan
Principality of Bolan/Marian Occupation Zone
15 March 3034


Brigadier Rayhan of the 1st Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry stood on the command deck of the AFMS North Star and kept his eye on the clocks. They were running behind schedule for the liftoff due to the excess number of refugees that made it through before the Marians closed off all the roads into the LZ. Now packing all of these people into the North Star and the other transports was taking up time, valuable time, while his regiment's embarkation was being hopelessly delayed.

He noted a call come in for him from the Galatine. At a button press the cold blue eyes of Major General Armstrong were directed at him. "Brigadier, what's the status of your loading?"

"Delayed, General. We're still processing the last refugees, and I've had to send ship's crew to help keep them from fighting for space aboard."

Her eyes narrowed. "It's imperative we launch in conjunction, do what you can to get them aboard and get your units embarked. Armstrong out."

Rayhan bristled. There was little he could do that didn't involve simply refusing to board more refugees, which might start a riot and make things worse. All he could do was pass down the order to his subordinates to do everything possible to expedite the process.

"We are held back by the need to balance their food supplies with our own," a lieutenant said from nearby. "Perhaps we should just them board? If we run low on edibles we can ask the other ships for more."

"If we just let them come aboard they will be an even greater nuisance," Rayhan replied. "This must be done with organization. See to it."

He returned his attention to the scene outside of the North Star and the other ships in the Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry's LZ. With the carriers providing top cover he'd already had the unit's fighter wing recovered and stowed on the transports. Damaged 'Mechs were likewise aboard, but the remains of his infantry and the other 'Mech units, as well as the artillery, were all still deployed. Given the skirmishing around the perimeter, he couldn't afford to bring them back in until they were ready for liftoff. Which had to wait while the refugees were processed and assigned spaces aboard each ship to avoid overcrowding.

He was just about to ask about their progress when a call came over their tac-comm links. "Command, this is 1st Battalion Company Bāʾ, enemy forces attacking on our sector, we need assist—" The line cut abruptly.

While the North Star didn't have the command facilities of a Fortress-type DropShip, it did have a rigged holotank on the bridge for ground command capability. Rayhan gestured to it and an NCO dutifully went to work. The holotank came alive, showing a section of his unit's perimeter. Red icons surged through a screen of blue ones, numerous enough that it was clear that a major Marian counterattack was underway.

Over the next twenty minutes, Rayhan rallied his units as best as he could. But with so many of them re-embarked or damaged, they couldn't maintain cohesion in the critical minutes after the Marian breakthrough. The legions of the Periphery's New Rome were poised to charge right up to the North Star and the other DropShips, and the result would be a slaughter, a slaughter of the evacuees still being boarded and of his troops.

"Galatine is bringing her Long Tom to bear on our behalf," reported a comm officer. "They're firing now."

The barrage, when it came, was the kind that could break most attacks. But whether through discipline or anger or sheer bloody-mindedness, the Marian charge continued through the barrage. The force, an ad hoc combination from the 5th and 6th Legions, refused to let anything stop them, brushing past Rayhan's troops with little care.

After weeks of frustration, after having their glorious conquest of Bolan spoiled and their trophies snatched from them, after having the captives that would have enriched them with their bounties taken away, the Marian troops were having their day, and there was nothing Brigadier Rayhan could do to stop them.




Outside of the relative safety of the DropShips, Lt. Colonel Sergei Semyenov directed the 19th Free March Artillery's efforts to help hold the line. But the enemy's charge was too quick and their forward spotters were too swiftly overwhelmed. The battle armor troops were worn down and struggling with loss, and the light 'Mechs had already embarked and couldn't provide the spotting necessary. All he could do was fire blind.

Uncultured Periphery barbarians, he snarled to himself while considering the terrible fact before him: his command was doomed. The 19th's vehicles were not swift, and not very well armored, and there were hundreds of terrified Bolanese between them and the DropShips. If he pulled them back to try and get them away, he would only add to the chaos hindering the evacuation. And that… that left only one option.

