Legend Of The Jokers Wild Revised

by CSS Stravag

Set 1 of the Jokers Wild tale. A derelict patrol ship of an interdimensional Star Empire suffers a problem when jumping between dimensions, and lands in the L4 area of Cosmic Era Earth. How can one dysfunctional warship and its motley crew change the history of genocide in the lands of the SEEDs? (This Set of the Jokers Wild is completed, working on Set 2 now.)

1. Assembly Point Antics

(Legend of the Jokers Wild – Revised)

After a year and a half of listening to all the criticism and the compliments, and seeing where my writing has thus far gone, I have finally gotten around to cleaning up the basis of the bloodier half of the MultiMage Chronicles. The first section of the Jokers Wild Chronicles, the Legend of the Jokers Wild, has drawn reviews from both aisles of the Gundam fans, the dissenters and the ravers. Drawing on the criticism, it is time to clean the closet out and correct my prior errors while strengthening the parts that have been said to be strong points. Mostly, after writing as far as I have, then looking back at Legend, I see something that I know I can do a lot better on than what I have out there. And it is time I went about cleaning it up, for it would be naught but appropriate to have the whole work cohesive and proper. I owe it to both fans of the Jokers Wild and to myself to do better.

As I said prior, this is a side story, an epic parallel to and tied into another epic, one that is itself twelve years in the making and is itself long and bloody to compare to only reality. That it ties to the Gundam SEED franchise as its roots and takes the SEED world in a whole new and unexpected direction is only part of it, for this is the foundation of a tale far, far darker and more sadistic than the conflict inherent to Gundam. After all, Earth is simply one planet with colonies; the rest of Existence beckons to those with the will to try, and the will to kill.

And thus, may the revision of the madness commence.

DISCLAIMERS

As stated prior, this story contains a lot of characters, units, governments, history that I have created and that I have incorporated from other works. A lot of this is a multi-crossover fanfiction, basically, with elements as far-flung as anime, books, telvision, video games and board games. I will introduce most of the material as is needed, the rest (and interesting or entertaining facts) will be footnoted in my usual fashion. Thus, when you see (0) it means to check footnote 0 at the bottom of the document for some interesting intel. Much of it will be a clarification to something that people might find confusing, like an unfamiliar concept or term. Some of it may be humorous as well.

Note that the primary warship in the story was built using Battletech's rules from Aerotech 2, but is not legal for Battletech / Aerotech play, as it is well over twice too heavy for the maximum weight limit. Specs for the involved units will be included in dribbles in the story and I will do a full TRO section of the space units at the end of the story, as there are some that like the conversions from Gundam to Battletech. By the way, if anyone has thus far actually used one of the conversions in an Aerotech 2 game, please message or review with your opinions of the conversion.

Purists take note: I am trying to scale all included elements into a relatively cohesive set of comparisons here, though there are marked disparities in all included elements. They will be obvious, as they should be. When universes collide, the sound they make is loud and very very scary. There is simply no way to get around it, but one can make it (somewhat) logical.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER: I own no rights to any included material from any other stories. I intend no offense in such use.

VIOLENCE WARNING: It is the root of all Gundam, for without violence there is no war. Otherwise, it is called 'negotiations', follow? And even I cannot imagine a 'Gundam' with only negotiating, such would be less entertaining than watching paint dry.

OC WARNING: This story is OC-centric, and not in the typical fashion. Of course the main characters and a lot of the secondary and side characters of SEED, SEED Destiny, and SEED Astray will show up. You have been warned.

BAAAAAD LANGUAGE WARNING: This story revolves around a fleet of misfits and jokers. Expect foul language; they are Navy and Marines, after all. Also expect possible suggestiveness, crazy situations, interpretiveness, analysis, and lots and lots of violence. You have been warned.

ANTI-POLITICAL-CORRECTNESS WARNING: To strive to be politically correct serves no purpose, for real life makes no such distinction. I will not do so. Death before dishonor. End of story. Please don't ask me to explain this one.

And thus, onto the story from another corner of Existence...

---

(Legend of the Jokers Wild – Revised)

(Chapter 01: Assembly Point Antics)

(Date: 16 May 2SL-12 (SL 12062))

Like everyone else, Wayne was seated in the Dropship passenger common area, twiddling his thumbs while he hitched a ride on one beeter headed for a resupply rendezvous with another beeter. Or so the story went. During the seven-day journey from Terra Two to the Jumpship that was to ferry him to his destination ship, he had spoke with the captain of the resupply ship Vajra, a rather ambitious name for little more than a freight and personnel hauler, and in so doing learned the Dropship was a piece of junk, a kickout of the early part of the Star Empire Wars for the purpose of carrying personnel and cargo in varying quantities of either to the great fleets of the Empire. For thousands of years, the Quarter-Horse class Dropships like the Vajra were the lifeblood of the evolving and ever-escalating war, themselves barebones and no-frills ships designed for rugged, long-service transport and 'trash-hauling' and not for combat. To point, the Quarter-Horse class only had enough weapons to scare an unarmored raiding party in a NL-42 taxi shuttlecraft; against an actual fighter, there was little to no hope for the Dropship.

And Wayne's destination ship was both far more expensive and far more 'beeter' than the Dropship he was on, which had one moderate engine malfunction before it even got to the Jumpship. Thankfully nothing else on the ship broke after the jump and in transit to the next destination, so...

"...So that's where I turned in on the puke, fired up my beam sword, and hammered it," the pilot sitting next to Wayne says to the mechanic sitting next to him. "By the time the dumb shit realized what I'd done, I'd already chopped the wing clean off his Vandal and got the liberty of watching him spiral in for a four-point-oh crash right into a hillside," and this he demonstrated with a hand gesturing a wobbly flight into his other hand, the latter representing a hillside. "Needless to say the rest of their wing got out of Dodge faster than I could catch up to them, so only one of them paid for their unit's arrogance," he concludes.

"Clanners aren't the brightest lightbulbs in Existence, eh?" the Mechanic asked back, to which Wayne was not entirely sure if he was patronizing the Gundam pilot or really meant it.

"That one definitely wasn't," the Pilot replied. "Still, 'they pays they batchalls, they takes they chances' as the old saying goes," the Pilot said (2). "And supposedly that guy was one of the best in that Galaxy, but I didn't find him any worse than the simulators," the Pilot concluded.

"You're awfully quiet, sir," the lady sitting next to Wayne pointed out. "I haven't heard you say much of anything to anyone since you got on," she added after a moment to think about it. Wayne considered that was a bit of a feat, as he had been in this stinking (literally) Dropship for over a week, going on two.

"I'm still a bit...err...contemplative about my posting," Wayne replied diplomatically. What he wanted to say was far more venomous than what was said.

"Shouldn't be too hard, sir," she said, knowing instinctively the morose guy with more pilot qualifications than duty ribbons was some form of officer. "What do you pilot?"

"Anything with engines," Wayne replied with a bit more brevity to tone. "From the Light Strike Fighter all the way up to a check ride on a Nirvana-class Ultra-dreadnought," which covered a tonnage group from 10 tons for the former all the way to ten-million-plus tons in the case of the latter.

"Wow, most sane pilots keep it to one classification, maybe e'en one unit, not hamburgered like that, sir," after a moment she covered her mouth in shock. "Oops, I don't think that was the most politic thing to say, sir, I do apologize," she said. Wayne could just barely make out her accent as being one of the 'Draconis' holdings or a descendant thereof, the last bastion of the great House Kurita, whichever interdimensional instance thereof had been absorbed prior to her birth. Regions absorbed by the Empire, by purchase, military expansion or some other coup tended to retain their local flavor and dialects, making the Empire a case of America writ far larger and far more stable. Her accent felt somewhere between straight-Japanese-pronounced Japanese and Swedish-pronounced Japanese, which made interpreting her a bit tricky for Wayne. Wayne's Japanese was of the Durgan variety, a middle-Europe patois that was the de facto but almost never followed standard throughout the Empire.

"I did not say I was sane, did I?" Wayne replied lightly, to keep her from thinking she had just committed some form of grievous offense. Naval Officer corps were fast becoming known for their stuffy, decadent attitude when compared to the other branches of the service, which made for increased tension in the operating ranks, which caused a loss of efficiency across the board as the Empire's analysis showed. The best crews were at ease with themselves, from the bottom all the way to the top, disciplined yet civil, and ready to do their job at a moment's notice.

"No, sir, I don't think you did," she replied warily, not entirely sure he was actually suggesting what he intended.

It registered to Wayne: "Relax, Operator. I am not going to use your ass for a hood ornament on my ride just because you called me crazy. Such is far, far better than some of the shit I've been called in the past two weeks," he said candidly.

"And how many of them did you stomp into the ground, sir?" the Gundam pilot to his right asked, suddenly keenly interested in Wayne's conversation.

"None, they were all Admirals, I didn't get that luxury," Wayne said. "I'll give them this one as a package deal, I will have my vengeance in this life or the next, however long I need to wait," Wayne replies.

The ship's intercom dinged a bell tone. "Attention all hands, we are five minutes from docking with warship Mjolnr, all hands to docking stations, all passengers please remain seated at your landing seating until docking is completed," and the cheap intercom system gave a bit of a squeal when it clicked off.

"Gods, they need to fix that thing," the Mechanic said. "I hope the Mjolnr is not this bad," he appended after a moment.

"Fear, kid, fear like you never have before," the Gundam Pilot said. "This is my second tour attached to the Montgomery as escort to the Mjolnr, and I can tell you that ship is a Gods-be-damned jaloppy if I have ever been on one. The only thing keeping it from rusting to pieces is that it operates only in vacuum," he declared with the finality of a death sentence.

Good Gods, those old bastards certainly got their last laugh when they sent me here, Wayne thought.

"So, what do you pilot, normally?" the Gundam pilot asked Wayne.

"Altron for light duty work, anything bigger for the fun of it," Wayne replied sardonically.

"Well, you came to the right place, then," the Operator noted. "This monster definitely is big, if in bad need of an overhaul," she said.

"It cannot be that bad, can it? This ship is steeped in history, it should be a floating monument to more than a few wars," Wayne protested their cynicism.

"It ain't a former ride of one of those old bastards on the Admiralty Review and Assignment Board, therefore it gets less than the luxury of sucking hind tit from the supply corps," the Gundam pilot noted, then smoothly continued: "No offense, milady Operator," he said as he looked past Wayne to the Operator.

She giggled slightly. "Better hope you're not in my area of control, or I may have to fly you into an asteroid," she cautioned with an obvious tone of tease.

"Oh shit," the Gundam pilot replied in a worried tone.

CLANG-WRAAM-CLANG, the whole hull rattled to the sound of the impact.

"Five minutes my ass," the Gundam Pilot noted.

"Did we just bounce off the docking collar?" Wayne asked with a grimace.

"No, that's what you call a trash hauler for a pilot," The Gundam Pilot said in disgust. "We're locked in, but he probably also marred the paint on his ship and damaged both his and the Mjolnr's docking collar," he guessed at the damage.

"Wonderful, if this is any indication of how the rest of this tour is going to be, I may finish going completely crazy," Wayne grumped dejectedly.

"Relax, sir, it can always be worse," the Operator said as she unfastens her seatbelt in time with the seatbelt warning lights flicking off.

"How?" Wayne asked in exasperation as he stood up and picked up his duffel and carryons.

"At least we're not marooned outside the Empire, sir," she opined as she moved toward the lift shafts headed for the docking collar and the massive warship beyond. Wayne followed her close, knowing his destination was eventually the same as hers, only for a vastly different job from hers.

"Bloody Hell, girl, I can't believe you would actually believe that possible," the Gundam pilot said in exasperation.

"Ah, he has no veterancy with the concept 'shit happens' or Murphy's Law, ne?" Wayne said to the Operator as the three, the Mechanic, and about a dozen more took the personnel lift toward the ship.

"No, clearly he does not, sir," the Mechanic said. "You?"

"I am well versed in 'shit', 'shit happens', 'fucked by the system', and every variant of Murphy's Law," Wayne replied deadpan. "And that is with or without the obligatory reach-around," Wayne added for a ration of laughs from the other passengers. In five seconds the doors on the lift opened to the short hallway leading to the escalator into the embarking access on the Mjolnr.

