Sigma Mercenaries 0001R: Initial Public Offering REVISED

by CSS Stravag

Sigma Mercenaries Mainline story beginning, REVISED EDITION. When an unknown train lands on the vegetable garden of an American Militiaman, and the happenings in the train are revealed to be wildly messed up, four Americans swing into action to save lives and bring order to chaos. Along the way, they will meet a very odd and diverse cast of peeps from all over Existence.. (Rated M)

11. Growing Pains

(Sigma Mercenaries, Story 0001, Chapter 11: Growing Pains)

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1000 Hours Local Time)
(Mercenary Network Dataspace Headquarters, Outreach, Multimage Dimension 02 (Home Dimension))
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"We knew this was coming, we did not know specifically when," Precentor-MercNet Ralphie (Razzo) Kendrickson said to his direct subordinates. "Someone was bound to come along and find a way to break the system's model. I'm just surprised it took this long."

"A bloody American, Sir. The only thing worse in the American pantheon than their massive arrogance is their knack for inconvenient timing," The Demi-Precentor for MercNet Systems Integration said in clear anger.

"Point being?" Precentor Kendrickson asked. "Here in two hours I am going to receive a call from Primus Hallestrom. Chances are she is right now having her butthole greased by the major mercenary units, because an upstart just dethroned them on the Rapid Completion Metric, Rapid Deployment Metric, and Contracts per Month Metric. Leaving aside that she might actually enjoy that kind of abuse, I don't want to be caught for that call with dick in hand, which means we need an actionable plan for this problem right now."

There were a few chuckles around the room for the Primus' rumored and semi-confirmed proclivities, but they were grim and short-lived.

"Short explanation, Sir, the last two Precentors that walked through that door were handed their heads when they suggested anything radical in the way of changes. Not because of the ComStar personnel, Hell Sir, we've wanted to do a complete overhaul of the systems and metrics for decades," The Demi-Precentor for Metric Development and Maintenance explained to the fairly new Precentor over MercNet. The head honcho over MercNet was 'fresh meat' in the post, not promoted from within the ranks of MercNet, but brought in from HPG Maintenance and Expansion due to 'equipment gremlins' in the MercNet network.

"Now we have an excuse, whether the major Merc commands like it or not," Razzo declared. "And, there is one major failing in those prior plans that caused the Mercs to go apeshit. We can get around it."

"What, Sir?" The Demi-Precentor of Records and Retention requested.

"Everything planned going forward is as it is right now: all mercenary activity is weighted and registered under the same guidelines across the board, no exceptions. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the exception to that premise just completed their third contract in four days less than 24 hours ago, and the rest of MercNet is hurting for it. Sigma does another contract in the next day or two, they will dethrone the leaders in literally every metric except deployable force size."

"So? Weight their results to their unit size — " Metric Development said.

"Intellectually dishonest, and I won't butt-fuck a merc unit that has high-level protection from the Executors, nor will I countenance anyone under my command doing so." He looked around the table, and realized he had just pissed in the coffee pot going by the looks around the room. "You troops are really not seeing the writing on the wall on this one, are you?"

Metrics Development folded her arms across her chest. "Do you want to explain to the Wolf's Dragoons why a pint-size half-ass like Sigma just dethroned them?" The Wolf's Dragoons were hands down the largest mercenary unit in Existence, with some 883 Regiments in service, several thousand smaller formations, and enough planets under their possession to constitute a small Star Empire of their own right.

"Do you want to explain to Empress Rini Atrebas or Master Executor Eric Atrebas why their Protectorate just got bent over and butt-fucked by a bureaucracy? 'Cause when they ask, not 'if', but when they ask, I will certainly direct them to you for that question. And I will make sure that this action goes forward only after I have filed a full objection to it, for the record."

The silence in the room was sufficient that Kendrickson could hear the sound of one of the notebook computer chargers buzzing. Probably Systems Integration, he judged. The guy was a freaking cheapskate, he would not put it past the guy to use a piece of equipment well past its expected operational life, even when it constituted a fire hazard.

Records and Retention sighed. "Okay, Sir, you have our attention. Out with it."

"MercNet, as it is structured now, is predicated on the consideration that every Mercenary Unit that signs up will follow the same or similar patterns of operation: dedicated mobile forces, jumpship transport, limited support assets. A few units exist mostly as subcontractors that buck that trend, like Battle Magic, but those troops are the rarity. Sigma, on the other hand, is a game breaker because they have no intention of playing by those rules, which makes the traditional metrics for their unit irrelevant — and as it happens, easily exploited even if it is not their intention. What is needed is a reclassification of Mercenary Forces within MercNet to differentiate the traditional units from the Sigma of today and the hundreds of Sigmas to come in the next decade or two."

"Wait, what?" the Demi-Precentor for Communications said, the first time she had said anything in the conference.

"What? You think Sigma is a one-off? Pffft," Razzo sputtered his dissatisfaction with that level of shortsightedness. "Give it a year or three, you'll get some hot-shot 'mech pilot that hires on a band of Battle Armor troops, partners up with an uncertified Gate Mage somewhere, and they'll go on to challenge Sigma on their own terms by taking the traditional model completely out of the picture. Once you start seeing copycats, every jock with an itch in his strap and a buddy that can drive an Elemental will be riding this gravy train. Fuck, if it expands enough, this could easily knock out the Gate Mage Guild when every uncertified Gate Mage finds themselves suddenly employed for a fraction of going Guild rates."

"Okay, Sir, you just proposed we toast the existing MercNet system and revamp it into, what? A segmented system of some kind?" Communications asked.

"No, the existing system is good, but only for the traditional units. I propose four subdivisions to MercNet now, and we make the backend extensible so we can add more subdivisions when we see new trends arrive on the scene and slap people in the face," Precentor Kendrickson said. "The traditional MercNet is the first subdivision."

"That's good." Metrics Development said with a nod. It meant less work overall, or alternately, not having to reinvent the wheel she had been balancing for the past four years.

"That's where people go to hire high-dollar formations for heavy hitting," Razzo explained. "Second is the low-value Contracts, where Sigma and its copycats-to-come will be doing their bread-and-butter work. Also, we will want to set this up to be extensible, and change up the contract fees to the contracting parties so that they're not paying the same for listing a contract as the heavy hitters. Call it four graduations, below 1 million, 1 mike to five, five mike to ten, ten mike to twenty. Above twenty is the providence of the Traditional Units."

"Got it," The Demi-Precentor for Systems Integration was typing furiously at his station to get everything recorded, and probably to roadmap what would have to be done.

"Third is going to be single-entity contracts. I get a request a week for some kind of service to cater to lone wolf Wizards or infiltration experts, who want to do the Rescue and Extract contracts but can't afford the monthly MercNet fees. Any contracts of that nature, or any contracts that can be reasonably executed by one man, would fall under that classification."

