Thanks for the kind words. Regarding update pace, really, the daily updates are a lie, it's more like I'm writing over the course of a week, more on weekends, but since most scenes are around 1.5-2k words organically, I post 'em that way. Granted that also gives more time to edit before something goes up. With that said, if I need to hiatus for a couple weeks due to work or whatever, I will (and might have to, but we're probably good for another three weeks or so of uninterrupted posts).
My CYOA dice rolls give access to assault vehicles, and probably some of that are Demolisher tanks that mount AC/20. We won't see any of these in the New Delos arc, though. The Doylist reason is that I haven't written them in, the Watsonian reason is probably a mix of personnel and logistics concerns - needs six people to crew a Demolisher, and they may not have much (or any) 185 mm ammunition. EDIT: They are fielding Riever ASF which carry an AC/20, however, but that's a different model AC/20 and canonically the ammo varies widely.
Notes: 'Blank' listings where a BattleMech/Vehicle/ASF appears, but there's no named pilot - it should be assumed there is someone in that slot, I just haven't gotten round to naming a character there (and might never). And yes, 2nd and 3rd Battalions are understrength. Though the modern unit is nominally Free Worlds League affiliated, the unit uses modified old Capellan ranks and insignia, hence 'Commander' and 'Subcommander' rather than lieutenant ranks.
NEW DELOS (UNDER CONTRACT - JANOS MARIK / HOUSE MARIK)
Easy Demi-Company
Captain Isaac Okafor - Manticore Heavy Tank (Regular) - FWL Sergeant Sarah Lagakos - "Blue" - Manticore Heavy Tank (Regular) - FWL
Manticore Heavy Tank (Regular)
Manticore Heavy Tank (Green) Corporal Khan Jindal - T-12 Tiger Medium Tank (Green) - FWL
T-12 Tiger Medium Tank (Green)
Item Demi-Company
Commander Seymour Vien - Manticore Heavy Tank (Regular) - Aurigan Master Sergeant William Vien - Manticore Heavy Tank (Regular) - Aurigan
Manticore Heavy Tank (Green)
Manticore Heavy Tank (Green)
T-12 Tiger Medium Tank (Regular)
T-12 Tiger Medium Tank (Green)
1ST AIR WING ('FLYING TIGERS')
Mike Squadron
Captain Celeste Reyna - F-90 Stingray (Elite) - OWA Master Sergeant Ben Lewis - F-100 Riever (Regular) - Periphery Sergeant Kieran Merriam - F-90 Stingray (Regular) - Tauran
F-100 Riever (Green)
TRB-D36 Thunderbird (Green)
TRB-D36 Thunderbird (Green)
1ST NAVAL GROUP
DHS Wu Song Da Hu - Monolith-class JumpShip CO: Captain Nyree Parata - FWL
DHD Cathay Williams - Fortress-class DropShip CO: Commander Sara Tait - FWL
DHD Feng Yang Hua Gu - Mule-class DropShip CO: Captain John J. Sheng - FWL
1ST SUPPORT GROUP
Chief Technician: Sanren Shi - (Veteran) - Capellan Lead Mech Tech: Del Pulaski - (Regular) - FWL Lead Armor Tech: Dina Vien - (Regular) - Aurigan Lead Aerospace Tech: Hiroshi Tanaka - (Regular) - ComStar Lead Infantry Tech: Edward B. Walker - (Regular) - Periphery
Chief Medical Officer: Vidal N. Zhang - (Elite) - ComStar Lead Nurse: Sinead Pulaski - (Regular) - FWL
Head of Logistics: Tam A.H. Lee - FWL Head of Administration: Zenia Rhys - ComStar Head of Catering: Qiang Ni-Lind - FWL Head of Services: Rani Sen - FWL
DALIAN (NO CONTRACT - HOME GUARD AND TRAINING UNIT)
3RD BATTALION ('CROUCHING TIGERS')
Peter Demi-Company
Captain Qi Jacobs - "Quail" - PXH-1 Phoenix Hawk (Veteran) - FWL Recruit Kade Jabari - "Waterboy" - STG-3G Stinger (Green) Recruit Leonard Galilei - "Galileo" - STG-3G Stinger (Mech)
WSP-1A Wasp (Green)
LTV-4 Hover Tank (Green)
LTV-4 Hover Tank (Green)
1st Battalion A B C D E F
2nd Battalion G H I [J K L ?]
1st Air Wing M [N O ?]
3rd Battalion P Q R [S T U?]
Once trained up would and sent offworld, would R become N? Or would the crew/planes switch from R squadron to N squadron while new trainees are assigned to R?
Run out of letters in standard English to make a complete 4th Battalion, with that air group stealing some of the letters.
It'd roll over to other versions, e.g. 'Alfa' rather than 'Able', or just whatever. My BMT company was Company P, 'Pegasus', which obviously isn't on any phonetic alphabet. We were next door to Company N, 'Ninja'. Since people shout their company name while doing things, picture a bunch of troops jumping off an obstacle course wall yelling 'NINJAAAAAAA!'.
It seems that Erin doesn't subscribe to the standard Inner Sphere military structure, which is "1 Battalion = 3 Companies = 9 Lances = 36 BattleMechs/Platoons."
It seems that Erin doesn't subscribe to the standard Inner Sphere military structure, which is "1 Battalion = 3 Companies = 9 Lances = 36 BattleMechs/Platoons."
Well no, she's clearly using the standard Comstar organization-6 units per level, which uh, really breaks down as your command grows. Trying to use the Base Six org chart above filling out the above is, well, just asking for trouble.
I do note a surprising number of Aurigans compared to Taurians in the above org chart-only one Taurian compared to four Aurigans. Do I detect some bias?
I do note a surprising number of Aurigans compared to Taurians in the above org chart-only one Taurian compared to four Aurigans. Do I detect some bias?
a) Taurians are fairly isolationalist/ultranationalist, so realistically there shouldn't be many Taurian mercs even if HBS BT has a bunch out there, and
b) as should be evident, two of the named tankers and the lead armour tech are related, same family name. So they were just tagged Aurigan as a group, with that one MechWarrior also coming with them.
There is a little story there, though I don't know if it'll ever come up. At the moment it's only mentioned very briefly in passing, blink-and-you'll-miss-it, in my Part 3 drafts. The really really short version is that they're the dispossessed remnants of a mostly-family mixed lance. Small time mercs.
"Do not judge yourself by the friends you have, but by the enemies you make."
-- Jerome Blake, Collected Short Sayings of Blessed Blake, 24th Edition, ComStar Press, 3050
HARLOW DISTRICT, NEW DELOS
22 MAY 3015
New Delos was burning.
It wasn't a metaphor. The planet was actually ablaze. Or at least a significant proportion of its most heavily inhabited continent, the parts that once had been dense forest and peatland.
In the future I remembered, Anton Marik's troops had used incendiary devices in the forests surrounding Cienfuegos, the planet's capital city. That was the chief detail given by all the sources. There were lots of other mentions of the world being burnt to a cinder, reduced to ash and dust… I had assumed that was poetic license, merely evocative language.
It turned out that New Delos was a heavily forested world. That was the reason it was known as such a beautiful planet, why it was famed for its resorts, and why it was a regional capital. The world had been the host of trade negotiations and other important diplomatic meetings over the years, based very much on that agrarian landscape and picturesque reputation.
They took fire seriously, on New Delos. For centuries, it had been illegal to clear land for agricultural purposes with fuel and flames, even if fire was an order of magnitude more economical than mechanical clearing with vehicles and IndustrialMechs. No, that kind of slash-and-burn was thoroughly banned, not merely in law, but enshrined in the planet's culture. The people of New Delos placed significant value on their trees, their ecology, and their planet's blue skies.
All that was gone, now. The damage wasn't irreparable, because planetary biospheres were resilient things. But the fires and smoke were visible from orbit. It was ironic, really, that after generations of carefully policing fires, it was the planet's liege lord that had deliberately taken a torch to the land, in the hopes of securing a tactical advantage.
This wasn't the first time that New Delos had seen violence. Back in the First Succession War, close to the fall of the Star League, then-Chancellor Barbara Liao's troops had hit the planet hard, deliberately violating the Ares Conventions. They called it the New Delos Massacre, because the Capellan soldiers had intentionally caused civilian casualties. But even then, the planet hadn't burned. It had been a humanitarian disaster, not an environmental one. Mind you, the New Delos Massacre had led to several Liao planets being firebombed, because the Captain-General of the time, Kenyon Marik, had been a vindictive bastard… but New Delos itself had never been set aflame.