"I hear ya, brother," one of the Engine Technicians acknowledged the point from behind Wayne as they started piling on the escalator. In a matter of seconds they were down into the embarkation area, and the obligatory Marines were waiting at the bottom with senior ship's officers awaiting the arrival of 'fresh meat' from the transport. "Are you sure you're officer material? You act like you actually do something," he added just before they hit the bottom of the escalator. Before Wayne could respond, they were accosted by something the whole group would much rather not have to deal with: an officer.

"All right, all ya laughin' pukes line yer asses up double time!" one of the Lieutenants shouted. "You, what're you doing in this area?" The Lieutenant said, singling out Wayne.

"I was in this seating area, Lieutenant," Wayne replied calmly, apparently unperturbed by his rough attitude. Great, another wannabe Political Admiral, Wayne thought crassly.

"You're out of your assigned embarkation section, sailor, I don't care what part of the ship you were on, you're supposed to disembark from your assigned door," the Lieutenant was almost spitting fury at Wayne for this 'disruption of operational order', despite the fact that Wayne had no assigned disembarkation area. His orders for transport were laid on too fast for him to have such information. "Point Officer, find out where this Think Tanker is supposed to be and ship him there the hard way," the Lieutenant said to one of the Armored Marines nearby.

"Lieutenant, I will handle this one," a lady in a dark blue uniform interjected before the Lieutenant could get more derisive. Physically she appeared fairly young, barely twenty, if that old, and had the typical appearance of someone who was more concerned about their duty than themselves. Physically fit, her uniform barely revealed some details that Wayne would have spared no time hitting on were he a third younger than he was now, but it was her eyes that told a far deeper tale. One glance told him that the mind lurking behind the violet eyes was sharp and deep, not someone to trifle with, yet not an unkind person at initial guess.

"What? Ma'am, this is not something you need to be involved in—"

"I said I will see to this, Lieutenant. Any questions?" she replied far more forcefully than Wayne would have given her credit at twenty meters.

"No, ma'am, but I will be filing a report on this to the Star Admiral, whenever-the-hell he shows up," the Lieutenant grumped as he continues surveying the personnel that were filing into the embarkation area still.

"And you are, milady?" Wayne asked, knowing that the lady he was beholding was very likely the one person on the ship that alternately did and did not outrank him...

"Calamira Weste, sir, I take it you have been briefed in?" she replied, which was not entirely untoward given that who she was talking to was a naval officer of some type, though Wayne was not wearing any rank insignia but a helluva lot of qualification, duty and commendation ribbons.

"Somewhat, the ink on my posting paperwork has barely finished drying," by which he meant that this whole assignment had been laid on grossly fast. He figured it confirmed that this was the officer he thought it was. Calamira Weste, he drilled into his mind to make sure he did not forget it.

"So, Star Admiral Centara, do you want to remain here and listen to blow-hard's typical induction speech, or shall we get down to business?" Calamira said. The instant reaction to the revelation that who he had just ripped was the Star Admiral gave serious consternation to the Lieutenant, which made the whole matter all the more enjoyable to Calamira.

"I will go, but first..." Wayne looked back to the Lieutenant.

"Sir," the Lieutenant said as he comes to full attention.

"I suggest you start being civil to the enlisted and the other branches, Lieutenant. One of them may save your ass someday," Wayne pointed out directly.

"Then again, one of us may not save his ass some day, sir," The Gundam pilot said. This of course drew a ration of laughs from the whole area, Calamira included.

Wayne simply rolled his eyes at the joke. "As you were, Lieutenant," he said as he began the trek toward the door with Calamira two paces ahead of him.

"So, Star Admiral, where exactly do you fall in duty terms?" Calamira asked in what appeared to be an innocent fashion. "Or, need I guess?"

"Likely, no better than the last few Admirals on this ship," Wayne said. "I did have some time to read up on the operational history of this ship, a long and bloody battle record followed by a period of gross misuse and scandalous maintenance...and staffing. I know there's no chance in hell of me being able to correct that in one stroke, but..."

"It's worth a shot, Star Admiral," Calamira replied.

"Some days, I wonder if it would be possible to suborbitally bombard the AR-AB," Wayne said. "Just erase it off the face of Terra 02, be done with the whole cluster-fuck, put the Star Admirals back under the DCT (3) where they belong," he said. "Pipe dreams, though. Those who chiseled themselves a ration of power will not relinquish it." Not that there was much power available in the fashion that they were using it, if the DCT cracked down on their conduct, the halls of the Administration Building would run red with the blood of the political hacks that ran said facilities. They only held power by mutual agreement of the Star Admirals and the blind eye of the DCT, though that could be changed in a matter of ten seconds with a suborbital volley, Wayne knew...

"Finally," Calamira half-muttered.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Finally, a Star Admiral that actually lives in the real world. There may be hope for us all yet," she said.

Wayne followed the smaller officer quietly for a few moments, contemplating the bent of her comment. He decided that not commenting or even asking would be to his benefit, so he remained silent as they walked down the central corridor toward the bridge.

The ship was five kilometers long, and the central corridor went most of the way across the length, from the interplanetary engines all the way to the bridge at the absolute front of the ship. To either side were numerous bays, crew quarters, marine barracks, material storage, maintenance access hatches, and weapons stations. Even after a decade of driving and recently commanding ships, Wayne still found the sheer size of the Phalanx-class ships and the requirements of running one to be slightly on the side of insane, but the other side of that equation was one of these ships was more than equal to a fleet of old Inner Sphere warships and supporting assets. Especially when one Phalanx carried enough firepower to turn a smaller Warship into a floating wreck in one volley.

"Thousands of crew, hundreds of mobile forces, a compliment of monitors, dropships and support craft. I believe your last command was a McKenna-class? A far cry from a Phalanx, I can tell, sir."

"Lei Kung, yes, a McKenna. A brutal class, the McKenna, built for the purpose of smashing other ships to hell and back, but nowadays they are outclassed grossly, even with mobile forces refits. Another joke posting," Wayne groused as they stopped forward of the blast doors leading into the bridge.

"Sir?" Calamira asked.

Wayne looked at the floor between his feet, chuckling grimly for a moment, then back up to Calamira. "I am not going to be false about this. I was posted here as a combination joke and get me out of their hair, since my tac scores are double any three of those old bastards I was posted way the hell out of their way so I do not interfere with them. I will do what I can to get this ship back up to standard, but I cannot make promises when I am getting my ass cramped and malnourished from oversight indifference."

Calamira nodded thoughtfully. "This ship for the past couple thousand years has been known as a deathtrap for Star Admiral's careers. I don't expect you alone to be able to break that tradition, but at least you are realistic about what you are up against. I think it may be possible with a little help..."

"Anyone on the ship going to object if I front that as my opening position?" Wayne asked after she presents her theory.

"On this ship, sir? They may commission the mechanics to make a bronze statue of you when you do that," Calamira replied honestly. She did not know she was undershooting the reality to come by an order of magnitude.

-x-x-x-

Gerald was expecting another political hack, not...this.

So far he had said nothing after taking a position where he could see the whole bridge crew. Everyone was standing at attention, as would be customary, but so far nobody had said anything, even the pilot and suborbital officer were not bickering. That alone was some form of sign, though Gerald had no real idea as to what form of sign that may be. From time to time he had seen these happenings before, officers that actually could do more with simple presence than saying anything would accomplish. They were rare, and often times listed among the best or buried under the worst by envious superiors. Though the Empire's ways were supposed to prevent that, it still happened, and the Star Admiralty was classic picture of why.

Gerald could also sense that the Star Admiral was selecting his tack for his opening speech. Probably short and to the point, he figured. He could already sense where this was going, and he knew it would make things rough for him and his units.

He was not disappointed. "I won't bother blowing any sunshine in here, ladies and gentlemen. This just plain sucks." He looked around. "I'll bet this is a bridge and likely most or all of the crew, all condemned to go no farther than this jaloppy in career advancement. Now, before I try to go about correcting this problem, do we want to?"

"Can't be done, Star Admiral," the ship's helmsman said. "AR-AB won't let us transfer outta here."

"Then we prove to the Division Commander that we are better than our performance standard shows, and maybe he will allow us to correct this mistake," Wayne said. "I will worry about the details. What we must do first is ensure our ship is in top condition and top training; after that, we figure out how to correct the problem."

"Us and a couple dozen more ships," the Suborbital officer said.

"Think they have pissed off that many other Star Admirals, Chief Warrant Officer?"

"Yes, Star Admiral, that and more," she replied immediately.

"Then the task is not impossible. All that remains is to determine if we want to do it or not," Star Admiral Centara noted. "I leave that decision to you, and the whole crew and mobile forces. If we do this, it is going to be bloody for both us and them. Keep that in mind."

"Sir!" the bridge replied in unison.

"Any outstanding major problems with the ship?" Wayne asked, more or less concluded of his initial speech. He was not one for the lengthy motivational speeches, and it showed.

"Neg, Star Admiral," the Chief Engineer replied.

"Very well, core charge status?"

"Core is at 86 percent, sir," the Jump Engineer said. "We will be ready to jump in six hours."

"Very well. We continue normal operations. Jump Officer, plot us a jump to Hesperus 602, I have an old friend there that might be willing to help us out," Wayne ordered.

"Aye, Star Admiral," the Jump Officer replied.

"I would like the Type Commanders in briefing one in half an hour, and full ship briefing in 90 minutes. Commander Ward?"

"Sir!" The Commander replied immediately. He was a training Ship Captain and thereafter a Star Admiral, though like the others he had been shunted to the Mjolnr and left there, with only token promotions over the past six years.

"Continue normal operations, I will want you in the briefing as well when the time comes."

"Aye, Star Admiral."

"Chief Engineer, Calamira, if I may get a detailed briefing on the ship's present status and outlook before the conference?" The Star Admiral asked the two respective personnel.

"Then you'll probably want one more of us," Calamira said as she waves to Gerald.

"Right," Gerald nodded as he approaches the conference room behind Calamira. "Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer, sir," Gerald identified himself as he came to full attention at the threshold of the conference room.

"Wayne Centara," Wayne replied as he came to attention himself. "Grab a seat, all of you," Wayne said as he approached the Star Admiral's chair. "All right, I'm going to start this off by saying that I don't expect any of you to be completely proper in my presence. We're here to do a job, and we do it. No sugar-coating matters, no bullshit, nothing of the sort. If you have something to say, I want to hear it. I may not follow it, but I will listen. Conversely, I'm not going to tell you how to do your jobs, especially in the case of jobs I know very little about," and he nodded to Calamira on this point.

"Nice, someone who doesn't fark around," Gerald replied. "Though, I do have one gripe before we begin, do you honestly believe we have a chance against the AR-AB?"

"As we are, no chance in any of the nine hells," The Star Admiral replied. "If we can prove that our performance reviews are unjustified, that we are better than the Admiralty claimed, then we can overtake them and have them dismissed by the Division Commander. To do that, we have to get there," Wayne laid out his initial operating concept. "And that is where you come in, lady and gentlemen."

"I might as well start, then," the Chief Engineer replied. "The ship is combat-ready right now, but as we all know this ship is not in mint condition. I have a stack of repair requests and no resources to use to fix them."

"I was told this ship was refitted with a Nanotech Machining system," Admiral Centara noted.

"Correct, Star Admiral, but we do not have the necessary paperwork or authorization to convert the whole ship aggressively."

"Do it, my authority," Wayne replied. "The Division Commander has said it is up to the vessel CO whether they want the whole ship retrofitted after the Machining Lab is installed, it is the Admiralty that put restrictions beyond that. The Division Commander's judgment trumps the Admiralty. Is there going to be any issue with making the conversion?"

"Sir, no sir," the Chief Engineer replied with a smile. "I think we can disabuse the 'beeter' stigma of this ship fast enough, if you're willing to take some liberties, sir?"

The Star Admiral leaned forward and planted his elbows on the conference table. "Talk to me," he ordered.

"It will take time and material, but we can upgrade all of our equipment to the full R5 standard, that is if you are going to let me jump-start the Nanotech systems throughout the ship."

"Super-node it?" Wayne asked for clarification.