"Okay, that's pushing it, Sir," Metrics Development groused. "How do we plan to profit from that?"

"Volume of operations," Ralphie answered deadpan. "We charge 25 c-bills a month for signup and listing, and we charge them by the pull for contracts, rather than providing hourly or quarter-hour data feeds. Metrics on this side are not a case of how much or how quickly, because those would be dominated by Sigma. This case, we want our metrics on the success rate, completeness of successes, stealth, other factors. Remember, think outside the box."

"Number four, Sir?" Communications asked.

"Support services, Subcontracting support, similar. Battle Magic is a good example, but there's also Rico's Roughnecks, the mineral and fuel exploitation mercenary unit, and countless smaller one-off units. We lump them in together, makes it a lot easier for them to be found and for them to be contracted."

"Metrics on that are going to be rather difficult, and how do we assign MercNet Ratings for something of that nature?" Metrics Development asked. "I don't know the first thing about how an oil drilling merc unit handles its affairs."

"Find out. Fast," Kendrickson ordered. "Ai, cut the Demi-Precentors loose for messaging fees on my authority. We need hard info and coordination right now to make this happen before Sigma finishes breaking the system."

"Restrictions are released," the Artificial Intelligence entity answered.

"Any questions?" Kendrickson asked. None were offered. "Make it happen, people. The sooner we have this in place, the better."

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0600 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Administration Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

Toni checked her uniform in the mirror one last time, and once satisfied, turned to the door out into the apartment. This time, she hesitated to step out immediately, given a prior run-in with a water heater, but she made it to the table with no extraneous troubles.

"Chow down fast, we have a long day ahead of us," Hess recommended as he continued reading through news reports.

"Anything interesting so far?" Toni asked.

"Aye, we had our first test-out for Basic Training last night. Meets all prior standards, former military, now she's on to Armored Infantry training."

"Damn," Toni said. "That's hot shit."

"That's not all. Second, we have a request for representation from the Dynasty Star Empire. Looks like they want in at the ground floor, hope to get in ahead of at least the other four, since we're already in bed with the Mages," Hess continued as he spooned some chilli out of a mess bowl. Breakfast had been catered for the both of them, which was not altogether a bad perk of the job, Toni figured.

"Nice. If we can get representation from all six of the Biggies, without going Star League ourselves, the SLDF would not dare try anything on us," she misgauged. It would be that representation that would cause a pissing match in years to come, but nobody would foresee that manner of rage for a long while.

"And third, we broke MercNet!" Hess said in a cheery voice.

"What?" Toni asked after her first bite of chilli.

"We are in the number one slot for three metrics: Rapid Completion Metric, Rapid Deployment Metric, and Contracts per Month."

"Good and bad," Toni said after she stirred some oyster crackers into her chilli. "Good, in that we're leading somewhere. Bad, in that it attracts attention to us when we're not really in a good position to do anything about it."

"It at least gets our name out there, on the tongues of pundits and clients everywhere. That much is worth the inability of us to do anything about it. This story comes with a twist, though, so you're going to like this." Hess flicked her tablet a story from his tablet.

Toni took ninety seconds to read through the dispatch from ComStar. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me! Four subdivisions to MercNet now? And we already dominate in one of those Subdivs!"

"And we will continue to dominate in one of those divisions at least, likely two, and maybe the third if we can make it happen," Hess said with a smile. "Business is money, money is improvement to this world, improvement to this world vindicates what we are doing, vindication begets more business. It becomes a cycle, when done properly."

Toni stirred in some shredded cheddar and sour cream into her chilli. Calcium was a requirement for Phoenix, even in their human form their skeletal structure tended to run lighter, so involved minerals were a dietary requirement.

"Need more support personnel," Toni said after she took a sampling bite of her chilli. After a little bit of tasting, she added some crushed red pepper flakes to the mix. "That's better," she said after a second sampling.

"I was going to forward a request to Star Colonel Storme along those lines. The big ones we need are food service, MPs, and administration personnel. After that, we can begin inducting people, then resettling them out into the countryside. One thing I want to discuss with the mayor of the nearby town, see if he would be willing to help do local organization in exchange for increasing his fiefdom."

Toni whistled. "That's one way to get around the decision process holdup."

"It is going to have to happen sooner or later, and sooner makes things easier on everyone." Hess looked up from his tablet. "Virtue, analysis of the usable housing and structures around the exterior of Boarhound, please?"

"On Monitor 1," Virtue said. "Red is unusable structures — destroyed, no utilities, similar. Yellow is intact but only one utility available, electric, water, or natural gas. Green is usable structures, all available utilities are confirmed working. Blue are known or suspected occupied structures where utilities are confirmed working."

The area around Boarhound was mostly yellow, with a few splotches of green or blue interspersed. There were also quite a few 'reds' throughout the area, some in otherwise viable areas, others existed in strips or bunches where some kind of fire or other damage had done the deed. "That is manageable," Toni said.

"It puts them outside the walls, so we will need to be conscious of garrison and policing outside Boarhound. On the other hand, most raiders and ne'er-do-wells do not have the firepower to stand up to the turret system around Boarhound. If they come looking for shit, their lives will be very briefly exciting," Hess said.

Toni was silent for a few moments. "That's twice," she said, mostly to herself.

"Huh? Twice what?" Hess asked.

"Huh? Oh, nothing," Toni said nonchalantly.

Hess shrugged after he realized he wasn't going to get a straight answer out of the Phoenix. "Will also need to request more Infantry for the refugee situation. Just from the first 200 baggage cars on the Train, 700 plus persons. That's some serious shit."

Toni sighed. "Over a hundred thousand Trains put into service. We're gonna be busy for a long time," Toni said.

"The unstated power of bureaucratic inertia," Hess concluded.

Again, Toni was silent for a few seconds, then sighed. "That's three."

"You're counting off something," Hess prompted her.

"The amount of times you say something that doesn't clearly make sense," Toni answered, then gasped. "Oh, wow, that was extremely rude — "

"And extremely true," Erich admitted readily before Toni hammered herself for perceived insults. "Each of those comments has a roundabout logic to it. I don't always give a complete answer, bad habit from my prior job where people didn't always want the full answer. They just wanted the solution."

"So it's a puzzle? Hrm," Toni half-moaned. "This may take some work."

"A puzzle for later. We have work to do."

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0800 Hours Local Time)
(Barracks G-A-02, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

A whistle tone drew everyone's attention to the speakers for an incoming message, including Akira and Amado. "All results of voting issues have been tabulated and will be announced forthwith."

