EMCOTS 13

=Emergence (Concertverse) - Chapter 13=
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==Pride and Honor - Part 2==
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Jade Falcon Bondsmen Camp X-Ray
Near St. Xavier, Great X
Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
11th October, 3142
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The moment they were called from their workbenches, Basil knew something was wrong.
Or rather, more wrong than usual.
In truth, everything was wrong when it came to the Jade Falcons.  Basil, an infantry warrior of the true Clan Wolf now dwelling on Arc-Royal, felt nothing but scorn for his Clan's greatest foe.  The Crusaders were finally revealing their true nature in their rush to abandon the ways of the Clans, with their Mongol Doctrine such a violation of the Founders' vision that the word "dezgra" sometimes seemed woefully insufficient to describe the loathing he felt for it.
The circumstances of his captivity made clear how far the Falcons were fallen.  Crusader or Warden, Clan bondsmen were supposed to be treated better than this.  Eighteen hour work days on starvation rations calculated more for killing slowly than keeping a bondsman nourished and able to serve his or her new Clan?  Even the Falcons of old recognized that bondsmen should be treated as potential future warriors.  This was just slow murder.
Under the stern eyes of their guards, all of them from the Falcon Watch, Basil released the handles on the metal press and stood in place.  To either side were other bondsmen.  One, Molly Rogers from Morges, was a captured Kell Hound infantrywoman, the other was Joachim Liebknecht, a soldier from Tharkad.  They glanced at him briefly before turning at the barked command to do so. Basil did as well, trembling in fury as he contemplated what new dishonor the Falcon Mongols would bring to him and the rest of the captives.
They marched out of the room, past the lines of stamped and ready metal sheets for prefab field facilities, and towards the yard.  Other lines of bondsmen joined them, numbering in the hundreds by the time they arrived.  The entire camp seemed to be lining up there.  Usually this was for a formal review, but Star Colonel Roshak had one just the prior week, and such reviews included a stand and other measures not showing today.  The only thing present in the yard were the uniformed figures of the Falcon Watch, armed with the surplus rifles they'd brought out from captured stores, some possibly dating to the original Clan invasion.
The hair on his neck stood up on end.  Something has changed.  What are these stravag doing?
"Wonder what this is about?" Rogers murmured, her English lilted and lacking the bluntness of a Teutonic accent like Liebknecht's.
"More dezgra schemes," Basil grumbled as a reply.
"Quiet!" A nearby Falcon shouted the word and leveled a scornful look at them.  Basil returned it, as if to dare the smaller man to do something, but said nothing.  There was no value in reacting at this time, not when so much was unknown.
They were lined to face the western fence.  Basil made out a line of Falcon Watch personnel, rifles in hand.  This alone was not unusual, but the lack of any sign that they were being addressed was disturbing.  He stole glances to his sides to see if he could make any more details, but the line to his left was already filling in as well.  All he could really make out were his fellow jumpsuited prisoners.
The first indication that something was wrong came from the cries on all sides, surprise and fright and terror. Moments later came a familiar hammering in the air, the rapid cracks of assault rifles firing, joined by screams of pain and cries for mercy.  "They're killing us!" one voice shouted.
The lines broke up at that point. Some ran.  Some hit the deck.  That allowed Basil to get the glimpse that verified what was going on with gut-twisting clarity: the Falcon Watch were themselves in a line, rifles raised and firing.  This wasn't just an incident.  It was a massacre.
And he was going to die.
His heart raged at it.  Gunned down as a defenseless bondsman?  No honor to be won in battle, not even in defiance by fighting back?  His first instinct was to charge and find a Falcon's neck to twist and break.  Even if he died a moment later, he'd die a warrior!
"This way!"  Rogers took off towards the largest group of standing prisoners. Liebknecht followed her first while Basil briefly kept to his place.  Only briefly, as the thought occurred to him that this might at least let him get closer and take a weapon for himself.  He followed, running hard to catch up given the lost seconds.
It was quickly clear there was nowhere to go.  Ahead the sound of gunfire continued, accompanied by the screams of men and women going down with metal in their lungs and guts and necks, piling over the dead and the dying.  This wasn't going to be the way out.  He might even trip over them and be gunned down, preventing him from his only remaining goal: to put his hands on one of these dezgra before dying.
There was a splatter of blood ahead.  Liebknecht was hit.  He faltered forward and ran into Rogers as they came up toward the Falcon firing line.  Only a few of their fellow captives remained ahead.  They would likely die in the following seconds.