"Yes, sir, that and more." Super-nodes involved a series of Nanotech machine shops throughout the ship, usually occupying unused cargo rooms here and there. They supported the structural Nanotech grid and also allowed the unit to recycle material into something usable. With a Nanotech Machine Shop, you really could feed the hive 100 tons of steel wool and expect to come back the next morning and see a bright, shiny Atlas assault 'mech waiting for you. "I've been running down some computer simulations of various applications of nanotechnology on the ship, and I found an optimum distribution of nano hives and pipes that would allow the ship to literally repair itself on the fly, so long as we had enough solids to do the job and the enemy didn't hammer on us too hard."

"And there is another problem, Star Admiral. It is the AR-AB that controls the distribution of the Solids Blocks, leaving us to forage on asteroids and wreckage," CC Lightbringer added. "Unless you have a plan for getting around that, sir?"

"You're the kind of person that is sure to remind little kids there is no Santa, right?" Star Admiral Centara replied after a moment.

"Best to disabuse them of such notions of universal peace and goodwill while young. Makes dealing with the cold, hard reality easier and faster."

"He has a creepy sort of point," the Chief Engineer replied.

"As to your question, no, I do not have a plan for getting my hands on blocks of Solids, nor do I want them. We can do well enough foraging on our own with enough asteroids and debris. Solids, especially the quantity we would need, would simply be advertisement we were up to 'no good' in the eyes of the Admiralty."

This guy may actually fly, Gerald thought but did not say.

Calamira simply nodded, though the Chief Engineer was smiling in a grossly evil fashion. "Any other standing issues from the ship?"

"No, sir."

"Then plan on beginning re-engineering the ship for nominal Nano distribution and using asteroids and wreckage to build our own blocks of solids. We play by the Division Commander's rules from here on out, nothing less."

"Aye, Star Admiral," the Chief Engineer replied.

"All right, next would be the mobile forces. That would be you, Gerald, correct?"

"Aff, Star Admiral," Gerald replied. "Simply stated, the Defensive Armor Forces on this ship are a bloody study in duality. On the one hand, I have some of the best in the Empire flying for this ship and the Monitors. On the other hand, I wouldn't hire out some of them as mercs for fear of embarrassing the Empire."

"How many flying hours do you think it will take to get everyone up to par?"

"Define 'par', if you will, Star Admiral," Gerald replied on the level.

"80 percent perfect-condition shot placement, doesn't get their ass blown off by wild antics, plays like a typical team, the usual," Star Admiral Centara replied.

"Nine months on the shooting, teamwork will take that and more even with composite drilling and heavy use of simulations."

"Then hammer the hell out of them, Gerald, and consider it an order if they need any extra motivation. If they challenge me to Trial by Combat, I want an honest-to-the-Gods challenge," Star Admiral Centara declared. "The rest of the Admiralty may think this a lofty time of peace, but history has shown that the name 'Star League' is cursed to be the subject of enemies within and without. I want to be ready to whoop ass whenever, wherever we are ordered to, and it goes without saying that since the AR-AB does not like us one bit we will be one of the first into the breach."

"Very well, if I may I would like to recommend as our first destination a real shithole of an outpost with a good officer wasting away that can better serve the Empire with this ship than where he is presently parked."

"Shanghai someone else's command? That is a hazard in and of itself, Century Commander," the Star Admiral replied.

"We have dozens of dock collars unused, fighter bays sitting empty and quarters with one person to ten bunks. We can stand to take on the personnel, and last I checked that hell-hole he is camped in should be condemned, it is that far out of maintenance routines. Therefore, we would be doing the Empire a service by better utilizing his forces and removing that station from the budget. I have some friends higher up that can sort out any 'political issues' that may become of the action, that is if you are willing to try, Star Admiral."

Wayne considered himself very reluctant to ask who 'his friends' were in this case. "Okay, before I assent to this self-destruction, what forces are we picking up and what type of station is it?" Wayne asked flatly.

"The force is a galaxy of Aerofighters, flying primarily the Fireball with a leavening of Clan heavies and some others. The station is an outdated toroidal-type Waypoint-class Recharge station. Only some of the guns on it work, the equipment is R3 standard, crewed by good guys stuck in a miserable hell-hole of an outpost. We shanghai all the personnel and equipment, to use your phrase, and scuttle the station as a practice target, net benefit the whole way around."

"And the time it takes to strip down the station would be very useful for modding the ship and turning the scrap into usable resources, Star Admiral," the Chief Engineer added to the motivation.

"All right, all right, you win," Wayne replied before Calamira had to get on his case. "If you can confirm your comrades can clear up any inter-department issues with this, that shall be our next destination."

"All right, this is gonna be excellent!" the Chief Engineer replied. "By your leave, Star Admiral, I would like to get to work ASAP," he said as he stood up.

"Have at it, Chief, thank you for the input," the Star Admiral replied as a way of dismissal.

"Sir," he came to full attention, turned smartly, and was out the conference room two breaths later.

"What I sense shall come next, best I be elsewhere," Gerald said as he came to attention. "By your leave, Star Admiral?"

"Granted. I would like to speak with you at length sometime soon about the mobile forces and other matters of interest, Century Commander," Wayne said.

"I would welcome it, sir," he said before giving a Star League-era bow and departed the conference room.

"And then there was just one outstanding issue," Calamira broke the silence. "Well, two, I should note."

"One, by my count, personnel," Wayne replied warily; "or am I missing something?"

"Yeah, you need a proper introduction to the Ship's AI."

"This ship...an AI?" Nothing in Wayne's paperwork included that information.

-x-x-x-

The ship had jumped an hour before, and was moving the several hundred thousand kilometers toward the recharge station that they were going to 'acquire' the Aerofighters from. After that, they would move to Hesperus 602 (4) to pick an old friend of the Star Admiral, who much like Gerald's old friend would be able to help the ship.

"What'll it be, sir?" the grill chef and bartender asked several hours after the Star Admiral's hallmark crew briefing.

"Surprise me," Gerald replied.

"And for you, milady?" he indicated the physically smaller person that had followed Gerald.

"Erm, just a plate of brass cases," she said. The method of ordering meals in the Sniper Bar and Grill was unusual, everything was listed in sniper lingo and code phrases, which made ordering a little bit of an adventure for the crew that actually ate at the Sniper Bar and Grill every now and again. Most of the crew preferred the other restaurants down toward the center and rear sections of the ship, the command staff frequented this one but often with a leavening of pilots and Marines. So, by ordering 'brass cases' she had ordered a plate of chicken tenders with some french fries and mixed vegetables.

"Tony! One plate of brass cases," the head chef ordered to his assistant.

"I thought you didn't drink normally," Calamira noted as she finished settling into the barstool next to Gerald.

"Normally, no, heavily, yes," Gerald replied in his usual sardonic fashion. His drinking habits were something of a minor legend on the ship, though he was never caught on duty drunk or hung over. "I get this feeling, however, a future of bloody war is ahead of us all, and the ghosts of my past already rile in response," he explained. "By the Gods, I wish I did not have to do some of the things I did, but there was no way to get around them," he noted sourly as the bartender served him a drink. "Thanks, comrade," Gerald said as he began to reach for it.

"Gerald Lightbringer, Calamira Weste, report to CIC immediately," the voice of the Star Admiral ordered over the intercom before the Century Commander could take his first sip.

"Damn," Gerald says as he stands up. "If anyone touches this drink, frag them," Gerald requested of the chef.

"Aff, Century Commander," the cook replied as Calamira slid off her stool. "Your dinner will be waiting, milady," he noted as she looked over the bar to the grill surface and ovens.

The distance from the Sniper Bar and Grill to the main door for the CIC was a matter of meters, nothing spectacular. Both entered at once, and could immediately sense something was wrong.

"Someone must have snaked a raid warning in with the last batch of HPG messages we dumped prior to jumping," the port-side bow flight controller said. "Asshole! When I catch the svashri bastard, I'll wring his neck until his head falls off and use his skull for a shitpot," she swore vehemently.

"Chill out, Daisy, this was inevitable," Gerald noted from behind her. The voice, familiar and calm, still caused her to jump when he spoke.

"You—arrrggghhh! How the hell do you do that?" she asked in a rapidly growing mad tone.

"Silence, only silence," Gerald replied with an amused tone. "You rang, boss?" he said more directly to the Star Admiral.

"We have two problems here," Wayne noted. "One, we have a stoolie," Wayne noted. "I'll leave how to find and deal with that to you, but first and foremost we have a problem far larger than one tattle-tale."

"Let me guess, the Texas-class warship Colorado Springs, correct?" Calamira asked.

"Indeed, they have said nothing yet but it does not take a brain-canner to tell why they are out here in the middle of nowhere," Wayne grumped. "We may need to deploy, Gerald, this ship is five times larger than that tin can but they will likely have called for reinforcements. Also, is there any way you can get our op listed as a special operation, where we aren't reporting our location all the time to the Admiralty?"

"Can do, sir," Gerald replied immediately. I like this guy already, he thinks like a special operator, Gerald thought inside the confines of his mind.

"Conn, Radio Room, we have incoming from the Texas, sir," the intercom reported.

"Comms, put them on screen," Wayne ordered. It only took two seconds before comms were synchronized. "This is Star Admiral Wayne Centara to Colorado Springs, state your peace Captain," Wayne began, giving the impression of being less than in the mood to put up with this crap.

"Star Admiral, this is Captain Maxwell Luties. I have been ordered to arrest you for gross insubordination, or if necessary treason."

"Cute. And in what fashion do you think my playing by the Division Commander's rules constitutes gross insubordination?" Wayne replied.

"You have a layer of command authority between you and the Division Commander, Wayne. And you are plotting to or have already begun disobeying them. Look, you surrender to me and they may only drum you out. Resist, and you will make this unnecessarily bloody," the Captain replied.

"I do not believe the Division Commander has ordered a new rank commissioned between the Star Admirals and himself. Same from the ground side, the next step above Legion Commander is Division Commander. So, that being said, how did someone get a layer in there between?"

"You know damn well what I mean, Star Admiral," the Captain replied. "If you refuse I will have to take you in by force."

"Hey, where did Gerald go?" one of the Flight Controllers asked. Wayne put the thought out of mind.

"Captain Luties, listen to yourself. You are going to force the issue using an old Texas-class ship against a Phalanx-class superdreadnought that has both a full Mobile Armor compliment and four monitors. This combined unit has more than enough firepower to slag down your ship four times a minute. The only side this is going to get bloody for is going to be yours, kid," Wayne noted. Captain Luties looked to be about half Wayne's age, and Wayne was not all that old to begin with.

"Be that as it may, Star Admiral, you will not survive this rebellion."

"There is no rebellion here, Captain. I am not challenging rightful command authority. I am simply disregarding the attempted orders of those who do not outrank me. If they want to take exception to that, they can complain to the Division Commander about my conduct." That was the big red line the Admiralty Review would not cross, of course, since it would require them to admit they had de facto usurped the Division Commander's authority on these matters.

"The orders under which the Star Admiral are operating put him outside the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Review, Captain Luties," Gerald said from off-camera to the captain of the Colorado Springs, though he walked into view shortly thereafter.

"What is this?" The Captain asks angrily. "What orders?"

Wayne considered that he had not yet received a copy of any such orders, but this situation was unfolding in such a fashion that he could avoid any unnecessary bloodshed by way of allowing Gerald to play this one through. "Per orders issued by Division Commander Gerard Caecilius not two hours ago, you are in violation of this task force's mission profile and in violation of orders issued by the Division Commander himself. Summarily, you are ordered to stand down and leave this area immediately. Failure to comply will result in a Trial of Grievance against your unit," CC Lightbringer warned the much-junior Captain darkly of the price of disobedience.

"What orders are these?" the Captain asked warily.

"Order package M3-2SL12-0511-DC062 and suborders DC062A and DC062B. I will let you peruse these orders at your leisure, but keep in mind that DC062B allows me to eliminate your entire ship with no hazard of Trial of Grievance from other parties, which if you press the issue I will eliminate your stinking, shortsighted, devil-butt-fucking crew in less than a heartbeat," Gerald noted.

Nothing was said for several minutes as the captain verified the orders as legitimate.

"This is bullshit," the Captain said after a few minutes. "You can't win this one, Gerald, not you, not a dozen disgruntled Phalanx-class."

