WP3025 Chpt 9

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==Chapter 9 - Winged Praxis (Battletech 3015 CYOA)==
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===Flashback to the Skies above the Garden of Gods - Militia vs LMS continues===
Garden of the Gods
Republic of Kasnov-Greenland, New Olympia
Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League
10th October, 3014
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Okay, things were bad. Eagles were fast for 75-tonners, and out-ranged my Tronel II 5cms with their Magna Mk III 8cms. I was out-gunned, out-armored, and even if I could get on one of their tails, they had had a 5cm tailbeam to discourage that sort of behavior. Oh, I'd be spitting more light their way if I hung on their six, but that wasn't a safe proposition like it was on a Riever.
And frankly, the tailbeam would be the least of my problems, because as sure as the south end of a northbound Ranger stunk, the other Eagle would go nose-on to me and evaporate my little Sabre with his forward-firing battery. A lance was an asset, a single-ship was a liability, and I was the single-ship. If I stuck around, I wouldn't accomplish much but dying. All tactical thought dictated that I should put those spikes on my six, shove the throttle forward and run for all I was worth.
 
But.
 
If I just ran immediately, the Riever I had in my jaws could recover and harass me with LRMs as I egressed. If I wasn't very lucky, he'd blow me out of the sky before I could get out of missile range.
That was a problem I could solve right now. I rolled for a better angle on the Riever, placing my pipper on what I was pretty sure was a wing spar, exposed in a glowing crater, and pulled the trigger. Two of my beams converged on the structural member, while number two did its level best to blind the Militia pilot, instantly flashing the photo-sensitive coating to a deep black. Startled, the heavy fighter's pilot yanked back on their stick, and the Riever folded in midair, snapping at the softened wing spar. I didn't see an ejection, too busy looking over my shoulder for the approaching dots of fusion fire.
 
I could run now. Even without overboost, I could just extend away from the Eagles, get under LMS's defensive umbrella, and come away with a mission total of one damaged Trebuchet, one immobilized and damaged Ontos, one legged Locust, and a pair of Riever kills for one lost Sabre, and there was nothing the 18th could do about it. It was the kind of disproportionate exchange ratio military planners dreamed of, especially when you considered that I was a cadet up against a regular unit.
 
But Socks was floating to the ground. With clear airspace, Asclepius could zip out, pick up my wingman, and ferry him back to LMS for a quick medical check before placing him right back in the cockpit if there was nothing wrong. With those Eagles in the air, Asclepius's Karnov VTOL would be little more than a low-flying target drone that screamed when it exploded. Worse, the 18th knew he was on the ground, and where. Our emergency locators were coded, sure, but the Militia was a FWLM unit. They had the codes. Not that it was hard to figure out a locator system, even if you didn't have the codes to get full information out of them. The main point was to provide an obvious signal for friendly CSAR to track, not to be stealthy.
Which meant that I couldn't just leave this airspace without writing Socks off to capture or worse. Even if the Milita didn't have CSAR ready, I was sure some of those groundpounders we had just handled so roughly would be happy to go hunt down a downed Sabre pilot.
And you didn't abandon your wingman.
"All players, all players, Bolt 2-1." I called, doing my best to hold open the range on the Eagles without losing sight of Sock's chute, which had reached the ground. "Splash two Rievers. Be advised, Bolt cannot contest pop-up group. Enemy ground is factor for Bolt 2-2 SERE." I paused, swallowed. "Tell me I've got some help up here."
There was a deafening silence.
 
(("Bolt 2-1, Ambrosia…")) started GCI.
 
<<"Bolt 2-1, Helios,">> cut in the voice of Commandant Lastrade. <<"Drag `em west. Serve us up some roast turkey.">>
"Bolt dragging west." I replied, squelching the mic as I let out a sigh of relief. Waggling my wings in what I hoped was an infuriating manner, I put the incoming Eagles on my six and opened up the throttle…but not all the way. I wanted them thinking that maybe I was short on fuel, and couldn't spare the thrust. Just within the realm of catching. 
 