No.  There would be no vengeance.  Basil would not get to bring a Falcon with him in death.  But in that split second, he recognized that if he could not die fighting, he could still die a warrior by performing the other function of his caste: protection.
With one last heave of his thick, if weakened, muscles, Basil jumped onto Liebknecht and Rogers, bearing them both down and climbing on top of them, covering them with his own body.  He could not speak loudly, should a Falcon hear him, but his whisper still rumbled in his throat.  "Do not move or speak!  Stay still!  Stay—"
There was a sudden, painful impact against his head.  All consciousness ceased.
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===Urgency===
The battle on the Vicar's Altar plateau was definitely turning now, by Bridger's estimation.  Ward's Kell Hounds were firmly lodged between the 3rd Talon and 371st PGC and, with the help of Evan Kell's Hounds, rolling up the latter.  The 3rd Talon was nearly surrounded by the entirety of the 8th Strikers and being ground down with increasing speed.  All things said, the battle was developing as he'd hoped.  At some greater cost, it had to be said, but not too much.  Hopefully Colonel Stefanitis lives to see it…
"Sir." His Chief of Staff Major General von Hammermark glanced up from his spot near the main holotank.  "Priority from recon flights, sir.  We've got activity in the suspected POW camps."
A fist closed around Bridger's gut.  "What kind of activity?"
"They're going over hi-res imagery now, relaying it…"  Hammermark looked up in time for a Tech to complete the connection and put up the display.  The high-resolution scanner on their recon craft showed the familiar layout of a prison camp, a network of fenced in buildings with guard towers, approach road, and a large open yard.  Hundreds of figures were forming into lines in the yard, surrounded by fewer ones visibly armed.  The fist in his gut tightened.
"Rat bastard," Bridger snarled.  "Sortie the rescue teams now!  Now!  I knew they'd pull something like this!"
Hammermark did as directed, or rather ensured the Techs sent the orders.  "Sir, you don't think…?"
Bridger's eyes remained locked on the image, all thoughts of the battle banished from his mind.  "There's no damn reason to line them up like that, not unless—"  He stopped speaking when the hi-res image clearly showed the camp guards raising their weapons.  The image was zoomed in enough to see the muzzle flashes from the assault rifles firing, with sprays of blood joined by people running or dropping to the ground.
"Mother of God," Hammermark gasped.
"Madre de Dios," echoed Brigadier Laguna.
"I want those rescue teams in, now!" Bridger shouted, even as his mind flashed back eight years, back to Vega, and the rolling heads of men and women he'd been responsible for. He clenched his fists so tight his fingernails dug into flesh.  I am going to hang every last one of those sons-of-bitches! he swore to himself.  From the nearest ****** tree!
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===Orders===
“Martina,” the voice of Star Colonel Roshak roused Martina from her efforts to centre herself, “Malthus has been exactly the blind, dezgra fool I feared. The code is Prinz Eugen.” He didn’t have to say more, and Martina slammed her battle claw onto the Zibler’s roof in fury as she blink-clicked open a channel to her Nova.
“The bondsman camps, go,” she snarled, bracing herself as the hovertank lifted beneath her, drive fans howling as it accelerated to full speed. The rest of her Alpha Point did the same, and Martina had time for satisfaction at that, at least, as she blink-clicked her transmitter inactive and began swearing in Lyran German at Malthus’s stupidity - for some things, Spheroid curses were just more satisfying.
The hovertank’s driver had, evidently and prudently, taken her anger as being directed at them if they didn’t hurry, engaging the supercharger the instant that the tank hit a straight logging path, hitting more than a hundred and sixty kilometers an hour down the dirt road. Trees flashed past, the other supercharger-fitted Zibler pacing them along a different trail. They were leaving the rest of her Nova behind, but that could not be helped; speed was the overriding necessity now.
With her venting of fury done, Maritna blink-clicked open the link to her warriors. “Remember, our objective is the preservation of life,” Martina ordered. “Use no more force than you must, and be cautious of what is behind your target.” There were muttered complaints at that, but almost pro forma - nothing that would justify a Trial of Grievance - and Martina settled for glaring each of her Alpha Point into silence.
“Coming up on Camp Zeta,” the hovertank’s driver called in, “Three minutes out.”
“Bargained well and done.” Martina responded; and it might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn the tank’s engine roared louder, and the hull itself shivered, as the driver coaxed forth a little more speed. She didn’t actually start counting, but her Alpha Point still chuckled darkly at the threat.
