EMCOTS-2 1

=Emergence (Concertverse) Book 2 - Chapter 1=
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==Storm Warning==
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===Preparing the Defenses===
Tharkad City Municipal Railyards
Tharkad, Donegal Province
Lyran Commonwealth
24th May, 3143
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Hauptmann Talia Yuen forced herself to remain calm. You are not allowed to shoot this idiot.
“Herr Bachmeier,” she settled on, fixing Landgrave Michael Bachmeier with a sharp look, summoning her own reserve of haughty disdain to remind him they shared the same noble rank. With the scar seaming her face from brow to jawline, the legacy of a Marik Neanderthal’s hatchet, she hoped it would make the necessary impression. “I have heard your objections. Since — as you well know — they are deficient in both fact and legal backing, I will tell you one last time: stop bothering me and start emptying out your warehouses while my engineers rig them for demolition, if you want to salvage anything of their contents.”
“You can’t do this!” Bachmeier snapped, leaning forward across her desk as though to use his advantages of height and build — he was a big man, and most of it was muscle rather than fat — to intimidate her. “I have friends in the city council, and when they -”
That did it.
"Your 'friends', Herr Bachmeier, not only will not help you, they cannot," Talia snapped in reply, rising to her own full height. She gave up eight inches on the burly nobleman's six-foot-four, but made up for it in quiet fury. Her amber features flushed with anger, bringing out her scar in stark contrast.. “My orders to put the railyards in a fit state for defense come from the commander of Donegal Province," the extremely newly appointed Jasek Kelswa-Steiner, but a Hauptmann-General of impeccable lineage and combat record still impressed, "and are specifically to be executed with due expedition. Your warehouses, sir, were not supposed to be sited where they are." She let that sentence hang for a moment. A litany of complaints and fines from the city planning office testified to that, and he knew it. "I will demolish them to clear fire lanes. I am offering you a courtesy in delaying to allow you to empty them. If you feel this is unsatisfactory, then I will be happy to get in my Regent and level them instanter."
The naked threat of her ‘Mech — visible out of the window, kneeling with the rest of her command's ready lance before their hangar — seemed to finally get the point across, and Bachmeier slumped in defeat.
“I understand,” he said, quietly. He’s finally grasping that this is real; that the Wolves are coming, and we may not be able to stop them. Good. “Who should I inform when.. when it’s done?”
“Leutnant Sandoval-Steiner.” A twitch in Bachmeier’s left eye showed that he did recall his earlier, rather bruising encounters with her aide and friend, and a small impulse of mercy led Talia to give an out. “Or, as the engineers are mainly his cadets, Instructor-Hauptmann Stanson would probably be a better choice.”
After Bachmeier left, Talia sat, slumping in on herself in frustration. There was going to be a cost for that; Bachmeier did have friends at court — even if their support of Vedet Brewer had put most of them out of favour for now — and letting her temper get the better of her never worked out well. Sighing, she decided to personally survey the defenses; at least it’d get her out of the office.
She pulled on her greatcoat and left the office as well. In her outer office she passed her quiet, unobtrusive young secretary, telling him to route any calls to her personal comm. The civilian secretary, who'd come with the office, audibly acknowledged the command. Talia stepped out onto the balcony. Taking a deep breath of her adopted homeworld’s cold, clear air, she set to work.
In some ways, she thought, it was a good thing that the original railyards had been leveled during the Jihad. After Tharkad had been liberated, Adam Steiner’s reconstruction programs had involved laying the railyards out for defense. Most obvious were the low, carefully angled walls of ferroconcrete and armourplate, studded with turret mounts, to be filled in time of need; most had been, by now. Talia could see one of the last clearly, an autocannon turret taking shape under the hands of exosuited engineers, and a massive Kiso ConstructionMech in the bright, cheerful yellow of the Municipal Works Board lifting one of the rotary cannon into its mounting frame. The Kiso was an import from the Combine, a symbol of the happier times before the Blackout.
Below, the marshaling yard was in a state of barely controlled chaos. Sergeants, foremen and -women, and train loadmasters bellowed at each other like bull mammoths in mating season, while officers of Transport Command waved noteputers and clipboards and added their own strident demands for everyone to get back to where they ought to be to the chorus. Shuttling engines moved freight, vehicle, and troop cars back and forth. She could see the grey-mottled cream of the Hesperus Guards, Buena Guards sand and bronze, and the blue and white striped red of the First Davion on the vehicles and ‘Mechs being moved. Every few minutes, a fresh train shot off with a whine of maglev propulsion or arrived in a rumbling clatter of deceleration; units and cargo being dispatched back and forth across Bremen at the High Command's will.
