EMCOTS 7

=Emergence (Concertverse) - Chapter 7=
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==Reactions (On The Other Side)==
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Kell Hounds HQ
Timkovichi, Coventry Province
Lyran Commonwealth
16 August 3142
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It was late in the day when Evan Kell managed to find time to make the rounds of the wounded. Part of him hated himself for that, as much as there were so many things that had needed doing. But at least he had found the time now.
The field hospital’s smells of antiseptic and pain reminded him of his first time in the ring, four decades ago now. And that was against the Falcons too; back in business at the same old stand, with the same old crowd, Evan reflected, stepping aside for a gurney carrying a prone patient, hung with rattling saline and medicine drips.
Thankfully, most of his Hounds had made it through the day whole - no thanks to me - but Armoured Guard really had been hammered; with almost four in every five of them dead or in the hospital. They were taking it well, though; like the young infantrywoman he’d talked to earlier, badly burned by an Elemental’s flamer. “It’s alright, sir,” she’d said, waving the amputated stump of her arm to take in her bandaged eye. “I’ve put in for transfer to the Navy. They say they’ll front me the hook and eyepatch, but I’ve gotta find my own parrot.”
Children. Brave, foolish children, Evan thought sadly. All they wanted to hear from him was that they’d been brave, that they’d done right by their families and their friends, no matter the ruin modern weaponry had inflicted on them. Then, oh stop it, Kell. You didn’t invent war, and you for damn sure didn’t invite the Falcons or Horses here. Now quit woolgathering and finish up.
Corporal Eddie Carson was sitting up in bed as Evan approached, and smiling with remarkable good cheer for a man missing his right leg in midthigh. That might just have been the pretty young Arcadian nurse he’d been quietly flirting with; the instant he spotted Evan, Eddie dropped the smile and stiffened instantly to as close he could come to attention. Not really a surprise, from someone who’d been in trouble as often as Eddie had.
“Colonel,” he managed, with a trace of his normal cockiness. “Guess I kinda screwed up big this time, huh?”
To tell the truth, Evan had been seriously considering writing Eddie up for a medal. He wasn’t sure what it said about the young mechwarrior’s good sense - if not anything worse than getting broken to the ranks nine times did - but taking on a Hellstar and a Balius with his bulky, unlovely Götterdämmerung to cover a lancemate’s retreat was worth something. You might not be able to eat a medal, but hell, even at its worst - like the days on Dustbowl twenty years ago - the LCAF could usually make sure you had enough to eat.
“Not this time, son,” Evan replied. “And I hope you don’t think you’re going to be getting a soft job after the docs stick a new leg on you.” The 8th Striker’s chief surgeon had let him know that was going to be easy; they’d already done the preliminary surgeries.
“If you’ve got anything other than soft jobs for someone who’s Dispossessed.” Bitterness edged Eddie’s tone, and Evan understood that well. Even back in his grandfather’s day, BattleMechs hadn’t been common, and getting a new one if you lost yours had been brutally difficult; despite a decade of work to undo the results of Devlin Stone’s Redemption Program, ‘Mechs were even harder to come by now. But -
“ ‘Dispossessed’ nothing, Corporal. Blackstone might’ve screwed up the ejection system -” trying to work the complicated escape mechanism was where Eddie’s leg had been mangled badly enough the docs’d needed to take it off “- but they did right on survival features. Just gotta get her back to Arc-Royal, and your ‘Mech’ll be better than new sooner than you will.” Last he’d seen the Götterdämmerung, in fact, it’d been secured on the bed of a J-100 transporter, swarmed by techs from the Hounds and the Arcadians - the latter, Evan was fairly confident, volunteering to help out making it fit for transport to get a good look at a ‘Mech design that must’ve looked pretty weird to them.
That news brought Eddie’s smile back in full, and he managed to snap off a perfect salute with an enthusiastic, “Thank you, Colonel!” in response.
With one last comment of, “Listen to the doctors, son. I’ll check up on you where I can,” Evan stepped back out into the open.air. The dimness of early evening - Timkovichi’s sun went down fast, this late in the local year - had a strange, off-blue cast to it. The source of that was, well, the whatever the hell it was that the Arcadians had arrived through; he’d heard it called the Emergence, the Anomaly, the Transition, and half-a-dozen other names.
