Comstar HPG Compound
Matheran, Free Worlds League
2nd April, 3015
Our raid on New Delos completed successfully, our prisoners and guests secured and healing on board the Low-Brow, we'd withdrawn from the surface and jumped back to Matheran, arriving just over two weeks later back in the system from which we'd departed on our daring raid to find absolutely nothing had changed here.
There were more than a few angry notes waiting for us in our respective HQs from League Central Co-ordination Command, since we hadn't bothered to actually inform them that we were going on the raid until it was time to go – and even then we'd left it in the routine message queue, which meant Comstar hadn't sent it until about twenty four hours before we'd departed the system. It seemed like no-one had actually read it until after we'd left too, which was oddly disheartening. What if something had gone wrong during our time here on planet?
My voicing that during a meeting shortly after planetfall with the two Oriente Colonels had gotten a laugh from Covaleski and an eye-roll from Mondou. Neither of them seemed too concerned with the content of the notes, but I was feeling a little bit more antsy, being a mercenary gave me both more and less leeway on these things depending on how my contract was written, and sometimes that could be creatively re-interpreted by angry governments. Even if we had captured several high level rebel figures and killed the actual leader.
I hadn't spent too much time with the captive Dragoons during the jumps hoping to avoid accidentally spilling any information during my TDS recovery (aka "How's the weather on Strana Mechty?"), so seeing Joshua Wolf mostly healed up once we'd arrived on planet almost caused a blue screen. He really did look a bit like a young Sean Connery, which immediately had me thinking Jaime must look a hell of a lot like him too. But was it a Bond Connery, or a Zardoz? I almost choked trying to keep the laughter in, causing me to get several raised eyebrows.
What were they doing here, you might ask? We had been back for a few days now and I'd brought Joshua and the rest of the captured Dragoons with me to the HPG compound so they could send out some messages to let their people know they were alive. As far as I was aware at least some of the rear-elements of the unit was still on Second Chance, if not with the rest on McKenna. Or punching the remnants of the Ducal Guard in the face on New Delos
Which was something that had me puzzled, because according to what one of the other inserts had written once upon a time, Anton had arrested the Dragoons left behind on the 6th of March, executed them all on the 15th, but then the rest of them hadn't shown up to kick his teeth in until May, when both systems were only a single jump from New Delos and two from each other. Obviously something was up, but what exactly was unknown.
Probably another case of FASA, or Wizkids, or CGL, or whoever wrote up that information not actually paying any attention to their own material.
"Sorry, Major, but seeing you with your lovely facial bruising much reduced has you looking like the brother of someone I used to know. Then I thought of your brother as that person himself and just had to laugh, I couldn't imagine someone less suited to your brother's reputation than him." I couldn't say it was an actor from 20th century Terra he reminded me of, that would be insane – especially since I had no idea if Sean Connery had actually been an actor here. Better to be a bit more generic.
It was a bit obvious that Wolf didn't really quite know how to handle that as I got a sort-of grin in response before he replied. "Fair enough Colonel. If we can get down to sending the messages off?"
I waved him on, taking the salutes of the guard squad as they escorted them in. The acolytes met them in the foyer and took them off to private rooms to send the messages without anyone looking over their shoulders while I remained out there, the guard squad having been politely left out here while being replaced by bored looking ComGuards.
Yes, the ComGuards did exist in this day and age. They were primarily considered little more than rentacops at this stage, though – private security or washed-up mercenaries with pretty manners.
Our replies to the angry messages had been sent as soon as we arrived on planet, full reports of our actions on New Delos right down to the breach of the bunker and finding Anton's body amongst the others included. Even the specifics as to what damage we'd taken and the salvage we'd acquired in its place. Part of the reason I was here at the HPG compound myself was because we were expecting our first replies to arrive within the next few hours, having said we would all be there in person regularly to await the replies. What better way to kill time than to make sure we weren't going to suddenly have five regiments of pissed off mercs suddenly dropping down on us?