The raw volume of traffic terrified her; Talia had nightmarish visions of a single collision or even just a slip of timing snarling things up so badly they wouldn’t get it sorted out until the Wolves got here. It was only knowing that this was, in fact, normal for the civilians and for the Rail Transport section, and that they knew how to handle it, that kept her from worrying herself into paralysis.
That, and thank God keeping everything moving isn't my responsibility, she added to herself, climbing down from the observation walkway and making for the hangar. I've just got to defend the place.
Her ready 'Mech lance showed the mixed bag she'd been handed to do that with; and in her less cynical moments Talia was willing to accept Berry's argument that it was a sign their superiors trusted her skill. Other times, like now, Talia was inclined to think her short battalion of Royal Guards, Nagelring cadets and Exiled Wolves was karmic punishment for some grievous sin in a past life.
Techs swarmed over her Regent, a Gauntlet — both in the gold-edged blue of the First Royals — the steel-grey Mad Cat of Star Commander Kezia Wolf, and a low-slung Barghest painted in Nagelring check-pattern grey and blue; checking coolant levels, adjusting myomer tension, making sure weapons and sensors were properly calibrated and bedded in, any of the hundred-and-one tasks that needed doing to keep a BattleMech operational in the field. She smiled on noticing provisional-leutnant Katie Rayne working alongside the techs to machine armour plates into place; the cadets had, at least, proven perfectly willing to help the techs.
Within the hangar, a pair of Davion-built Saviors, and two smaller Feldmechaniker models from StarCorps’ Loburg factory — their allotment of MFBs — were opened out as impromptu machine shops, the air thick with heat, and the smells of sweat, hot metal, live electronics, lubricants and hydraulic fluid. Tanks, ‘Mechs and Battle Armor were in various states of disassembly. They ranged from minor, such as the Black Wolf Battle Armor with its lower arm removed while techs swapped the laser out, to major. Someone briefly raised their voice in a faintly familiar song — Firebrand? And not very good at it! — before being shouted down by a chorus of insults. She turned briefly to see the singer and his critics on the deck of one of the Savior vehicles, where a Schmitt assault tank had most of its engine block spread out. Stripping off her greatcoat, Talia took a moment to frame the scene in her mind, considering it as a subject for painting. At least, assuming she lived long enough to make a try at it.
“Hey there, Tals.” Berry Sandoval-Steiner wore her usual insouciant grin, and khaki field dress half-unzipped to show the cooling vest worn beneath. What made Talia frown was the bruises purpling one side of her olive features, and the stiffness in Berry's stance that told of an injured knee.
"What happened." she asked, taking the noteputer full of status reports Berry offered her.
“Eh, one of the Wolf Elementals was being difficult about helping out with maintenance.” Berry explained, shrugging casually — and failing to hide a wince from probably bruised ribs, “so I had to explain things to him.”
“Berry, I need you on your feet,” Talia admonished, “not in a field hospital.”
“I’ve taken worse injuries riding and kept going, you know that,” Berry returned, “and you need to speak to people in a language they understand. You know how Clanners are, even the Exiles; if I’d just tried to talk it out, he’d never have taken me — or you — seriously. Having his bell rung’ll make the lesson sink in. And, please, Tals, I am begging you,” Berry’s voice took on a tone of mock horror, “please, do not send me back to a field hospital. Anything but that. My grandmothers are back on Tharkad, and they’re in a matchmaking mood.”
The shiver at that wasn’t feigned, and Talia shared it. She’d only met them briefly, but that had been enough to tell her that Eloise and Naomi Sandoval-Steiner were, even at nearly into their second century, forces of nature — who would, did, rule the lives of anyone in their orbit with an elegantly gloved fist of iron. All for those people's own good, of course, and they’d been dropping hints about eligible suitors in letters to Berry for a while now. What they must have been like during their days with the anti-Blakist resistance on Tharkad, she feared to speculate.
"Speaking of unwanted persons," Berry added, "Killian inbound, your six."
I shouldn‘t have sent him to inventory our ammunition reserves, Talia decided, plastering an even smile on her face as she turned to face her biggest headache. Most of the cadets were perfectly well-behaved, but Josiah Killian — sixteen years old, newly commissioned as a provisional second leutnant of engineers, and who would probably require a razor sometime in the next few months — wasn’t. And, from his puppy-dog cheerful expression and rapid annotations to the noteputer in his hand, he was about to regale her with his latest plan to defeat the Crusader Wolves by burning down Tharkad City.
