13 replies to this topic

[NeoAres]

Hey MWO Peeps! It's been a long, long time since I wrote any Battletech fan fiction. I'd like to get into it again, but the first step for me has to be reworking my existing fan fiction. This will help me accomplish three important things
1. Allow me to reread my work to remember what the heck I was writing about
2. Allow me to proofread my work in order to make it easier and more fun to read, and to make it more believable in the Battletech universe (I took several liberties the first time around)
3. Hopefully gain me a new following of readers since my original readership is about 8 years removed

So, here is the first story I wrote in my Azure Griffin series. It was initially titled "Rise From The Ashes" but I've changed the title to something a bit more...mature sounding. The story takes place in a non-canonical system on The Periphery, just outside of Lyran space (in the vicinity of Barcelona). It coincides with (and involves) the Jade Falcon Incursion of 3064, detailed in the novel Operation Audacity. I made careful sure that everything about this fanfic could be seamlessly integrated into the canon storyline without any conflict, so enjoy it as if it were part of Battletech lore.

Anyhow, enough talking about it. I will start rewriting it and releasing it. I am aiming for a chapter each week, so look out for new submissions every Wednesday. Response comments are allowed and welcome.
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Prologue

Solviato, Unyaro
Unyaro System, Periphery
31 October 3050

Lawrence awoke from his slumber. Looking out through the canopy of his Lancelot, he noticed that the light filtering through the rubble above him was now a soft white, as opposed to the angry orange that had been flickering in for the last three days. The first time he had attempted an escape from the steel web trapping his mech, the roasted girders had seared his palms on contact. Now that the fires had finally gone out, the wreckage should be safe to touch.

* * *

"Sasha, I hope you're having better luck than we are!" Captain Fielder called out over the comm. His Awesome and Lawrence's Lancelot were being pushed back further and further into the heart of the city.

"Lieutenant Maelon is dead, sir!" Tim Roberts' voice hastily blurted out in response, the sounds of battle filtering through behind it, "The 16th here has been smashed and we're pulling the remanants back to the capital!"

"Pull back to the palace yard. I'll do the same. We'll make our stand there."

Lawrence grunted as he drove home another laser blast into an approaching clan mech. "I don't think we're winning this one, sir!"

"Thank you for your evaluation, Sergeant Olliver. Any of your lance still with us?"

"I don't know. They and our 16th friends were trying to get into the clanners' rear quarter last I heard."

* * *

Lawrence dug his way up, pushing aside smaller beams and trying to wriggle around the heavier ones. Each time he shifted an obstacle he was showered in dust and ash, but still he pressed on. Now the sunlight was just a few centimeters away, and he thirsted for it like no drink could ever quench. He grabbed the topmost girder with his burned and bloody hand; the back of it felt comfortably warm, caressed by the midday sun. Groaning with pain and exhaustion, he pulled himself up and out of the hole. What he saw didn't surprise him one bit, but he gapsed nonetheless.

The city had been leveled to the ground. Scattered fires were still burning all over, but it was nothing compared to before. Too exhausted to weep, Lawrence sat atop his former prison and stared blankly at his beloved capital.

* * *

A wing of fighters streaked overhead, making Lawrence instinctively duck his head. "Tim, you've got incoming flyers!"

"Huh?"

At that moment, the fighters dropped their loads on the retreating forces. Lawrence glanced through his rear screen as the entire area erupted into flames. Inferno bombs. A dozen cries drowned out the comm chatter for a few moments as the searing heat cooked men alive in their cabins. Of all weapons created by man, Inferno gel had to be one of the most cruel.

Lawrence watched, incensed, as more fighters swooped in and began bombing random targets with incendiaries. "They're setting the whole city afire!"

"They're trying to burn us out," Captain Fielder responded coldly, "don't let it distract you. We've got a battle to fight." Pausing just long enough to blast another salvo from his particle projection cannons out at the invaders, he deadpanned, "We're making our stand right here. If we die, then at least we can hope they'll stop afterwards."

As if they were wrathful gods and we the sacrificial lambs for the slaughter. "I'm with you, sir."

The two defending battlemechs stood fast in the apocalyptic scene, pumping firepower into the advancing Jade Falcons like a pair of Western gunslingers. Buildings burned all around them, the firestorm spreading from block to block like some hellish, insatiable monster. The heat inside Lawrence's cockpit seemed to match the heat outside, the buildup from his energy weapons overworking the heatsinks. However, his beleaguered battlemech continued to function, continued to fight, continued to kill. He felled one clan mech, then another. Captain Fielder was doing even better, coring his opponents with crushing salvoes from his triple PPCs. Lawrence's senses began to go into overdrive. He could now see clearer, shoot faster, and fight harder than he ever knew possible. In that one single moment he felt invincible, like an immortal warrior angel sent from Heaven to annihilate the demonic hordes set upon the mortal world. His fantasy was interrupted by a loud moaning from the flame-engulfed tower to his left. He turned and looked up just in time to see the building twist on its melted struts and collapse in on itself, the near side crashing down upon his Lancelot like an unrighteous tidal wave. The heavy battlemech fell down on its rear with a deafening crash as the massive structure buried it in flaming metal. Lawrence's helmeted head bashed into the back of his seat, making his brain throb blindingly.

"For the duke and his people!" he heard Lucas Fielder yell in his ear before his spinning head finally reeled itself into darkness.

* * *

Unwilling to stand back up, Lawrence dragged his weary body over the piles of rubble covering the street. Captain Fielder's Awesome was almost indistinguishable from the other twisted and charred heaps of metal strewn all about, but Lawrence's familiar eyes recognized it immediately. He had known his commander was dead long before now, so the time for grieving over him had long since passed. The only feeling left in Lawrence's heart was worry for the citizens he had died to protect. He rose to his feet and trudged onwards towards his goal, knowing he could not rest until he had seen for himself whether Captain Fielder's last order had saved his people; the order he had given when he knew his own life had already been lost.

Lawrence came upon the foundations of the palace, the last remnants of what had last week been Unyaro's seat of power. He cleared away charred floorboards and roof rubble to reveal a smooth surface of concrete beneath. This was the royal bunker, the last haven for the duke and his family, or so it had been intended to be. The Jade Falcon attack had come down on Solviato so swiftly, there had not been time to evacuate many of its inhabitants. As such, the Duke had opened the doors to his private bunker for over a thousand of the city's best and brightest citizens, in the interest of preserving some small portion of the planet's upper class. The rest of Solviato's population who hadn't evacuated had certainly been incinerated in the firestorm, but maybe, just maybe, the duke had been saved.

The bunker seemed to have remained undamaged, giving Lawrence a shred of hope. He removed the last of the rubble blocking the bulkhead and punched the release code into the electronic lock. The deadbolts retracted and he swung the heavy blast door open to reveal a pile of bodies littering the stairway, stretching all the way down into the darkness. The corpses were not burned; they had suffocated, every last one of them. Lawrence's guess was that the firestorm had enveloped the air vents, vacuuming the oxygen right out of the crammed compartment and consigning its occupants to a quiet, gasping death.

Lawrence let go of the door, allowing it to clang shut, and collapsed to his knees. His commander was dead, as was his duke. His city was destroyed and its population decimated. He had survived through pure fortune alone, likely the only warrior on the planet to do so. Shellshock sapped away the last of his consciousness, his mind going blank as his head hit the ground.

Edited by NeoAres, 29 January 2015 - 05:07 PM.

[Tank]

Great start for a story, sinks you deep really fast so I was able to imagine scenes of fighting and desolation, grey walls and shadows on the floor as bunker doors opened.

And it's a story based in the Periphery, witch are uncommon, so thank you for adding details to my most favorite of places in Battletech.

[Bill Bullet]

Good stuff, helps scratch that BT fiction itch!

[NeoAres]

Thanks for the encouragement!

So, I have a snow day today, and I plan to be occupied tomorrow morning going to a super bowl parade, so I decided it'd be a good idea to release this chapter a day early. Enjoy!
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Chapter 1

New Solviato, Unyaro
Unyaro System
The Periphery
21 May 3064

Steven Raiell tapped his foot nervously on the fresh black pavement and fidgeted in his metal fold-up chair. He found the subtle squeaks of the flimsy seat comforting for some reason, so he fidgeted as vigorously as he dared without attracting attention. This was the moment he had been waiting for, that he'd been training for for the last two years. The magnificent fortress-city of New Solviato was about to be declared complete and he named its captain of the guard. To his right, Major Olliver stood at a podium in the middle of the main boulevard, addressing the hundreds of citizens and media representatives who had turned out to the central square for today's ribbon-cutting ceremony. Steve glanced over at his comrades in the city's police department seated beside him and rubbed his hands together. The chief offered him a reassuring nod and several of his friends raised subtle thumbs up. Captain Steven Raiell--it still seemed far too lofty for a 24 year-old, but then again the vast majority of the department was rather fresh in the boots. They had the Solviato Incident to thank for that.

The Solviato Incident, an atrocity so inexplicably heinous no title could do it adequate justice, had shaped everything about the planet's culture since its occurrence. Thirteen years ago, Clan Jade Falcon had invaded Unyaro, wiped out its defenders, razed its capital, killed its entire ruling line and upper class, and then packed up and left. Thousands had died in the flames and to this day Steven did not know the reason for the attack or the withdrawl. Clan invasion was no strange event in itself--the clans had conquered dozens of systems in the Periphery and Inner Sphere alike--but whereas in most cases the civilian populations were spared bloodshed, Unyaro's capital city seemed to have been specifically targeted for destruction. It was as if massacring all those people had been the objective, the Falcons' sole reason for coming--a conclusion too barbaric for consideration if not for the strange, ruthless nature of the clans.

In the years since the Falcons' departure, the remaining people of Unyaro had struggled to rebuild. Fortunately, the spaceport and agricultural institutions on Unyaro had been left unscathed, so slowly but surely the lush farming planet had raised enough money through exports to recoup all it had lost and then some. On the military front, the Unyaro Home Defense Force had been rebuilt under the command of Major Olliver, the lone military survivor from the Incident. Not only had its standard battlemech company been reconstituted, but an additional lance had been formed to defend Lunaverde, Unyaro's forested moon. Only last year, the UHDF had also acquired and refurbished two lances of antiquated light aerospace fighters and a small Leopard-class dropship, providing the defense force with interception capability for the very first time. It was these accomplishments Major Olliver was detailing to the crowd at this very moment.

The Major finished his speech and stepped down from the podium to a roar of applause from the inspired crowd. Governor Ritt Morney, the elected leader of Unyaro's new democratic government, stepped back up to the microphone. "Now it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to the New Solviato Police Department's newly appointed City Defense Captain, Steven Raiell," the Governor announced, applauding as he backed down the podium steps. Steve rose from his seat and strode magnanimously towards the microphone, keenly aware of the holovid cameras broadcasting his image live to households all across the planet.

I am strong. I am confident. I am brave. I earned this. Steve kept repeating the phrase in his head as he approached the podium. A year of military service in the UHDF followed by a year overseeing every facet of the construction of his new city's defenses had thoroughly prepared him for the monumental responsibility that lay before him, but nothing had prepared him for the fame and attention he was receiving at this moment. It made sense though--New Solviato was a panic room on a global scale, more fortress than city. It was designed to be the modern-day equivalent of the ancient castle, the refuge to which the population could flee and feel secure in event of attack. It was built to repel invasion, withstand destruction, and endure siege. For a periphery planet scarred by atrocity, lacking the resources for an army or the allies for a rescue, New Solviato represented the Unyaro people's greatest desperate attempt at security. As the administrator of its myriad defensive constructs, Steve held that security, and consequently its inhabitants' peace of mind, in the palm of his hand and they adored him for it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon," he began with a stiff, professional tone reminiscent of Major Olliver's. He knew full well that the civilians gathered before him needed to see him as mature beyond his years if they were to entrust him with their safety. For Steven, it was a difficult task indeed. No sarcasm, no wisecracks, no grins, no posturing; Steve struggled to bottle up his natural inclinations. Just channel the Major for five more minutes. Think about dour Majorly things--quartermaster reports, disciplinary hearings, mission logs, push-ups, lots and lots of push-ups...

"Welcome to the safest city the periphery has ever known," he continued as he flicked a remote control to change the image projected on the holoscreen beside him from Major Olliver's illustration of the UHDF's troop composition to a three-dimensional layout of New Solviato. The city was rectangularly-shaped, half-again as long North-South as East-West. Around the perimeter had been built a massive ferrocrete wall, thirteen meters high and three meters thick at the top. Two wide boulevards bisected the city into four quarters, meeting at the central square in which the majority of the people gathered here today were standing. These main boulevards handled all traffic in and out of the city, via four gateways in the wall equipped with sliding solid ferrosteel doors. From the middle of the square, one would be able to see all four gates at once, their doors currently wide open and inviting, but able to shut and lock within a matter of minutes in the event of attack. A pair of anti-armor turret guns adorned the ramparts above each gate, while two dozen others lay scattered along the wall-top. Anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems crowned many of the tallest buildings in the city to complete the fortifications. While Steve acknowledged (in private) that the fortifications alone would not stop a determined clan force from destroying the city, he was confident that, augmented by the UHDF's assets, New Solviato would be an incredibly tough nut to crack.

