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And what a mess it became... (Battletech CYOA)

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No Alissandra, Milia, James, Hannah or Skulky. Multiple reasons, depending on which character you look at.

If I were to put them all in, I may as well just do a narrative retelling of the game and I'm not interested in that. And I'll point out that Ali's and Skulky's caches/inheritances are especially gamebreaking and I'd have to replace them entirely with something else, which would probably leave huge skid marks and their actions would hardly resemble the way they went anyhow.

Given the timeskip, there is an opportunity to put one or more of those characters back in, but... right now, I don't see it.

- Hannah would just tell Katrina where Helm is, just like in the game we ran. That, in the game, led to Ayeka crushing Katrina, Frederick, Kristen and 6 regiments of LC and FWL troops under megatons of rocks while blaming it on the Death Commandos and taking Helm's core for the Combine. That would be something I'd totally write again, because it was freaking hilarious how Trollbot awarded me that win just by using a DEST team and a handful of O5P operatives... but it would also result in a completely different scenario than this one and ultimately I chose not to go with it.
- James I could get in with potentially minimal issues, but he'd probably also be thinking about Helm. Not a huge issue as I could have him beat to it anyhow. Honestly, that's the one character I think I could get in without too much issue. The bigger problem in his regard is how he'll mess with Aldo, given I already have a loose plan in that regard.
- Milia... the Von Rorhs spawn in the Combine... No idea whatsoever what to do with her or what she'd do and I might need to sniff crack to get in the proper mindset to write her.
- Skulky ... I'd need stregg to write her. Sorry. I may use some stuff from her background, particularly a certain doctor, for a plot idea I have but beyond that, no chance whatsoever...
- Alissandra has huge issues. The lesser one is being Sigmund Hughes' niece. In fact, that's hardly a problem at all. The fact that she'd eff with the Dragoons, probably induce the Clans to hit really early when we don't have stupidly overpowered industrial assets to make up for it and god knows if she'd end up poking Wolf to go all in on Atreus again... oh, and the mobile automated shipyard would have to go and I'd have to think thrice about the whole lyran landhold... maybe I'd have a talk with Giacomo to write a new letter... Yeah, I didn't think she was worth the headaches. Sorry. If you think it might be possible to overcome these things, you know where I hang out. I don't want to discuss spoilerage here.

Suffice to say, short of a significant rethink (and with the timeskip there is an opportunity), the only CYOAs from the original game are Ayeka, Sasha, Jon, Jeanette and Guntram. And one could argue that Guntram doesn't even qualify for that distinction, but I'm using him anyway.
 
How the hell did Ayeka pull that off? And what happened in the Lyran Commonwealth because of that? Because I'm assuming it wasn't necessarily pretty...
 
Pyro Hawk said:
How the hell did Ayeka pull that off? And what happened in the Lyran Commonwealth because of that? Because I'm assuming it wasn't necessarily pretty...
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Long story cut short, Hannah pointed Katrina to Helm, Katrina launched offensive against it while FWL was reeling from the Dragoons full on assaulting Atreus in a mad dash for glory and victory (and pretty much all the Mariks sans Kristen went splat during that battle, which cleared the way for Sigmund Hughes to become Captain-General... Kristen for reasons wasn't eligible)...

... and when Ayeka found/figured out Katrina was going personally to Helm, she buckled up and used her authority (which she doesn't have in this fic) as the CO of the Mirrors of the Dragon(*) to use what ISF and O5P assets she could find in the Helm area of operations to launch Operation Shattering.

Her primary goal was to DENY the contents of Helm to the LC and obtain a copy of the Helm field library. Her secondary goals were to blame the Death Commandos for it and take as many Lyrans, ideally Katrina herself, with the cache. Dice-bot we used looked at the whole plan and, with a smile, said "yes, Yes, YES!" and gave her a royal flush.

The GM was staring at all the 95+ I got on the 1d100's for the particular outcomes. Suffice to say, hilarity ensued.

And *cough* I may well point out Deathwing and Operation Shattering. *cough* Name, not accidental.

As far as the LC goes, regency council took over for Melissa and there were some stability issues around Aldo... because Hannah also screwed with Aldo and made him think someone was onto his seccessionary plans so he revved things up a notch, then there were shenanigans with James' mother and girlfriends being kidnapped (said GFs kidnapped by Aldo, loooong and messy story there) and it all ended up in Dragoons, back from resupply and hired by LC, looming threateningly over Summer while James hot-dropped with a bunch of Nighthawk-wearing commandos to recover the GFs.

Suffice to say... GFs were recovered, even more shenanigans happened, Aldo got shot by another Lestrade, Aldo's love child showed up and made everyone facepalm (as it made the whole kidnapping deal moot), Aldo's backup plan went awry and released a horde of berserker kill bots and finally Aldo's backup backup plan was unleashed, sending forth an army of berserker kill-bot killing Urbanmechs armed with LB10's and Small Pulse Lasers to crush the berserker kill bots.

Us popcorn-eating onlookers totally lost it at the berserker kill bots, naturally. Especially since we realised they'd been foreshadowed, but we all assumed someone was trying to get something like an SDS going...


(*) - Originally Ayeka got her hands from Giacomo on well over a regiment's worth of hardware, and nearly a regiment's worth of ASSAULT mechs alone. Suffice to say, Takashi offered her the opportunity to create and lead a special elite command that you could describe as the unholy cross of the Ryoken and the ISF/O5P. It's not difficult to understand why she'd be taken seriously if she proverbially said "I have this intel, Katrina is going here and we're going to smack her, gimme those assets". And I'll also note that effectively returning the favor to the Lyrans from Snow Fire elevated her in the eyes of the Dragon to levels wholly above and beyond what this fic's Ayeka enjoys at the moment and in the foreseeable future.
 
Yeah, things got kinda crazy. Jeanette never did get any of the total balls-to-the-wall insanity that some of the others got -- closest was the unholy trail of ex-spies she and her girlfriend left behind them once TMI started paying attention to the fact that, yeah, there's a pretty serious leak somewhere... Jeanette contented herself with single-handedly rebuilding the TCN and preparing to give a nice big "frell off and leave us alone" to the Inner Sphere.
 
Scratx said:
- Skulky ... I'd need stregg to write her. Sorry. I may use some stuff from her background, particularly a certain doctor, for a plot idea I have but beyond that, no chance whatsoever...
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Bwak, bwak bwak bwak Bwakak!

Accusations of chickenhood, and sadness at the lost opportunity for hilarity when the Belters delivered your present in the Deep Periphery aside, I can't really blame you. The abrupt Angst-Troll turns alone would be a nightmare to try to recreate, they caught me by surprise at least twice and I was the maniac writing her.

For the viewers at home, take Teela Brown from Known Space. Give her a decade or so of the River Tam treatment starting as a child, with a mix of being actively used as a 40K Callidus assassin. Write her in a purely stream of consciousness style as you would imagine the writer of Dragon Half or Excel Saga might, or at least your best attempt to mimic such.

Anyway, glad to see you doing something with this.
 
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Chapter 2 - Start
  • Threadmarks
    • And since chapter 2 is pretty much done (I might still tweak something on the later scenes so I have time), I'm going to start posting them. Enjoy!

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    Chapter 2 - Setting up Rotary Impeller Device

    12th June 3016


    I took a few breaths as I recovered from the jump into Nowhere. And by that I meant Nowhere the star system. Battletech developers were such jokers sometimes. Why, they even had a world named Bob! But that was neither here nor there. I was finally back to the Combine after over an year of travel and scavenging over a former SLDF base. I couldn't be more glad I had gotten that much extra skilled manpower to do this. Or that I'd gotten so many cargo dropships to carry the haul.

    I went to the comms console and took over from the ensign. I engaged a link with the world's own comm net and sent a coded message. I knew it would be rerouted to the HPG station and then sent to Luthien - and assuming they hadn't managed to cripple them again, very quickly as I was paying for the highest priority.

    Leaving the comms back to the ensign, I headed back to the Monarch that I'd inherited and had been one of the few ways I'd managed to survive the sheer boredom of the trip.

    Damn, had Giacomo not spared the expenses. As I re-entered, I could see all the shiny, all the bling, that he thought to add. Golden rails, red carpets (well, more like a sophisticated imitation of, as they were supposed to allow magnetic boots to clamp to them), pristine white walls and the most expensive and tasteful paintings I was sure he could find. I knew he had quite a few of the debauchery kind in private areas… were I a prude I'd've blushed half to death when I saw a couple of them.

    I headed to my apartment in the dropship, passing by a couple sections of the ship. Giacomo could've made it more convenient to get to the apartment from the main collar, I thought, but it was what it was and I wasn't going to do anything about it now.

    A few minutes later, I was lying in bed, trying to relax and failing horribly doing so.

    "Damn it, this isn't going to work," I admitted to myself. I was just too excited, waiting to find out what Takashi would say about the haul.

    The coded message had included a quick inventory of what we had found and stripped, and as I went through the list in my head, I still felt that brief feeling of disbelief.

    Epsilon Pegasus IV was a world coming out of an ice age. In the equator I'd found a large airbase which served as the primary SLDF base on the world. The loot from that base had been extensive, but the hot items were an intact HPG system, the scientific radio-listening arrays (and the computers that they were connected to), a dropship maintenance facility, a significant workshop and a very significant amount of industrial 'mechs along with assorted equipment such as spare parts, weapons and ammunition. There were even a handful of dropships but I had no spare collars for those, sadly enough, so I left them behind. A small handful of battlemechs and aerospace fighters rounded up the haul, little more than a sideshow.