Until now.
It didn't help that… in the timeline I recalled, the fall of New Delos had happened differently. Anton Marik had died in the Dragoons' attack, and the planet's defences had been shattered. The world had effectively fallen in the space of days. Here and now, Anton Marik was still among the living. We were still fighting over the planet, in a much more drawn out campaign.
"Anton Marik is an idiot," said Todd Metzger over the company-wide channel. His voice was flat, nearly devoid of inflection. It was a major departure from his usual good cheer. "Massive idiot. Huge."
Todd was a LoggerMech operator by profession, or rather he had been one, before signing up to pilot one of our BattleMechs. I had hoped his experience with forest terrain would be useful. It had been, sort of.
But as he pointed out, his background was in forestry, not hellish smoke-filled landscapes.
I checked the master tactical map on one of my cockpit monitors. From the position of his icon, Todd Metzger had his 'Mech near the top of a hill, giving him a clear sightline over our immediate surroundings... and no doubt an even greater appreciation of the destruction that had been wrought on the countryside.
What I could see outside my own 'Mech cockpit was bad enough, and I didn't even have a view of the horizon. Not that anyone had a view of the horizon, really, because visibility was just stupidly awful.
"Baker Three, this is Baker One," replied Rajeev, wearily. "Clear this channel."
"Wilco," said Todd, a grudging note in his voice. I happened to agree with him. Rajeev was also correct, though. The all-units frequency was reserved for important communication, not public critique of Anton Marik's policy decisions.
The incendiary tactic hadn't been confined to Cienfuegos. It seemed that Anton Marik's troops had been ordered to employ basically the same methods across the planet. New Delos was a relatively densely inhabited world by Inner Sphere standards, with a civilian population well over the two billion mark. That meant it had several urban centres of note, with almost all surrounded by forest of some kind.
Fate had conspired to have the fighting on New Delos intersect with the dry season on the planet's most heavily inhabited continent. Not only did that make the forest and brush tinder-dry, it also meant there was no regular rainfall to extinguish the flames. There was, of course, firefighting equipment on-planet. But the firefighters couldn't deal with the sheer scale of the problem. Especially once it became clear that Anton Marik's troops would actively shoot down any firefighting aircraft they spotted, or even cloud-seeding planes.
"All units," I said, "this is Able Lead. I know we can't see in here, and I know we're all annoyed, but stay focused. Our eyeballs and thermals are shot, but check your radar, your seismics, and stuff."
I was following my own advice, with the sensors in my Griffin tuned accordingly. The smoke and fires weren't just messing with our vision, they also meant that aerial and satellite surveillance was damn near useless. All the imaging gave us was smoke plumes and hotspots everywhere.
You ever try to track 'Mech reactors by heat maps, when the whole continent is a sea of orange and red? Take it from me, it just didn't work.
In that respect, Anton Marik, or whoever in his staff had dreamt up this abomination… they'd made a good call, from a purely tactical or strategic perspective. Not only did the fires restrict our avenues on the ground and present a hazard to infantry, not only did it present a heat hazard to BattleMechs and vehicles… it also soft-countered the fact that our invading forces had air and orbital superiority.
Our own aerospace pilots, in the Tigers, were really not happy about having to fly in these conditions. Going over some areas, they were basically relying on instrumentation, not any eyesight to speak of.
It was a real act of evil genius. Bona-fide supervillain territory. I would be impressed, if I wasn't so busy being utterly pissed off.
And you know what was the worst thing? The really worst thing?
They were still setting fires.
By now, we were damn well almost making Firestarter BattleMechs priority targets when we had them on sensors. We weren't quite at the level of prioritising them over heavier units, but it was getting very close to that line.
That made things slightly awkward for the pair of Firestarters within our own forces on New Delos. Though, so far the quips in the unit hadn't been too malicious, and our Firestarter pilots were bearing the jokes with surprising tolerance or good humour.
Any enemy Firestarter, though...
Case in point.
"Contact! Smiler here! Firestarter!"
That was Jacqueline Macari, over in Rajeev's Baker demi-company.
Jacqueline's voice was easy enough to pick out over the comms, though, which partially defeated the purpose of varying up our identifiers on-radio. Well, that and the fact she had just used her preferred personal callsign from her previous merc days, not her assigned unit one. But even if she was using a supposedly anonymous numerical identifier, she simply had a very distinct accent, which I'd learnt was from some Canopus world. She looked the part of a Canopus native, too, with eye-catching piercings and elaborate body ink.
I didn't like thinking of light 'Mechs as just recon or scout units, per-se, but that was the job they were doing right now, given what we had, and the present situation. Macari was in a Spider. For this mission, she'd been paired with Todd Metzger's Locust. The Locust was already a blisteringly fast 'Mech, but the Spider had comparable speed, and went one better with an array of jump jets.
She was using that now, evading the enemy, while keeping them lit up on our tactical display. The fact she'd singled out the Firestarter as the one to mention was almost funny, considering that the hostile Hermes II was actually the larger threat she had on sensors, marginally outmassing the Firestarter.
Considering the strain in her voice, I could forgive the imprecision in reporting. She was dodging fire, after all. She didn't sound hysterical or even particularly excited, but she did sound very occupied at the moment. Completely understandable.
Jacqueline, or "Smiler" as she styled herself, had been one of the best candidates we'd screened. That was obvious from day one, when she and her crew had screwed us in the sims. I'd later found out that she and a couple of other dispossessed mercs had specifically journeyed to Dalian from the neighbouring system of Kwamashu, in the hopes of getting a berth with us. They'd begged a ride on a JumpShip in an optimistic leap of faith, based on MRB information.
Her record was why she had the Spider, and that was also why I wasn't worrying just yet. She'd be okay. She was a much better MechWarrior than I was. Though we also couldn't leave her and Todd without support.
"Baker Two, Baker Three," Rajeev said, speaking briskly, "this is Baker One. Do not engage, do not engage. Head to point Zebra. Point Zebra, rendezvous with Five and Six. Baker Five, Baker Six, arm and ready. Baker Four, stay on me."
"Able demi," I said, issuing my own orders, "This is Able One. Head to nav point X-ray… wait, Able Five, Six, head to nav point Yoke. Over."
A round of acknowledgements came over the channel.
I couldn't see what was happening with my own eyes. All I had to go on was the information on my cockpit screens, and the voices over the radio. It wasn't a good feeling, but I had to trust that Rajeev and his demi knew what they were doing.
I brought my own 'Mech up to a run, abandoning stealth and heat efficiency in favour of speed, moving the machine as quickly as I could through the rough terrain. Fallen trees, undergrowth, and vegetation weren't hard barriers to a BattleMech, but there was always the possibility that I could lose my footing.
There were other crashes in the forest as the rest of Able advanced with me. Most units in the Inner Sphere used base four organisation, four 'Mechs or tanks to a lance, for example. Com Guards doctrine called for six units in a demi-company, which allowed the demi to split as necessary given combat conditions… into two-unit elements, for example, or a couple groups of three.
In this case, though, I was just taking five units up to engage the enemy. Five, because Gabriela's Wolverine was out of commission from our last engagement. Able had run into a vehicle and infantry group a couple of days ago, near the Harlow River. In the aftermath, the Wolverine was now back at the DropShips awaiting installation of new myomer in the left leg.
The lack of her 'Mech at my side, and her absence on the comms, bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
Speed was of the essence here. Rajeev's group was light in tonnage. Fast recon and striker 'Mechs, not heavier troopers or fire support.
My own group wasn't all that massive either. In general, the Tiger 'Mechs I'd inherited were lights and mediums, not an uncommon situation for a mercenary unit. It meant, though, we were more cavalry than anything else. At least that's what most people would classify us as.
The saving grace was the fact we probably had the enemy outnumbered. Reports said we were dealing with the Eighteenth Marik Militia, though that was fairly meaningless, considering the Eighteenth Marik had absorbed other units… and, in any case, was supposed to be widely spread across the region in lance or company groups. So saying we were fighting elements of the Eighteenth didn't mean all that much, by itself.
Ironically, while Anton Marik's forces were the defenders, and we the invaders, in this case, we were the ones hanging on to territory and protecting key infrastructure.
We were under contract to Janos Marik. But the Tigers were also considered a green and untested unit. As such, we weren't on the spearhead at the front lines, but rather second-line troops, following behind regular Free Worlds League units or more trusted mercenary commands.