The trees thinned out as they hurtled down the trail, and then - right on the driver’s three minute estimate - out into the cleared area around Camp Zeta; a grandiose name for a square enclosed by barbed wire, cornered by guard towers and occupied by a cluster of long, low log-built barracks. Ordinarily clean and orderly, now it was swallowed by dark smoke and the sounds of gunfire.
Martina bit back another curse but snapping out orders. “Alpha Point, with me, north end. Beta Point, south; sweep, Hades pattern and meet in the centre. Omicron Point,” the tanks; as finely built as they were - Martina sneered internally for a moment; let the Lyrans boast of their clumsy assault armour, but second-line forces or not, the Davions built the finest tanks even Kerensky’s children could ask for - their medium-gauge lasers and Streak four-packs would be useless in the kind of blindsided firefight they’d be going into within the camp, “screen west.” At this point, she would not put it past that dezgra fool Malthus to have lied about his Cluster’s strength; and better to plan that way and succeed, than ignore the possibility and fail.
As the hovertank hit its closest pass to the camp, Martina leapt, hitting her jump jets a moment later and giving vent to her feelings in a high, piercing avian war-shriek. Similar cries came from the rest of her point; and a deeper wolf-howl from Troy - abtakha from the Crusader Wolves - that turned into a curse as Troy’s boot tangled in the barbed wire.
Her armor’s visor display shifted automatically to composite imaging, painting the camp in a bewildering mix of icons and colors. Her mind sorted through them, building a clear, coherent picture as she leapt again, cataloguing dead and wounded bondsmen and keeping track of the rest of her Point on the tac-map display. This was why so many potential true Elementals faltered, washing out into the infantry or even as far as the police caste; inability to assimilate the raw volume of data their armor fed them.
Something in her visor stopped her woolgathering instantly, and Martina cut her jump jets; a squad of the Watch’s Mongol thugs, stalking two wounded bondsmen and blind that things had changed. Time to even the odds.
One dropped with a scream that cut off as though severed by a laser bolt as her full, armoured weight struck them from above; a second, rifle falling from hands rendered nerveless by raw shock, dying as her battle claw smashed into their armor vest, dead-centre, with bone-shattering force. Her pulse laser cut a third into multiple sections, glowing white on infrared. The fourth simply ran, throwing away rifle, vest and webbing to run even faster; she let them, they could be dealt with later at need, and the cowardice would punish them worse than death.
The last, possessed of more nerve or just less sanity, armed a grenade, intent on taking the wounded bondsmen with them. Martina embraced them, twisting the hand holding the grenade between them and pinning the Watch soldier to her chestplate in a crushing bear-hug. A wet thump and a sickening splattering sound - that Martina knew would stick in her memories - accompanied the grenade detonating; a strip of yellow flared across her suit’s damage readout, dimming almost immediately as HarJel flowed to the damaged area.
Turning to face the two wounded bondsmen - a man and a woman, from what she could see - Martina was aware that she must look a nightmare - the hunched, troll-like immensity of her battle armour amplified by the bone and jade plating being scorched and splattered with blood and other, less mentionable things, even before adding the deep abyssal rumble the external address system made of her snarled command to, “Stay here.”
Martina took a moment to assess things. Ellara and Kristoff were well ahead of her, encountering minimum resistance - effectively none - and she could hear the metronomic crack, crack of Anne’s Gauss rifle. Martina found herself shivering reflexively at that; she had no problems with killing, but Anne enjoyed it, might have been fertile ground for the Mongols’ cause if not for her odd self-denying asceticism. As for Troy -
“Lead, Alpha Four. Requesting support, urgent.” The deep, chugging thunder of heavy machine gun fire underlined Troy’s voice, with the odd echo-effect that meant she was hearing it over the radio and normally at once. “Guard SecMech at my twelve.”
Never a dull moment.
“Alpha Point, converge and engage,” Martina ordered, bounding towards their new target.
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===Hot Drop from Orbit===
Among the orbiting DropShips over Great X was one quite small vessel, a DropShuttle of two hundred tons weight with the rather unassuming designation of SDS-8.  Most DropShuttles tended to be cargo and personnel movers, lightly armed if at all.
But SDS-8 wasn't a standard DropShuttle.  It was a Spooky Insertion Craft; a fairly fast ECM-equipped craft built to maximize stealth characteristics, even if the fusion torches couldn't be hidden when they fired.  Pilots of these craft learned to be sparing with their main engines, employing lower-powered thrust engines with heat baffles integrated into them for directional control and landing, and main fusion drives only employed when speed mattered more than stealth.