“Hauptman.” Killian braced to attention so stiffly she half-expected his spine to snap, only relaxing fractionally at her gesture for at ease. He launched right into his latest idea. “I’ve been checking our inventory of Long Tom rounds, ma’am, and I think, if we empty the stockpiles we have,” Killian held forth the noteputer, showing marked out schematics of the local road system and nearby road and rail bridges, “we can rig the bridges for demolition, and wire the roads with enough IEDs to block any Wolf attack cold -”
“Josiah,” Talia cut him off in mid-outpouring. “I think the artillery unit those shells belong to might object to us making free with their ammunition without even asking them. And,” her voice turned waspish, “since we, and the people of Tharkad City, need those roads and bridges right now, I’m ordering you not to attempt any such rigging for demolition, especially as I know for a fact you don’t have the training or experience to do it safely. We do have an enemy to blow up our infrastructure, Josiah, but apparently you’ve decided that they don’t merit that privilege?” Not to mention the distinct possibility of blowing yourself up, but she suspected that wouldn’t bother Killian much — or, more likely, wasn’t real to him. "Now, have you finished the munitions inventory?" A guilty look confirmed what she'd suspected. "Then get it done, and, once you've finished, report back to me instanter."
“Y’know, if that kid’d just learn a bit of patience, he’d be a real asset,” Berry commented as Killian scurried off.
“Were we any better, at his age?” Talia replied, smiling with the confidence in her own maturity that eight years’ extra living over Killian gave her.
The clumping footfalls of a Battle Armor broke her train of thought. Talia turned in that direction; it was one of the cadets, she could tell that easily. They were probably the only people on Tharkad operating Fa Shih Battle Armor.
“Ma’am.” They braced to attention in front of her, raising their suit’s visor to reveal another painfully young face. “Leutnant Price's compliments, and he needs you; issues with one of the rail staffers.”
“Lead the way, then, cadet." Talia replied. No rest for the wicked.
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===Stark Choices===
Throne Room, The Triad
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The last of the mutilated young soldiers filed in respectable formation from the Throne Room. From her seat at the Throne, Melissa Steiner watched them depart with an expression she carefully kept from turning into a frown. Only once they were gone did the tips of her mouth and lips curl downward. They were the fortunate ones who lived. All because of my error. My failures. She glanced about the room and up towards the towering Fafnir and Atlas II that stood guard over her. Within were two MechWarriors who, like the battle armor-clad infantry of the First Royal Guard around her, would fight and die to preserve her life. She recalled these colossal BattleMechs had once been smaller (though no less gigantic to a regular human being) Griffin machines. That was long the tradition, but that tradition changed with our need; would have, I think, even without the work of Julian and Callandre. She’d been furious about that fiasco at the time, but now, almost two decades hence, it drew a soft, almost imperceptible smile from Melissa. Everything, and everyone, changes over time. Even me. Would that I could warn the Melissa of ten years ago from my mistakes. My realm might be far better off today!
General Maurer strolled in from one of the doors to the side of the throne room. "They are ready, Highness." He bowed politely and did not protest at the way the infantry soldiers crowded him, as if he might yet pull a gun and shoot her. While the public still did not know the details, it was an open secret to many in the First Royal Guards that Maurer and the rest of the High Command had overthrown Melissa, the rightful Archon, to install Vedet Brewer, who most certainly had no claim to the title beyond his personal power, his family's ownership of the colossal factories of Hesperus, and that he was a venomous son of a Blakist who easily won trust he should never have enjoyed.
No. Melissa shook herself out of those thoughts. He is a competent soldier, and the Hesperus Guards’ loyalty wouldn’t still be in doubt if Vedet lacked any virtues at all. You underestimated him once before; it would be foolish to do so again.
Wordlessly she gestured for the soldiers to part, which they did. Maurer said nothing at the display, nor at the way they still kept a protective formation with Melissa that made clear their continued distrust of Maurer. I may have to speak with Hauptmann Franken about this. Maurer is still commander of the LCAF High Command, and we do not need division. Especially not now.
A stark reminder of why was the centerpiece of the War Room. The central holotank showed the dire straits her realm was in. Savage orange and verdant green reflected the worlds known to have fallen to the Hell's Horses and Jade Falcon Clans, only recently halted from their rampage towards Tharkad and Coventry. But worse was the ever-growing amber tumor in the Commonwealth's belly, the stomach cancer she herself had allowed to come into being with her disastrous dealing with the Wolf Clan. Now their new Wolf Empire was within two jumps of Tharkad. Thuban and Smolnik were fallen and Tetersen and Gibbs were likewise under threat. But we are the prize. I am the prize. The Wolves would want her dead for revenge, and by capturing Tharkad they could break the Commonwealth politically.
The war council assembled to thwart that inevitable effort awaited her and Maurer. Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and Roderick Steiner were dressed in LCAF duty uniforms while Julian Davion wore the fatigues of the Federated Suns. Seeing him today, older and more seasoned than he was when he'd pulled that prank as an exchange cadet, was a kinder reminder of the changes that time brought. He might have been a good match for Trillian, she thought, allowing herself a moment of whimsy, under other circumstances. But, duty calls "Gentlemen," she said at their salutes. "You have more to report?"