"About damn time!" Akira half-shouted as he stood up from his bunk and stared intently at the speaker.

"Issue 01-01, request for expanded general firearms instruction in the mercenary unit, issue passed 87 percent vote, issue authorized by Sigma One. Sigma Two has been directed to determine enhanced firearms standards and redraft training standards as appropriate."

"Whatever," Akira said, given that the first thing he would do as the new Sigma One would be to disband the mercenary unit. Once the vote came in, he would be the new Sigma One, he was sure.

"Issue 01-02, request for upgrades to the base PX to include extended sales of salvage from the Trains. Issue passed 77 percent, issue authorized by Sigma One. Sigma Engineering had been directed to combine unused barracks buildings in the area to the Base PX for increased floor space. No ETA on completion of this project."

"Not a bad idea, but bad purpose," Akira said. When he was elected Sigma One, the first thing that would go into the trash bin would be the Train Scrapping project, because the Star League was not an entity to be trifled with.

"Issue 01-03, Petition to open the Gates and allow free access to Boarhound, issue failed at 44 percent vote. Statement from Sigma One: All gates will be opened when sufficient security personnel are available to man those gates and a QRF is in place in case a concerted assault is leveled against the base complex. Safety first."

"Credit where due, but that was kinda arrogant," Akira said.

"The rest of the people also voted it down," Amado pointed out.

"Issue 01-04: Petition to eject Erich Hess from position of Sigma One. Issue failed at 1 percent vote."

"What the fuck! Rigged voting!" Akira shouted.

"Issue 01-05: Petition to install Akira Inoue as Sigma One. Issue failed at 0.1 percent vote."

"BULLSHIT!" Akira shouted.

"Issue 01-06: Petition to sever Protectorate Status and petition the Star League for representation. Issue failed at 0.1 percent vote. Statement from Sigma One on this issue: 'This petition is null and void on the face of it. The Executors have denied the Star League Grand Council any dominion in relation to the Protectorate. No matter how hard certain parties try, the Star League cannot be used as a bludgeon against the present administration.' "

"They'll bludgeon him eventually," Akira said to nobody in particular.

"Issue 01-07: Petition to have Erich Hess report to the parade ground, strip naked, and grab his ankles. Issue failed at 0.1 percent vote. Statement from Sigma One on this issue: 'The Petition Voting system cannot be used to compel any citizen of the Protectorate to commit an otherwise illegal action. This forum is for the formation of national policy, not for furthering personal vendettas or stroking personal egos.' "

"All issues have been closed. New issues have been posted at this time and will be voted on ten days hence. Have a good day." The speakers popped once Virtue cut out her end of the transmission.

Akira simply stared at the speaker in the barracks building for several minutes.

"You all right, amigo?" Amado asked after Akira twitched.

"Man, fuck this!" Akira shouted. "What the hell have we done to deserve this? It's a damn travesty!"

"Now what?" Amado requested after Akira fumed some more.

"As soon as a gate is open, I'm out of here. Fuck them all, fuck his long range plans, and fuck him with a ten foot pole!" Akira raged at one of the other bunks, which he flipped over forcibly.

"Whatever," Amado grumped. "You do what you want, I'm already signed up for a manufacturing job."

"Manufacturing what?" Akira asked.

"Dunno yet, whatever the first factory I'm in wants to manufacture." Amado did not yet know that the first 'factory' job that would open would be a steel forge, set up by the Magi civilian engineers to smelt the incoming train frame materials and structural panels down to usable billets or other manners of material production.

Akira decided he simply wanted out, away from Sigma, though he believed he could escape their ranks and declare himself sovereign. It would be several years of 'running away' before he realized there was no escape except to leave the planet.

-x-x-x-

(Immediately after above scene, 0805 Hours Local)
(Sigma Support Services Admin Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"There we go, people, the boss is still The Boss, at least until the next narcissist comes along and tries for the crown," Luna Fallsorth said.

"That Akira punk is just asking for a face punch," Mosley Goodwin said. "Might do his sorry ass some good in the long run, to have the fail slapped out of him."

"Someday, someone may perform that public service," Jeff Evans said calmly. "He's not our problem, not anymore at least. The Trains are. On that note, I welcome Subaru Annoe to our circle. Subaru comes to us from a background of Mobile Suit Engineering and Technician work, so she is presently the command position for Sigma's Mobile Forces Engineering. The caveat to that is, we don't have a Mobile Forces group yet, and nobody for you to command, so for now you're in free-float."

"Department head of a nonexistent department. That's not an unheard story, eh?" Luna asked.

"It will exist soon," Jeff said. "Anyway, since we're in the middle of not doing anything major with Mobile Suits, willing to assist with disassembly of the Trains?"

Subaru nodded a few times. "Need to get back in practice for handling the business end of a wrench. I'm in."

-x-

(0830 Hours Local Time)
(Railhead Undercroft, Administration Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)

Mosley Goodwin did a quick count of the persons in the volunteer area for the 523 disassembly, and he had to silently admit he liked what he saw. There were roughly fifty recruits in the area, a wide mix of the denizens off the Trains, but to Mosley's mind this was perfectly workable. A goodly portion of these inductees were actually victims of the Train, and there was always an undercurrent of persons who wanted to vent their pent-up rage by destroying the object of their frustration. Others were in it for the job, because word was already circulating that the free ride was a short-lived one in Sigma. The smallest of their group, though, were persons destined for the technician's duties. who would start by cutting teeth in this basic tasking.

"Yo! Attention!" Mosley shouted over the crowd's din. "Attention forward!" It took a few seconds for the crowd to calm down, but calm they did. "Welcome to the Train Disassembly project! Today, we begin the process of disassembling the 523 Train, and this duty will continue probably into the lifespans of our grandchildren, so we'll be gainfully employed for decades to come!"

The group took a few moments to clap and do some cheers, which Mosely considered heartening.

"Listen up, people! The ground rules are simple. Everything in the Train that is not tagged by the Entry Team goes into ScrapNet, unless I clear you to keep it. Follow?"

"Yes Sir!" a few shouted in response.

"I can't hear you!" Mosely chided them.

"YES SIR!" The bulk of the group shouted.

"That's a little better. Given you are Train Disassembly, you have a 75 percent discount on material purchased from the Base PX that was pulled off the Trains, so there are a few job perks in this duty. Second, Train Disassembly is granted a 5% cut of the Scrap Bonus of the Trains, so when we nail the 523 placard to the wall, it's gonna be one helluva payday. Do you follow?"

"YES SIR!" The entire group shouted.

"Good, damn good! Third ground rule, this is NOT a race. We are paid by the hour, not by the car. Take your damn time, people. Safety comes in caution, and I don't want to have to bury any of my workers for dumbass mistakes when you are in a rush. Is this understood?"