"I don't have to win this one, your masters will screw themselves into oblivion in due time," Gerald replied. "Now, begone with your sorry ass, and noise that order package about to your comrades. I do not want to make this as bloody as it was the last time a group wedged itself between the units and the Division Commanders or Emperor, but I will not shy from it as a problem-solver." The incident he was referring to was well over 12000 years past but bloody without doubt. A conclave had usurped and co-opted the Division Commander of another of the Empire's divisions, until an enigmatic soldier by the name Erich Hess had eliminated them almost completely. Some had called it the scariest week in the history of the Empire, seeing the best of the best in that division so callously, easily annihilated by a practical nobody with the respect of the Emperor, and in reality they were not far off the mark.

"Go to Hell, Century Commander," the Captain said as the link broke. The warship began making its turn around, headed away from the station and the far larger Mjolnr.

"That was civil," Calamira commented on the closing from the Captain.

"Can't be helped," Wayne replied. "We threaten the order to which he has been brought up in. Therefore, we are an unconscionable threat to him. Oh well," Wayne tacked on with a sarcastic tone. Technically the Captain was guilty of Gross Insubordination for both blatantly challenging the Star Admiral and for telling the Century Commander to 'go to Hell', but Wayne was not in a hurry to pursue the matter.

"By the Gods, there are some times when I cannot but wonder how the Empire has survived this long without internal politics among the warriors shredding it apart," Gerald muttered to himself, though it was loud enough to be picked up by both Wayne and Calamira.

"Anyone with two working brain cells has wondered that at least once in their lifetimes, Century Commander," Star Admiral Centara agreed after a few moments. "What I would like to know is how the Division has survived this long with internal strife among the Warship Captains and the Star Admirals not causing problems for the rest," he appended.

"They do, Star Admiral. Frequently, though you never hear about it," Gerald Lightbringer said consolingly.

"Is it safe for me to come out now?" a separate and unrecognized voice asked on the radio band.

"Rico, if you knew what was going on, why the hell did you not come out and lend us a hand?" Gerald asked plainly.

"Because my fighter is in bad need of repairs, you old bastard. I've been camped in this backwater hell-hole for years with less than hind tit to suck and no way to even scrounge parts. I've had to spend my budget on getting food and atmospheric scrubbers for the unit, the fighters...well..."

"You've been scrapping parts, weapons off your fighters to trade for food and necessary supplies, quiaff?" Gerald asked. Silence was the answer, since what that implied was illegal but no tribunal in the Empire would convict him for trying to save his unit from death by starvation.

"Hey, man, the Admiralty Review and Assignment Board controls the damned quartermasters. They can easily snuff a formation out by not supplying them, and then they hunt us down when we go rouge to get supplies. Catch fucking twenty-two."

"Shameful," Wayne commented in personal horror. There were rumors, but never an official story to that effect. "All right, helm, put us next to the station." Wayne activated the intercom. "Attention all hands, this is Star Admiral Centara. Prepare to take on a full Galaxy of fighters, four Dropships, and any usable equipment supplies we can scrounge off the station. Let's give these lost souls a warm Mjolnr welcome, shall we?"

"Star Admiral, this is station command, you have room for my personnel as well?" an older voice asked.

"Roger that, we are understaffed right now, the more the merrier. Does your recharge system have enough juice to get us ready to jump?"

"Aff, Star Admiral, I got enough to get you moving, what is your intention?"

"Charge up, remove personnel and working equipment, use the rest for target practice and scrap out the leftovers to my nanotech system."

"Thorough, I like it. Sign me up, sir," the Station Commander signed on. "With one proviso if the Star Admiral is willing?"

"Shoot," Wayne replied immediately.

"I would like to take a shot at the station with your biggest Naval Autocannon, sir," he said.

"I think that can be arranged," Wayne said in what would easily be construed as an evil tone of voice.

-x-x-x-

(18 May 2SL-12)
(Location: Hesperus 602)

"A pair of Flame Eater-class Escort Destroyers," Gerald mumbled as the ships themselves finished docking with a resounding CLANG that echoed back and forth throughout the hull. "And some extra machines, of course. This keeps up, we'll actually run out of space to carry forces," Gerald noted with a wry grin. Despite his comment, he relished the thought of being in a full force. The Mjolnr had the capacity to carry 80 Dropships or up to 20 of the larger 400,000-ton Escort Monitors. Right now it was using 52 of those 80 collars, thirty DropShips and six monitors (two of the Monitors were the 300,000-ton Riga-class Missile Frigates, the others were Sendai- and now Flame Eater-class Destroyers).

"That's what they make transport Dropships for, Gerald," Wayne replied. Which is exactly what had happened to him. Wayne's friend, Captain Holmes of the Flame Eater-class Absinthe had scratched up about a dozen various Dropships, some with more units to carry along, others with a crapload of cargo for the patrol run. Each Guild II-class Cargo Dropship carried as much as 60,000 tons per ship of cargo, and when combined with the 592,000 tons of cargo in the Mjolnr it would be possible for him to operate on a two-year patrol without a need for resupply in all practicality. Food would be an issue, however, which is one thing that the combined task force he planned to build up would need to acquire through third-party sources while out and about.

"Older forces, though," Gerald noted as he watched the Mobile Suits and the occasional Gundam from the 482nd Independent Tactical Formation, a unit of two short clusters (50 units each, total of 100 and support personnel). "Still and all, anything beats a stick in the eye."

"It would trump said stick if we could get upgraded MS for them, or even a good ration of Gundams," Wayne pointed out. Of the Binary (7) he was observing as they entered the catapults that led to their cubicles, only one of the machines was a Gundam. Granted one of the machines in the same unit was a Gelgoog Marine Commander type, but other than that the forces were a bit thin, older machines through and through such as Taurus, GM and Dom types. Aesthetics aside, they were machines that had been in service with the Empire since the times before the Star Empire Wars, which made them in model if not advancing technologies to be over 15000 years old. 'Fresh meat' in the Mobile Suit department was a bit thin, most of the advances went to the Gundams at the cost of scrapping out older formations, mostly to cut expenses in the renewed peace and interdimensional goodwill of these times.

"On our 'budget' sir? Where do you smoke that weed and nobody notices?" Gerald asked with a large hint of humor.

"Men's bathroom, farthest stall from the door," Wayne replied with equal humor. The Star Admiral was not averse to joking around with his subordinates when a joke was already in the water, but as a rule the Star Admiral did not start them.

"Ah," Gerald replied facetiously.

"Regardless, shall we go greet the two new Captains to our ranks?"

"Indeed, sir," Gerald replied. They were not far from the docking collars in question to begin with, only a minute's brisk walk to their destination.

The doors were opening as the Star Admiral and Century Commander arrived at the dock collars. "Captain Anastus Holmes, escort monitor Absinthe, requesting permission to board, Star Admiral."

The Captain of the Absinthe looked a lot like the atypical seaman's captain, with a hard line to his expression, a beard that bespoke a falling out with his razor, and the large build of someone who threw rigging on a sailboat on a daily basis. Though the physical necessities of operating on the seas of planets did not translate to operating a Warship in space, the translation of the crew often did. Wayne could sense that there was a movement among the naval forces to move back to a more traditional position of conduct and appearance, and here as in his own wardroom (8) that was becoming evident. Wayne was not himself a bodybuilder, nor was he a slouch like the fatass Admirals on the AR-AB, Wayne looked and sometimes acted more like a ruffian than a sailor.

"Permission granted, Captain, welcome aboard," Star Admiral Centara replied in the traditional fashion.

"Been a while, Wayne," Anastus said as he presented a large hand for a shake.

"How goes it, Spazz?" Wayne replied as he shakes hands with the Captain.

"Just happy enough piloting Absinthe, thank you. I heard you got promoted but it was almost seven months before they dropped you on this one," Anastus "Spazz" Holmes probed for confirmation of the rumor.

"Yee-haw, joke postings forever," Wayne replied. "I whoop their asses in simulated naval engagements, they bury me for being better than them."

"Ah, well, when I heard what you were planning, I couldn't scratch forces up fast enough. This is Captain Nathaniel Freeman of the Byzantine, and he's in on anything with the threat of action," Anastus noted as the captain of the other monitor approached their soiree.

"Captain Freeman, Escort Monitor Byzantine, reporting for duty, Star Admiral," the Captain said as he stopped and comes to attention properly and crisply.

"If you're reporting for duty, Captain, then you came to the right Warship. At ease, Captain," Wayne began. "We'll catch up on old times at a later time, Spazz. Now is a time for business with a hint of pleasure thrown in for good measure. Gentlemen, this is Century Commander Gerald Lightbringer, Defensive Armor Commander," Wayne indicated the otherwise silent and observing Century Commander.

"I think I've heard of you before from somewhere," Captain Freeman noted.

"I didn't avoid the limelight somewhere?" Gerald looked around. "Blasphemy! I must correct this! But first things first, the extra cargo ships you brought along, and the combat carrier dropships, did not upload manifests. You have them?"

"Aff, Century Commander," the Captain handed off a comp-tablet (9) to said officer.

"First off, do your ships have any maintenance requirements outstanding?" Both officers replied 'Neg' to the Star Admiral's question. "Do you have Nanotech systems on your ships?"

"Neg, Star Admiral, our refit applications were refused, citing refits of the Phalanx-class ships," Captain Freeman replied.

"They've been refitting the Leviathan-class ships for some time, Captain, they skipped over this ship for reasons unknown to us. They likely skipped over yours as well."

"Ah," the Captain grunted.

"Have your respective Chief Engineers pull a distribution pack from our Nanotech systems, Captains," Wayne ordered. "And before either of you says anything, no, we are not playing by the orders of the AR-AB. They screw us, we ignore them. Problem solved."

"Sounds fun, where do I sign up?" Captain Holmes smiled grimly.

"You just did. We do a joint force sim-ex (10) tomorrow at 0600 sharp, get to know what we're doing and what we're going to face."

"If we're going to start this soon, I've got work to do. By your leave, Star Admiral?" Captain Freeman requsted permission to depart.

"Thank you, Captains Freeman, Holmes. Dinner at the Sniper Bar and Grill, 1700 hours sharp. You can meet the rest of the command staff at that time."

"Oh really? That sounds like a challenge..." Captain Freeman acknowledged with a dangerous tone.

"Be warned, the patron of the establishment really was an Armor Sniper," Gerald pointed out. "He knows his shit and he knows how to cook."

"Aff, sir," the Captain braced to attention and headed back down the corridor toward his ship.

"These wonderful days, what I would give to be here and enjoy it," Captain Holmes said. "I should probably get to it, Wayne. I'll see you at dinner, no?"

"Looking forward to it, Spazz. Thanks for tagging along on my journey into Hell, comrade," Wayne clapped his old comrade on the shoulder.

"Don't worry about it, boss. Better we do it now than in the teeth of a far nastier problem," Captain Holmes said on his way back into his ship.

-x-x-x-

Getting everyone integrated into the whole, basically turning a collection of mismatched ships into a single fleet and mobile force, was the challenge.

Calamira was staring at the ceiling of her quarters, wondering how these things happened. The plan had been a good one, Wayne was fast proving himself a very rapid thinker and strategic coordinator, able to take very diverse capabilities and use them to their maximum benefit where needed. The catch was, the officers under his command did not agree with some of his methods, despite the operational plans and maneuvers being more or less by the book modified for the varying circumstances of the battle. Even when the utility of such actions should have been obvious to the most greenhorn of cadets.

She rolled over, staring at the wall away from the door and her small book rack of various novels, manga and a few nonfiction books. She wanted to strangle Galaxy Commander Rico and Captain Freeman so badly. Had they played by the rules as Admiral Centara had laid out, the simulated trap would have been sprung as was needed and the 'enemy' Phalanx-class would have been stripped of its defensive monitors and most of its fighter compliment, but no, those two went after the glory themselves and basically shredded their CO's hope of victory. Never mind that Calamira had ripped both of them up one side and down the other for that failing, since she was the administrator of the drill and even she could have seen the utility of the Star Admiral's plan.

"It was mistakes like this one that caused more Naval screwups during the Star Empire Wars than better-laid enemy plans," Calamira muttered to the wall, repeating what she had told them in conclusion to her ripping. It was the hazard of following the ethos of the Clans at least partially, some people were more interested in personal glory rather than overall victory, which made winning a lot more difficult in some cases.

"Gods, I need a vacation," Calamira muttered after a moment.

"I can put you into the queue for vacation time at this time, Calamira," the ship's AI responded.

"Earliest possible time I could get out of here?"

"Two weeks after the elimination of the Admiralty Review, or I could mail the Division Commander for a release," the AI replied. To Calamira, the AI always sounded like an twenty-eight-year-old lady.