That should be doable. The trick was making sure I didn't actually slip into range of their large beams. Because even one lucky shot could land me in a world of hurt. I descended, using the peaks and valleys for terrain masking that wouldn't quite break contact with the Militia flyers. "C'mon pendejos. You can get me. Just a little more…" The Eagles started to turn back for their bird in the hand. "No, no, no!"
<("Oh, yes, show me that tail!")> crowed Inspector. <("Helios, attack!")>
A pair of PPC bolts shot up from the mountains, smashing into each of the turning Eagles, and a pair of F-90 Stingrays shot out of the terrain, fangs out. The Militia pilots broke hard, and the fight was back on.
 
(<"Hey Gid,">) said the second Stingray's pilot with a laugh. Terri. (<"Don't tell me you've had enough.">)
 
"You kidding?" I said, turning hot and going to full military power. "I need at least 250 tons going down in flames before I'm satisfied, T-Bone."
 
(<"You snooze, you lose, Duster,">) she said. (<"This turkey's mine.">)
"Yeah," I said as I arrowed back into the fight. "We'll see about that."
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===Reville===
Dropship Siduri, Transfer Burn
New Olympia System
Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League
13th January, 3015
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One of the things that not even the ridiculous extravagance of a Princess-class liner had in abundance was cubage. My little bungalow cabin on the Earth-deck was spacious by the standards of interstellar travel, but it was certainly not the only one, nor was the entire deck devoted to ultra-luxury cabins.
Which was to say, the bed, which had seemed so luxuriously spacious to my barracks-tuned mind was feeling pretty much full to capacity with two occupants. I filed that under 'good problems to have', luxuriating in the feeling of warm weight against my side and across my chest. As I shifted, the feminine warmth wiggled closer to me, and I felt a pair of lips press against mine.
 
"Reville, reville," breathed Lien against my lips as her hair brushed my shoulders.
 
I opened my eyes to see her grey-blue eyes from a range of centimeters, the world beyond her face obscured by the auburn curtain of her hair about us. I slid my hand to the back of her neck and returned the kiss with a will, drawing a moan from her as her eyelids fluttered closed. "Good morning to you, too," I said. "Am I required to stand to attention?"
 
She giggled and gave my chest a playful slap. "Oh stop." When I smiled and pushed myself up to a sitting position, she slid herself into my lap. "But maybe. If you think you're up to the challenge."
 
"Like a pilot's gonna back down from a challenge," I growled. "Besides, you can ask my doctor. She'll tell you I'm fit for all sorts of physical exertion."
 
"You know," she said, placing a finger against her lips. "I do seem to remember glowing comments on your chart." She smirked and nodded towards the shower. "Should we go save some water?"
 
"It's what good shipmates would do." I said, scooping her up and coming to my feet.
 
Any saved water with that shared shower was purely theoretical. But eh, it's the thought that counts, right?
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===Reviewing Intelligence===
17th January, 3015
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Following breakfast, I returned to my cabin alone. Lien had some medical texts to read, and I figured it was past time that I dug into my father's files.
What I found was a gold mine. He had leads on possible lostech finds in the rimward Periphery, which included at least one that I recognized, a dropship crash on a lunar body known as Axlyus, including jump coordinates. There were dossiers on various players in the Sphere and Periphery, including workups on general political trends for damn near the entire Sphere, covering major and minor nations, along with major pirate strongholds. The stuff coreward was thinner, but it was there, focused more on scattered nobles, most of who had needed Canopian medical expertise for one issue or another. As you got closer to the Magistracy though, things got significantly more detailed. For example, I had an excellent look at the web of alliances in the nobility of the Free World League, along with a truly staggering amount of potential blackmail material.
 
SAFE had done an excellent job putting it together, but not such a great job at keeping it out of MIM's hands.
 
The vast majority of the detailed files were out of date, however. Father had come away from MIM with a staggering amount of sensitive data, and had apparently kept contacts in the Ministry to keep things updated to some extent, but there was only so much that a man on the outside would get out of any intelligence agency, no matter what networking he had done.
 
Actually, I reflected, as I shuffled chips and hardcopy, he might have not been completely out.
 
That was a disturbing thought. Had he been seducing my mother as a ploy to set up as an agent in the League? Had Najwa Landynski unknowingly done my eema a favor? I shook my head. I didn't want to think about that. It didn't make sense, anyway. If he was still a MIM agent, why the hell would he leave all this to me?
 
Maybe he got hooked back in with them after he was unable to leave the Magistracy. Connections with the MIM could only help a lostech prospector and vice versa.
 