Personally, Evan had decided that outside of official circumstances, he was inclined to go with what a Sergeant from the Armoured Guard had called it: Weird Bollocks.
“Kroner for your thoughts, Colonel.” Nadia Allard’s voice came from behind him, and Evan turned to face the younger officer, accepting the mug of steaming hot chocolate she handed him.
“Just thinking about, well, that,” Evan nodded to the glowing blue-white anomaly, low in the southern sky. “What it is, what it might mean - hell, just who we’re dealing with beyond the obvious. Admiral Marik and General Bridger did help us out; they seem okay, and I think they’re over the same barrel we are figuring the implications of that thing - and whether it might happen somewhere else. But how do we know if their bosses are gonna think the same way?” His expression turned pensive. “What happens if their boss - this High King of theirs - decides we’re a threat?”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Nadia frowned, staring into her own mug. “I got a chance to talk with some of the Eighth Strikers’ staff echelon, and from what they let slip, High King Nathaniel’s not much of one for warmongering; and has enough threats back home that fighting us, at least, wouldn’t be something he’d back. What he’ll feel about the Falcons, though,” she shook her head, frustration edging her tone. “I don’t know. Even before we get into that, though, we have to figure out other things, like the congruences between their home and ours, despite the massive divergence. The Kell Hounds being formed, at, from what I could find out, about the same time and by roughly the same people or at least analogues of them? That suggests some things might be interlinked on a level beneath what we think of as ‘normal’ space-time. I mean, I remember reading a paper from Royal Tharkad U a few years ago that argued that neither the probabilistic or determinist theories of the world were wholly right, that there’s overlap; some determinism mechanism for a set of probabilities that might happen, but -” Nadia stopped, realizing she’d managed to lose Evan in the details of the theories. “I just don’t know how this works. And I went into the Engineers, Evan, because I like precision; I like certainty!”
His reply was a low chuckle.  "If you’re after certainty, then you really are in the wrong line of work; soldiering’s as uncertain as it gets. Should’ve gone for a banker instead."  At her sharp, frustrated glare he added, "I know, I know.  It's a lot to think about.  You'd think that after so many centuries, with so much different, the people living would be entirely different.  Then," Evan grinned in what he fondly imagined as a suitably piratical fashion, “us Kells are stubborn. We’d probably make sure everything came out the same way in every universe, just to annoy whoever’s in charge of the whole thing.”
“Speaking of,” Nadia reverted to seriousness, “I made sure that before she jumped out for Arc-Royal, High Ecliptic had full casualty lists, plus everything we’ve learned about the Arcadians. Order of battle, capabilities, what I could find about their sociopolitical structure, the lot.”
“Should make for some fun bedtime reading for Martin, when it gets to him,” Evan commented.
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Planetary Defence Headquarters
Arc-Royal, Arc-Royal Theater
Lyran Commonwealth
24 August, 3142
Duke Martin Kell rubbed at eyes that - from lack of sleep and overwork - felt like they were full of grit, before returning to the vast array of paperwork, noteputers and verigraphs on his desk.
Part of him wondered if there was any victory to be found here, or if he was just engaging in Sisyphean makework before the end. Every day the Falcons and Horses held off assaulting Arc-Royal, their defenses were made stronger; more Kell Hounds and Wolves-in-Exile returning from their distant deployment stations, more new recruits and recalled veterans in the militia were certified as combat-ready, more defensive works finished, and more tanks, battlesuits and BattleMechs rolled or marched out of the weapons foundries, or off DropShips from Donegal, Coventry, even distant Hesperus.
Yet, no matter how strong they made their defenses, Malvina Hazen’s rampage seemed impossible to stop, and her reputation alone was worth a full Regimental Combat Team even before accounting that she was probably the best fighting commander the Falcons had produced since Taman Malthus and had the devil’s own luck besides. That was why Evan had taken all the Hounds available into the field six weeks ago, to slow her down and try and take the shine off that reputation.v
Damn the Blackout; and damn Melissa Steiner’s overweening ambition and greed, as well! Too much of the LCAF’s strength had been committed to HAMMERFALL, or to cover for those commitments, pulled far out of position to defend against the Falcons and Hell’s Horses; even with that, though, if the HPGs still worked a coordinated defense might have been possible. Instead, by the time word reached him of a world under assault, it was too late.
