GblaRCS Chpt 35

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 35 -==
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"If you want to keep people from trying to steal the diamonds you've just dug out of your mine, then I cannot endorse too highly the method of having a Battlemaster stood outside the building they're stored in."Major Marcelo Gao - 2840CE
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===Unexpected bad news===
Ennis City Spaceport - Westover System, Free Worlds League – 2838
"When they said this planet made Alphard look temperate, I thought they were joking." Captain Anne Blüd complained, looking across the great flat expanse of concrete which constituted the Ennis spaceport. The sun was beating down like an orbital strike and she wondered if she shouldn't have tried to borrow a sombrero from one of the crew of the Saratoga before coming here.
"Yeah, Ma'am, but it's a dry heat." her long-time aide responded, trying to strike a more optimistic note. "Remember when we visited Frobisher the first time? That felt worse than this, what with the humidity on the island where we landed." he recalled.
"True enough." Blüd conceded. Humidity was not something you had to contend with on Westover IV. It was a good ten degrees warmer at the equator than Alphard was, and the oceans covered even less of the surface resulting in a planet that was absolutely parched.
Even stood at the bottom of one of the cargo ramps, sheltering in the shadow of the Mule they had arrived in the air temperature was scorching, and it felt like the breeze was trying to strip your skin of any moisture it had. Cargo handlers with a forklift and a loader had already collected the crates of PPCs they had transported here from Niops earlier in the day, and the dropship had been fully refueled and resupplied immediately afterwards, but until the FWL authorities got their act together they couldn't leave as yet.
"If I ever had to perform manual labor here I think I'd need to borrow a cooling suit and a portable battery pack to power it." Blüd remarked, watching some poor unfortunates manually loading another dropship situated a few hundred meters away. This was definitely a place where one of those fancy new CargoKing dropships that Niops was supposed to start producing soon which did all that for you would come in handy.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just get the marine detachment to do it?"
"Oh, they'd all be dead of heat exhaustion before I resorted to humping crates around myself." Blüd replied grinning. "Privilege of rank."
"Yes, Ma'am." her aide replied. "If they don't start emptying this place of dropships soon there won't be anywhere for anyone else to land." he observed. Despite covering a vast area the Ennis spaceport was near full to capacity with grounded dropships, all waiting for a JumpShip to turn up and collect them which hadn't come. There were literally dozens of the things stretching out for kilometers in all directions, all baking in the sun with people visibly milling around them or heading for the terminal facility where there was at least air conditioning.
With the Free Worlds League diverting Jumpships to carry urgent messages, and requisitioning others to move fresh military units and the necessary logistics for them up to the ever-deteriorating front lines, interstellar traffic in Marik space was a total mess. Naturally it was civilian cargo that took the lowest priority, but as shipments of food and raw materials stopped arrived that had eventually started to effect armaments production too.
Naturally Andurien Aerotech was given the highest priority for any Jumpships that were available, with most any Invader or Merchant class vessel that arrived in the Westover system being requisitioned to carry disassembled Stingray and Riever aerospace fighters, or just spare parts for them, up to where they were needed.
Quite a few of the PPCs that Blüd had delivered would likely just be shipped straight back out too, many ending up being used to replace damaged ones on Battlemechs fighting the Lyrans or Capellans, but what House Marik did with them after Niops delivered the things was none of her business.
The fact that even in times like these the Marik bureaucracy was still almost as bad as ever did not speak well of the Free Worlds League. Blüd had a Monolith JumpShip with empty docking ports available and had filed a flight plan back to Niops which included a stop-off at Lesnovo, the regional capital with a population in the billions, and they had yet to sort out which dropships they wanted her to take there, leaving both Blüd and her JumpShip stood idle while they made up their minds.
Having filed her flight-plan well over a week ago now, while still on-route from the jump-point to the planet, Captain Blüd was frankly less than impressed by their efficiency. It was probably all down to having people in authority that were too used to passing on orders from above, rather than use their personal initiative. Without constant instructions coming from Atreus via HPG much of the system ground to a halt and too many of those who were supposed to be in leadership positions were incapable of leading.
It made Blüd wonder how a completely top-down, centrally-planned society like the Capellans would cope with a ComStar Interdiction? She could easily imagine it seizing up completely without orders flowing constantly from Sian, mostly because everyone was too afraid of being shot if they did something the Chancellor didn't like, and he, or she, wasn't telling them what that actually was.
