So, here's chapter 2, sorry for the delay as I had a severe case of the writer's block.
Also check out my favourite author's list if you like really good fics among them some masterly written TN fics.
But here goes, and thanks to doctor Anthony for proof reading and writing some scenes in my earlier and current project.
I do not own any of these great franchises (Damn shame)
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Clarkson and his staff was unceremoniously marched off to the main brig to the surprise and growing fear of those that had in recent months gone from being captives to almost equal,
Michaela Collins was one of those worried what might happen now.
Graham looked around and saw the crowd gathering,
"Round up the labourers and get them back inside their barracks." He ordered,
One of the officers looked puzzled,
"What is going on here? We take orders from Adept Clarkson." She asked,
"Adept Clarkson and his staff have been arrested." Graham answered,
"On what charge?" Another officer demanded to know,
"You'll do as you're ordered, or I can always let the mercenaries do the rounding up." Graham said smiling menacingly.
The officer that had spoken up first gasped at the implication and ordered her soldiers to as gently as possible to start getting the labourers into their barracks.
Meanwhile the command centre got a message from the waystation jumpship.
"This is Captain LaMotte to command, do you read?" The mercenary officer of the ship called,
"This is command, what's your status over?" The officer now in charge replied,
"The warship seems to be heading for the planet but they have detached a dropship that is now heading our way, they still don't answer any of our coms." The mercenary captain reported,
"Weird, it could be that their com equipment is damaged from fighting those renegades and is sending over someone to use your equipment, anything else over?" The ground officer said,
"Yeah, the markings on both the warship and the dropship are completely unfamiliar to any ComStar markings I've seen." The merc drawled out, then his eyes shot up,
"Wait, we're getting some kind of signal now…" The bandit captain started but the rest was disrupted by static,
"What happened?" The ground officer queried, but nothing but static
"Jumpship Eagle, what is your status, over?" The officer asked but were met only by static,
After a few more tries equally as fruitless he instead contacted his superior Adept Francis Graham.
"Adept Graham, please report to the command centre immediately." He called.
This was getting weird…
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Under loud protests the Irish labourers were herded into the barracks and locked inside.
Clarkson was in the brig wondering how he was going to manage to turn this around, but he could not see how as he knew that he had deviated a little from orders during the circumstances, and that he did not support slavery and after learning the truth – enough of it anyway – to understand that his superiors had betrayed every ideal however moderately right or wrong of the old Star League.
Radcliff was a maniac… A textbook dictator…
"What shall we do now Adept?" One of his junior officers asked anxiously,
"All is not lost, we still have some supporters among the units, right?" Clarkson replied,
"Yeah of course, I don't think many if any at all like that pompous ashat Graham." A non-com pointed out.
"Good, but for now we lay low, something tells me that the warship coming in may not be what we expected." He said, he could not be sure, but it was all the hope he had…
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At the Command centre after Graham had arrived.
"Well, what is it, have our ship contacted us yet?" He asked impatiently,
"No sir, no communication what so ever but the captain of the waystation ship was about to report on that they were getting a signal and then I lost contact with them."
"Ah, inform me as soon as they do." Graham growled and went to his new quarters, it wasn't really necessary for him to take over Clarkson's quarters as they would soon be rescued, but it was important from a symbolic point that he showed the other Com Guard personnel and especially that rabble of labourers to know who was in charge…
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A few days later as Graham was in the command centre with his loyal officers that were mostly disgraced mercenaries.
There had been some reports of minor problems from mostly the outlying camps and of the slaves muttering, but one of these reports had been an outright declaration of mutiny where the Com Guard personnel that was obviously loyal to that traitor Clarkson, they had declared that they refused to take any more orders from command unless Clarkson was restored to his command and they had even had the audacity to free and arm the slaves…
After the large patrols, he had sent reported that the camp had been stripped of everything of use and abandoned, but Graham was not worried.
"No matter, after we establish contact with higher command, we'll smoke them out like the vermin they are." Graham thought as he threw the plexpad away,
"Adept, we're getting a signal from the ship now." The ComStar corvette had been settling into orbit during the morning and Graham and his loyalists had been waiting anxiously, Graham wondered why they had still not re-established contact the Eagle but chalked it down to faulty equipment, it had after all been a temporary upgrade they had done on the disabled jumpship's com equipment.