"YES SIR!"

"Last rule. If you are not armed right now, get in the ScrapNet Bay and draw a standard pistol and holsters combination to add to your tool belts. This area is no fucking joke, everyone down here needs to be armed going forward. If a Train lands and starts disgorging Slavers, you need to be able to defend yourselves and each other until heavy forces can take up the fight. Additionally, anyone who can carry a long arm or sub-gun while performing their duties should do so. Carry 'em safe and secure, because that piece may be the only thing that saves your ass at the end of the day. DO YOU READ ME?" Mosley shouted.

"HELL YES SIR!" Several of the more excitable recruits shouted.

"I need heavy equipment operators! Anyone with prior quals for cranes, forklifts, telehandlers, and semi-trucks, raise your hands!" Six volunteers came forward. "Everyone else, draw tool belts from ScrapNet and break down into two teams of twenty! We will operate on two cars at a time, twenty men to a car! Remember, if it is still usable, disassemble it intact!"

With those orders, the group split down to draw tools, arms, and vehicles for the coming work. Every Disassembly Technician carried at least a toolbelt, a pistol, and three spare magazines, as was determined to be the proper gearset for this duty. Acetylene torches, tool cabinets, and other sundries were also issued out for the groups, to help make disassembly easier.

Everything would be stripped, all the way down to the rail bogeys, and everything would be used as salvage. While simply disassembling the Trains would be profitable at the contract level, the salvage would prove to be the single greatest source of funds for Sigma in its early years.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0915 Hours Local Time)
(Boarhound Military Academy, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"This is going to be where it starts," Matilda Jaspene said. "The Protectorate will be dependent on having a very hard hitting military, and for that we need training and preparation for both the warfighters and the support personnel," she continued. "I am the volunteer to Sigma One for the academy administration, and my orders are to expand full training regimens to every base, every major town or city, and to new worlds as needed."

The Instructors nodded, some new, some having already been here for a few days. A few had even walked in before Matilda started her stump speech.

"Now, fair warning, the amount of students coming in is going to be very high. The Rail Guard entry team only made it to car 200 by the end of the day yesterday. The Train is 1300 cars long, and the back 240 or so are luggage. Once they get forward into the passenger cars, things get real interesting and the population goes way up. After all, it's not real easy to survive in the luggage areas, but it is a lot easier to survive in an area with beds and diners."

"That's not going to be good," the Aerospace Instructor said. "We will definitely need more personnel, probably also should reactivate the mess hall and dorms."

"If we suffer too much more expansion, we will need to think about setting up a new building," Instructor Wakana said, the head for the ROTC Academy Group. "This building can only handle about 4000 total, after that we're going to have to expand."

"Not surprising," Matilda said. "On my homeworld, we had what was called Mega-Colleges, where you'd fit fifteen or twenty thousand in a single campus, effectively self-contained. I was in one before I was abducted into the Train."

"Bad idea for a military institution," Instructor Erin said coldly. "That would work for civilian pursuits, but military training requires more space per student, especially when you get into naval pursuits and mobile warfare."

"Concur, I'd recommend no more than 6000 per facility, 1 facility per branch per 20 million population," Instructor Hank said. His dominion was the Infantry Cadets, and along with Instructor Cherise they had their hands full. "Though, we may want to increase that frequency since this is going to be a highly militarized Protectorate," he said.

"I guess I need to subdivide this into civilian and military pursuits, then," Matilda acknowledged the point. "There is already demand for civilian college amongst the evacuees, but that will have to wait until Sigma can retake Jamestowne," she said, referring to the large city some 35 kilometers due east of Boarhound, which had both the makings of a possible naval academy to be and a major college facility. For Sigma to become a serious player on the continent, Jamestowne would have to be the starting place, and oh, by the way, the housing and industry available would be perfect for train evacuees.

"Another battle for another day," Instructor Arlo said. He commanded the Aerospace Academy Group, and interest in the field was significant.

"Aye aye, plans for another day," Matilda acknowledged the point. "In the here and now, we'll start with you. First off, are there any major material or personnel deficiencies we have to remedy at this time?"

"Aye, the simulator systems are all DOA," Instructor Chastity said. "I need either training-capable machines or simulators — preferably both — to get the students ready to rock and roll."

Matilda nodded. "Simulators are easy, swap components out until it works. I'll put in a repair request for those within the hour. Now, and this is belying my lack of knowledge on training machines, what do you need there?"

"That's a first, an administrator that doesn't pretend she knows it all?" Instructor Wakana pointed out.

Matilda tensed up, but rather than blowing up, she simply looked down at the conference room table and nodded. "I received a rather loud lesson on not knowing it all yesterday. That's why I'm in this to make sure the education is done right." What she last saw of her friends and boyfriend-to-be still haunted her, and had caused her a fairly good nightmare last night, but she knew it all came down to education at the end of the day — faulty education — and that needed to be rectified.

"Okay, given you're on the level about it, so shall I be. You're going to need to secure 'mechs that are designed for Trainees to use, ruggedized machines that are commonly called Trainer Platforms," Magic Arts Instructor Arlene said. "The Magi have a good series of Trainer 'mechs, or we could build our own? There is a Mobile Forces factory outside the walls, if we could get the Engineers to actually engineer us something, we could build it."

"What's the difference between a training unit and a combat unit?" Matilda asked, mostly for personal purpose but also for policy purposes.

"Combat units are optimized to fill a combat role, and usually use lighter, hard-hitting components designed to bring the pain and optimize space and tonnage use. They are also expensive when designed that way. Trainer Units have a second cockpit unit installed for an instructor to be onboard with the student, and are designed with basic, easily-repaired and very durable components that would be laughed off most modern Star Empire battlefields. A properly-built Trainer 'Mech could probably be scratched by a competent pilot driving a 45-ton Clan Omni easily, but such a 'mech is perfect for a cadet to stomp around the training grounds learning the ropes before you put him in one of those 45-ton Omnimechs, follow?"

"I read you. I'll talk to the boss about it before the day is up," Matilda promised. In reality, she would not be talking to the boss about it, she would end up discussing the issue with Jeff Evans, given engineering was his dominion. "Anything else we need?"

"Exoskeletons for Infantry Armor training," Charise pointed out. "And training armaments and munitions for the cadets. And probably also training gearsets, weighted belts and packs, similar."

So went the rest of the meeting. By the time 0830 rolled around for classes, Matilda had a long list of things to acquire, school supplies both of a civilian and military nature. She would have a goodly portion of it done by the time the sun went down, but there would be a lot more to do before the Academy was properly staffed and provisioned.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 0930 Hours Local Time)
(Gate Drive Flats, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"First decent large-scale test of the Gate Drives," Toni said with some excitement.