In a way, the campaign was less a planetary invasion for us, but more of a high-risk garrison assignment. For troops like us, the job was to guard population centres and key infrastructure that had been captured by Janos Marik's advancing forces, staying behind to keep things safe while the fighting moved on to other regions.
That didn't mean things were boring, however. Because Anton Marik's forces still had a very real vested interest in hitting or recapturing what Janos Marik's troops had taken.
In this case, it looked like another quick raid. We hadn't picked up the incoming Leopard-class DropShip until it was too late to intercept in the sky.
They'd picked a good time. If you were going to attack a place, there were certain periods that worked better. Early was good, with people still waking up. But towards the end of an active duty shift, that wasn't a bad idea, either.
I idly wondered if someone had leaked our schedule to Anton's forces. Or if they had some other eyes on us. But that was a problem for later.
The team in our command truck thought that they'd avoided the obvious means of detection by coming in close to the ground. Their pilots were good. That kind of stunt was a dangerous bit of flying under the current atmospheric conditions - more particulate matter than air, in some places.
It seemed likely the Leopard hadn't gone far, either. It was a DropShip, so of course it was space-capable, but it was more likely the ship had done a short atmospheric hop from somewhere else on the continent. They were just using it like a big transport plane, rather than a true spacecraft. Granted, a Leopard was the sort of small DropShip ideal for such applications. It was very limited as a spacefaring vessel, but for planetside raiding operations, the compact aerodyne hull was an asset, not a limitation.
With only one Leopard, we were probably only dealing with a single lance, maybe a bit more. By default, a Leopard carried four BattleMechs and two fighters, but it was fairly common for engineers to pull the fighter bays in favour of other things, including a couple more ground units.
Theoretically it was possible to cram even more 'Mechs and vehicles into a Leopard, above and beyond that count… but that usually involved some creative packing and stuffing multiple machines into a single bay, like some demented game of children's blocks.
From their approach, we could guess their target.
There weren't many points of interest out here. It was possible they were going for one of the wet ports along the Harlow River. But although freshwater and sea transport was still a major part of logistics in the New Delos domestic economy, traffic was significantly down, what with the whole planetary invasion and all.
Besides, there wasn't any valuable cargo slated to come in by ship. Nothing war-relevant, anyway. We'd checked.
So unless our predictions were wildly wrong, they didn't want a port, exactly, but rather one of the refuelling and repair depots, also along the river. Strictly speaking, the facility wasn't military, it was primarily intended to service civilian vehicles and CargoMechs. But like a lot of infrastructure in the Inner Sphere, the site had been built with the secondary consideration of civil defence, so it could handle fighting machines.
Admittedly, fuel per-se wasn't much of a concern for Anton's forces, as far as we could tell. They were heavy on fusion-powered units, with relatively fewer internal combustion vehicles. But the repair bays and their parts, that was a tempting target. Or maybe they just wanted to destroy it, preventing us from making use of those resources.
Either way, it made sense for us to intercept them before they reached the facility, rather than fighting on top of it.
Right. Finally made my way through the story so far. And then suddenly there was another update which I now also have read I quite like the wrench thrown in by the butterfly effect. Erin has to wonder what her visions are worth still. What if her operations at the CC/FWL border affect the sibling rivalry on Sian? Chancellor Candace Liao? What if she makes so many waves in C* that the Outbound Light isn't sent out, or not the same way, and hence the Clan Invasion doesn't happen in 3050? Or for that matter, butterfly effects in the strict sense, just the result of the mathematical chaos in the causality lines, stuff she has no direct influence over but still change. What if Melissa Steiner says no to the marriage with Hanse Davion? That one was really creepy, after all. Or what if the marriage does happen, but the new FedCom's first goal is to create a Dieron Corridor? Etc etc pp.
Regarding pacing, as was talked about in the other thread, before the arrival of Dalin there were many, well, slice of life scenes that could maybe have been cut. However, they were at least light hearted and funny, and hence not boring. The introduction of new characters was gradual and organic, in any case, and always at least something happened.
As was noted before, the small worldbuilding details for Dalin were a really nice addition, and the mech fight descriptions in the newest chapter are really well done. If I have one criticism to make, it's that you seem to have fallen into the Whedon trap: So many characters seems to fall into the witty banterer archetype - Gabrielle, Adena, that TV host, Liam and Qi - which makes their 'voices' appear rather similar. It isn't good for character distinction, I mean.
Well no, she's clearly using the standard Comstar organization-6 units per level, which uh, really breaks down as your command grows. Trying to use the Base Six org chart above filling out the above is, well, just asking for trouble.
Even just at this level... six elements directly below the battalion level? That's hell to coordinate for the battalion CO on the field. C* really didn't think that one through
Current thinking is no Outbound Light, but Clan Invasion still occurs, though not in 3050 - Crusaders pushed for many invasion votes in historical canon at various points, so it'd still happen without the Outbound trigger. Haven't made many decisions about the nascent FedCom, partially because Valles' story has much more planned on the Lyran and FedSuns fronts. I do a lot of draft bouncing back and forth with Valles and don't want to accidentally or deliberately steal any thunder. I will say as a direct consequence that circa 3020ish, Lyran industry in this universe will be weaker than in canon. Unsure how this may affect the FedCom, if at all.
If I have one criticism to make, it's that you seem to have fallen into the Whedon trap: So many characters seems to fall into the witty banterer archetype - Gabrielle, Adena, that TV host, Liam and Qi - which makes their 'voices' appear rather similar. It isn't good for character distinction, I mean.
I'm at once pleased to read this, and also mildly almost but not quite annoyed. Pleased, because this is the first comment anywhere that has said this. I was beginning to think I was alone, because MY concern is that too many characters damn well sound the same. So yes, absolutely, I 100% agree.
At the same time... there's a limit to how much I'm going to worry about that, because, clearly, I'm writing for humour. It's not like that'll change. It's like saying a British panel show has too many comedians on the programme, because, uh, yes, well... that's the point.
I do try to introduce written verbal tics to distinguish characters. Whether that WORKS or not is a different matter, e.g. Liam is written as using a lot of rhetorical questions, deliberately more than I usually do.
Answered a question on the MechWarrior callsigns elsewhere. Posting a version of it here on SV as well, for completeness.
Erin Larkin - "Rinny" - Just her nickname, as used by Gabriela. Gabriela Flores - "Gabs" - See above.
Brent Danielson - "Offkey" - Really, really, can't carry a tune. Adrienne Pulaski - "Chitchat" - Talked too much over comms. Rajeev Patel - "Guvnor" - Has a posh British English accent. Metzger and the squad had fun with it. Jacqueline Macari - "Smiler" - Likes freaking people out, has one of those expressions. Todd Metzger - "Moose" - Forestry background, Dalian has moose/elk (meese?) in the wild. Dorothy Williams - "Shrike" - @The Bushranger 's character; old nickname, hates her real name. Raul Pulaski - "Snark" - He's a bit of a dick. Lanh Nguyen - "Beefball" - He's Taurian... and sensitive about his weight. Xiaomei Han - "Louder" - Quiet. Needs to speak up over comms. And Raul's her CO, hence... Adena Seo-yeon Jung - "Fangirl" - She's named after the planet's ruler. And, y'know, blame Raul. Sarah Lagakos - "Blue" - Not a MechWarrior, but used to be one. To do with her vocabulary. Liam Jacobs - "Pinkie" - Based on my own BMT section (squad) nickname, which is all I'll say. Pierce A. Copeland - "Wrong Way" - He says: 'navigation error during an exercise'. Liam says: 'ask his girlfriend'. E.S. Schneider - "Shyster" - Graduated from law school, but didn't pass the bar. Barker West - "Doggo" - Name related. Liz Kowalski - "Gecko" - Also name related. 'Liz' + 'Ko'. Dyes her hair green. Sarita Chandra - "Smol Grr" - Self-explanatory. Louis Snovell - "Snowflake" - Name related, plus a heat in the cockpit joke. Kenji Kanada - "Kanji" - Name related, also bad handwriting. Qi Jacobs - "Quail" - Broadly name related. Also, don't ask her about the tiny eggs on a stick. Kade Jabari - "Waterboy" - Was thirsty in an overheated mech, over comms. Leonard Galilei - "Galileo" - Name related, has engineering/science degrees.
On my tactical displays, I could immediately tell that Jacqueline and Todd were taking hits. Minimal damage, but neither 'Mech could soak much. Both were thinly-armoured 'Mechs, built to go fast, not to stand around and get shot at. It looked like they were being pursued.
