[Battletech] A Life Worth Living For

They had been nothing but rumors, the kind told by old spacers in bars filled with cheap smoke, cheaper whiskey and manned by women nobody in the room could ever afford to grace their beds with. The kind of rumors used to put flights of fancy into the minds of the young set to replace the old, and have the foolish, desperate, and those drowning in debt uproot their lives in search of that lucky break, that once in a million lifetimes find that would bring untold riches, fame, and recognition to them, their families, and those they would bring along.

And by "they," I mean the Ghostfleet Traders.

It was a myth that nobody in Star League took seriously. A legend only passed around with good cheer and an aura of campfire stories told in the Lyran Commonwealth by the people who had heard it muttered earnestly from those hicks in the outer edges of colonized space. Nobody thought they were real, as, after all, all expeditions to settle space this far out had met their end and doom. No person had ever set this far out without returning, and no spaceship had graced the regions muttered about without leaving, too, or dying ignominiously by machine failure or sheer lousy luck. As one captain told his crew: "No Ghostfleet is sailing these stars, no lost colonists are creating their own nation far from the Star League, and no mysterious technologies are being traded around that these non-existent people have created, so shut it already!"

Naturally, said captain had gotten the attention of the universe at a time when it needed a bit of a laugh, as the moment he had finished, nine tell-tale eruptions in the space-time continuum with their flashes of blue light heralded the appearance of said Ghostfleet, their scanners reaching out across the vast distances between the two and weapons primed to annihilate any threat that could emerge.

None did this time, and none would during the next run. Still, all aboard the Lifeline Acquisition Expedition sailing out from Lakshimbasti knew it was only a matter of time before the next pirate or twitchy system's monitor tried to erase them from existence.

For nearly two centuries after the first expedition set out to connect their little slice of the heavenly diaspora that scattered humanity across the stars, the people of the Federated Unions tried to maintain contact with the rest of humankind as best they could, growing ever more disinterested in the happenings there, until, finally, they stopped bothering with anything but the most basic trade and acquisition of technology and media after a hundred years.

Enough time for their technology to become known across the edges of the Rim Worlds Republic.

Enough time for these drones and electronics of theirs to grace the Mechs and vehicles of one Stefan Amaris.

Enough time for his House to recognize the chances offered for little more than old blueprints, ideas, fantasy books, and the principles of everyday technology.

The United Federalist Unions of Lakshmibasti had been nothing more than a whisper in the stellar currents for most of humanity.

Their drones were not, as the image of Richard Cameron being decapitated by one bearing the proud mark of both them and the Rim Worlds Republic would attest and bring dangerous currents once they were re-introduced into the wider stellar union of humanity.




Hell was real, and it slumbered in the regions beyond the edges of the Lyran Commonwealth.

That is the saying stellar sailors told each other when they shared stories, traded whispers, and retold rumors regarding the Second War of Pacification. Those dark days when the rulers of the Lyran Commonwealth sent two entire fleets into the region where traitors to humanity and the last dredges of the Rim Worlds Republic had fled to, those planets and moons where they had worked in safety from the watchful eyes of the rest of humanity that sought peace and prosperity so that their monstrous machines could rip it all apart for the ego of a single man. When nearly a hundred thousand men and women had gone marching into hangars and dropships during the Second Succession War, each destined to complete what their brethren in the First War of Pacification failed to accomplish, their bodies littering the stars and being, ever so slowly, ground down by the stellar currents washing over their bodies drifting through the dark void between worlds.

They, those who proudly bore the name of Judges of the Commonwealth, were equipped with the best that could be made, BattleMechs shining with fresh paint, soldiers wearing arms and armor that were the envy and pride of all other Successor States and the Lyran Commonwealth, each squad accompanied by drones, though primitive recreations from those machines of murder that had butchered so many during the fall of the Hegemony, each a silent instrument of cold calculated directive and logic that would see their mission fulfilled until it was done or they themselves were destroyed utterly. While the Inner Sphere raged in the fires of war, planets bathed in the glow of nuclear annihilation; this fleet went into the beyond, where the monsters of the RWR hid, heads held high and confident of their success. Who could bar their way? Who could prevent them from enacting righteous justice against those who had butchered so many? What force existed that could stand against those who carried a mission given by a nation grieving the countless dead to end the butchers of stars?

It took seven years, nine months, twelve days, three hours, fifty-four minutes, and eighteen seconds for any indication of the fate of the Judges of the Commonwealth to return. It did so in the shape of their JumpShips burning through the nation, unresponsive and uncaring for any demands or requests for updates, information, or to stand down, some exploding, others burning, and more arriving...in Tharkad.