The Federated Suns would likely cope the best, their governmental structure was more decentralized and their military expected their commanders to use some personal initiative. The Dracs were top-down, but cut off from orders their military would just throw themselves at the nearest enemy planet relentlessly anyway, as always.
Meanwhile if they were cut off from the generals giving orders the armies of the Lyran Commonwealth would probably enjoy their greatest military successes of the war.
The local bars near the port were probably busy catering to all the Dropship crews left stranded there waiting patiently for a ride. Those waiting impatiently instead wouldn't get out of there any quicker, so why not just go get a drink?
At least Ennis, the capital city of Westover, could easily accommodate a few extra sailors with nothing to do. Ennis had been built on the continent of Dorset because it was closer to the North pole than the planet's other continent, Bournemouth, although being cool by the standards of Westover IV meant very little to most visitors because it was still a damn furnace.
With something like one in nine of the planet's inhabitants living there Ennis was a full-fledged Metropolis of a city and even though the spaceport was well outside of town you couldn't possibly miss the skyscrapers off in the distance. Taking advantage of the abundant sunshine solar panels seemed to carpet every city roof when seen from the air and it had made for quite a sight when coming into land.
The gigantic factory complex belonging to Andurien Aerospace also lay outside of town, although away from the spaceport, and a maglev line linked the port, the city and the factories. Fortunately for Westover it was seven jumps from the nearest Steiner controlled system, and the nearest Capellans were more like ten jumps away, so it had managed to get through the Succession Wars as yet unbombarded and with its infrastructure intact. The local militia garrison wasn't too large or well equipped in terms of Battlemechs, but then it didn't really need to be, not just because it was so far from the front lines but because no pirate in their right mind would risk running into all the aerospace fighters Andurien could put in the air if they had to. They didn't just make them here they tested them here, and the test pilots employed by the firm would be only too happy to shoot up a few uninvited guests.
If it wasn't so damn arid Westover would actually be one of the nicest places in the Free Worlds League to live. As it was the locals did always enjoy mocking visitors who complained about the heat when it wasn't even midday yet.
In some ways it was a good thing that it took nearly two weeks to make the journey by dropship from the jump-point to the planet, because at least it had given the crew of Blüd's own dropship a chance to acclimatize somewhat. Blüd had gradually raised the temperature aboard the Mule by a little every day so the hot air rushing in when they opened the airlock on arrival didn't hit them all like a hammer, but for anyone that lived on a world like Niops VII this one was still hellish.
Orbiting a F6V type star, larger, hotter and overall nearly three times as luminous as Terra, let alone a dinky little Red Dwarf like Niops, Westover IV had been settled originally because it was mineral rich and over the years had become something of an industrial powerhouse. Considering it had been colonized for over three hundred years and was economically developed, you might expect it to have a larger population than it did, though at a hundred and sixty million it certainly wasn't tiny, but there just wasn't the available farmland or water resources to support many more inhabitants than that.
If it wasn't for imports of TriFil water-purifiers from the Curtiss Hydroponics company based in the Paradise system five jumps away Westover wouldn't even be able to support that many people. Although inferior to the Jamerson-Ulikov system developed by the Star League a few years later, the TriFil purifiers did have a couple of advantages over the J-U as far as Westover was concerned, firstly they were made on a planet belonging to the Free Worlds League, and secondly the Free Worlds League had destroyed the factories on Brownsville that made the Jamerson-Ulikovs with nuclear weapons to stop the Capellans getting them so it was Trifil or nothing.
"Is that an Ice Cream truck?!" Blüd exclaimed, spotting what appeared to be just that driving across the port towards one of the larger dropships, a hulking Mammoth.
"That guy is going to make a fortune selling out here." her aide replied. "I guess he drove out from the city when he realized how many potential customers there were at the port."
Blüd pursed her lips. "Do you think the locals would regard it as an act of war if I sent over a few marines to requisition the thing?" she asked.
"Probably."
"I guess Admiral Bremman would be kinda ticked off if I did that?" Blüd reasoned.
"He wouldn't be best pleased, Ma'am."
"Career ending move probably." Blüd thought aloud, pretending to be still considering it.
"Life ending. He'd have you shot." the aide stated sincerely.
Captain Blüd nodded. "Probably not worth it." she decided after weighing it all up in her mind. "Next time we come here we should bring an industrial ice-cream maker and a walk-in refrigerator full of cold beer" she decided.
