9

June 3, 2991

Federated Suns

Crusis March

Cholis

Morten Estate

Stephan sat dripping a rivulet of sweat from under his neurohelmet that he ignored rather than swipe away. He was so close this time, he couldn't afford any mistakes as he fired his Phoenix Hawk's large laser ahead of him into a turret, then a few steps later fired his pair of medium lasers at the same target, taking out the weak armor plates and knocking out its offensive capability right before slamming down on the foot pedals in the cockpit and activating the mech's jump jets.

The humanoid mech lifted off the ground like a stiff long jumper, flying into the air on the short term lifting power of 6 jets built into the mech's back that gave it enough clearance to hop over the wall the turret and its twin were standing before, with him taking fire from the other one that further weakened his right leg.

He cut off the jets when he passed the wall, falling back down some twenty meters before slamming on the jets again to soften the landing. His weakened leg held and after some scrambling to keep from falling over, he pressed on running forward as he glanced to the left at the railway track that was still empty.

I'm further ahead this time. Can't waste it.

A blast from the right hit his mech in the side of the head, but didn't penetrate. He knew immediately it was a volley of SRMs from a wheeled launching vehicle that always popped out from behind that factory building. He was expecting it, and knew better than to stop and engage. Instead he saved his lasers for the pair of Bulldog tanks that would be over the next hill and simply ran as fast as his medium mech could take him.

He would have usually taken his Centurion, but in this simulation only the Phoenix Hawk was allowed, and the need for speed indicated why. He was chasing a train…or rather, trying to get ahead of it while simultaneously engaging numerous small enemies along his path, including a pair of light mechs. He'd damaged one but simply ran past them both, having known from previous failures this afternoon that engaging them to take them down took too long and the slow moving train would escape him. He had to run and gun, and he knew Vander has put those mechs there to distract away from the actual mission.

Eyes focused on the top of the sandy hill he was now climbing, he knew he had to fire as soon as he saw the tops of the tanks or he'd get hit with their combined fire almost immediately. This was his sixth attempt at this simulation, and on the previous one he had tried to go right and run a circle around them using his mech's usually good speed, but it had taken too long and he'd taken damage from another Bulldog hiding out that way.

There was no good or easy way to run this gauntlet…at least, not as fast as you needed to in order to beat the train to the bridge in order to capture it. Last time he had got there first and blown the bridge, but the train couldn't slam on its brakes fast enough and careened into the gorge, ending the mission in failure just as he thought he'd won.

He'd immediately reupped the nearly half hour long mission to try again, intent on getting through it this time, but his forward armor plates were already in the red, and if he wasn't careful this final pair of Bulldogs was going to end him.

He knew he had a slim window of opportunity, for the tanks didn't fire as quickly as they could have. At least the simulation didn't have their gunners as top notch experts waiting expectantly. He'd have a chance to fire first if he was quick…but suddenly a thought occurred to him. That was probably also bait programmed into the simulation. Instead, as soon as he saw the tippy top of the first tank crest the hill, he hit his jump jets again and sent the mech flying forward some 160 meters, barely skimming over the ground.

Shots were fired and hit him…in the lower portion of his torso and his mech's pelvis, but not the weakest spot just below his head on his chest. The sudden upward movement had thrown them off, and as they cycled their weaponry to fire again, he came crashing down onto the left one and smashed it under his mech's feet.

He fell off intentionally, sliding to the left and shuffling his feet fast enough not to tip over. As soon as he got a solid foot on the sand he twisted and fired all three of his lasers into the other Bulldog as it backed up and tried to put some distance between them…then skidded to a halt as it exploded under the precision fire that was more or less a lucky shot as Stephan kept shuffling to get the mech's other foot off the first tank.

The shuffling didn't stop, for as his leg came off and hit the sand he saw the massive damage the impact had done to it. It wasn't broken off…thankfully…but he did now have a serious limp and his speed was cut by more than half.

"Damn it," he said, turning away from the smoking ruins and limping as fast as he could onward.

There were no more enemies ahead, he knew, just the bridge he had to get to first. It was some 600 meters ahead, and he was moving at maybe 40 kilometers per hour. That was better than the train's 25, so he should be able to do this if he had enough of a head start.

He angled over toward the tracks as the arch-like supports overtop the gorge bridge grew larger ahead of him, glancing at his rear camera to try and spot the train.

It was there, small, but never the less coming. He didn't have much time, but he was here sooner than last time.

Step…limp…step..limp. He didn't dare try his jump jets again, for he knew another heavy landing would probably snap the leg off, so he just kept creeping his way forward until his large laser finally got in range and fired it off immediately into one of the bridge beams, pausing slightly to do so to make sure he didn't miss.