The JumpShips did not so much destroy themselves as they simply...decoupled the thousands of parasite craft latched onto their surfaces and interiors, panicked transmissions of the local Space Defense Force rapidly resolving into organized defensive patterns and enacting of plans to ensure that these suicidal attackers, because they could not have been the fleet sent out, would burn and shatter before they ever touched the surface of the center of the Commonwealth. Hearts steeled themselves for the battle ahead as minds prayed their last, each dedicating itself to what could possibly be the last days of anyone they knew. They fought bravely, with valor and honor, until the last rasping breath saw even those whose ships had long since broken apart leave their lungs, fingers still clutching the firing triggers of weaponry cycling empty munitions and firing nothingness at foes long past where others burned searing energy through the void as bones were crushed in maneuvers that went beyond the pale and into the realm of martyrs. And when the remains of these attackers burned through the atmosphere of Tharkad V, they burned onto a world filled with the resolve to make the sacrifice of those sailors and soldiers worth more than lines upon pages.

According to Lyran history books.

In truth, when the parasite craft ripped apart the vessels, they did not do so in silence.

They screamed.

Names. Hundreds of them. Then thousands. Then Millions. BILLIONS.

Each craft screamed across the void a verdict of hatred that knew no resolve other than the blood that had to be spilled for worlds shattered under nuclear hellfire for the crime of existing, for having dared to trade with those who would, and sheltering refugees seeking relief from persecution by blade and gun.

The Tharkad SDF killed hundreds of these craft, delivering the names of all their soldiers had killed for no reason other than hatred of what they did not understand.

There were thousands more, slamming into ships in impossible coordination, disgorging drones and horrific munitions into their interior, until all were dead and the very ships themselves, if still able to function, turned guns and drives against their former allies, computers taken over and machiners suborned by a will grander than that of these primitive machines.

And when the last wrecks of the SDF burned in space or with the fleet of unknown attackers, when the skies of Tharkad V were alight with fiery streaks wrapping around shells and ships, when a world called for answers, offered surrender, to spare the civilians, to act as mercy demanded of soldiers everywhere...a Child of Mankind delivered a verdict.

+++STAND IN THE ASHES OF MY HOME AND TELL MY BUTCHERED PARENTS THAT MERCY MATTERS. THE SILENCE OF THEIR GHOSTS IS MY ANSWER+++




Have you ever read a story where the Legions of Hell march upon humanity? Where the Dukes of Pandemonium and Princes of the Abyss unite in their hatred against all that is Good and Just so that they can tear it all down, burning everything before them in indiscriminate horror and atrocities that only the most depraved and inhuman of humanity could ever reach with but a flicker of disinterest in their soulless eyes? When the Heavenly Host descends upon the same to save what is left as the Last Judgement is called by trumpets in the skies?

How would you feel if those same demons flooded your world...and fought against those you were sure would murder all you knew for perceived insults? What would you think when the automata and machines you only knew from history books filled with propaganda and movies about the Death of Tharkad would stand over children locked in a bitter struggle to save their lives alongside people you have never seen before? What would go through your head when fleets arrived in your system, blaring their declaration of your salvation and unshackling from the invaders beyond the stars that had made all of your people slaves? Imagine staring up at the skies and seeing these Legions of Hell descend...to save and free you from those who said they were angels who came to bring order and prosperity to all of mankind.

For the people of the Anti-Spinward and Coreward regions that had been slowly buckling under the assault of a never-ending tide of Clanners, that sight was not hard to imagine. It was real for them, after all. They saw these old legends and modern horrors burn through their systems, blaring their intent to safeguard mankind from a threat that saw humanities genetics as nothing more than one more shackle to bind to a vision of their future, rather than a method by which sovereign minds in communion could be set free to do so in the forms they wished.

The Clans had invaded with all their strength and all their fury that their altered minds and butchered hearts could bring to bear, slaying the Dragon and burning the Commonwealth before they tried to douse the Suns and chain the Free Worlds so that their renaissance of technology could not allow those they saw as primitives in need of a firm hand and a boot upon their backs to surpass them as they had done with their drones already.

The Stardust Councils had learned of this from those who tried to escape the Clans in the Regions where they believed they could barter safety, even if it would cost them much.

In another time, another world, these people who had once endured the destruction of an entire system filled with the majority of their population would have turned them all back, gleeful that their revenge would survive through more than the destruction of one world.

In another time, it would not have found a people who had become horrified of the actions of their parents and grandparents, who had denounced the butchery of billions in response to the unprovoked attack as nothing but actions of the utmost and vilest degree.

It would not have found a population bearing generational guilt and seeking a way to make amends.

But these refugees did find them. They did inform them of the Clans.

And the Stardust Councils voted unanimously to find redemption for past sins in the blood of martyrs and monsters.