Such as it did right now, with said drives at full burn as the shuttle abruptly and sharply plunged into the atmosphere.
Lieutenant Augusta Novan's battle armor fit snugly over her figure, honed to perfection through intense training and equally intense operations. The Longshot Rifle she favored for sniping and regular combat was fitted to its magnetic anchor on her Spectre suit for later use, and her mission compartment contained all the proper gear for the rescue-intervention mission they'd been on standby for.  Now an incredible four and a half Gs pressed her and the rest of the SOT into the g-cradles built into the transport compartment of the Spooky-type insertion shuttles.  It was only a bit spacier than it'd be in the cramped confines of a Darter or Great Eagle OmniFighter with cargo pods for battle armor deployment, the usual alternative method of rapid exoatmospheric deployment for the SOT.
The voice of the pilot in the compartment beyond was strained by the G-forces.  "Coming up on target area shortly.  Prepare for deployment drop.  Situation developing."
"Acknowledged," Captain Tosh stated from his armor suit, just two cradles away.  "Everyone ready for drop!"
This wasn't going to be the gentle kind of drop, where the shuttle came to a hover and they jumped from an open door.  Novan swallowed and readied her stomach for the next few seconds, as much as she could under the crushing acceleration strain anyway.  Despite all that mental prep, it was still a sharp surprise for the floor to suddenly open up from under her.  The cradle holding her suit in place opened and she fell through into the open sky of Great X.
Her armor's HUD lit up with data.  Air speed.  Available thrust in her suit jets.  Distance to the ground. By pressing her middle fingers against her palms within the confines of her armored gloves she triggered the armor's jets to fire.  It was almost like opening a parachute with the kick of sudden deceleration, but it didn't last.  The engines could only burn for so long before they hit their heat threshold and cut off, and once that happened her descent continued picked back up.
Her mind flashed back briefly to her training at Fort Kerrigan, back on Arcturus, where the SOTs and jump infantry conducted insertion drop training.  Air speed was both life and death.  Too slow, enemy AA would kill you. Too fast, the ground would kill you.
Too fast right now.  Not sure about enemy AA.  Seeing that they'd cooled back down, she triggered her jets again, letting them nearly burn through before stopping.
Below the ground was approaching, and with it, the prisoner camp that was their target.  A high fence with barbed wire, watch towers, internal structures, and the telltale appearance of muzzle fire.  Their briefing, before the SDS-8 launched from one of the 8th Striker's DropShips on final orbital approach, made clear the goal: secure the prisoners, stop loss of life, put down the guards.  In that order.
Novan gave the jets a final kick as the ground rushed up toward her.  The deceleration was enough that the armor absorbed the impact enough to not break anything, although every part of her body hurt from the impact.  With clenched teeth she pushed the pain away and stood.  "Novan grounded," she spoke into the SOT secured comm-line.
Others reported in.  All but Private Jeffries, who finally croaked, "Bad landing.  Armor didn't take it.  Broken legs."
One jump in fifty. That was what Sergeant Harbaugh told her and the other trainees back at Ft. Kerrigan.  One jump in fifty would be bad when doing rapid insertion drops, from human error or system fault.  But usually human error.  By Harbaugh's count, Jeffries is lucky.  He only broke his legs.
"Stay put, Jeffries," Captain Tosh ordered.  "Everyone, double time!"
They ran, Alpha Squad in the lead.  One by one rifles or assault guns were pulled from their magnetic holsters on the suits.  "I'll take the near tower," Novan said, not waiting for the order.  Once she was close enough she triggered her jets and soared into the air, shutting them down at just the right moment to make a pinpoint landing on the tower platform.  A green-uniformed man with an avian-themed helmet turned toward her, battle rifle raised.  But her rifle was already pointing at him and she pulled the trigger with practiced efficiency. A supersonic round blew through the light protective vest under the uniform and pulped one section of the man's lung.  He fell in a strangled cry, doomed to either bleed to death or, more likely, drown in his own blood.
Novan might have taken the time for a second shot to the head, as a mercy kill, but there was no time given the gunfire and accompanying screams in the camp.  She went to the interior rail, dropped to a knee to steady herself, and activated the Longshot's targeting scope.  It tied into her HUD and projected the important tactical data for her work.  She sighted on one of the Falcons emptying a rifle's clip into a barracks building and pulled the trigger. Another supersonic round blew the brains out of the target.