"If this fails, we're going to have some 'splainin to do," Victoria complained.

"It won't," Hess said with grim stalwartness to voice.

"How do you know?" Victoria asked.

Hess folded his arms across his chest, resting them on the stack of rifle magazines he was wearing. "This is just a routine personnel transfer. Murphy's Law is no major issue until something major needs to move through the gates, then it will break with all due haste."

"Good point," Victoria acknowledged the application of Murphy's Law as appropriate.

"Gate transfer in fifteen seconds," Virtue warned.

"Here goes," Toni said after the timer reached five seconds.

The arrival of the personnel was very much abrupt, but otherwise entirely to expectation and without trouble.

"Man, I am glad Clint is out reviewing Training, otherwise he'd have an instaboner seeing all this armor," Victoria said.

"No doubt," Moira groused.

Four troopers approached Hess and Victoria at the same time as the tight knot of troops began loosening up. The lead trooper, a large Armored Infantryman with a massive Armor Sniper Rifle, stopped at five meters. "You're Hess, right? Sigma One?"

"Guilty as charged," Erich said with a smile.

The Armor Sniper smiled and chuckled. "Heh, with an attitude like that, I can tell this is going to be an interesting posting. Century Commander Jeffrey Vickers, Multimage Bladesmen." The trooper came to attention, as did the rest of his immediate subordinates. "We are building a piecemeal garrison support and training support Century, and this is the first hundred-forty troopers."

"Here to relieve me of my posting?" Star Colonel Gail Storme asked as she approached behind Victoria.

"Neg, your posting stands, though I am under orders to pull the initial troops sent in under you for Training purposes. Revised orders from Division Commander Agrippa." He handed the Star Colonel a sealed packet. "Long and short, Sigma One, I will have command of the Magi commitment to the Protectorate's safe-keeping, Star Colonel Storme serves as Ambassador and will also be slowly forming up her own Commando Cluster to operate as something of a wet-work team for Contract or State purposes."

"Damn good to have you here, Century Commander Vickers." Hess jerked his thumb toward Victoria. "Sigma Four, Victoria Williams, commander for Administrative and Personnel for the Protectorate. Anything you need, she'll get you squared away."

"Neg, should be good once my men are in barracks," the Century Commander answered. "Do you men need anything right now?"

"Sanity in a can, if you have any," Hess grumped.

Jeffrey Vickers grunted. "That may be the one thing they do not issue the Infantry, Sir. Equivalent part would be a can of beer."

It was Hess' turn to grunt. "I get along a lot better with whiskey than I do beer. Anyways, the big thing right now is Sigma has a refugee crisis. I need three things to get this settled down. First, security and policing presence, at least until we can form up and drill Civil Militias for that purpose."

"I have thirty Military Police in my unit right now, and a further seventy Infantry who can act as a stopgap martial law force if needed. I will not like giving that order, but it is doable," CC Vickers said.

"Trust me, that is one order I will avoid giving myself unless absolutely necessary," Hess said. "Second, long-term we cannot turtle in this facility. Boarhound is surrounded by medium urban on four sides, not including the Starport to the northwest of here. After you've had some time up in the air to survey the situation, we need to push outward."

"Direction?" One of the lesser troops asked. "Galaxy Commander Amanda Xavier, Ghost Armored Infantry," she identified herself.

"Westbound for the initial structures grab, we'll need to man both gates on that side for now. The countryside around here is rather hellish," Hess explained. "After we have the perimeter of Boarhound secured, we'll move east into Jamestowne and related facilities after things begin improving."

"One inch at a time as an expansion plan?" Vickers asked, to which Hess shook his head against. "Listening, Sir."

"We move in surges," Erich explained. "First push is going on right now, and will continue into next week given the size of the second train we're working on. After we're done with extant Trains, we'll take a week or two to get everything settled and secured, then we light off the Train Beacon and capture a few more Trains to clear and disassemble. We continue the cycle for the foreseeable future. I want to average a push every month, maybe faster as time and personnel permit, but no faster than two week intervals."

"The pauses also give us time to repair infrastructure and reactivate commercial or industrial ventures," High Executor Nereus said as he approached the Multimage pow-wow with Clarence in tow. "Nothing is going to stymie growth and expansion faster than half-assed infrastructure."

"I brought a detail of civil and combat engineers with me," CC Vickers said. "My duty to the High Executor," he said before he bowed curtly.

"Welcome to the grand experiment in cleaning up Star League depredations," Nereus said with a smile.

"Third major deficiency is support services. I need everything from cooks to legal personnel and everything in between. I have some help from a few hardy souls off the Trains with similar skills, but it's not enough," Hess concluded.

"That one was forewarned by Star Colonel Stome. I brought a full contingent of personnel across the board for support purposes, including specialist support for your existing helo forces and construction equipment. More support personnel are on request across the board, as soon as the Magi personnel office finds them and transfers them in," Jeffrey said. "When do we begin?"

Hess smiled in a rather shit-eater evil fashion. "Welcome to the Protectorate of Sigma," he said before he offered a hand for a shake.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1000 Hours Local Time)
(Southwest Heavy Gate, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

Vash stopped his vehicle at the outside medium gate assembly, which was a six-meter-tall 'light wall' that was designed to prevent easy access to the base of the heavy wall that surrounded the base.

"Should I radio?" Millie asked.

"Yeah, they may not know we're early," Vash judged.

Millie picked up the microphone for the radio stack between the driver and passenger seats, and flipped the radio to power on. Before she could dial in the frequency, the gate in front of them opened.

"I, uh," Millie said, but stopped midsentence.

"Guess we're on time?" Meryl Strife asked nobody in particular.

"Or they're early," Vash said before he saw the personnel on the far side of the heavy gate as it came down. "Holy smokes, what are those?"

Mayor Zeke craned his neck so he could look out the front window. "Oh! Those are Multimage Armored Infantry! That's awesome!"

"Are they on our side?" Meryl asked in shock. "Wait, if they're Multimage, they'd have to be."

One of the troopers pointed to the HMMVW and waved it toward a guard post that was now manned by a trooper with a very heavy armor shield. Vash motored over there slowly and stopped at the light box on the ground.

"You are entering Protectorate secured territory," the trooper said. "Identify yourselves and destination."

"Vash The Stampede, Meryl Strife, Millie Thompson, and Mayor Zeke Noreaux, here for appointment with Sigma One at 1030 hours, soldier," Vash said calmly. He knew the game from his trip to his homeworld, on how to deal with military or government personnel, and tried his best to keep his conduct on that level for them.

"Acknowledged, you are expected. Meeting location has been changed to Hangar D-12 on the north side. Know where to go?"