"I'll make a note, Ma'am." her aide replied, grinning. "If you're thinking about selling some of the ice-cream and beer to people on other dropships we'll also need some Marik Eagles to bribe someone in local government for a business license. It's the cost of doing business in the Free Worlds League where nothing is free and there's always a noble or civil servant with a palm that needs greasing."
"Yeah. If they ever find a way to tax the Black Economy here they'd be able to outspend the Steiner and Liao combined in terms of military budget" Blüd responded only half in jest. "Best not start a war over ice-cream" she decided. "I'm still in with a chance of getting to command a warship before I retire" she added.
Being transferred from command of a Star Lord Jumpship to a much larger Monolith two years ago had already been effectively a promotion for Captain Blüd, although she had certainly done a great deal more travelling in her previous vessel. There weren't too many jobs which required a JumpShip that big and expensive to run, so her command, the Uluru, had been practically in mothballs when the order came down that they wanted a Monolith to make cargo runs into, and partially around, the Free Worlds League.
The return of the large salvage operation sent down to McEvedy's Folly had freed up some personnel, so at least Uluru had a full complement of crew for her and the two Niops-owned-and-operated dropships she was hauling, but most of her docking collars would be assigned to FWL dropships as she jumped around Marik space doing a 'favor' for the League. On the way here Blüd had picked up four dropships full of parts and raw materials at Hednesford and transported them onto Kendall where a company called Brooks Incorporated had a factory that made combat vehicles, then she hauled mining equipment from Kendall to Jubka via New Galicia and then refined metals from Jubka onto Westover via Turov.
It was certainly an extremely indirect route to take, but Andurien Aerotech apparently needed the metals from Jubka for Stingray production as much as they needed the cargo of PPC's from Niops and the High Associator was more than willing to put plenty of time, money and resources into getting back at ComStar.
It had been another Niops-operated Monolith, the Kalamos, which had delivered the first batch of PPC's to Westover a few months back, taking the direct route to get them there as quickly as possible, though the ship's journey home was somewhat circuitous as it hauled cargo for the Free Worlds League. This PPC shipment had been publicly announced, Niops issuing a statement Inner-Sphere wide via the Thraxa HPG that it was forced to pay for a purchase of Stingray aerospace fighters by bartering weapons because it was unable to do so with C-Bills thanks to the Interdiction, and stating that this did not mean Niops was politically aligned with the Free Worlds League. If ComStar interdicted any other Successor State in the future Niops would happily pay them in weapons as well if requested when purchasing goods or services.
The other secret cargo of ERPPC's and double-heat-sinks Kalamos had also been hauling to Westover was quietly passed over to some spooky SAFE-looking individuals. Unmarked trucks had arrived in the dead of night while spaceport security were told to look the other way, or else, and the crew of the dropship from Kalamos loaded them as fast as possible before anyone tested the 'or else'.
Blüd turned as one of the dropship crew came running down the loading ramp behind her, the sound of boots hitting the metal decking hard to ignore. "Excuse me, Captain, I thought you should hear this." the crewman announced himself, reaching her. "It just said on local radio that a JumpShip that just arrived in-system brought news that Charles Marik is dead." he announced. "Had a stroke or a brain aneurysm or something apparently" he told her.
"A brain aneurysm?" Blüd repeated quizzically.
"Yes, Captain" the crewman confirmed.
Captain Anne Blüd rolled her eyes. "Did they say what caliber it was?" she asked sardonically.
"No, Captain" the crewman replied, trying not to laugh.
"You think someone offed him?" Blüd's aide asked.
"Marik's gonna Marik." Blüd responded wryly, shaking her head. "My guess is that he was too stubborn to negotiate with ComStar and one of his kids decided he had to go while there was still a Free Worlds League actually worth inheriting" she suggested. "Poor bastard couldn't have been too much older than I am."
"If it wasn't natural causes it could have been someone from their parliament that did it instead, or maybe SAFE." the aide suggested.
"SAFE would have missed." Blüd joked. It was perhaps exaggerated how bad the intelligence service of the Free Worlds League actually were at their jobs but it was difficult to argue that their record was spotty at best. Supposedly it all dated back to 2735 when Bertram Marik had the Intelligence Act of 2735 passed in the wake of a bloody Marik Civil War. The Act had borked SAFE by cutting their budget severely, increasing parliamentary oversight, and restricted their internal security role. Although the act hadn't been strictly enforced since the days of Kenyon Marik and his infamous 'Resolution 288', the document which effectively granted him dictatorial powers, the consequences to SAFE being severely hamstrung a century ago were still being felt as it had given their rivals in other nations a huge advantage over them for decades.
