personal6

13

June 14, 3000

Federated Suns

Crusis March

Cholis

Morten Estate

A month and a half had passed since the Comstar facility had gone offline, and in that month and a half not a single person had emerged from their compound or answered a single message, not just from Stephan, but from anyone outside the facility they controlled on the north side of Brinestorm. Even Duke Alliz was chaffing enough under the current situation to see himself as an ally with House Morten on this, for Comstar's behavior was far beyond acceptable.

They'd essentially cut off Cholis from communications with the rest of the Federated Suns, with their only explanation being an automated message indicating an ongoing technical problem.

Then there had been a missing jumpship. One of the regular ones House Davion had scheduled on this trade route. It had been due 13 days ago and never showed, though other ones were still coming and going, and on those messages were being sent out via courier packages that most jumpships carried. They'd get paid a small fee to take messages with them from system to system, particularly when operating outside the Comstar network, but so far Stephan hadn't received any messages from the rest of his systems indicating any problems.

The trouble was, he knew that didn't mean a damn thing given how long it took to carry the messages across multiple jumps. Drymo was just right next door, and he'd had one of the four jumpships stationed here waiting for new orders to do a hop over there and check on them…but there were no issues there yet. He didn't want to just send all four out in case he needed them for some other purpose, so he'd just have to wait and hope the precautions they'd taken on the other worlds would hold up to whatever was going to happen.

He'd thought something would have happened before now, on Cholis at least. The communications going down and staying down meant something was going to happen, and if it was an attack on his mech factory on Foniss or other worlds, well, they wouldn't want word of that getting out, but what did they expect to do about the Duke and Ambassador? They could get messages back to New Avalon the slow way, which suggested that Comstar was going to do something soon.

And yet here he waited and waited, with nothing happening.

Protests had started to break out around the Comstar compound. Most people didn't use their services, but they got news from them, and the blackout was getting more and more upsetting to the locals…as was Comstar's refusal to explain anything.

And then, jumpships started entering the system…

"Five Merchant-class military conversions," Vander said at a breakfast table where he, Stephan, Grady, and Commodore Itomo sat, though there was no meal there yet. It was 5:38am and the cooks were only now starting to wake up and get the Morten palace kitchen going. "And one Star Lord-class carrying a medium grade warship with it," the Lord of Military Operations said, placing several satellite photos on the table that he'd just printed off. Everyone else was still asleep, with only these three having been woken by Vander this early.

Stephan's face narrowed. "Can you make out the type?"

"It's not a dropship conversion. This is custom made navy equipment, and there appears to be no aerofighter bays on it…at least not the side we're able to see. Gun placements suggest anti-ship…and orbital bombardment capability."

Stephan looked at the photo of the ship. It was long and brick-like for the most part. Not the smooth features of a dropship that expected to pass through an atmosphere. It was smaller than the old Star League warships that were also jumpships, and this one obviously wasn't big enough to be a surviving warship from that era…and with it being carried by the Star Lord it obviously had no jump drive of its own. It was a system defense warship, smaller than the ones they had on Neubenn that were too big to be carried between systems, but it would gun down any of their pocket warships in no time at all.

"We can handle it," Commodore Itomo said, who Vander had personally recruited from the mercenary ranks to train their naval officers. He'd formerly been part of the Draconis Combine's navy until he'd refused to follow an order to bombard a city from orbit. Rather than commit seppuku and give himself an 'honorable' death, he'd fled and took his considerable skills to the few mercenary units that possessed warships. He'd been there for three years before House Morten had convinced him to accept their hire.

"How do you figure that?" Vander asked, surprised.

"I'm referring to the warship only," he said. "If they use the dropships in concert, that changes things, but if they're full of mechs I don't think they'll want to take them into naval combat. We've got enough dropships and pocket warships to handle that full warship. We'd lose most of them in the fight, but we'd keep possession of orbit and force a ground fight."

"13 dropships?" Stephan asked for confirmation.

"Yes. The Star Lord only carried three others. The warship blocked two addition docking ports. All are Unions save for four Overlords. If they've got fighters with them, there can't be that many. Six per Overlord, and two per Union if the Unions even bother carrying them. Usually those bays are hard sealed and used for additional cargo to support the mechs."

"42 fighters maximum," Stephan counted. "Still more than we've got here."