"I am proud to call myself an inhabitant of New Solviato, a citizen of Unyaro, and a devoted guardian of its people. We as a world have risen from the ashes of the clan invasion with one thought echoing through our minds: never again." Steve paused to let the solemn vow sink in to his listeners, then continued with a fire in his voice, "never again will we have to fear the Jade Falcons or any of their brethren. Never again will we have to fear the loss of our freedom, our lives, or our loved ones to the demons who care not for any of these things. We need no longer look to the Griffin to defend us--we can defend ourselves! The clans have chosen to wait, why or for how long we do not know, but they have already waited too long. Should they never test our defenses, I would be happy. Should they test them tomorrow, I would be equally pleased to watch them break against our walls like so much water. Either way, we will endure. New Solviato will endure. Unyaro will endure!"

The crowd roared deafeningly as he dismounted the podium and returned to his seat, desperately trying to hide his excitement over their response. He recognized that he had failed to entirely eliminate posturing from his speech, but perhaps a small bit of pomposity was a good thing for the city's morale on this day of new beginnings. He watched as Governor Morney cut the ribbon in half to a renewed wave of audible euphoria and his straight face finally broke, replaced with a grin that felt as wide as the boulevard.

Angia, Lunaverde
Unyaro System

The glittering blue star sparkled in the telescope's lens, almost dancing for Charlie Dorano's fascinated eye. This star, named Barcelona by the people of the Inner Sphere, was a staple of the Unyaran people's mythology. To them, it was the "Griffin's Eye," the most sacred of all celestial bodies. Part of the constellation Griffin, a colossal collection of stars that dominated the rimward night sky, Barcelona was also the closest inhabited system to Unyaro, a fact explained away as coincidence by none but the most cynical of citizens. Though the human race had long ago dropped such pagan views as the mysticism of constellations, the people of Unyaro had nonetheless established a spiritual, almost religious connection to the constellation and the creature it represented. Songs and stories were passed down from generation to generation of the griffin swooping down from the heavens in the days of the first colonists to drive off predatory beasts and vicious marauders in defense of the settlers. Their reverence was nothing verging on worship of course, but given the amount of strife the people of the system had endured over the centuries, believing in a spiritual protector like the griffin was a privileged comfort.

Nine-year old Charlie, like most young children in the system, fed into the Griffin myths eagerly. Charlie had been engrossed by one story in particular, a tale in which a boy Charlie's age had once won a staring contest with the griffin and had been granted a single wish as a reward for his vigilance. Determined to repeat the feat, Charlie had begged his father for a telescope with which to conduct the contest. Jack Dorano had eventually given in, vainly hoping this was the start of a future astrophysics career for the child and not simply a frivolous waste of his hard-earned paycheck. Ever since, Charlie had been spending nearly every evening up on the roof of the family house, waiting for some sign of life from his griffin. He was going to wish for an Atlas of his very own; he imagined himself driving it to school each morning and nearly squealed with glee at the thought.

Charlie took his head away from the scope and stretched his aching neck. He glanced up at the large green crescent high above the griffin's wing. Unyaro looked just as beautiful from this distance as it had looked from the surface back when Father had taken him there to visit his grandparents last year. Lunaverde was nice and all, with its great big evergreen trees and glittering gemstones, but the moon was too rocky and much too small for his liking. He'd already promised himself that when he was old enough to leave home, he was going to move to Unyaro and become a farmer like his grandfather. He wondered how his Atlas was going to make the trip.

Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, he quickly turned his head back towards the telescope's lens, lest he miss the griffin's long-awaited wink. The star twinkled vigorously in the lens, as if the griffin was about to give up any second now. Charlie hoped it would happen soon; it was getting a bit chilly out in the dry night air.

A sudden flash in the lens forced Charlie to squint and the thought instantly entered his head: It did it! It blinked! When his eye refocused, however, what he saw in the lens was something different entirely. It was long and shiny, and it definitely didn't belong to the griffin. He yelled down into the house for his father to come see the strange object. A few moments later the trap door lifted up and Jack climbed out onto the roof. Charlie pointed at the telescope and Jack put his eye to it. He played with the focusing knob and his mouth opened wide. "Charlie, go fetch Daddy the telephone please," his voice cracked, his eye still glued to the lens.

* * *

The ringer of the telephone created such a horrid sound that Cid was fully awake in an instant. In 31st Century life, such devices had long ago become obsolete in favor of video communication, but out on stupid little periphery moons like Lunaverde, audio landlines were usually still the cheapest and most reliable means of short range communication.

The exhausted Corporal had been spending the entire evening filling out reports was dead tired after hours of exhausting and depressing typing. He couldn't remember having a worse day than today, not since the Solviato Incident, anyway. That morning, the barracks had received a call that two heavily armed men had taken hostages inside the Angia town hall. (It was later learned that they were escaped convicts from the Inner Sphere who had sneaked onto the moon aboard one of the trading dropships that occasionally visited the system.) Since the local police didn't possess the firepower or combat training to safely handle the situation alone, they had called upon Cid's battlemech lance to back them up.

The mechs had taken defensive positions around the small two-story building while the police negotiated with the hostage-takers, as simple an operation as it could possibly get. Then Cid's greenest pilot, a no-talent hologame junkie with delusions of grandeur by the name of Brian Goldman, had tipped his Enforcer off-balance, allegedly trying to avoid stepping on an ignorant bystander. The rookie had toppled his mount right into the roof of the town hall, leveling the majority of the structure under 50 tons of metal monstrosity. At last count, eighteen people had lost their lives in the collapse, including both criminals and several members of the lunar assembly. Goldman's Enforcer had been heavily damaged as well, though that was the least of anyone's concerns. All in all, it was the worst tragedy in Angia's history and Cid's name would now be cemented in the records as the leader of that fateful mission.

Being responsible for the unit, Spannek was charged with all the unfortunate cleanup duties: reporting to Major Olliver on Unyaro, apologizing to the families of the victims and the town in general, and thinking of a fair punishment for his blundering cadet. He secretly wished that the UHDF budget managers had put a little money aside to fund better training facilities for mechwarriors instead of wasting it all on the stupid New Solviato defenses; Cid had never seen a more paranoid and idiotic set of expenditures (though he would never vocalize that opinion in front of any of the other survivors from the first clan invasion).

He'd started with the apology letters, the easiest of the three tasks, but upon completing them he had downed eight beers and fallen asleep on the couch in an ill-conceived effort to forestall his dreaded conversation with the Major. Now, awoken by the phone long before his liver had had the chance to complete its daunting mission, he was tired, drunk, and, despite his ingenious strategy, still depressed. Haha, It was this kind of behavior that got me busted down from Sergeant and banished to the moon. Alcohol: the gift that keeps on taking.

As the still-ringing telephone clanged his hangover back to life, he slammed his hand on the receiver and closed it meticulously. Finding purchase on the desired object, he put it to his mouth and, in a slurred, almost incomprehensible voice, yelled at the caller to speak. He wasn't actually that drunk; he just wanted to make enough of a scene to intimidate whoever it was into hanging up unless they had something important to say. He had no desire to interact with humans tonight if avoidable. If this is Jamie calling to chastise me, I'm seriously going to flip the **** out.

The voice that answered wasn't Jamie's, but it chastised him nonetheless, "Oh god, you're drunk again, aren't you? Wake up, chief! We've got a big problem here!" the voice exclaimed in frantic fashion.

Cid's head cleared enough to recognize Jack Dorano, another one of the mechwarriors in his lance, at the other end of the line. Jack, despite being just a reservist, was a capable and dependable subordinate, but he often overworried about relatively trivial matters--a trait that irked Cid to no end. This call had that anxiety written all over it, which meant Cid was going to have to play Daddy again to his skittish part-timer. At least it's not Jamie. "Fine. Explain, Dorano." Cid slumped onto the couch and closed his eyes.

"I just saw a Jade Falcon Warship appear at the Nadir jump point! They've already launched DropShips!" He paused a moment to breathe. "Did you hear me, chief?"

Cid's eyes snapped open. Clan Jade Falcon was one of the twenty warmongering Clans descended from the Star League general Aleksander Kerensky. Hundreds of years ago, General Kerensky had taken the Star League army out into deep space to avoid getting dragged into the great succession war that plunged the Inner Sphere into chaos. While the endless fight for control raged on here for centuries, Kerensky's forces had remained lost to time until about fifteen years ago, when the descendants of that army had returned to the Inner Sphere in the form of Clans Wolf, Ghost Bear, Smoke Jaguar, and Jade Falcon. Slicing into the border of the Inner Sphere, conquering every system in their path on the way towards their final goal of Terra, they had torn through the forces of the Successor States like so much tissue paper. By some miracle their invasion was halted just short of its objective by ComStar at the epic battle of Tukayyid. That was the story of the clans in general, but Cid and the rest of Unyaro knew the Jade Falcon clan on a more intimate basis: thirteen years ago, the Falcons had come to Unyaro and annihilated nearly half the planet's population--the Solviato Incident.

"What? How the hell do you know that?" he incredulously demanded.

"I'm looking at their ship right now through a telescope. Do you know of any merchants that cruise around in warships with a big green bird painted on the side? I didn't think so. You'd better tell the Major quick; the planet's sensors may not have picked this up yet."

"Damn," Cid swore out loud. "Alright then, I'll pass the word. Call Jamie and Brian and tell them to be at the hanger in thirty minutes for a briefing. I'll be there as soon as I finish informing the Major."

"Will do," the phone promptly replied, then went dead.

Edited by NeoAres, 09 November 2015 - 09:50 AM.

[NeoAres]

oh hey, it's Wednesday! The fighting will come soon, I swear, so just muddle through the prelude a little longer.
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Chapter 2

Dear Archon Princess Katrina Steiner,
It is my sad duty to report that our headquarters here on Tharkad has received a troubling series of transmissions from systems along the Jade Falcon border. Each system reports Jade Falcon task forces on burn-in, undoubtedly with an objective of conquest. Given the width of the incursion corridor, this appears at first glance to be a general territory grab rather than a concentrated strike; no key worlds are in imminent danger. Nonetheless, given the current political climate I cannot see any recourse but to divert forces to counter this offensive. I do not need to tell you that prioritizing Victor's forces over the Clans' will be seen very negatively by the nobility and general populace alike, and I believe we can spare the military force more than we can spare the political coin at this point.

Honestly, one might almost think the Jade Falcons were coordinating with your brother were the thought not so ludicrous; he stands to gain from this development no matter how we respond to it. Still, in anticipation of your blessing to proceed with military deployment, Marshal Bryan and I have already laid out a defense plan to halt the invasion in the Melissia Theater. We await your response.

Sincerely,
Nondi Steiner, Regent of Lyran Alliance and Marshal of Armies of the AFFC


Jumpship Falcon's Swoop
Nadir Jump Point, Unyaro System
The Periphery
23 May 3064

Star Colonel Alison Pryde relaxed in the observer's chair on the bridge of the Falcon's Swoop. She glared into the holotank on the ship's bridge, watching the tiny DropShips of her cluster burn towards their targets. Part of her wished she was going along to fight, but a Periphery world like Unyaro was better sport for the likes of her subordinates. Newtown Square awaited her in the second leg of the invasion--she could be patient until then.

Until then, the Swoop would be her home. She watched as Star Admiral Alexandra barked out orders to prepare the ship for its journey in-system. Originally a Carrack-class Warship, the Swoop had been gutted and completely reconfigured to fit Alison's uses. All the design's naval weaponry had been removed, along with a good portion of the anti-fighter weaponry. The shell had then been outfitted with a number of modifications tailored to serve the 9th Talon Cluster's tactics. The 9th Talon, in turn, was tailored to serve Alison's penchant for perfection. She detested how most Jade Falcon commanders wielded their combat groups like a blunt instrument, throwing battlemech and Elemental assets at enemy forces. Against other clans it had been a fine strategy, as their opponents were assured to do the same. However, the Inner Sphere had proven to be a different beast, employing artillery, espionage, ambush, and guerrilla warfare as standard practices. Other clans had resorted to copying the spheroids' cowardly tactics, but that would never be the Jade Falcon way. In order to perfectly conquer the Inner Sphere, a new strategy was required, one which countered, rather than mimicked, the Inner Sphere's cowardly tactics. Alison believed she had the answer, and her 9th Talon was ready to finally prove it.