By this time the camp guards were in full disarray.  They were under attack by just eighteen operators, but given their kit was for guarding unarmed prisoners, they might as well be unarmed themselves for fighting even light battle armor.  Chem-propellant rounds and needler shots rang helplessly off the allowed stealth armor of the Spectre suits while their weapons, being Gauss guns of varying type, were sheer murder on the guards.
For a time the camp remained the sight of a massacre, but now it was the outmatched guards who were the victims, not their captives.
When Novan ran out of targets she turned her attention outward, moving to the other side of the tower and setting up again.  "Novan, on overwatch."
"Kowalski, on overwatch."
"Cooper, on overwatch."
"Nyere here, still engaging hostiles."
Captain Tosh's reply came quickly.  "Acknowledged.  Maintain open tac-comm."
With her part in the taking of the camp done, Novan settled in for the long wait, just in case someone got it in their heads to counterattack.
----
===Main Battle ends===
For all that the main battle was the point of the exercise, Bridger found his attention drifting repeatedly to the secondary holotank and its display of blue markers descending on the identified prison camps.  The 8th Strikers' SOT already had one camp, and companies from the 8th Striker Jump Infantry Regiment were securing the others with light 'Mech support.
That left one camp painted in enemy red.  "Recon confirms weapons fire consistent with a fight," Hammermark said.  "It would appear the enemy reserve is stopping one of the massacres.  Major Gruenwald's command is observing and ready to intervene if necessary."
Bridger nodded in acceptance of that point.  Going in would complicate matters, and might cause unnecessary losses in the confusion.  The Kells' intelligence on Roshak seems to have been accurate. This removed the local commander from the list of people he intended to see punished for this behavior, but it didn't cool his fury, nor his intention to deal harshly on the matter.  A message has to be sent.
He glanced back toward the main holotank.  Roshak's troops were doomed, that much was clear, and the 3rd Talon was steadily losing ground and forces, now amounting to little more than a reinforced company of 'Mechs and armored infantry, and that count was steadily declining with the 8th Strikers on all fronts pressing the attack.
The system reflected an incoming call from the field, which took the form of Evan Kell in his neurohelmet and cooling vest.  "Just got the update, General.  Good to hear we've got the camps in hand."
"They'll finish securing them over the next few minutes," Bridger predicted.  "How much longer until you've got the 371st down?"
"With Colonel Ward on their flank, not long at all, but we don't have to make this total.  Roshak knows he's beaten, and I'm bettin' a traditionalist like him is fuming over the Mongols trying to pull this.  They've dumped a load of manure all over the Clan's honor, over his.  You could likely end the fightin' now if you offer him hegira.  It'll let him walk away with honor intact."
"If the 371st is destroyed, you could consider Great X recovered for the Commonwealth," Bridger pointed out.
"No. Not right now, anyway, we don't have the strength to reclaim anything. Falcons would just send another unit to hold the planet, maybe a worse one, and a worse commander.  Roshak's not a saint, but the people here are better off with him in charge than a Mongol, until we get the reinforcements we need to see them all off.  Unless your side's got another unit they can call in to hold, I'd rather just leave him in place."
Bridger considered that point.  We do have units coming up for reserve, the 1st Lancers could hold the planet.  But he had no authority to call the Lancers in, so the rest of Kell's point remained valid.
"Put me on a broad radio-com signal, direct it toward the 371st's command unit," he instructed the CommTech.  After a few moments the young woman nodded.  "Attention Star Colonel Roshak.  Your forces are clearly beaten.  I've got no desire to smash them to nothing, so I'm offering you an honorable withdrawal.  'Hegira', as you put it."
After several moments of silence, Roshak's voice came over the line.  "Hegira for all of my warriors?"
"For the 371st Cluster, at least," Bridger said.  On the display, another group of icons for the 3rd Talon disappeared.  Colonel Olindo's 3rd Battalion was scything through their command unit even as they spoke.
"I… cannot, in honor, accept.  The 3rd Talon is under my command as well.  I must have hegira for both."
Bridger stopped himself from an immediate answer.  He could understand, quite easily, the obligations Roshak was referring to.  He had to see to the people under his command, whatever else may be true.  But given the reputation of the unit and officers involved, Bridger didn't want them getting away.  They might have even been responsible for these killings.
Roshak’s tone hardened. "I swear on my Bloodname, and the heritage of my Bloodhouse, that Star Captain Malthus will be called to account, in full, for his actions, and the same for every warrior who joined in this disgrace."