"All gunners, man your batteries!" he cried. "Depress the guns and establish defensive positions!"

He'd trained the 19th well, and his men and women did not question his order, knowing as they did he was denying them escape. The artillery gunners of the 19th went t work, moving their vehicles into place and lowering the guns. Turning them, effectively, from howitzers into literal cannons. Anti-armor cluster rounds were loaded at a single command.

The first Marian 'Mechs to approach were light models, Panthers and Javelins and Stingers rushing ahead to continue destabilizing the Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry's defensive posture. Semyenov carefully guessed the ranges and, when he felt the right moment was at hand, gave the order to fire. The artillery vehicles thundered with fury, looking more like tanks or self-propelled anti-tank guns at that moment than they did artillery pieces. Their shells boomed across the ground until the preset range was met and their fuses went off. A spray of armor-piercing shrapnel perforated several of the leading Marian 'Mechs, shredding the thin armor of the machines and their cockpits. Several toppled, their pilots killed instantly, and others staggered under the shots.

Semyenov's men already had the next rounds loaded. "Fire!" he shouted once more, and another wave of explosive rounds struck home. They too detonated in mid-air, creating great explosive shockwaves that toppled the light 'Mechs still standing.

The Marian charge faltered, if for an instant, before the first of the fast mediums rushed in, the Cicadas and Vindicators and Assassins of the Legions. Semyenov's guns fired once more, again with the anti-armor cluster shells, and while they inflicted damage they did not claim as many of these more-thickly protected machines. A number of the machines returned fire as best they could, and while their shots mostly missed, those that connected did terrible damage. One of Semyenov's pieces blew apart from a PPC hit, then a missile struck the ammunition storage of another. The cries of burning, dying men echoed around him, but Semyenov did nothing but give another order to fire, again and again, not flinching at the approaching enemy.

While the artillery continued to fire, the Marian charge did not lose impetus, and in minutes they would be in the midst of the DropShips. They were on the cusp of success.

...if not for the counter-charge.




Lt. Colonel Fariq Hadi walked his Marauder off of the North Star with a handpicked company of MechWarriors from all of the assembled battalions. Thirty machines strong, theirs were the least damaged, and the pilots, among the most skilled and brave. Amongst them came all of the remaining armored troopers of the Rayhan House Guards, a company and one and a half platoons in strength. The Bolanese refugees parted as the sea before them, as did the regimental personnel trying to keep the evacuation as organized as possible. The thunder of the artillery guns could be felt even inside his machine, or so it seemed.

It was when they were in range to see the approaching Marian companies of BattleMechs and armor that he keyed his tac-comm. "Come, my friends. We will hold the pagans until our comrades can get the civilians away. And I will see you again in Paradise, Inshallah." He let his crosshairs settle over a Marian Shadow Hawk and tensed his fingers on the triggers. Twin PPC bolts joined a barrage of shells that stitched across the machine. One of the bolts missed, barely, and the other struck the armored housing of the other 'Mech's shoulder autocannon.

The others joined him in opening fire, joining that of the surviving artillery guns. Hadi keyed his comms and external speakers to transmit together and let out the joyous cry he felt burning in his heart.

"Allahu Ackbah!"

Hadi's 'Mech, and the others, broke out into a run.


(For thematic reasons, not direct parallel)




One of the most dangerous things a successful attack can face is a counter-charge. Even if their numbers are greater, even if victory is at hand, it could still fail against a counter-charge of the right size, the right energy, and the right timing. The attackers' instincts to evade the charge overpowers them and their impetus breaks. They lose momentum, and with that loss, everything falls apart and their formation must regroup.

Such was what the Marians now faced. While they were no strangers to facing charges, the moment was just right for their momentum to fade. Under the artillery fire, under the barrage of Hadi's impromptu force as it rushed eagerly to meet them, their tide ebbed. With their losses mounting, the Marians ceased the attack for now. Their experience kept them from breaking and their commanders went about the work of reforming their ranks for another push, all while long range fire whittled away at the last stand defenders of the Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry, targeting by preference the surviving artillery.