It could have simply burned out?
"Attention Com Guard and their bandit lackeys. We are Clan Dragon, a full Guarde have come to render justice on you as well as to free the slaves on this planet. What forces dare oppose us?" Came a stern male voice through the communication speakers.
Graham stared at the nearest speaker in utter befuddlement…
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Graham tried composing himself.
"Clan what now?" One of his mercenary officers exclaimed.
Graham silenced the others and then turned to the screen that for some reason was still showing sound but no image.
"Look, whoever you are. That ship you are hailing from is of ComStar origin, I have no time for jokes." Graham growled impatiently to the person on the other side of the link.
"You refuse my Battle Challenge?" Came the reply.
Now Graham was beyond impatience now he was downright angry.
"Enough of this nonsense!" He shouted.
"What's to stop us from using the labourers here as human shields to get you to back off?!" He then growled into the screen.
There was silence from the com unit and then…
"I was going to allow you the opportunity of an honourable battle – perhaps even a duel. But you have thrown away any such chance with your impotent rant not to mention that cowardly threat. Now you shall feel the full force of the Dragon's wrath!" And then the communication was cut.
Graham stared at the screen for a few moments and then composed himself.
"Go to full alert. Call out every unit, let's show whoever these punks are the price of messing with ComStar!" He bellowed.
And as the alarms went off blaring the rebel units of renegade Com Guard and former slaves had been moving for a raid to liberate their original commander at first halted as they thought they had been noticed…
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"What the hell is wrong with our orbital defences?" Graham bellowed – orbital defence was a rather exaggeration as those defences was simply jumpships that had been so damaged apart from the KF drives being damaged also the main engines apart from some thrusters being completely inoperable and had been refitted to act as orbital defence batteries.
"I don't know sir. Most aren't responding to our hails." The Com officer reported.
"Get them back!" Graham ordered angrily.
He turned to look at another screen where he could see information on the units loyal to him – their numbers and positions on the planet, he had made sure that the majority of the forces be stationed at the main base but close to the labour barracks to make sure that this upstart Clan Dragon wouldn't try anything like orbital bombardment, it was a dirty – not to mention against the Ares Convention – trick but Francis Graham didn't care, he cared only to win at any cost…
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At the complex that was now used to imprison Adept Clarkson and the Com Guard and other ComStar personnel loyal to him.
They could all hear the alarms going off and William knew that his suspicions about the new arrivals was correct…
Whoever they were they were obviously not with ComStar.
"Adept, who do you think the new arrivals are?" Another officer asked from the corner he was sitting in.
"To tell you the truth, I have no idea Watkins, they can't be the garden variety Periphery lowlifes – not this far out in the deep Periphery." Clarkson replied, he suspected that these must be from that Clan Wolverine or allies of the same, as he like many of the mid to high-ranking officers had been given the information about the primary purpose of their expedition.
Then the double doors to the warehouse where Graham's loyalists had locked them into opened.
The men and women that had remained loyal to Clarkson stood up, bracing themselves for the worst…
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Graham had called out every unit loyal to him to defend the camp and had now, he was walking his Flashman heavy battlemech onto the street just outside the main headquarters building.
The enemy would have to fight them street by street if they wanted them.
"Alert, hostile dropships sighted." They could hear through the coms as they all prepared themselves.
"Don't march out to meet them, let these Periphery scum come to us." Graham ordered, if they could use the civilian labourers as human shields they may actually be able to defend especially if the enemies cared for those mongrels that much.
"These are probably some enthusiastic pups with delusions of grandeur, so let them come to us. Worst case scenario we simply use the labourers as hostages." He added and tried sounding reassuringly, these Periphery inbreeds did after all managed to get their hands on a warship.
Graham and his troops could now see a dropship coming in for landing about a kilometre outside the main base camp.
"I want the tank units at every side street to flank them as they come, make sure that our mech units conduct a fighting retreat to the centre so we can funnel these barbarians and let them pay for every inch of ground!" Graham bellowed to his troops through the com and his voice sounded more assured than he actually felt.
