TLR Chpt 6

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==Chapter 6 - The Lucky Regiment2.1 Enkra==
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Enkra, An Aurigan world near the Taurian and Capellan frontiersAugust 3rd, 3026
Edmund sat on a hard wooden school chair amidst the remains of a class room in what was left of the village's small school house. The damage was fresh enough that there were still smouldering sections in the wooden beams. In front of him with his hands cuffed behind his back stood a man who he was certain was a Capellan officer, yet claimed to be a mercenary, a major in charge of a company sized outfit. It was hard to refrain from a distinctly brutal approach to a man who by all rights deserved a firing squad, and not just because he was Capellan.Sadly as a mercenary company commander he had to treat a representative of a major power with a degree of respect, the rules were there for a reason.
 
Edmund finished reading out the list of known mercenary companies involving the word 'Eagle' from his datapad. "Sorry, Major, there simply isn't a registered company called the 'Eagle's Claw', and your name doesn't appear on our last download from Merc Net either."
 
"We're newly founded." The man said it with a trace of uncertainty in his voice, it was the voice of a man that knew he was probably screwed whatever he did. 
 
"Newly founded, and your first act was a targeted raid on the grain silos of this god forsaken continent. Even pirates leave enough for the people to survive the winter, and are notable for looting then burning." He looked at the damage assessment on his datapad. "Two thousand two hundred and thirty seven civilians killed along with nine members of the local militia, hard to call that collateral damage. Did you miss the orphanage and hit the fleeing APC by mistake?"
 
"Just following my employer's orders, you know how it goes." Well not really he thought, the Marauders had standards, and most importantly looted before burning.
 
"And your employer is?"
 
"I don't have to tell you anything."
 
"You certainly don't, and the name and serial number you gave were fake anyway." Edmund was bluffing, the world didn't have a ComStar station so he couldn't actually check that. But what he did know was all the dead mercenaries had no identification on them, no personal effects, and also carried no currency. That told him they weren't Espinosa's men as real mercenaries or the local formations carried all sorts of clobber and tended to have currency and receipts from wherever they had been recently. And that meant Capellan as the Taurians were happily pulling out, relieved to be out of a pointless civil war and away from a backwater of a world. As a courtesy they had even left a liaison officer with Kamea, and hinted about future employment prospects.
 
The man looked nervous again, as he ought to given his recent actions. Edmund looked out through the ruined window, "I'm curious, what brings a Capellan this far from the border? The Arano family has always treated House Liao with the greatest of respect, yet here you are, burning and slaughtering." 
 
He dragged the man to the window and pointed at a damaged Hunchback Mech lying face down in the mud around two hundred yards away. Next to it was a pair of 'journalists' taking pictures. "I can't do much about your behavior, but those fine people are from the New Vandenburg Telegraph, they are embedded with Lady Arano's forces." He pointed at the mech, and his two technicians that were dressed a bit like journalists and holding some tools duct taped together to resemble a camera team. "See how your mech's face is in the mud, that's going to be your company's reputation in a few months, and yours."
 
The man started to look concerned and slightly paler, an unexpected and thus interesting reaction thought Edmund, a true Capellan officer wouldn't be bothered by infamy. "I'll see to it that your name and face are permanently linked to this massacre." Edmund bitterly looked at the burnt out buildings still wishing he could hang the man. "But as a gesture of goodwill to your 'employer' the Capellan Confederation, Lady Arano will send you, your surviving forces and most of your mechs home." He looked at diary, "The Concordat are sending a large DropShip next Thursday to pick up their remaining stores on this world and they estimate they can also lift around six hundred tons of your equipment.As a gesture of goodwill they will ship you lot to one of their worlds for free and leave it to your defense attaché to sort out the rest. I'll leave it to you to decide what you care about most." Everyone might be a winner, the Capellans would back off having lost a reinforced company of mechs but been shown due deference, the Taurians would get to be the diplomats and the surviving war criminals would go home to be tortured for being ambushed.
 
"That won't be necessary my employer can pick me up directly." He started to see bit of cockiness return to the man's face, but it also seemed to linked to a bit of desperation, something about the choice of transport was upsetting the prisoner. That was an odd fact, it probably meant something important.
 
