Act III

Chapter 25

May 15th, 3025

RoughRider Zulu HQ

Alshayra Continent

Suk II

Emily sat in a motorized chair with her side to the large holotable as part of the high-level conference was going on in the command center. LC LaPointe, with Abramsen and Dusselhoff were all there for the RoughRiders. Hauptmann Ketchum and Alvarez's aide, Orlianne, represented the Militia.

And here we are, minus J.J. Hope he's okay. Haven't heard from him for too long now. Emily, Pearl, and Daniels rounded out the representatives and liaisons from the Coyotes. There were a few people she didn't recognize, but she was sure she'd get their names. If we survive this, we might need our own intel officer. She tried to avoid the image of Rhys Kang in her mind. He was rather good at assessing intel when the four of them put their heads together. Damnit brain I said stop thinking about him! Ow.

She didn't mind sitting down. The concussion wasn't even a full day old and she needed at least a few days before she could get in a 'mech, let alone pilot it effectively. She could move slightly or do critical thinking, but no combination of the two for now. Pearl stood at a respectable distance, but it was no secret about the two of them anymore. Word travels fast when you're bored and on downtime between missions.

LaPointe was going over some planetary strategy, but she found it hard to concentrate on the map and his voice at the same time. She settled on his voice and resigned herself to remember the details as best she could.

"…to the northeast, roughly the location of the spaceport. This Drac commander, Kuri I think his name was, is one of the more rogue operators in the combine. Has plenty of political pull on the military side of things, lots of influence. If these mercs already on-planet are under his influence or even directly employed by him, and this isn't a full invasion sanctioned by his Warlord or the Coordinator, then he's in hot water if he can't get a smashing victory right off the bat. Given his ground forces have him at close to even odds, plus at least one more mercenary company in the jungle, he's probably working on his own without authorization. Otherwise we'd be looking at two-to-one or three-to-one odds easily."

Abramsen stopped his intelligence update, looking at the small group of Coyotes. "I'm almost positive he's banking on far more guerilla support down here than he's actually getting. Hell, the Coyotes are working alongside us now, so that helps even things out a lot, though we're vastly outnumbered in the air."

The Militia commander, Ketchum, interjected with an upward palm. "Either way, our water plants are more or less held hostage until we can nail whoever's behind them at the source entirely. These guys are ninjas. I checked with some of the intel guys in the cities and it seems they have a presence there as well. Your former Draconis liaison might have been in league with him for all we now. If you look at the timeline, it's convenient timing he disappeared after wrapping things up with the Coyotes. Hell, his own people might have been the ones who snatched him at that casino."

This was the first time Emily actually thought of that. Damn…that's way more likely than I thought it would be. Really hope it's not, but…damn. DAMN. She felt obliged to speak up on his behalf, at least. "While that may be true, he couldn't have known about The Langley Affair. He was caught in the blast himself!. He might still be looking for some answers of his own. Or, you're right and he's a double-triple-whatever agent." She looked down at the table, letting the voices drone on for a moment. Pearl promised she'd help fill her in with anything she missed later.

LaPointe didn't seem convinced. "Either way, we're still looking at approximately six dozen battlemechs from the 2nd Legion of Vega, with up to ten lances of aerospace support. What we know about them is limited, other than they are either a place of redemption for downcast troops, or a dumping ground. Lately their reputation has been on the up and up, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them like seasoned vets.

"Most of their 'mechs are of the light-to-heavy variety, with some assaults. Most of ours are medium to heavy. The Vengence that's with them isn't actually part of the 2nd, so they may stay, but it's more likely they'll leave once they're deployed. We have a decent amount of anti-aircraft configured 'mechs, but not enough of them that they won't be able to concentrate fire and get superiority. We have a mix of twenty-two light aerospace and VTOL, so that puts us at about one third their air power, plus our own anti-air, likely matched by the 2nd Legion's own AA.