"Don't bother, then," Calamira replied. "No sense requesting any favoritism from the DCT, I'll relax on this ship...somehow..." she trailed her sentence off.

"I would advise against delaying, Calamira, but if it is how you wish to do so, then I shall respect that. Is there anything you want me to have shipped to the ship?"

Calamira rolled back to where she was staring at the ceiling. "Yes, actually, the next few volumes of the Spellsinger series, please." She was referring to a series of novels that she had taken to reading, actual printed published paperback novels that were always fun to read and worked even when the computer interface in her cabin did not work.

A pause of five seconds. "Order placed, comrade. They appear to have been running a promotion for active-duty military, you get them at 30 percent off."

"Excellent," Calamira replied. Saving a few c-bills was always a good thing, regardless of how one cut it.

"The next drill is at 1000, Calamira. Might I suggest you get some rest for it?"

"Might as well try. Good night," the Strategic Officer replied automatically.

"It shall be, Calamira," the AI replied after a moment. For her part, Calamira figured they could do this if the officers could get their shit straightened out and get everything working right.

-x-x-x-

"Let me guess, a Bloody Mary," the bartender guessed as Gerald sat down at the bar.

"Yeah, and add a six-pack of Mike's, on the side."

"You going to be able to stand after that?" Wayne asked as he grabbed a barstool next to the Century Commnader.

"Standing is not my concern. Remembering the ghosts of battles past, or not remembering them, is what I seek," Gerald explained. "Defeats like today, they make me remember those I couldn't save."

Of course, the two listening to him could naught but guess what Gerald was referring to. They both had tried looking at his record, and it was classified to the Division Commander or higher. That was a big red flag that Gerald Lightbringer was not a typical soldier of the Empire, but little mention of him was seen anywhere to warrant notice.

"From a straight command presence, Star Admiral, we would have won if Rico had followed the game plan. Sorry about that."

"What was his motivation?" Wayne asked, ignoring the fact that Gerald somehow seemed to consider himself obligated to apologize for Rico's performance.

"He thought the enemy would move in that direction. He wasn't out for a glory assault on their right flank, he misread their leaning. I think Calamira was a bit unfair on him and Captain Freeman."

"They both may be right, they both may be wrong. I don't know, all I know is it fell in the shitcan when they jumped too early," Wayne grumped before he had his first sip of a Whiskey Sour.

"Too far, too fast down the toilet to recover. At least we took 'em to hell with us," Gerald opined as a possible bright light in the otherwise dim sum.

"Some consolation that shall be," Wayne replied. "I'd like to do that first time right," Wayne added after a moment's consideration on the subject. "Once we can do that, we should be able to do more than that under the worst of circumstances. And, when we get ourselves a real large fleet and get them trained up, kiss them assholes goodbye," he concluded with holding his whiskey sour up for a toast.

"A toast, then, to the blatant end," Gerald acknowledged as he hefted his Bloody Mary.

"The blatant end, is it?" Captain Holmes said as he grabbed a seat next to Wayne. "Draft beer, good sir, and a row of chicken fingers," he requested of the bartender.

"It shall be, someday," Wayne replied. "Some day, we will walk away and be free of attempted oppression from inside our own ranks. Someday, comrade, someday."

"We'll be back here frequently, I hazard, drinking to fallen comrades en masse." Wayne gave the Captain a strange look, prompting an explanation: "Lazy lounge cats though they may be, pussies they are not, Wayne. We will take a beating, but once enough of the ranks see the righteousness of our cause there may be a waiting line to kill off the Admiralty," he declared pensively.

"More is the better we showed up to the party early, then," Gerald noted. "We get bloodied first, but we also get first call on flaying their hides for their depredations.

"And thus, to the blatant end, comrades."

The clinking of their glasses would signal the beginning of a fate far more strange than even they could imagine in their wildest dreams.

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Author's Chapter Afterword:

Finally, to rebuild the original in a fashion that is more clear and a lot less confusing than the original. I have heard the criticism, and I hope this goes a way to clearing up what I did wrong in the first issue of the story. And I intend on making it longer overall than the predecessor, in fact in the first few chapters it should overtake the original, including the TROs, in total size.

In the beginning, the plan was to basically Refuse the Admiralty, get the command authority back to the Division Commander. Except, the fate shall change but the plan will never be buried. It may come back to haunt the Admiralty Review at a later time, of course...

This chapter is just setting the stage. Be prepared for a wild and raucous multi-faceted battle to come, as the battle that eventually spawned the Jokers Wild series is played out in more than just passing thoughts. It will be big. It will be bloody. And it may even be scary, if you think about it right.

And that reminds me of something. Rather than putting the TROs at the end of the story, I'll drop them in at the end of each chapter where they are the most relevant. So, if you play Battletech or Aerotech, or just want to see the logic under which I operate when writing out the battles, check the end of the chapter if a unit figures in prominently. Like the Fireball Aerofighter and the Neue Ziel Aerotech TROs below.

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Author's Revised Afterword (May 2018):

My initial writing on this chapter is now about a decade old, and it was a bit rough even for me to read through. I've had more than a few complaints about these earliest chapters being nearly unreadable or indecipherable, so I am going through my earliest (remaining) works with an eye toward correcting my linguistic nuance of days past. I won't be changing much of the meat of the chapters, but I will be correcting the major glaring issues in the story.

In this chapter, though, I did delete the short and brutal battle between Gerald and the rogue aerofighters from the Colorado Springs. I did this because, as Gerald pointed out to the Captain, disobeying the orders of the Division Commander is a very good way to end up in Trial of Grievance for insubordination. No lowly pilot is going to do so unless he or she had a damn good reason to do so, such as the case of violating Magi law or violating Executor's Judgment (this will be explained in other forums).

I hope that my cleaned up prose helps in readability. As always, you can leave me reviews, I will answer them directly or in chapters to come.

I thank you all for reading, even this long after publishing!

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Review Replies:

As this is the first chapter, I don't have any reviews yet. However, I do have to thank the reviewers Bien Canonizado (Now TheGreenKnight63), Gatomon41, Anja-Chan (Whom I should note reviewed practically half the story), FraserMage (who did several reviews and PMs on the TRO sections and who continues to review on my battle-based fic Inferno in Chicago), and Sandy / Sandster, whose review was probably the most motivation to redo something that I have ever had.

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The Gripe Sheet:

No shortage of gripes follow from the prior works, and I intend on correcting them all or most of them. Most of all the original was too grossly technical in the story body, which I am trying to circumvent by use of the footnotes below.

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Footnotes:

(0): I should note that a lot of the footnotes for the early sections of this story are going to be based on questions that came from reviews to the original, where I was not sufficiently clear as to the purpose or info at the time. Also, as craft are encountered in the story I will include their Naval TRO at the end of the story section.

(1): Battletech source material states that the buying power of the C-bill is equal to three dollars US in 1999, which puts it close to 3.70 in 2008. As per this story and its background, the C-bill has about the same power right now.

(2): Batchall refers to the Clan practice of rituals for issuing a challenge to another Clan warrior.

(3): DCT: Division Commander Techstrikers. 4th in command of the Empire, administratively commands all units that are primarily technological-based (warships, formations of tanks or mobile forces, etc).

(4): Planet listings like this are a combination of planet name and inhabited dimension number. To simplify describing planets when there can be literally thousands of inhabited planets with the name Hesperus where each is mostly the same except the inhabitants, the planet also receives the Common Jump Location number of the dimension in which it exists, which is a sort of pre-saved interdimensional destination list for jump engineers. This will be explained more thoroughly in an upcoming chapter.

(5): Neue Ziel (U) Variant has increased armor protection, maintains speed as the original and increases the close-range fighter protection with a series of four 105mm Machine Cannons integrated into the shoulders above the beam guns. See the TRO below for a complete listing on the modifications.

(6): Space Intercept Missile. Modified to be maneuverable in space. Aphid is the smallest classification at six missiles to the ton, Phoenix is the largest at just shy of one ton a missile. And the larger the missile, the more damage it causes.

(7): Binary: A unit comprised of two Stars (5 units), A Star (5 points) plus a Lance (4 points) or a Reinforced Star plus a standard Star (6 points + 5 points). At 12 units it is a different formation entirely. See below for a detailed explanation of the ranking systems.

(8): Wardroom refers to either a room that is actually called that, or the cadre of senior officers of a ship.

(9): Computerized Note-tablet: the great answer to paper in all but a handful of situations.

(10): Simulation Exercise: An exercise run typically by setting the involved ships and smaller units into simulation mode by connecting them to specialized simulation servers typically carried on a larger Warship. In this fashion it is possible to train a fleet with only minimal expenditure of resources, and can be done on the fly without having to stop and prepare a testing grounds.

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Logic and Reason:

On today's logic section, I'm going to break down the complex and unorthodox ranking structure of the Empire.

Originally, the Empire used the standard / NATO command structure, all of which answered to the Emperor in the end. That changed after a certain rather brutal incident that I will eventually post as part of the original story this one is based off. For now, though, here is the present rank and organization structure of the Empire's forces:

Point Officer: Lowest rank. One person, basically, in cases where there are more than one unit to a point (as in five Armored Infantry being a point). Note that the junior officer in a pair of fighters (sometimes called an element) is also considered a Point Officer.

Point Commander / Mechwarrior / MS Pilot / Gundam Pilot: Either the commander of a point of individual troops, or pilot of single war machine such as an Omnimech or Gundam. Specialists also fall under this designation, but are often considered a supergrade rank over Point Commander status but below Star Commander.

Star Commander: The Commanding Officer of a star, or five units assigned to the same unit. Star Commanders are the equivalent of Master Sergeants or Warrant Officers. In Naval Ranks, a Petty Officer falls in this area.

Star Captain: CO of a Binary (two stars) or Trinary (Three stars) or equivalent formation. Trinaries are considered the smallest effective maneuver formation in the Empire, and receive the lightest-duty operations or where a larger force is impractical for deployment or battle. Even still, a Binary is a lot of combat force to be applied anywhere, by the numbers. Equivalent naval ranks span from Chief Warrant Officers to Lieutenant.

Star Colonel: CO of a Cluster, which is any combination of three binaries to five Trinaries in standard practice. Clusters are the bread-and-butter maneuver formations of the Empire, used for just about any task imaginable in battle. The one shortcoming of Clusters is that in normal practice they do not have attached support assets (artillery, mechanical maintenance, medical, etcetera) unless specifically assigned to operate independently. Equivalent naval ranks is Lieutenant Commander at the low end to Captain at the high end. Most warships under 1 million tons fall into this command bracket.

Galaxy Commander: CO Of a Galaxy, which is a combination of three to five Clusters (officially—there are some exceptions). Galaxies are the most common weighted formations, used particularly in heavy assault and defense operations. Most planetary garrisons comprise one large or two small galaxies. And no, there has never been a recorded incident of a whole Galaxy being wiped out by one Gundam. Period. Nothing even close. Equivalent Naval Ranks range from Commodore to Rear Admiral, and equates a Brigadier General to Major General. Warships between 1 million and 2.5 million tons fall into this command bracket, as well as any attached fleet assets (escort monitors, dropships, etc).

Century Commander / Star Commodore: Commands a Century, or three to five Galaxies. Centuries were first implemented during the Quarter War phase of the Star Empire Wars to meet the needs of having more than one Galaxy under the same command structure, since the practice of Contract Bidding (combining forces during a bid for the right to assault an objective) had been absolved by the Emperor. Centuries were and are used to assault the heavily-fortified industrial planets and colony clusters that a single Galaxy or even a pair of them would have difficulty overtaking. It should also be noted that no Century is homogeneous, ergo every Century has mixed assets combining ground, air, and mobile forces, as well as a leavening of infantry and specialists. Equivalent Naval rank is Vice Admiral, and Warships and small fleets comprising between 2.5 million tons and 5 million tons fall into this category, though there are exceptions to the weight limit for this group.

Legion Commander / Star Admiral: Commands a Legion, the single largest maneuver formation used during the Star Empire Wars by any side. Legions comprise no less than 4 Centuries and could be rated as high as seven Centuries. Legions themselves counted as too large for even planetary conquest, and usually saw action in battle across several neighboring star systems at once. In this fashion, one Legion is capable of overwhelming numerous smaller enemy formations and forcing the rest of the area into a defensive posture, tying up an incredible amount of enemy resources. In naval parlance, the rank of Admiral or higher (Fleet Admiral) falls in here, and one such officer typically commands the largest Warships (5 million tons and above) as well as larger fleets and flotillas.