Roshak's now confirming he's involved?  Or at least he thinks he is. Bridger checked the holotank.  More icons were missing.  A few blue, a few red.  His natural sentiment was to accept Roshak's word.  Not because of any belief in the alleged honor of the Clans, but because he owed it to his subordinates to not throw their lives away.  But he couldn't quite fight off the sentiment that Malthus and others might get away for the camp massacres if he did.  That the Mongols had to be destroyed utterly.
“If you wish,” Roshak continued, “you may send one of your officers, or come yourself, to bear witness to this accounting. I will guarantee, for any observer you choose to send, safcon until this matter is dealt with.”
For a moment Bridger thought it over.  He couldn't keep the thought out of his head, the images from eight years ago on the long burn out from Vega.  Letting an atrocity like that go unpunished, he couldn't do that again.
"Sir."  Hammermark kept his spine straight and hands at his side.  "Colonels Kell and Ward are awaiting instruction on whether to push forward."
Colonel Kell.  That reminded him that these were Kell's people.  Bridger was the visitor here, even if he was in command.
There was still a resistance that took him an extra moment to overcome before he spoke.  "I'll accept, for myself and Colonel Kell, if he chooses to come."  He shook his head at Hammermark, who immediately relayed orders for a ceasefire.  "I'll give you your shot at dealing with this, Star Colonel."
"Bargained well and done, General.  And you will not be disappointed.  I will give you coordinates for the matter at hand as soon as we are ready."  The line cut.
"The 371st has ceased fire." Hammermark said.
"And the 3rd Talon?"
Laguna watched her holotank.  "Not yet… okay, looks like they're holding off as well.  Colonel Pratt is opening a hole for them to withdraw through."
"Let her open up if they do anything but retreat," Bridger said.  "Otherwise, this fight's over."
----
===When Enemies Meet===
Things moved faster than Bridger expected.  He'd barely had time to get the after-action reports readied and start post-battle inspections when Roshak radioed coordinates.  Evan Kell hadn't even made it back to his field base yet and had to be picked up by Bridger's VTOL on the way to what was evidently the Falcon planetary HQ, not far from the plateau they'd fought upon.
The Falcon units were clearly smarting from the fight, but what was most obvious to Bridger was the way they were lined up in the field, as if the 371st was there to keep the survivors of the 3rd Talon under the gun.  "Still no locks," the co-pilot said, her voice distorted a little by the speaker in his passenger's helmet.  "We're setting down."
Evan nodded.  "Like I said.  Old school type.  He'd never violate safcon."
"If only he could speak for all his people, otherwise this wouldn't have happened."
"If you don't mind me sayin' it, General, you don't look happy.  Don't worry, Roshak'll sort them out.  He's got to now, or his honor's nothing."
"Given what's happened, Colonel, the only thing making me happy would be the people responsible for the killings dangling from a noose," Bridger muttered darky.
There was a light jolt from the VTOL setting down.  The two men dismounted near an assemblage of figures.  Roshak was recognizable, and still in his cooling suit, as was a thin, wiry man that had an angry, hunted look about him.  He and several others were flanked by battle-armored infantry.  Bridger noted that some of the apparent prisoners were not in the same general uniform he'd seen Roshak in before.  "MPs?" he asked Evan, his voice low enough not to carry.
"Looks like Watch." Evan said, frowning.  "Clan military police, yeah, but twice as mean and half as smart as our kind of MP.  They're the warriors who barely made it in and know they won't be fighting any great battles."  The remark was likewise kept at a lower volume.
"Mercenaries," the wiry man groused, his eyes going from watching the approaching figures to Roshak's smoldering, quiet glare.  "What are they doing here, Star Colonel?"
"To witness." was the simple answer.
At first Bridger thought the remark was meant to be toward Kell, but realize the speaker was meaning him as well.  The 3rd Talon commander thought he was a mercenary.  The uniform is unfamiliar.  Of course.
Roshak continued, in a calm, level voice that frankly struck Bridger as a whole lot more intimidating than shouting would’ve been. “You disobeyed a direct order, Star Captain. You did not challenge it, as was your right, you simply disobeyed. For which, under the Code Martial, the penalty is death. More, you disgraced yourself, you disgraced our Clan, and you broke my word, out of naked spite, and petulance.” Contempt edged Roshak’s next words, “Would you call this the behavior of a warrior?”
“And so you wish to challenge me, relic?” Malthus laughed, a cruel, unsettling cast to his laughter. “So be it; I can best you, augmented or unaugmented, on any battlefield you name.”