"According to the radio his oldest son Gerold is being recalled to Atreus from the front-lines, they'll probably officially declare him the next Captain-General as soon as he gets home." the crewman told them. "His sister Phillipa is supposedly holding the reins on Atreus for now."
"With the HPG net down, and with Steiner and Liao on the rampage, nobody is going to want to cause any more disruption so their parliament will probably let things slide procedurally until the Free Worlds League's not quite so deep in the shit" Blüd reasoned. "It'll be interesting to see how long they leave it before they open a dialogue with ComStar." she pondered aloud. "They won't want to do it straight away because it'll look too much like someone got rid of Charles for just that reason, but the quicker they come to terms with Karpov the better it'll be for the League overall" she said before turning to the crewman who had brought the news. "Get back to the radio and if you hear anything else important let me know" she ordered.
"Yes, Captain." the crewman replied, turning on his heels and running back up the ramp.
"Might be interesting to see how the locals take the news." Blüd remarked. "Even loyalists must have been thinking that Chuck Marik screwed the pooch by starting a fight with ComStar without much of a plan on how to win it other than cross his fingers and hope for the best."
"He probably thought SAFE and his technical people would do better at getting the Hyperpulse Generators up and working again." her aide replied.
"Betting the fate of your entire nation on wishful thinking, without a good back-up plan if destiny isn't in your corner is pretty foolhardy if you ask me" Blüd opined. "Of course, expecting rationality and pragmatism from someone that orders a ComStar station to be blasted to fragments in a fit of pique, rather than retaliate for being screwed over in a more restrained and less overt manner is probably asking too much of the late Captain-General. Someone should have drummed into him at an early age that revenge is a dish best served cold. Like a banana split."
"Banana split?"
"I'm having trouble making myself stop thinking about ice-cream." Blüd admitted.
"So I assumed, Ma'am." her aide replied, grinning. "As for Charles Marik, when he was basically raised by his grandfather, that being Kenyon Marik it might be too much to hope that he would have been taught nuance and subtlety, let alone self-control" he suggested wryly. With Charles's father Thaddeus usually away serving in the FWL navy during the First Succession War, and his uncle Carl having been killed in action fighting the Lyrans, most of the influence on Charles's early life on Atreus had come from Kenyon, and while Kenyon was a decent enough military strategist his diplomatic skills were somewhat lacking to say the least.
"Yeah, I guess" Blüd conceded. "They say Kenyon could walk into a room with half-a-dozen strangers in it and walk out again five minutes later after somehow having made seven new enemies."
"House Marik has definitely produced some interesting rulers over the centuries." the aide observed, shaking his head sadly. "How they survived this long when it only took one cretin in charge to bring down the Terran Hegemony is a mystery."
"Cretin? That's no way to refer to First Lord Richard Cameron," Blüd chided. "He was always more of a bozo."
"I stand corrected, Ma'am."
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===Meeting up with the Troublemakers===
Captain Anne Blüd looked around again. With the sun shifting in the sky as the day wore on they wouldn't be in the shadow of the dropship much longer, and there was no way she was wanted to deal with direct sunlight. Westover was a place where everyone wore sunglasses during the day, not just visitors from place like Niops where you could actually look directly at the sun safely enough. "Is that hovercraft heading our way?" she asked, noticing an approaching vehicle that was kicking up a lot of dust as it went. It looked like a type the SLDF used, a 'Gabriel' if she remembered correctly, but despite being armed, with a turret mounting a laser visibly atop the thing, it wasn't painted up in Star League olive drab, or FWL colors either.
"Looks like it." her aide replied as the Gabriel slowed to a halt and stopped next to the ramp. Fusion powered, with powerful electric motors driving the fans keeping it in the air, it normally ran pretty silently compared to an I.C.E. powered machine, although if Blüd recalled that if you angled the fans in the correct, or rather incorrect way the machine would howl its way along like an archangel blowing a trumpet heralding the end of days.
The hovercraft set down and the door opened. A one-person vehicle, the turret was fully automated and controlled by its own targeting computer so only a driver was necessary, the single occupant climbed out revealing it to be a man in early middle-age wearing lightweight military fatigues.