Strategic Officer: Not technically a force command rank, per se, the Strategic Officers were founded early in the Star Empire Wars for the purpose of coordinating multiple maneuver formations in joint operations. In terms of command authority, they both are and are not higher than the highest rank of that time short of Division Commanders. When conducting the battle from a strategy point, they are just short of the Division Commanders in overall authority. In direct combat, most SO's qualify as Point Commanders and are technically required to answer to a Star Commander, unless they achieve a rank higher than that by nominal means. With the advent of the Legion, Strategic Officers lost most of their prominence as a Legion Commander effectively did the same job from inside the normal command structure, though Strategic Officers still technically exist as late as the Second Star Empire Wars.

Division Commander: Only five Division Commanders exist at any given time, and each Division Commander has administrative control of one classification of units. The five classifications are (in order of command authority) Magi (wizardic forces), Bladesman (Infantry and specialized support for Infantry), TechStrikers (Ground armor and naval forces), Commandos (Amalgam of the first three, special forces), and Special Operations (intelligence gathering, spying, similar pursuits). A Division Commander himself or herself does not command an amount of units, per se, they are the ones that usually coordinate the battle plans of the larger battle formations and administrate resource control from a high level perspective. Each Division Commander is expected to be the best or close to it in their field. They are also considered the second-in-command of the whole Empire from a position of leadership. There is no equivalent NATO rank to this position, as a Division Commander effectively commands more personnel than could be physically crowded onto Terra.

Emperor / Empress: The command of the Empire is the highest military rank of all, as the Empire is both administered and defended by the warriors and the entire military answers to the Emperor or Empress.

Advancing rank: To advance from one rank to the next rank, three requirements are needed. First, the applying officer must demonstrate a knowledge of the necessary requirements for that rank (ability to effectively coordinate that size of formation and administrate it so it does not fall apart from lack of maintenance). Second, the officer must have shown ample time in service comparable to the rank intended, and lastly must fight and succeed in a Trial of Position against a selected officer of mid-grade in that rank. Ergo a Star Captain seeking to fleet up to Star Colonel will have to prove he is equivalent of combat, strategic and administrative skill to a Star Colonel selected from those who have been Star Colonels for some time. The exception is Trials for Division Commander rank are fought as a 64-person elimination tournament from the absolute best of the Division in question. The Trial of Position is real combat (except the strategy battles are simulated), and though death is not expected it is not entirely uncommon, either. Thus it is not uncommon to find a Legion Commander is also an exceptional duelist in a unit that is in his subclassification.

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TRO SECTIONS: I have two TROs to note today, the Fireball Aerofighter and the Neue Ziel Upgrade. TROs, or Technical Readouts, are a detailed look at the design and history of a craft, shown in a form that can be used by a Battletech player to use them in their games. Since I do a lot of work with special equipment and custom weapons, I have also included custom rules for their use in Battletech. It can often be said that much of the popularity of Battetech (Classic batteletech to anyone new to it) is the intricate, long history of the story, the game and the units that show up in it.

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AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout

Class/Model/Name: Fireball Prime
Tech: Mixed Tech / 3067
Vessel Type: Aerospace OmniFighter
Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 100 tons
Chassis: Lunar Industrial Fireball
Power Plant: TelStar 400 XL Fusion (C)

Safe Thrust: 6
Maximum Thrust: 9

Armor Type: Lunar Industrial Fireball Modular Ferro-aluminum (Clan)

Armament:
1 Savannah Weps Ultra AC/10 (C)
2 Optifree DistKiller ER PPC (C)
2 Delta Dart CT LRM 10 (C)
1 Sitec Heavy Metal Angel ECM Suite (C)

Manufacturer: Lunar Industrial & Technical
Location: Luna 02, multiple others
Communications System: Lunar FTC-1
Targeting & Tracking System: Lunar FTC-1

Overview:

As the Star Empire wars began, the Magi had deployed literally dozens of types of fighters and omnifighters for every imaginable purpose of combat, though this had the side effect of varying units combat capabilities and logistical problems with keeping parts similar. Thus, a call went out to the major aerospace manufacturers to conceive a heavy omnifighter that could be mission-configured for any purpose needed, could carry at least twelve tons of bombs or other disposables, and had a long flight time with option to extend by external fuel tanks. Lunar Technical and Industrial responded in hours with the Fireball, a new Omnifighter they had been preparing to unveil at the annual Aerospace Open. Within two days, the Fireball had been confirmed as the fighter to fit the needs.

Capabilities:

The Fireball Omnifighter was initially engineered from the ground up as an 'Atlas with Wings' in terms of survivability, with twenty-one and a quarter tons of armor it has more armor than the Atlas and more armor than all but the Hydaspes Clan Omnifighter. Added to this is the maximum available flight profile for its size courtesy of a 400XL engine manufactured by TelStar Engines, and a broad wing surface for ease of control and lift in atmospheric flight (as well as carrying external stores), and you have a recipe for a very effective fighter. The last leg of the requirements for the fighter, length of sortie, was completed by giving the fighter an unheard-of eight tons of fuel in the fuselage, and options to replace weapons component space with more fuel tankage as well as the ability to carry up to fifteen tons of drop tanks from a ground launch profile or twenty tons from a space launch. With a full fuel tank and the standard Angel ECM installed but no weapons installed, the Fireball weighs in at sixty tons. The craft is spec'd for a takeoff weight of 100 tons, 115 from ground with external stores or 120 for a space launch, though the space launch weight max has been cheerfully violated from time to time.

The remaining forty tons of internal weight are the pod space, reconfigurable weapons space that can be loaded with any combination of beam, ballistic, or missile weapons available to the Magi and even some weapons exclusive to the Negaverse that may be captured in battle. Though there are fighters that carry more weapons than forty tons, few fighters carry enough guns to outlast a Fireball in a shooting match, and even less fighters are manufactured and deployed in anything even approaching the flight ratio the Fireball sees. With as many as half of the Magi's fighters being the Fireball, it is a hard design to top in sheer quantity and variability.

The primary and most common weapons loadout gives the Fireball heavy punch at longer ranges for intercepting other fighters and for pinpoint attacks against ground targets. The main gun of the Primary variant is a 100mm class ten Ultra Autocannon, easily capable of punching severe holes in smaller fighters and shaking up larger ones. In the wing roots are a extended-range PPC and under the wing edge is a Delta Dart CT LRM 10, giving it long-range punch. The surprising thing about this variant is that it has no lasers whatsoever, making it an interesting primary-variant weapon system much like the Clan Summoner Omnimech.

The A variant is a stark contrast to the Prime, in which the only weapons it carries is lasers. In the nose is a pair of Medium Pulse lasers and a single ER Medium laser, forming an inverted triangle in firing ports. Each wing is studded with two ER Large lasers, providing the craft with its main punch. This combination gives the A variant excellent strafing capabilities as well as a complete lack of ammunition. The machine carries a whopping nineteen extra heat sinks to vent extra heat, which allows for the firing of all the lasers with only a very negligible heat buildup. This variant of the Fireball is often seen with external drop tanks of fuel to extend its battlefield duration.

B variant Fireballs are often used as short-duration high-volume attack platforms, particularly for pinpoint strikes against ground-based hardened targets. The Large Pulse laser in the nose is the craft's only laser, which is supplemented by a single ATM-12 and a pair of SRM-4 launchers in each wing. This configuration has enough ammo for about twelve passes at a target before it has to return to base for reload, though in the time it is operating the B variant is expected to be able to independently destroy at least two enemy assault 'mechs, and that not including bombs or missiles carried externally.

The C variant is something of an oddity among oddities, the bastard child modification of the strangest proportions. The Rotary AC/5 is a favored weapon on Dropships and Warships as a point defense gun where it can be used to intercept fighters and Mobile Suits with a lot of ammo sprayed in their general direction. On fighters or Omnimechs, it is often less preferred than an Ultra-10 or Ultra-20 Autocannon. The C variant carries two of the Rotary-5 guns, as well as two Medium Pulse lasers and two ER Medium lasers, giving it good capability to attack any kind of target, be it ground, air, or ship. It also has enough heat sinks to fire all its guns continuously, or at least until it runs out of RAC/5 ammo.

If ever a fighter destined to replace the Mechbuster conventional fighter, the Fireball D variant would be it. With a 135mm class-twenty Ultra Autocannon and thirty rounds of ammo, it is more than capable of outgunning the Mechbuster in a single pass what it would take the former two passes or more. This is also married to a trio of ER Medium lasers and a pair of Streak LRM 10 launchers, which are lock-on guaranteed to hit missile racks with no wasted firepower in their design. If this variant has a shortcoming, it is a small excess of heat if the pilot fires all of his weapons at once.

On the maintenance floor, the Fireball is loved by the mechanics and ground crew that services it. Refueling and ammo reloading are conducted by way of a series of ventral surface access hatches that automatically lock down when the craft passes a certain velocity threshold, and remain locked until unlocked by the maintenance personnel. It is possible to refuel and rearm a Fireball in five minutes even under hostile fire. Replacing the armor composite is a simple four-step no-weld process that can be accomplished in as little as five minutes per plate. Changing out weapons components is dead simple, all a mechanic has to do is strip off the local armor plate, unlatch the locking lugs and power/data connectors, and use an appropriate size crane or lifter exoskeleton to pull the component. The only snag is the airframe is a solid piece and cannot be modularly replaced; if the frame takes damage, it has to be patched and welded to specification, which is not a simple task if half a wing is blown off in space combat.

Battle History:

Much as was initially expected, the Fireball turned out to be a stalwart in the skies of the planets it cruised and a true knock-down-drag-out battle artist in space. Though there are fighters out there that beat it in every classification of study, few fighters are as well-rounded and frightening as the Fireball to face down in mass combat. Many is the battle where a ragtag of enemy air and ground forces who challenged the Magi were felled by the droves as star after star of Fireballs slammed the enemy formations from above, hitting harder and taking insane amounts of punishment compared to fighters even in their same weight bracket.

In one well-publicized early battle between the Negaverse and the Magi, a Magi fleet went head to head against twice their number in older-style warships, though the three Magi Phalanx-class ships had just been outfitted with full compliments of Fireball aerofighters. The Phalanx-class ships held off dispatching their fighters until the last minute, in fact waiting until the enemy fighter screen had approached to close range and was actually shooting at the ships. When the fighters screamed past the ships, taking a few casualties from the defense array on the three ships, the Fireballs launched literally right behind the enemy fighter screen. In less than two minutes the Fireballs had scratched the entire fighter compliments of two McKenna, two Sovettski Soyuz, a Texas, and a Leviathan II, a total of 480 enemy fighters against the 675 carried by the Magi warships. Seeing their entire fighter screen wiped out in 118 seconds flat, the enemy Warships retired with themselves having fired not even one shot during the battle.

Variants:

Being an Omnifighter, the Fireball can be so easily reconfigured in ten minutes that there is almost no limit to the amount of modifications that can be made to it. Any combination of up to forty tons of weapons, ammo, fuel, heat sinks, bombs, even artillery can be installed in the Fireball. This variability has made the Fireball beloved of the pilots and crews maintaining it.

One of the Magi's favored tricks for ground campaigns is to load a Fireball with six ER Medium lasers, five double heat sinks, four extra tons of fuel, and twenty-five tons of internally carried bombs inside the wings, as well as external stores. This converts the Magi's premier air superiority fighter into a veritable strategic bomber with some hold-out firepower.

It is also considered a legitimate modification tactic to remove half of the weapons pods in the craft to increase the speed significantly, as well as increase the ground-launch external payload capacity. In this case, it is possible for the Fireball to lift off with twenty tons of external stores, the absolute maximum for ground clearance on a runway takeoff as well as allow for a decent amount of internal-carried firepower.

