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=Die Rettungsaktion - A Story of the Concertverse Inner Sphere - Prologue -=
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===Forward from the Authors===
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So I figured I'd try to get something done and start posting more Concertverse stories. As a foreword, while I have done some new scenes and editing, most of the content in this short story is from almost three years ago, written in August-September 2020 by myself and Fulton for the game that became the Concertverse. As such it was done primarily as vignettes to cover/complement what the mods were ruling based on our orders and the resulting dice rolls.
Depending on the interest and my mental focus and health, I may post/repost/write other content from the original game timeframe (Fulton's long storyline with the Marians is fully deserving of such attention!). There were a number of stories that went untold.
Anyway, here is the opening and prologue to Die Rettungsaktion.
"Imperator Sean's restoration to his father's throne was a bloody affair, but it was decisive. More importantly, it did not affect the timetables or operational plans of the MHAF. For years, the Hegemony had plotted a final showdown with the Principality of Bolan and the Grand Duchy of Tamarind for thwarting their earliest attempts to advance into Lyran territory. The rivalry between their foes becoming open battle still has no single explanation, but there is little doubt the Ordo Vigilis contributed. The strike on Promised Land by Baron Kessel of Cavanaugh with his own and troops in Bolanese colors provided Sean's legal justification for an invasion, as much as such meant to the Inner Sphere of the 3030s. While Tamarind would have once worked to constrain the Hegemony, the Promised Land campaign guaranteed there was no political will to aid one aggressor against another. Bolan would fight a hopeless war alone and friendless." — Excerpt from "A Critical History of the 'Anni Gloriae'", by Titian Fulton, Professor Emeritus of the College of Interstellar History, Oxford University. Published 3126
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=== Prologue ===
Terran Union Defense Forces Headquarters
Geneva, Swiss Confederation, Europe
Terra, Terran Union
19 December 3033
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Major Harold Cutter walked through the brain of the most powerful military force in the Inner Sphere as if it were just another day for him. It was a self-defense measure. Normally the thirty-two-year old TUDF officer would spend his day at the Intelligence Information Center sorting through reports from field sources and the encrypted messages that ComStar diligently handed over every week. The intelligence gleaned from those sources kept the Terran military and government on top of the doings of their "neighbors", that pack of feral dogs tearing into each other over the systems of Humanity.
 
We should just smash the whole lot of them, Cutter thought. They can't stop the Navy from wiping their rebuilt factories out. If the Director-General would just give the order this so-called "Second Age of War" would be strangled by our fleets and armies. A pity Congress and that bastard Tiepolo won't back her play.
 
His passcard and the system's recognition of his purpose saw him through the security checkpoints separating the outer offices from the inner. Power armor-clad infantry remained at attention as he passed; in doors and under their watch posts they had no requirement to salute, and he only occasionally let out a clipped "As you were" as he passed by, hand still firmly gripping the secured noteputer bearing the intelligence he'd been instructed to hand off and explain.
 
His temporary clearance brought him to a chamber he'd never dared hope to visit. After an outer office of secretaries and visible holotanks, a yeoman waved him through a pair of glass doors bearing the Terran Union seal. On the other side, a windowed office gave a panoramic view of the Geneva skyline. The glass was thicker than a 'Mech's cockpit glass and could take autocannon bursts, not that any such weapons would get close enough with the 149th Royal BattleMech Division's best troops watching the grounds. He saluted crisply at the uniformed, dark-haired figure in the desk chair in front of him. "Director-General, ma'am, the latest intelligence from Bolan."
 
Director-General Natasha Kerensky glanced up from her reading. She was fairly young, one of the youngest Director-Generals to ever serve at her age of thirty-nine. Hard green eyes met his and Cutter forced himself not to flinch. By reputation the Director-General did not suffer fools lightly, nor did she tolerate disrespect. They say the Eridani Light Horse tossed her out for breaking the unit's code. Well, maybe we need to start doing that to keep the Successor States in line, don't let them think we've gone soft. If Tiepolo thinks he's got a puppet over the TUDF then by God is he in for a shock! "Approach, Major," she said in a clipped tone, her accent audibly Russian.
 
Cutter did so. He offered the secured noteputer. A press of her thumb to the security scanner confirmed the Director-General's identity and the data he'd helped analyze flashed onto the screen. He remained standing while she spent several minutes scanning the text and accompanying 2D images and data tables.
 
"So they're drawing it out," she finally said. "The Marians could've had Bolan wrapped up weeks ago if they pushed."
 