Which was fine. I'd hoped for that. It was a natural instinct to chase something that was running away. Besides, far as Anton's forces knew, all we had to defend the repair and refuelling facility were the light 'Mechs of Baker, because those were all they'd sighted for sure. They were likely aware that the Fighting Tigers of Dalian were a larger unit, in total, but given the swathe of territory we were responsible for… we couldn't have all our forces concentrated on one spot, could we? No more than the Eighteenth Marik were all in one place, anyway. So Anton's troops still had to get eyes on us, they still had to extrapolate from what they could see.
The awful visibility and thermal mess from all the forest fires? It worked both ways.
If I read my maps right, Rajeev was about to let the enemy know that Baker wasn't just light 'Mechs.
"Baker Five, Baker Six," Rajeev said, over the radio. "Own time, own target, fire."
The Firestarter and Hermes II were at the head of the enemy lance, probably because they were the fastest of the enemy BattleMechs, if our readings were accurate. But they weren't faster than a running Spider or Locust, letting our speedier scouts build some distance.
And they weren't faster than a hovertank. Because that's what Baker Five and Six were, their engines shrieking to life as they tore out of cover, slashing in a high-speed pass across the incoming 'Mechs. I couldn't actually hear the engines, of course, but I knew a hovertank's lift turbines made a terrible amount of noise at maximum output. They had to be howling, now, accompanied by the crackle of their Particle Projector Cannons.
PPCs were the heaviest type of energy weapon on the modern battlefield. Most of the ones in common use were ineffective at close proximity, with the ion stream needing some distance to coalesce. But they had both good range and punch, which was enough.
The LTV-4 Hover Tank was not a sophisticated vehicle. It was inelegant, ugly, cheaply-manufactured and obsolete. The model was something like over five hundred years old. But it was still in production across the Inner Sphere, licensed to countless manufacturers under a million different names. I wasn't even sure where our LTV-series tanks were from. They had been in the DropShip cache, and there were manufacturer markings on the parts, but a search of Dalian's planetary network didn't turn up any information on the company logo. But an LTV was an LTV. The tank was little more than a crew compartment, a turret, power plant and hover engine… plus the energy systems needed to power a PPC. It also had four missile tubes, but that was almost a footnote in the design.
The LTV-4 played to the few strengths a tank had over a BattleMech. Vehicles weren't as strongly built, they were more susceptible to structural damage. But they had turrets, which were nearly as good as a 'Mech's arms for keeping guns on target, and as a hover vehicle, it was fast.
The crews of Baker Five and Six were being liberal with their PPC fire, knowing that neither of the enemy BattleMechs had anything that could threaten them at their current range. The two crew in Six were pretty green, but the commander and turret gunner in Five was Fatima Osman, a seasoned tanker who'd come over from Dalian's planetary militia, and well worth the minor additional logistics needed to feed her. Strict dietary requirements.
Fatima was probably qualified to lead a bigger armour group, but she'd flat out refused the officer's commission and greater responsibility. Isaac Okafor over in Easy demi was thus the ranking armour officer.
Honestly, I'd have liked to have Okafor's tanks with us too, but they were on city defence, watching Harlow proper. There was always the chance that this raid, the one we were responding to, was a feint or distraction of some kind. We couldn't leave everything else undefended.
That's why we were out here with Rajeev's Baker demi, the most mobile of our ground formations. It was why I'd paired a couple of the LTV-4 tanks to accompany Rajeev's light 'Mechs. The hover vehicles had the speed to keep up with speedy 'Mechs, and provided the much-needed firepower that the light 'Mechs were too small to carry.
On paper, it was risky for a pair of LTV-4 tanks to dance with a Hermes II. Most Hermes II 'Mechs would have been able to return fire, even at extreme range. The model typically carried a Class Five autocannon as primary armament, which was a distance weapon.
But our sensors were flagging this particular 'Mech as a HER-2M, not a HER-2S. The 2M was a distinctly Marik variant, enough that it appeared in popular tri-vids across Free Worlds League space. It was associated with the Dark Shadows battalion, a unit which… might or might not really exist. Regardless of whether House Marik's elite commandos were fact or the fevered dream of some holovid producer, the 2M was real. The variant traded long range firepower for slightly more speed and additional short-range punch. Not a bad trade, in abstract terms, but the exchange wasn't working in its favour, at the moment.
The speed of a 2M variant Hermes II meant it could theoretically catch up with hovertanks. But that would mean leaving its Firestarter partner behind, and moving even further from the rest of the unit - it looked like the Firestarter and Hermes II were the recon element for this raiding party.
Well, the Firestarter wasn't a great recon platform, but the 'Mech had a long history of being shoved into roles it wasn't built for. So that was about the expected fate of anyone operating one, really.
I might have been imagining things, or projecting too much on the other MechWarrior, but I thought I could sense the Hermes II pilot hesitate, unsure whether to close on the pair of LTV-series tanks, or stick by the Firestarter.
Jacqueline and Todd made the decision for them. They stopped running. Well, rather, they stopped running away, instead wheeling round and opening up on the Firestarter and Hermes II with their own weaponry. Strictly speaking, Jacqueline and Todd were outgunned in close range, and Todd's accuracy was still suboptimal.
Todd's newly-minted MRB profile classified him as a green MechWarrior, which was fair overall, but the way it broke down, he combined good 'Mech-handling ability with poor weapons control. The short-ranged loadout on a Locust offset that to some degree, but not entirely.
They weren't alone, though. That was the point.
Now, the enemy pilots had to choose between doing something about the two rival 'Mechs dancing in their space, or trying to catch up with the tanks peppering them with PPC fire. Neither was an attractive proposition.
They chose to return fire on the 'Mechs. Which was typical MechWarrior behaviour, and what we'd counted on. The Firestarter even slowed down a little, which was perfect.
My 'Mech crashed through smouldering vegetation, stirring up ash and fumes. I kept part of my attention on my piloting, because I didn't trust the unstable terrain. But the rest of my mind was on the tactical situation.
So far, so good, but I wasn't about to get cocky. Able was about to engage. It wasn't the Firestarter and Hermes II we were after, though, that was Baker's problem. My group was tasked with intercepting the other 'Mechs we'd pegged as trailing behind the two faster-moving scouts. By now, we were reading three additional 'Mechs, so five enemies total, meaning that poor enemy Leopard had really been packed to the brim, or it was a conversion that gave up the fighter space.
Problem was, we didn't know what they were. Just roughly where they were, and how fast they were going. We had sensor returns, but no clear identification on their models and mass.
From their much lower speed, it was likely they were heavier units. Sure, it was possible they were just really slow light 'Mechs, maybe a Panther, UrbanMech or something. More likely, though, they had to be medium weight at least, maybe heavy.
We still had a numerical advantage, though.
And a good flanking position.
"Able Three, Four," I said, into my helmet microphone. "We're coming up on the ridge. Jump jets, got it?"
"Gotcha, gotcha, flying up and over," answered Able Four, with a laugh that carried over the channel. Four was Adrienne Pulaski, the younger of the two MechWarriors from the Pulaski family who'd joined the unit. The Dervish she was operating wasn't exactly like her family's ancestral Kintaro, more of a standoff fighter than a brawler… but missiles were missiles, and I was hoping some of the skill set would transfer.
Adrienne was also named after my own late father, a practice that was fashionable in some circles on our homeworld, particularly the moneyed class and minor nobility. Thankfully for my sanity, Adrienne was nothing like what I remembered of him.
"I hear you," Able Three said, laconically, like he didn't sound terribly keen about the proposition, and was just humouring us. Maybe he was. Three was Brent Danielson, in a modified Shadow Hawk. Like Jacqueline Macari over in Baker, he was a dispossessed MechWarrior with MRB credentials.
Brent knew his trade, but there were other… issues. Mainly, I hoped the Lyran merc was sober this time. Since his neurohelmet was operating correctly and there weren't any warnings on my instruments from the pilot health monitors, he was presumably functional enough.
I stomped hard on my cockpit's foot pedals, triggering a jump. Plasma blazed through the channels in the Griffin's chassis and out from the thrust points, propelling the 'Mech into the air. All the 'Mechs of Able Demi were jump-capable, so when I took to the air, so did Able Three and Four.
That gave us eyes on the targets, as we crested the ridge. They knew we were here as well, of course. That was unavoidable. But I hoped we had a better angle on them, than vice-versa.