"Our defenses are still being established, Highness," Jasek said. As the senior of the three, by Lyran reckoning anyway, he was taking the lead. "Right now, we’re concentrating the bulk of our defences here on Bremen. The First Royal and Combat Commands Baker and Charlie of the First Davion Guards are deployed to defend Tharkad City. I’ve ordered the Buena Guards to…"
Melissa gave her attention to the defensive arrangements as Jasek explained them. Her own military education, such as it had been, had been a very long time ago, but it was enough for her to see that the defences were as well-laid as possible. But, with the damage so many of those units have taken, I don’t know if it will be enough. If any planning, however skilled, will be enough. What intelligence they did have was that the Wolves were coming with far more troops than they'd been expected to have. They are pressing Leaguers into the warrior caste ranks, perhaps, or those of their civilians who finally got to their lines. And now they have the Leaguer factories and some of our own to produce new 'Mechs with. "I am no expert in military affairs, Hauptmann-General, but it does seem some of these defensive positions are spread very thinly."
"Unfortunately they are,” Jasek acknowledged, “but until further reinforcements arrive, they’re the best we can do. We’ve concentrated most of our immediately available forces on the critical targets, Highness; and he who defends everything, defends nothing."
"And by reinforcements you mean the Arcadians," Melissa had yet to meet any of her new allies, from that other Inner Sphere now accessible across the break in reality now orbiting Timkovichi. She noted the glowing crowned hawk marker over Westerstede. So now they are just one jump away. They have almost made it. "You hope to employ their incoming forces for defenses."
"We do," Julian said. "But therein lies the rub. We think we need some of them elsewhere as well."
"Oh?"
Roderick nodded and manipulated a control. The holomap shifted, zooming in on the nearby Gibbs system. "The Wolves have raided Gibbs a few times these last few months. Mostly probing attacks with aerospace forces, but they've sent Trinaries to hit targets on the planet itself. The Sixteenth Lyran Regulars are still intact and held off these strikes, but they're hurt in a big way. They're particularly down on aerospace assets with just a wing and a spare squadron or two by their last report; the Navy wings and pocket warship squadrons have taken similar damage. I'm worried the Wolves might decide to cripple our fleet whether or not they get Tharkad."
Melissa nodded in understanding. Thanks to the Blakists' genocide of the people of Alarion during the Jihad and Skye's transfer to the Republic, Gibbs was the only remaining JumpShip yard in the Lyran Commonwealth. Its loss would be almost as great a blow as losing Tharkad. Trillian's reports are that the Arcadians have at least half a dozen JumpShip yards of their own, but even if we use them, the need to move ships through the Glass for even routine yard maintenance will drastically undermine our economy and our transport ability. "You want to ask High King Nathaniel to dispatch some of his relief forces to Gibbs and not Tharkad?"
"Not all, just enough to protect the yards from whatever Seth Ward or Alaric Wolf might throw at them," Jasek replied. He tapped a key himself and a list of units popped up beside the marker at Westerstede. "The Arcadians are bringing a lot of metal in that first wave. Two full-sized regimental combat teams — they call them divisions — and two brigades centered around 'Mech regiments, plus at least one, maybe two extra aerospace groups with their naval forces. And that's not counting his Lifeguards, a combined arms regiment of some of the best troops they've got. If they divert just one of those brigades, with their attendant aerospace support, Gibbs will be a lot more secure."
"Be that as it may, even one extra brigade may prove vital to the defense of Tharkad," Maurer warned. "A diversion of troops to a secondary objective while we fight for the capital is not to be taken lightly."
"We're not," Roderick said. "We've discussed it a lot. For any target other than Gibbs, I'd be all for telling the Sixteenth to dig in and do what they can. But if we lose those yards, that’s all of our remaining construction capacity and almost all of our JumpShip repair slips gone." He shot Maurer a look that suggested this was a well-worn argument. “If you know a way to wage war without reliable transport, General, I’d like to hear it.”
Maurer nodded in acceptance of the point, if not agreement. "The choice is yours, Highness. The military judgment of either choice is sound."
"And yet, dangerous in either direction," she noted. After a few moments of quiet contemplation she nodded. "Draw up the message and I shall have it verigraphed and transmitted by fax. We will ask Nathaniel to divert troops to Gibbs' defense."
"It will be done," Maurer replied.
Her eyes went back to the holotank. Wolf heads were now blinking over Tetersen. The Wolves have struck there, whether to conquer or raid is not obvious yet. But that means we don't have long before they get here. I hope I have made the right choice…
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EMCOTS-2 1