"I'd be surprised if they had half that," Itomo declared. "I know this unit. The warship is to make sure they can land their mechs. They don't use aerospace fighters for anything other than ground support ops."

"Lion's Teeth Legion," Vander said, handing Stephan a dossier on them. "Not quite top tier, but just below it. They're rumored to have three Regiments, and they could have two of them in those dropships. Orange Mushroom is pacing them just ahead of their path, and Teal is burning hard from the Zenith point to get here ahead of them."

"Why isn't Orangeharassing the jumpships?"

"It was, but I called it back. They've got at least a squadron of fighters based on the jumpships, plus some defense cannons directly mounted on them. We can take one of them for sure, but the mercenaries didn't seem to care enough to leave any dropships in support, and I figured we needed everything we've got here to deal with that warship."

"How fast is that thing?" Stephan asked Itomo.

"I'd guess no faster than 1.5g. Standard dropships can outrun it. It's meant to hold ground, not chase."

"Four days," Vander said, already having done the math. "It's holding at 1.2 right now and the dropships are staying with it."

"If you can keep that warship at bay," Grady said stoically, "they can't take the Estate with two Regiments. It'll be nasty fighting, but they don't have a chance."

"So what's the plan?" Stephan asked out loud as he looked at the pictures of the dropships escorting the warship. "Do they expect to bombard the Estate? Land their mechs and take us on the ground? I know we haven't been obvious with what we've got to defend here with, but we can't exactly hide our dropship fleet sitting on pads out in the open. Did they do their math wrong?"

"It could just be a softening attack for other mercenaries to finish the job later," Itomo pointed out.

"Would the mercenaries sign off on that?" Grady questioned. "They want to make money, not get their unit half wiped out."

"Depends on what they're being paid," Vander offered, "and what they've been told."

"Are they messing with our jumpships?"

Vander shook his head. "They didn't even twitch in their direction. And with full capacitors ours can jump out before anyone can mess with them, that warship included. And they've got standing orders to do so. Don't worry about them."

"How dangerous is that warship going to be to our fighters?"

Itomo stiffened. "Based off these photos, I'd say considerable. I recommend you keep the fighters in reserve and let me handle this with the dropships. Only launch them in response to the enemy's own fighters."

"Shouldn't we get as many guns as possible on that warship?"

"If you equip them with naval lasers, the amount of damage they will do will be negligible to anything other than opposing aerospace fighters. If you equip them for ground ops, those weapons will have considerably more effect on the warship…but it will require them to get so close these mercenary gunners will have too easy of shots, and if enemy fighters engage them and they're equipped for naval combat, they can keep outside our fighter's range and safely rack up hits. This warship is meant to defend against fighters and dropships, and will excel at both. Better to save the fighters and have them go after the dropships or screen against the other fighters."

"And if they sent everything at once?"

"Then we would have a pyrrhic victory at best, but I would have all ships focus fire on the warship only. If it has a single naval-grade laser battery operational afterward, it can target this Estate from orbit. That is the primary threat there. And I would suggest they do not know how many upgrades we've made to our dropships. I highly doubt they even know about our missile boats. They probably believe they can win against a mix of military and civilian dropships."

"If we hadn't made any upgrades at all, what then?"

"We could hurt the warship, but we could not stop it short of kamikaze attacks. And to get the necessary speed for such an intercept, they would have to have a long approach vector that would easily be identified beforehand and evaded. Lesser collisions will do damage, of course, but any naval officer worthy of commanding a warship will know how to avoid such a trap. If they do not know of our upgrades, it would appear they would win a hard fought space battle against our dropships, or an easier one if they include their own dropships…which would jeopardize their mech forces."

"Why do they need the mechs if they're just going to bombard us from space?" Grady asked.

All three sets of eyes turned to him, then glanced at each other.

"A good point," Vander said, thinking hard. "This is Comstar's doing. What's their endgame here? They obviously don't want anyone reporting what's going to take place, but what stops Carroll or the Duke from filing a report the slow way, or whenever Comstar brings their facility back online?"

"They want prisoners," Stephan finally said. "They need to know what we know, and if they just destroy everything from space they'll never know."

"So the warship blows through our dropships in space," Grady said, playing this out. "Then they land their mechs and use the warship's mighty weapons as fire support? Hitting the mech bays or any of our mechs that decide to stand still a wee bit too long?"