If I was guessing from the amount of time that lapsed from the Dragoons going in there to send their messages and coming back out I'd have to say they'd kept it to coded preset messages. In all it had taken barely ten minutes for the first Dragoons to come back out, my guards taking over and ushering them back outside onto the truck that had brought them here. I was deep in my own thoughts when Joshua came to a stop in front of me.
"So Colonel, in case I don't have a chance to do this in person again, thank you once more for putting a bullet into Anton. Saved my brother the trouble." He drew himself to attention as he spoke and gave me a salute. I managed to respond to that but couldn't verbalise anything before he'd gone and joined the last of his people still here.
Bloody clanners. Yes, he had thanked me for saving him and his people before, but to also thank me for saving Jaime the trouble…
Since I'd been relieved of my paperwork duties by my loyal subordinates and had already visited my recovering wounded today I didn't have anything to draw me back to base, but my excuse for hanging around here without looking like a huge worrywart had just left. What to do, what to do.
Well, there was that one idea. It could be wind up causing me a lot of issues if it backfired, which it had the potential to do spectacularly, but would help flesh out some background to help disguise how I found the caches and lostech I plan on "finding" in the future.
And that was how I spent my afternoon speaking to any of the free members of the HPG compound about Comstar and its various roles – including asking about the punishment details working on war-damaged and abandoned worlds in the Hegemony when one of the Adepts alluded to them. I told the story of how we'd deliberately stopped in systems that had been abandoned for the purpose of paying our respects to the dead on our trip from the Outworlds, which got nods of approval from several of the acolytes. I also spent a chunk of time talking about how if I hadn't been offered a position as my father's future business heir I'd probably have joined Comstar, having grown up with them showing up missionary-style in increasing numbers in the Outworlds as teachers to help bring people back to higher levels of education.
Specific levels of higher education, of course. Nothing that could threaten the vision of Blake.
We were discussing Comguard secondments when the two Hussar Colonels came and joined me in waiting. I'd been "probing" cautiously at the idea of doing work for Comstar in exchange for helping keep my lostech gear intact, if there was any possibility of replacement units being available from restored factories or caches. I think I was doing a good impression of someone fishing on rumours of loosely restored Terran industrial might or remnant SLDF/Hegemony caches. The factories were all known to still exist after all, even if they were either mothballed or only producing lower tech versions of their prior products – and people always gossiped about huge caches remaining behind in the Sol system.
I shared a nod with the two officers and wound up the conversation with the Robes, moving over to join the two of them. Covaleski raised an eyebrow at my obviously long running discussion with the acolytes and adepts, to which I shrugged.
"Can never hurt to see if I can find spares from those rumoured caches back on Terra, even if it means taking a contract with Comstar. I won't be able to keep my machines running forever on the spares I've got and would prefer not to have to downtech too much." I explained. "Plus, they've been doing a lot of missionary type work back home in the Outworlds, helping bringing education standards up on some of the really backwards worlds there. If my father had chosen to ignore me, I'd probably have joined Comstar when I came of age."
The eyebrow only got more raised. "So, you a toaster-worshipper too?" He asked me, sharing a sidelong glance with Mondou. I shook my head.
"No, that's probably the only thing I don't like about Comstar, the whole Blessed Blake thing. Keep all the religious bits out of it and it's a pretty good philosophy to follow in life." This, of course, was based on the in-universe knowledge I'd acquired over twenty four years of life, not including everything I knew from outside. "Better than following along with the Omniss. At least Blake recognised you need the big stick sometimes."
That got the eyebrow back down and got me a snerk from Covaleski. Mondou merely shook his head. "I'm guessing we haven't had a response as yet, considering you're still standing out here." After I shook my head no, he gestured towards a conference room they'd been keeping open for us. "Might as well go sit and wait in comfort."