    None of that had been the primary driver for the expedition, however. The primary goal was the facility inside its orbiting moon, and that had been nothing short of my expectations. I looted everything I could pry off the walls, all the juicy docking gear, the tools to work on ships docked and even fabrication tools for all sorts of components short of core extruders. I had enough gear to furnish several slips, now, and I fully intended to get it all to Telos IV.

    I just wanted to know if I had to take another six months plus to get there or if Takashi was going to speed us up with a command chain. And that, I couldn't wait to find out. Aaaaargh.

    I sighed in resignation and just went to the nightstand and got my makeup kit. May as well get some more practice in on my subtle disguise. Yuriko Hasegawa was about to step into the limelight, I had to make it look good and subtly different enough from Ayeka that casual observers unfamiliar with me would not make the association.

    ---

    20th July 3016



    "You've done well, cousin."

    We were in Takashi's own office, accompanied by Subhash and Florimel. A datapad with a listing and documentation of the haul was in the Coordinator's hands, although he'd hardly looked at it - he certainly already had read the original coded message and the summary it contained.

    It was good to be back in a nice gravity well. Whoever thought travelling among the stars in cramped and often times smelly jumpships was fun and games had never actually done so, clearly. At least, not for any length of time.

    Fortunately, most of the smell had been the lingering smell of paint early on. I did have standards and the money to ensure everything was in working order. Especially toilets.

    "Thanks. I'm glad to be done with that leg of the trip. If I understand correctly, there's a command chain being setup to Telos?"

    "Yes. It is only three collars, but it is enough to get the most important cargo across quickly. The rest can take its time."

    I nodded in agreement.

    Takashi continued, "Now, we need to work over some of the details. Some of the LosTech you found in Columbus is of better use to the Dragon. Those radio antennas, certainly. The HPG would also be of use to examine, as well as use for training personnel capable of operating one. ComStar is not a reliable operator and the Terran companies might be just more of the same in the long run. We need our own network."

    I blinked. Terran companies? Had I missed something?

    "Forgive me, but what do you mean by Terran companies?"

    He looked at me for a few moments before Subhash filled in on what I hadn't known about.

    "Niece, while you were on the expedition, there were developments on the Terran front. We are still trying to understand all the implications and the actors behind it, but at least two HPG networks are being covertly built by Terra-based corporations, including in the Combine. We are, quite naturally, helping with the cover-up."

    I was stunned. What had brought that about?

    "And since I'm on a roll," he continued with a smile, "you should also know that someone made a kingly gift to the Combine, and to the best of our knowledge every other nation. A Hegemony field library found in the League's world of Helm, if its identification is to be trusted."

    I almost choked. "Helm? The world Minoru raided for a star league depot that was empty?"

    Everyone paused, as if they'd been fishing in their memories for what I was referring to. Takashi nodded, a suddenly thoughtful look in his face.

    "Well, if that's the case," I continued, "we should assume that it was stored alongside whatever hardware was at that depot. Neither Minoru, nor anyone else to my knowledge, ever proved the gear had actually been moved out of the system. Someone may've just gotten the motherlode."

    Takashi just stared at me for a moment, the implications dawning on him. "Subhash, make sure the analysts know to look for sudden influxes of military gear of star league origin."

    Uncle nodded in assent, he probably already had decided to do it anyway.

    "A copy of the data core will be delivered to you, cousin, to help you with the shipyard restoration. Financial and technical resources will also be made available to assist you in rebuilding the yards, which we will be going over the details of another time. I would like to purchase some of the LosTech you found as well."

    I nodded. "In principle, as long as it's not something that is useful for the shipyard operations or its security, I see no reason not to sell."

    I didn't need the HPG or the radio antennas and some of the rest of the items I could do without. I could definitely use the money. But I wanted to keep the mechs and the fighters to bolster the defenses and the dropship maintenance facility was a no brainer to keep and quickly install for a steady revenue source.

    Takashi nodded in understanding. Florimel spoke up. "Niece, if you still want to go ahead with your plan as Hasegawa, now is the decision point. So far we've prepared the ground for it, but you can still back out and assume everything under your own name. Do you still wish to go ahead with the original plan?"

    I nodded without hesitation. "Yes, auntie, I do."

    She nodded. "Then I'll have the final preparations implemented. After I'm done, Yuriko Hasegawa will de facto have everything you own. All the paper trail will be there for curious people to find if they want to look for it. Including a license sale for the Rapier, as I believe you also have plans for that?"

    "Yep. Shipyard is priority but I want to get the Rapier under production too. And with Helm's data core I don't even have to settle for a downgraded version, I can just go straight for the gold edition."

    Takashi smiled in approval.

    ---

    Hours later, I was in my apartment again, reviewing documents and things that were piling up for me to deal with in the months that passed while I was out of contact. It was dreadful work but I had to do it.

    I picked up the folder on my investment portfolio and started checking it over. Then I blinked. Twice. And re-read it to make sure I hadn't misread.

    "How much money?", I said incredulously.

    Right there, before my eyes, were the financial statements from the Sudoku venture. I was making money hand over fist all over the Combine and apparently even from beyond its borders. I wasn't sure I had authorized the expansion beyond, but given how much money I was getting from that I wasn't going to rock the boat by calling that out.

    "Kami-sama, all this for a silly number game. I wonder how many Samurai would commit… heh, Sudoku if they realised how much money they could've made off of this."

    I chuckled and wondered if that meme would ever develop on its own here. Then I paused and chuckled harder.

    Of course it would, the magnificent ROB would ensure it does. For the Lulz.

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    Build-up phase! Next, we'll take a look at what's happening elsewhere...
     
  • Threadmarks
    • If you don't make arrangements to bring back those dropships, you can add most of your ship crews to the copious list of potential security threats that would like to see you dead. Fire up your copy of House Kurita: The Draconis Combine and read the entry on the Aerospace and Interstellar Institute from before they started white washing the Combine and toning down its rampant insanity if you don't believe me.;)
     
    consequences said:
    If you don't make arrangements to bring back those dropships, you can add most of your ship crews to the copious list of potential security threats that would like to see you dead. Fire up your copy of House Kurita: The Draconis Combine and read the entry on the Aerospace and Interstellar Institute from before they started white washing the Combine and toning down its rampant insanity if you don't believe me.;)
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    I would believe it, yes. Sadly, Ayeka doesn't really have the time or resources to do it at that time since her own jumpers are going to be on the way to Telos IV with all non-time critical assets loaded on them. On the other hand, the Dragon knows they're there, so if he doesn't go grab them it's because he doesn't want them. He certainly has the jumpships to do it with. I'll emphasize, Ayeka didn't grab them because she didn't have collars free. ;)

    All the Dragon has to do is send enough jumpers plus escort with enough free collars to do it, really. In any case there's not that many droppers left since between the garrison and the scientists they took nearly all of the droppers with them. There's maybe somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen, tops. Call it a bonus but it doesn't change any strategic calculus.
     
    Chapter 2 - Part 2
  • Threadmarks
    • And let's take a peek at Csomad now...

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    Sasha stood on a scaffold besides Jon as they looked at the assembly bay in the new industrial complex she'd had built in Csomad for Frozen Sun Industries, her newest and most ambitious enterprise yet.

    At least, on the industrial/commercial sense.

    The skeletal form standing in the assembly bay was the chassis of a Hammerhands, a heavy battlemech that the Federated Suns had retired a long time ago. Topping at 54kph and capable of jumping 90 meters, the Hammerhands took its name from the pair of Mydron Class B heavy autocannons mounted in its arms. While the armor was nothing special for its weight, the autocannons hit hard and it also included an SRM system plus a pair of medium lasers for additional firepower. The passing of time, however, saw newer battlemechs appear on the battlefield that eclipsed it.

    The Hammerhands factory had been in Arcadia and sometime in the 26th century it had ceased production of new Hammerhands, merely supplying spare parts to maintain the existing fleet, and then later on as the Hammerhands started being phased out of service entirely it was mothballed and the tools and equipment left in a bunker deep underground.

    War had come and Arcadia, merely one jump away from New Avalon, was destroyed by the struggle between the DCMS and AFFS. The AFFS had won, but the damage was done. Liberal use of nuclear armament rendered most of the planet a hot zone unsuitable for human habitation and the world was evacuated of its survivors and depleted of everything else that was of use which could be recovered. The bunker, buried under nuclear devastation, survived to be found and recovered by Sasha's father. Sadly for him, an accidental exposure to Arcadia's radioactivity put paid to his life shortly after, but the tooling was stashed on a clean warehouse, waiting for pick-up by his heir.

    It hadn't taken any effort to convince Hanse to support Sasha in setting it up on Csomad, as he'd agreed it was an excellent way to help the Skid Row economically, as well as provide a good reason to keep a stronger force in the area, both to deter the Taurians and to have the units to react to pirate attacks. Once she'd gotten to Csomad - after picking up Jon on the way and debrief him over his daring escape from the Liaos, and then faking his death publicly - she'd wasted no time in getting the manufacturing facility built.

