TBntG-3 Chpt 11

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 11 - Book III - The Clan Invasion==
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==Where Being Mary Cheng and Frederick is suffering==
===Gathering of survivors, New Assignments===
Hilton's Head - Terra, Sol Star System - ComStar Space
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"We're confirming it, General. Full pause. The Clans are standing pat."
 
Mary shook her head. This has to be a trick. After they mousetrapped us… "What about New Avalon and Tharkad?"
 
"Still blockaded with units on the ground." 
"Show me." 
 
The maps were spotty, made up from brief contacts with people on the ground. Most of Tharkad and New Avalon were green. No enemy presence save for raids. The capitals were red, enemy occupied, with a smattering of yellow for patrolled, and a few red spots for regions that were also occupied. 
Power plants, water purification plants that sort of thing. The Clans didn't need to control all the cities, not when they were sitting on the power and water they needed to live.
 
Well, if they were stupid, this wouldn't be a problem. On the other hand, if our numbers are right, they have something like thirty percent of their front-line forces and naval assets sitting over two worlds. They're not ten feet tall, and they're not invincible. 
 
Forces were still shambling into the Sol system, protected by the various toys Comstar had, including the remains of their fleet. They were bringing in other ships, and in a closeted meeting with the Primus, Mary had been made aware of a few other hidden fleet bases. But it'd take time to get those ships ready to crew them, and then…
 
Move before the Clans shake off this odd torpor. Maybe they had extended themselves too far? Mary didn't know, but as she stared at the reports, the way the house lords were trying to respond, in the case of the Federated Commonwealth dealing with the utter shitshow that had erupted over who would play regent, since Hanse Davion had fought free of the ambush, only to be either injured or the victim of a heart attack. It could be hard to tell when your 'mech got hit by a PPC that grounded out, and nobody wanted to put his real condition where it might be intercepted.
 
But so far, they could recover this, if the Clans gave them time. Mary begrudged every lost second, which meant that…
 
"I don't care what kind of uniform you choose." she said to the Comstar Acolyte standing by her. 
 
"But the uniform speaks to—"
 
"No, the uniform needs to say two things. 1. What side we're on so people, don't shoot each other by mistake. 2. It's not related to any uniform that might bring up bad memories of the numerous wars people have fought. It can't be SLDF, because I want to go home someday. Find something pleasantly innocuous, and tell my aide about it."
"Yes, General." the acolyte scuttled out.
 
"General, Colonel Wolf has grounded."
 
"Lovely." Mary said. "Conference room three, please, and unless the sun is about to go nova, don't interrupt." 
 
Jaime Wolf was older than Mary and had probably killed more Battlemechs than she'd seen people. Natasha Kerensky was if anything more deadly. 
 
And they weren't overly happy. Mary didn't care. She had more than enough problems to deal with.
"I can see your reason for not providing information to us at the outset," Mary quietly said. "Tell Hanse Davion about the clans in 3024, and he'd be all up for it—once you helped him take down the Combine, once and for all. Besides, the Clans were obviously not showing up. But you could have at least warned us about the potential for…pirates. Or rogue states, or anything that put forces on the border." She shrugged. "You didn't, and in addition to everything else, that was a violation of your contract, which did have a clause about notifying your customer of any threats, which… a full scale invasion of the Inner Sphere might count as. Right now, given that nobody can find Melissa, Hanse is out of combat, and Takashi are dead, the whole "death to mercs" things may be getting a new look. You were lucky to just lose Outreach."
"You don't strike me as the gloating type, General." Natasha said.
 
"I'm not. Right now, if we take out units that cannot move, the Wolf's Dragoons represent our most combat effective unit. Except I can't use you with anyone else, because you're not trusted." Mary gestured. "And we've got people streaming in."
"Untrained."
 
"No. Untrained isn't the problem. Untrained recruits don't have any bad habits to unlearn. Right now, because the all-call went out, I have Federated Commonwealth frontline units, ComGuards, militia units, mercenaries, ranging from good to terrible, what's left of the Legion of Vega and some Ryuken regiments that got chopped up in the retreat, and they are not happy about being ordered to be assigned to our forces. It doesn't help that the idiot Kuritan ambassador told a Terran talk show that the dregs would stay on Terra while the Samurai saved the Combine." Mary looked at Wolf. "You have—had a good reputation when it came to training other forces, so congrats, you're assigned to training command. We'll be building new units, sending them through and I want you to train them. Also, let me know who in these units aren't going to be able to get with the program." 
"You'll remove them?"
 
"No, I'll send them back to their home nation to share their valuable knowledge." Mary said. "But first of all. Will you deal fairly with me, Colonel Wolf? This won't get the Dragoons their honor back. People will see you as too distrusted for the battlefield. Soldiers will cross the street to avoid you. Will you carry out your duty?"
"Yes." Wolf said. "General, I will be honest. We hoped the Clans would never appear, that they had… found other causes." 
"I expect everyone did. But one thing, Colonel."
"Yes?" 
 
"Keep your people in fighting trim. After all, you may convince me, and I fully intend to make certain the Clans know that Wolf's Dragoons will never, ever leave Terra, which will hopefully come as a big surprise if I should ever have you go walkabout." 
 