We moved into the room and sat around the table, the two of them asking about the condition of my Mech battalion. Jaye had already completed all the repairs required to my machines on the return journey back here and had moved onto starting work on the salvage we'd dragged back. While my heavies had provided a solid core for the fighting they'd managed to only take minimal damage despite savaging the rebel mechs they'd made contact with in heavy fighting - largely down to being able to fire from out of range of the majority of the rebels weapons systems, combined with the artillery fire from my Marksmans and Chaparrals and the continuous aerial harassment. Coupled with that, we'd agreed to give the Hussars the majority of the Mech salvage to help replenish their own ranks, though we had taken a fair few of the recovered vehicles and recoverable ASFs –including two of my downed airframes, luckily.
While we were running through updating each other on our own progress I was joined by my liaison Costiniu and lawyer Evangelos, who had been running themselves ragged going over various terms in the contract regarding the previously mentioned salvage and combat pay. Costiniu had been arguing that because it was an unauthorised raid, we weren't due our full compensation rates, even though his heart didn't seem in it. And of course Evangelos had been sticking up for us and arguing for bonuses on top of those, on account of us doing the job of ending the civil war.
I also had time to run through with them all what I'd done earlier today with the captured Dragoons, emphasising trying to avoid having five angry regiments dropping on us to retrieve their people. I mean, they still might try a raid anyways to retrieve them, but it would be a more civilised affair. Inasmuch as a commando raid is civilised.
The day was dragging on and we were stilling hanging around here rather than with our commands actually doing our jobs. I was nervous and frustrated in equal measure and it was really starting to damage my calm. A couple of times a messenger from one of our units would show up during our talks with some news or a request for something to be dealt with, but after a while we were just telling stories to pass the time. My contributions were limited, mainly providing an Outworlders perspective on something Free Worlder, though I did share with them the story of the assault on the Hangar Queen, especially how I got the bridge crew to surrender. It got a laugh from both of them, pirates surrendering because I asked politely.
Covaleski was in the middle of a bombastic story about leading an Steiner Recon Lance (yes, the stereotypical one, not an actual recon lance) on a long run around during skirmishing on the border when he was still a company commander when the Precentor (really the senior adept in charge of the Compound here, what would later be a Demi-Precentor ranked position) came barging into the room.
"Stand by for live transmission from Atreus!"
Oh.
Oh.
Shit.
Everyone scrambled to their feet as the holo-projector in the middle of the table sprang to life, a rotating Marik Eagle floating in front of us for a few seconds before it was replaced by a woman's face, the visible shoulders of the uniform baring the rank tabs for a Lieutenant Colonel. The Comstar Adept left the room before she spoke, giving us a semblance of privacy.
"Stand by for the Captain-General."
Double shit. Triple shit.
She was quickly replaced by the floating Eagle again, the five of us in the room sharing tense glances. It certainly wasn't every day you had an interstellar phone call from a Successor Lord.
For a fifty-eight year old he looked to be in really good shape - at least by my old standards, by Battletech standards he looked obviously worn down. And yes, he did have that weird Marik Eagle face tattoo. His dark hair was long and going to silver in places, while his goatee and moustache were still solidly coloured. In fact he almost matched those pictures I remembered from Sarna and the sourcebooks, there were only a few minor differences, with none in his major features. He swept his eyes across all of us as we saluted (not Evangelos, him not being military, but he did come to an approximation of attention) before nodding his head.
"Good morning, gentlemen, and good fortune that I caught all of you here at the same time. A more detailed debriefing and reply is being transmitted as I speak but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all in person, so to speak. You have done the Free Worlds an enormous good deed dispatching my traitorous brother, and have my personal thanks as well as that of Parliament. I expect you all to appear before us as deployment patterns allow, to discuss the rewards for your services. Farewell until then." Another sharp nod to the farewell salutes we'd managed to recover enough to give and the projector shut down, leaving me feeling weak at the knees.