"For understandable security reasons your employer arriving here in the near future would receive a lethal reception, and despite your appalling behavior I am sure you don't want that to happen. Trust me the Taurian option is better for all concerned, we can get a message to them in about 48 hours, all we need is one of the JumpShips to get somewhere civilized and they will transmit on your behalf."
 
There was a bit of a smirk, it told Edmund that firstly the matter wasn't over, and secondly 'within 48 hours' might be a good estimate of the timing of a follow up wave. However if another wave was coming they were going to be in for a once in a life time shock. Kamea was using this world as the staging point for her next big attack and aside from fearsome new 'mechs Edmund had also collected a few lostech surprises from the cache. And from the point of view of a mercenary although Kamea would lose the campaign if the Capellans got involved, the Federated Suns would still pay up if he was able to use his new kit on a Capellan landing force.
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Half an hour later and about a kilometer away
 
Colonel Saunders watched the mercenary salvage crew as they pulled the mechwarrior's ruined body out of the Javelin class mech. The light mech's pilot probably hadn't even seen the Marauder that destroyed part of his mech's right torso and the adjoining part of the cockpit with a single salvo, the old Royal 2R model still carried its original weapon load out and that had been sufficient to cripple the light mech from a distance.
He had been charged with supervising the extraction of the remaining Taurian stores and personnel on Enkra, not much remained of the brief foray to support the Concordat's efforts to support the Espinosa clan. After the shocking discovery that the Directorate had caused the Perdition massacre the principle of 'he may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of bitch' had switched to a policy of strict non-intervention with a view to bringing Espinosa to justice as soon as possible. That was why a recently retired Colonel from the Taurian Guards was doing a job that a Major or even a Cornet could handle.
 
And as important as the job of seeing if Lady Arano could solve the Aurigan problem without official help was, the question of what was found in the SLDF cache had suddenly become equally pressing to his masters. The civilian government was irritated that it had to have been near their turf, but the military was just glad that the Federated Suns had enough other enemies that they wouldn't bother to use its contents on their frontier. His view was that the government should be grateful that the wily fox on New Avalon had taken the military contents away, upsetting the balance of power rarely worked out well for smaller powers.
 
Capellan involvement posed a problem, historically they and the Taurians had used the Reach as a stable buffer region, both states happy as long as it was stable and neutral. Even the Federated Suns appeared to prefer that, as despite Espinosa giving them just cause to get involved directly they were sticking to a purely transactional relationship with Lady Arano. To the best of his knowledge his own superiors had made absolutely clear their withdrawal plans to House Liao, which admittedly still left the possibility that this raid had been set in motion before the withdrawal was disclosed. They were on a border world, but the Capellan move was still out of character, generally the Capellans ignored the Taurians as the Federated Suns was a far greater threat.
 
In front of him a large flatbed truck pulled up and stopped on the nearby road about a hundred metres from the stricken mech. Behind it was a tracked recovery vehicle, he knew the plan, soon the mech would towed to the truck and taken to the Taurian depot. The crew would probably try and drag it on a circuitous route through plenty of mud first to fill up any holes as nobody really liked the Capellans. It was a tradition of sorts for those special occasions when you salvaged a hostile mech that you had to return to the owner for whatever reason.
 
"Sir, Sir, Thank God I found you, Sir." He turned to see his aide, Cornet Lawson was rapidly approaching. She was freshly promoted with a good track record in the mysterious and combined world of Military Intelligence and slide deck preparation.
 
"Don't worry Cornet it's pretty safe out here now, and besides we're neutral so nobody would shoot at us." His young aide didn't smile at the joke, evidently she was agitated about something. It wasn't like her, she was normally pretty cool headed, hence his choice of her as his assistant.
 
"We have a a problem."
 
"Go on."
She leaned closer and whispered "I recognized one of the prisoners, he was at the academy with me, definitely one of ours."
 
"'Ours as in military intelligence like you or ours as in serving personnel?"
 
"A mechwarrior in a regular unit. Last I heard, he and his unit were supposed to be guarding the frontier with the Federated Suns. The 3rd Laconis Borderers aren't exactly first choice for covert operations if you know what I mean." He did, they were decent, but the regiment was seen as defensive in nature and barely larger than a battalion these days.
 
"He could have had to change employer, such things do happen. "Scandals in particular did happen, Major Blackadder being a humorous case in point. 
 