"Either we make a move on the spaceport and entrench ourselves, and they pick an alternate spot to land anyway and we leave the treatment plants exposed, or we try to get their final trajectory and race to get there before they're fully deployed. We'll have local infrastructure on our side, so best case we'd probably be fighting up to ½ of their regiment at once and the Overlords themselves, plus up to 40 Aerospace." LaPointe shook his head grimly. "And if they decide to drop their 'mechs in before the Overlords land, we're looking at a serious disadvantage.

Ketchum shook his head too. "If I were this guy, and the commandos were in my employ, I'd send them to take out any lines of transit between us and them before they land, too. It's definitely an even safer option for them."

LaPointe nodded. Then said a few things Emily couldn't quite make out.

Then she had a thought. A painful one, but a thought nonetheless.

"Wouldn't it be better for us if we gave them a couple really good options that suited us better?"

Someone stopped talking, Emily couldn't be sure who, and they all turned to her suddenly. Multiple eyebrows went up and Dusselhoff, apparently the one who was interrupted, gave her a look that implied seriously, lady? He wasn't amused at all, but the rest seemed to think the awkward moment was funny.

"Oh…sorry about that. Concussion." She tapped the side of her head subconsciously. "Sorry HP. Little hard to keep everything straight right now."

He nodded. "Go on."

She looked at the table again. This would be easier without making eye contact with everyone. "Throwing another what-if out there, but how about we give 'em a couple landing spots south of Mach'Beh. They'd have to go through heavily wooded trees and we can generally set 'em up for the knockdown. We know where they're going, which is the spaceport and the capitol, so the Militia and the Coyotes can set up a delaying action. Then the RoughRiders come in and clean up." Several people nodded, but she couldn't see specifically because her vision blurred for a moment.

He also stopped to glance at Emily multiple times while other people talked various logistical things she couldn't grasp at the moment. He was definitely aware of her idea of putting herself between approximately five to six times her force after having just been shot out of her own 'mech attempting the same thing at the very beginning of the same day.

She thought to herself, what the hell am I thinking, here? This is insane. Suicide. We'd be lucky if half our people made it out of that. But she didn't retract the offer, either.

LaPointe leaned over the table and studied various terrain around the capitol. He paced around the table getting a better look at everything while Daniels mentioned something about Aerospace. She caught Dusselhoff saying "If we leave the treatment plants, we risk going down in history as "the guys who let a rogue Drac officer make almost half a billion people go thirsty."

"I'll advise the Prime Minister to go to water rations. We'll probably have to do that regardless. That'll extend the life of the plants for a while. Also, I have a Sanderson message for all of you regarding water supplies. It doesn't leave this table." That particular device was a Suk II invention, a hybrid of the old cameras from ancient Terra that included a shawl to protect the exposure, back when pictures were taken on glass plates.

This was a portable Sanderson which included a shawl made of various filaments, fibers that resisted electronic scans, and other things Emily was too tired to care about. It was invented to protect the message from prying eyes in the same room. He was playing with it for a few seconds then put it on himself and typed a message. Then he passed it around and everyone got a turn looking foolish and mysterious at the same time.

Everyone held their tongue, except Dusselhoff who made a playful jab at Ketchum for not bringing up a message like this at the beginning of the meeting. And Ketchum, who held his hands up in mock protest and a "this only became relevant just now."

By the time it got around to Emily, she put it on, and read the three-sentence message.

Underground stored water reserves will last four months. Top-secret, do not share info with anyone. Focus on the Dracs, we'll get the plants up and running again before reserves dry up.

The digital letters were painful to look at, and Emily practically ripped it off her head. Pearl gave her a steadying hand on her shoulder and took the device, handing it back to Ketchum.

"Sorry about that. It's a ridiculous device, but it works, and given the Dracs have clearly done their homework with the espionage involved in the last few months…" And probably many months or years prior to that, Emily thought. Hell, most of them live here permanently by now. It's got what both sides want in a war: people and Industry.

Abramsen finally spoke up. "Anyway, I can't say Major Wright's plan is a bad one. It's certainly a more viable option, and it will limit their air superiority slightly. Those forests aren't big enough to safely conceal an entire battalion of RoughRiders, let alone a regiment. But if we park ourselves on the northern portions of the capitol, guarding the spaceport and surrounding areas, it forces them to land further away. The next-best options are down south of the nature preserve."