“No.” Roshak’s lips curled back in what - under a very charitable interpretation - might qualify for a smile. “Trials are for settling matters between warriors. Martina, deal with this refuse.”
One of the armored infantry - wearing a bulkier, older looking suit - stepped forward, raising an arm, and Malthus’s expression barely shifted into shock before a stuttering burst of laser bolts cut him down.
"As for the rest of you.  By all rights, I would deal the same to you for your actions, and be fully vindicated.  But I will not even give you that."  Roshak gestured toward Bridger.  "General Bridger, Colonel Kell, your isorla for your victory.  Do with them as you please."
"Thank you, Star Colonel."  Bridger leveled a glare at his new prisoners, all some combination of shocked and outraged.  "In the name of the Royal Federation and our comrades in the Lyran Commonwealth, you're all under arrest."  He raised his radio to his lips.  "General Hammermark, send a transport VTOL with a squad of armored infantry for prisoner escort, my location."
"Yes sir."
"Some of the data promised was deleted by this stravag's treachery," Roshak explained, "but all that remains will be transmitted before you depart.  And the bondsmen are yours, of course."
Bridger nodded in acceptance.  "I'm satisfied, then."
”Well bargained, and well won,” Roshak nodded. "However, I have a question, if you will honor me with an answer."
"Go ahead."
"Who are you?" asked Roshak.  "Many of your machines are unfamiliar designs.  Your uniforms are like none in the Successor States.  And no mercenaries possess WarShips as you do."
Bridger kept his arms at his side.  The prospect of whether telling the truth would be advantageous or not was one that made him consider the answer to give.  They have to have noticed the Looking Glass.  So they know something is strange.  I suppose there's no harm in giving them some basic facts.  It might even serve to make them pause before trying anything.  "We're from the Royal Federation, or the Arcadian Federation as some call us, from an Inner Sphere with a different history than your own," he remarked candidly.  "A misjump brought us to your Inner Sphere and, suffice to say, things have progressed from there."
“A strange tale,” Roshak commented, in a tone of consideration rather than dismissal, “Yet, it is a time of strange things; and a great many of those."
"So it is."
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The twilight hours were upon the Vicar's Altar when the first trucks arrived.  Evan's people took the lead in welcoming their countrymen to the landing zones for the strike force.  Rations were waiting, given their reported condition, and some were brought to the Kell Hounds' shipboard infirmaries.
Bridger observed from the open bay door of the Sinclair, Brigadier Laguna and Colonels Kell and Ward with him.  "We'll have enough room for the short haul, at least," Laguna said.  "Might need to transfer some to the Sara Proctor though."
"Important thing is they're going home."
"There's still the prisoners to handle, mind," Evan pointed out.  "Finding them a fair trial, I mean; God knows I don’t think I could put together a court-martial board that wouldn’t be just, ‘March the guilty bastards in, Sergeant-major’."
Bridger nodded, a deep frown on his face.  "They are guilty.  My first thought was a field court.  Have our rescued POWs identify them and the work crews can have the gallows ready by the time we're done.  Hang every last one of the sons of bitches."
“Yeah, that’d be one option,” Evan nodded. “Be military justice, which as my brother’s fond of saying, is to the real thing what military bands are to music, but I’m hard-put to think of any better, or at least fairer, options. Even if some of them are probably just guilty of doing what they’re told; remind me to tell you about the mess Thomas Hogarth left us with after SCOUR sometime.”
"Regulations allow field trials with forces caught in flagrante delicto committing war crimes or other offenses against the recognized laws of war," Laguna remarked delicately.  "It might not apply to all our captives, and it doesn't allow for people caught up in orders."
"You commit an illegal order, you're just as liable." Bridger replied.  "Only reason I haven't given the word to the work crews yet is that I didn't do it for Malvina Hazen.  And if I'm hanging any of these Clans, I'm starting with her. Which, no, I can't do now, she's on our side of the Glass and above my paygrade now." Despite his words, they could see that he very much wanted to give that order.  There was a steel in his eyes and voice, one matched by evident pain.  "Might as well see to your people, Brigadier."
Evan shot side glances to Laguna and Ward. “Brigadier, Colonel,” he spoke quietly, “I think this is something me and General Bridger need to talk about in private?”
Ward nodded knowingly.  "Vega," she murmured into Laguna's ear, just audible enough for Evan to make the word out.  Laguna sighed in recognition and joined the Kell Hound commander in walking away.