"It's possible Sir, I last heard news of him about a year ago, his term of enlistment wouldn't expire till next December though." That was a worrying sign. "He was trying to hide his face from me, of course it could be shame though." Shame was certainly very possible, that unit had been breaching civilized norms and been embarrassingly defeated in the process. Admittedly he suspected the ambushers had been using Lostech ECM devices so it was somewhat understandable that it was so one sided.
 
"Any other signs?" 
 
"Lady Arano and Major Blackadder think this outfit are Capellans, I agree the signs pointed that way but they haven't been properly interrogated as they simply can't afford to pick a fight with House Liao. I'm also not sure that Major Blackadder isn't somewhat biased by his upbringing in the Capellan March." That was putting it mildly, the young officer saw Capellan shadows behind every foul deed or stench.
 
"We don't need one either." He looked at the damaged and probably Taurians mech the repair crew were preparing to stuff with mud and dirt pre-shipment. "I'll need to talk to Lady Arano."
 
He got a questioning look that said 'Is that wise, Sir?'. "She's pragmatic and may allow us to have a quiet chat with your friend, if they were one of our units it means I need to get word to our HQ on New Vandenburg." He looked at the wrecked mech wondering who would be corrupt and foolish enough to hire out a serving unit as mercenaries, it happened but the risks were very high. "These clowns may yet see justice, but it was a hell of waste of good mechs." It might be hard to prove war crimes, but dereliction of duty was going to be pretty obvious here. The penalties were not all that different.
 
The real problem now was that the interrupted raid in his view appeared to have been designed to draw Lady Arano out to protect her people. As a plan it might have had merit a few months earlier, when the world was lightly held and wasn't being used as a staging point. Now her followers had assembled a light mech battalion,whilst she had recently taken delivery of a regular grade battalion that had a good mix of designs including nearly a company of heavy 'mechs, and to top it all off her top mercenary had a company of Royal mechs with good pilots. And if the mech force wasn't terrifying enough there was a significant vehicle force and a modest aerospace group. If a Taurian commander was thinking he could earn money on the side by swooping in and ending the Aurigan Coalition he was likely to cost the Concordat dear and quite possibly a border world when the Federated Suns or Capellans worked out which garrison had been stripped. 
 
"Sir, do you think there will be a follow up?" He thought for a moment.
 
"I think think it is possible, the issue is what with. The Directorate's coup involved shifting a battalion to Coromidir, using the on world Espinosa militia and co-opting a little over half the 'regulars' stationed there." Regulars was stretching it a bit, most were militia grade by Taurian standards. "Based on recent reports I don't think they can lift much more than a battalion and half, and thanks to battlefield losses and existing commitments they don't have significantly more than that worth moving." Before Espinosa's effort to 'strengthen' the Aurigan Reach there was one full strength regiment under the direct control of the ruler and theoretically about twice that in various house militias, now Espinosa had 'streamlined' his forces to two battalions and could barely count on any of the house militias. 
 
"Do you think he knows how quickly Lady Arano is building up her forces here?"
 
"He'll have spies here, but she has compartmentalized her forces well, her new formation is larger and better equipped than she has told her local allies not to mention recently filled with skilled mercenary pilots from the Free Worlds League and Magistracy, and of course her other mercenaries have always operated somewhat apart. I think her force needs about a month to train up and wait for the last of her supporters to arrive." He thought for a moment. "He may be expecting just her allies and the original mercenaries, if that." He didn't think word had gotten out yet about the arrival of the mechs from the Federated Suns or the associated pilots.
 
"Tell me Cornet, if you were Espinosa what would you do?" He looked at her intently, keen to see if she was astute enough for higher command.
 
"I'd hire allies and bring the fight here." An aggressive solution, but speed and aggression was often the wisest strategy in civil wars.
 
"You wouldn't wait on Coromidir to take advantage of the fixed defenses, whilst trying to split her coalition?"
 
"It's too risky, the Espinosa family wealth comes from its industrial and agricultural holdings there yet the Capital also contains crucial facilities and is symbolically key to ruling." She looked increasingly confident. "If Lady Arano is in orbit she can decide which one to target first, and losing either cripples the Espinosa family."
 