My blood went cold. Well, probably it wasn't my blood, but rather the feel of the cooling vest against my skin. But I did have to fight down a mild instinctive reaction when I saw what I was dealing with. That was more tonnage than I wanted to see.
Quickdraw, I noted. Marauder…
And a Founder-damned Cyclops.
A small whining sound escaped my lips. It wasn't any coherent word, just a vocalised mix of confusion and annoyance. Blessed Blake himself, what kind of commander assigns a valuable assault 'Mech to a small mobile strike force?
Well, whomever my counterpart was on Anton Marik's side. Apparently.
The damn 'Mech was supposed to be a command model. Shouldn't it be out leading a regiment somewhere? What, was this a defective Cyclops or something, missing its famous battle computer? Were we dealing with the runt of the Cyclops litter? It couldn't have the command and control electronics, if it was being risked on a small-scale action like this.
Okay, I told myself. Okay. Fine. It didn't matter. I was more concerned about the monstrous Class Twenty autocannon in the torso, which was capable of damn near killing a small 'Mech in one shot. But it was a close-range weapon. If we kept our distance, we'd be fine. The Cyclops was an assault 'Mech, but it had an oversized engine for its tonnage, cutting into its weapons load.
Of course, even considering that… both the Cyclops and the Quickdraw carried long-range missiles, and the Marauder was a long-range sniper 'Mech, so keeping our distance from them wasn't a vast improvement, per-se. But, hey, 'Mech for 'Mech, our three almost matched their three for long-range firepower. Well, okay, we really didn't, but at least our long-range punch wasn't massively different. Though they had lots more armour, and if the fight did get close, I truly didn't want to be in front of the Cyclops.
"Able demi," I said, as I brought my weapons to bear, "target Quickdraw, aim low."
The Quickdraw was both the lightest machine facing us, well, relatively speaking, and the one with a famous vulnerability. The big ankle actuators on the 'Mech were fragile. Not made of paper or anything, but certainly a known weak point. If we could cut it down early in the fight, it would help our chances.
My Particle Projector Cannon went off, as did Brent's. To my annoyance, my first shot missed, but the second didn't. We salvoed the LRMs, too, mostly from Adrienne and I, but even Brent's 'Mech had a little five-tube launcher to work with. It wouldn't exactly be a knockout punch, but I was hoping to distract and disorient long enough to get some work done on that Quickdraw.
Unfortunately, bad ankles or not, the Quickdraw was still a heavy. On the lower end of the weight bracket, only a bit bigger than my own Griffin, but a heavy all the same. Its left leg and a few other locations had changed colour on my targeting display, but we hadn't crippled it in one strike.
Which was a problem, because now they were returning fire, a missile lock warning shrieking in my ears. Dropping my 'Mech back below the peak of the hill let me avoid the PPCs and autocannon from that Marauder, but the enemy LRMs can and did track past line of sight. My cockpit rocked, shaking me in the harness, as missile impacts shook the 'Mech.
"Minor damage, armour," reported the computer, still in that deep male baritone. I hadn't gotten round to swapping the voice settings, seeing as how it was a low priority. Anyway, I wasn't sure if the voice creeped me out, or if it was starting to awkwardly grow on me.
I glanced out the cockpit and the tactical display. Adrienne's 'Mech was sliding down the slope with a few controlled bursts of jump jets, down the face that was away from the enemy. Sensible, since she packed most of our LRMs and could do her job even without a line on the enemy. Direct fire was better, but with the enemy being bigger than we'd expected, conservative was the way to go. She was firing again, using the data from Brent's Shadow Hawk.
Brent hadn't dropped down, he was still firing from the ridge, though most of his 'Mech was in cover, leaving only the upper torso over the crest of the terrain. That worked because the main weapon on a Shadow Hawk was up on one shoulder. The stock Shadow Hawk was somewhat undergunned for its tonnage, but this particular 'Mech was a Kurita-style aftermarket modification, carrying a PPC in place of the usual autocannon. The resulting weapons loadout was quite similar to a Griffin in that regard.
Me, I popped up again, so I could use my own PPC. PPC first, then LRMs an instant later, so the faint shock of the missiles leaving the launcher didn't mess with my aim. Then I quickly twisted my 'Mech's torso, protecting my weapons by presenting the Griffin's left side. The computer registered a few more retaliatory hits, more armour damage.
Heat was starting to build in my 'Mech. I didn't need the gauges to tell me that, I could feel it, with the air circulators kicking in, and my cooling vest pumping more chilled fluid around my torso.
The enemy 'Mechs were coming towards the ridge, now. I still didn't like the Cyclops pointing in my general direction, but better that way than the other.
Because, while our BattleMechs had the jump jets to climb the hill, to go over it, Able Five and Six didn't. Of course they didn't. They were tanks. They had to go the long way around, but by now they were in position, and set up to catch the enemy. Between the 'Mechs and tanks, we had overlapping arcs of fire.
"Five, Six," said Alec Kaynard over the squad frequency. "Going for the 'draw."
A Vedette wasn't an impressive machine, but it was a well-known and reliable workhorse. Similar to the LTV-4, it was not a complicated machine. Simply designed, simply armed. The Vedette had an Armstrong autocannon in the turret, backed up by a single machine gun. A single Class Five autocannon wasn't going to do much, but the idea wasn't to have one hammering at the target, but at least a pair of them.
Alec Kaynard was the senior tanker among the four Vedette crew assigned to my Able demi, with two in each tank. He also had good eyes and swift hands, a little too good, which was why he'd been banned from joining card games, at least if any real money was involved. The man was an actual card artist. Right now, however, his remarkable hand-eye coordination was a useful combat asset. It also helped that between the sloping terrain, the height of the Quickdraw, and the low-slung profile of the Vedette, Alec had a nice clean angle to scythe cannon rounds across the legs of the enemy BattleMech.
I would have liked to continue adding my PPC fire to the mix, but by now the Marauder was clearly taking offence at how we were picking on the Quickdraw. Whoever was in that cockpit, they had to know we were focusing fire on their lancemate.
A stock MAD-3R Marauder carried two PPCs to my one, with a pair of lasers and its own Class Five autocannon on top of that. The cannon was almost an afterthought on top of the rest of that firepower. We were out of laser range, but if I could hit the Quickdraw with my PPC, its lancemate could certainly touch me.
Keeping up that volume of fire from the PPCs in each arm couldn't be good for the Marauder's heat levels, but I didn't know which would give out first, my 'Mech's left side, or the Marauder's heat sinks. I suspected it'd be my 'Mech. There weren't any weapon systems on the left half of a standard Griffin, which was exactly why pilots pointed that side of the 'Mech towards the enemy in situations like these. Even so, I couldn't just take the hits indefinitely.
I activated the jump jets again, throwing the 'Mech sideways with a violent lurch, heading towards another semi-covered point on the ridgeline. Even as I evaded, I launched another salvo of LRMs. Landing a PPC shot from my 'Mech's right arm was… unlikely, given the movement, but missiles were a different proposition, those didn't care about my unsteady aim.
There was an almighty crash, as the Quickdraw toppled. A quick glance at my monitors told me that it still had a functional leg, but the Shadow Hawk and Vedette tanks were working on that particular problem.
The Marauder pilot was content, apparently, to stay at range. That made sense, considering how the 'Mech was basically a fire support design, albeit a direct-fire one rather than missile-based.
Speaking of… I wasn't seeing as many missiles in the air as I expected. Not from our side, at least. "Able Four, One - problem?"
"Um, er, left tubes aren't loading, sorry," Adrienne said. "I'm cycling, trying to clear the fault!"
"Write a ticket for the techs," remarked Brent.
I ignored the byplay, and just mentally recited a silent abbreviated prayer for Adrienne's LRM launcher. I knew that shit happened, but now was a really inconvenient time for a breakdown.
The Cyclops was advancing. Flank speed for a Cyclops was an unremarkable but still respectable sixty-four kilometres per hour, and it was using all of that in thundering towards our higher ground. It didn't have jump jets, but it looked like the MechWarrior wanted to run up the slope the old-fashioned way. Could it do that? Possibly. It was quite a tall 'Mech, and I had to presume the pilot knew what kind of incline their machine could scale.
Moving close would eliminate the LRM pack crammed into the assault 'Mech's torso as a threat. Except a lot of my own firepower, and that of Adrienne's Dervish, was also tied up in LRMs. Whereas the Cyclops had a lot more close-range punch to fall back on. An acceptable exchange from the enemy's standpoint, but not ours.
"Baker One," I said, tersely, "Able One here. What's your status? Over."