"You're right, there's something else going on here," Vander said. "I can't see what though."

"Dastardly deeds done in the dark," Itomo said ominously. "Whatever they intend to do, they do not want the Federated Suns or the rest of the Inner Sphere to know of it. Then they can create whatever cover story they wish afterwards."

"I agree," Stephan said with a nod. "So the first piece of this drama happens in space? We send our dropships up and wait for them, or go after them further out?"

"Wait for them," Vander answered. "If they get low enough to bombard us, we can fire the extra anti-ship missiles from the surface as a last resort."

"No," Itomo said firmly. "We cannot let them get close enough to fire a single weapon onto the surface. They may choose to do so, taking damage in the process, then withdrawal. We cannot use the Estate as a lure. We must keep them out of low orbit and force a fight above it."

"That's what I meant," Vander explained. "I just didn't want to hit them two days out and give them two days to repair damage before they got within range of the surface if we lost."

"Do you want to launch them now or wait until they're a few hours out?" Stephan asked.

"Better to wait until the last minute and see what they do first," Vander said after glancing at Otomo. "I don't think we're going to be able to scare them off with a line of dropships in orbit."

"Is there anything else we can do over the next 3 and a half days to prepare?"

"Plenty on the ground," Grady said, leaning back in his seat and glancing towards the kitchen as a loud 'bang' sounded from a dropped metallic something or other out of sight.

"We empty the holds on the civilian dropships," Itomo said, ticking items off on his fingers. "And install as many missile mods as we can inside. Then we open the doors to space at maximum range, launch the missiles, then close the doors before engaging with conventional weapons. We also weld every armor plate we have available onto the ships whether they fit or not. With empty holds, they can handle the extra weight and lift off slower than normal to accommodate for the atmospheric friction."

"We also," Itomo went on, "need to equip a pair for rescue operations in the aftermath with additional lifeboats and spacesuits. I suggest we commandeer the three at the Brinestorm spaceport for that duty."

Stephan raised an eyebrow, then glanced at Vander, who shrugged.

"If the shit is going to hit the fan, it may not just hit us. They might be targets anyway. If we use them for rescue ops, that frees up more of our ships to fight, but we'd need our own crews onboard. Hell, for all we know they might side with the mercenaries and start shooting at us. We need to deal with them and the militia now rather than later."

"I'll handle both," Stephan said with a nod. "You get the modifications going on our own dropships immediately."

"Commodore?" Vander asked.

"I'll see to it myself," he said, standing up from the table with a nod of respect to each, then he hurried off into the early morning sunrise just beginning to eek some light into the sky.

"Grady, what can we do down here?" Stephan asked.

"It depends whether they intend to hit us or the spaceport," he said, gesturing with his hands.

"Why would they go for the spaceport?"

"Why leave witnesses?" Grady countered.

Stephan had a sinking feeling in his stomach. "They blacked out everyone, including the Duke."

"Me thoughts exactly. I've heard stories of a few other times mercenaries didn't play nice. Scorched earth, I think is the term. And Cholis doesn't have that many people."

"Shit," Vander said, cursing himself for not seeing it sooner. "That's what they need the mechs for. To clean up what the warship doesn't hit."

"Aye, it might just be that…or they have some other game they're playing. What do you want us to do if they hit the spaceport?"

"If they come down to the surface, we hit them no matter where they land," Stephan said flatly.

Grady nodded. "That'll be difficult if we don't have any dropships available."

"Damn it, he's right," Vander said, cupping his head in his hand. "This is going to get dicey if we can't move troops around very fast. We need to preposition some in or near the city. These mercs have multiple ways they can get at us, and we can't defend against all of them at the same time. We have to pick and choose priorities, and they can alter their tactics based on what they see us do here."

"The city means nothing if they can't take this Estate," Stephan reminded them both. "This is still their primary objective. Assume that sooner or later, if they can't use the warship, they will assault here in force. Set up as many traps as you can, and we'll deal with the city as we can later."

"I'd still like to have troops further out," Grady added, "for flanking purposes. Maybe even take down their dropships after they land. Put them on the defensive a bit. I don't want to get all our mechs bottled up here and having to wait turns to take shots."