Be honest. What’s really bothering you is that you don’t know what’s happened to Evan, or Callandre. Martin sighed, looking to the one personal touch he’d added to his desk here in Defense Command. It was a holograph, nearly thirty years old with a frame worn and battered by time and abuse; showing a much younger Martin and Evan Kell - he in the uniform of the LCAF Quartermaster Corps; and Evan in Kell Hounds battledress with a Major’s chevrons on his sleeve - then-seven-year-old Callandre Kell, a study in a child’s sullen resentment of posing for formal portraiture; and, frozen in time barely a month before she died, Alicia Kell (née Bradford), small, compact and dark in her naval aviator’s uniform, next to his and Evan’s broad, pale height.
That wound was still raw even now, decades later. Maybe it wouldn’t have been if she’d died in battle, instead of in a stupid crash that wasn’t anyone’s fault. At least, I’d have - and Callandre would’ve - had someone to blame then, Martin thought, sadly. Might’ve kept us on speaking terms. He’d not managed being much of a father to Callandre since Alicia’s death; had let himself forget that just as he’d lost his wife, Callandre had lost her mother. Maybe if I’d remembered that, she wouldn’t be such a hell-raiser; then again, maybe not. Maybe she would’ve turned out that way regardless; certainly, he’d hoped that her friendship with Julian Davion at the Nagelring might cause some of his sober steadiness to rub off on Callandre, and that had certainly ended badly. Despite himself, Martin chuckled, his bleak mood abating at the memory of the furious late-night call from the Nagelring’s commandant, after Callandre’s masterpiece of redecoration in the Archonal throne room, demanding to know if she’d “Been raised by the bloody Wolf Elemental sibkos or something?!”. That had taken a lot of work to smooth over; work, money, and shameless favour-invoking from the Old Boys’ Network, but Evan had laughed himself silly when he’d heard, and as angry as he’d been at the time, Martin could see the funny side now.
Feeling better, he went back to his work,and was part way through another complaint from Old Connaught’s Chamber of Commerce about loss of earnings thanks to the local aerospace defence fliers buzzing the city again (a quick note scribbled on a post-it reminded him: Get with Kmdre. von Hammer and sort this out) when his vidphone activated, with the triple-tone of a priority message from the main plotting room.
“Your Grace, this is Leutnant-Kapitan Donnellan, Duty Plotting Officer,” the dusky-skinned young woman onscreen introduced herself. “We have a jump precursor at the Thorwatch L1 point. There’s nothing scheduled, and Kommodore von Hammer requests your presence.”
Martin was about to ask why the Leutnant-Kapitan was telling him this, rather than Khan Fetladral or Major Brahe when his exhaustion-addled mind reminded him that they’d taken the Golden Keshik, First Wolf Legion, and the Second Battalion of the Second Kell Hounds into the hills above Old Connaught for exercises, and weren’t available in person.
“Understood. I’ll be down there ASAP” Martin responded finally, standing and reaching for his jacket.
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Arriving at Defence Command’s war room, his escorting squad of battlesuited infantry - half the new Cuchulain suits and the other pair Davion-built Infiltrator Mk. IIs, the best of the Hounds’ armoured infantry gear, at Evan’s insistence; with the Jade Falcons’ propensity for headhunter strikes, chances weren’t being taken on that, and there was no point arguing. The Hounds’ close protection specialists would obey any order except one that put him in danger - peeling off to join the squad of Grenadier suits and Point of fully armoured Wolf Elementals on guard duty, Martin took a moment to examine the room. Most of it was as normal, with dozens of officers and NCOs - in Kell Hounds, LCAF and Wolf-in-Exile uniforms - working at consoles, moving around, studying noteputers, readouts and clipboards, and generally conducting themselves with that self-important feeling of Busy that he knew from dozens of HQ sections - and from sessions of Arc-Royal’s civil government, at that. It was the kind of thing that just happened whether decisions were made, and power was concentrated.