A moment later, I saw the Cyclops hesitate. There was a danger in trying to read too much into a BattleMech's movements, especially humanoid ones. There was a natural tendency for us to anthropomorphise, attributing meaning to something that looked and moved like a person.
But, having said that, there was a person in a 'Mech. A person with a neurohelmet. Depending on the pilot and the sophistication of the helmet, it was possible for even small unconscious movements or stray thoughts to end up translated into commands, faithfully executed by the machine.
I was sure I hadn't imagined the reaction from the Cyclops. My guess was confirmed when the Cyclops slowed. It was still moving, but not at flank. Keeping about the same distance as the Marauder, doing the same. They weren't turning their backs to us, but it looked like they knew the situation had changed.
I took the opportunity to trigger my PPC again, keeping a sliver of my attention on the heat indicators. I didn't need little bars and lines to tell me my 'Mech was warming up, I could feel the effects in my cockpit and the response from my cooling vest. But with a big energy weapon like a PPC, it helped to know exactly when shots would start to take you over the edge. Most 'Mechs had user interface warnings or audio alerts, but ideally a pilot shouldn't need them, per-se.
Brent had the same problem. I saw his 'Mech repositioning, moving to use the terrain for cover. "Offkey here, cooling down."
"The Cyclops isn't trying to hug us, is it? Like, it's over there while we're over here, and staying over there," said Adrienne.
I noted, absently, that the Dervish was now once again launching missiles from both sides of its torso. Which was good, thank the Founder.
"Able Four," I said, "One here. Yes. Looks that way."
"Able demi, this is Baker Five," came Fatima's voice over the channel, "Firestarter and Hermes II are repositioning. May be trying to flank you, or rejoin rest of lance."
"Flank, no," disagreed Jacqueline Macari, "Firestarter is down arm, Hermes too."
At least, that was what I thought she said. Was that last bit 'Hermes too', or 'Hermes II'? For a fleeting half-second, I considered calling back for clarification, but I quickly discarded the thought. That would be silly and pointless.
I looked at the tactical map. The pips representing the Firestarter and Hermes II were on the move. Regardless of whether they were retreating or not, that was indicative.
"Baker One," I said, "Able One. Are you… "
"Able One," Rajeev replied. His voice was still relatively controlled, but I thought I could detect a trace of annoyance. "We are firing on the DropShip. Stand by."
Rajeev's Cicada didn't have a phenomenal amount of punch, with most of it tied up in the single PPC. That was more than most Cicada models had, admittedly, but still not great in the grand scheme of BattleMechs.
And he'd taken Baker Four with him - a Mongoose, piloted by "Shrike" Williams, one of Jacqueline Macari's merc buddies, another of the dispossessed pilots that had sought us out. Shrike's name was Dorothy, but she refused to answer to that for whatever reason. I wasn't sure if that was for deep-seated personal reasons, or just some kind of tough-girl image-building.
Anyway, point was, a Mongoose didn't have many guns, either. It had a lot of firepower for its size and speed, four laser mounts, but it was still a light. That said, even a couple of fast undergunned 'Mechs posed a significant threat to a grounded DropShip.
The Leopard actually had good weapons for its modest tonnage. However, those weapons were meant to fend off enemy fighters or other DropShips, or at the most to clear a landing zone. If a Leopard was already sitting on a landing pad, or in this case a forest clearing, it didn't really have the firing arcs or range of motion to bring all its armament to bear on well-positioned ground attackers.
The enemy crew couldn't just leave the Leopard parked and let Baker One and Four shoot the crap out of their engines. Wait, no, they could. If they'd lost their minds and the will to live, maybe. If they were sensible, then...
"Able One," Rajeev announced. "Baker One. Enemy DropShip has lifted. Enemy DropShip has lifted."
That was logical. That was expected.
Even if Baker One and Four couldn't destroy the DropShip themselves, whoever was leading this mission on the side of the Eighteenth Marik Militia had to realise what the two attacking 'Mechs represented. It meant we knew their DropShip's current location, and had demonstrated the ability to hit it. They had to know we outnumbered their 'Mechs, and could potentially call in reinforcements. We had deeper reserves than they did, anyway.
More importantly, we had air superiority. Marginally, anyway. Certainly we had more ASF available. The Eighteenth damn well knew we had fighters to field, so us pinpointing their DropShip meant that we could, theoretically, soon have some Rievers and Thunderbirds up in their business and thoroughly ruining their flight crew's day. And without the DropShip, the raiding party was screwed.
Brent, Adrienne, and I were still trading fire with the two heavier enemy 'Mechs. Two, because it was evident by now that the Quickdraw was effectively out of the game. The Vedette tanks accompanying our 'Mechs had also turned their attention to the Cyclops and Marauder, starting to take shots with their autocannons.
"Able lead," said Jacqueline, our Spider pilot over in Baker demi, "confirm no flanking. Firestarter and Hermes, they are running."
"Roger," I answered.
Our job wasn't to wipe them out. Founder knew I didn't want any of the enemy MechWarriors dead. I didn't even want to hurt them, really. The point wasn't to kill the other side, but to deny them their objectives, to make them give in, to make them surrender.
It looked like that was what the Quickdraw pilot was doing. It was theoretically possible for his 'Mech to stand, even to sort of move… or rather, limp. But he wasn't going anywhere fast. Instead, his 'Mech was powering down, a universal sign of surrender when cornered.
The Cyclops and Marauder were now obviously retreating, as well. Still making some shots at us, but the intent was clear.
The MechWarrior in the Quickdraw had to be watching the gradually-vanishing silhouettes of the Cyclops and Marauder with some frustration. I wasn't privy to their radio chatter, though, I couldn't guess what was going on there.
"Shrike here," said Shrike, presumably calling in the report for Rajeev. "DropShip's heading northeast, towards the river. Picking up the lance, I reckon. Should we pursue?"
"Baker Four," I replied, "this is Able One. No, no, it's fine, it's good, let them go."
It wasn't the most elegantly worded answer, particularly for formal battlefield communications. You were supposed to think before transmitting. But I was starting to feel my energy fade, the edge of tension draining out of my system, which was making it increasingly hard to concentrate.
"Aw," complained Shrike. "Come on! Barely gotten started here!"
I took a breath, then released it.
"Baker Four," I said, "not the job. Fight the campaign, not the battle."
"Aw," Shrike whined, again.
I ignored her.
A Cyclops is an unusual choice for a raiding lance, but the Cyclops... and other enemy 'Mechs in this segment, are on the random dice roll tables for Anton Marik's forces on New Delos in the Historical: Brush Wars sourcebook. Though noted in the segment, this Cyclops probably doesn't have working command electronics, meaning it's just a too-fast and consequently slightly undergunned 'Mech for its tonnage in the Succession Wars era.
As noted elsewhere, Shrike is @The Bushranger 's character, used by BR's request, with permission, etc.
Current thinking is no Outbound Light, but Clan Invasion still occurs, though not in 3050 - Crusaders pushed for many invasion votes in historical canon at various points, so it'd still happen without the Outbound trigger.
Even so, though, the Outbound Light was an important argument for the Crusaders to start the invasion right now. Without, the IS might gain another full decade.
I will say as a direct consequence that circa 3020ish, Lyran industry in this universe will be weaker than in canon.
Seeing as the spectacular success in the 4SW was only possible because Stackpole paid no respect to the established universe of the unique combination of the House with the qualitative best troops and the House with the highest industrial outpost - if that is diminished, the same success probably can't be repeated. The two partners concentrating on their common enemy, the DC, while remaining in a defensive posture everywhere else, might hence make sense. Of course, I might be biased - as I've indicated, I'm always all for stepping on snakes
At the same time... there's a limit to how much I'm going to worry about that, because, clearly, I'm writing for humour. It's not like that'll change. It's like saying a British panel show has too many comedians on the programme, because, uh, yes, well... that's the point.
As for the newest chapter - oh wow. I'm blown away. That was absolutely great! That is how mech battles are well written!
I began getting acquainted with BT during my own stint at the army (conscription). We were allowed to go home at weekends, but it was a 6h train drive for me, so reading material was always welcome. I basically read through the entire FCCW storyline. And I must say, in many novels I simply skipped the fighting scenes, because the authors rattling down mech names didn't really mean much to me. Now, my impression might be skewed, because 1) I have read up on mechs in the meanwhile and 2) there are fewer types around in pre-3025 anyway, of course, but I do think you handled this so much better. Yes, better than the official published authors.