The answer was speed. The 9th Talon cluster revolved around three major tactics: rapid advance, rapid deployment, and rapid attack. The rapid advance and rapid deployment were largely accomplished by the Falcon's Swoop. The WarShip had been equipped with a lithium-ion jump battery and expanded cargo holds, both of which served to increase the 9th Talon's rate of advance through jump range and logistical independence respectively. The ship's complement of DropShip docking collars had been expanded to four, enabling the cluster's ground forces to effectively divide and conquer, should the situation require, and the Swoop herself could burn-in to serve as an escort for her DropShips on their way down to the surface, and as an orbital logistics center once they had landed.

Alison believed that aerospace was a too-little used arm of the Jade Falcon touman. Since before the 3050 invasion, scientists had been advising Clan commanders to concentrate on battlemech and Elemental assets, by virtue of the fact that the technological gap between the Clans and the Inner Sphere was far greater in those realms. While that truth was incontrovertible, Alison also knew that in the years following the invasion, the Inner Sphere had made great strides in their ground war technology, largely thanks to captured Clan equipment. With the technological gap shrinking, it was time to refocus on Inner Sphere strengths, rather than weaknesses. Chief amongst those strengths was the element of surprise. Artillery bombardments, ambushes, harassing guerrilla attacks, sabotage--the most effective Inner Sphere tactics revolved around taking advantage of a slow, vulnerable enemy like a swarm of mosquitoes. No matter how many you swatted, there would always be more; no matter how much you covered up, they would always find a spot you missed. To beat mosquitoes, you would need to have sharp eyes to spot them, a quick hand to swat them, and the stamina to keep counterattacking until they were all gone. Alison's aerospace assets, combined with the Falcon's Swoop, were those qualities. Her full trinary of Visigoth heavy omnifighters could find and attack the enemy quickly, then return to the orbital safety of the Swoop for repair and rearm.

Rapid advance, rapid deployment, rapid attack. She would give the enemy no time to dig in, set traps, or hide from her forces. She would leave no vulnerable supply lines to cut, no vulnerable staging bases to assault, no opportunity for the enemy to slow her down. Her victories would be perfect, and someday all of the Jade Falcon touman would be based on her designs.

That is why she had chosen to divert her forces to Unyaro in the first place. The original invasion plan had called for the 9th Talon cluster to proceed directly to Newtown Square. However, Alison had managed to convince her khan to allow her to test her new strategy by attacking the periphery system first. Alison had assured her that her deployment to and conquest of the Unyaro system would be so swift as to allow her to join the Newtown Square invasion in time to participate in it. Now she was on the clock, her reputation on the line, and she did not intend to foul up this opportunity.

For the attack on Unyaro and its moon, Alison had launched three of the Swoop's four DropShips, laden with two trinaries of omnimechs and a star each of Elementals and Visigoths in support. Her command trinary, along with the rest of her omnifighters, would remain on the Swoop on its burn-in. Intelligence on Unyaro was fairly non-existent, though she had heard reports that they had rebuilt their defense force in the years since its annihilation in 3050. That was good; Alison didn't want to waste time and fuel on an undefended system--her experiment's validity rested on there being at least some semblance of a battle.

A commtech turned to Alexandra. "Star Admiral, I am receiving a message for Star Colonel Pryde."

Alexandra waited for Alison to nod her assent, then relayed the gesture to the tech. Alison turned back towards the holotank, its tactical display now replaced by a three-dimensional display of static. A moment later it transformed into the face of a brown-haired woman with a slim, chiseled face and hardened, bird-like eyes.

"I trust you are on time, Star Colonel," Khan Marthe Pryde queried. The background behind the khan was the olive cloth of a tent. Damn, she is already on-planet. Here I am preaching deployment speed and her forces landed before mine.

"Aff, Khan Pryde. I have just reached the Unyaro System. The defenders will be eliminated within days. We will be seeing each other at Newtown Square soon, quiaff?"

Marthe Pryde frowned. "Although I have every faith in your strategic ability, your overconfidence is the same that caused our defeat at Tukayyid. Do not let your thirst for expediency take priority over our desire for efficiency. I will see you when you arrive. Marthe Pryde, out."

Alison sat in the chair for a moment after the screen went black and slid back into the wall, contemplating what Marthe Pryde had said. Then she shrugged it off. She was not being overconfident, she was being truthful. The freebirths would be expediently and efficiently crushed under the great talons of the Jade Falcon. Besides, it was stupidity, rather than overconfidence, that had doomed the battle at Tukayyid. Alison was the furthest thing from stupid.

UHDF Headquarters
Unyaro

Major Lawrence Olliver, commander of the Unyaro Home Defense Force, slumped in his plush chair before the pair of men in front of him. The news of the Jade Falcon invasion force, delivered by Corporal Spannek mere hours ago, made his strong body feel older and heavier than ever before. He struggled to sit upright as his third and final guest entered his office and took a seat before him.

"Welcome, gentlemen. I wish this meeting were under better circumstances, but quite frankly we knew this was always more than possible. Let us dispense with the pleasantries and get down to business. What you know already is that a Jade Falcon WarShip has arrived in-system. What you do not know is that the ship has launched three DropShips. Two are tracking as headed for Unyaro, while the third is on its way to Lunaverde. After unfurling its jump sail, the WarShip also began its own burn in towards Unyaro, about two hours behind the DropShips. This is troubling news, as we do not have any asset capable of taking on a WarShip and even New Solviato would not survive an orbital bombardment."

Lawrence paused for a moment to read the horror on his companions' faces, then continued, "We have no choice but to presume that the Jade Falcons do not consider orbital bombardment an option, for if they do we are doomed from the start. So, let us forget about the presence of the WarShip for the time being. I have already spoken to Cid and he is preparing to evacuate the major population centers on Lunaverde and move the civilians into the forest for the duration of hostilities. Governor Morney has issued a state of emergency for Unyaro and is urging people to take shelter in the capital or in the mountains. Given our history, I'm betting most will choose the mountains, fortifications be damned. However, let me remind you, Captain Raiell, that the gates of the city must stay open to permit refugees until the last possible moment."

Raiell nodded diligently. "Have no fear, Major, no one will be locked out besides the clanners."

Good. Now, before we formulate a plan, what are your operational strengths? We'll start with you, Captain."

Captain Raiell raised his eyebrow in surprise at the question. "Well, I did not exaggerate at the speech today if that is your meaning. New Solviato is 100% ready for battle. All emplacements are operating at peak efficiency and we have enough provisions and ammunition to keep the fight going for days. My men are eager to fight and will do their jobs, whatever you need."

Lawrence smiled at the young man's enthusiasm. “I don't expect anything less. Sergeant Peterson?"

Conrad Peterson had been up until a year ago a lance leader in Lawrence's battlemech company. However, when the UHDF purchased two lances of aerospace fighters last year, Peterson had volunteered to found the UHDF air wing. He and Bev Milton, the UHDF's chief mechanic, had been working tirelessly for the last several months to get the venerable birds armed and spaceworthy, and to recruit and train pilots to fill their cockpits. Both tasks had been uphill battles, as Unyaro's lack of industry and veteran pilots alike had forced Conrad and Bev to improvise heavily. That the planes and pilots had even a chance to be ready for combat spoke volumes about the fledgling program's resourcefulness. "Sir, the Azure Wing is ready to go. My pilots are crawling up the walls in anticipation and Bev is working out the last glitches with the Starfires. With your permission, we would like to leave as early as possible to intercept the DropShips. Those big eggs are a lot easier to hit than battlemechs on the ground.

Lawrence nodded, but held up his hand to stall Peterson's advance. "Before you commit to that strategy, I would have you know that Governor Morney and I have already talked and we have agreed to withhold Constance and Reconciler from the battle.

Peterson's face turned to one of protest, but before he could utter a word, the fourth man in the room bolted upright. "This is outrageous! There is no way you are keeping my ship out of this fight!" Carl Hitaro, captain of the planet's veteran Union-class DropShip Constance, bellowed. "All of Sergeant Peterson's practiced aerospace strategies involve having Constance and Reconciler in support. Angelina and I cannot simply sit idle while they fight alone." His tone was calming down as he spoke, but the fire in the old captain's eyes did not fade a bit. Old age and retirement couldn't completely extinguish that military spirit, eh Carl? I wish I could say the same for myself.

Lawrence couldn't help but admire the captain's vigor, but he could not be swayed by the act of bravado. "I'm sorry Carl, but the Governor and I agree that those DropShips are simply too valuable to our economy to risk losing them. Were the Falcon's DropShips alone, I would consent, but the simple fact is that that WarShip is bound to have combat fighters onboard. If we intercept the DropShips and those fighters are launched, the Azure Wings can outrun them back here. A Union definitely will not, and even the Reconciler may not have the speed to escape safely. Think about it this way: if you want to preserve the well-being of the Azure Wing, then give them a chance to retreat from a bad situation instead of having to worry about escorting you home. Understood?

"Understood, Major," Carl looked down shamefully as he reseated himself.

"Good. Sergeant, do you still want to go through with your plan with this knowledge?"

"Yes sir," Peterson determinedly replied, "I will schedule us for launch at oh-seven-hundred hours on the 26th. The DropShips will be six hours from planetfall at that point."

"Very well. I have full confidence in your success, Sergeant. Good hunting."

"Thank you, sir."

"Gentlemen, anything else?"

A solemn round of negatives answered him. Lawrence dismissed them all with a reminder to get some sleep over the next three days. Once they were gone, he laid his chin down on the mahogany desk gazed over at a photograph propped up upon it. The image displayed twelve mechwarriors posing together in front of a Bulldog tank. On the far left of the group stood a tall beefy man with raggedy black hair and a 5 o'clock shadow. God, i wish you were here, Luke. You always knew exactly what to do at a time like this. Thirteen years I've been preparing for an invasion and now that its finally here, I feel more doomed than I did at any point on the night you died. I should have saved you. I should have saved you so you could save Unyaro this time around. You were a hero, I am just a man, and we need a hero a hell of a lot more than we need a man right now.

Edited by NeoAres, 16 February 2015 - 01:51 PM.

[NeoAres]

Chapter 3

UHDF Airfield, New Byzantium
Unyaro System
The Periphery
26 May 3064

The intercom speakers lining the walls of the cavernous aerospace hangar generated a resounding echo, the reverberations ringing through Alexander Calvenstein's head as he ran to his fighter. The Azure Griffins were going to war, and Alex's Azure Wing had the privilege of drawing first blood.

His Sparrowhawk was a venerable 30-ton light-class interceptor. The compact, twin-engined craft possessed a ferocious bite for its size, armed with two medium pulse lasers jutting out the front of the fuselage and a small laser nestled within each short, stubby wing. Altogether, the laser-dominated fighter could outgun just about any fighter it couldn't outmaneuver--the trick was getting it to live long enough to do so with its thin armor plating. As a result of this drawback, Alex and his fellow Sparrowhawk pilots had taken to derisively labeling the Sparrowhawks "paper gliders," despite their proven prowess in combat.

Of the eight fighters purchased by the UHDF in the last year, six were Sparrowhawks. The other two were 55-ton Starfires. Unlike the Sparrowhawks, the Starfires had no reputation for excellence--in fact, they had never seen regular action before today--but the technology inside them was far more advanced than anything the Sparrowhawks possessed. Scuttlebutt was that the fighters had originally been failed omnifighter prototypes from the New Avalon Institute of Science, a premier research facility on the other side of the Inner Sphere. How Bev Milton had managed to get her hands on them, nobody really knew--rumor had it that she may have once worked at the institute. One thing was for sure, however: by the time Bev had finished tinkering with them, they had become something altogether unique in the aerospace world. Armed primarily with a forward-firing medium autocannon in the nose, the fighter also sported four small pulse lasers in a rear-facing ball turret nestled between the craft's exhaust ports. Ten external weapon racks spread across the underbelly of the fighter's wide fuselage completed the Starfire's armament; the racks were capable of carrying bombs or, as was the case today, remote-guided heavy missiles. A copilot seated back-to-back with the pilot acted as "bombardier"--launching and guiding the heavy ordnance--and operated the rear turret. Alex would have given his left arm to be assigned to one of the Starfires, but they had rightfully gone to the squadron's lance leaders--Sergeant Peterson and Corporal Magelli.

Alex crawled into the Sparrowhawk's cramped cockpit and closed the canopy down over him. As he placed the bulky flight helmet over his head, the comm system came active with the chatter of flight control and his fellow pilots. He made out the voice of his wingman, Vincent Hayfield through the mess.

"We're finally getting some action, huh Alex?"

Sam Powell from Crow lance interjected before Alex could respond. "Not really, it's gonna be a turkey shoot. No target easier to kill than one of them lumbering dropships."

"Watch out or you'll have your head blown to slag by those lasers and PPCs. Just because a dropship is easy to hit doesn't mean it's an easy kill," Sally Magelli warned.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me, Sally."

"Don't kid yourself, glider boy."

"C&C to Raven Leader, skies are clear but a big storm's moving in fast so you better get out there. Targets are five hundred klicks and closing. You've got five hours until they get low enough for a HALO drop and six hours until planetfall."