As the Free March artillery died, vehicle by vehicle, the Marian offensive resumed. They still had the numbers, they still had the position, and there would be no relief coming to aid the LZ. The victory was theirs for the taking. They pressed on, less a sharp thrust and more an unstoppable juggernaut of numbers.

Yet their enemies did not waver either. The Marians took losses for every meter, and the ferocity and skill of the resistance impelled them to the methodical advance that pressed the new perimeter of the LZ backward, bit by bit, while detached infantry and armor dealt with pockets of resistance cut off on the rest. Success was inevitable.

And yet, their fullest success eluded them, as was plain to see when, one by one, the DropShips lifted off from the LZs, unharmed and fully laden with the Bolanese refugees.




Semyenov watched the DropShips take off and felt as if a weight came off his shoulders. They'd done it. He'd succeeded in his mission, his duty, and all that was left was to go down fighting rather than risk his soul with suicide.

He ran over to one of his surviving guns and jumped onto the vehicle. "Forward!" he demanded. Knowing what was coming, the driver yet obeyed, and the vehicle started lumbering ever closer to the front, its gun thundering whenever it could fire without risking the dwindling number of their allies. Had he not been about to die, even Semyenov's ear plugs would have failed to save him from permanent hearing loss.

Whatever his intentions to die, Semyenov was not immune to the fear of death. More acutely, he feared the grief and pain of his family back in Dimitrovgrad. I'm sorry my children, my dear Maria. I am not coming home after all. He breathed a silent prayer to the saints of the Church to tend to his family and that his sons grew up to be wise and strong.

Semyenov used his binoculars to observe the effect of their fire. A shell hit home, an explosive round that toppled three Marian 'Mechs and devastated a tank. A Centurion stood back to its feet and leveled its autocannon at them. Semyenov kept his jaw clenched and readied himself for the shot. Whether they missed or not, he was ready.

They didn't miss.




Hadi overheard the calls on the tac-comm, confirmation that Colonel Semyenov was dead. He was a Christian, but yet a good man. Allah give his soul the rest he deserves. "Artillery, maintain fire," was his only order in response.

They did, and his 'Mechs and infantry did. They maneuvered, and they fought, and they inevitably died under the sheer volume of fire, but none surrendered. Not a one.

The weight of metal against Hadi soon duplicated. An Orion, a Grasshopper, and a Victor all targeted him. He kept his 'Mech moving, dodging the incoming fire as best as he was able while returning it with his weapons, ignoring the heat buildup until his 'Mech felt as hot as the Empty Quarter itself. With an eye on the heat he fired his last autocannon burst, which chewed armor from the Grasshopper's leg as it took flight. Missiles from the Orion pummelled him, blasting armor away from his left arm until one blew apart the shoulder actuator, rendering the limb a limp appendage.

He ignored that. The Grasshopper pilot was his concern, as he brought all seventy tons of his machine down in an attempted "death from above" jump. The pilot was good, he had the landing perfectly.

Hadi was yet better.

He moved at the last moment, causing the Grasshopper to miss, if only just. He kicked at the 'Mech while it was still off-balance and discharged his sole usable PPC, point blank, into the knee actuator of the machine. With the previous damage from his autocannon, the armor gave at that point and his laser sliced cleanly through the armor, severing the limb at the knee. The machine tumbled and fell over onto its back. Hadi brought his 'Mech's foot up to smash in the cockpit.

The Victor's autocannon roared, spraying heavy shells into his side and right arm that tore open a wound in both. More importantly, the impacts threw him off balance and his foot struck the ground beside the Grasshopper's head, not on it. Hadi glanced back at the foe spared by his ally's timely aid.

Just in time to see the torso-mounted large laser fire. Bright blue light overtook his vision until nothing remained.