Step…limp…step…limp.

He fired his medium lasers when they got in range, then his large laser again as he continued to get closer. There wasn't much on the bridge to shoot itself, just the metal beams sitting atop the tracks like two flat mountains sketched out in pencil…and he was approaching from the side, which gave him two little vertical lines to shoot at, each only a tenth the width of a mech, but he wasn't missing. He couldn't afford to now, and his slower speed helped…but the limp didn't.

Step…limp…fire…step…limp…fire.

"Come on. Come on," he said, willing the bridge to go already, but he knew it would take a lot more damage than the tanks to take out. He had to break the supports on both sides.

He finally stopped as he got within 50 meters of it, making his aiming easier, and kept pouring shots in as the train was now gaining ground on him rather than the other way around.

With a shriek of groaning metal the far side finally gave way in a chain reaction of other beams bending and breaking as they couldn't stand the pressure on their own.

And the entire bridge disconnected from the near side of the gorge and fell into it…hanging from the far side as it merely bent rather than broke.

Stephan turned his mech to look at the approaching train, which was also screeching as it slammed on its brakes now that it saw the bridge was out. He almost wanted to get up on the tracks and pushing with his mech's hands to slow it down…but he didn't have to. He could see he'd gotten the bridge down sooner than before, and with a little over 100 meters to spare the train came to a halt short of the gorge and a voice spoke over the open comm.

"Alpha Sigma Train surrenders to mech force," a dejected engineer said, and while still knowing it was just a recording, it made Stephan yelp out a shout of joy just before the screens blanked and the words MISSION ACCOMPLISHED flared in vibrant green letters before him.

"Finally!" he said, disconnecting from his cooling vest and neurohelmet and climbing out of the simulator to find Vander and Kevin clapping at the bottom of the ladder he had to be careful not to slip on given his hands and bare feet were covered in sweat.

When he got to the bottom he grabbed the waiting towel and water bottle that were sitting on a bench next to his shoes and clothes, wiping his face, arms, and legs off before getting to the badly needed water.

"That is too hard for trainees," he commented before cracking open the seal on the bottle and downing several long gulps.

"You sure about that," Kevin said with a smirk, pointing up to a large board that was displaying his score in flashing lights while other scores were above and below it.

"What's that?"

"It's what we're calling the Legacy Board," Vander said as Stephan spotted the numerical rankings next to names and scores. His had a 1098 next to his name, while the top mark…no wonder…was Grady McCloud, with a score of 3491.

"What the hell?" he said, trying to figure out how anyone could have gotten through that faster. "Are we getting points for the tanks and turrets too?"

"For a lot of things," Vander explained. "But take a look at numbers 15 and 13."

Stephan found himself at #17 out of some 32 names. But the ones Vander had just…

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," he said, putting his hands on his hips and feeling his shorts squish with sweat as he recognized the name of two of their current batch of trainees…and not the people he'd gotten in from Neubenn. These were the real trainees.

"They've had a few more runs at this than you have," Kevin admitted. "And they didn't pass in their first 6 tries. Took Sanderson 22 to get it, then he gradually improved his score to this."

"The Legacy Board is going to record your best score…forever," Vander said, glancing at Stephan as he angrily chugged down more water after some six hours straight in the simulator. He'd decided he wasn't going to take any breaks until he finished this…and was glad he finally did, because he didn't know if he had another quality run in him right now.

"You've been thinking again," Stephan said, eyeing him.

"We all have," Kevin said, admitting to their little conspiracy. "We didn't want to bring you in on it until we had something solid to go on."

"I've been working on this since before we left Neubenn, in bits and pieces," Vander said with a shrug. "But I've had so much free time since we've got here I've really dug into it."

"Then he asked me for some help and things started rolling," Kevin added.

"The Legacy Board is to give our trainees and active military another bonding factor. We've got this run down exactly as we like it, so there will be no more tweaks…ever. Even as our training equipment improves and weapon breakthroughs occur, we're keeping this exactly the same as a benchmark to be used through various generations…and it's the first of dozens we're working on."

"We're calling it the Cataclysm of Frustration," Kevin said with a devious smile. "Understand why now?"

"Intimately," he said, finishing off the water bottle and grabbing for a second. "You really think this is going to be good for the trainees?"

"Do you want weak graduates?" Kevin scoffed.

"No, but this is harder than anything you put me through when I was one," he said, looking over at the older Vander.

"On purpose, but it's not just for the trainees. It's for the active duty as well, and the retired," he said, pointing up at the Legacy Board. "See number 9."