At the outskirts of the massive slave-labour camp, the first troops loyal to Graham as well as those rebelling units loyal to Clarkson – that was now slowly moving towards the colony could see the enemy dropship – an Excalibur class military dropship – having landed and was now disgorging its hostile passengers…
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"Well, what're ye waiting for, a written invitation to the rebellion?" Shouted a voice of someone Clarkson knew all too well.
"Captain Frost?!" He shouted happily.
"The same, Adept Clarkson." Svetlana Frost answered.
Svetlana had been commanding her own mercenary unit the Kievan Warriors Company that had gotten into trouble thanks to a brawl with the house troops of some planetary lord and Svetlana had inadvertently killed his son as the man had lunged for her knife.
That very same lord had then reported the unit and accused them of murdering his son and it had gone downhill after that and the unit had been judged disgraced, so when ComStar had offered to hire them the Kievan Warriors had jumped at the bit for an honest job… that is until they found out they were helping to enslave tens of thousands of innocent people.
So, when a couple of Com Guard units rebelled her unit followed.
Svetlana smiled.
"Never thought I'd bailing you out of jail of all people." She chuckled.
They quickly left the building.
"Where's the rest of the rebels?" William asked.
"They're at the edge of that forest waiting for us." Frost answered.
"Call them to the slave barracks and lead us to whatever vehicles there are left." William demanded.
"May I ask what for?" Svetlana asked curiously.
"That murdering madman Graham is going to use the slaves as hostages and I don't know what those newcomers are planning but I refuse to allow him to murder innocent people." William explained as he together with the men and women loyal to him turned to run for the mech yard.
"You with me? I can't promise that we'll get out of this even if this Clan Wolverine take Graham down they may simply be the lesser of two evils." He said.
They all stopped
"Actually, the guys landing right over there, are Clan Dragon. But sure, I'm with ya." Svetlana said as she turned and jogged to behind the main prison building.
William Clarkson stared after her in befuddlement at the new developments.
"Who or what the hell are Clan Dragon, this was never in any of the briefings?!" He thought and then ran for the Mech yard.
Svetlana swore in Ukrainian as she quickly climbed into her own Cyclops heavy command battlemech that she had parked behind the prison building.
"Well, here goes nothing." She muttered as she powered up her battlemech and contacted the rest of the rebels.
"This is Captain Frost. Kievan Warriors move into the main camp to the slave barracks." She ordered.
"Com Guard units loyal to Clarkson, your CO are free and await you at the same location." She simply said knowing full well allies or not these Com Guard units would never obey her – they had enough problem working WITH her.
By now the alarms were blaring all over the huge camp as her computer notified her of unknown dropship landing just outside the massive camp-city…
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Clarkson and those of his loyalists that were mechwarriors made it safely to the mech yard and entered their battlemechs while the others raided the weapons storehouses near the yard.
As Clarkson manoeuvred his Excalibur out of the yard.
"Alright, people, I want the infantry to guard the entrances to the labour compound, battlemechs on me, we will put ourselves in between the ´compound and Graham's as well as whatever those others are, our job here is to protect the labourers at all costs." He ordered.
"And maybe win back what honour the Com Guard have lost." He added and marched his mech into position.
He checked his computer of the area where the new arrivals had landed and it was a formidable force, there was at least a couple of dozen battlemechs and various vehicles, though strangely most of the force seemed to lay back while a smaller force consisting of only battlemechs of configurations he could not fully recognize except for a few, he counted five mech configurations in this advance group.
Though the larger group had several mech configurations he did recognize some even had designations of actual Com Guard battlemechs.
"I take it that the assault on this Terra Nova did not go so well." He noted, he suspected as much considering the corvette that they had spotted a week earlier reportedly seemed to have ComStar designation in their computer.
Then both Graham and Clarkson received an open communication from the leading group of battlemechs.
"Attention Com Guard and bandits, I am Knight Marcus Reynolds of Clan Dragon's Excalibur Lance, I challenge the leader of this slave camp to come forth and do battle with my unit, which among your warriors have the courage to face us?" Came the challenge…
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That was chapter 2 finally, sorry for me taking so long but I've been dealing with some personal problems that has taken up my time.
Please read and review and tell me what you think of the chapter.