This left privacy for the two men.  "I get the feelin' this hit close to home for you, General," Evan said.  "Even more than what Malvina pulled in Cirenholm."
Bridger clenched a fist before nodding.  "Hits close, yeah.  Back in '34."  Noting the look in Evan's eyes, he decided to continue.  "SOVEREIGN SON.  I was CO of the Gienah Heavy Fusiliers RCT, proudest posting I've ever had.  We got sent in with the 8th and 10th Strikers and the Tharkad Rangers to Vega.  Better part of a year, given the six week burn time one way, the longest campaign I'd been in since the War."
Evan nodded. “Yeah, we used to wargame out attacks on Vega while I was at the Nagelring. That long transit run’s a real issue; you miscalculate, overcommit, and you’re in real trouble.” He grinned. “Wasn’t officially encouraged; High Command tends to frown on planning to attack a friendly power.”
Bridger grinned in amusement.  "They're like that.  We went in for bear, the 5th Sword of Light was on-world, as were a couple other outfits."
That drew a sour expression from Evan. “I’m guessing the Fifth Sword’re just as bad there as they are here?”
"Wouldn't surprise me.  The mission was to get out a claimant to the Galedon directorship, Musashi Honda.  His treacherous bitch of an aunt, Kori Honda, was the one who celebrated stabbing her grandmother's allies in the back during the War by declaring the Combine reborn, and she married into a Kurita line.  Musashi became a rival claimant that she wanted dead, so we wanted him alive.  It took two months of campaigning to secure enough of the planet to bring him out of hiding, against the biggest bastard I've ever known: Tai-sho John Ballymont.  He'd sic the 5th on settlements and towns he declared 'disloyal', had local leaders shot for the slightest failure.  We took to calling him 'Butcher Ballymont.'"
"Well, we got Musashi out, fell back on the LZ, and departed.  But you campaign that long on an enemy world, you end up having people lost.  Overwhelmed patrols and pickets, scouts hunted down… had a few left behind.  I wanted to get everyone back, but we had a WarShip burning in with a multiple regiment relief force, and we had to leave." 
“I can figure the rest from that, yeah.” Evan looked pensive for a moment. “And Ballymont gloated, right? Made a big show of the whole butcherin’ work.”
"He started with an offer.  We turn a ship around and hand Musashi over, he gives all our captives back and safe transit out of the system."  Bridger's lip curled into a snarl.  "I don't think he expected us to say yes, it was just to twist the knife in.  And we didn't.  So a day later, he started sending us new holovid footage.  He and his officers personally beheading our captured comrades, and he kept it up until he'd killed all of them."
“I doubt he would’ve let them go, anyway.” Evan replied. “I know the sort, we’ve had history with them - a Fifth Sworder general, Palmer Conti, back during the Fourth Succession War, lot of Kuritan officers one way or another. Most of them,” a sharp, feral smile, “well, they came to bad ends, at our hands or someone else;s.”
"Glad to hear it.  Ballymont's still around, though.  Still got his boot on the necks of a lot of decent folk on Vega and surrounding worlds. I'd love to put a gauss slug through his cockpit, but haven't had the chance."  Bridger let out a breath.  "So yeah, this brought back memories.  Bad ones."
"Writing the letters is the hardest part," Evan said.  "especially when it's like that."
"Felt guilty with every one.  Lost some good people there, promising young officers, veterans, lot of people with families."  Bridger shook his head.  "I had to tell them their loved ones were left behind.  That I couldn't find a way to get them out."
“And it doesn’t make you feel any better that, no matter how many times you refight that battle, in sims and in your head, you can’t think of a single ****** thing you could’ve done any better’n you did.” Evan’s voice held a shared, bitter experience at that.
"It was a close run thing often enough… couldn't change a thing, every time I think of it, no matter how much I want to."  Bridger let out a sigh and turned to Evan.  "As for the prisoners… They hurt your people, Colonel, so you and your brother, or Duchess Schmitt, I'll leave the decision for justice up to you.  I've got no objectivity, that's for damn sure."
"Martin'll have an idea.  Speaking of which… while I've not had the time to check the intel we got, between the debriefings for our recovered people and what Roshak handed over, I think we'll get at least a better picture of what's going on, better than anything we can do otherwise.  I figure we should head back to Arc-Royal or Timkovichi at this point, not press our luck."
Bridger nodded.  "I was thinking the same, at least for now.  Let's get your people home and we'll figure our next moves there."
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EMCOTS 13