Notable Vessels & Crews:

Gail Degge
Gail was the initial test pilot of the first prototype Fireball, and being a career test pilot was a hard sell for the efficiacy of any craft, given that he had relatives who would be piloting such craft. Nevertheless, after fifteen minutes of yanking and banking he was highly impressed by the Fireball's handling for its size class, and on the craft's first flight had done two things unheard of. First, he proceeded to almost flawlessly do each of the normal acrobatic maneuvers, though he had some problems on the barrel roll due to not applying enough thrust. Second, he had launched with what would become the craft's primary weapons load, and proceeded to one of the Lunar Garrison's weapon test ranges. While approaching he had called for a set of targets, and in a move that turned heads he proceeded to obliterate a damage simulation target in one pass, which amounted to all the armor typically carried on a light 'mech and was a challenge for regular Omnimech pilots to obliterate in one fell swoop. By the time he got back to base, the Lunar Garrison's appropriation section was already on the phone asking 'how much for how much'. The Fireball he piloted that day would later become his as he purchased it from the company on a lease program with the company having the right to reclaim it for historical and engineering purposes. Gail would go on to use that first Fireball to write up the basic tactics of the Fireball, which are largely still in use as of this briefing.

Peter Wilcox
Known as the gold standard of pulse-laser antics, Peter would later become the progenitor of the Wilcox eugenic bloodheritage for his innate skills in the cockpit and his meritorious service to the Empire. Using a custom variant of the Fireball with four Large Pulse lasers and a targeting computer, Peter is reported to have engraved a goofy smiley face in the side of more than six dozen enemy warships and countless smaller craft using his pulse lasers, as well as having done so to the side of a Magi McKenna-class captained by an officer that had royally pissed him off by attempting to force his way with Peter's girlfriend. During the calm after the Quarter War, Peter Wilcox would continue to gain rank and notoriety as his ever-expanding space assault force continued to gut the Negaverse supply corps and keep their assault forces harried. It was his assault on the captured Phalanx-class Warship Widowmaker that earned his place in the eugenics program. In that epic battle of five hundred Davids against Golaith and his support staff, Wilcox and his raiding teams closed up on the Widowmaker and her escort Monitors, and simply began peeling away the defensive layers one layer at a time, never slowing down and missing very little. In an hour's protracted fighting that saw the loss of over a third of his unit, Wilcox was able to force the Widowmaker to hoist a white flag or be sunk, which it chose the former.

Mina Barus
Prior to taking up the mantle of being a Dendrobium pilot, Mina Barus and her twin sister were Fireball pilots. They had been rescued from a dismal existence flying the 'Atlas with Wings' in one rote unit after another rote unit, constantly on the move because they were constantly pranking their command staff and getting kicked out. Though plausibly deniable, their antics on more than one occasion were court-martial offenses, which they had been spared because the CO involved usually thought it was funnier than hell. Gerald Lightbringer had seen in their flying and fighting styles the perfect addition to his small cadre known as Angel Team, and they were dragged away from their Fireballs kicking and screaming (literally), only to be deposited in a hangar with a pair of factory-fresh Dendrobium Stamen Gundams and instruction manuals. Though not in the Fireball for some time, each of the twins keeps her own Fireball in pristine condition for those cases where they would have to use them, such as a necessary atmospheric sortie.

Deployment

Fireballs are the mainstay fighter of the Magi. As such, they can be found everywhere, including some redneck's back yard. Warships in particular will have clusters of the Fighters as their primary anti-air defense, since the Fireball is such a versatile and long-duration fighter it is extremely favored to the task.

BATTLETECH SPECIAL RULES:

A player may opt to remove up to 10 tons of mounted weapons and carry up to 10 tons more external stores, equal to the amount of weapon mass removed. Any additional mass gained beyond 10 tons is discarded, due to limitations of wing space. Note that while so loaded above the maximum external load, the Fighter may not perform any aerobatic maneuvers except a barrel roll. Any such attempt will result in an immediate control roll to avoid losing control of the craft; the maneuver automatically fails.

In space operations, a Fireball may carry up to 20 tons of external ordinance as per the normal rules, or it may carry more using this special rule set. For any mass up to double the normal carrying capacity, a Fighter is limited to half its maximum speed under full normal load. Anything beyond that, the fighter is limited to 1 point movement until the ordinance is expended. A fighter may not carry more than half its mass in external ordinance. Additionally, a fighter that is carrying more than its Aerotech-allowed maximum that attempts to enter the atmosphere of a planet must jettison ordinance over the maximum Aerotech value or it will go out of control on re-entry and burn up.

A player may use one of the above rules, or the other. They cannot be combined at the same time, as this creates an unsafe internal / external balancing problem for the aerofighter. However, a pilot may mount the usual amount of external stores for use in atmospheric operations, and mount up to the space-operations max in space-use ordinance.

The Pod Space available on a Fireball is 40.00 tons. A Fireball may not mount a Long Tom Arillery Piece, a Heavy Gauss Rifle, or a (Custom Weapon) Rail Gun or (Custom Weapon) Heavy Rail Gun. All other weapons may be mounted as usual.

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Class/Model/Name: Fireball Prime

Mass: 100 tons
Const. Options: Fractional Accounting

Equipment: (Mass)

Power Plant: 400 XL Fusion (26.25)
Engine Shielding: .00
Structural Integrity: 10 (10.00)

Safe Thrust: 6
Maximum Thrust: 9

Heat Sinks: 19 Double (9.00)
Fuel: 8 Tons

Cockpit & Attitude Thrusters: 3.00

Armor Factor: 408 Ferro-aluminum (C) (21.25)

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Armor Value (Standard Scale)

Nose: 136

Left / Right Wings: 102 / 102

Aft: 68

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Weapons & Equipment:
Loc, SRV, MRV, LRV, ERV
Heat, Mass

1 Ultra AC/10 (C)
Nose, 15, 15, -, -
6, 10.00

Ammo (Ult AC/10) 20
-, 2.00

1 ER PPC (C)
LW, 15, 15, 15, -
15, 6.00

1 ER PPC (C)
RW, 15, 15, 15, -
15, 6.00

1 LRM 10 (C)
LW, 6, 6, 6, -
4, 2.50

1 LRM 10 (C)
RW, 6, 6, 6, -
4, 2.50

Ammo (LRM 10) 24
-, 2.00

1 Angel ECM Suite (C)
Aft, -, -, -, -
0, 1.50

C.A.S.E. System
Body, 0.00

TOTALS:

44 heat
100.00 tons

Tons Left: .00

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Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 26,713,625 C-Bills

Battle Value: 3,056

Cost per BV: 8,741.37

Weapon Value: 3,043 (Ratio 1.00)

Damage Factors: SRDmg 45; MRDmg 36; LRDmg 10; ERDmg 0

BattleForce2:

MP: 6N, Armor/Structure: 10 / 0
Damage PB/M/L: 5/5/4, Overheat: 1
Class: FH, Point Value: 31
Specials: omni, ecm

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AeroTech 2 Vessel Technical Readout

Class/Model/Name: Neue Ziel (Upgrade) AMA-X2-U1
Tech: Mixed Tech / 3067
Vessel Type: Aerodyne DropShip (Mobile Armor, see below)
Rules: Level 3, Standard design

Mass: 495 tons
Chassis: Axis Defense Industries AMA-X2-U1
Length: 40 meters
Power Plant: Compact Thrusters

Safe Thrust: 6
Maximum Thrust: 9

Armor Type: Axis Defense Industries Ferro-aluminum (Clan)

Armament:
2 Axis Beam Saber Claw (C)
1 Axis Mega Beam Cannon (C)
4 Axis Sub-Arm (C)
4 Savannah Weps Ultra AC/10 (C)
9 Axis Mega Particle Gun (C)
4 Modaco Arms "Jawbreaker" Thunderbolt 20 (MR) (C)
4 Winters Broadsword SRM 6 (C)
4 Axis I-Field Generator (C)

Manufacturer: Axis Defense Industries
Location: Axis Colonies (Old Terra)
Communications System: Axis Defense Industries SSC
Targeting & Tracking System: Axis Defense Industries SSTT

Overview:

In classic Magi fashion, that which is fought can be used against the enemy. The Neue Ziel is one such case of a weapons platform that was encountered and fought the Magi to a standstill in the years prior to the onset of the Star Empire Wars. After several clashes with Anavel Gato's famed mobile armor, the Magi themselves had enough information to begin building the armor themselves.

In the centuries to come, the Neue Ziel would continue to be the scourge of enemy shipping and naval forces, though with the ever-increasing power of mobile forces and the necessities of space warfare, an upgrade in more than just materials was called for by the pilots who commanded the venerable and effective Neue Ziel. Axis Defense Industries, which had been purchased out by the Empire, responded with the AMA-X2-U1, a mass-production upgraded version of the Neue Ziel that sacrificed nothing and increased its firepower against smaller targets.

Capabilities:

The original Neue Ziel was engineered for the purpose of smashing through fleets in space, where its beam cannons could be used to destroy a ship in a single volley. When applied to the technologies of the Star Empire navies this turned out to be an unrealistic goal, as even a humble Dropship may have enough armor and internal structure to resist that much abuse, much less the heavier Warships and Monitors. Attempts to initially increase the gross firepower of the Neue Ziel were successful, but invalidated the existing size of the ship and made it increasingly vulnerable to return fire from the Warships it was designed to counter. Though the extra boom was welcomed by the pilots, the thought of biting it from a Naval Autocannon conflicting with a Neue Ziel heading in a different direction from the slugs was less than welcoming to the pilots. Few of the first model were produced, and only one is known to have survived the initial fighting it saw, and is now a museum relic at Axis.

After much consideration and a few prototypes, the Neue Ziel Upgrade was born. Gaining only 45 tons of mass from its original counterpart, the new version makes gratuitous use of the space it has but requires a change of strategy for the pilots who drive it from the old one. The external appearance is larger and more menacing than the original, though the increased bulk is mostly from armor and it retains the same styling that caused Federal Forces pilots to crap bricks (and also Magi pilots when first encountered). This armor increase grants it almost thirty percent more protection over its original model. The extended survivability, when combined with the I-Field generators on the machine, make the Neue Ziel almost impossible for a flight of standard fighters to kill in a running gun battle, and the increased net firepower gives those same fighters plenty of reason to be somewhere else.

The main difference in armaments is not a difference in numbers, but dispersion of weapons. The original Neue Ziel carries nine Mega Beam Guns, four facing forward, five facing rear. The Neue Ziel Upgrade carries the same amount of guns, but six of those are facing forward and only three to the rear. This gives the pilot more than ample firepower to turn most smaller Dropships into flying salvage in a single barrage, especially when combined with the Mega Particle Cannon mounted in the armor's central axis.

The missiles from the original are maintained, all of which are capable of causing major havoc to enemy craft, though the net improvement for the Neue Ziel is a series of four 105mm Machine Cannons manufactured by Savannah Weapons, mounted forward to provide extended anti-fighter firepower. This increase in firepower has definitely left its mark on enemies over the years the Upgrade has seen battle, as more than one pilot has claimed a kill with these cannons against Mobile Suits and fighters, and even kills against Dropships and Jumpships with the cannons. This increase in firepower has led to the 'twenty-one shot salute' tactic, whereby a Neue Ziel pilot will fire all four of his cannons at double fire, both hip-mounted micromissile launchers (all twelve tubes) and the Mega Particle Cannon, all at point blank into a target. This tactic has been known to completely shred fighters weighing less than forty tons, and severely damage or cripple enemies up to twice that weight, even if some of the shots miss.

These improvements come with a price tag, and that not just in cost per unit. The original Neue Ziel had been engineered with the cooling circuits necessary to fire all of its guns at once, both forward and back, with no worry about overheating systems. The Neue Ziel Upgrade cannot fire its rear-mounted weapons at the same time it fires its forward guns, due to a significant portion of the cooling systems having been removed to make up for the added mass in armor and weapons and keep it below the mass threshold for targeting by naval-caliber guns. Most pilots consider this less than a trifle issue, as they prefer to face an enemy head on and with their biggest guns blazing, however more than one enterprising enemy pilot has taken advantage of this weakness in a pitched battle. To prevent this, an automatic disconnect has been installed whereby only a certain portion of the weapons may be fired by the pilot before his firing circuits are temporarily locked out until the cooling systems catch up with the heat.