Well. I'd hoped for something like that to happen, but a live connection over HPG had been wildly beyond my expectations. A summons to Atreus for a live audience before Parliament after the hostilities finished had been the highest I'd thought I'd get but this, this was amazing and frightening all at once. Everyone else in the room seemed equally stunned – the possibility hadn't come up in our talks at all. We'd been expecting a mix of pats on the back and a polite slap on the wrist for doing it on our own recognizance.
"So. That happened." I sunk back down into my seat as I said it, the other four mirroring me as they nodded along. We all sat there for a few moments before the projector beeped and flashed up again.
This time it was just a recorded message from an officer within the LCCC with both verbal and written parts, giving us orders to report to Atreus as soon as possible, our units to remain in place to hold Matheran. I offered to take both Mondou and Covaleski with me on the Low-Brow, using the Fancy Free as our ride and they agreed, easier to take just the one vessel rather than drag everything along. I loosely set a departure time of tomorrow evening, giving us a day to make sure everything was in order before we departed.
We all took possession of our mail and left the compound for our own bases, there was a fair amount to do before our departure. Our previously agreed upon salvage conditions had been approved, I'd landed another lance of battlemechs as well as a company of assorted tanks, along with supplies to get it all repaired and running. I don't know what the Hussars had gotten to keep, but it sounded like they'd be getting everything they dragged off the field at a minimum, especially if my mercenary self got what I took. Most of the rest was routine or follow up questions regarding operations, though I did get the LCCC unit citation Lucas had earned for Sackville, a nice little atta-boy medal and a small bonus for them.
From there it was determining who was coming with me - which was fairly simple this time – and beginning preparations to depart. I was leaving behind everybody but Henrik and his company - it having been them who'd breached the bunker first, their presence was requested – on the military side as well as bringing Evangelos and Etsuko as my senior support staff, meaning I had very little to do. Most of the time that was taken up was arranging for the rest of the jump troopers to get their gear off the Low-Brow, along with the VTOL crews. The orders to the rest were simple – continue to adopt defensive positions, guard the rest of the prisoners sans those we were taking to Atreus, prepare for redeployment at later date. With Anton dead the rebellion would surely soon gutter out, unless Gerald Marik picked up the flag and carried it forward so urgent redeployment wasn't too likely.
Unless he'd already been captured or was in the process of being captured on Park Place with the Third Marik Milita. There hadn't been any news of it yet, but again referring to the details one of the my predecessors wrote down he should have been captured there back in January, maybe early February.
Again, FASA/Wizkids/CGL cannot maintain an internally consistent timeline on the fine details. Blech.
I handed command over to Jessica and Jaye for the duration and went to bed. In the morning I got ready, panicked mildly over the fact we didn't really have a dress uniform for such an important meeting before heading to breakfast, met with my fellow Colonels at the gate to our encampment later in the day and headed for the Low-Brow, which was finishing preparation for launch. Last minute a pair of support stuff came running on board, shoved a bundle of clothes into my arms and ran back off, rushing to the little ground car they'd driven over from the main base.
Huh, apparently we did have a formal uniform prepared. I wonder who did that?
Barely ten minutes later we were secured for launch and blasting off. It would take six days to get to the jumpships – at a slightly higher burn rate than normal – then five jumps to Atreus, where we wouldn't be using the standard points – screw a sixteen day one-way journey. Thirty two days in total, since I'd be insisting on a four day pattern – it'd be no use to get there faster only to have to spend a week or more recovering from TDS, but we did need to get there quicker than normal. I hoped the Fancy was up for it, since we'd have to partially hot-charge the engines unless there were recharge stations available. A bit risky, but not a death sentence since we'd be going through all inhabited systems for once, help would be on hand for anything short of a catastrophic failure.
And I know I moan and complain about it a lot, but goddamn does TDS suck when you have to make jumps in quick succession. Four days was enough for me to recover from the worst effects, the ones that seemed to compound upon themselves. I'd probably still be feeling barely human the whole time, but at least I'd be capable of basic human interaction and would be recovered by the time we made planetfall on Atreus.