    The plant had two active production lines, each capable of producing two battlemechs a month, and they were both running a pre-production run. A third production line was being built with a mix of mothballed equipment and newly-made, which would expand capacity to six a month. Sasha would still be left with a sizable amount of equipment left over for a fourth production line, but Hanse hadn't agreed to funding that one over concerns of which other projects he'd have to defund in order to get it done.

    Sasha had agreed cutting on any of the myriad technological restoration projects, be it for shipyards, factories or even some of the less martial facilities was a no go, so she would have to figure out what to do with the potential fourth production line herself.

    "The snakes are going to hate those things, aren't they?"

    Sasha smiled at Jon's comment. They'd figured out they were both the victims of ROB and forged an unlikely friendship over the fact. "I certainly hope so. They will pay for their crimes."

    He nodded, then took out a cigarette from his vest pocket. He took it to his mouth but before he could light it, Sasha took it away.

    "Not here, Jon. Weed outside. Heavy machinery inside. Drug-based impairment bad idea."

    He grumbled. "Can't have fun. When am I going to meet Banzai?"

    "Soon. I'm going to New Avalon once there's a few of these 'mechs built to show Hanse and you're coming along. You'll get to meet Banzai and Hanse. Aren't you the lucky one?"

    "Oh, yay," he said with a bit of false enthusiasm. "I really am the lucky one. Meeting Hanse. No offense, but I'm supposed to be dead. If I'm seen and recognized, the evil will come for me. Or worse."

    He shuddered. Romano Liao always gave him the chills.

    "Don't worry, Jon, they won't. And if they somehow do anyway, I'll crush them under Knight-Error's feet."

    King Crabs weren't the most graceful of battlemechs around, but they certainly were effective at crushing things under their feet. And what escaped that fate would indubitably fall under the barrage only an assault autocannon could execute.

    He didn't seem all too happy regardless, so she distracted him away from the subject. "What are you thinking of bringing up with Banzai?"

    "Hmm. I was thinking bringing up light autocannons. The standard autocannons are just too heavy for what damage they do. And rotaries. We have Helm, we ought to start looking how to go beyond and get a real advantage over our enemies."

    "I'm hearing the most exquisite music to my ears right now…"

    "Of course you are," he quipped, "you're a Davion. You love autocannons. Admit it."

    She laughed. "Guilty as charged."

    "And I love speed. Come on, let's go."

    "Off to burn some rubber?"

    "Lots."

    "Uh, uh," noted Sasha, mentally preparing to have the police close down roads to ensure Jon wouldn't splat against an unexpected car. His idea of fast was 'If I am not outrunning that Locust I'm not going fast enough'. She followed after him as he headed out to the garage.

    "Any trouble from the bulls?," he asked along the way.

    "They're quiet. Unusually so, in fact. We think they may've gotten the message with my deployment here, but there's the troubling reports of Toros being deployed in the TDF too. No-one knows where they got them from, either a cache or finding or even building a factory. The cache hypothesis is the least dangerous one to us, naturally."

    "Not very likely, though."

    "No," she admitted. "Any Toros the SLDF got their hands on were scrapped and if the TDF had scurried away Toros somewhere, why take them off the mothballs now? Unless somebody got ROBbed and found them. For that matter, I may know who it might be if that's the case."

    "I'll bet it has to do with Grover's duel with Thomas."

    "Yuuuuuup. Tommy boy blowing away his best friend in a duel? Story goes he did some sort of insult Thomas couldn't ignore and it didn't end well for Grover. There's a legal battle about an inheritance in the mix, but other than knowing it was Grover versus a cousin of Thomas, we have no way of knowing without breaking into their legal database. Sealed to the Court and all that."

    "Tenner on the cousin," he quipped as they finally arrived at the garage.

    "Not betting against that," she replied, eliciting a chuckle from the former capellan.

    "So," he said as he pulled the car keys and unlocked the doors. "Coming for the ride?"

    "Sure, why not, let's get gray hairs early."

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    More autocannons never hurt, right? Says every Davion, ever.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Scratx said:
    Call it a bonus but it doesn't change any strategic calculus.
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    Methinks Mage's Escalation-itis has infected you. It may not change the strategic calculus much, but unless they are, incredibly common, completely unarmed, and impossible to modify, a dozen dropships as a group basically anywhere is a system functionally immune to setting appropriate pirate raids that don't involve entire regiments going all-in.

    Scratx said:
    More autocannons never hurt, right? Says every Davion, ever.
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    Light autocannons being invented retroactively made every Davion that had to check in to sick call after getting something sensitive caught in a loading mechanism no more than half-crazy.
     
    consequences said:
    Methinks Mage's Escalation-itis has infected you. It may not change the strategic calculus much, but unless they are, incredibly common, completely unarmed, and impossible to modify, a dozen dropships as a group basically anywhere is a system functionally immune to setting appropriate pirate raids that don't involve entire regiments going all-in.
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    Given the DC has what, 400+ worlds? I know it's over 300, but I don't recall exact numbers. Anyhow, you did get me thinking about the exact composition and I realise I made an oversight when I first thought of it. This is why I like having folks read the WIP document and give me feedback. Anyways... what comes to mind is that the drydock would definitely have tugs... and they most likely were left behind because the garrison didn't have any use for them while chasing Jarnfolk and the scientists/support personnel that were left behind and left later definitely wouldn't give a crap about them either.

    So I'm thinking the composition is probably an Aquaduct, four tugs and 2-3 Mules. Which means Takashi is definitely sending a party to grab them, and he'll most likely send half of those tugs Ayeka's way to assist with her yard operations. Possibly also the Aquaduct but Ayeka does have one already, IIRC. In practice, what this means is she has to spend less money and effort to acquire the tugs she'd otherwise have to get from somewhere and the DC gets a little boost in cargo hauling... although I do think jumpships are the bottleneck in that regard, not dropships.

    I guess it's one less thing to get past ComStar's net. :)

    Light autocannons being invented retroactively made every Davion that had to check in to sick call after getting something sensitive caught in a loading mechanism no more than half-crazy.
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    Owie.
     
    Chapter 2 - Part 3
  • Threadmarks
    • And now, what exactly is waiting for Ayeka at Telos IV?.... Let's find out!

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    15th August 3016


    "Boss, we're being hailed!"

    "Put it on speakers," I said, as the dropship kept decelerating towards Sadib.

    The response, in a robotic-sounding female voice, came shortly after. "You are approaching restricted space. Send authentication or face your imminent demise."

    I picked up the mic, brought it to my lips and, pressing XMIT, I spoke clearly a sequence I had practiced.

    "Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right Bee Aaa."

    The reply, in Giacomo's own voice, was swift. "Welcome, bambina. Make yourself at home… it is all yours now."

    Soon after, the robotic female voice returned, providing landing instructions.

    "Well, that was fun," I snarked. "I wonder what it meant by 'face your imminent demise'?"

    Hours later, I was gulping as I learned just what had been in store had I not properly authenticated. I'd reached the main control center of Giacomo's little hideout, which I had to admit was easily as well equipped as anything I'd seen in Unity Palace, holotanks included. There were multiple consoles, each with their own function and I was on the one that seemed to deal with the defensive works when I found out.

    Giacomo had a goddamn surface to orbit heavy naval PPC battery installation hidden. A quadruple Heavy NPPC battery. That put a whole new spin on the idea that nobody had tried to come here to loot Giacomo's stuff. Maybe someone had and after a thorough pulverization, the wisdom of hindsight spread among those who had merely been watching to see what happened to the bold.

    The naval weapon emplacement was only one of the defensive layers, however. An array of automated turrets, many in well concealed ambush spots, provided all-around ground level and anti-air protection to the main compound. The fact there was an alarming prevalence of octo-ERPPC turret setups made it all too clear that Giacomo really liked his privacy and would you please die already, intruder?

    For all that firepower, however, they were all static emplacements and a determined attacker would get through it. Probably minus a few dozen battlemechs, but still would. The naval battery was also incapable of covering more than a relatively small portion of the sky, so that was that.

    Still a very nasty surprise overall. Your casual pirate would get smacked with a Trololol.

    The rest of the defenses were the kind you needed people for. There were a handful of bunkers with aerospace fighter bays and a few bunkers with exits for the garrison. Which… as I looked at the information on the console, amounted to two companies of battlemechs in their mech bays. And scattered around in those aerospace fighter bays were a grand total of seventy-two fighters of assorted types. Plus room for again that much more. There seemed to be room for a full regiment of mechs, too. Pity I didn't have the hardware to populate it.

    Well, I had to move on, so after putting a few girls trying to figure out how the defensive network worked, I moved on to inspect the rest of the underground base. The living quarters were good, albeit not luxurious, and had room for a lot of people. More than enough for my current needs at any rate. A large workshop was next. Damn, I needed a bib. It had all sorts of machines and I strongly suspected there was not a lot they couldn't produce and what they could not they could build the tools for. Praise Giacomo!

    Then I started sweeping through the warehouses. I whistled when I saw the industrial mechs in store, close to a hundred of them on counting. They were literally of all sorts, though, even nigh useless ones for a barren moon like agricultural mechs. My estimation was maybe sixty or so I could actually productively use. There was also more industrial tooling in storage, although I couldn't tell what most of it was for at a glance. A lot of it seemed like it'd been salvaged from somewhere, dusted off, packed and then left waiting for potentially using later. And now it was all mine. I wanted to giggle. I kept searching through the warehouses, finding spare part and equipment stockpiles (including a lot of LosTech… I knew what some of those things I was looking at were… gauss rifles, extended range PPCs, freezers, oh my) and later on the ammunition stores. Autocannon ammo, check. LRM and SRM ammo, check. Gauss ammo, check. Alamos, ch - What.