"Aw, you think you're so good just because you've got one of them mod junks."

"I am that good and don't you forget it, Private."

Sergeant Peterson cut through the chatter like a laser through butter. "Clear the comm, cadets! All Ravens and Crows report status. If you had listened to the damn flight tower instead of chatting your heads off, you would know that we're in a tight timeframe.

"Yessir. Raven 2, everything checks out, all systems go."

Vincent went next. "Raven 3, go."

Suddenly, as he started the engine, the ship rattled a bit and Alex's targeting monitor flickered off for a few seconds then rebooted itself.

"Raven 4."

Alex heard the voice, but he was too busy examining the monitor for it to register.

"Raven 4, report!"

Alex snapped out of his concentration and adjusted his helmet's microphone. "Uh, Raven 4, uh, I've got a problem with my targeting computer. I think it's fixed now," he said, bending to examine the wires under the monitor one last time.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he replied in false conviction.

"Alright, but it's your ass, cadet."

Damn you, Bev. Too busy playing with your pet Starfires to make sure the rest of us had working fighters? If I die because of this POS it's on you.

As Crow lance checked in, Alex maneuvered his fighter out of its stabilizing clamps, accidentally hitting one on the way out. The monitor flickered again, so quickly that Alex thought it might be his imagination. He stared at it for a couple seconds, daring it to repeat the event, but the screen did not take him up on it. Slowly, he resumed his roll out of the hangar.

On the tower's order, Alex taxied his Sparrowhawk outside alongside Vincent's fighter. Over to his left, he could see the Retribution, the UHDF’s gigantic Union-Class dropship, sitting out on the tarmac like a giant chicken egg. Apparently, the government considered the dropship too valauble to risk losing it in combat. Thus, the Retribution had been grounded by port control and prohibited from assisting the Azure Wing in their attack, despite Captain Hitaro's protests. The fact that the dropship was being held back while he wasn't made Alex feel awfully expendable.

As Sarge's and Baker's aerospace fighters lifted into the air at the end of the runway, the light in front of Alex turned green, and he pushed the throttle forward. The scenery around him became a blur as the ship rocketed forward. A moment later he was airborne, he and Vincent forming left and right wings of a diamond formation with Sarge in the lead. Crow lance formed a similar shape behind them with Sally Magelli in front. Alex settled his ship into a cruise and waited for the distance between them and the enemy to waste away.

Several hours passed in tense silence before Vincent's voice abruptly broke it, jolting Alex back to heightened alertness. "Raven Three, contact at 338, 12 klicks. They're too big to be fighters. Must be the DropShips, sir."

"Copy that, Raven Three. I am getting the same reading. All units close up formation and pay attention. Here they come."

"Crow 2, I've got visual on the targets." Sam Powell exclaimed excitedly.

"Alright people, here's the deal. If we succeed, we win the lives of all those mech pilots down there and the freedom of the planet. If we fail, we all die and our mechs get creamed by the clanners. We can end this invasion right here and now and save a lot of lives, so give it your all."

Alex watched as the dropship on his display crossed a distance line on his monitor. "Raven 4, we're entering the DropShips' estimated weapons range."

"Roger, Four. Hear that everybody? Split up into pairs and watch out for incoming shots. Crow Leader, join me up front; we're going to launch our missiles as soon as they are in range. The rest of you, spread out and avoid our firing solution."

"Raven Two, code red! One of the DropShips' doors are opening and multiple reactor signatures are appearing inside." As Alex watched in terror, ten heavy aerospace fighters streaked one by one out of the DropShip's belly.

"It's a trap!" Crow Four screamed.

"All fighters, pair up and engage enemy bogies! Stay clear of those DropShips and don't try anything stupid. Sally, stay on target; we have to take our shot at the DropShips now while we still can!"

"Enemy is within firing range, jinx!"

Alex didn't know who had spoken it, but he instinctively jerked his stick to the right and jammed his foot on the right roll pedal, sending the fighter into an insane corkscrew to dodge incoming missiles and PPC fire from the farther-shooting clan weapons. Vincent copied his maneuver but seemed to be sluggish.

Alex switched to his private wingman channel. "Vince, you're still in cruise mode. Get those engines up to combat speed!"

"Oops. Thanks, Four. Engines at full!"

A sharp backward pull on his control yolk brought Alex up behind one of the clan fighters. He immediately opened up with his pulse lasers at the enemy fighter, tageed as a Visigoth, in front of him. The laser darts scored several gouges on the clan fighter before it managed to shake him. "Eat lasers, you freak!" he screamed as he sent a blast from his wing-mounted small lasers streaming into the portside wing of the enemy, vaporizing most of the thin endo-steel skeleton and shearing the wing completely off. The fighter spun, unbalanced by the sudden loss of mass, as Alex dished out great helpings of his pulse lasers. The shots had peppered the Visigoth all over its fuselage before it finally managed to level out, sparks flying out of its damaged stabilizing jets. Alex finished his crippled opponent off with a focused barrage of laser fire that ripped the clan fighter into ribbons of superheated metal. First blood.

Edited by NeoAres, 21 February 2015 - 03:57 AM.

[NeoAres]

A bonus chapter, something to read while the game servers are down.
________________________

Chapter 4

Above Unyaro
Unyaro System
The Periphery
26 May 3064

"Alex, I'm hit!" Vincent yelled into Alex Calvenstein's earpiece.

"Hang on Vince, I'm on my way!"

On his scanners, Alex quickly located Vincent's Sparrowhawk and the clanner following him. He also noticed another Visigoth closing in on his own craft. He almost turned to face it but stopped himself short. If I turn to defend myself, Vince'll be dead by the time I reach him. If I go to help Vince, I'll have about five seconds before I get vaporized.

Despite the hopelessness of it, Alex turned to help his wingman and cranked the throttle as far as it could go. Up ahead the dogfight was not going well. Vincent's Sparrowhawk was dancing and juking, desperately trying to evade the obviously skilled Falcon pilot. It was working for now, but the misses were getting closer. Alex watched the range indicator tick down and readied his trigger. Just a moment before Alex was in range to fire, the Visigoth opened up with two emerald beams. They speared dead center into the back of Vincent's fighter and blew a hole out of the cockpit shield at the other end. A cloud of gas appeared around the Sparrowhawk as the atmosphere vented out of the cockpit. The UHDF fighter stopped juking and flew on straight, no longer controlled by a living pilot. A moment later, it's skewered reactor melted the entire Sparrowhawk into a glowing blob of superheated metal.

The anger in Alex grew like a fire, consuming him in rage. "Die you goddamn vat *******!" he screamed, not caring who heard him on the voice-activated comm. His reticule went gold as his weapons came into range of the unsuspecting Visigoth. The blinding light and searing heat from the discharge of all his weapons made it feel like the fire consuming his heart was becoming tangible. The quartet of lasers stabbed into the enemy fighter just behind its cockpit as it climbed upwards. Alex yanked back on the yoke to tail the Visigoth, the trigger for his pulse lasers held down with white knuckles. Volley after volley of laser bolts worked their way up the clanner's flight path, eventually catching up to the Visigoth's fuselage. Again and again Alex hammered at the enemy fighter with a vengeance. He was finally pulled out of his blood craze by warning buzzers signaling the critical heat level. He released the trigger and pulled out of the turn, leaving the finishing touches undone for now. He leveled out and there, right in front of him was a fighter he recognized instantly as Sally Magelli's Starfire. The medium fighter was frantically juking like a hummingbird and Sally's rear gunner was firing wildly at a pursuing Jade Falcon.

"Crow One, this is Raven Four," he said over the squadron channel, "I've got him in my crosshairs, fly straight and I can take him out."

"Thank God someone's still alive here! Copy that."

Alex didn't want to think about what that first comment probably meant. As Sally leveled out, so did the clanner, putting it right in the Sparrowhawk's targeting sights. If the Visigoth pilot noticed Alex's fighter in his rearview screen, it was already too late. Alex mashed down the firing studs for all his weapons and sent a barrage of coherent light straight into the clan fighter's tail. He never did see the explosion; he banked hard in response to a missile lock from his now-pursuing original target, but he did see the red dot representing the targeted fighter wink out on his radar screen. The LRM flight from his assailant streaked by his port wing, stymied by the nimble Sparrowhawk's turn.

"Sally, form up behind me and cover my six."

"Roger, Alex."

"Sally, where is the rest of the squadron?" A lump rose in his throat as he asked it.

"Sorry, Four. We're it. Sarge didn't bank on the jinx call and got it in the teeth. The others started dropping out soon after."

"Still five bogies here. Let's work together and get one at a time."

"Copy, Four. Clear the way."

Alex banked and began a roll towards his unfinished prey. The Visigoth pilot was truly a pro, and Alex almost regretted having to finish off a fighter in such an already-crippled state. Still, that pilot had killed Vincent, an act that unquestioningly warranted the clanner's immediate demise. Sally tailed Alex closely, her gunner laying down a carpet of laserfire at the four other fighters swooping in to take shots at her vessel. Well that's kind of unfair of them. Then again, he realized, given the opportunity, I suppose we would do the same thing. He configured his pulse lasers to fire in alternate intervals and began a stream of fire at the battered Visigoth as it popped into view. Blast after blast hit the fighter, shattering its armor like glass. The entire back half of the fighter split from the front and then detonated, sending the nose and cockpit careening off in the direction of the Falcons' rapidly-approaching WarShip.

No sooner had Alex made the shot when his missile lock warning sounded twice. He glanced at his radar and saw that two of the remaining four fighters were pursuing him. Sally had split off under the pressure and was being hounded by the other two. The siren of incoming missiles joined the lock warning, prompting Alex to drop his fighter down into a roll, but it was too late. A decent portion of the Visigoth's 40 LRM missiles slammed into his backside, tossing the Sparrowhawk around like an angry child's plaything.

It was then that Sarge's words during launch prep came back to haunt him. As the explosions rattled the ship, Alex's targeting computer and HUD flickered out. Alex banged it repeatedly in disgust, but the screen remained dark. It's my ass, cadet. Without his computer and HUD, his sensors were useless, and without a targeting reticule he could no longer aim his weapons properly. There was nothing left for him to do here but try to escape back to the planet alive. He dived downwards, attempting to shake his pursuers with a spin-turn trick. He stepped onto the right spin pedal, sending the fighter into a starboard roll. Instead of turning that way, however, he slammed his stick to the left creating a very awkward left turn while still spinning the opposite direction. At the same time, he put his engine in full reverse, slowing the Sparrowhawk considerably. The trick worked, and the Visigoths shot past him to the right. He let loose with all his weapons at the closest one, doing his best to imagine where the reticule should be. At this close range, even blind-fired weapons can't miss. Alex's pulse lasers peppered the Visigoth's engine, visibly impairing the clanner's propulsion system. He quickly turned his attention to the further target, already banking to re-acquire him. With alternating pulse lasers, Alex walked his line of fire up the Visigoth's flight path, scoring several hits on the Visigoth's dorsal armor before it streaked by overhead. One blast appeared to core itself into the engine assembly, but it didn't even slow down the clanner. Alex jammed his throttle back up to full power but before he could react, the clan fighter swerved around behind him in an expert move. In the nanoseconds that followed, Alex saw his life flash before his eyes as he waited for the killing blow to come. Then the Visigoth exploded. He couldn't believe his luck--an ammunition explosion triggered by one of his laser hits, maybe? He couldn't be sure. Whatever it was, Alex's odds had dropped down to a mere triple-team and his heart fluttered with hope that he might actually make it out of this alive. He grasped tightly on the yoke and prepared to swing his fighter back around towards Unyaro.

Then the Sparrowhawk lurched forward, the result of a tremendous PPC hit from behind, and went into an uncontrollable spin. He was going up, down, left, right, and around and around. He struggled against the centrifuge that his cockpit had become and tried to keep his breakfast down. One object spinning in and out of his vision kept getting bigger. The bottle-shaped WarShip suddenly stopped rotating in front of him, and he was yanked forward so hard on his 5-point harness, he feared his neck might snap from the stress. Dizzy and already weary from struggling with the yoke, Alex passed out in his chair. The green bird on the nose of the WarShip drew closer and closer, drawing him towards its waiting talons.

Edited by NeoAres, 21 February 2015 - 04:08 AM.