Metaphorically shoving that disturbing line of thought into a box and sitting on it, I returned to studying the files. They really were mostly out of date. The projections could be useful, as could the cultural and political overviews, but the specific files on nobles would be a coinflip at best. There was a lot of churn in nobles. The thing about accepted limited war and a tendency towards military nobles was that they tended to die, either as combatants, or as obvious targets. And people changed over time. Traumas or even positive major life changes could make people act in very different ways on the other side. And the initial information would have to be accurate. Spies were not infallible, and counterintelligence was a discipline for a reason. Still, I might get lucky and have just the right piece of blackmail material in rare cases.
 
The state military intelligence was scanty at best, and deeply outdated. Father had claimed that he wasn't a military analyst, and with these files, I believed it. The most up to date data was on the FWLM, and it was bad. Even discounting the damage that Anton's Rebellion was doing, I knew for a fact that the file didn't reflect reality. Maybe SAFE counter-intel had pulled off a win. Probably I should just ignore the lot.
 
Though as I read further, the reports on mercenary units were more promising. That could end up being useful. No good hooks into the Dragoons, mores the pity, but well, I knew something about that, didn't I? Other than that, there was a smattering of the usual suspects, the famous regiments, along with a number of chaff outfits. Nothing that would help tactically, but perhaps it would be helpful on the business side of the mercenary trade.
 
One mercenary file was surprisingly thick, however. Why the hell had he spent so much research on a mercenary company in Lyran employ? I scratched my head as I looked at the arms of quartered red and white with red hearts. The 77th was certainly a significantly sized operation, but it wasn't the biggest, nor the most elite. Had there been a plan to try and bring them into the Magistracy before the Lyrans brought them under contract? Maybe a company store ploy?
 
No, the files post-dated father leaving MIM, and much of the data was compiled recently, when the 77th was with the Elsises. Which didn't make a lick of sense. Why had my Father done so much research on a mercenary regiment that was operating on the coreward side of the Sphere?
 
I decided to keep reading. Maybe I could figure it out.
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===An Obsession with Mercenary Commands===
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"Yeah, I'm getting nowhere." I said, gesticulating with a forkful of pasta. Wei had asked about my progress with my father's files as we dined on the final day before jump.
"It must be pretty interesting," said Lien. "You've been looking into those files for days."
I raised an eyebrow. "You make it sound like I've not been making time for you, Ms. Medical Textbooks."
 
"Oh," she said with a smile, "I wouldn't go that far."
 
Phillipa nodded to me. "I can commiserate. Sometimes legal reading can drag on for quite some time before a solution presents itself. I hope that your research is at least engaging."
 
"Oh, it's interesting," I said, having finally swallowed my forkful of noodles. "It just doesn't make any sense. I can't seem to square the circle on why a lostech prospector would spend so much time on researching mercenary units. It would make some sense to put the files together if he was intending to set me up for success as a mercenary, but the timing for that doesn't work out."
 
"I thought he always planned for you to inherit." asked Lien. "Shouldn't he prepare you?"
 
I shook my head. "He did," I said, "But not so soon. So he hadn't come up with military materiel before. At least not in a significant amount, anyway. Creating a mercenary unit wasn't necessarily in the cards. It appears he didn't have time to put together these files after this latest find." Partially because he was too busy dying of radiation sickness. "But the files predate the find. By a lot."
 
"I think it makes some sense." said Wei. 
 
"Oh?"
 
"Well yes," he said. "It's not much of a secret that a number of successful mercenary commands are descended from SLDF units that didn't follow Kerensky. It would make some sense for a lostech hunter to keep an eye on them for potential knowledge of old caches."
 
Phillipa shook her head. "You're talking about centuries of separation. If they knew the locations of any significant troves, they should have plundered them already, just to keep up with the attrition of the Succession Wars."
 
The biologist shook his head. "Not necessarily. It's possible that knowledge of caches were lost to the members of the units, especially considering the intensity of the First and Second Wars. But there may be clues hidden in unit histories that could lead a clever and lucky researcher to an intact cache."
 
Phillipa frowned. "I suppose. Seems rather low-percentage."
 
I shrugged. "Nature of the profession, I think. But there were plenty of mercenaries that didn't have SLDF heritage in the files."
 