    I stopped to stare. Yes… that was an Alamo, a fighter-carried anti-shipping nuclear warhead. And it had friends. All twenty-nine friends. Kami-sama, Giacomo, where the hell did you get these?

    Conundrum. What do I do with this, I thought. On the one hand, Alamos are a great ace in the hole to have if someone, say, ComStar or Clanners show up with Warships to ruin my day. On the other hand, this is the kind of shit no sane military wants in the hands of civilians. Then again, I wasn't an ordinary civilian… but I would be expected to report this. Hmm…

    After a moment of thought, I took upon myself the sage advice from the Tao of Random. If nobody knows it's there, just pretend it's not there. And if someone does notice it, why, nobody knows you knew, so pretend ignorance and you'll get away with it.

    I preferred to keep the ace in the hole in my hands if possible. One never knew when it might come in handy.

    There wasn't much else to be found in the warehouses, although I noted tunnels that had collapsed. I'd look into trying to figure out where they'd gone and if there was anything buried somewhere down there intact. I took a detour to the engineering section, to observe the power plant that powered the place - a rather large scale fusion plant. It looked fine to me, well maintained and fueled, although until I brought new technical teams, further maintenance would be impossible. The engineering section also had a large scale data center, on top of a few other computer systems. There were a few consoles clearly meant for accessing the data center and I took one up, booting it up and seeing what, if anything, I could find out.

    I frowned when, of all things, it asked for a biometric authentication… a blood authentication to be precise. A quick search revealed the equipment needed for that authentication so I tried my own self. If Giacomo intended me to get my hands on this, surely he'd make sure my profile was in… I knew he had the data.

    A beep later and I smiled. I was in. And then, I got the shock of my life, my brain refusing to process what I was looking at. I had to take a few moments off, pacing back and forth, mind running ten thousand miles an hour, before I could sit back down and let it sink in that I was staring at something that may well no longer have existed anywhere else in the Inner Sphere.

    An apparently complete curated version of the Prometheus database. Not the actual Prometheus database, that would be the holy grail, but a subset of that database. There was a document explaining what it was at the root level - essentially a Prometheus with most of the junk thrown away to keep it at a manageable size - and what criteria were used for the curation process. Apparently it was almost entirely on the cultural side of things that the curation had to go on about, most of the actual scientific and engineering data making it in by default.

    Gee, I wonder how many trashy B-movies they passed over. Not to mention all the lewds. Oh, what a cruel, cruel world. Come on, guys, lewds could be art, too. I waved my fist dramatically at the injustice of things.

    Well, now I had my second conundrum, I thought. What do I do with this?... Actually, I thought, since Helm's database is out there, why couldn't I just sit on this for now and investigate it a bit more? Make sure I'm not about to make a terrible mistake?

    I nodded. Tao of Random. Don't rush ahead and fuck up.

    As far as fucking up went, we already had far too many people doing it. I didn't want to go ahead and make it infinitely worse. Especially if, as I suspected, Prometheus-Lite held the potential for increasing the Combine's War Crime index by a few notches.

    Yeah, no, that thought made me want to throw up. Think of the really nice things! Hello Kitty! Bashing Clanner faces in! Bashing Clanner faces in with Hello Kitty Land-Air-Mech! Giggle~

    That worked. Time to shut down the console and go back upwards to my girls and ensure order…

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

    Next time, we'll tune in to the happenings at Telos IV as Ayeka gets on the ball... (it's a dish best served on its own as it's big)
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 2 - Part 4
  • Threadmarks
    • Ayeka heads to Telos IV proper and starts wheeling and dealing...

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    Telos IV itself was not the nicest of worlds in the Inner Sphere, but it had nothing to do with the gravity or atmospheric pressure and composition. At almost three quarters standard gravity, it was good enough for humans to inhabit without needing particular precautions and it was also good enough to sustain a breathable atmosphere. The issue with the world was primarily the horrible weather. Tornados and heavy rainstorms were a constant.

    Back in the times of the Star League, a network of storm inhibitors had been installed to improve the weather patterns, but Amaris, may he burn in hell forever, destroyed the system, along with the shipyard and fleet base I now had, when he abandoned attempts to occupy the world. Any and all efforts to rebuild the system were for naught, since. I idly wondered if the Helm core could help with that… in fact I suspected a new storm inhibitor system could be developed based on the information it contained but it would take years, if not decades, to get it working. It wasn't an immediate concern for me as I travelled across the capital Triumph, located in the continental landmass the locals called Dulles.

    One of my biggest concerns about the shipyard was supplying it properly, both consumables and all the capital goods it'd require to function. For that reason I was making the rounds in the capital, visiting all the major businesses and industrialists to check out what they could provide. So far I'd found suppliers for most raw materials I needed - ores, processed metals and alloys, plastics and many electronics. However, there was a major problem I was finding myself in. The inhabitants of Telos IV had never accepted occupation by the Combine. They'd been passively resisting for over two hundred years already by essentially refusing to do anything at all for the Dragon that they could get away with refusing… and often even what they couldn't. The locals, despite believing me to be a Terran, treated me just as I had expected once they found out I wanted to restore the yards and, thus, wouldn't supply me with anything other than the basics… food, water and other basics for survival. I hadn't stooped to begging for their cooperation as I knew that would just mean they'd know they had me cornered. I had to somehow get the locals to play along with me.

    The car stopped in front of an office building belonging to the Telosian Preservation Society. A non-profit society focused on preserving the world for Telosians, or so I was told, and frequented by all the high strata of business and intellectuals on world. It was a highly respected institution and I thought if I could get their buy in I could finally get that cooperation. I wasn't sure yet how I would get it, but I had one card to play which hopefully would work.

    Stepping out of the car in a business suit, I headed to the reception where, after introductions, I learned I couldn't get in without a member invitation or being a member myself. Inquiring further about becoming a member led the receptionist to take me to an office where the Director himself was, presumably to interview me.

    Seems I couldn't just sign a few papers, pay a fee and boom, get a card to let me into Heaven. Oh, well.

    Sir Richard Walpole, Director of the Telosian Preservation Society, waited at the desk. A stout middle-aged man likely in his 40's, with black hair and a few gray ones in a fine business suit. And a very tastefully decorated Victorian style office, just like a lot of the décor. That was another interesting bit about Telos. It had almost entirely rejected the Japanification attempts of the Dragon, as if doing anything more than learning japanese was tantamount to treason for anyone short of those holding the highest offices.

    Some pretence had to be maintained for the benefit of visiting Combine dignitaries, after all.

    I honestly was not sure just how much Takashi knew about how little the Telosians thought of being ruled by the Combine, but I couldn't imagine him not knowing at least some. I recalled the suggestions to look for manpower and suppliers from nearby systems as well - quite prescient advice if I failed to get local buy-in.

    We cordially greeted each other and I took the offered seat before the conversation started in earnest.

    "So, Ms Hasegawa, how may I help you?"

    "I'm looking for help with my rather ambitious project and I can think of no better a place and people to approach than the members of the Preservation Society."

    "What project would this be, if I may ask?"

    He probably already knew, I was willing to bet, but humored him anyway. "Restoring the shipyard to full operations. Get jumpship maintenance and production going again, in the very least. There's fewer of them every year and it's only a matter of time before the entire Sphere collapses from having too few in service."

    "Ah. An ambitious project indeed. How do you plan to achieve this?"

    "I have a data core, I have money and I have technical assets. I just need more people and suppliers for all the rest. There's good money to make, from mining operations, alloy plants, electronic fabs and many other fields. I also want to use local labor as much as possible."

    "How well is that effort going?"

    "I have not spent long on it yet," I replied. I didn't want to admit it was a flop so far.

    "Patience is a virtue."

    "It is, but it is also, unlike stellar fusion, a limited resource. I'd hate to resort to outside labor and suppliers but I'm fully prepared to do so if I must."

    Shot across the bow, Mr. Walpole.

    "It would cost you a lot more to do so. But we digress, Ms Hasegawa. If it is membership you want, I'm afraid it is not so simple as to walk in and ask for a card. The Preservation Society only accepts notable Telosians and those few foreigners who make a great contribution to it."

    "What kind of contribution does the Society require?"

    "Nothing as demeaning as a mere financial contribution, I'm afraid."

    "Would a copy of Helm's data core do?"

    He smiles. "That would've done had we not already gotten ahold of a copy."

    "Oh, woe is me. Dare I ask how?"

    "No skullduggery needed. We got a copy addressed to us delivered by a mysterious benefactor. I assume it's the same one who sent copies to just about everyone else."

    "The weather inhibitor system Telos had isn't in there, though."

    "No, it's not," he admitted. "We're working with what is actually there to figure out how to build the missing pieces."

    "Missing pieces? You mean to say the system isn't completely destroyed?"

    "Correct. The inhibitor towers were mothballed after Amaris bombed the ever living daylights out of the C&C centers and the weather satellite production facility. The Star League placing the Inhibitor C&C centers next to the SLDF garrisons was a mistake we're paying for even now."