"Tablet," Vash held his up to visible, which had a map program attuned to the GPS constellation around the planet.

"Cleared to move," the trooper waved the HMMVW onward.

"That is some serious security, I saw four, which means there is at least one more somewhere unseen," Zeke said. "Things are really moving forward here." The vehicle only lurched forward thirty meters before it had to stop, in this case due to recruits marching in formation across the drivelane. "He already has them in formations and basic training? How?" Zeke asked.

"They want their freedom, and a lot of these people are willing to fight for it," Meryl said. "Some are in it for the job, others are in it for the money, but he definitely knows how to rouse people to action," she said.

"They were former Mafiosi from the Trains," Vash said. "Gangs, essentially. The big guy is giving them a chance to clean up and improve, start a new life," he said after he could begin driving again. "Schools, refugee camps, food and water for the displaced, and most of all, he's taking the people out of the Trains and cleaning it up."

"I never expected this," Zeke said quietly.

"I think you should ask the Boss 'why' when you get to meet him," Meryl said. "We don't completely agree with him, but he has the best solution that is workable — and he has the faith of the Star Empires and the Executors behind him."

The vehicle had to stop amongst the barracks buildings again due to a crossing of personnel, this one a mixed training group of personnel doing jogging.

"Two Apache helos coming over the top of the Barracks," Meryl pointed out just in time for everyone to crane their necks and see them on the move. "Are they armed?"

"Looks like it," Millie said. "When the big guy said he believes in training, he meant it!"

The vehicle was able to get clear of the barracks area and cruised northbound down one of the major thoroughfares, past the administration building, and north toward the hangars. On the way, they passed the Gate Engine flats. "This is all completed? This quickly?" Meryl asked nobody in particular.

"You're right, they are done," Vash said.

"What is it?" the mayor asked.

"These are the Gate Engines that they use to transport people and material. When we set out, they weren't done assembling the area," Millie explained.

"Oh, that makes sense," the Mayor said.

The vehicle was silent to its destination at the hangar, with everyone absorbed in their thoughts on four separate subjects between them. At the destination, they came around the front of the hangar to see the hangar bay open and occupied by two tables and a handful of people, so Vash simply drove over to a respectful distance from the tables and stopped. Out of courtesy, he held the door open for the Mayor, then closed it behind.

Toni intercepted them halfway. "Ambassador Vash, welcome back to Boarhound. I presume this is Mayor Noreaux?" she asked.

"I am," Zeke answered with a smile for the rather cute lady in front of him. "And you are, miss?"

"Toni, commander of the Secret Service Group. Sigma One has been expecting you. Follow me, please," she waved the group toward the tables and the gathered personnel, including one Armored Infantryman with a massive sniper rifle.

"…Mayville will have to be the jumpoff point going westbound, but for the northern advance we can use Jamestowne once we have it secured and manned," the biggest of the persons at the table said. "The critical happenstance is making sure we have livable quarters for everyone, and for that the first major objective has to be the water treatment plant north of Jamestowne, followed shortly by the Fusion Power Plant north of Mayville. How hard would it be for your men to reactivate and garrison those facilities?"

"Garrison would be easy," the Armored Infantryman said. "Reactivating them may not be as easy, especially if they need repairs," he said. "Can your guys chopper an engineer team out to each tomorrow?"

"Easily, we'll put one of the Chinook II-M on it," the big guy said. "Ambassador Stampede, welcome back. Mayor Noreaux, welcome to Boarhound. I am Erich Hess."

"So you're the head honcho? Totally not what I was expecting, but better," Zeke said. He offered his hand for a shake over the table.

"I'll be happy if it works half to plan," Hess said as he took the shake. "Before we begin, do you have any major questions or concerns?"

"Just one question. Why?" Zeke asked.

Hess nodded thrice at the question. "Because I saw the shores of Hell in the Interdimensional Jumper Trains, and I knew someone had to act to save lives. God only knows that I had no clue I was marching face-first into an even worse problem than just the Trains, and now here I am, trying to correct it."

Zeke nodded. "You're either crazy or altruistic to a fault, if that's your answer."

Hess smiled. "You have to be a little bit twisted to be a computer technician, no two ways about it, and that was just my day job before I climbed up on the Train. Question is, are you willing to put up with an eccentric head of state?"

"If you can keep this together, yes," Zeke Noreaux said. "And I have 42 unfilled houses in Mayville right now, with some room for expansion around town. What are you offering?"

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1130 Hours Local Time)
(Southeast Heavy Gate, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

Though always spoken of in hushed tones, it was a bit of a fear of every former subject of the Star League that the SLDF would come back to the planet. It would never do well for it to be spoken loudly and proudly, some SLDF troopers took offense to that manner of attitude and would trump up charges against the 'miscreant', all the way up to Treason charges. Free speech be damned, they would maintain 'public order' even if it meant killing the occasional loudmouth to 'calm' the masses.

Thus, the fears came to a head when the sound of helos, troops and gunfire was heard from the deactivated Base Boarhound. Only the Star League would have troops and rotor-craft in the base, no? The fears increased quite a bit when the turret array on the top of the eastern wall went live and began scanning the area. Surely only the Star League could take control of the automated defense systems without destroying and rebuilding it?

And, most petrifying of all, slightly before Noon one day, the southeast gate lit up with the old klaxons and caution lights, clear indicator that someone in the know was operating the base. This last terrifying bit of information caused most of the persons in the vicinity of the gate to flee eastbound, in the hopes that the SLDF troops were not too frustrated and in a hurry to punish the subjects for surviving despite the oversight of their lords and masters.

"We're going to do this," the group lead said. "The gate will be open in about a minute. This is our chance to get off this rock, and maybe bring some attention to the conditions here," she said.

"Do you have your codex? You'll need it to get entrance to the ComStar facility," the only other Multimage civilian in the group asked. Vashti was the literal oddball of the group, being a Tiger, but was well loved by the survivors around Boarhound, and given she was a 'protected class' according to the Magi, there was no chance that a nascent SLDF unit would execute her for fear of drawing the wrath of their betters. She had been caught on planet when the SLDF government fell, with no way to extract, so she simply took it upon herself to help around the urban areas by way of hunting antelope.

"I still have it, yes," Brietta said. "I hope it is functional, though. Six months of hard environment may have destroyed it internally."

Brietta was the 'game changer' for the survivors, and in that she had become something of the de facto leader for them. The one demerit against her was the fact that she was not human or humanocentric, being a Gold Dragon. That concern quickly died aborning when she took to helping the people with her magic skills, which covered the gamut from medical to practical to combat. That she was also 184 years old worked to her advantage, as she had seen a huge swath of Existence and knew her way around a lot of common problems for survival situations.