Squinting against the sun until he could move into the shadow of the dropship the stranger looked up at the large Red Cameron Star insignia painted on the side of the Mule before approaching Blüd and her aide. "You're from Niops right?" he asked, expression indicating he was really hoping they were.
"Yes" Blüd confirmed, frowning.
"Oh, thank God!" the man exclaimed, now looking visibly relieved. "We had no idea how the hell we were going to make the last few jumps."
"I'm sorry, who are you exactly?" Blüd wanted to know, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
"Major Sam Tyson, Commanding Officer of Tyson's Troublemakers" the man replied. "Your government hired us for a planetary garrison contract just before ComStar pulled the plug on the HPG network in Free Worlds territory and we've been trying to get to you ever since." he explained. "You have no idea what a pain-in-the-ass it's been." he added, groaning. "I was told by port authorities that your commanding officer is a Captain Blood, can I speak to him please?" he requested.
"It's Captain Blüd, not 'Blood' and you're speaking to her right now." Anne Blüd replied, tapping the nametag on her uniform.
"Sorry. I was kinda expecting a guy with an eyepatch." the man claiming to be Major Samuel Tyson replied awkwardly. "We don't have our own JumpShip so we usually get around by catching a ride on a civilian JumpShip heading our way, takes a while but not usually this long. All the usual shipping routes are disrupted all to hell, and we couldn't reach you via HPG to let you know what was happening" he said. "We started out in Federated Suns territory, crossed the border into Marik space easily enough on a cargo hauler, they don't shoot at each other very much so there's always some cross-border trade, but then it all became a nightmare of a journey. We ended up backtracking at least twice to try and get a connecting JumpShip that would get us closer to the periphery. Got stuck on Regulus for over a month, thought we'd be stranded on Gibson forever until we managed to wrangle a couple of free docking ports on an Invader heading from there to here to deliver a dropship full of medium lasers and urgently pick up some PPC's or something."
"Sounds like quite the trip." Blüd responded, still not sure of the man.
"If I ever write an autobiography it'll fill a whole chapter." Tyson told her. "We had to sell our Padilla on Gibson to cover our expenses, not that we had many Arrow IVs left for it anyway. Your government transferred enough C-Bills as an advance to cover our expected travel costs, and fortunately we exchanged them for Marik Eagles before we set out, but our journey took a lot longer and was a lot less direct than it should have been" he said, groaning again. "If you're heading back to Niops, and have a couple of free slots on your JumpShip, can we get a ride?" he asked hopefully. "If not can you tell your government where we are and why we never turned up on time?"
Blüd nodded. "I'll need to see some credentials, and inspect your dropships, but if you're who you say you are we can get you back to Niops where another JumpShip will take you onto where the government want you to be." she replied.
"We were told it was a planet called Galileo but I checked and I couldn't find it on a map." Tyson told her.
"You wouldn't, it's one of our newer colonies three jumps spinward of Niops." Blüd explained. "I'll warn you that we don't know how long we'll be stuck on Westover yet though, we're still waiting on the locals to tell us what dropships they want us to haul to Lesnovo on the way back home" she said. "With our dropship, and your two, we've still got the docking ports for another six on my JumpShip so I'm hoping they don't want us to move more than that."
Tyson raised his eyebrows. "You've got a Monolith?" he asked in surprise. Those were rare, although thinking about it if the 295th ended up on Niops they must have brought a lot of JumpShips with them just to haul the whole division along.
"Sure do. Traded up from commanding a Star Lord a few years ago." Blüd replied. "They gave my old boat to my former First Officer. I think they've got him hauling cargo from Niops to Copernicus these days."
"Never heard of that system either." Tyson admitted. When his contract with Niops was agreed he had tried to learn as much as he could about the place, and the region around it, but there wasn't much available.
"We took that one over a while back, it's not as far out as Galileo, and the population is larger, so we garrison it ourselves." Blüd told him. "You can always tell the systems we named ourselves, Niops was founded by astronomers and such so the government names everything after famous historical ones" she explained. "So what dropships are you operating?" she asked out of professional interest as well as curiosity.