    I nodded, then laid down the card. "It's a Westland & Takeda Planetary Weather Inhibitor system, isn't it?"

    "Yes, it is."

    "Would rebuilding that system do for a contribution?"

    He just looked at me.

    "Is there something on my face?"

    "Ms Hasegawa, the Helm data core is insufficient to do it and we do not need assistance to develop the missing components."

    "Who said anything about developing? I have the blueprints for the whole system."

    "... Forgive me, but do you have proof of your claim? The blueprints have been lost for centuries. Not even ComStar has recovered them."

    "I put no faith whatsoever in ComStar's claims to anything. But as a matter of fact, I did think to bring with me the proof," I replied, taking out a noteputer from my suitcase. After a few moments authenticating and finding the relevant files, I turned it over to Walpole for his perusal.

    It was only a small fraction of the blueprint and data catalog comprising the W&T PWI system, but it had the high level blueprints showing the installations of the C&C centers and the high level blueprints for the weather satellite. And a sub-index titillating the remaining data files that were not in the noteputer.

    "It seems you do have something worthy of consideration, Ms. Hasegawa. What do you propose?"

    "Simple, Mr Walpole. You have a good idea of what I need and know what I have. I am willing to rebuild the system should someone find the funding for it. In turn, I need my needs to be seen to."

    He thought for a few moments, considering the offer. "If you can write up a project proposal, with cost estimates for the Society to consider, we can likely find the funding. Otherwise, it's unreasonable of me to make any promises. We only have so much capital on hand, between ourselves and our esteemed members. Have you considered selling or donating the blueprints instead?"

    I shook my head. "I apologize, but if I were to do that I would be giving up too much too early. I can release to the Society the full blueprints once the project is complete as a backup in case it ever gets wrecked again, but giving them up front I am reluctant to do."

    He nodded in understanding. Giving up all my leverage was too much to ask for.

    "How soon can you present a proposal, then?"

    "I'm not certain… couple weeks, maybe? I need to get some of my techs in on it to get a full rundown on what is needed in order to get a reasonably accurate cost breakdown done. I assume the towers don't need any work from me?"

    "The towers were mothballed long ago and we still have the plant that produced some of the spares for them. Also mothballed. That's thankfully something we never lost."

    "I won't waste time on making cost estimates for that component of the system, then. Just the satellites and the C&C centers. And the plants to build and maintain them. Sounds right?"

    "Sounds right to me, Ms Hasegawa."

    I cheered in my head. Card played successfully. My plan was working so far and I hoped this was the start of a beautiful relationship between myself and the Telosians.

    Little did I know just how much trouble I'd borrowed unknowingly.

    ---

    Walpole uncapped the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a shot after his visitor had left. Yuriko Hasegawa had just dumped an incredible opportunity on his lap, but with it also came great danger. He had plans in motion and the last thing he needed was for any credit for a potential restoration of their weather inhibitor to fall on the Dragon's lap.

    He had to find the funding to make the Inhibitor restoration work, full stop. And take credit for it while lavishing further praise and credit to the terran who'd made it possible. She was young, good looking and a foreigner. His mind was already coming up with ideas on how to steer that latest development in directions of his choosing… he just had to figure out the details.

    The yellow liquid soon found itself burning Walpole's throat pleasantly and he could not help but grin. Good ol' Terran scotch. Cost him a pretty penny to import but if he couldn't enjoy the small pleasures of life, why bother?

    Minutes later, he went back to carousing with his most exclusives' club membership and discussing things best left unrecorded by any analog or digital means other than a human's brain.

    ---

    The brick-laying ceremony was thankfully brief, but quite mediatic as news spread like wildfire and it seemed everyone on Telos wanted to see history in the making. The facility whose foundations were being laid down would be housing tooling for manufacturing tools themselves and would initially be used to build out the equipment needed for the rest of the project.

    Once that facility was constructed and operational, a satellite manufacturing facility would be built next to it to provide the space-borne component of the weather inhibitor system. According to the plans, after that the C&C centers would be furnished out while the satellites were built and placed in orbit and the whole system would come online some time afterwards.

    Which of course meant any spare capacity the tooling plant had after the weather inhibitor project was done would in turn be usable (and profitably so) to upgrade local industry. I wasn't sure if the public realised this, but I knew Walpole and his Society friends did, and the floodgates had opened since. Suppliers were secured and, with the PR blitz that ensued, workers were becoming reasonably easy to find for the shipyard. Already I had teams doing groundwork on wrecked slips and a large crew working up on the workshop.

    Unfortunately, it was still looking like it'd take me at least an year before the first shipyard slip could be ready for using, so I didn't know when I'd actually get any revenues from that side of things. On the other hand, with the help of some local construction companies, I also had a dropship repair facility's construction underway. I did have all the tooling and equipment for it, all I needed was essentially the ceramacrete building to attach all of it to. And that was cheap.

    Hmm. It was funny to call a few thousand tons' worth of ceramacrete cheap, but it really was. Battletech had building construction nailed down to an exact and cheap science. Which reminded me about all the economic assumptions and bullcrap that FASA had invented. Kami-sama. FASAnomics, indeed.

    Enough of economics, though. The PR folks were embellishing me and my accomplishments so much that, if they kept at it and were to be believed, I could undo all the damage and evils unleashed upon Telos by Amaris and everyone that followed. I thought it was quite the exaggeration… although Telos IV was among the worlds that took the least damage, ironically enough, precisely because their passive resistance got Amaris to pack up without rage-nuking everything like in so many other worlds. So perhaps they were right. With the Inhibitor back online, it would almost go back to the Star League era level of quality of life.

    Would I walk on water by the time they were done?

    At least I could stay away from the reporters for now, surrounded by so many fine gentlemen. This world was amusing me with its Victorian mores… at least, most of the Victorian mores. They weren't prudes and they had a far more egalitarian view of women as well.

    My mind wandered briefly to another matter entirely. I'd begun recruiting for my 'corporate security' unit, which I'd nicknamed Hasegawa's Valkyries, and by its very name betraying its nature, I was sticking to recruiting women only for piloting duties. Poor Ryoko had looked so crestfallen when she realised I wasn't going to bring in hotties for her… until I pointed out that she could always default to sweaty chested techs after they performed maintenance on the unit's autocannons. Totally worth being chased around for a few minutes, laughing all the way.

    On a similar note, I'd also gone ahead and given the techs marching orders to upgrade most of the mechs with LosTech from the stockpile. The firepower upgrade would be substantial, to say the least. I didn't much care if Takashi found out, it's not like he wasn't currently jumpstarting production of all the toys anyways.

    I'd eventually have to add to the toys being produced, too, but the Rapier would have to wait. The priority was jumpstarting the shipyard, first by enabling maintenance and repair capabilities for jumpships, then expand capabilities and capacity for production of new jumpships and maybe even enable warship construction down the line. The tugs Takashi had earmarked for me from the Columbus cache he was sending for would certainly help.

    I smiled. Life was good, at least for now.

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

    And from now on if you have to ask, It Was Walpole.

    Next up will be... toasters?
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 2 - Part 5
  • Threadmarks
    • Feeling like putting some toast early. Who wants toast? You have toast. And you have toast. EVERYONE GETS TOAST!

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    Primus Julian Tiepolo was a very busy man. As the leader of ComStar, the organization publicly dedicated to running humanity's only means of interstellar communications other than the Pony Express but secretly the sixth wheel on the disastrous train of the Succession Wars which wrought untold pain and suffering throughout the Inner Sphere, he suffered from the most dreaded of all afflictions.

    Paperwork. Reams of paperwork. And meetings, briefings and all sorts of ings that took time, energy and mental acumen not to make a total dog's breakfast of.

    "Primus."

    "Have a seat, Precentor."

    Tojo Jarlath, Precentor ROM after Vesar Kristofur's debacle with the Wolf Dragoons, took his seat before Tiepolo.

    "I am not sure I recall the last time you gave me good news, Tojo. How's the outlook this week?"

    "I'm afraid it doesn't get better. If anything, it's just gliding down the same slope."

    "I was hoping otherwise. Go ahead," said Tiepolo with resignation.

    Tojo nodded and began, "Efforts to suppress the Helm data core proliferation are proceeding, but our analysts are coming to the conclusion that it is a pointless exercise. It is spreading like a virus and for every copy we catch at least three more slip through our fingers. Every House has multiple copies stashed away by now - we know of some locations but not all - and we're aware of some super proliferators who are, or were, sending out cores around as fast as they could make copies and have them shipped."

    Tiepolo nodded.

    "We may as well throw the towel on that effort and redirect our efforts into ensuring the critical industries we don't want the Houses to repair and upgrade with the data core information remain so, unrepaired and unupgraded. This will be more difficult and riskier, but is actually feasible."

    "How so?"

    "The reluctance of the Great Houses to strike at each other's industrial assets will have to be overcome. Barring direct action of our own, the only way we can affect in a major way the adoption of Helm core technology is to entice and trick them into attacking each other's infrastructure. Sabotage at the scale we need, in the timeframe we need done, is infeasible."

    "Direct action is not possible at the moment," Tiepolo stated. "While the more radical elements within ComStar favor this option, the ComGuards are not ready for the conflict that would inevitably arise from that. Am I wrong in this assessment?"

    "No, you are not, Primus. Our readiness is improving and the new units should be combat ready in two to three years, but in a slugging match against the experienced troops of the Great Houses? Even with more advanced technology, I know where I would place my bets."