Lien poked my nose. "Yes, but mercenary companies travel all over the Sphere and may run into hidden treasures that regular units wouldn't. They're more likely to be employed to fight over rumors of treasures. There could be plenty of data there."
 
"Maybe," I said. "I suppose he was an analyst. He could have seen things in the data I never would." Which might mean I was following a wild goose chase and wasting my time. "If that was the case, I wish he had put some reports in the files collating that data. It'd be much more convenient for me."
 
"If wishes were fishes…" started Phillipa.
 
"I'm working on it!" boomed Wei with a laugh. We all joined in. When the laughter subsided, he changed the subject. "Did you hear the news?"
 
"What news?" I asked. "That could cover a lot of ground."
 
"Most of which you would have missed in your monomaniacal research haze," snarked Lien.
 
"Nonsense," I said. "Mono had nothing to do with it. You'd know. Mania…maybe."
 
She rolled her eyes. "Boundless energy and confidence, delusions of grandeur…I suppose."
 
"I only object to the words 'delusions' and 'of'," I said. "But seriously, what news?"
 
Phillipa looked over to me. "Apparently Bankhead Lines has decided that with Anton's Rebellion ongoing, it's worth it to hire a little aerospace escort. They're swapping out one of the KR-64s with a patrol tug?" The look she gave me as she said that told me that it wasn't a term she was familiar with.
 
I nodded. "It's a solution to ASFs being shortlegged," I said. At the somewhat blank looks I was getting, I pushed my mostly finished dish away and settled in to explain. "Okay, so what most non-pilots miss is that ASFs are tuned for thrust and sacrifice specific impulse. This means they don't have as much delta-V as you might think." I took a look around the table. "I just went too technical, didn't I?" Lien nudged me with a smile. "Okay, I'll try again. ASFs can generate a lot of acceleration, think of it as going really fast, but they burn a lot of fuel to do it, compared to an equivalent burn from a Dropship. They're not efficient. Which means that in a fight, you can run rings around big ships, but outside of a fight, even when you're trying to go at the same speed…" I put finger quotes around 'speed', "…you're burning more fuel, proportionally, to do it. Which translates to a lower 'range'." More finger quotes. "Does that make sense?"
 
"I suppose," said Wei. "I imagine the deeper explanations involve aerospace engineering?"
 
"That," I said, "as well as void fighting strategy and tactics. Also, cockpits are not made for long-term habitation." I spread my hands. "The upshot is, ASFs can't really operate away from a planet without a carrier or station to dock at. That tends to mean a DropShip. But those are expensive and have the important strategic and economic role of riding jumpers between systems. So for in-system patrol or shuttling between stations and planets, they created the patrol tug. It's essentially a transfer drive, a big consumables store, some very limited quarters, and a scaffolding that can support a pair of ASFs. The ones the FWLM tends to use top out at 130 tons of fighter. So the fighters ride the tug on long-range patrol, and can launch if they need to do something tactical, then come back and gas up after the engagement or patrol sweep.
 
"Now, the clever thing is, these tugs are sized for small craft bays, and by docking can essentially turn one into a cut-rate pair of fighter bays. Though trying to do repairs in one is a malfing cast-iron puta at the best of times, and futile when things aren't optimal. You're better off undocking and doing repairs in hard vac, assuming you have the spare parts, which is a dice roll on a tug. They're also only slightly more comfortable than a cockpit over the long haul."
 
"You make them sound so appealing," said Lien.
 
I smiled. "It's no muddy foxhole, but we pilots suffer too." I winked. "Anyway, it works for the purpose, but it's not fit for a picnic."
 
"Well," said Phillipa, "they're due to dock after dessert. I assume you intend to watch?"
 
I nodded eagerly. "Oh, of course. If I'm really lucky, I might be able to convince the pilots to let me take one of their birds for a spin. That's so much better than a KR-46."
 
"They had talked about games with the machine gun banks," said Wei. "But I suppose if any passenger might be able to talk his way into one of their cockpits, it would be you."
 
I smiled my way all through dessert. The possibility of strapping on a fighter before making it to Canopus and the possibility of snaking a pair of mercenary pilots for the unit? Things were looking up.
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*;Notes from the Author : Welp, that was a bit of a wait again. And, I'm not going to lie, I have the feeling this chapter is a little rougher than most. My apologies.
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