"We've got a Dictator and an Intruder." Tyson replied. "The Troublemakers used to have two more Dictators, an Overlord, and a Triumph as well, but that was back in my mother's day when we were a full regiment with a Star Lord of our own. Davion kept throwing us at the Dracs until we were all that's left, less than four lances of mechs, a few tanks and a couple of aerospace fighters. Most of the people we've got on the Intruder are our dependants so don't go thinking it's full of infantry, we're down to not much more than a platoon of them" he told her. "Nearly half of our mechs are assaults though, and there's a lance of heavies on top of that, so we're a lot punchier than most merc companies our size. The Troublemakers started out as a Heavy Assault Regiment with the SLDF so if your people hired us to fight off pirates we'll scare the ever-loving shit out of most bands" he declared with some justification. "We're just not in a fit state to face a Combine Sword of Light Regiment anymore and we're looking for a less dangerous job." he admitted. "Too many widows and orphans to take care of already, if you know what I mean."
"What happened to your JumpShip?" Blüd asked.
"It got nuked." Tyson replied flatly. "Juicer target for the Dracs than the FedCom Invaders it was with at the time I guess. Our Overlord and one of our Dictators were still attached at the time so they went up too. Not exactly the Troublemaker's best day" he added sadly.
"Guess not" Blüd sympathised. "Did you hear about Charles Marik?" she asked, realizing he might not have done.
"No. What about him?" Tyson replied.
"He died, just came over the radio. Brain aneurysm or something supposedly." Blüd told him.
Tyson looked momentarily surprised then frowned before rolling his eyes. "At least they didn't say that he fell down an elevator shaft onto some bullets." he quipped. "I wonder if he was killed because he was, or wasn't, going to make peace with ComStar?" he asked rhetorically.
"Probably the latter. Looks like his son Gerald is taking over, assuming their parliament doesn't try and interfere" Blüd told him.
"They'd better not for the sake of the League, the last thing these people need is more chaos and disorder. We saw enough of that travelling from one side of Marik space to the other, if they end up with internal civil strife because different factions are fighting for the crown as well the Lyrans and the Cappies will carve up their territory like a roast turkey" Tyson stated with certainty. "Our dropships are way over on the other side of the port, we weren't dropping off cargo so we got assigned the pads furthest from the buildings. If you've got transport I can lead you over there in my Gabe if you want to check us out, I wouldn't suggest walking there, not in this heat."
"We've got an all-terrain jeep up in the bay, I'll get it unloaded, just keep your speed down, it's not exactly fast" Blüd replied, nodded to her aide to go get that done. "It's got a folding roof that can keep the sun off at least."
Tyson grinned. "We put an old chunk of armor plate outside yesterday so the kids could fry eggs on it. Made a change from a barbeque party." he said, laughing. "Had to make sure they stayed in the shade as much as possible though. One of my people decided to try and get a tan when we first got here after getting really pale from being couped up in the ship. She was in the medbay on the Intruder recovering from sunburn and heatstroke after not much more than an hour outside midday."
"They've got quite some sun here." Blüd agreed.
"Yours is a Red Dwarf right? This must really hit you guys hard." Tyson surmised.
Blüd nodded. "It's not exactly what we're used to." she confirmed. "Some of our marine detachment spent some time on one of our colonies, Alphard, which is almost as hot and dry as this, but Westover is definitely something special all right" she agreed. "Oh, we might be getting out of here quicker than I feared, I guess this is the news I was waiting for on what dropships I'm hauling away" she said spotting another ground vehicle heading towards them. This one a small four-wheeled ATV painted up in FWLM colours and carrying two men wearing militia uniforms.
The ATV pulled up and the two men dismounted. "Captain Blood?" one of the two queried. He was wearing the insignia of a Lieutenant-Colonel which put him at equivalent rank to a naval captain, the other seemed to be a corporal who had been driving.
"It's spelled and pronounced Blüd." the woman in question corrected him, indicating her name patch. "How can I help you?" she asked.
"Lieutenant-Colonel Moretti, Free Worlds League Militia" he introduced himself. "We need you to transport eight dropships to Escobas urgently." he told her.
"No can do, that's in completely the wrong direction." Blüd replied. "We're heading back to Niops, with a diversion out to Lesnovo a little out of our way to help you guys out before we do. I filed my flight-plan with the authorities, check with them."
Moretti narrowed his eyes. "Those plans have changed" he told her. "We have a large shipment of military equipment that is needed there with all haste."
"Military equipment? Well that makes it a double no-can-do because Niops is neutral and we won't haul that kind of cargo for the Free Worlds league, or anyone else." Blüd responded.
"This isn't a request it's an order" Moretti told her with an edge to his tone of voice. "You work for us." he added curtly.