AFMS Liberator
Departing Bolan Orbit
Marian Hegemony


Admiral Andros found the Bolanese royal family on the rear observation deck. Beyond the brilliant flare of the Liberator's fusion engines, their homeworld was a gradually shrinking orb, its large and mountainous continents slowly receding from sight. Grand Princess Gita's hands held her younger sons' hands tightly. Rama was weeping despite himself, and his eldest sibling, the Princess Amita, had her fists clenched and looked taunt as a wire. "Your Highnesses, your quarters are arranged," Andros said. "And we've made the arrangements, one of our DropShips will be ferrying you and our worst wounded to Arcadia by way of a partial command circuit. You may have to wait a few days at Kitzingen, depending on the scheduling, but you should be on Arcadia by the end of the month." She swallowed and added. "My condolences, by the way, for the loss of your world. I wish we had the means to do more."

Gita slowly turned from the vision of her lost world to face Andros. "Thank you, Admiral, for your arrangements and your kind words. They do not fill the hole in my heart, but I appreciate the sentiment."

There was silence, and Andros wondered how much of that was genuine and how much was diplomacy. They have to resent us for not coming sooner. I know I would.

"I want to resent you," Gita said. "I want to be angry that your aid was 'too little, too late'. But you did not have to come. You could have kept your army safe and ready to defend yourselves and left us to our fate. But you came anyway, risking the wrath of Caesar O'Reilly, and rescued us all. Your people bled and died to save so many of our thousands from their chains, even one of your princes lies maimed in the name of our liberation." She drew in a breath and glanced back to the window. "The Umayrs lost our patrimony, but we will at least keep our dignity and honor instead of being trophy slaves for O'Reilly. And we will not forget the blood your people shed on our behalf."

"Hopefully one day we'll be strong enough to come back."

"Perhaps. Or perhaps karma demands we remain in exile for a time, to teach us humility and wisdom that we forgot. Either way, I will leave that future to the gods."

Andros nodded. Before she could say more the ship intercom squawked. "All hands, set Condition YANKEE. Enemy ships on intercept course. I repeat, set Condition YANKEE…"

"It looks like the Marians are going to harry us on the way out," she said to them. "I'll make sure crew sees you to safety if an action begins." With that she departed.




AFMS Galatine, Zenith Jump Point
Bolan System
Marian Hegemony
22 March 3034


The timer for their jump out of Bolan was down to a few minutes, and chance had Thomas with Angelina and his Lance Lieutenant, Dani Verdes. The flight out from Bolan hadn't been a comfortable one, with the Marians' "pocket" WarShips, their non-jump capable corvettes, repeatedly firing rounds toward the evading fleet. No hits were recorded, and every time they were challenged the ships broke off, but as they kept coming back it made for a tense week with repeated calls to alert status and restrictions to travel around the ship.

But that was all over. They'd rendezvoused with their JumpShips out at the Zenith point and the jump to Gypsum was imminent. Thomas allowed himself a breath and glanced at his cousin. "So, your final mission in the Guards is a success. I'm sure your new comrades in the Cuirassiers will benefit."

She smiled and shook her head. "It'll be the Strikers now. Command made sure to send me updated orders just before we cut the links from the HPG here. They're calling off the mustering of the Strikers due to the need to make good our losses. I'm heading for McAffe now."

"Oh. The Strikers, then? They're bringing back Granddad William's old raider battalions?"

"Not a battalion anymore, a full regiment, the 8th Strikers. Chappy Sinclair is mustering them on McAffe, I'll be getting a company in their heavy battalion. I'm not looking forward to the combat drop training, I've always thought the Rangers mad for doing that."

"They're insane," Dani said, joining in. "But they did good work in opening the way for us."

"They did, and I'm sure the Strikers will too. I just prefer to keep solid ground under my 'Mech." Angelina nodded to her. "How are you and the girlfriend, by the way? You both came out alright?"