Kiyev. Elektrougli. Muscidia. Aitutaki. Atreus.
By the time we arrived on the planet the fighting had pretty much stopped. The Wolf Dragoons had still dropped on New Delos – a few days after we departed, which made more sense than May - and had savaged the First and Second Ducal Guard elements that tried to fight them rather than run as well as the scraps from the Eighteenth Marik Militia - which arrived there less than 24 hours after we departed from Emris IV, having themselves run from the Sixth and Eighth Orloff Grenadiers. The Dragoons had then departed, making their way back to Second Chance. Gerald Marik had indeed surrendered on Park Palace earlier in the year and was now enroute to New Delos in chains, along with many other high level rebels - the treason trials were just starting to ramp up as we arrived on Atreus, with the majority of those rebels facing execution.
Henrik, the Hussar Colonels and myself were escorted to our lodgings after we landed at the space port, while another security team swept in and took the bodies and prisoners we'd brought with us. A medical team was waiting inside my room, giving me a quick going over to make sure I was recovered from the journey – and not one I'd organised either, I'd relied on my medics on my dropship to clear me. I was mostly recovered by now anyways, basically feeling equivalent to jet-lag levels of badness rather than being anywhere near incapacitated.
After that we were taken to LCCC Headquarters on Atreus and run through several in-person debriefings. It was mostly them going over things that had been covered a few times in the dispatches, a fairly standard military bureaucracy type deal rather than trying to catch us out on something we might have hidden for nefarious purposes.
Then we sat on our heels for three days and waited. Well, Mondou and Covaleski waited – Henrik and I, along with Evangelos and Etsuko to a lesser extent, were run through protocol courses for meeting with the head of the Free Worlds League and several high-ranking members of both Parliament and the government. That kind of stuff is always interesting and boring at the same time, you know? The actual information is often fascinating, but the presentation drives people to snoozing because the type of person who tends to specialise in it tend to only be able to speak very dryly and boringly.
Of course, that is my personal opinion. The Outworlds tended not to be that formal in that fashion, though I had studied a fair chunk of the protocols for the Combine, the Suns and the Concordat during my schooling, just in case I ended up doing business on either side of the borders. I had also studied the other Houses and Periphery states too just in case I'd wound up traveling there to do business, but it hadn't been anywhere near a focus – more just something to butter ex-pats up with.
And so it was during a sitting of the League Parliament on Wednesday the 8th of May, 3015, the military members of the party were brought before the assembled nobles and representatives and given their thanks, pinned with medals where appropriate (both Covaleski and Mondou got Oriente Legion of Merits as well as Crests of the Eagle, while I was given a Crest of the Eagle for my Mech Battalion. Everyone got a Raiding Ribbon. There were also a number of smaller planetary and regional awards given, too many to name) and then led out to another round of applause and taken through several long passages into the area of the Captain-General's offices, finally being lead into a waiting room deep behind several layers of security.
Several hours and a couple of sweeps by security teams later, we were all summoned by a uniformed butler and led to yet another sitting room, again to wait for a short period of time before we were summoned into the Office of the Captain-General itself.
It wasn't just Janos though, there were a few others in the room with us – namely the majority of his remaining children, sans Gerald of course, as well as a few minions, none of whom were named. Shortly the introductions and protocols were through and done and we were all given permission to sit.
"Again, I will give you my thanks for ending this conflict. While I regret that you were unable to bring my traitorous brother to me alive, I am grateful you were able to bring this to a close sooner nonetheless." It was still weird seeing someone with that eagle tattoo on their face, I'd never liked the idea of facial markings. "I have brought you here to speak with you each personally about your rewards."
Technically, both of the Hussars were provincial units seconded to federal service for the duration of the rebellion, hence why he'd brought them both here to reward them rather than going through the military channels to do so. Both Colonels asked for supplies to help rebuild their units – I'm pretty sure they were coached into that answer by their higher authorities – which Janos easily granted.