All the considerations what having this mech or that variant there, all the explanations - it's great! It really makes the battle come alive. In fact, such details as a Cyclops that can't fulfill its primary function anymore and hence is used as just a combat mech (something its TRO text explicitly mentions as happening quite frequently) really help with that as well. And the course of the battle also make sense.
And all the little details about the pilots as well. So that they aren't only units or numbers, but people with their own traits and eccentricities, which also can influence the battle (if that one Lyran had been drunk, for example). I really did like that as well.
Hm. It seems like a focus on mission objectives to the point of deliberately letting enemies retreat is a rare thing in Battletech? I get the vibe that this is an unusual decision, anyway.
Hm. It seems like a focus on mission objectives to the point of deliberately letting enemies retreat is a rare thing in Battletech? I get the vibe that this is an unusual decision, anyway.
Quite the opposite in the Third Succession War, actually. All sides are exhausted, mechs are getting rare, factories even more so - so everyone is extremely conservative with their now very limited resources, and people don't really go for destruction that much anymore. It is actually quite the norm that two lances or two companies beat each other a bit, and then the losing side retreats and is usually allowed to retreat. If an enemy pilot is captured, they will be ransomed. The Rules of War make things almost a bit ritualistic that way.
This goes doubly for mercenary units, which after all have no real motivation to do more than what their contract obligates them to, so why risk their own resources? It's not like the employer will replace them.
I honestly hadn't considered how a somewhat weakened Lyran industrial base might affect the 4th Succession War. Hm.
Okay, so what's going on here is - due to simple timeline progression. Canon event I'm messing with right now is the 31st Century Marik Civil War in 3015. Fine. What happens between 3016 and 3019, then, assuming the story still follows a merc unit still under contract to Janos Marik? Well, probably fighting on the Marik-Steiner front, the FWL-Lyran border. But because the protagonist is fighting for the FWL, with some foreknowledge, that means the Lyrans suffer at least one more defeat than they do canonically.
So, does that affect the 4th Succession War? I want to say... maybe, though unless I want to drastically shift my timelines, it's still gonna be Liao that gets hammered by Steiner+Davion. The reason for THAT is not so much some great love for the 4th Succession War timeline, but rather that the drubbing Liao receives in the canonical 4th Succession War goes on to trigger the Andurien Secession Crisis, and I want to do stuff with Andurien. That... might still be possible, even if Liao doesn't get quite as badly mauled in this version of the war. The Confederation just needs to be weaker, weak enough that the Anduriens in the FWL think they can carve out some of the Capellan worlds and declare independence.
But I'll need to think on that. Tentative meta-arcs were (numbering subject to change):
Part 3: Marik Civil War
Part 4: Third Succession War - Marik-Steiner Front
Part 5: Fourth Succession War - Liao-Steiner/Davion Front
Part 6: Andurien Succession Crisis
I'm glad you like it. Me, I can't remember what I personally read when I was stuck in camp - also mandatory service stuff. Neil Gaiman, I think. Some Robert Heinlein. I'd already read Starship Troopers by that point, but I got a lot of amusement loaning my dog-eared copy out to other people, since the whole thing's a rant about the nature of military service.
I've been re-reading the Gray Death Legion books for story research purposes, and I guess I'm trying to hit that style for 'Mech combat scenes. There's a lot of background fluff interwoven in the Gray Death books, whereas, yeah, a lot of the later BattleTech novels had a more sparse style to it. I worry that I'm putting too much introspection and faux-tactical-analysis into my battle scenes, but if it's working for you, that's good to hear.
Hm. It seems like a focus on mission objectives to the point of deliberately letting enemies retreat is a rare thing in Battletech? I get the vibe that this is an unusual decision, anyway.
@Susano has addressed this, but in-era, fighting to complete destruction is rare - at the end of a fight the infrastructure and 'Mechs would ideally still be intact, just changing hands. On the other hand, in canon the Dragoons did hit New Delos so hard that something like only a company of troops was left operational out of two-plus regiments (albeit under-strength), so it probably comes down to how angry each side is.
Yeah this was a good chapter. A real eye-opener to how Battletech should feel like, hah! (Though I will admit I was sharing the sentiments of that post above, the one that was imagining a HBS-style LRM barrage knocking over the Quickdraw to start battering its pilot into submission.)
Ah well. I was assuming some big event was to happen. But if it's really just the presence of the Tigers at the FWL/Lyran border - how much can one unit affect? Even if they grow to be an entire regiment, or even a RCT equivalent... err, or whatever C* equivalents would be... how much damage can they really do? Unless they somehow destroy Defiance Industries on Hesperus or something... and it would be a bit sueish if, after over a dozen failed attempts over the years, a random merc unit managed that, heh.
So overall, probably not much at all will change, since the effect on Lyran industrial output is probably negligible. (Don't you dare destroy Hesperus! ) And hey, if you want to make extra sure, you can have the unit posted at the Capellan border. We all know the Concord of Kapteyn was a joke not worth the paper it's printed on, after all. (what? No, of course I don't just want to deflect them from Lyran space! )
Either way, you can still have your Andurien crisis. Really, your approach (working backwards from what you want to happen) makes just as much sense, after all. But, if you want, you could also have different events leading to there.
For example, reading up on Candace and Romano Liao in the original Capellan Confederation Housebook, it is stated that Romano has a major hateboner for the FWL. So if the CC in the 4SW is left alone and then Romano somehow got into power during the war, she might attack the FWL. If the FWL then still upholds Kapteyn, that might piss off the Andurians enough to eventually try to secede regardless.
But eh, you can also have the CC half dismantled as in canon. That works, too
Ah well. I was assuming some big event was to happen. But if it's really just the presence of the Tigers at the FWL/Lyran border - how much can one unit affect? Even if they grow to be an entire regiment, or even a RCT equivalent... err, or whatever C* equivalents would be... how much damage can they really do? Unless they somehow destroy Defiance Industries on Hesperus or something... and it would be a bit sueish if, after over a dozen failed attempts over the years, a random merc unit managed that, heh.
So overall, probably not much at all will change, since the effect on Lyran industrial output is probably negligible. (Don't you dare destroy Hesperus! ) And hey, if you want to make extra sure, you can have the unit posted at the Capellan border. We all know the Concord of Kapteyn was a joke not worth the paper it's printed on, after all. (what? No, of course I don't just want to deflect them from Lyran space! )
Either way, you can still have your Andurien crisis. Really, your approach (working backwards from what you want to happen) makes just as much sense, after all. But, if you want, you could also have different events leading to there.
For example, reading up on Candace and Romano Liao in the original Capellan Confederation Housebook, it is stated that Romano has a major hateboner for the FWL. So if the CC in the 4SW is left alone and then Romano somehow got into power during the war, she might attack the FWL. If the FWL then still upholds Kapteyn, that might piss off the Andurians enough to eventually try to secede regardless.
But eh, you can also have the CC half dismantled as in canon. That works, too
Not Hesperus, no - but aside from the actual industrial impact, I also figured politics might be a bit more tense on the frontier, way I see it there's a Steiner branch family who'd be crying bloody murder about their particular holdings being hit. But there were FWL-Steiner skirmishes during the 4th Succession War anyway, even without additional provocation from the 3rd War.
Honestly I'll have to think about it, see what makes for better storytelling. It's some narrative distance away, one way or another. I might want to re-read some of the novels as well. The way it basically is, I have a few important divergence bits that I definitely wish the story to hit, i.e. 'ABC definitely occurs in 30XX', but there's really... only a handful of those fixed points, leaving a lot of other stuff very variable. I roughly know how this ends, but what happens along the way is a different question.
"Thoughts? First impressions? Anything that comes to mind?"
Adrienne Pulaski raised her hand, tentatively, waving her fingers in the air.
I stifled the urge to laugh. "Go ahead, this isn't a classroom."
"Uh, okay, yeah," Adrienne said, leaning forward on the packing crate she was using as a stool. "They were skittish? Didn't want to fight, didn't want to really push, I mean, once Commander Raj and Shrike hit their ship they just turned round and went back, that's kinda weird?"
I was mildly impressed at her lung capacity or unconscious breath control, since she'd gotten through all of that without much in the way of pauses. "Fair observation. Why?"
"Um," Adrienne replied. She blinked. Her boots dangled off the side of her perch, not quite touching the floor. Her heels kicked against the container, as she swayed in place. "I don't know? Sorry. Was just pointing it out, I haven't thought of an answer, sorry."