Dani blushed a little. With all the fighting she'd forgotten the entire Guards knew about them. "She never got hit. And I wasn't injured in the fighting, although my Marauder's still getting some of the combat damage dealt with."

"You came out well. Especially in that early fighting, holding the road like that. Your whole company was the pride of the regiment."

A squawk came over the PA. "All hands, brace for jump."

"Well, there we go," Angelina said. "We're heading home."

Dani asked, "Think the Marians will follow?"

"They'll regret it if they do," Angelina replied, a grin on her face.

A moment later they jumped. The Bolan Rescue Operation was truly over.

 

[Big Steve]

Slacker did these posts Friday, covering the results of the rolls and giving our official in-game results.

Right Makes Might
Bolan, Q1 3034



The rise of the Marian Hegemony from the fringes of the Periphery to one of the most powerful non-Terran states was one of the more interesting elements of the early years of the Second Age of War. Its flanks secured with alliances, the legions were free to run deep into Lyran space. Powers capable of confronting it were either disinclined or too far away, and for five years the Legions of Ceasar faced little real opposition even as the office of Ceaser itself saw some turnover.

The first state to really confront the Hegemony was the Arcadian Free March. The March was naturally concerned with the ongoing conquest of the Principality of Bolan, both for galactopolitical reasons and for the fact that the Hegemony actively practiced slavery, something that was anathema to the Free March ideologically.

The practical reality, however, is that the Free March lacked the military strength to confront the Hegemony on its own openly. The Legions were simply larger, the economy powering them more robust. The Free March could bleed Ceaser, of that there was no doubt, but it was impossible-for now-to stop the ongoing conquest of Bolan.

However, it was possible for the Free March military to obtain temporary local superiority over the Legions on Bolan, and Arcadia's military and political leadership decided to put that fact to their advantage as the calendar ticked over to 3034.

Elements of the Bolanese military were still fighting-to the death, more or less-on Bolan itself, against four regiments of Marian mechs and various supporting units. There was a window where a sufficiently powerful Free March task force could punch their way onto the planet, bloody the Legions' collective noses, and make off with the surviving members of the Principality's political and military leadership, as well as however many refugees their dropships could carry.

Their arrival in the Bolan system the third week of January put the local Marian fleet elements off-guard, and the transportation detachments quickly scattered or jumped out to avoid destruction or capture. The regular Marian naval elements-a trio of pocket warships and some supporting elements-had no desire to die hopelessly outmatched by the considerable squadron the Arcadians had sent as escorts, built around their heavy escorts Liberator and Guardian. They were content to scatter across the inner Bolan system, existing as a fleet-in-being, their presence hopefully constraining Free March operations to some extent.


The "door", so to speak, was kicked open by the First Arcadian Rangers, a lightweight but elite formation of troops who specialized in combat drop operations. Even as wings of Arcadian fighters moved to engage their Marian counterparts and dropships began burning for the surface, the Rangers were hurtling to the ground to break up Marian formations and clear the LZ.

The dropzone they selected was a sector near the Bolanese capital controlled by the Marian Gladiator Auxilla, who scrambled to respond. Auxilia air-defense units attempted to engage the dropping battlemechs, with some limited success, but the quality and equipment difference was too much for the Gladiators to really hold the line, and while the Auxilla was numerous, their numbers were not enough to make up for the skill and technological advantage the Rangers had.

The Marians did what they were there to do, which was plug the wall with their bodies while other formations moved in to support them.

The Bolanese, clearly aware of what was happening, did their best to impede this effort, launching spoiling attacks all along the shrinking perimeter in conjunction with the large number of partisans in action in the area. This delayed Legio V and VI long enough that by the time they were in position the Gladiators were in ruins and the Free March had secured an LZ for the remainder of their forces.

Over the course of February, the six regiments of the Free March task force launched a number of rescue and search-and-destroy operations against the Marians, keeping a punishing pace in order to maximize the 'pay off' from the raid. This came at a price, with the First Free March Cavalry being savaged when overextended, a battalion of mechs and significant elements of their supporting forces cut off by vengeful Legio forces and destroyed before they could be bailed out by other Free March forces.