Stephan glanced back up there and saw the name 'Vander Morten,' but his score wasn't that much better, only 1273. Only Grady was above 2,000 at this point.

Stephan still hung his head in shame, but just laughed it off. "How many tries?"

"I stopped counting," Vander admitted. "Been working on this for months to get that score. But I do have an advantage in that I helped design it, so I know what traps not to fall into and what to shoot for more points."

"Well that makes me feel better," the First Lord said, taking a seat on the bench as he further scrutinized the list of names and scores. "Arne?"

"Yes, I figured we'd give him a shot at it," Vander said as Stephan spied the name on the #22 spot with a score of 823. "He's only allowed to try once a day, plus he doesn't get anything for this in terms of pay or sentence reduction, but he still likes to work at it on his free time."

"Not bad. How low of a score can you get and still stop the train?"

"Stopping the train without hitting anything else gets you a score of 001. If you don't stop the train, you didn't complete the mission. It's something designed to teach the trainees that the mission isn't always engaging the enemy."

"Noted," Stephan said, downing more water before putting away the second bottle that was now only a third full. "You said you were creating more of these?"

"Yes."

"This is based off an existing sim, isn't it? It seems familiar."

"Loosely," Kevin answered. "We went back through all the stuff our House had created in the past and borrowed heavily…then jacked it up."

"No shit."

"The point is," Vander added, "to give all our mechwarriors, no matter the experience level, something to work on. A common mission that a trainee and a 40 year veteran will have in common, because it will be the exact same mission always. Same for the others once we get them tuned properly. I don't know what the final number will be."

"I suggest," Stephan said, liking this idea now that he'd gotten through the rite of passage, "that you only have 5 or so available to the trainees. Then once they graduate they can get access to the others. That way it won't seem like a thing just for kids."

Kevin arched an eyebrow. "I thought you said it was too hard for the kids?"

Vander held up a hand. "I see what he means. We don't want this viewed as the old guys trying to relive the glory days. We want this designed for the old guys so they keep progressing forward, not mentally taking a step backward."

"Bingo."

Kevin huffed. "I don't know why I didn't think of that."

"You hang out with the kids so much you start to think like them," Stephan mocked until he saw a frown cross Vander's face. "What is it?"

"We've been working on more than just this. I, for one, actually like living here…with the entire Morten family in one place. Back on Neubenn, even though we could communicate with each other, some of us lived on different continents. Now we're all in the same spot and it feels like a family vacation. I've discussed this with the others, and we don't want to go back to the way it was before."

"And it would be even more problematic," Kevin added, "when we're on different planets."

Stephan nodded, finally slipping on a pair of pants as his sweat soaked shorts and T-shirt started to chill in the colder air of the warehouse where the simulators were held, with multiple others in operation behind and in front of him, evident with a subtle hum of rotating parts or an occasional vibrating jolt mimicking some sort of collision or missile barrage hitting them.

"I've been worried about that too. You have a plan?"

"A partial one," Vander said. "We need a separate training academy for the Morten family, and we need to all live in one big house, or a complex with multiple wings. Nothing more spread out than we have here, but the term 'palace' comes to mind."

"I thought we hated those?"

"Not one for others to look at or visit. A private one. We have to be bound together by more than just a common name. We need common life experiences, and the children especially need to grow up together rather than just meeting each other later as teenagers. We need a nest to incubate our eggs, and rehabilitate our lost birds that have been out in the field too long."

"We can't use the duchy system," Kevin said pointedly. "It will divide us…or at least, future generations."

"When we have separate planets, what else can we use?" Stephan asked.

"A modified version. When we get Polvice and Drymo colonized, were you planning on assigning a Duke to each?"

"A Baron, actually. They're just going to be little settlements."

"Right," Kevin said sarcastically. "Bad idea."

"What's the better one?"

"We make it a term, and we double up."

Stephan frowned until Vander filled in the blanks. "Two Barons, each with a 10 year term offset so that one moves out 5 years after one moves in. That gives continuity to the leadership while not keeping any of us permanently away from our home base…which is this estate now, but if we ever find a suitable capitol later, we'll relocate there."

"Nobody owns any planets," Kevin said, "and all our children grow up together in the same spot. The Barons will have to be old enough that their children are already grown up and wouldn't be going with them anyway."

Stephan rubbed his chin. "You're going to be stepping on toes when you start changing stuff the previous guy did."

"That's why nobody ever cycles back to the same position," Vander said, having thought this through with the other Lords thoroughly. "After their term, they come back to home base for at least two years. If they want to go back out again, they'll be sent somewhere else. Nobody can get too possessive of a world that way."