"A good analysis, which is why we may soon face unpleasant choices." He looked sadly at his aide, she might be about to learn what choosing the lesser of two evils really meant and how the Concordat had earned its reputation for ruthlessness.
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Meanwhile on New Avalon
19:00 hrs The First Prince's office
 
Hanse swirled the whisky in his glass, savoring the smell and color of his favorite single malt. He didn't often get the time to drink, and this occasion called for a modest celebration. In front of him sat Dr Banzai, also enjoying a moment of calm after a week studying the Artu cache. Dr Banzai was an odd individual, but his wide scientific knowledge and understanding of the military and political realities of the Inner Sphere made him an excellent scientific advisor.
 
"Well, doctor?"
 
"The files were fascinating, perhaps the best approach is ask, what are you hoping for?"
 
"I was able to re-equip the 5th Guards as a heavy combined arms formation with a Lostech TOE, that gives us a bit of punch and the recovered stores should see them through a few hard campaigns. All very good news, but I was a little sad to hear from Ardan that the research focus there was all military." 
 
"Ardan was correct, but the building blocks for the combat drones were more valuable than anyone first realized." Hanse studied the man's face, curious as to what he had spotted.
 
"Music to my ears Bartholomew, I assume their research on space combat drones has some overlap with our equipment and my desire to build some proper ships." That wouldn't have been a surprise, that had been some positive indicators already.
 
"It does, but the really interesting data was on their sensors and recognition software." Hanse looked curiously at the Doctor, aware he was not seeing the obvious benefits. "To create autonomous drones they used the recognition software and sensors from the most advanced industrial groups in the Hegemony."
 
"What do you see when you look at the that table?" Dr Banzai pointed at the small table upon which the bottle of whisky and ice bucket sat in a small tray. It was a an antique table that dated back to the early days of his house, but he suspected that wasn't part of the question.
 
"Four legs and flat piece of wood, and of course a very fine bottle of whisky." He sipped from glass, savoring the flavor. That particular whisky had come from a family distillery originally built by Japanese settlers on New Avalon, the output was a little low but the quality was excellent. It reminded him that Combine might be run by an evil family and with an inhumane system, but that didn't mean it's people couldn't adapt to values of the Federated Suns.
 
"For you that is to all intents and purposes instantaneous, the miracle that is the human brain. It's hard for a machine to recognize the same objects though, and harder still if the object moves or adjusts its shape. The academy has a team looking at it, but progress is slow." Hanse thought of the impact of more efficient targeting devices, but then figured that was too obvious.
 
"Imagine how complex it was to operate the old automated factories, the machines had to seamlessly handle the presence of humans and the ever changing objects being built. I've seen footage, the construction machines didn't just follow a per-determined pattern, for example each car produced could be very different to the last." Hanse knew the story, the Hegemony worlds had kept the high end manufacturing and only allowed the other worlds simpler production tools and machines. And those factories had now almost all been destroyed, the few surviving machines from them sitting in dusty boxes or stripped for parts as none of the Great Houses could make proper use of them.
 
"Interesting, but I don't imagine we have many complete factories set up to use this technology." It wasn't that Federated Suns was not industrialized, it's just that most plants were very specialized and retooling was very hard when you didn't always understand all the devices you were using. As a result plenty of production lines were struck making sub-par products in all walks of life.
 
"We probably don't, but you now have the software and specs for the sensors and control mechanisms. I would argue the machinery is the easier part to rediscover." Hanse made a mental note to order an inquiry into what was in storage,. "It'll take time to integrate, but once done factories could build more flexibly, faster and more reliably." Hanse thought it sounded too easy, but time would tell.Ironically in time it might even allow the Federated Suns to build better plants than existed before the first succession war. "From a military production point of view a factory could easily handle different variants of the same vehicle or 'mech and building spare parts could be done more locally." Hanse smiled, if handled right the Federated Suns could have a decade or two of material superiority.
 
"Interesting, and did the recovered workshops use the technology. "He was thinking of the complex facilities that Ardan had ordered removed that and that had once been used to build the combat drones.
 
"They do use the technology, but they were only designed for small scale output. I imagine you could craft small quantities of specialist parts with them for a few years, but I would suggest the Institute studies strips them down and studies them with a view to replicating them, they would need help from some of the relevant corporations though."
 
"That will need to be arranged, though I can't imagine they would say no." He thought for a moment about the diplomatic ramifications.He would need to notify Katrina Steiner soon that the cache had a truly valuable technological component, and of course there was now the usual danger from those fanatics who claimed to a be a communications company.
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