And now, with the Star League back on the base and opening it up, she figured she had a better than 70-30 chance of being able to contact the Magi to un-fuck the problems on this world.

The gate ran itself down into the ground and the gate cover locked over the recessed gate. At that point, when the base was wide open for anyone to enter, the troupe of survivors had their first and loudest shock in counter of their plan. "Are those — "

"Magi Armored Infantry?" Austin P. asked in shock. "Don't fucking tell me the Magi are siding with the Star League!"

"Okay, I won't tell you, but it sure looks that way," Vashti said.

"Okay, where's the Star League troops, then?" The middle of the three men, Vaughn, asked. "Shouldn't they be in the lead?"

"You're right, there are none," Vashti said.

The four Armored Infantry in Mage paint jobs moved forward and took posts at the exterior revetments. "That can't be right, the Star League won't open a gate unless they can man the exterior and interior fighting positions," Brietta said. "That means — "

" — The Magi are the principal guards at the post, which means the Star League is not in possession here," Vashti the Tiger said with a snort. Their estimate was based on the policy that a guard post or fighting position would only have full staff in cases where a battle alert was called, otherwise it had only a small occupation force to scout an area and prevent an enemy from easily taking possession.

"Thank the Gods!" Brietta half-shouted. "Come on, peeps, I think our fortune has changed even more than I thought!"

"Am I going to have to do anything to them?" Rita F. asked. She was an aimless girl, not sure of her path in life before the collapse of SLDF reign on planet, and less sure now. She got by on her charms, as what technical skills she had were not of value in a society that was breaking down faster than the social order.

"No, the Magi do not work that way," Vashti said as she stepped out from their semi-concealed area and began walking down the main road toward the gate. There was some hesitation in the others, but they did follow as was the plan hashed out.

At the four-way intersection just outside the gate, the Armored Infantryman at the gatehouse waved them forward. Vashti led the way and stopped at the personnel checkpoint box, which was lit up.

"Welcome to Base Boarhound," the Armored Infantryman said. "How may I help you?"

"Is this base now a Multimage possession?" Brietta asked.

"Neg. This base — nay, the entire planet — is now under the control of the Protectorate of Sigma. We Magi forces are assisting in Protectorate duties, and making a few bucks on the side," the Point Commander said. "Your accent, Steiner?"

"Aff, Multimage Steiner-Territory possessions, Tharkad to be specific," Brietta acknowledged. "A Protectorate of the Multimages? Does the Star League have any authority here?"

"Neg," the Point Commander said, with a chuckle to follow. "The Executors have stripped the Star League of all authority pertaining to the Protectorate of Sigma. The most they can do is complain to the media about Sigma One's actions."

"Oh, thank the Gods! We're free!" Brietta half-shouted with her arms up in triumph. "Is this guy hiring? We want to get out of the go-nowhere rut we are in but there is nothing worthwhile on the outside."

"If you wish to come in to get into the jobs queue, head for the administration building and sign up with the Induction Group. If not, we need people on the outside to spread the word that a new government is in town," the post commander (a Star Commander) said as she took up position next to the guard shack. Both were very heavily armed for anti-infantry engagements, but neither had a weapon in hand.

Brietta turned to the other persons in the group. "Your call, people. We can go in and get jobs, or we can remain out here until they expand, and spread the word."

"Inside!" Gypsy, Rita, Saunders, and Kimberly all shouted as one, which constituted the thus-far silent half of the group. Austin, Vaughn, Vashti, and Brietta were left with no other option but to accede.

"Alright, that settles that," Brietta acknowledged. "Which way to the administration center? I've never been inside the base before."

"I shall call for a truck to come pick you up," the Star Commander said.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1545 Hours Local Time)
(Business Operations Conference Room, Second Floor, Administration Building, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"So, we're building manpower, but manpower doesn't equate to asskicking until that boot is properly trained in the fine art of impacting asses at high velocity," Clarence began after Clint and Vcitoria sat down. Both the guys' Secret Service officers for the day were in the room, Sidonia and Toni, with Moira guarding outside the room.

"Too true," Clint said. "Training and dedication. There's a lot of dedication to go around, but there will be some who wear out. Still, that's not what I'm in for right now, the manpower is a damn good thing. Assuming we have even a 50 percent washout rate, and we won't have that much, we're still ahead of the game on all fronts. Training will take care of the rest."

"That's good news," Victoria said.

"Only problem is, there's a bit of a disconnect between what the big guy wants, and the direction the military is leaning right now," Clint said.

"That's not good news," Clarence said.

"How do you figure?" Victoria followed up for her husband's flippant assessment.

"Hess is thinking along the lines of America's do-all lethality: go anywhere, blow shit up, go home. He isn't structuring the forces properly for that goal." Clint sighed; the hard number analysis Star Colonel Storme and he had hashed out was not pleasant, but was just as undeniable in the face of it. "If anything, the force structure coming out is at best a garrison force, and at worst is a confused mash of conflicting goals and intentions that may accomplish objectives by accident or by overpowering lesser foes."

"That's really not good news," Clarence said.

"At best a garrison force? How so?" Sidonia asked.

"Too much emphasis on infantry and defensive forces, not enough emphasis on power projection assets," Clint said. "That said, the plans going forward are entirely proper for the Infantry, we have that much in the bag. The problem is, by emphasizing Infantry as a primary force and not the backbone of other assets, our ability to project the power necessary to do what the Boss thinks needs to be done is going to be hampered."

"He's thinking Militia still," Clarence said. "I had a feeling this would crop up to a degree or another. It's his mindset, he's invested in the defensive, almost reactionary posture of the militiaman, and while he can think in absolute terms of what needs to be done to create the structure needed, his internal bias always defaults back to the defensive rifleman."

"I shouldn't say this, but I can confirm it," Toni said. "It really is a default mental position for him."

"Huh," Victoria said, in suspicion as she considered Toni's apologetic tone about spying on Hess' mental state to be bullshit. She had no doubt that Toni was doing so, the Phoenix in human form hadn't kept her psionic skills a secret. "It makes perfect sense, though. The big guy is only situationally aggressive, and there aren't a huge amount of scenarios under which he will use that aggression."

"So, in essence, we have two problems here. One, we need to disabuse the Boss of that turtle-in-shell mindset. Two, we need to gear up to blow shit up in quantity," Clint rattled off his understanding of the standing problem.

"Three, we need to staff this effort with personnel who can walk in the door ready to do the job, if possible," Victoria said.

"Four, we need to figure out a way to do this that doesn't nuke our already-limited budget," Clarence said.

"I volunteer to take care of problem one," Toni said. "I think I can persuade him to see the problem in his mindset."