"Make it three people, and lose the Baron title then. We need something new."

Kevin frowned. "What's the third?"

"A two year stint as sort of an apprentice," Stephan said, thinking on the go. "Or maybe even have two or three apprentices. The more of the family we can keep together the better, and 10 years is a long damn time to be away."

"That would be 5 sets of new faces during that 10 years," Vander said, nodding his agreement. "And some of our family that would balk at 10 would be willing to go for 2, I think."

"What if it's just a moon? Do we sent another 4 or 5 of us there when we already have other family members on the planet?"

"I'd say rotate from the planet to the moon for the apprentices," Stephan added. "Here, let's just do this until we get formal names. A Duke runs a system with a 10 year term. His double is a Marquis that will become a Duke after 5 years when the other returns home. If there's a moon or second planet in the same system, it will have a Count on a 6 year stint. The apprentices will spend one year on the planet, the next year on the moon, or vice versa, and they will be referred to as Barons. Better names to be generated by Kevin later," he said, eyeing his older cousin. "Satisfactory?"

Kevin shrugged. "Sounds good, but if we end up with a lot of planets, we're going to need a lot more active Mortens," he said, eyeing the First Lord accusingly, "and you haven't added any yet."

"Not you too."

"Always me. You could at least put one on the board with a vassal," Kevin said, referring to the accepted practice of essentially hiring someone to give birth to offspring without any official or emotional relationship to the father.

"I'm busy," he said flatly. "Why don't you get Jenny to pump out another 6?"

"We've got the adoption protocol too," he deflected from talk of his wife, "which Aunt Helen just recently used."

"Technically I did that," Stephan said deadpan, referencing his mother forging his signature. "I just didn't realize I did it."

"Are we sure we're not going to have other noble families involved?"

Stephan cringed at Vander's question. "You're thinking ahead of me now, but I'm not sure I'd trust them. And if we're not owning planets individually, then we can't let other noble families do it either."

"And Cholis?" Kevin asked.

"Neighbors only," Stephan reiterated. "But I could see Harris's family working well with ours…if they kept close ties, which brings us back to Vander's idea of having everyone live together. No, we have to keep everything House Morten and make sure the glue holds us together or we'll end up just like the rest of the Inner Sphere after a few generations. If there are good people out there, even some good noble families, we can adopt them in. House Morten does not share power in…whatever we're going to call our realm. Do you guys have a working title for that yet?"

"Morten Protectorate," Kevin answered quickly, crushing any doubt that they wouldn't have one already thought up.

"Which kind of makes the point that it's our job to do the leading," Stephan agreed. "Don't make that official, but if nobody can come up with something better I'm happy with that. But we don't have anything to protect yet."

"Do you want someone assigned to the first construction teams, or are we just going with hires until we get established?" Vander asked, referencing the reconnaissance missions to both chosen planets that would be followed up immediately by work crews once they knew what was needed and where.

Stephan sighed. "You guys are making my head hurt."

"That's part of the big job," Vander half mocked.

The First Lord thought about it for a moment, then looked up at them both. "Do you really want to strand some of our family in prefab shelters on Drymo?"

"No," Vander said flatly.

"Then there's your answer."

"How about a Baron then…the new version?" Kevin asked. "Two year stints only until we get a good sized city built. It wouldn't be one of our younger members, as I think you were expecting the Barons to be, but one of us needs to be on each planet from the get go, don't you think?"

"So what, we draw straws?"

"Michael has already expressed some interest in getting involved in Drymo early," Vander noted, referring to his own son that was only 3 years younger than Stephan.

"I thought you just said no?"

"To prefab shelters. We need to build permanent ones immediately and let the work crews live off the dropships or what we can make livable in the existing buildings. And we need to construct the permanent ones underground with earthworks on top for both insulation and armor value. There will certainly be enough loose material once the miners start strip mining other locations, or even digging new shafts at the existing mine."

"Michael's idea?"

"Mostly. He's been working with Vichni on it. Get one proper living space set up, and we can spread out from there. I'm told the construction technique is already in our House's archives and easy to use. You just won't have any windows to look out of."

"Not that there's much to see anyway," Kevin added.

"So construction crews build cave number 1," Stephan said half serious, "then Michael goes in as our first ever Baron to run things for 2 years before cycling him back here?"

"And he could return later," Kevin added, "because he'd just be a Baron, which wouldn't count against him later being a Duke for 10 years if he really liked the planet."

"I'm going to have to strand a Company of mechwarriors with him."

"That, you might have to draw straws for," Vander said with a cringe. "But I agree. We can't have anything left unguarded, and a Lance might be enough for some raiders, but a Company at the minimum if the Red Baron is looking for some payback."