"Yes, we concur," Cutter said, not remarking on the fact they'd predicted just that. "It looks like the Hegemony is conserving their forces and strangling the Bolanese instead. They're swapping forces in and out of the front lines and even the system, keeping their formations intact and putting fresh ones in."
 
He spoke those words with full confidence. Their communications intercepts meant a near-real-time order of battle for all sides was regularly available. The Successor States' encryption analysts were getting better and it was taking more time to decrypt them, but the advanced computers at the IIC were more advanced than anything they could hope to match. All codes broke in time. And it wasn't like the neobarbs had black boxes or their own HPGs. ComStar was their only means of interstellar communication, and whatever the stockholders thought, the board of directors and the corporate officers at Hilton Head knew that the Union owned them. Military communications were always copied and provided to the TUDF.
 
Director-General Kerensky continued to read, but her words were a reply to his. "Reckless. That little brat on Alphard must be truly confident nobody will interfere."
 
"We could crush their entire invasion with a single corps, if you give the order," Cutter said, impulse overtaking him. He drew in a breath and cursed his impertinence. Damn this room, just being here makes my head spin!
 
Those green eyes of burning cold narrowed. But instead of the reprimand or fury he expected, he was answered with a quiet smile. "So we could. But the Chancellor and Congress have made their will clear. No interventions. If the Successor States want to kill each other, we let them. After all, they're paying us for the weapons."
 
"Right. My apologies for speaking out of turn, ma'am."
 
"Do not do it again, Major," she warned before resuming reading. He turned to leave, but before he'd taken his first step he heard "Stop" and did so. The Director-General was still reading when he turned back. "It would appear an intervention may happen anyway. Or do you disagree?"
 
"It is unlikely," Cutter replied. "Katrina Steiner's New Commonwealth is busy recalling troops from the Skye War and seeing to their own consolidation campaign. The Mariks and Brewers and Steiners are all eying each other or the Communalists. The Arcadians are tied down with their campaigns. The Rim Worlders" - he refused to call the Amaris spawn 'Ghastillians' or whatever it was they used - "are too far, and the Rift Republic too weak. And to attack Marians would invite war with their allies."
 
"All very good reasons, but yet, these troop movements do not lie, nor the supply ship hiring." The Director-General tapped the device. "The Arcadians seem to be planning something."
 
Cutter shook his head. "That is Major Banacek's expectation, but I believe she is overestimating them. They lack the depth for a war against the Marians and their allies, and their diplomatic overtures to Hesperus and Atreus were rebuffed. The Mariks and Brewers would rather ally with Sean O'Reilly to fight each other, not stand united against him."
 
"Yet it is clear Katrina Steiner and Raquel Steiner have been more supportive. More to the point… do you understand anything about the Arcadians, Major?"
 
Cutter shrugged. "Another one of a few dozen small states that clawed out of the muck their kind made of the Inner Sphere after defying General DeChavilier and destroying the Star League. Honestly they rise and fall so often we're trying to keep up with it."
 
"Try harder," Kerensky retorted. "They're a pack of wild dogs ripping each other apart over the bones, but they've got personality. And the Arcadians define themselves by hating slavery. The Marians aren't just a political threat, they're a moral one."
 
"They waited too long to do anything about it," Cutter said. "Their army's just ten field regiments and they've been running them ragged the past year with their offensive campaigns. If they intervene the Marians will…" His brain cried out for him to note the penetrating stare of his highest superior and he stopped. This gave him time to think beyond his immediate visceral reaction to what was, in the end, just another bunch of backward Successor State types. He considered the data he'd seen. "...well, Imperator Sean will certainly scream for a reprisal, may even declare war, but the Hegemony's been burning everything to keep up its offensive pace. The invasion of Bolan's costing them a fortune, and they've got an ally starting to fall apart at the seams in Cajamarca. Pushing the legions on to Arcadia, through their defensive regiments, might not work. Not with their supply lines as they are."
 
"And it may just make Kenneth Brewer and Elias Marik pay attention to something more than their mutual hostility," the Director-General added. "And the prospect of a slaving horde of Periphery barbarians sacking worlds halfway towards Terra might just change opinions in Congress. Sean O'Reilly may be a childish twerp given too much power, but he'll have advisors who can read the news. Advisors who can restrain him."
 
"Then it would depend upon what the Arcadians would seek to accomplish. If they do intervene."
 
"I have my suspicions," the Director-General said. "Now, before you go, I'd like to discuss our progress with restraining the Lexington Concord and Penelope Reynolds' overweening ambitions. The electronic sabotage proposal has merit…"
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