    "And standing up warships isn't even in the cards," Tiepolo finished from memory. "The training program isn't scaled up enough for that. So we have an army that we can't use and expect to win and a navy we can't get out of the dockyards."

    "But we're the only ones with any Warships at all, Primus. That alone is far more than any of our foes have."

    "True," he admitted. "But our safety's still primarily assured by the threat of interdiction, nothing else. And that's being undermined by the Rothschilds and their ilk."

    Tojo grimaced and silently cursed Vesar for his carelessness and the mess he left behind. Thanks to him, Terran companies and banking institutions breached the insulating bubble ComStar had placed the entire Terran star system in, and they were not only providing banking services around the Inner Sphere - undermining the C-Bill's role - but if some of his agents were to be believed, alternative HPG networks were being placed. That information he was yet to confirm, though, and he'd elected to spare the Primus the heart attack inducing reaction to even the possibility that were true.

    He would rather make sure of the veracity of the information before telling Tiepolo that, with a medical team on stand-by. Not that the Primus wasn't right in his assessment, even undermining the C-Bill by itself was already a major issue as it could serve as an alternative conduit for financial transactions across national borders - conduits not under ComStar's control. And what galled him the most was that they didn't have a legitimate excuse to demand of anyone the shutting down of the banks. The Communications Act technically gave them the legitimacy to ask any other HPG networks to be shut down or handed to ComStar's possession, but he couldn't believe anyone would admit to their existence, backing or even knowing of them. And, in the back of his head, he knew just how much dead letter that agreement really was due to Blake's own actions and of some of his successors.

    "They'll be dealt with, Primus, once we can devote the resources to do so."

    He nodded. "The militant wing needs to be starved of arguments. I'm barely keeping the hotheads in check as it is, we need successes."

    "We've been having some, Primus, but as you know, it's like trying to keep the tide away with sand castles. It's not working. And there's another bit of bad news. In fact, three bits of bad news wrapped in one package."

    The Primus sighed. "Do tell, Tojo."

    "The fleet base in Telos, which we believed to be owned by Giacomo Raventhir, is now in the possession of a woman called Yuriko Hasegawa. According to our most recent intelligence on her, she's Japanese by birth and moved with her parents to the Combine. I'm going to skip the long story of her life so far in order to focus on the bad news. The first is she's actively working to restore that shipyard to life."

    Tiepolo frowned.

    "The second is… she's also working with the locals to restore the Weather Inhibitor system, apparently from the original blueprints."

    The Primus blinked in surprise. "Bad? I suppose it is, from a lot of perspectives, but it's not a technology that negatively affects us. I can't say I particularly care about sabotaging that initiative."

    "You see, Primus… it's bad, because we don't have those blueprints."

    "We have a copy of Helm ourselves. Multiple copies. If she has them, then so should we."

    "No. You see. We checked the data core. The blueprints for that system aren't there. At all. And that's the third bad news."

    Tiepolo stiffened.

    "Hasegawa has her hands on something other than Helm's. And since, from traffic analysis we know she used command chains on two occasions in 3016 to go from the edge of the back end of Combine space to Luthien, then from Luthien to Telos, it is a reasonable assumption that she found some sort of cache somewhere, which she likely handed over to the Dragon."

    "Tojo… the scenario you present is possibly more dangerous than the proliferation of Helm's data core. Find out all you can about this Hasegawa and her operations. Find out what she was up to, what if anything she gave to the Dragon. Burn her shipyard. Not directly, mind… only under my authority will I even consider acting directly. But if you can find patsies to do the job for us? You have my permission."

    Tojo nodded. "Thank you, Primus, for your trust. As a matter of fact, I've already begun attempts to infiltrate her operations."

    "Good, good. You're doing well in these trying times. Blake help us, but nothing seems to go our way lately. That accursed Hughes twisting the arms of multiple Precentors to authorize the rebuilding of a League battlemech facility? The Feddies building a new battlemech facility themselves in the boonies without us even catching wind of it until it was already mostly built? And here, at home? Those squabbling nations can't just sit down and have a civil talk with each other without raising tensions. One day somebody is going to do something stupid and start another war we'll be caught in the crossfire of."

    "To be fair, Primus, rebuilding that facility in the League actually benefits the balance of power overall. The Free Worlds is already behind on military forces, if it also permanently loses that factory it will never have a chance of recovery… and that means the Lyrans have a freer hand. Not good for us."

    "I know, I know, and I looked the other way for that reason. I can still complain about it because nobody asked what I thought of it before all the approvals were made. And I know and will remember the names of those who went behind my back to do it."

    Tojo nodded. Woe be to the Precentor who went behind the Primus' back. There were plenty of HPG stations in the boonies who could use an additional warm body to lead it… or just as a 'spiritual retreat' for 'meditation'.

    "Any other news?"

    "Not right now, Primus."

    "Good. I don't think I could've taken much more of that. Before you go… I have a proposal from Precentor Luna Lovegood here. She's suggesting we use one of our second tier hidden worlds for an additional purpose."

    Tojo looked on with interest. "Which world, and what is she proposing?"

    "Artoo, and she's proposing an industrial upgrade and establishing battlemech and aerospace lines in it."

    "Interesting… it's actually a well populated and reasonably well developed world, but not one where the locals buy into our beliefs. It wouldn't be too difficult to upgrade some of their existing industrial base and build more on top to support modern weapon manufacturing. I don't know if we won't be borrowing trouble in the process, but it's certainly workable."

    "I can scrounge up the budget for it - I'll just impose a small rate increase to pay for it - but I need you to take a deeper look at Artoo and make sure we aren't creating a problem. We have other worlds we can use for manufacturing and large stockpiles here on Terra that are going unused."

    "That is true, Primus, but Artoo has an additional advantage none of the Five have. It's not a world that has ever appeared on the navigation charts, much less that it was ever owned by any of the Great Houses. If there ever was a list of safe places to stash some industrial base at, Artoo would be at the top of the list."

    "That is a very valid point, Tojo. Bring me an analysis next week of Artoo's suitability for Luna's proposal. I'll make a decision then."

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    Next, it's back to New Avalon...
     
  • Threadmarks
    • New Avalon, what will you amuse us with next? And onwards.

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    11th November 3016


    "Welcome to my humble abode," Hanse said with a grin as Sasha and Jon entered the room.

    "Thanks, uncle."

    "Sit, sit. And you must be Jon. I've heard much about you."

    "Yes, sir. Good, I hope?"

    "For the most part. You haven't managed to run down anyone in a sports car yet. Please, sit. First time in New Avalon, right?"

    "Yes," Jon confirmed as he took a seat beside Sasha. "I've not stepped outside Csomad ever since my escape."

    "You'll have time to visit all the touristic locations. And NAIS. I remember something about Banzai?"

    Jon nodded. "I want to meet the man, talk shop with him. I have ideas."

    "Very Davionesque ideas, uncle," Sasha interjected.

    "And what would those be, dear niece?"

    "Autocannons."

    "Don't steal my thunder, please?," whined Jon. "I got ideas on how to improve on autocannons and I need Banzai to help develop them."

    "The thunder of autocannons," said Hanse. "Yes, I can see why it's Davionesque. I wholeheartedly approve of any idea that can help in giving us an edge."

    A knock at the door sounded.

    "Ah, it must be Quintus," declared Hanse. "He is eager to meet you, Jon."

    While the former capellan blinked in surprise, the First Prince called out and Quintus did indeed enter the room.

    "I trust I'm not interrupting?"

    "Don't worry about it, Quintus. Jon's finally here."

    "Thank you, my Lord. Jon," he said as he approached, looking at Jon with a stern look. "I want to know what your intentions toward my daughter are."

    Sasha gawked, she'd never gotten a whiff from Jon about anything that might've involved Quintus' family. Jon, on the other hand, just planted his face against the table. Painfully.

    "That looks painful," commented Hanse.

    "Mister Norris," continued the spymaster, "I would appreciate if you refrained from inflicting self harm in response to a perfectly reasonable inquiry."

    Jon groaned and then launched into a tirade of swearing in english, french, german, chinese, latin, dutch and italian. Quintus and Hanse both took mental notes of the swearing. There were some inventive, novel combinations they could use later.

    "Jon?", asked Sasha. "What?"

    "My accursed father engaged me to Riva Allard."

    "WHAT. Why didn't you tell me before?", demanded Sasha.

    "I tried to forget about it, okay? He engaged me to Romano and her thuggies, too!"

    "Oh. That's right."

    "I see," commented Quintus. "You find yourself torn between conflicting demands." He then paused and spoke ominously. "Or do you find my daughter to be unworthy?"

    "The unworthy one isn't your daughter. Why can't I just tinker, drink and relax? Whyyyyyy… "

    "Because outstanding matters of honor need to be settled. In this case, there was copious consumption of alcohol involved in the negotiations so I find myself leaning towards simply allowing the engagement to be declared null and void at no loss to either party. Especially since your father was engaging you to others as well, which is rather insulting to me," Quintus said, pausing for a moment. "So, I leave it to you whether you wish to pursue my daughter's hand in exclusivity or let the agreement lapse."

    Jon groaned in relief before banging his head a bit more against the table.

    "Jon… what other engagements did your father make?", asked Sasha sweetly.

    It was at that point that Jon knew… he was doomed. So he did what he thought best under the circumstances.