In the second month, with time running out, a second round of spoiling (and evacuation) campaigns carried on, with the Arcadian Rangers and Guards, both elite formations, inflicting significant casualties on the Marians and took the pressure off of the surviving Bolanese, who took the opportunity to pull out of their surviving strongpoints, although not without engaging in a little sabotage on the way out. The night sky was lit by even larger explosions than usual as Bolan's PLs were destroyed by explosive charges, an action that cost the Bolanese some of their surviving forces but considered well worth it to deny the invaders the fruits of Bolanese industry.


With time running out, the Free March military conducted a staggered withdrawal that saw their perimeter gradually shrink and a steady stream of dropships depart the planet. The Marians waited until they saw an opportunity and then launched a spoiling attack on one of the LZs, the one for the First Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry. Blasting the perimeter security apart, the skilled Legio V rushed the still-loading dropships. A mixed combat command from the regiment, intent on saving the civilians, managed to fight to the last in a manner even the Hegemony officers reviewing the footage was worthy of legend. The sacrifice of this combat command allowed their dropships to lift off, stuffed with refugees and the remaining elements of the regiment.

The journey back to the jump point was uneventful, with the Marian pocket warships content to harass the formation where they could but avoid decisive combat at all costs. The Free March armada departed the Bolan system six days before the Marian relief force arrived.

Losses & other information forthcoming.

Battle of Bolan Casualties:

Arcadian Free March:
All participating units downchecked for Q2 to reorganize and rearm
Ground Supplies Burned
$1200 in assorted damages & dents

1st Arcadian Guards: No other damage
1st Arcadian Rangers: Battle Armor Battalion destroyed
Proctor Light Horse: No other damage
1st Free March Cavalry:
1xMedium Mech battalion destroyed, Ren. Quality Light Fighter destroyer, BA battalion destroyed, Assault Flot crippled
1st Free March Regiment:
BA battalion destroyed
1st Dar-es-Salaam Cavalry:
Heavy Mech battalion, Artillery battalion, Battle Armor battalion destroyed.

=========
Arcadia gains 1 stability for following its ideals & putting its ass on the line. $1000 in permanent income added to one Free March planet representing the Bolanese diaspora settling somewhere.


Survivors from Principality Guard (and the odds and sods attached below) are all rated Veteran/Fanatical and are willing to join Arcadia as a unit. They will be very unhappy if the Marians ever ally for some reason. They can be formed into more than one unit for organizational purposes but would appreciate a member of the Bolanese royal family in at least ceremonial command.

2xBattalions of Mechwarriors that have no machines; 1 battalion of Medium Standard quality mechs w/pilots
2xAir Cav Battalions (Standard quality); 1 battalion more of vehicle crews
2xRegiments of regular infantry (were originally mechanized inf, along with particularly capable partisan fighters that have no interest in civilian life and have signed on)
3xRen Quality Battle Armor Battalions.


--------------------------------------------

Marian Hegemony:
$1500 in damage
Bolan PLs destroyed; Bolan reverts to Major

Legio V Imperium:
Light Mech Battalion destroyed
1 Mechanized Infantry Regiment destroyed
1 BA battalion destroyed

Legio VI Imperium:
1 Medium Mech Battalion destroyed

Gladiator Auxilla:
R/Q/Ram Light Mech Battalion destroyed
1 G/R/M Light Mech Battalion destroyed
Murmillo unit completely destroyed

All Limitanei Foot infantry destroyed
1 Heavy Armor Battalion destroyed; 1 Medium Mech battalion destroyed

$1000 in supplies salvaged
Bolan in insurgency; requires 4 units for 2 quarters

Peneboscot falls to Marians
Binyang falls to Marians ($50 in dents; 3 quarter insurgency requiring 2 units)

Hegemony gains 1 stability (Glorious Conquest!)