[NeoAres]

Sorry for the delay! I've had the worst week.
_______________________

Chapter 5

Dropship Orion's Fury
En-Route to Unyaro
Unyaro System
28 May 3064

Star Captain Gavin relaxed in front of the main forward monitor on the bridge of his trinary's dropship, Orion's Fury. As the last barbarian aerospace fighter winked out on the tactical display, he smiled with satisfaction and switched the display over to a view of the planet before him. A small blue and green ball roatated on the screen, ever so slowly that he had to squint to notice the movement. It was here, the planet Unyaro, where he would finally begin to make a name for himself as a participant of the renewed Jade Falcon invasion into the Inner Sphere. Ever since his trial of position, he had always been overshadowed and ignored by his superiors, espescially his commander, Alison Pryde. Was it not enough that she was considered one of the most brilliant tacticians of the new order, but did she also have to wear the prestegious Pryde bloodname? That bloodname was like a golden ticket to power and fame and Gavin hungered for it like nothing else. Today he would earn Alison's respect. Someday he would earn her endorsement to enter a bloodname contest, and on that day he would show the Jade Falcon clan he was worthy of passing on his genetic legacy. All he needed was a chance.

After all, even that freebirth Star Captain from the Falcon Guards Diana had won a Pryde bloodname. Gavin remembered that bloodname contest all too well, as did many of his fellow trueblooded warriors. It still made him sick to his stomach that the Khan had even considered letting her compete for one. The 25 Pryde bloodnames were the most prized honors a Jade Falcon warrior could ever hope to acquire, and bearing one ensured the inclusion of one's genetic legacy in future generations of warriors.

Once a Pryde's life ended, his or her bloodname was made available for a new warrior to win. To acquire it, a contestant had to prove him/herself the best of the best, the product of superior effort, superior training, and superior breeding. Until Diana, only trueborn Jade Falcon warriors, those birthed artificially through the warrior breeding program, had been permitted to compete for a bloodname; until recently, only trueborns had been allowed to become mechwarriors at all! When Marthe Pryde had let the freeborn Diana fight, it disrespected the entire system she had sworn to uphold. Then Diana won--she actually won! Now Aidan Pryde's daughter--the word made Gavin instinctively clench his fists--was the Khan's little pet officer, ready and waiting to inherit the Falcon Guards--the Falcon Guards, the most prestigious unit in the clan! The irony was sickening. Half the Falcon clan, including Gavin, now used the title Diana Pryde as a curse, spitting it out as commonly as surat. Deep down inside, Gavin almost admired the young freebirth's resiliency against the contempt aimed at her. He still hated her though.

He was going to win a bloodname someday, he would be patient for now. He was going to challenge Diana to a Trial of Grievance and slay her one day, once he had the right to. He was going to have a cluster command someday, once he came out of Alison's shadow. He was going to rule the clan someday, once the warriors respected him. He would have all his dreams fulfilled someday, he had already promised himself that. He had promised himself he would do everything in his power to make sure the entire galaxy feared and respected him, and it would begin today. He was the best; he already knew that. Now he just had to prove it to everyone else.

As he engaged the dropship's communications device, he let the aspirations of glory slip from his mind, replaced by thoughts of strategy and his imminent victory.

UHDF C&C, Unyaro

As Major Lawrence Olliver opened the audio link to his attacker, a feeling of fear rippled through him like a wet blanket being draped over his naked back. It sickened him to realize that he, the leader of the entire Unyaro Home Defense Force, and veteran of the first invasion, was frightened of his opponent. He sucked in a deep breath of air and suppressed the emotion, not wanting to give the enemy any indication of his feelings. The weight of the system was squarely on his shoulders, and there would have to be no mistakes if he was to win this battle.

"I'm here," he said, as firmly as possible.

"This is Star Captain Gavin of the 9th Talon Cluster, Beta Trinary. Your cowardly attack on our dropships has accomplished nothing besides the deaths of your pilots and the breaking of our rules regarding honorable combat. However, seeing as how ineffectual that assault was, I am willing to ignore your lapse in judgement and offer you terms of Zellbringen for this planet nonetheless. With what forces do you wish to challenge me for control of Unyaro?" The ghostly voice on the audio-only comm made Oliver feel like he was talking to an invisible spectre in the room.

"This is Major Lawrence Olliver," he said like a grizzled general in the face of an inferior opponent, or at least he hoped it sounded like that. "I will defend my home and my people with a company of battlemechs," saying it as though he had a whole regiment he could throw at the clans, but chose not to. Then he quickly added," that's twelve battlemechs, by the way."

The Star Captain sounded quite annoyed in his response. "I am quite aware of how many battlemechs are in your freebirth company. I will attack with a binary of my best warriors. That is ten battlemechs, by the way, Lawrence." The comm smartly clicked and the transmission light went dark

Lawrence sat in contemplation for a few seconds. He saw the incoming transmission light come back to life all of a sudden. Bewildered, he pressed the button next to the light once again. "Uh, hello?"

"This is Star Captain Gavin." The voice didn't sound so strong and commanding anymore. On the contrary, Gavin sounded clearly frustrated. "Where shall this trial of possession take place?"

He was too busy verbally sparring with me to complete the purpose of his call. How did someone this impulsive ever gain command? Lawrence felt his confidence grow as he pondered a moment about how to answer the clanner's query. The plan had always been to hunker down inside New Solviato and use the static defenses to bolster his mechs' firepower. However, Gavin's proposal had caught him off-guard. He only plans to use ten mechs against us, so we will outnumber him. Also, any opportunity to avoid damage to the civilian population is one I am obligated to take advantage of. That made the choice obvious. "There's a large field about 8 klicks southeast of the base I am communicating from. That is where we should meet for our battle."

A pause. "Very well, Major."

"Anything else you forgot to ask me?" Lawrence asked as verbal barb to repay the one given to him at the end of the last conversation.

Gavin's irritated tone came through with unmistakable clarity. "We will see who is the one laughing over the other's grave when this trial is complete. You will have no mercy from me."

Major Olliver chuckled out loud after the comm went dead. He hoped the Star Captain was as sloppy a commander as he was an orator, but it was probably too much to wish for. He readjusted his uniform and strode out to meet his warriors.

Dropship Orion's Fury, Unyaro

Gavin inhaled deeply, the fresh air of the planet much more inviting than the stale, recycled atmosphere in the dropship. He stepped his Warhawk aside as his trinary began to debark from the dropship's cargo bay and assume defensive positions around the ship. His communicator clicked to life on a private frequency, and Star Commander Apollo's voice growled through. "Star Captain Gavin."

"Go ahead, Star Commander."

"I regret to inform you that I must protest your strategy. Attacking under the cover of darkness is a craven plan, and our prey do not deserve such a death."

"Our prey are undeveloped barbarians," Gavin coolly retorted. "Their unwarrated attack on our DropShips should have made that plain to you. However, Tukayyid proved we can no longer use that inferiority as an excuse to blunt our talons for them. They may be primitives, but they now hold weapons capable of serious damage to our forces. I will not allow this battle to be tainted by unnecessary losses. My victory tonight will be perfect, the flawless beginning to a flawless campaign." And a flawless career.

"Sneaking around to surround an inferior opponent has no honor, not even against barbarians! My starmates and I defeat our enemies in the light of day or not at all."

Gavin could have pointed out that the enemy held the numerical advantage, as well as familiarity with the battleground, but his patience with his overly dogmatic Star Commander had already run out. "Well, then, in that case I suppose your star will be grateful when you inform them that they will not be fighting tonight. Star Commander Theodore and his warriors will accompany me in your place. Watch the DropShips and await our return."

That sent Apollo into a rage. "This is not just about my star! You are disgracing my clan, Star Captain Gavin!"

"It is my clan too, Star Commander. The clan you know is an illusion, a memory--not the modern reality. Just ask Diana Pryde."

East of New Solviato

Lawrence yawned with exhaustion and checked his chronometer. His Zeus creaked and groaned back and forth as his tired mind laid balancing the 80-ton mech to the wayside. The Falcon DropShips had landed just a few kilometers away several hours ago, back when it was still daylight. Lawrence had assembled his company in the center of the field to await the Falcon mechs. Now it was twilight, the last vestiges of natural light quickly fading away.

"Major, contact on the road," one of his subordinates whispered over the comm. A pair of headlights were approaching from the East. Lawrence's computer identified it as a small hovertruck.

"I see it. It's nothing, stay focused."

Several more minutes passed in total silence for the company on the field, just like the several hours before them. Everyone's too nervous and preoccupied with their sensors to put up much conversation. These clanners wanted a fair fight, so why won't they show up and have it? Are they afraid because we have more battlemechs? No, there's more to this Star Captain than meets the eye.

As the last bits of purple in the western sky faded slowly to a dark black, Lawrence began to think that the Jade Falcons weren't going to come. He turned off his HUD and lit panels so their glare wouldn't create a reflection on the Zeus' transparisteel faceplate.

Craning his eyes up, he gazed at the huge canopy of stars around him in the open field. A bright blue star caught his attention, the eye of the Griffin. Lawrence knew it well. That star had always given him hope as a child whenever he felt hopeless. His company was even named after it: the Azure Griffins. Unintentionally, his mind began to drift off towards his memories. He tried to remember some happy moments, but all he could conjure up were images of the first clan invasion and the obliteration of the original Azure Griffins. He shut his eyes and tried to concentrate on something else.

He was suddenly brought back to reality by a sharp crack and hiss in the night. A small light, brighter than any shooting star, shot past his eyes and into the sky until it was directly above his mech. It gracefully fell to rest right in the middle of his unit, illuminating them all in a soft white glow. A flare?

The night erupted into day as the blackness was filled with autocannon tracers, missile contrails, and energy streams. Lawrence's head reeled and his vision whited out from the stunning brightness. Attacks ripped into his armor, creating such screams from the metal that he went deaf as well as blind. The Zeus rocked under the hits and began to fall on its face. Fortunately, Lawrence, though disoriented, sensed the fall in time to land his mech on its knees and gun barrels, minimizing the impact damage.

As his dull green consoles faded back into view once again, Lawrence grabbed the control stick and got the battlemech back on its feet, observing the situation as he rose. If he could have imagined the worst moment of his life, it would probably have been kicked aside by what he was experiencing right now. His entire unit was being torn and pummeled mercilessly by the ten Jade Falcons as they burst out into the field from the forest beyond and formed a semicircle around his beset company. Many UHDF mechs were firing wildly into the night, setting many trees ablaze but failing to deal more than minimal damage to the enemy machines. Lawrence wanted to tell them to stop, to tell them where to fire and what to do, but the ambush had left him speechless. Words failing him, he instead spoke with his guns. Switching to magscan vision, he chose one of the blueish blobs on his HUD, not caring what it was, and started firing back. He was rewarded by a series of bright impact explosions and a wave of heat blowing into his cockpit from the reactor's waste energy.

"We have to get out of this killzone!" he finally managed to say. But how? There's nothing behind us but the road and open fields beyond. All the cover is behind the clanners! There's only one thing that can save us... "All units, form on me and make for the Northern treeline! We're going right through the ********!" He ran to the flare and fiercely stomped it with the Zeus’ foot. The light went dead and darkness reclaimed the field. At least that will force them onto the same terms of visibility as us. He quickly looked for an easy way out of the circle and found it in a 30-ton Uller near the edge of the forest. He charged his Zeus straight at the scout mech, firing all of his weapons at it as he ran. First to launch was his right arm's 15-pack of LRMs. Next came a trio of red beams from the medium lasers embedded in his torso. Finally, he opened up with a stream of uranium-tipped shells from the heavy 20-class autocannon he had modified his Zeus with. The devastating salvo bored straight into the Uller's low-slung belly, drilling it so hard that the tiny mech literally flew off its feet and slammed into the stand of trees behind it. Lawrence let out a shout of triumph and darted for the hole he’d created.

A hulking Masakari lumbered into his path, denying him his exodus. The squat, flat-topped battlemech outweighed even his Zeus. Without enough time to dodge or stop, Lawrence fired his battery of weapons again and braced for impact. The force of the blows rocked the Masakari back onto its heels for that one crucial second before the Zeus hit it with the momentum of a speeding freight train. A banshee screech pierced the night and sparks flew from the impact of the giant steel titans. They both fell down, Lawrence's Zeus on top of the clanner. The Masakari pilot fired a quartet of white-hot PPCs from the omnimech's gigantic gun-arms, the heat from the energy streams melting the Zeus's chest armor into glowing goop. The molten metal spilled onto the Masakari's pinned arms and torso, fusing the two mechs together into one solid mass as it cooled.

"Nice going," Lawarence chided on the open channel at the clanner's self-incapacitation. In response, the Masakari's overhead missile launcher roared to life. The range was far too close for the LRM warheads to arm before impact, but that didn't stop the ten rocket-propelled projectiles from smashing into and shattering the Zeus's cockpit canopy. Lawrence covered his face with his hands as razor-sharp shards of metal and ferroglass rained upwards at him.

Edited by NeoAres, 04 March 2015 - 05:19 AM.

[NeoAres]

Chapter 6

WarShip Falcon's Swoop
Nadir Jump Point
Unyaro System
28 May 3064

Alexander Calvenstein stared at the ceiling of his holding cell aboard the clan warship, idly counting the bolts embedded in the ferrosteel bulkhead for what seemed like the hundredth time. His life as a prisoner had been incredibly dull so far--there was nothing to do, nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing even to smell; the UHDF brig had always stunk of urine and vomit and other such disgusting things, but his cell here was completely spotless and sterilized. These guys may not know a thing about treatment of guests, but they sure have an edge on us in cleanliness.