    "Can I head out for a smoke?"

    Hanse chuckled, breaking the tension. Quintus grinned and held out a hand to Hanse. In turn, Hanse deposited several bills on it. Clearly a bet had been made and Hanse had lost.

    "Go ahead, Jon. We'll need to chat about your father's entanglements but that can be left for another time," said Hanse, letting him off the hook.

    Thanking the lucky stars for the reprieve, Jon left to deal with his frayed nerves. Sasha stayed behind after she caught a look from her uncle.

    "Sasha, we need to talk."

    "This was a setup," she accused, glaring at Hanse.

    "It needed to happen. Quintus?"

    "His father's arrangements are an issue if he is to associate with you, Sasha. To start with, his engagement to my daughter, which I had to get out of the way. Then there's the engagement to Romano and her Thuggee cultists. It's only a matter of time before she finds out Jon's very much alive, if he continues orbiting around you. And then, given his father's checkered history… what other land mines are there for us to disarm before we step on them?"

    "You see, my niece? Jon's not much of a problem by himself as far as we can tell, but his father screwed his life good, and I don't want it to blow up on your face."

    "Okay, you have a point," Sasha admitted. "But still, did you have to do it like this? What was the bet about?"

    "Which one of us would crack in mirth first," Quintus admitted shamelessly. "We had to know, Sasha. How he reacted was just as important."

    "And?"

    "Could've reacted worse. His addiction to smoking, drinking and high speed racing needs a looking at, but those are minor problems in comparison to some others I could name."

    Hanse cut in. "At least we can be sure he isn't a Capellan agent. There is no way Maximillian would hand us over that much military hardware as part of a ploy to infiltrate an agent in our midst. And he checks out as far as we can tell, which leaves us to consider how to deal with your budding relationship with him in a much more positive light."

    "Budding… relationship?"

    "We've heard much about how close you are to him, Sasha. And as your uncle, I'm concerned about the implications and complications. Especially medical. I'm quite well aware of your history."

    Sasha stared, mouth gaping for a few moments before protesting. "But, but, no, we're just close friends, we haven't done that!"

    "Really?", Hanse said, exchanging a look with Quintus. "In that case, remember to wear protection if you decide to get intimate with him."

    "Uncle!"

    "I'm serious, Sasha. Your doctors aren't convinced you're capable of carrying to term. If you take the risk, be sure you do it with the One."

    "Alright, time out. That's my business, not yours, uncle. And you have little room to talk yourself."

    He blinked. "Excuse me?"

    "When are you going to look for someone for yourself, uncle? You can't put that on hold forever. The succession must be secured, right? How am I supposed to do it if I'm unable to have children? You need to do it, uncle. Let her go… you've grieved long enough."

    Hanse was silent, briefly at a complete loss of words. Quintus merely observed the interplay. The first prince, after a few moments, leaned back against his seat.

    "Touche," he said. "But it's not as easy or simple as that… not to me. But… I'll think about it. You made a very good point. If you can't and I don't, then Morgan or his descendents will eventually take the throne. I like the kid but I don't know where his loyalties will lie when he comes of age. And his father is bad news, Sasha."

    "I know, uncle."

    Boy, if you knew half of what I do about him and his dealings you'd strangle him yourself, Sasha thought. Pity she didn't have proof.

    "You aren't going to do anything rash with Jon, are you?"

    "No, uncle, I'm not. Chill."

    "Good. That's the big concern I have."

    "You don't have to concern yourself. I'm a big girl, I know what I'm doing."

    Do you, Sasha, Hanse thought. She could deny all she wanted, but she wasn't convincing him. There was more to her feelings and attitude than mere friendship. Was she aware of it herself? He didn't know, but for now he would let it go. He had plenty of time to nip things in the bud if Jon turned sour.

    "Well, in that case how about we find out where your boytoy has gone to have a smoke?"

    "He's not my boytoy, uncle."

    He chuckled. "Suuuuure," he said with a teasing tone.

    ---

    Romano Liao stared at the pictures before her.

    "So you've been hiding in plain sight all this time, pet," she remarked. "Csomad is not far enough from me, though."

    She pondered what to do with the new information. Her father had punished her for her pet's disloyalty as if she had been to blame for it all along. How unfair of him. Still, teaching her pet who was the boss certainly would make amends with her father, right? In the very least, it would remind everyone the price of treachery.

    Then she smiled.

    "I think I will have fun with you, pet. Perhaps… yes. I'll have a little competition for my Thuggee subordinates. Whoever gets you first and in the most creative fashion will earn my favor, perhaps? Can't have you snuffed out too quickly or painlessly."

    After all, those who betrayed her should have only the most horrible deaths to look forward in their short lives. And Jon had been particularly damaging in his treachery. She would have him dead and then present the deed to her father. Surely that would be enough to get back in his good graces?

    ---

    25th November 3016


    Jeanette observed the area from within the protection of her Marauder's cockpit. Snow covered the ground aside from hillside rocks exposed to the elements, too steep for snow to adhere to and too high for the build-up to cover.

    Artru was a cold world and, while technically part of the Concordat, was a world that was only barely held, with little more than a small population centre clinging on in the more livable zone of the planet and a small garrison. Some mining operations were the limit of its economical importance, all sited around the population centre. Castle Nautilus was far from it, which was why its presence had been unnoticed for so long.

    She noticed the concealed concrete bunkers lining some of the cliffs as she moved forward, her forward recon elements giving the all clear signal. The Argo had been recovered after a long and tense negotiation with the Aranos for its location and then a forced eviction of pirate elements that had claimed it for a base. Now in her hands and, after extensive repairs to make it safe to use and mobile, served as her unit's mobile operational base. Not that it could fit all of it in it, but it fit more than enough. Of course, with the Argo in hand, so were the encrypted juicy goods in its computers. Breaking the encryption took time and resources, but the map it yielded was now being put to good use, cracking open hidden SLDF bases all across the Taurian zone of operations. Including the one she was getting into.

    The report from the leader of the scouting force, Georgios, came. "Colonel? We have the main entrance located. No resistance so far."

    "Roger that," she responded. "Looks like the authentication signal worked." She switched frequency to the Argo. "Jean to Argo, can you get the doors open?"

    "We're trying to find the right file, hold on," came the reply. Chloe von Einzbern was in charge of the operations on the Argo. "Think we got it. Here goes nothing."

    "Main gate is opening," she heard moments later.

    "Good. Recon, take a look. We're following behind."

    "Jean," she heard her cousin Thomas say, "this is your find. Ladies first."

    "Alright," she said as she manipulated the pedals to get her Marauder going. Not long afterwards, her 75 ton war machine entered the cavernous hangar.

    A cavernous, empty hangar, save for other 'mechs and vehicles, particularly APCs, belonging to her. She frowned. Surely there should've been something already? Then again, it was all probably stored deeper. She started handing out orders, fanning out troops to sweep over the Castle Brian. If there was anything at all to be found, it would be found.

    Minutes later, things were found.

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

    One more chapter piece left... tomorrow or so.
     
    Chapter 2 - Part 6
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    Corporal Charles-Henri Sanson started climbing up the stairs, followed by soldiers of his platoon. It was just about two floors up to the door to what it seemed like the hangar's control room, wall on one side and rail on the other and it was not until he was just a few steps from the top that he realised he should've inspected the staircase before going up.

    Faster than he'd gone up, he found himself sliding down on what formerly had been a staircase but suddenly became a slide.

    "Oh, fuuuuuck!", he head someone saying before he reached the bottom and impacted against the sudden dogpile of unfortunate soldiers. That hurt, he thought.

    Standing up, he took stock of the situation… and the rest of the platoon, particularly those who hadn't gone up.

    "Shut it, soldier," he shot at a private who was chuckling at the dogpile.

    "Yes, sir."

    "Now help the others," he ordered with a hint of satisfaction at the private obeying him. Then he turned his attention to the stairs turned slide and saw that, with a bit of work, he could get up the stairs using the railing alone. He reached out for it and, one step at a time, started working his way up.

    "You can do it, sir!"

    He grinned at the cheering. Hell yeah, this was working, though in the back of his mind he wondered if this was all he was going to find. He brushed that thought off and kept going until he was all the way up and then inspected the door. It looked like a pretty bog standard door and it even seemed to be unlocked.

    Suspicious or fortunate, he wondered.

    Unwilling to let doubt hinder his progress, he pressed the button to open the door. The door slid open, a bip sounded followed by a loud pop and then the most agonizing blossoming of pain found its way through his nerve system to his brain as a smallish rubber ball bounced off one of his most precious body parts, then the floor and then out the door, to be found much later.

    "Man down!," he heard saying as he fell over, whimpering, his hands covering his most aggrieved part, eyes staring at the little device that had fired off the rubber ball…

    ---

    The golden Archer going down one of the ramps to a lower level was a seventy ton war machine designed for long range support. Captain Gilgamesh, commander of one of Jeanette's battalions, was its pilot, at the head of a column with battlemechs and armored personnel carriers following him.

    "All units," he heard over the radio, "be aware there are reports of boobytraps in the area. None so far designed for lethality, but exercise caution."

    Psh, he was inside a battlemech. He could take it, he thought. He arrived at the bottom of the ramp and found himself before a shut door about 300 meters away.

    "Obstacle ahead, closed blast door," he reported. "Engineering team, get to work."