Battle History:

The Neue Ziel Upgrade came as a rude shock to the Negaverse in its debut battles, where it was found to be up to a quarter more effective against enemy smaller forces and over half more effective against enemy shipping. Individually the Neue Ziel Upgrade is not a unit to be trifled with, as its combat record is matched only by the mission-variable Dendrobium and that only in competent hands. The few times that Neue Ziel Upgrade units have lost notably were in battles where the whole Magi side was hopelessly outclassed by their assailants. If anything, the Neue Ziel Upgrade is mostly known for Pyhrric victories, whereby it loses but does so while taking down a number of the enemies at the same time. Many tales and legends abound of ace pilots and their Mobile Armors taking apart forces far larger than their own in concentrated pinpoint assaults using the Neue Ziel Upgrade as a shock weapon to destroy ship after ship after ship while the enemy Mobile Forces are handled by the rest of the unit in question.

To date, the only effective Negaverse tactic against the Neue Ziel Upgrade is to counter it with masses of smaller units or to attack it at standoff range with barrages of Naval Gauss Rifles or long-range antiship missiles. The Magi tactic to counter the Neue Ziel Upgrade is to counter it with another Neue Ziel Upgrade, a Dendrobium, or a larger Mobile Armor such as a Big Zam or Alpha Azieru.

Variants:

There are few variants of the Neue Ziel Upgrade, and none of those are official variants. Most are simple weapons replacement variants, changing out combinations of the weapons systems for special purposes and/or removing armor to add more heat sinks. These variants, while slightly better under certain circumstances, are not considered officially approved and are unique from one machine to the next.

Notable Vessels & Crews:

Harald Leffet (Machine: Monster Magnet)
Harald Leffet was, for lack of a better explanation, an oddball. He frequently slept on the roof of his quarters by reversing the gravity polarity in his room, believed there was a conspiracy on the part of aliens to fatten all of humanity up for eventual slaughter and serving as dinner, and even had his Neue Ziel Upgrade painted hot pink and the cockpit upholstered in pink fur ala bondage porno. Nevertheless, he well and truly earned the rank of Ace MA Pilot during the Red Blitz, using his mobile armor to singlehandedly sink over a hundred enemy transport, carrier and assault Dropships as well as countless smaller craft, fighters and Mobile Suits. Harry is also the only known Neue Ziel pilot to have a kill against a Leviathan 2-class Warship with the moniker Kraken, a ship which masses over four thousand eight hundred times more than his Mobile Armor and has the firepower necessary to completely annihilate his Mobile Armor fifteen times a minute. He brought down the ship by expedient of directly targeting only the engines at point blank with repeated shots while flying around behind the ship in random evasive patterns. Though his armor needed over a month of repair before it was combat ready again, he received the Order of the Triad for his accomplishment, the highest honor of the Empire's forces.

Ellone Deville (Machine: Beauty Of The Beast)
Eugenic by birth, Ellone always believed herself to carry more than her fair share of combat detail and should act accordingly. Standoffish, haughty, and professional, she counted herself as having no need for a social life while a war was going on, and her service record proved it. With over five thousand kills on targets ranging from twenty to 85000 tons, Ellone was one of the most decorated Mobile Armor pilots of the latter years of the Quarter War. She also had the single highest personal reprimand count in the Techstrikers, bar none, courtesy of her acid tongue and attitude. It was rumored that she had mouthed off to the Emperor on an occasion where he was attached to her unit, and it is courtesy of that incident she never made any rank higher than Star Captain, though the Emperor claims no involvement in her lack of advancement. Her Neue Ziel Upgrade, which was retired to the Museum Of Naval Warfare in orbit around Strana Mechty (the planet on which she was eugenically conceived), was painted in standard matte gray with orange war stripes and zigzags across her armor plates. It was often said that those who got away from her fury alive were plagued by nightmares of the demonic war paint her armor was colored by.

Gerald Lightbringer (Machine: Archangel of Death)
Arguably the most famous and infamous of Neue Ziel Upgrade pilots, Gerald Lightbringer made a name for himself by not being seen by the enemy, per se. The Archangel of Death was never seen nor recorded by a surviving enemy formation on the expedient of Gerald Lightbringer and the rest of his team, colloquially known as the Angel Team, having killed all the enemies in the vicinity. Tales of his exploits reach as far back on the calendar as before the Second Star League, before the Quarter War, and even as far back as the initial prototype testing of the Neue Ziel Upgrade, though all reports are unconfirmed and his codex has no mention of such battles. His Neue Ziel Upgrade has no recognized serial number on it, meaning that the date of manufacture of his armor cannot be verified. His craft has no flight logs, no black box, only a maintenance auditing program that keeps track of when parts need to be replaced. Gerald himself does not even have a listed age that can be verified by any person short of the Division Commander of the Techstrikers, whom he theoretically answers to, much less a declassified combat record. His Machine is painted bright white with dark blue trim, as is the other machines of the Angel Team, with the only identifier on it being his callsign, Angel Zero.

Deployment

The Neue Ziel Upgrade has taken the place of the venerable Neue Ziel as a replacement for fleet-carried mobile armors, and is considered an excellent compliment to the gold-standard Dendrobium units. The Neue Ziel Upgrade fits into the standard Mobile Armor 6 Bay with no issue, though quarters get a bit tight when it is fitted into the Mobile Armor Class 5 bays. It can launch from any stationary fortification Mobile Armor bay without issue, and can even take advantage of a Magnetic Catapult if one is available.

In an offensive posture, the Neue Ziel Upgrade is typically used as a fast-assault unit and as the beginning thrust of a breakthrough fleet action, where its massive firepower can be best used to cripple lighter units and harry larger ones and its maneuverability allows it to avoid enemy fire as best as possible. It is not uncommon to see Neue Ziel Upgrade pilots completely blow through an enemy battle line and circle around to strike from the rear or flanks while the enemy front is struck again by oncoming forces. In standoff engagements the Neue Ziel is used as a screening armor for longer-range units, as its firepower only marginally ranges to long range and has little to no involvement with extreme-range standoff bombardment.

In a defensive posture the Neue Ziel serves admirably as a long-range and high-power interceptor. The Neue Ziel Upgrade has four hours of fuel without a refill at standard speed, eighty minutes at flank speed, which well exceeds combat fuel expectancy of the average enemy craft. The combination of heavy armor and not one but four I-Field Generators gives it the ability to challenge enemy craft that rely on energy weapons on far better than even terms, making the Neue Ziel optimum for intercepting enemy Warships that are reliant on PPCs and Mega Beam Cannons, while other forces assault the remainder of the enemy fleet.

BATTLETECH SPECIAL RULES:

The Neue Ziel is considered a Dropship for deploy and combat rules, and being less than 500 tons is considered a smaller target for naval guns to shoot at. For transport purposes, the Neue Ziel requires a minimum of 500 tons of space for transport, though in such space constraints it cannot be repaired unless it is undocked from the ship that is transporting it. If issued 600 tons of space, it can be repaired inside the ship without issue.

The I-Field Generators each blocks twenty capital-scale points of damage from Beam Weapons, Buster Weapons and Mega Particle Weapons (Gundam universe) and Particle Cannons (Battletech Universe). It has no effect on Lasers, Positron Cannons, Flamers, or any physical ordinance weapons (missiles, rail guns, Autocannons, machine guns, etc). Given that the Neue Ziel carries four of the generators, it can block 80 capital-scale points or up to 800 standard scale points per turn. If this damage level is exceeded, any successive damage to the Neue Ziel from these types of weapons hits the Neue Ziel at standard effects. Additionally, for every twenty capital-scale damage inflicted on the Neue Ziel, a generator is discharged in that turn, and is not active in the following turn. The generators will recharge in the turn after they were discharged, and will be active again two turns after they were initially discharged. So, if two of the generators are discharged in one turn, the following turn only two generators would be active, meaning that 41 points of capital-scale damage from Mega Particle weapons would be needed to breach the remaining I-Fields. On the third turn, provided the other generators were not discharged, the Neue Ziel would be back up to full I-Field integrity.

The Neue Ziel and Neue Ziel Upgrade are space-use mobile armors. Despite being listed as Droipship class Aerodyne, they are completely incapable of atmospheric flight and if one enters the atmospheric interface it is considered to have burned up and is listed as destroyed.

CUSTOM WEAPON STATS:

Mega Beam Cannon: Considered standard laser, 5 tons, 25 heat, Maximum AT2 range of long. Attack value of 50 points standard damage. BV 1525, cost 2.5 million C-bills. This weapon cannot be mounted on any craft less than 150 tons, due to the power requirements of recharging it.

Mega Particle Gun: Considered standard laser, 4 tons, 20 heat, Maximum AT2 range of long. Attack value of 45 points standard damage. BV 1665, cost 1 million C-bills. This weapon cannot be mounted on any craft less than 150 tons, due to the power requirements of recharging it.

Sub-Arm: Considered standard laser, 1 tons, 5 heat, Maximum AT2 range of point defense. Attack value of 50 points standard damage. BV 105, cost 100,000 C-bills. This weapon cannot be mounted on any craft less than 150 tons, due to the power requirements of recharging it. This weapon can only be used against targets in the same hex as the firing craft, but can be used to intercept missiles per standard point defense rules.

Beam Saber Claw: Considered standard laser, 3 tons, 10 heat, Maximum AT2 range of point defense. Attack value of 100 points standard damage. BV 105, cost 3.5 million C-bills. This weapon cannot be mounted on any craft less than 150 tons, due to the power requirements of recharging it. This weapon can only be used against targets in the same hex as the firing craft.

I-Field Generator: Considered point defense weapon, 4 tons, 0 heat, Maximum AT2 range of point defense. Attack value of 200 points standard defense against Mega Particle Weapons, Buster Weapons, PPCs. BV 25, cost 4 million C-bills. This weapon cannot be mounted on any craft less than 300 tons, due to the power requirements of charging and running it. This weapon will defend only the equipped craft, it does not have the range to defend any units in the vicinity.

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Class/Model/Name:

Neue Ziel (Upgrade) AMA-X2-U1

Mass: 495 tons

Equipment: (Mass)

Power Plant: Standard (91.00)
Engine Shielding: .00
Structural Integrity: 9 (22.28)

Safe Thrust: 6
Maximum Thrust: 9

Heat Sinks: 132 Double (128.00)
Fuel & Fuel Pumps: (21.00)
Bridge & Controls: 4.00

Armor Factor: 1,008 Ferro-aluminum (C) (40.50)

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Armor Value

(Standard Scale)

Fore: 336

Left / Right Sides: 252 / 252

Aft: 168

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Equipment & Options:

Crew and Passengers: 1 Officers (1 minimum) 0.00

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Weapons & Equipment:
Loc, SRV, MRV, LRV, ERV
Heat, Mass

2 Beam Saber Claw (C)
Nose, -, -, -, -
20, 6.00

1 Mega Beam Cannon (C)
Nose, 5(50), 5(50), 5(50), -
25, 5.00

4 Sub-Arm (C)
Nose, -, -, -, -
20, 4.00

2 Ultra AC/10 (C)(60 rounds)
Nose, 3(30), 3(30), -, -
12, 26.00

3 Mega Particle Gun (C)
L/RW, 14(135), 14(135), 14(135), -
120, 24.00

2 Thunderbolt 20 (MR) (C)(21 rounds)
L/RW, 4(40), 4(40), -, -
32, 44.00

1 SRM 6 (C)(60 rounds)
L/RW, 1(8), -, -, -
8, 11.00

1 I-Field Generator (C)
L/RW, -, -, -, -
0, 4.00

1 Ultra AC/10 (C)(30 rounds)
L/RW, 2(15), 2(15), -, -
12, 26.00

2 SRM 6 (C)(120 rounds)
Aft, 2(16), -, -, -
8, 11.00

3 Mega Particle Gun (C)
Aft, 14(135), 14(135), 14(135), -
60, 12.00

2 I-Field Generator (C)
Aft, -, -, -, -
0, 4.00

TOTALS:

317 Heat

494.78 Tons

Tons Left: .23

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Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 1,614,277,224 C-Bills

Battle Value: 22,287
Cost per BV: 72,431.34
Weapon Value: 16,194 (Ratio .73)

Damage Factors: SRDmg 793; MRDmg 352; LRDmg 101; ERDmg 0

Maintenance Point Value: MPV 16,920 (2,308 Structure, 960 Life Support, 13,652 Weapons)

Support Points: SP 3,150 (19 Percent of MPV)

BattleForce2:

MP: 6N, Armor/Structure: 17 / 17
Damage PB/M/L: 48/46/32, Overheat: 0
Class: DS, Point Value: 223