BoTH Chpt 31

==Blood on the Horizon - Chapter 31 -==
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===Working out Plans while staying Fit===
Date: April 19th, 3002
Location: Jumpship King Henry V, En route to Camadierre
"Give me five more," Sheppard muttered as Hull continued pushing the weights up. "Just five more reps and then we can rest for a bit."
 
Sweat dripped off of Hull's face as he grunted and allowed the weights to ease down before pushing them right back up and holding there for a brief moment. Then, as he exhaled long and slow, he pumped out four more before pushing the weights up one last time and racking them, sitting up as he grabbed a towel and wiped off some of the sweat.
 
"Good job," Sheppard gestured for Hull to get up so he could take his place. "You sure you're good to spot me?"
 
"Yeah," Hull nodded, a far-off look in his eye. "I'm good, just give me a second."
 
"Actually," Sheppard considered the weights on the bar. "Help me take a couple of Kilos off, I think my max might be lower than yours."
 
Hull moved to the other side of the bar and shifted a five kilo weight off of it, setting it down on a nearby rack as Sheppard did the same before locking the weights back in place.
 
"Yeah," Sheppard grunted as Hull began spotting him. "That's the sweet spot."
 
The men went through the rest of their workout on the grav deck before swapping out with the next group, military fitness required a lot of work, especially when in a zero-g environment for weeks at a time. So, there was mandatory PT for everyone who served, whether they were a part of the DropShip crew, or the JumpShip didn't matter. You needed to be able and ready to shift from microgravity to full gravities and then fight at the end of the week sometimes.
 
"Forgot how odd it is to be back and training on a DropShip," Sheppard remarked as the two men hit the showers, the thirty seconds of soaped up recycled water cleaning them off enough to ward off any body odor from the sweat, but doing little else.
 
"This is just routine," Hull shrugged. "I did this a lot over the last few years, I just normally didn't have a spotter."
 
"Bet you were glad the Hydroponics bays were intact." Sheppard dried off before slipping into a uniform.
 
"You have no idea," Hull laughed. "I ate way too many SLDF MREs before digging into the hydroponics systems though."
 
"So what's the plan once we land on Camadierre?" Sheppard finally asked as they moved back towards the docked Messenger.
 
"Do our job," Hull replied. "And hope that we actually encounter a few pirates. I negotiated salvage rights of sixty percent of everything we get tonnage wise. I'd hate for us to have good salvage rights and not get to utilize them."
 
"Right," Sheppard nodded. "To be honest, it's going to be weird to have to negotiate for salvage now. Most of us would have had priority over salvage rights back when we were in the March Militia or AFFS."
 
"House units do tend to get priority," Hull smirked. "But, newer and smaller units get to have a little bit of leeway in regards to salvage. Partially because they don't actually expect us to contribute all that much to taking any enemy units down."
 
"And you're only allowed salvage from battles that you actually participated in," it clicked in Sheppard's brain. "So, Salvage rights. I assume there are other clauses included in the contracts?"
 
"Well, yes and no," Hull began. "I'll show you how the MRB helped me work things out, I kept notes."
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===Meeting with the Liaison Officer===
Date: May 29, 3002
Location: Camadierre, Taurian Concordat
Unfortunately, we weren't able to reserve the warehouses that you requested the first time," the Concordat Liaison apologized. "Taurus Majoris Mining had an influx of metals and outbid the lease on said warehouses."
 
"That's fine," I sighed. "I'll see what I can dig up around here."
 
"Look," the woman glanced around. "I don't have a problem with you, but a lot of civilians are likely to be a little belligerent at first. A lot of y'all are from the FedSuns, and there's a lot of bad blood there."
 
"We're just here to keep pirates at bay and collect a paycheck, Cornet," I replied. "We'll keep things on the up and up."
 
"That's good to hear," she smiled. "Camadierre is normally fairly safe, but pirates seem to grow every year and TMM has been raising hell in the governmental hearings. So, you're going to be an independent lance attached to the vehicle battalion that's stationed here."
 
"No 'mech support here?" I asked.
 