    He paused his battlemech briefly, the column stopping behind him sans for a single APC carrying the engineering team, which sped ahead to the blast door. Less than a minute later after stopping, they started working on the door. Gilgamesh started moving his 'mech closer, but by the time he was halfway to the door he was taken by surprise as a concealed door opened on the ceiling just ahead of him, dropping a large jar of some purple liquid attached to a rope.

    He had just long enough to realise it was swinging at him before it impacted against his mech, just below the cockpit. The glass of the jar broke easily, splattering its contents all over his golden Archer and entirely covering his cockpit.

    "... I'm hit with something. Lieutenant Souji, please assess threat."

    Souji's battlemech, a Phoenix Hawk, approached to inspect.

    "Captain? Your entire mech's head is covered with… whatever that is. You can't leave until we make sure it's safe… or wash it all off."

    "If they were not long dead, I would make the mongrels who did this pay. Pick up someone to take a close look."

    It took a bit of time to decide who would do it (short stick strategy works wonders), but eventually, one of the foot soldiers was lifted to take a look, decked in protective gear.

    "Be quick, I don't have all day," Gilgamesh instructed him.

    The soldier ran a few tests, ruling out all sorts and classes of chemical weapons before he realised something.

    "It looks like jam, sir."

    "Jam? Are you saying it's jam?," asked Gilgamesh in confusion. Surely he was mistaken?

    "Well… it looks like it, tested negative to all chemical weapon tests so far…"

    "What flavor is it?," said Souji in jest.

    "I would like to know that, private."

    "... Sir, are you serious?"

    "I am, private."

    Wasteful mongrel, his time was far too valuable to be wasted here. Did he not know that?

    "Captain, this sounds unwise to me," protested Souji, but Gilgamesh cut her off.

    "Private, taste the jam."

    He very reluctantly obeyed, taking off the mask first before drawing a line on the 'mech with his finger and then, carefully, tasting it with the tip of his tongue. After a few moments, he said, "Raspberry, sir. Definitely raspberry."

    A moment's silence. Then Souji pulled away, with the private, before the captain started raving.

    "Raspberry? Raspberry! What mongrel dares to give me, the raspberry! I am GILGAMESH!"

    Then he stepped forward, towards the blast door, his 'mech hand wiping at the cockpit but less than thirty meters forward the floor gave below him, dropping the Archer into a 10-meter tall pit… half-filled with more raspberry jam.

    Souji looked over the edge of the pit, and saw the struggling Archer, fighting to get up from the muck, and commented. "Well… the captain first got jammed and then got into a jam. Sounds about right."

    She sighed and set about coordinating 'mech rescue operations while Gilgamesh raved about damned mongrels unworthy of his presence deigning to embarass him in such an undignified manner.

    ---

    Jeanette ground her teeth as she heard yet another report of a trap going off. There had been dozens already and morale among her crew was rock bottom, with the only upside being that nobody was seriously injured and there were no deaths. A few would need a small hospital stay, but no more than that.

    At least, so far.

    Compounding her aggravation was the fact that as of yet nobody had found anything of value in the base that wasn't bolted down to the floors, ceilings or walls or was otherwise essentially part and parcel of operating or maintaining the facility itself. The warehouses so far found were bare, none of the mechbays had battlemechs and even industrial mechs were all but absent. Some trucks and other logistical vehicles were found, but those weren't worth the trip.

    "Jean, this may be the weirdest day I've ever seen."

    "Cousin, you sure you want to be in here? So far… but who can tell what else is here."

    "No, I don't think we're in true danger at this point. Whoever did all this went out of his way to make all the traps non-lethal, yet humiliating and, from a certain perspective, rather humorous."

    Well, she had to admit to herself Thomas had a point… some of the stuff that happened to certain people was hilarious. But it could all still be a setup.

    "That may be so, cousin, but until we clear out the area we can't be sure."

    Before Thomas could reply, Captain Artoria's voice cut in. "Colonel, we found the way to central command. Just a couple blast doors left to get open."

    "Roger that, Captain. I'm on the way," Jeanette replied, setting her 'mech on the move. A few moments later, she noticed Thomas following her in his Warhammer. "You're coming?"

    "Yes, Jean. Nothing to do up here."

    She thought about arguing, but decided not to try. He hadn't listened to her concerns when he'd decided to come along for the ride and he wasn't going to listen to her now.

    "In that case, just follow behind me. I have the mapping information."

    The trip wasn't a particularly short one - Castle Brians, even the smaller ones, were big complexes - but there was nothing to slow them down and 'mechs travelling at 48kph ate the distance quickly and steadily. One of the blast doors was reported open while on the move, to their pleasure, but it was not to last.

    As Jeanette entered one of the last access tunnels before reaching the opened blast door, panels on the walls and ceiling opened up and started spraying a black liquid at her 'mech. Her surprise, however, gave way to instinctive reaction as she turned her 'mech around, bleeding inertia and trying to get out of the trap she'd sprung. Before she could complete the maneuver, however, the spraying stopped and the liquid sprayers retracted… only for another set to pop out and start blasting something white at her 'mech instead. Moments later, she got her 'mech out of the danger zone and stopped to assess the situation.

    "Jean… ha… haha… hahahahahahahaha!"

    Jeanette stared at Thomas' battlemech for a moment, as he started to laugh hysterically for a few seconds before cutting off transmission. What was he laughing about, she wondered, before she caught sight on her cockpit glass of some of the white stuff and stiffened. Oh, no, they hadn't...

    ---

    The command center was finally breached and swept through, but it was not until an unusually stiff Jeanette and a clearly amused Thomas arriving that they learned just why the platoon doing the sweep had been evasive about what they'd found.

    A sign hung on one of the walls, with a lot of boxes stacked against it underneath.

    "Congratulations for making it through Castle Nautilus! I hope you enjoyed the invigorating experience, I certainly enjoyed modifying all the most certainly lethal traps and defense mechanisms into far less lethal ones!

    Now, I do apologize if you are a gold digger looking for lost treasures from the Star League. Finders keepers and all that, I'm afraid, and I got here first. Neener neener. On the other hand, I can't cart off this entire place so there's that. If you want, just sell it to the local overlord. The Calderons would probably pay a pretty penny for it.

    In the meantime, because no adventure of this sort can go unrewarded, you may find in the boxes something to your size.

    See ya around, bambini
    Giacomo Raventhir"

    Jeanette ground her teeth as one of the soldiers pulled from one of the boxes a T-Shirt with 'I found Castle Nautilus and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt' emblazoned on it. Thomas snorted and tried to hold back his laughter, to a moderate success. She glanced at the other officers who'd made it there. Gilgamesh looked affronted and it was a miracle he was not raving. Artoria looked blandly at the T-Shirts, clearly not amused but since she'd escaped personal embarassment… and then Emiya walked in, clearly amused at something and talking to a subaltern of his.

    "I never thought I'd see a 'mech tarred and feathered," Emiya commented, "Wonder whose?".

    Then he looked at Jeanette and saluted her, before noticing all the glares he was getting from the officers, sans Gilgamesh. "What?"

    "Nevermind," said Jeanette, mentally cursing Giacomo. "Captain Emiya, you are in charge of distributing those to the entire unit," she ordered, pointing at the T-Shirt crates.

    Castle Nautilus was a loss to her, for sure. Thomas would get his Castle Brian, but she had been counting on her share of the booty for the profit. Instead, all she was getting was a stockpile of T-Shirts. If that was the case, then she was going to make it a point to hand everyone at least one to their size. Dealing with this crap definitely warranted having a reminder of the shared painful experience everyone had to get through.

    ---

    "Hmm… I like this very much," said Guntram as he read the report in his hands. "Good work, Luna."

    She wasn't there with him, but he wished she was so he could congratulate her in person for landing the position he needed her to be in. Precentor Artoo, with the duty and resources to upgrade its industrial base? It would serve ComStar well… but it would serve him even better. If all went as planned, that is.

    He eyed the other piles of papers. He'd gone a long way setting up his own network of agents throughout the former Hegemony worlds and was well on the way to planting the seeds for his plan to bear fruit. In the meantime, all the hardware he'd pulled off of Helm was being put to good use. With mercenaries helping, he was literally raising his own army without anyone the wiser. Getting dropships was more difficult and expensive but bit by bit even that was not an insurmountable problem. Jumpships even more so but he had backup plans to make up for deficiencies in that regard.

    "Fort Knox, eat your heart out," he said with a chuckle as he remembered how he'd been financing the whole thing. The Hegemony had been quite the packrat, hiding away all sorts of stuff where it couldn't be easily found. A monetary metal repository whose existence and location had been lost during Amaris' destruction? Best possible source of funding. Completely untraceable. And he was yet to find a world that wouldn't pay cash for gold. Or silver, platinum and even some of the other metals and valuables stored there.

    Guntram's father had found it and now it was his.

    Of course, all of his plans rested on one thing above all. The fall of ComStar. He eyed the pile related to his own agents on Terra and smiled.

    "Soon, Primus, you'll reap what you've sown."

    But not too soon. Oh, no. He needed his army ready to take advantage of it. The Hegemony would rise again… and he would be at the helm.

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

    Yes, that was Castle Home Alone. *hums tune*

    Chapter 3 in progress but it will take time. Feedback so far is most welcome. And don't forget the reaction videos. :)
     
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