For almost a week since his arrival, Alex had been left completely alone by his captors, being tended to only by a grizzled old slave. From looking at his face, Alex could tell the slave had once been a prideful warrior, but he was now nothing more than a broken old man. He wondered how long the man had been in the Falcons' custody, and worried the same fate may lie ahead of him.

Alex didn't remember much of his capture. One moment he had been spinning out of control towards the warship, the next moment his fighter was skidding across a ferrosteel hangar deck and coming to rest up against the back wall. He'd opened his canopy to find himself staring down a dozen gun barrels--grisly appendages of frighteningly alien metal monstrosities. He recalled looking back in amazement as he was led away to see that everything aft of the Sparrowhawk's cockpit was simply gone; he was lucky to be alive--probably lucky. He still had to deal with the problem of being trapped aboard an enemy vessel while his homeworld was assaulted, and there's no way that half of a Sparrowhawk was going to deliver him from this ship, even if he did manage to escape detention.

A shadow appeared between the bars.

"You're early pal, come on in," Alex said cheerfully, greeting the silhouette as the old slave he had come to associate with his meals.

"Neg, I am right on schedule," the burly shadow replied as it unlocked the door and slid the bars aside. Alex's cheer turned to terror.

Without even gauging for compliance, the clan warrior swiftly dragged Alex out by his collar. Finally overcoming his fright, Alex began pawing at the clanner's wrist. "Cut it out, you freak! Let me go!"

The clanner stood him up and gave him a beefy punch that sent his head careening into the bars. Alex's vision blacked out from the impact and his legs fell limp beneath him. He slumped into a sitting position, dazed and unmoving, as punch after punch and kick after kick pummeled him all over. Once the punishment ended, his collar was tugged again and the clanner continued to drag him down the hallway. Alex relaxed his body and let his abusive escort do all the work. At least life is interesting again now. As he traveled the length of the ship on his buttocks, Alex saw other clanners pass by, scowling at him with contempt. He fully expected a vindictive punch or two from each, but all they did was look at him momentarily before moving on with their business.

He heard a door open and felt the burning pain of friction on his skin as he was thrown onto a carpet. He heard the door slam behind him and Alex looked up to find himself in a well-lit office. The brightness stung his eyes after the days spent in a dark cell and forced him to squint as he took stock of his environment. A large metal desk rested before him and a fold-up chair sat in front of it. Feeling its invitation, Alex painfully managed to prop himself up and climb into the chair. As he brought his bruised head up, he found himself being intently stared at by a gaunt, blond woman.

"Who are you?" he asked the stranger.

"I am Star Colonel Alison Pryde, commander of the 9th Talon Cluster," the woman responded without hesitation. Alex guessed this was the invasion's head honcho; her voice was devoid of any anger, fear, or condescension--just pure authority.

She paused a moment, possibly expecting Alex to speak again, but before he could conjure up a second question she continued. "You are a bondsman," she said calmly, pointing to the white cord wrapped around his wrist. Alex stared at the cord in disbelief. Has it been there all this time and I'm only now aware of it? Now that he saw it, it suddenly felt very itchy and he instinctively scratched at the skin beneath it.

"What do you want with me?" he finally managed to ask.

"Mm, you are efficient for a freebirth, straight to the point. Very well, I will be efficient as well: information is what I require from you."

But of course. "And just what the hell makes you think that I would tell you anything?"

"Because, young bondsman, though you are now Jade Falcon--our kin by adoption, I will not balk at using inefficient means to acquire that information." The look in Alison's eyes told Alex she was fully prepared to make good on her threat.

Alex understood himself well enough to know that he wasn't much of a person to stand up to torture. I've been pounded enough for one day. It can't hurt to at least hear the questions. "What do you want to know?" he sighed.

"Good, you are smart for a freebirth as well as efficient. Saul Von Jankmon made a good choice in saving you. Come along with me, bondsman-"

"Alex Calvenstein."

She frowned at him as they exited into the hall. "Unearned surnames are forbidden in Clan Jade Falcon. Only bloodnames like mine are allowed and they have to be earned by combat. From now on you will simply be known as Alex."

Alex kept quiet for the rest of the walk until they arrived at a large pair of sliding doors. As the doors automatically gave way before them, Alex found himself entering a gigantic hangar almost 10 times the size of the one on Unyaro. And this is on a spaceship!. Dozens of battlemech gantries lined the walls of the hangar; most were empty but a handful remained occupied. One battlemech caught Alex's eye immediately. It was a 100-ton Daishi, arguably the most powerful battlemech ever to walk the planets of the Inner Sphere. Alex recognized the model from the civil war holovids of Prince Victor Davion's Daishi marching at the head of his rebel army. Not much artistic skill had gone into the Daishi's design (it looked like a box with legs) but its smashing array of weaponry inspired fear in all who faced it in battle. Efficient, as Alison would probably describe it.

"Is that your battlemech, Star Colonel?" Alex gestured towards the behemoth.

"Aff, it is. Impressive, quiaff?" Alex could have sworn he saw a prideful smile come to her face for just a split second.

"Uh, yeah. I've never seen one up close before."

"Indeed. This way," she beckoned him onward.

Near the outer doors of the hanger were seated numerous catapults that Alex recognized as aerospace fighter launchers. A few of the ones closest to the door had Visigoths mounted on them, but it was one single craft, resting on a reserve catapult near the back of the group that caught his eye. The rigid, angular wings were completely undamaged, as was the autocannon bore jutting out of the craft's nose. Next to it, the sleek, blue griffin decal with the white "1" on its breast shone at him with all its brightness. A laser hit had melted a large hole in the forward cockpit viewplate, but other than that the SF-2X Starfire looked as good as it had the last time Alex saw it flying.

"This is the Sarge’s fighter! How'd you get it?"

Alison frowned again. "Contractions are unClanlike, bondsman Alex. If you wish to succeed in Clan Jade Falcon, you will refrain from them immediately." Once Alex nodded his assent, she proceeded to answer his question. "One of our Visigoths used a magnetic grappling hook to retrieve it. It is the same method by which you were recovered." Alex realized in retrospect that he had asked a stupid question.

"Now to the point. We have never seen a model of craft like this before. It is much different from standard Inner Sphere fighters and it proved to be quite troublesome. If we had not eliminated this one early on, your attack may have done significantly more damage to our landing force. Tell me about this fighter, bondsman. What manufacture is it of? What are its capabilities?"

Alex felt himself torn in two directions as he weighed duty to himself against duty to his unit. He knew that if he refused her, he would probably be tortured, spill his guts anyway, then die and never get a second chance to face the Falcons in battle. That didn't seem like a very efficient outcome. He began to tell her all he knew of the fightercraft. There wasn't much to say about the fighter's manufacture, since the design specs had been kept secret from him, but he could still explain its observable capabilities. However, he made sure to mention nothing about Bev Milton and her role in the fighters' acquisition and modification; that was something he would not have on his conscience. He tried to spin an origin story that excluded her from it.

“The Starfire was designed in order to rid aerospace fighters of two major weaknesses that have been carried on for years. Those weaknesses are the inability to excel in multiple roles--for instance in ground support and space combat--and the inability to shoot at a pursuer without outmaneuvering him. By adding a copilot to control a rear turret and remote-guided high-explosive missiles, the Starfire is able to assault large targets and small targets alike, without escort--perfect for small air units without the resources for large-scale operations. Unfortunately, in the end the design was deemed too costly in money and manpower for mass-production so the design was scrapped and the prototypes shipped off for sale to desperate periphery worlds like ours." Alex's story was part truth, part speculation, and part bullplop--hopefully believable enough that Alison wouldn't delve too far into it.

“It sounds like a lethal design,” Alison remarked, “but why did it perform so poorly when piloted by your air group? You were the only one of your squadron who managed to make any significant kills.”

“Our flight team had no combat experience, nor had we undergone any training before your ship appeared..." Alex paused to hold back tears at the thought of all his dead friends. "...Most of them hardly knew what they were doing.”

Alison shook her head, “Just like the Inner Sphere to put civilians into war machines--how wasteful." She turned back to Alex. “Thank you, bondsman. You are free to return to your cell until I have further need of you. We appreciate the first contribution you have given to your new clan.”

Alex felt like throwing up. He wasn't sure if it was because of his concussion, his sense of self-betrayal, or the fact that Alison made it sound pretty plain that he was never going back home.

Edited by NeoAres, 21 November 2017 - 12:33 PM.

[kosmos1214]

love the story so far keep it up

[NeoAres]

thank you!
___________________

Chapter 7

Unyaro
29 May 3064

The darkness lifted from his heavy eyelids, bringing his senses back to him. Twilight was just beginning to lighten the sky to a low blue, but the world was still covered in shadows. He felt a twitch, as if someone was tickling his nose with a feather. As his eyes came back into focus, he found a small grasshopper perched on the tip of his nose, soaking up the morning dew. The wheat stalks felt soft and warm against his back, coaxing him to back to sleep, but he resisted the urge. A drop of orange began to appear on the horizon's palette, just reaching over the tall oaks to the east of the field. He wanted to flick the insect off of him, or make some kind of movement to scare it away, but his body was too pained and fatigued to stir. He gave up the struggle and simply stared upwards at the fleeing stars, chased away by the brightening sky.

The heavens were a bright blue with wispy clouds slowly floating by overhead by the time Lawrence Olliver finally regained the strength to sit up and look over his battlefield. Nearly two hundred meters away, his battered battlemech lay still fused to the enemy Masakari. A team of clan technicians were swarming over the scene with cutting lasers and cranes, trying to pry the two war machines apart. How the hell did I manage to get this far away? I don’t remember even climbing out of the cockpit.

Hunkering down in the wheat to avoid being spotted, he surveyed the rest of the battlefield, at the same time eager and apprehensive to piece together the final outcome of the battle. He counted fifteen downed machines in varying states of destruction. Eleven of them bore the sky-blue and silver color scheme of the UHDF. They never gave up, kept fighting right here until the end. Lawrence vainly hoped they had survived somehow to be taken as prisoners, but by looking at the state some of the machines were in, he guessed most if not all had died fighting. The fact that one UHDF machine was missing from the carnage offered Lawrence a slight glimmer of hope that someone in his command had escaped, but the flight had probably only been temporary.

Lawrence derisively laughed at himself at the totality of his failure. Here was his vaunted defense force in ruins, having only defeated four of the enemy machines in the process. The finest warriors Unyaro had to offer after thirteen years of preparation had been tossed aside by the Jade Falcons like a band of raw cadets. Nonetheless, he was alive, and he had no intention of giving up the fight. He owed his fallen subordinates that much at least.

Turning his eyes towards New Solviato, he observed smoke rising from the northern edge of the city. All was quiet, however, leading Lawrence to believe the battle for the city had already come and passed. Still, Lawrence knew that, occupied or no, New Solviato stood as the planet's last best hope for freedom. Beneath the city's streets lay a secret network of bunkers and tunnels, modifications Lawrence had personally requested built into the design. As long as they remained undiscovered, Lawrence would be able to enter, exit, and move about the city undetected by the enemy--no small advantage for a hometown guerilla operation. The Falcons may have conquered Unyaro, but as long as Lawrence drew breath he would work to make them wish they hadn't.

He wished he could wait until nightfall before making his move, but he expected the clan commander would not accept his absence from the battlefield uncontested. He needed to leave now before clan patrols began scouring the fields for him. Keeping his head below the waving wheat stalks, Lawrence began to creep his way towards the distant metropolis.

UHDF Headquarters
Two miles North of New Solviato

Star Captain Gavin was not having a good day. It seemed like he was being bombarded by a dozen problems at once. His Warhawk was trashed, the pilot responsible--the UHDF commander, no less--was unaccounted for, and, worst of all, one Inner Sphere battlemech had escaped the battle and fled into the forest. One of his pilots, Mechwarrior Andrew, had pursued the enemy mech in his Kit Fox, but was now unresponsive on the radio. Thanks to the incompetence of his warriors, Gavin now had to waste valuable time tracking down two enemy combatants when he should already have been getting back on the Fury to leave this backwater planet behind.

Adding further fuel to his rage was the morning's assault on the planet's capital--what a miserable joke! The so-called fortress-city had refused to surrender after the UHDF's destruction, forcing Gavin to waste more men and materiel invading it. Two members of his command star had died needlessly in the conflict, killed not by warriors but by lowly civilians manning static defenses. Had Unyaro been a Clan world, Gavin would have summarily executed every single member of this abominable "New Solviato Guard" on the spot for daring to raise arms against true warriors. Unfortunately, the barbarians of the Inner Sphere were traditionally provided some temporary leeway when it came to clan law, and Alison had forbade him from exacting reprisals against the civilian population. Justice would be denied him--for now.