Blüd laughed. "I'm not part of your military, and I'm not even one of your citizens, so you can't give me orders." she replied, amused rather than intimidated by his attitude. "And as to where you got the idea that we work for you I've got no idea." she continued. "Our agreement with your government does not include provisions for what you're requesting so it's not happening. Still happy to transport a few dropships to Lesnovo, or even Ghazibad because it's between here and there, but I'm sure as shit not carrying military hardware halfway to the Capellan Confederation because you ask me to."
"Don't make me seize your vessel," Moretti growled. "I can have a company of infantry here in thirty minutes." he threatened.
"Try it and my Monolith will jump away and your government won't get another shipment of PPCs until they apologize in writing and you're busted to buck private and sent to fight a Lyran battlemech regiment on your own armed with nothing but a sharp stick." Blüd replied, completely unintimidated by his tone and posture.
"More to the point I can have a company of battlemechs here in less than ten minutes." Tyson interjected, looking Moretti in the eye.
"Who the ****** are you?" Moretti wanted to know.
"Major Samuel Tyson, commanding-officer Tyson's Troublemakers. Under contract to the Niops Association which makes her fight my fight." he stated with conviction.
"Never heard of you." Moretti retorted.
"That's because until now we were contracted by the Federated Suns where we've been taking on Drac Sword of Light Regiments and Capellan regulars so if you think we sweat some planetary militia that's never been within a two-month journey of the front then you're sadly mistaken." Tyson told him flatly. "If you don't believe me talk to the guys in the building that inspected our dropships on arrival. Make sure to ask about my assault mechs."
"While you're at it check the paperwork regarding the terms of the agreement we made with Garth Marik" Blüd advised, slightly surprised but grateful for Tyson's intervention. Technically his mercenaries were only obliged to defend Niops interests on Galileo.
"Garth Marik was only acting on behalf of his father and the Captain-General had died, or hadn't you heard?" Moretti persisted.
"We had, which I think puts Gerald Marik in charge and I can't see him breaking an agreement made by his little brother, especially when you need our PPCs to hold back the armies currently pushing you back to Atreus." Blüd replied. "Find a ship registered in the Free Worlds League and get them to take your dropships to Escobas or wherever."
"None of them are big enough to carry them all." Moretti replied, sounding a little less sure of himself now.
"Then requisition more than one," Blüd told him. "Is there anything else?" she asked sardonically.
"You haven't heard the last of this." Moretti spat, turning on his heels and heading back to his ATV, his driver following.
"We'll see." Blüd called after him. "What a schmuck." she opined more quietly to Tyson.
"You know if he calls in air-support we're screwed." Tyson noted. "For that matter I'm not being paid enough to take on the entire garrison."
"He's not going to want to take the risk of this all blowing up in his face." Blüd said confidently. "I'll tell my people what's going on and after that if the jeep's ready I'll follow you over to your dropships."
"While I'm waiting I think I'll intercept that ice-cream truck and steer them towards our Intruder. The kids'll love it." Tyson decided, looking over to where the thing was parked next to the Behemoth yonder. "Shouldn't take long."
"Good plan. Pick me up a cone, any flavor but mint." Blüd requested, heading up the ramp.
"Will do." Tyson replied, laughing at just how earnest she sounded about it.
Blüd stopped and turned around. "Oh yeah, just one more thing, Major." she said.
"Yeah?"
"Welcome back to the Eleventh Army." Blüd told him.
==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : Westover is a very hot and dry planet and one of the places where Andurien Aerotech manufactures the Stingray and Riever aerospace fighters. The capital city Ennis is where you can find the factories as well as the militia garrison. Given that the planet is an industrial exporter with a fair-sized population it seems logical that the Ennis spaceport is pretty big.Accross much of the Inner Sphere worlds as arid as Westover were abandoned once the Jamerson-Ulikov water purifiers once made on Brownsville became unavailable but the Free Worlds league had indigenous production of the slightly older TriFil purifiers thanks to Curtiss Hydroponics on Paradise so they didn't suffer as badly as their rivals.In normal times it would not have taken Tyson's Troublemakers anywhere near this long to make such a journey. They're a shadow of their former SLDF selves by this point, no jumpship, only two dropships and they're not even carrying as many mechs and combat vehicles as their Dictator and Intruder could. All the spare infantry bays on the Intruder are useful accomodation for their dependents though.Captain Blüd is right about what Charles Marik not dying of natural causes...
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