The main difference from normal was the main holotank. Rather than displaying a full map of the Arc-Royal Theatre, it showed Arc-Royal alone. Painted in translucent, pale blue light structures, the whole of cislunar space was suspended above their heads, threaded through with dozens of lightcode icons; every DropShuttle, fighter, Jumpship and DropShip within the orbital sphere of Arc-Royal’s twin moons. Martin couldn’t interpret it himself, of course, not in any kind of detail - that took years of training and experience - but he could grasp well enough what the dull grey unconfirmed code hanging between Arc-Royal and Thorwatch was.
“Your Grace,” Kommodore Kurt von Hammer.nodded in greeting. Tall and well-built, von Hammer wore pilot’s wings at his collar, and somehow - despite being five hours into an eight-hour shift - his khaki day uniform was immaculate. He was still a first-rate flier, too, even though he was well past Martin’s own age. “We have a JumpShip arrival at the Thorwatch L1 point. Invader-class, with two DropShips inboard; just the one, so unlikely to be an invasion, but she could be a raider. Transponder claims she’s the High Ecliptic, but -”
“Transponders can be faked,” Martin nodded.
“Just so.” Von Hammer pointed at a pair of dark blue icons. “We have a fighter section closing for an up-close check now.” He gestured to a chair in front of one of the repeater displays. “If you’d care to observe.”
Taking up a headset, Martin listened in to the lead pilot’s voice.
“Cloudtop, this is Red Sting Three, going in for sweep,” the young pilot’s voice came in loud and clear, as the icon representing their Morgenstern swept in towards the unidentified contact. “Red Sting Four breaking high to cover.”
The channel was quiet for a few moments, and then; “Red Sting Three to Cloudtop; it’s the High Ecliptic alright. I can see the dent on her bow where a tug nudged her back in thirty-eight. Even recognise the DropShips; Iron Fang and High Vengeance. They’re ours, no question.” Everyone in Defence Command relaxed visibly. “I - wait one. Got a comms request from them; relaying to you.”
“”Get me a link to Khan Fetladral, and route the message to this console,” Martin ordered, adjusting the headset and screen; and wishing he’d kept in better touch with how they worked as it took longer than he’d hoped.
The screen shimmered and reformed, the orbital plots vanishing to be replaced by a split feed; the High Ecliptic’s bridge sphere, and Patrik Fetladral’s field HQ.  The Khan of the Wolves loomed large, courtesy of the genetic engineering that produced the armored infantry warriors of the Clans, amplified by the troglodytic, blue-grey immensity of his powered battle armour..  The bridge displayed a pale man, red-haired with a scattering of freckles, hanging in the middle of the null-gravity space.  Martin searched the man's sky blue eyes for a sign of what he'd come to report.  His arrival had to be a portent of what happened at Timkovichi, given the last news packet from Evan.  For it to be this fast… my brother is dead.  Martin felt his heart sink, before he forced the spasm of grief aside. Time for that later. Evan, his command, they all had to be lost, probably to some damned murderous scheme of that blood mad bitch Hazen - he was already drafting, in his mind, the message to Callandre, asking her to convince Julian Davion, or his cousin, to commit forces to stopping Hazen ...
"Your Grace, Khan Fetladral, Captain Greg Hardy of the High Ecliptic.  I've got news from Timkovichi that I think you’re gonna have a hard time buying."
Something about the man's voice made Martin dare to hope.  Hardy didn't sound like a man bearing news of death and defeat.  "There are a great many things I will accept if it means we are triumphant, Captain Hardy."
"Well, I can tell you that much.  We did take a beating - got casualty lists ready to download to you - but the Hounds won.  Malvina and her allies’ve been smashed flat, and they've got her in custody."
Martin's heart threatened to leap from his chest.  "What?  How?!"
"That's the part that’s probably gonna have you sending for the psychs, Your Grace…"
Martin and Patrik Fetladral listened to the summarized report by Hardy.  After the three minute explanation, Martin had to admit Hardy was right: He didn't believe it.
That was when the linkage finished uploading the BattleROM footage.