Gavin felt like taking his anger out on some lowly bondsman or tech, but alas, there were none to be found. So, he merely sat and stared furiously at his commlink, waiting for news from his search parties. He was not sure how many hours passed like this before the small machine clenched in his sweaty hands finally squeaked for his attention.

“Report,” he croaked into the microphone. The heat and lack of humidity today had dried his mouth out completely. He licked his lips to regain some moisture.

When the voice on the communicator replied, it was full of crackles and pops, the kind caused by magnetic interference. He must be in the mountains then. “Star Commander Theodore reporting in from the Vesper Mountains. We found Mechwarrior Andrew’s Kit Fox in a clearing. It has been destroyed. Andrew is KIA.”

Star Captain Gavin sighed. It was not unexpected, given the long time Andrew had gone without reporting in. Another blemish on my victory--these fools taint my codex. “Very well, continue your search for the enemy mech.”

“Aff”

“Wait!” Gavin ordered

“Star Captain?”

“Did you find out what type of mech the enemy is piloting?”

“Aye, from the battlerom we recovered, it is a Battle Hawk, a light Inner Sphere design. It should not be difficult for us to destroy once we find it.”

“Good. I am going to call in a flight of Visigoths from the Provider to assist you in your search. When you find the mech, capture the pilot alive if you can. He may be useful in my search for his commander.”

“Aye, Star Captain.”

The report didn’t make Star Captain Gavin any more satisfied. His flawless victory had already been denied him by the loss of five-now six battlemechs, and it would still not even be complete until the last remnants had been located and neutralized. Disgusted at his failure and misfortune, he threw the commlink on the ground, then buried his face in his hands in an attempt to calm his temper. No, he reconfirmed, this was not a good day.

Edited by NeoAres, 22 November 2017 - 06:33 AM.

[JWhiplash]

Great writing, can't wait for more.

[NeoAres]

More, you say? More you get!
Sorry for the delay! I had to focus on other things last week. I fully intend to get next chapter out on schedule (i.e. in two days)
_____________________

Chapter 8

New Solviato, Unyaro
Unyaro System
1 June 3064

The streetlights of New Solviato hummed softly, their orange light illuminating the abandoned streets. This late at night, there would be few people out and about regardless, but the curfew enforced by the clan garrison meant that there was not a soul to be seen, save for the rare Elemental patrol. And Lawrence Olliver. His eyes and ears stung with anxiety as he crept slowly down the central avenue, hugging the walls of the buildings to stay in the shadows.

Down at the end of the boulevard, Lawrence could vaguely spot the ruined gap that had once been the North Gate, concrete proof of his total failure to defend his world. Fifteen clan mechs is all it had taken to smash the UHDF and take New Solviato. The turrets and gate alone had been no match for Gavin's force, and the city had surrendered less than an hour after the battle's commencement. To their credit, the city's defenders had managed to take down two clan machines before being overrun, but with New Solviato's surrender, Unyaro was now effectively a Jade Falcon world.

Since his escape from the battlefield, Lawrence had been hiding in the city, secretly attempting to rally the city's scattered militia into some semblance of a guerrilla outfit. He had been aided thus far by New Solviato's most secret and potent trait: a vast network of underground bunkers and tunnels beneath the city's streets. The bunkers were stocked with enough weaponry and supplies to sustain an urban resistance group for months. The city's Elemental garrison would be easy prey for an uprising, should they ever be caught alone, but the mech forces stationed at the UHDF base were another matter. Even if the defenses could be repaired in time to counter a second assault, Gavin's forces had smashed through them with ease the first time around and could do so again. No, he concluded, Unyaro would not save itself from Clan Jade Falcon; it needed help from the outside.

The Comstar hyperpulse generator station was open 24 hours a day, despite the curfew. Acolytes worked through the night at the interstellar communications array, sending backlogged traffic and receiving new messages from all over the Inner Sphere. The signals never ceased, so neither did Comstar's workload. Or its profits, Lawrence thought, cynically. As he approached the station, he could see bright white light emanating from the lobby, flooding into the street through the glass front door.

He opened the door and quickly closed it behind him, pressing up against the adjacent wall to avoid being spotted from outside. The lobby desk was empty, so he swiftly made his way past it into the control room. As he expected, a exhausted pair of acolytes were working at the consoles there. One almost keeled over in fatigued surprise when he noticed Lawrence in the doorway.

"Do you know who I am?" Lawrence asked.

The acolytes nodded.

Lawrence slipped each of the pair a C-Bill note from his coat pocket. "You never saw me. Now please go wake Demi-Precentor Maelon."

One acolyte hurried out of the room and up a flight of stairs. A minute later, a silver-haired man in a flowing bedrobe was yawning his way down the steps. "Major Olliver, good morning. I had heard you'd eluded capture after the battle. Glad to see the rumors are true. How may I help you?"

"I'm exerting my authority code as commanding officer of the UHDF," Lawrence told the precentor, referring to the contract-written ability, reserved only for the governor and the UHDF commander, to pass along messages as quickly as feasible through Comstar's HPG network. However, as both the demi-precentor and Lawrence himself knew, using the HPG network to send military information from a contested planet was technically considered a breach of Comstar's war neutrality policy and therefore prohibited. Lawrence was relying on Tyler Maelon, Sasha Maelon's brother, rather than Demi-Precentor Maelon of Comstar, to get his call for help out to the Inner Sphere. "I want to send a Priority-one distress signal to Tharkad."

"I'm not sure the Falcons would appreciate that very much, Major. I would not like to lose my station because of a breach of neutrality. Besides, you remember what happened to this city the last time the Lyrans showed up at our doorstep." The elitist attitude typical of Comstar precentors made Lawrence's blood boil, and Tyler's voice dripped with it. Lawrence would need to hit hard and fast if he was going to get any favors from the man he once considered to be his friend.

"Screw your goddamn neutrality, Maelon! Think of what the Falcons did last time they were here! Your own sister died fighting them! Are you going to crap all over her memory by refusing to help us now?"

"My duty is to Comstar, not to my dead sister." Maelon kept his face rigid, but Lawrence could tell his words had cracked the resolve behind the facade. Just a little more...

"They razed an entire city, heartlessly killed thousands of innocent civilians. And here you are defending them, selling out your homeland to the same barbarians who destroyed it once and probably will again." His voice took on a low, acidic tone. "Comstar maybe be neutral in this conflict, but you are not. No survivor of the incident with a beating heart could possibly forgive the Jade Falcons. Just how brainwashed have you truly become?"

"Alright! Alright! Stop!" His voice cracked, his mask of professionalism barely holding back Lawrence's view of the pain his words had caused the man. "I'll send your message."

"Thank you, Tyler." Lawrence handed a handwritten slip of paper to the demi-precentor. He wanted to apologize for his hurtful words, but getting the message out was more important than comforting a bruised ego and he couldn't risk Tyler reneging on his deal. He stayed long enough to watch the demi-precentor personally type the message into the computer and speed it on its way into space, then darted back out into the darkness of the street.

UHDF Station, Lunaverde

“Spannek, wake up! Are you even listening to me?” Cid snapped out of his train of thought to the frustrated yell of his XO, Jamie Glauss. God, that girl can get annoying sometimes. He couldn't even remember now what he had been contemplating.

“No, sorry, I was thinking about something.”

“Well you should be thinking about how the hell we’re supposed to beat these clan ******** cause they're only a few hours away! As a matter of fact, this 'Star Captain' named Taryn is on the comm and she wants to speak with you!”

“What about?”

“Do I look like a secretary? Why don’t you ask him yourself?!”

Must be that time of the month...

It wasn't that, Cid reasoned to himself. It was equal parts sorrow, stress, and a sense of doom that had all of them on edge. It was horrible how things had been going for the UHDF so far in the war. The aerospace wing had been wiped out to the last man, the main battlemech force had been exterminated almost as completely, and New Solviato was now under clan occupation. Major Olliver was missing, presumed dead, and that was a fact that had to be hitting Jamie extra hard. The Major had been a father figure to both of them, but Jamie had maintained a much closer bond to the old man than Cid had in recent years.

If only Cid had a larger force, he would take the battle right to Unyaro and restore the base of operations instead of sitting around defending worthless Lunaverde. What good was defending a moon orbiting an occupied planet? Unfortunately he only had four mechs, one still heavily damaged, at his disposal--hardly the recipe for a successful conquest. He'd considered landing in the mountains and going into hiding, running guerilla operations and the like, but he couldn't think of any good hiding places off the top of his head. I guess fighting and dying here is as useful as fighting and dying there. More convenient, too.

“Alright, lets do this.”

He walked with Jamie to a small communications room filled with equipment. Jack and Brian were already there, along with a communications technician. Cid approached the largest piece of technology in the room--an ancient interplanetary radio transmitter--and picked up the small microphone tethered to the device.

Besides a small green data screen in the middle, the boxy transmitter was almost completely blanketed with buttons, *****, and switches. The operation of the radio was so complex that very few people besides trained technicians could adjust them without a great deal of luck or patience. Primitive technology, to say the least. “Bring him up on speaker; I want everyone to hear this,” he ordered the commtech standing by the machine.

The tech casually flipped a switch.
“Done,” he spoke out in a flippant, give-me-a-challenge voice.

Cid rolled his eyes. If we survive this, I'm going to have to start working on commanding some respect around here. The thought made an idea spring up into his head and he smiled as he spoke into the microphone. “This is the UHDF Lunaverde commander you were wishing to speak to.” He paused a moment, winking to Jamie. This was going to be fun.

“This is Star Captai-“

“It’s not your turn! I was not finished speaking to you yet!” Cid yelled at the microphone, eliciting a few snickers from the peanut gallery behind him. Cid had almost laughed as he said it--he hoped the crack in his voice hadn't been picked up by the clan commander. Grinning from ear to ear, he continued. “My name is Corporal Cid Spannek. I’m warning you to turn back your DropShip or I will have no choice but to obliterate you. You are in restricted space, and we will not hesitate to destroy anyone who threatens our world. Our orbital defense cannon is coming online as we speak. You may now respond with customary fear and apprehension. It didn't matter if Taryn believed him or not; what mattered was the fact that the warriors under his command saw him showing no fear in the face of the clan threat.

“Do not be cute with me, freebirth. I know exactly how much power you have on that planet. It is not nearly enough to even slow us down in the capture of your pitiful moon and the utter destruction of its defenders. You will learn to fear the clans, not the other way around.”

“Now I’m really scared," Cid replied sarcastically, then brought his voice down to a venomous tone, "Let’s forget this little squabble until one of us is dead on the battlefield. Did you call me just to taunt me a little? Because that would be quite embarrassing based on your performance thus far. What is your real reason for contacting me?”

Taryn's voiced stayed even, apparently ignoring the barb. “I have come to set up this Trial of Possession with you. How many units do you intend to use in the defense of this planet?"

Cid was too confused to keep up his confident facade. “Wait, wait. What the hell is a trial, and why the frickin' dandy hell should I tell you how many units I have?”

"Then am I correct in assuming that you will defend with all the forces at your disposal?"

Of course that assumption was correct, but Cid was too curious about the clanner's weird behavior to let the matter drop that easily. "No you are not correct. Explain to me, what do I have to gain by not defending with the entirety of my force?"

The voice at the other line let out an audible sigh. “Must you freebirths be so ignorant of the concept of honorable combat? Clan warriors fight honorably, on even ground with the enemy. I have contacted you because, as per our custom, worlds are not fought over; they are won in trials. Part of that custom is the batchall, the negotiation we are currently engaged in. You shall tell me how many units you will use to defend the planet, and my trinary will use what we deem as an equally fair amount of power to attack it. When all forces on one side of the trial are destroyed or surrender, the remaining forces will be bound by honor to peacefully cede the planet to the victor. Our way is the pinnacle of civilized and efficient combat, with minimal waste of lives and materials.”

Sounds like they treat warfare and death as some sort of sport! How sick... As he absorbed the explanation, an idea began to form in Cid’s head, a plan that could turn everything around.

“Can trials be made to gamble something other than a planet?”

There was a pause of silence, the clanner probably wondering where Cid was going with this line of query, before she responded. “Aff.”

“Alright then. In defense of Lunaverde, I will fight with zero troops. The moon is yours for the taking. Have fun with it, Taryn.” With that he signaled to the tech to cut off the transmission. The static cut to silence, and so did the room. It stayed that way for several long seconds as the audience absorbed Cid's words.

“Spannek, what have you done?” Jamie broke the dead air, quietly at first, but increasing in volume as her disbelief transformed into rage. “Are you totally nuts? Of course we’re going to fight them and defend our planet! And here she was, offering to fight us on equal terms!”

“And what if we win? Tell me, Jamie, what then? We have Lunaverde, but our lance is almost certainly trashed and the Falcons still control the rest of the system. Where does that get us exactly?”

