TBntG-3 Chpt 16

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 16 - Book III - The Clan Invasion==
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==Katherine's Totally Fun training experience==
===Training regiment of a Inner Sphere Infantry Soldier===
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There was something scary about being "in the pod". You couldn't see much outside, you were limited to hearing people talking on the tacnet, because transmitting was a good way to send out "here I am, kill me!" signals. 
 
When Katherine had decided to become a trooper, she had a plan. Join a real-line unit, one that would be kept out of the worst danger, and still get the combat credit you'd need to be a political factor in the Federated Commonwealth. Unlike her Brother, she didn't want to play with mechs or more importantly, that would always see her compared to Victor. 
 
Dad had agreed. A little too easily. Katherine wasn't certain if he'd done so assuming she'd quit… or if Hanse Davion would never accept one of his kids being anything else than the best.
 
But their training unit was headed up by TDF vets on loan to the Lyran military (technically not part of the Federated Commonwealth because that way lay growing Davion Devil Horns), and Katherine had come to a conclusion.
 
They were insane. From ten-mile marches in powered armor that was powered down to the point you had to throw your weight into it, to "ambushes" in the middle of the night, with the "dead" people not needing to eat for the next day.
 
Not eat, but do everything else, because as the TO (Training Officer) cheerfully informed them; If they didn't want to work, then well, a unit didn't leave their dead behind, so the living members of the team would have to carry them… and do everything else. 
 
The only thing keeping Katherine going those first few months was spite, imagining what Victor would say if his little sister… couldn't cut it. 
 
On the other hand, the people around her were… Different from people she'd seen before. Most Battlemech pilots were, if not nobility, well off. Here, it depended on if you passed the test or impressed the TO induction officer. Most of her fellow candidates were middle class or lower. 
 
Some of them had been awed by Katherine when she realized who she was. Katherine hated that, because the TOs took it out on her, no doubt worrying that she was using her title.
 
Or maybe seeing the princess cleaning tiles with a toothbrush was to convince people that it was a bad idea to "Your Highness" recruit Steiner-Davion.
 
But her team ranged from Professor James, a student who had been given a genius grant at NAIS, but who had joined the infantry after his brother had been killed. To Diplomat, a man from the Skid Row worlds who looked like he didn't need powered armor, was almost thirty, and had impressed the TO with his drive. Rumor had it that Diplomat had failed out due to being nearly illiterate, and then come back three weeks later, and was able, barely, to pass the written portion of the test. 
 
Which got him in, and got Katherine, Professor James, and a few others, assigned to literacy assistance—in addition to everything else.
 
"Everyone rises together." The TO cheerfully told one complainer. 
 
Granted, Diplomat isn't stupid. In fact, sometimes he worried Katherine a little bit, seeming to look right through her. 
 
"You can't finish the job based on what you're fighting against, Lady, you have to have something to fight for."
 
She still didn't precisely understand that, but the people who had joked at Diplomat's slow nature had been forced to eat their words since he was already recruit-sergeant. 
 
Unlike recruit Steiner-Davion. 
 
BAM!
 
Katherine didn't shriek as the pod burst loose, only making certain her mic was shut down before she cursed out the TO's with every bad word she'd known. They'd suckered them in! Three day leave, down to cleaning up the barracks so they wouldn't be down checked and then that morning, all of them rousted out for an emergency drill—the "Clans" had landed on the north continent, and they were the only ones to stop them! The only difference from the real drill were some of the TO's in hula outfits bidding them good bye as they got onto the dropship. 
 
That was not an image Katherine wanted to keep in her head.
 
Then it was two days zipping around at three G's with short breaks, simulating playing tag with Clan warships, getting loaded into Victory hostile landing fighters and…
 
Now she was flying free. 
 
<<"All units, you have your beacon. Orient on it and prepare for hostile contact on grounding. Repeat, the perimeter has been breached, and multiple Toad and BattleMech units are in the wire, mixed with non-combatant support personnel and civilians.">>
God. Dammit. Fucking. Sadists!
 
They probably had some clan prisoners down there who were willing to fight against their own people because they were bondsmen, or even some of the damned Dragoons playing OpFor, and worse, lots of sadistic little jerks dressed up as civilians who would do everything they could to get you to blue on blue. 
 
"Change to orders. You will form a secondary perimeter for evacuation of non-combatants. Second alert, clearance must be achieved in four-zero minutes as a regimental level Clan unit is inbound."
Sadistic. Fuckers.
 
And then the pod blew apart, and her light BA was free, the heavy machine gun and laser rifle checking out while the backpack mounted RCS unit kept her from tumbling, the chute housing giving her a hunchback appearance. Katherine bit her lip. This was the dangerous part. People died if they fucked up re-entry, and the training unit had already lost five men and women to accidents. 
That was one other difference. As a Royal, Katherine wouldn't be allowed to ride a horse without twenty people checking it. Here it was up to you.
 
They were bouncing around. The puffs of smoke around them were simulations, but the suits were programmed to act like they were getting the blast from real AA—and the Taurian training manuals mandated that simulated AA always be at least 20 percent more effective than the best real life observations. 
 