The image of the Jade Falcon cruiser breaking apart and tumbling into Timkovichi's atmosphere in semi-molten ruin hung over the holotank yet again.  Khan Patrik stood at Martin's side now, having rushed in from the field exercises for this strange occasion.  "Bloodnames of the Founders, I almost cannot believe it."
It wasn't just the sight of the Red Talon's death, just moments before it could slaughter Evan and the Hounds, and with them, the Commonwealth’s hope.  It was the other part of the image.  The WarShips delivering that killing barrage, one the size of a McKenna or the like, represented the greatest concentration of naval power Martin had ever seen; hell, it was the largest fleet anyone had seen since the Coalition’s final assault on Terra, seventy years ago..  Three cruisers.  Half a dozen frigates and destroyers.  And all those DropShips and fighters… and that thing, which looks like it could run over the Yggdrasil and barely notice.
lus the… "effect", or whatever it was.
At his nod his officer shifted the holorecording of Timkovichi orbit.  The ghostly blue light of an active jump, usually a brief chain of firefly-like flickers when a JumpShip's field reached peak strength, persisted as if it was frozen in time, lighting up the hulls of what looked like standard transport JumpShips and an assortment of DropShips, their white and gold-winged hawks and rings with three outward arrows visible in some of the angles.
Arcadians.  Evan's report named them.  The Arcadians of the Royal Federation, governed by a High King named Nathanial Proctor, and their capital a world that Martin only knew as a border world in the Dar-es-Salaam Theater, hardly important enough to ever become the center of the empire implied by the force that saved the Kell Hounds.
"Another Inner Sphere," he breathed.  "I don't believe it, but I see it with my eyes.  Can your scientists give us an explanation?"
"I will speak with Scientist-General Gunther at the first opportunity" Patrik rumbled. “I know there are theories, but this matches nothing I know of.” He shrugged, a gesture that, with his broad-shouldered immensity, always reminded Martin of mountains rising and falling. “To some extent, the ‘how’ is not truly relevant; these ‘Arcadians’ are here, and we must focus on what that means.”
"Well, they can clearly be added to the list of people Malvina's tactics’ve won over" Martin commented with carefully studied sarcasm.  He brought back up the footage that would set the entire Lyran Commonwealth into rapturous celebration once it made its way through the JumpShip mail network.  An ancient Awesome in militia colors and a sky-colored 'Mech that broadly resembled a Black Knight, but with a crown-like shape to the head and the melted ruins of an orange-winged hawk insignia on its chest, pumped PPC and laser fire into a Shrike Assault 'Mech marked with the Black Rose.  Malvina Hazen's personal 'Mech had its leg sawn clear through and fell forward, right into the PPC of the battered Awesome.  The cockpit was blown in by the PPC blast, and if it’d just been a few degrees lower, there'd have - just barely - been enough left of the "Chingghis Khan" to bury in a shoebox.
Malvina alive, and a prisoner.  That's going to be trouble. Lord knew there were reasons enough to just shoot her, but the idea of sinking to Malvina’s own level like that bothered Martin, even if she deserves it. At the same time, we can’t put her on trial - there wasn’t a judge or jury in the Commonwealth where that wouldn’t be a case of, “March the guilty bitch in, Sergeant-major”, and that wasn’t any better than a lynch mob; well, maybe between them him and Evan could put together a court-martial board that would at least try to be impartial, but that’d be military justice, which was to the real thing what military bands were to music. Christ, it’s tempting to just tell the Arcadians to keep her, and let them handle this political ******. Not an option, of course, but tempting as hell.
“Right.” Martin cudgelled his mind to focus on what needed doing. “Last I heard, Lady Trillian was on her way here via Coventry, which means we’ve got some time to get a coherent set of briefing notes put together, and some idea of what the hell we’re gonna do now.” He sighed. “We’re gonna need some coffee; this is going to be another all-nighter, I think.”
The officers and non-coms in Defense Command, who’d been contriving reasons to hang around in eavesdropping range, scattered to their stations. There was something new, a fresh infusion of energy driving them, but it took Martin a few moments to realize just what it was.
Hope. For the first time in years, there was hope, that with their new allies, the Commonwealth might actually win.
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EMCOTS 7