"Not enough to cover everything," she shook her head. "The vics are mostly heavies, so we can't quite manage to move to take out pirates before they attack. And any other mercs were directly hired by TMM."
 
"And we were hired by the Concordat directly," I replied. "So we're here to pin down any pirates that land, and ensure the civilians are safe."
 
"Right," she nodded. "Unfortunately, I haven't been assigned a 'mech at the moment, so I'm not going to be able to liaison with you directly when you're out in the field, but I'm perfectly willing to ride in a jump seat if I need to."
 
"Keeping an eye on the Fedrat mercs?" I chuckled.
 
"Something like that," she joined in. "Just trying to make sure that everything is done properly."
 
"Alright then," I finally stopped walking. "Thank you for your assistance Cornet Taegan," I shook her hand. "I'll be in touch once I get my people settled down and we'll get the patrol routes set and ready to work through."
 
"You as well, Captain Hull," She firmly shook my hand back. "I look forward to working with you."
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===Tactical Approach in Garrison Duty===
"I told you we'd have issues," Sheppard said as the unit all pitched in to build a handful of prefabricated structures for us to stay in. "The Taurians have issues with the Federated Suns."
 
"I'm hoping that we won't see a whole lot of issues in the future," I replied. "We kill some pirates and I'm sure they'll change their tune fairly quickly."
 
"Guess we'll find out, won't we?" Paige chimed in.
 
"It's a six month contract," I continued working. "I'm sure something will come up for us to fight."
 
"God willing," Sheppard agreed. "Either way, I want to be involved in any negotiations with TMM and Taurian Manufacturers. I'd love to get my hands on some Taurian vehicles if at all possible. Some Vedettes and SRM carriers would be a great place to start."
 
"Vedette's only use an Ack-five though," I replied. "Not a lot of damage there."
 
"You never have Vedettes or Scorpions working alone," Naomi spoke up. "They're supposed to operate in groups, one AC/5 isn't a lot, but five or six working in concert at maximum range isn't anything to sneeze at."
 
"Mix them in with some LRM carriers and you've got ranged options to punch holes in and then have SRM carriers hidden in the middle of the LRM carriers," Richard said from where he stretched, enjoying the newfound mobility now that he wasn't in a wheelchair. "The ack-fives worry the armor while the missiles help out. When they get close, you hammer with the SRMs and it shreds whatever's left."
 
"Works on 'mechs, tanks, anything that's willing to come against an armored company," Naomi agreed. "Ideally, you want to mix them in groups of six to eighteen. The AFFS doesn't let us experiment beyond the classroom and sims, but when we were allowed to test using eighteen instead of twelve allowed us a lot more flexibility."
 
"What do you mean?" I stopped what I was doing, to focus on what Naomi was saying.
 
"Well," Naomi glanced at Richard before he nodded in affirmation. "The modern day TO&E is based on the Lance, for better or for worse. But, we prefer six man groups," she grabbed some tools off the ground to use as a visual reference. "Right now, we don't have the vehicles or 'mechs to do more than a lance, so it makes sense to stay that way. But, if we shift to six man lances, fireteams, whatever we decide to call them, then we can be a bit more flexible. If, for example we use a base six, and then our company size is eighteen instead of twelve, we can heavily blend and use mixed formations, Six 'mechs, twelve vehicles, etc…"
 
"And, it allows us to do things like they were talking about with the Vedettes and Missile carriers on a different scale," Richard stated. "Back up each battalion with eighteen artillery pieces and you'll be able to hit any enemy formation hard enough that they'll have trouble getting back up."
 
"Right now we only have a lance of 'mechs and some infantry," Peterson stepped forward. "But, as we mix formations, we're going to want to have infantry assigned to each company. I'd like to have some jump infantry, but we'll work our way up to it."
 
"This tactical discussion's fuckin' well and good!" Packer yelled from where he was putting up a wall with his group of infantrymen and women. "But I'd like to sleep inside of an actual barracks tonight!"
 
"Right," I stood up from where I had been kneeling. "Back to it I guess."
 
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; Author's note : And this is where the base Six-man Fireteam that the Marksman used in the original story came from.
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Chapter 31