An invention of one of their generals, a Sadist named Mary Cheng. No wonder they'd done so well against the battleship, they probably trained fighting ten battleships!
 
And then her suit went into a spin as one of those puffballs went off near Katherine. She tucked herself into a little ball. The deck was coming up, but Katherine couldn't pull the chute now—it just turned you into a big, floating target.
 
<<"Altitude Alert. Altitude Alert. Altitude Alert!">> the idiot warning was sounding in her ears as she got lower. Katherine waited until she hit the danger line, dipped a little underneath it, then hit the chute. 
 
She almost blacked out from the Gs, and then was boosting frantically as the chute detached. She was really close…
 
Katherine hit the ground and suddenly her right leg was on fire.
 
"FUCK!" she shouted, "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" imagining the look on her governess's face made her feel better. The suit reacted, compressing around her leg, holding it in place so you could keep moving, and injecting the bare minimum of pain medication so she could keep functioning.
 
She staggered to her feet, the injured leg giving her a little bit of a limp, and then pop-ups were rising up, Toad mockups. Katherine raised her machine gun and started firing dodging behind a building.
 
Could this get any—
 
"SAVE MY BABY!" someone ran towards her, and Katherine almost shot them with the paint pellet gun, and then blinked as she managed to run directly between Katherine and several actual toads. Almost like the bitch was trying to get shot.
 
Probably is.
 
"All units, this is recruit Steiner, civilians are directly mixed in with the toads and they won't fucking get out of my way!"
 
And then a Daishi (actually a Locust dressed up with a bunch of sheet metal) loomed up out of the smoke, and Katherine jumped over the building, trying to link up with her unit and maybe lure that mech into the range of the heavy weapons squad. 
 
She came down next to Professor, nearly falling as her bad leg took the weight.
"What happened?"
 
"Landed hard," she said. "Let's go." Katherine moved up, limping.
 
"Sure thing, Gimpy."
 
Katherine paused and stared at him. Oh No. Oh no, oh no, oh no. "What did you say?"
 
"Agreed with you, Gimpy."
 
"I—"
 
"Professor, you and Gimpy head to grid section Alpha-three-Five," Diplomat said. 
 
God. Damn. It.
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===Good News and unfortunate Nickname===
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They got their leave, so when they got back, they could go out for it. So long as the suits were checked, the debriefings held, and everything else that had to be done, was done. They were having a glorious meal that half of them were too tired to taste, and Katherine longed for a bed. 
 
Or a clear space on the floor. 
 
Or someplace people wouldn't step on her by mistake. 
 
Katherine or "Gimpy" and she would get Professor for that someday, was staying on base. Father was on Earth and the list of "invitations" the local nobility had issued made her ill.
 
Half of them have never done their own laundry. She thought, trying to ignore the fact that a few months ago she hadn't done her own laundry. But once people started talking to her, it was amazing how… petty so much of the nobility could be. Someone could have more money than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes, and would ruin a commoner to have a little more. And they never even considered that the commoners had their own opinions about things. 
 
They should. I will.
 
"Got a surprise for you," TO Marston said, the TDF insignia gleaming.
 
Another unannounced drill? Me taking a McKenna dressed in my underwear and with a knife?
 
"Sir?"
 
"Your Mom is coming home."
 
"Wait, what?" Katherine blinked. No way, that system was a death trap for our space forces…
 
"Yeah, turns out all those live speeches, including the one where she managed to nearly give your Dad a new heart attack by joining up with the guys who took the central broadcasting office for the Founding Day speech? That convinced the governor he wanted her anywhere else. He offered her Hegira."
 
"But she wouldn't…"
 
"Nope. Guess what they say about Steiners and business is true. She bargained him down to her… and 10,000 POWs. Intelligence says the guy who was running the overall occupation zone wasn't happy, but he didn't have a say." Marston chuckled. "Gotta admit, I never figured your Mom to be such a pain in the ass that someone would hand us 10,000 vets and officers just to get her off the world."
 
"Yes…thank you, sir!"
 
This means that the Clans are weaker than we'd even thought. Or that whoever is in charge couldn't adapt. We can use that. I—
 
"So, Gimpy, I heard you almost got stomped on by a Daishi." 
 
Gimpy. I will never be rid of it. Katherine groaned and let her head hit the nice, cool table surface, barely missing her food. Kill me now.
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===And Watch That Vein in Frederick's forehead start throbbing===
Clan Homeworlds, Ghost Bear Holdings
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Meanwhile, Frederick Ghost Bear is practicing how to strangle people with his mind. 
 
"You let her go? You paid a bribe so she could go." 
 
"She was causing problems. Her tactics were Dezgra and were inflaming the lower--"
 
"You have shown the Entire Inner Sphere, who outnumbers us a million to one, who must believe they cannot win... that we were so desperate....we bribed them with thousands of trained soldiers. So frightened of one. Small. Woman. We Paid them to get rid of her. In terms of morale, you couldn't have done worse if you handed the Inner Sphere divisions of 'mechs and troops."
 
"Yes, but it was approved by the Clan Council, and you no longer have over sight over Tharkad or New Avalon."
 
"Get out of my sight."
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