“So we’re running away.” Jamie's arms crossed and her face tightened up into one of those "you should be ashamed of yourself" scowls.

“We are going to fight them, Private, just not here.”

“Unyaro?”

Cid declined to confirm her obviously correct guess, instead turning to the commtech. “Radio the Reconciler. Tell Angelina to prepare for our arrival and immediate liftoff. Also, call for a general evacuation of the base; I want every man and valuable piece of equipment out of this building and on that ship within three hours. You two,” he said, pointing to Jack and Jamie, “start up your mechs and help load the heavy stuff onboard. Brian, you can use the old forklift in the hangar to load some of the smaller pieces of equipment." Then, as if to sum it up, "We’re leaving.”

“You didn’t answer! Where are we going?” Jamie asked once again.

Really? “We’re taking the fight to Unyaro, Private. One last roll of the dice for all the money, clan style.”

[NeoAres]

Chapter 9

Jumpship Falcon's Swoop
Nadir Jump Point
Unyaro System
2 June 3064

Alex Calvenstein sat in the cell that had become his permanent home over the last week. He had not been summoned again by Alison Pryde since their first meeting, a fact he deemed equal parts curse and blessing. Being an informant for the clans was not a position he relished, but at this point he would welcome just about any excuse to be free of the cell. He was utterly alone; the only human contact he ever saw was the old bondsman who arrived twice a day like clockwork to deliver his food and clean his cell. Every day since his capture the shriveled old servant had arrived in silence, worked in silence, and left in silence. Alex craved a conversation more than anything else in the galaxy right now, and he'd decided he'd had quite enough of the man's recalcitrance.

He heard the uneven footsteps coming down the dark hall and a rattle from the food tray. The disheveled old man appeared at the cage door and opened it up with a squeak from the key. He looked as sad as always, an understandable visage for a man having been in his position for so long. Alex was terrified the same fate might befall him eventually if he stayed here.

Alex was steeling himself up to speak to the man as he entered the cell, but to his amazement, the bondsman spoke up first. “You know, it has been an awful long time since I had any fellow bondsmen to relate with."

Alex almost fell over in surprise. What relation? You haven't said a word the entire time I've been here! "I can't imagine what it's been like for you, being here so long. Just how long have you been here?"

The old man pondered for a moment. "What is the year?"

"3064."

"Well, then...I suppose I have been a bondsman for about fifteen years," the old man calculated, "not all of it on this ship, mind you--that has been a relatively recent development."

"You've been their slave for fifteen years?" Alex hissed, "and you're still just delivering food and cleaning cells?"

The old man nodded. "If I had been in my twenties upon my capture, I probably would have been assigned some more dignified duty, but amongst the clans, a man as ancient as I am has long outlived his usefulness as a warrior or technician or advisor. Even amongst their own, trueborn kind, they mistake physical feebleness for incompetence. The elderly live out their last days doing simple work as custodians or servants, or are simply released out to pasture to die alone. All clan warriors strive to die in battle before that fate befalls them--a shameful culture of death-mongering. Seen from that light, it is no surprise at all that they keep attacking the Inner Sphere, if for nothing else then to keep from growing old. Do not worry, lad; you are far too young. You will not suffer my fate, at least not for a few decades. You will be a technician, perhaps even a trusted adviser. Too bad Phelan Kell ruined any chance Inner Sphere citizens had for becoming clan warriors, or you may have even had that prospect to aspire to."

"Phelan Kell, I've heard of him. He rules Clan Wolf-in-Exile, the clan that betrayed the others and joined the Inner Sphere."

"Keep your voice down," the bondsman scolded, "the Falcons do not enjoy hearing his name or his clan mentioned out loud. You will see us both beaten heavily if one of them hears you." Once Alex nodded his comprehension, the bondsman continued, "but that is correct. Kell was once a young Inner Sphere mechwarrior who was defeated and captured by the Wolf Clan. Due to the Wolves' former...liberalism...when it came to the Inner Sphere, he became a warrior, earned a bloodname, and even became SaKhan of the clan. When the Wolves were targeted for annihilation by the other clans, he saved them by evacuating Clan space and retreating to the protection of the Inner Sphere. He is neither the subversive agent you believe him to be, nor the traitor the clans view him as--he simply did what he had to do to ensure the survival of his clan. Nonetheless, all you need to know about the incident is that, thanks to him, no Inner Sphere warrior will ever be given the opportunity to walk that same path again--not even a portion of it."

"I see," Alex replied, dejectedly.

"But, as I said, you will be a technician. I was told to relay a message to you: you will begin work as an aerospace technician tomorrow. You will also be moved out of this cell and given a bunk in the bondsman's quarters.

Alex couldn't hold back his beaming grin. Even slavery was a most welcome improvement over confinement and solitude. Perhaps that had been Alison's true reason for locking him up--so that he would actually feel grateful for the opportunity to serve "his new clan."

The old man continued, "It is good to have a friendly conversation after all this time. Most of the other bondsmen treat me with the same contempt as the clan warriors, thanks to my age and my status as a freeborn. Most of them are captured trueborn warriors from other clans. They will probably treat you with similar revulsion, but at least you have your youth to stave off some of it."

"These last fifteen years must have been truly horrible for you, haven't they?"

The old man shrugged. "It has been so long since I commanded any respect, I have forgotten what it was like. I know my place in this society--at the very bottom. When you expect the worst, you cannot be disappointed by it.

“How much respect did you have? Who are you?” Alex asked.

“I am a bondsman, nothing more. It has been years since I was even called by any name besides 'bondsman' or 'old man,' much less my full name."

“Who were you, then? Before your capture? Tell me and I will call you by your name every day from now on to remind you of it.”

“Back then...so long ago I can hardly remember. I was Leftenant General William Hawksworth of the 12th Donegal Guards.”

“The Donegal Guards? So you’re a Lyran?”

"Correct."

"This is how the clans treat a general?" In the Inner Sphere, prisoner-of-war treatment had, for over a millennium, been dictated by rank. For a general to be turned into a slave at all, much less a custodial one, was a huge breach of the rules of war.

"The Jade Falcons never saw me as a general when they captured me. I was simply a warrior who had fought skillfully enough to earn the 'privilege' of being their slave, rather than a dead body on the battlefield. Of course, had Alison, my captor, known my age before claiming me as isorla over the comm, she probably would never have done it."

"So it was Alison herself who defeated you?"

“Yes, though she was un-bloodnamed and only a Star Commander at the time. I was stationed on Trell 1 when the clans first attacked. Believe it or not, I was the commanding officer of Prince Victor Steiner-Davion himself. I evacuated him off the planet before the clans broke through our lines and conquered it. I stayed until the very end, fighting in the caves until my Banshee was the very last Lyran mech standing. I was defeated by Alison and made her bondsman. She told me that I had fought well, and I was given the honor of serving the clan. Little did either of us know at the time it would be like this.”

“well, pardon me for asking a stupid question, but why haven’t you tried to escape? I presume that as a custodian you have access to the whole ship and nobody takes a second glance at you, right?”

“Where would I go? I know how to pilot a battlemech, not a fighter or dropship. The best I could do is float out there until recaptured by Alison's aerospace wing or burn up in some planet’s atmosphere trying to evade them.”

“I’m a fighter pilot. I could get us both to safety.”

“Most fighters I know can’t cram 2 people into it.”

“I know one that can. Just give me some time and I will get us out of here.”

Dropship Reconciler
En-Route to Unyaro

Cid Spannek sat in his bunk, contemplating the attack that was about to take place. He had never faced the clans before himself, but he knew how vicious they could be--after all, this wasn't the first time the Falcons had attacked Unyaro. He had only been a small child back then, but he still remembered it vividly.

The year was 3050. The Clan invasion had begun only a few months before, but already they were sweeping their way across the Inner Sphere, conquering system after system without setback. As part of Victor Steiner-Davion's bold counter-attack strategy to hit worlds behind the clan front, the 16th Lyran Guard led by General Chester Doleston jumped to Unyaro to use it as a staging base for a strike on the occupied world of Somerset. They stayed on-planet for a few days as supplies rolled in and mechs were prepared for the operation. Cid remembered getting to have his picture taken with one of the unit's mechwarriors the day before launch. On a sleepy periphery world like Unyaro, the spectacle of the massive Lyran war machine was quite impressive, and seemingly everyone came out to rally for the troops. Solviato's commercial institutions had never been so busy.

Then, one day, after a great parade across the city in which Cid and his family had attended, the 16th blasted off towards Somerset as the heroes of the universe, to go defeat the undefeatable enemy. The 16th had left a company of tanks and vehicles behind as a reserve force, but in comparison to the hubbub of the previous week, the planet was eerily quiet while everyone waited for news of the 1th's fate.

I never really understood the reports coming back from the battle for Somerset at the time. All my parents would tell me was that something had gone wrong. After that, they seemed so nervous. My father even started gathering weapons and foodstuffs in the closet.

A few weeks after it had departed, the 16th Lyran Guard jumpship appeared back in-system and began unloading dropships. Less than an hour later, another jumpship arrived, accompanied by a gigantic warship. They both belonged to the Jade Falcons. The warship opened fire on the 16th’s jumpship, obliterating it within seconds. Then the clan jumpship unloaded its own dropships down towards the planet, twice as many as the Lyrans had sent.

Everyone down on the planet was afraid. My mother and father sent me on a hoverbus with all the other children. We went deep into the mountains. Once the driver found a large cave to conceal the bus, we stopped and hid. We stayed there for an entire week. I asked the bus driver why we had gone into a cave, but all he would say was that we were safe. For three of those nights, the clouds to the south glowed orange from dusk until dawn.

When the 16th Lyran Guard landed, the people of Unyaro discovered that the original regiment had been reduced to just two companies of battered battlemechs. Even with the armor company as support, they knew they had no chance of fending off the Jade Falcon attack. The Falcons were enraged about the attack on Somerset and had declared a "Trial of Annihilation" against the Guard. In hindsight, the Duke should have sent the Lyrans back into space, but with their jumpship already destroyed, he knew that to deny them sanctuary was as good as a death sentence.

The entire UHDF (which was just a company at the time) gathered at the edge of Solviato to stand beside the Guards. The clan force, amounting to almost a full regiment of battlemechs and aerospace assets, surrounded the city and pushed the defending forces inside. The fighters carpet-bombed the city with inferno warheads, igniting a firestorm that engulfed every last building and inhabitant. The clan mechs marched to the duke’s burning palace, defended only by Captain Lucas Fielder and then-Sergeant Lawrence Olliver. Fielder, the hero of Unyaro, took down 4 mechs single-handedly before he was killed by the overwhelming force. If not for sheer luck, Major Olliver would have perished there as well.

Not finished with killing the guards, the duke, and destroying the capital, the Falcons continued on up the road leading away from the city until they reached the command base. They razed the base to the ground, killing anyone who escaped the destruction. Only then did they board their dropships and depart, leaving the spaceport as the only intact structure for kilometers around.

We waited and waited for what seemed like ages, long after the orange night sky had faded to blackness. Finally, one day, the driver told us to board the bus and head on back home. He said everything was okay and that we would see our moms and dads when we got back. He told us they had been sheltered in the Duke’s palace, the safest place in the city.

When we got back, the rubble was still smoking, though all the flames had gone out. There was no city anymore, no palace, no roads, just never-ending rubble. We never did see our parents again. They all suffocated in the bunker beneath the Duke's palace. The entire adult population of Solviato died that day, thousands of innocent civilians slaughtered by the clans. The only citizens besides the farmers who survived were those who had fled like my group. I vowed to join the military and kill all the evil clanners when I was old enough. Now I have my chance.

After the clanners' departure, the rebuilding had begun. New Solviato had been built upon the ashes of the old. The new city was surrounded by an enormous ferrocrete wall, and had heavy turret defenses. Not only that, but a huge stockpile of weaponry and supplies, salvaged from the 16th, had been secretly stashed away in a sprawling underground bunker complex. In times of siege, the bunker could house and feed the entire population of the city for months, while giving the defenders enough firepower to make the enemy think twice about trying to break through the walls. It seemed like so much paranoid delusion now, but at the time, it had been an essential element of the blueprint.

Rebuilding the UHDF had been easy. There was so much battlemech wreckage strewn around the city that the technicians were not only able to bring the Griffins back to full strength, but add a fourth lance to it as well. As a bonus, they had recovered a good amount of clan technology, including the Ryoken that now inhabited the Reconciler’s cargo bay, waiting for Cid to turn it against its makers.

Cid must have fallen asleep, because when he came back to reality he was laying down. A blanket was draped over his body, something he definitely had not done himself. Silly girl, I was plenty comfortable already. He smiled and snuggled back under the covers. This was probably the last good sleep he would get for a while and he intended to relish every moment of it.

Edited by NeoAres, 25 March 2015 - 08:15 AM.