The Nordic-featured man did a thoughtful motion with his hand on his rich goatee, then said "We have almost a full week to get ready. That's plenty of time to make the rest of the nearby landing sites a living hell. And we can make ourselves very visible while doing it. We'd generally want them to see us remove some of their choices and leave several open. The fact that we can't hide everyone in that forest is a good reason for them to land of it, putting the forest between the capitol and them.

"It's decent, but we can expect a lot of public blowback if we leave the plants alone, like HP Dusselhoff is so adamant about. That's another factor—we need to keep the public on our side on this. Both sides want the planet, and the people caught in between are going to lean towards whoever does the least damage to their friends, family, and livelihood. Let's keep the fights out of the cities and keep the public spin on our side."

This was only the first of several meetings this week, and Emily couldn't take any more of it right now. She excused herself and wheeled her way out for a moment, letting the stale air of their command room whoosh past her in the doorway with the urgency of it also having a bad headache. She sighed and took two of the meds their doc gave her and leaned her head against the cool reinforced steel wall.

At least I almost smooth-talked us into getting the kind of job we're good at. Though she never imagined she'd be putting herself and her people between so much raw firepower, fighting only a delaying action. The sounds and smells of the last time she tried that less than a full day ago were still fresh in her mind. At least nobody died this time. Including me. Definitely not gonna happen against the Dracs. They're gonna kick the shit out of us before the RoughRiders get there.

She almost felt like she signed her own death certificate no more than two minutes ago, and she wanted to cry. She didn't, this time, but she still wanted to.

Location Unknown

Suk II

J.J. was pretty sure the carpet he paced about 1,746 circles around will have a permanent race track imprinted in it by the time he was out of here. The small suburban house he was kept in seemed like it was in the middle of nowhere, and there was plenty of security around him. All heavily armed, while they were inside. Outside their weapons were much easier to conceal.

His fresh clothes from a random department store had all the tags taken off, so he couldn't really figure out where he was at or where they came from. Almost all of them had Japanese features along with their specialized assault weaponry of various shapes and sizes, all of them looking very high-tech.

The guns are high tech, but they look like tourists. Checking all the boxes of stereotypes, check. Easier to blend in that way. But a large group of adult to middle-aged males in the same area hardly saying a word? That part needs a little work, guys.

J.J. was sure these guys were in with a bunch of different groups at the same time. Most of them seemed a little more nervous than a bunch of random commandos on guard duty would seem. They probably have a lot on their plate. Little twinges of the eyes, a furrowed brow implying stress and not general anger or prejudice to their captive. And probably not under just one employer. J.J.'s employer, the same one who hired the commandos and the mercenaries like the Coyotes, has some explaining to do.

He hadn't got much closer to the whole gun-cam situation, other than it had to be someone on-planet permanently. Whoever was responsible had a lot of contacts, including local organized crime, political and Militia. It had to be high up the food chain, but he wasn't sure how high yet.

He had a lot to report to his Warlord, in charge of the entire Rasalhague military district. His Go-Shujin-Sama, or master, had suspected Kuri and a few of his allies wanted to make a big play for the Combine, winning prestige in the eye of the Dragon for giving such a worthy planet as Suk II without even being asked to. Or being authorized to yet using the Dragon's resources to do it.

The trouble is, Kuri was known for starting fires in places they didn't belong, hence his assignment to the 2nd Legion of Vega several years ago.

J.J. put his head to the wall again, trying to make some sense of the conversation in the next room. The double-layer of drywall plus at least one white noise generator made that practically impossible, so he went back to pacing. Patience was never his strongest suit. He sat on the bed they gave him and forced himself to try and go back to sleep.

Since I'm not exactly in a cell, just under very-much heavy guard, someone's due to show up. They wouldn't go through all this trouble for me if they weren't going to try and smooth-talk me into dropping my investigation. They could have just killed me, but since they didn't, they're going to try and convince me to go back to what I was doing with the Coyotes. I'll just wait it out and see who's coming.