"Ah." 
"We assumed our artillery would beat them. We fucked up." the Comstar engineer told Will. On the display was a huge, blocky vehicle, a strange kind of crown mounted on it. "We only got a brief look at once, but this is…"
"What?"
"A network of medium lasers, fed through that diffraction device, guided by phased radar arrays. Put simply? It's an area defense laser AMS. Good news, it has some limitations, and we think it might have heat problems, but the effectiveness falls off over time. Bad news, we have no idea what those limitations are, or if they are simply prototype issues. Worse news?"
"Don't keep me in suspense, son, it's bad for my heart."
"Ah, yes, Primus. Nearly everything else they have deployed are differences in degree, not kind—except for this. There are rumors of a mobile research base, and if they came up with this, they're the smart types that we should ah, remove from the board."
"I'll put it on my list." Will said. "Counters?"
"Low altitude small cruise missiles?" The engineer shrugged. "But they fell out of fashion due to the Ewar environment, I have people working on it. Maybe cluster munitions…"
"Keep on it."
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===Considering the Options Left to Us===
Office of the Protector - City of Samantha, Taurus - Taurian Concordat
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"You want us to tell Comstar we have a full up Prometheus core."
"Yes, Protector." The Admiral didn't look well, Edward Calderon thought. Losing nearly 80 percent of the navy did that to you. "Sir, we've started cutting for the first RX-79s. It's not a pretty design and it's a Davion design, but they must have channeled the Periphery because it's a smart design. Bare bones, everything that can share commonality with DropShip parts does, and it's built with the intention to make it easy to modify… But we're still talking years, even with the new shipyards, before we can begin to match the clans, and my Pocket Warships… Sir, taking them up against a proper naval battlegroup is suicide… unless…"
 
"No." Edward said. "We will not initiate use of nukes, because yes, we can hurt them, but those Warships mean they can bull into any world we have, and nukes… yes. They don't have the numbers to completely conquer us, at least according to all of our intelligence, so keeping that genie in the bottle benefits us, not the Clans." 
 
"Very well, Sir, Terra is still the source of the best electronics, the best systems, and we know that Kerensky destroyed the AI research. Now, I'm not talking a full CASPER system. But an limited AI that we can stick on a DropShip so we can attack Clan naval forces without losing a DropShip and its crew. Hell, it doesn't even need the self-repair systems of the old CASPER's because it's not going to last that long." He touched a button and the wireframe appeared. "The size of our manned DropShips, only with two batteries of six heavy capital cannon mounted in the nose, with enough point defense systems to survive fighter and missile attack."
"Do you think it's worth revealing to Comstar that our core isn't a Helm style core?"
 
"Yes, Sir. At this point, to be blunt, much of what was in the Prometheus core is material that is already known. Only the most cutting edge systems, many of which we probably won't be able to replicate, were unique to it."
"I'll give you my answer in the morning."
Half the cabinet will ask why we're giving up our ace on the hole for the Inner Sphere. Well, I have an answer for that. We can either stand aside in lordly isolation or try to change things for the better. 
We know how well lordly isolation worked out last time.
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===Population Management===
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The Mechwarrior was gagging as he was pushed down into the dirt by Frederick Ghost Bear's boot. "I would say that challenging an Elemental unaugmented was a bad idea, quiaff?" 
 
The man tried to say something, but Frederick shook his head and pressed down. "The old man, the solahma." Frederick chuckled. "The man who was mocking your leadership, Smoke Jaguar." 
 
He leaned down. "I am not mocking it. I am a degree from smashing your worthless body into the mud." He released the pressure a little. "Tell me, warrior, can you count?"
 
"A…Aff." 
 
"Good. Tell me, how many civilians are on this world?"
 
"One hundred million."
 
"Yes. And when you executed nearly a hundred civilians, including some who would barely be out of sibko back home, on live TV, you turned them into our deadly enemies. Tell me, warrior, how many soldiers do we have? I'll answer you. Not enough to garrison a world that hates us. Not without smashing it the way the Scavenger Lords smashed worlds during the war for the First Lordship." He pulled his foot off the man's back. "And that brings us here. That is why I ordered our forces to leave. Not because I was a coward as you claimed, but because you have put us in a position where we cannot win. This world cannot travel, and its people cannot pursue us. So, we will leave, and from now on? No civilian caste resistance fighter in the occupational zone is to be executed without my express approval. We especially will not take or execute hostages."
 
"But…" the warrior was coughing. "What are we to do with them?"
 
Frederick put his hand to his face for a moment, massaging a headache out. "You find an island, or a desert oasis, or some place isolated, you put shelters on the island, you provide them with food, water, doctors. What you do not provide your prisoners with is boats, cars or planes, quiaff?!" 
 
"Aff." 
 
"Get yourself cleaned up. We will need security during the withdrawal." Frederick turned and walked off. By him the merchant caste assistant looked up. "The Council will be angry."
 
"The Council has tasked me with certain duties, and I will carry them out." He turned and looked down at the merchant. "Tomas, While we are no longer involved with the general conflict, detach some people to keep track of it. I have something more important for you."
 
"Aff?"
 
"I wish the data archives to be examined. There are many worlds, some of them large, where the… nobility, lives down to the tales of the usurper. Find them. Find out who is hated most by their population. Those will be the worlds we establish our main presence on. We can isolate the others, but we need far more troops, and where better to find them than places we come as a liberator."
"Aff."
 
As the man left, Frederick checked his watch. More time passing with no attacks. More time the Inner Sphere had to prepare, had to use their countless billions. 
 
We may have lost the hope of gaining Terra, but it will take the Inner Sphere time to recover. I can use that time. Use that time to build up our defenses, and prepare positions. The Nova Cats and Diamond Sharks were moving into their target zones, and they were having great success. The declaration that slavery would be abolished… had done well. Very well. 
 
It's harder here, but some of the worlds we passed, the worker caste were barely able to feed themselves. I can use that.
I must use that.
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