"And you, Colonel Karter. The architect of the raid also deserves an award." Everyone in the room dropped their attention on me and all I could think of was the Astronaut's Prayer.
"Sir, permission to recruit from the lower ranks of the defeated rebels. Permission to buy at cheaper prices from Free Worlds industries, to allow for expansion of my force." I hesitated. Here was the important part. "A landhold, for a minimum of ten years in addition to whatever contracts I continue to take for the League. On Helm, in the Stewart Commonality, as a preference."
Luckily I'd discussed this a bit - as much as I was able to - with both my senior staffers here with me beforehand, to take a semi-permanent position here in the League so they weren't too shocked. I'd also mentioned Helm my favourite choice if I could get it.
Janos leant back in his chair and narrowed his eyes, considering me for a few seconds before speaking. "Helm, you say. Asking for it in particular - fancy yourself a lostech hunter, do you?" Most of his children drew in sharp breaths, only the two eldest recognising the planets' name from the start.
I shook my head. "No, Sir, I do not. Not seriously, anyway. While I imagine it would be utterly fantastic to find whatever the SLDF managed to hide away, I have no expectations of finding it. It did play a minor factor, I will admit – I have a fascination with Star League history, particularly relating to the SLDF and the period around the Amaris War, both before and after, including the lead up to the First Succession War – but I mainly chose Helm because it is far enough behind the lines I wouldn't be in danger of being raided unannounced while being close enough to Galatea and Solaris to shorten travel time for recruitment as well as plenty of space to build whatever facilities I required to house my expanding forces - if I was that successful - as well as being used several times in the past as a place to give landholds to mercenary forces by your family and the Stewarts. It would merely be a leisurely diversion to occupy any down time if you grant it to me, searching for the cache."
There were elements of truth in what I said. Helm was close enough to the border to allow quicker trips to Galatea and Solaris for recruitment, but far enough back that raids aimed at it would hit other worlds first – there was nothing there to make it a priority target, anybody hitting it would be doing so almost incidentally and so I wouldn't have to put my whole unit there to hold it, leaving me able to deploy on other contracts. The only outright lie was having no expectations of finding it – I was pretty sure that once I understood the geography of the planet better I'd be able to find it pretty quickly.
He continued to lean back and stare at me through narrowed eyes, keeping silent even as he allowed his children asked me questions about my plans and about life in the Outworlds. Duggan asked me probably the most pertinent question for Janos's consideration – "Why a minimum of ten years? Why not for life?"
"To be perfectly honest with you all, I don't intend to remain within the Sphere, let alone the League, for the rest of my life. We set out from the Outworlds following my father's plan to bring this regiment into the Sphere to gain experience before returning back home and resettling a world in the Wastes, giving us an experienced anti-pirate force to defend ourselves with as well as a hopefully sizeable amount of money and equipment to back it. Wouldn't want to do that too late in life but I expect in about ten years' time I'd be ready to go back, or at least start working and moving towards it." Of course, the original plan hadn't including finding the Hangar Queen, fixing it up and looting Helm and maybe New Dallas to the ground before returning. In fact, my father's plan had included provisions for everything from being reduced to barely more than a company of each of our elements all the way down to losing one or both of the jumpships and the majority of the dropships right on up to bringing a greatly expanded force back. The man hadn't planned small, even when he'd been thinking I'd be another insert he'd planned for me not actually being one. "With that as a core he'd planned to gradually re-expand the borders, the end goal being restoring the Outworlds to the full borders it once enjoyed."
The conversations continued for a little bit more time before Janos finally raised a hand and silenced his children. "For one so young, you have thought these plans through and obviously understand them. I will grant your requests, all of them. If you continue to serve well, we will see about what else we can send you off with in that distant future."
I'd done it. One more step down in the plan…