Stephan frowned, but he saw Kevin catch it too. "Should we have different colors of Baron?"

"One for each Lord," Kevin said, thinking hard. "But that would mean we'd need a lot more heirs for later."

"We'll need representatives in each system anyway," Vander said with a shrug. "I don't see why they shouldn't be Mortens as long as we have enough. And each Duke will essentially be a temporary First Lord in their system, so that would leave us with 7 different colors of Barons."

"We'd have to stick with Baron though and not some other name," Kevin said with a cringe.

"A bit of humor creates a unifying factor," Stephan said, quoting his grandfather Leon Morten, "while a lot creates chaos. Adding the colors to the Barons changes the title enough to suit me. So let's keep it and maybe work on the others."

"So what would Michael be then?" Vander asked.

"He's working with Vichni already, so whatever color we have for Natural Resources."

"Yellow," Kevin decided. "Red has to be for the military."

"No," Vander said firmly. "No Red Baron at all. Ignore that color, but claim the others. I want Gray to match the color of our mechs."

"Our mechs are gray?" Stephan asked.

"Oh, that's right," Kevin said sheepishly. "We were also discussing new colors for the Morten Protectorate. We thought the background color should be gray…didn't come to a consensus on the main ones."

"How much planning have you guys been doing without me?"

"You said you were busy," his uncle mocked with a smirk.

"Mutinous scallywags," Stephan said, pulling on his shoes. "You're lucky I like you guys."

"Sarah's idea," Kevin deflected. "Take it up with her."

"Oh sure, all her idea?" he said, standing up after quickly tying the laces.

"Mostly," he amended.

"House Morten has always been blue and yellow," Stephan noted, as if he was letting it drift into the past. "But that was when we were part of the Federated Suns, so yeah, let's change the colors…and steal the red from the Red Baron."

"Red and Gray then?" Kevin asked.

"No. Red and Silver with a backdrop of Gray. I'm sure you've been working on a symbol too, right?"

"Kind of hard when we don't have a fixed name yet, but it's been discussed."

"And?"

"If we're not using letters in the design, we were thinking of a shell. Like a turtle shell."

"Don't take what you can't hold," Vander quoted the family motto. "Turtles aren't predators, but they've got about the best defense one can imagine."

"There are predators that eat turtles, you know," Stephan pointed out.

"No defense is absolute," the Lord of Military Operations reminded him.

"True," Stephan said, grabbing his soaken towel and dumping it in a nearby hamper for the academy staff to retrieve later. "Outline the shell in silver, and put a large red 'M' in the center, stylized as if it was a ruby. All that on a gray circle backdrop."

"Done," Vander said with a clap of the hands. "Now I can start getting our mechs painted accordingly."

"Just no public announcements please. It's embarrassing declaring ourselves a Periphery state when we have no Periphery holdings yet."

Kevin held up his hands defensively. "Estate only. Do you really think we're talking to anyone else?"

"All it takes is one reporter picking up on one rumor in one bar…"

"Good thing we don't allow anybody to go to bars," Vander said tongue in cheek, knowing damn well that when some of their people left the Estate that's exactly where they went…but they had to be clear of even the smell of alcohol when they got back or they'd regret it immediately.

"Right…" Stephan said, taking a few steps to leave then turning back and pointing up at the Legacy Board. "I like that. Have all of our mechwarriors run through it until they pass. And start working on something similar for the aerospace fighters."

"What aerospace fighters?" Kevin asked sarcastically, knowing that they had recruits coming in from other systems but none had arrived yet.

"Exactly. Get ahead of it," the still sweaty mechwarrior said as he walked off.

Kevin blew out an exasperated breath and he saw Vander chuckling. "Yes, I am the most overworked Lord right now, thank you very much. Enjoy your vacation while you've got it."

"When those mechs and our men started arriving, mine was over too, but I admit you've still got it rougher, but all your hard work is up front. You get to cruise later."

"How do I skip ahead to later?"

"Your problem, not mine. See you at dinner."

"If I can break away from all the work I've got, you mean," Kevin yelled after him.

"As if you ever miss out on food," he said, not even bothering to turn around and look at him as the sound of the trainees or former militia in the simulators behind him was all that was left to drown out the silence in the still echo-y chamber.

"Brainpower takes a lot of glucose," he whispered, rubbing a hand over his abdomen and feeling the six pack beneath, just in case it had dissolved on him without his realizing it. He'd been spending so many days working on computer screens and munching snacks he was surprised he still had it.

"Back to work," he said to himself. "Work, work, work…"