"Like I said," I repeated, evenly, "not a classroom. No right or wrong answer."
"The Eighteenth, or whichever of its constituent companies that we are facing," Rajeev said, "has been very conservative in their engagements."
Shrike snickered loudly from her place on the floor of the hangar. She'd foregone any makeshift chairs or seating in favour of flopping onto the ferrocrete. Like a lot of MechWarriors, she wore her hair short, but like a lot of MechWarriors, she also didn't wear a lot. Her shorts, so to speak, were even shorter. Her long bare legs were stretched out, giving everyone an eyeful. I wasn't sure if she was trying to show off, or just didn't care. "Conservative? I think you want another word. Conservative people don't do blitz raids."
"They do if they're sure they can get away with it," Adrienne disagreed. "They sorta have, with a lot of the raids they've done, and this is the first time we've intercepted them with more than a lance, uh, sorry, demi-company."
"Little one is right," said Jacqueline. The woman wiped her mouth with the back of her left hand, brushing away stray droplets of moisture. She had a half-consumed bottle of water clutched in her other hand. I was slightly amused that the bright colour on her lips didn't run or smear. MechWarrior-grade cosmetics, perhaps.
Adrienne huffed at the older woman, displeased about being called that, but plainly not willing to challenge her on it, especially since Jacqueline was agreeing with her.
I got the feeling Adrienne was a little intimidated by Jacqueline and the other senior pilots in general, but Jacqueline in particular. I could understand that. Jacqueline had an intense mien and deliberately played up the effect, what with the tattoos, plus the amount of metal in her rings and studs. Alternatively, Adrienne's apprehension could also have been a reaction to Jacqueline's veteran status.
Funny thing was, on a social level, Adrienne outranked all of us. She was third in line for her family's title and landholding back on Dalian, after her father. Her grandfather was the current Baron. But in mercenary circles, what really mattered wasn't birth, it was talent and experience.
"Consider it from the enemy commander's perspective," Rajeev suggested. "By that stage in the battle, it was clear they were outnumbered. The DropShip, their means of extraction, was being threatened. With us on the ground, it was extremely improbable they would even reach the repair facility. At this point, they were already defeated. Withdrawal was the logical course of action."
"Don't get me wrong," Adrienne corrected, hastily. "I'm not, like, complaining. I like the idea that the opposition will just turn around and go bye-bye when we show up, that makes our job so much easier."
"A lot of the time, Anton's forces have hit infrastructure that we didn't have units at," said Alec Kaynard. The tank gunner was also carrying a water bottle, though his hadn't been drunk from. He had it open, but untouched, and was instead playing with the cap, rotating and spinning it in his hand. "So us even running into them, that's a good draw. Good on us. But so far, we've had a bad hand, more often than good. Do they have better intel, or are they just better at guessing?"
"Please, you people. No psychic powers needed," explained Fatima Osman, the other senior armour NCO in our impromptu debrief, besides Alec. "It doesn't take a genius to compare a map of Harlow with our org table, which, may I remind everyone, is on record with the MRB, and do some very basic correlations. They would know we don't have enough troops to blanket the region, and they can extrapolate our likely movements."
"They know," Jacqueline said, "unit is poorly set up for holding area. Recon, strikers, cavalry. Defensive line wants heavies, assaults."
"We do have heavy tanks," Rajeev stated. "However, yes, I take your meaning. Yet, as mercenaries, we do not have the luxury of questioning all of the contract-holder's decisions, or, in this case, the operational requirements."
"Hold up. Do Anton Marik's people have access to our MRB files? HPG station's in Cienfuegos, and that city's been shat on," pointed out Padrig Ji. The scarred tanker emphasised his point by miming an explosion with both hands.
"Moral of the story," said Brent Danielson, taking a drink, "if you're going to fuck with the Wolf's Dragoons, don't do it where the Wolf bros can wreck all your stuff."
Brent's wasn't drinking water, unlike the rest of us. He was taking periodic swigs from his hip flask. At least, I assumed it wasn't water in there.
"HPG station is still standing," noted Jacqueline, pointing the end of her water bottle at me, then Rajeev. "Anton and Wolf will not make ComStar mad."
Shrike looked up at Jacqueline, quizzically, from her spot on the floor. "Didn't one of Anton's ancestors try that, once?"
Jacqueline snorted. "Yes. Once."
"Charles Marik," Alec supplied. The tank NCO tossed his bottle cap in the air, catching it again as it fell. "Second Succession War. He ordered ships to blow up the orbital Oriente HPG, which they did, because he was mad at his sister. Killed the sister, three hundred sixty people on the station, and made ComStar cut his FTL comms. That… causes issues, in interstellar war."
"Anton Marik, however desperate, would not wish to repeat the accomplishments of his late relative," Rajeev commented, blandly.
"But that means the HPG station is intact," Adrienne said, rocking back and forth on her crate-top perch. "And it's going to stay intact because nobody's gonna make it not intact. That means if he wants, Anton Marik can like, just ask ComStar for our MRB data, right?"
"I think," I interjected, delicately, "there are restrictions on what the ComStar MRB will divulge to someone, regarding a merc unit, when it's fairly clear that unit is fighting against them. Now, that being said, I would err on the side of caution and assume the enemy does have a good idea about what forces we've got. They've had time to scope us out, and we haven't exactly been subtle."
"We've got the big tanks sitting on the main approach to Harlow spaceport," said Todd Metzger, as he gently moved his water bottle, letting the liquid slosh in aimless circles. "That's the opposite of subtle. Anyone can see what we're packing."
"What if," Adrienne suggested, "we have stealth tanks?"
Padrig had just opened a bottle, and was starting to drink. Then he heard Adrienne. The tank operator spluttered, before managing to swallow his mouthful of water. "The bloody hell is a stealth tank?"
Adrienne motioned with her hands. "Do something to hide them so people can't see them so easily, can't just count what and how many tanks we have? I dunno."
"Congratulations," said Fatima, in a dry voice. "You've just described basic camouflage."
Adrienne pouted.
"Part of the point," I said, "of guarding locations is to be seen, so it serves as a deterrent."
"I like this stealth tank idea," Alec chimed in. "Picture this, get a really big cloth, huge, and then make the tank disappear."
Jacqueline grinned. "Would be great stage show. The kind on the Herotitus strip."
"I'd pay to see that," Shrike said. "Except I'm banned since the last time I saw a show there."
"Do not encourage him," warned Abu Barak, the commander of our second Vedette tank. He glared threateningly at Jacqueline and Shrike, leaning towards the two women. "Seriously, I mean it, do not encourage him."
"If we could return to the after-action debrief," Rajeev hinted, not-so-subtly.
Todd Metzger looked at Rajeev, then pointed to Shrike. "Sorry, boss. I have to ask. I want to know how you get banned from an entire planet."
Jacqueline shook her head. "Not banned from all of Herotitus. Just the New Hedon casino strip."
"Even so," said Todd.
Shrike grinned, proudly.
"Right," I interrupted, increasing my volume. "Anything directly pertinent to the battle we just had? Anyone?"
Brent held up his flask, and smirked. "I call dibs on the Quickdraw."
"Hey," Todd protested, looking irritated. "Now, hold on, wait just a minute."
"Suck it, Metzger," Brent retorted. "You weren't anywhere near that fight."
I raised my voice, enough to talk over Todd's indignant reply. "When we get it off the recovery vehicle, when the techs give their verdict, when we find replacement parts, maybe one of you can pilot that Quickdraw. But can we talk about actual tactical stuff, not divvying up the loot?"
Another good scene! Love the interactions here. It makes sense that Com Guard-trained MechWarriors are more formal compared to the rest of the gang, and it was very nice to see!
Yeah, most mercenaries would fight according to the contract and not 'extra'. Especially so green, newly-constituted units which are not Wolf's Dragoons with their own agenda, warships and factories..
I quite like the wrench thrown in by the butterfly effect. Erin has to wonder what her visions are worth still. What if her operations at the CC/FWL border affect the sibling rivalry on Sian? Chancellor Candace Liao? What if she makes so many waves in C* that the Outbound Light isn't sent out, or not the same way, and hence the Clan Invasion doesn't happen in 3050? Or for that matter, butterfly effects in the strict sense, just the result of the mathematical chaos in the causality lines, stuff she has no direct influence over but still change. What if Melissa Steiner says no to the marriage with Hanse Davion? That one was really creepy, after all. Or what if the marriage does happen, but the new FedCom's first goal is to create a Dieron Corridor? Etc etc pp.
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