"You two figure out the defense plan. I'll see about the Duke and the dropships. If Itomo can't keep that warship at bay, I don't think we'll be doing anything more than evacuating who we can."

"Assuming we still have dropships left to work with," Vander added.

"We've got more coming regardless," Stephan reminded him. "Set up some evac points into the wilderness. Hide them well, with emergency supplies."

"We already have."

"Add some more, further out. If the warship parks over the Estate, get them outside its firing range."

"Good idea," Vander said morosely, "but it's just a delaying tactic. If we can't stop that warship here, they can go around to all our other worlds and just repeat the tactic."

"They'll be branded butchers regardless," Grady noted. "So why stop at one planet?"

"This is why we need warships of our own," Stephan said, feeling like they'd run out of time far sooner than he'd expected. "Big ones."

"There aren't many mercenary units that have these," Vander reminded him. "If we can take this one down, others might not even try."

"Well, there's a little hope then," Stephan said dryly as one of the cooks came out into the dining area and placed a fresh pot of coffee on the wall-mounted self-serve area. "We need to do every little thing we can the next four days that might make a difference…but it can wait until after breakfast. Let people sleep another hour or two."

"Except the techs," Grady reminded him.

"Techs are used to pulling all-nighters," Vander reminded him. "They'd rather have less sleep than less work time to mount that armor and missiles. I'm just glad we've kept a stockpile of both."

Stephan got up and went to get some coffee, resigning himself to an uncertain future. There were too many variables in place to start making guesses, and they wouldn't know exactly how the Lion's Teeth Legion were going to play this until they got a lot closer.

"Admiral," Korra Venni said with a nod of her head as she walked onto the bridge of the Lion's Den fresh out of the shower. Thankfully they still had some deceleration to do, otherwise she'd have missed it when the gravity effect shut off and so did the shower facilities outside the gravity disc that housed the command staff, though it wasn't spinning now as she'd climbed up a ladder well to get to it.

"Miss Venni," Admiral Neeva replied courteously. "I was about to call you."

"I know how to read a clock," she said, glancing at the display screen that showed a very large green/white planet before her with a haze of exhaust thrust distorting the picture ever so slightly.

"The Mortens have assembled their dropships to meet us, as expected. The count is higher than you reported, though. They have 28 awaiting us."

"Is that a problem, Admiral?"

"More difficulty, but not a mission problem. However, the one that beat us here from the other jumppoint showed better engine capacity than expected. It's possible they've reconfigured it with more weapons as well. How thorough was your analysis?"

"As thorough as it can be," she said, shooting him back a hard stare. "What's your point?"

"His point," another voice said, arriving just behind them both, "is that you didn't hire us to fight a fair fight, and if more and more 'surprises' keep popping up, that's just what we may have."

Venni turned to face the Colonel of the Lion's Teeth. "That almost sounds like cowardice, Colonel. I can assure you that I'm not paying these rates for anything less than the professionalism I was promised."

"And we were promised good intel," Colonel Keller countered deftly, then turned to the Admiral. "How do we look?"

"I don't think we have to risk the dropships yet. Better to make them choose and split their forces."

"How many pocket warships do they have?"

The Admiral frowned. "Miss Venni's information didn't say anything about pocket warships."

"Rumor has though. If we split up, we have to keep them off our dropships. Can you identify dropship conversions from this range?"

The Admiral shook his head. "No. Even at close range it is hard to tell until they start firing or maneuvering. The two they had at the star might be pocket warships, but we're not racing them to the planet so we haven't gotten a good idea of just how fast their engines are."

"Fast ships won't help against the warship," the Colonel noted, "but if they can run down our dropships while landing, that's a problem I do not want to have. We need to identify which are which before we split up."

"We have the two from the star tagged and can consider them as such," the Admiral offered, "but there's no way to tell about the others until we get a lot closer."

The Colonel scratched the stubble on his chin for a moment. "Then have the dropships fall back. When they split on their entry vector we can see who the Mortens chase. If it's us, they land unopposed. If they chase them, we can divert to group up again."

"The numbers are not so accommodating if we want the dropships close enough to assist us if needed."

"Do it," the Colonel ordered.

"Yes, sir," the Admiral said, glancing at their employer one last time with unkind eyes before issuing a string of commands to both the warship's crew, which doubled as fleet command for the mercenary unit, and the accompanying dropships.