"I can solve the third and fourth requirements in one stroke," Virtue piped up by the intercom speaker above Victoria's desk.

"Listening," Clarence said.

"In the past several hours, I have received multiple offers from several groups of Magi officers who are willing to send personnel to Sigma for 'extended field training'. The consideration is that, if we provide the hardware and the contracts, they shall provide the field personnel."

Clarence and Victoria both mouthed their surprise about it. "Okay, Virtue, what's up with this?" the latter of the two asked after a moment.

"It's not a secret that Division Commanders Caecilius and Agrippa, the respective Division Commanders of the Techstrikers and Commandos, are both major proponents of frontal aviation — helicopter, close air support, similar. While the predominant motivation of entrants into those groups is the lone knight piloting a Battlemech, Mobile Suit, Gundam, or Mobile Armor, the bulk of their forces are still conventional armor, Helos, and traditional Aircraft or Aerospace. This is because those forces provide equivalent or better firepower to the lone machine, at a reduced cost per machine even including the expanded crew requirements."

"Heh," Clint chuckled. "And I'll bet every swinging dick in a Mobile Suit swears up and down he can take a tank — right up until the come face to face with a Von Luckner." The traditional Inner Sphere Von Luckner carried a massive 165mm Armstrong Autocannon, capable of ripping apart all but the absolute heaviest Mobile Suits in one salvo. The Multimage refit Von Luckner, the KC-66G variant that was most common, carried a 125mm Gauss Rifle capable of coring out the torsos of most light and medium Mobile Suits at a range of several kilometers, and what took more than one strike to kill could usually be silenced by a second shot, all before the hapless Mobile Suit pilot could get close enough to return accurate fire.

"Those few who do survive such an encounter usually do not make the same mistake twice," Virtue admitted. "I have acknowledged the receipt of the offers, but have not activated any of them."

"Before we accept any offer, we need to analyze how we want to move forward first — we could end up biting into an expense account valuated far higher than we can actually pay for, and with no way to recoup costs," Clarence said.

"So, this is where I come in," Clint said. "The Boss sets policy, we need to figure out how to make it reality. And the policy of the day is hit them fast and hard, wrecking everything in our path. Most flexible for ground operations is going to be Helos, most universally useful is going to be Conventional Air."

"Support contracts," Sidonia said. "If we do missions only for supporting other groups, we can make that work, I think."

"The math works out, and it doesn't require a huge outlay of personnel on the ground for us," Clarence expanded on Sidonia's thought.

"Munitions expenditures will get massive, so we need to make sure we are being cost-effective — and that we try to secure contracts with munitions cost coverage," Clint said.

"Right," Clarence acknowledged. A single Hellfire laser-guided missile could be bought for 15,000 c-bills, but a single missile does not an armament package make. The Apache IIM R3 could carry over six tons of external munitions without breaking a sweat, and twelve tons fully loaded (and slowed down), with each Hellfire weighing roughly 100 pounds. By extrapolation, a 'light' (6 ton) load of missiles would amount to 100 such missiles counting launcher racks and sundry hardware, with a floor figure cost of 1.5 to 1.6 million C-bills per craft per sortie. A four-ship of craft, fully loaded for tank-busting, could easily incur 6 to 8 million C-bills of expenses assuming everything went according to plan.

On the other hand, there were ways to reduce expenditures…

"Virtue, what is the cost differential between the Hellfire in United States manufacture and the Russian equivalent?" Clarence asked, given that he had read somewhere that the Magi versions of the Apache could be outfitted with just about anyone's weapon systems, provided software and mounting brackets were available.

The AI was silent for several seconds, likely checking her internal databases for that information. "The Russian equivalent is the AT-6 Spiral anti-tank missile, with the closest equivalent being the AT-9 Spiral 2 missile series, specifically the 9M120-Modernized variant. The Russians had designed improved missiles for their other helicopters, but those missile systems have an expense total in excess of the Hellfire missile with little in the way of performance gain."

"Ah," Clint said, wondering what the question was headed toward. "Trying to use ROW systems to cut costs?"

"Was, but it defeats our purpose to cut our own boys' legs off in so doing," Clarence answered.

"If I may suggest an alternative?" Virtue requested.

"By all means," Clint said.

"Hellfire is loved by the United States helicopter units because it is small and light, and does not reduce performance on their birds to a massive degree. Additionally, the effective range of Hellfire is enough to avoid return fire from most ground assets, but close enough to require creative flying by the helo pilots to get in close enough for the shot. If you are not averse to engaging at range or to engaging in close, there are alternatives."

"Wait — what's the main missile that the A-10 uses for tank-busting? It's not the same missile an Apache uses," Clarence said.

"Maverick?" Clint guessed.

"Correct. Boeing-Federated offers a modular cruciform rail system for the Apache IIM R3 that allows it to carry one to five missiles depending on mission requirements, and Lunar Technical offers an upgraded Maverick that matches both older and newer rails. Additionally, the Boeing-Federated rails can use any production variant of the Maverick without issue. Another thing to consider is that loading a helicopter with homogenous armaments looks good for a single purpose, but is not the most flexible armaments package for real-world scenarios," Virtue pointed out.

"Yeah, when all you have is a hammer, everything will look like a nail until you try hammering on something that doesn't act like a nail," Victoria pointed out.

"Sadly true," Clint said from personal experience, given that he was a construction worker prior to being the TRADOC commander for Sigma. "So, a combination of, say, rockets, Mavericks, Hellfires, and something for self-defense, maybe? Just as one example."

"Calculating, standby." Virtue took five seconds. "Sample loadout generated. Two racks cruciform Maverick rails, two rocket pods, 44 rockets, with R100 explosive rockets, two 9-rail Hellfire launchers, two double-rail missile launchers with Sidearm anti-radiation missiles, and two wingtip double rails with Sidewinder anti-air missiles. Not counting rockets against armor targets, using only the ATGM weapons each helo has a theoretical 28 kills at range, plus rockets for lighter targets, plus short-range anti-radar and anti-air missile systems, and retains the forward turret of AP Gauss Rifles and ER Medium lasers. Assuming none of the launchers are recovered and all munitions are expended, total package cost is 584,980 C-bills, total ferry weight is 10,654 pounds — less than the 6 metric tons max-speed lift capacity of the gunship."

"Jesus," Clarence swore after the totality of the numbers sunk in. In one sample package, Virtue had just designed a reasonably cost-effective armaments loadout that gave a single Apache IIM R3 something on the order of triple the lethality of a single AH-64D outfitted for tankbusting, with extra defensive armaments for its own protections.

"Wait a second, if I'm doing the math right, the Apache IIM R3 could carry four racks of the cruciform AGM-65 rails on each side — 8 racks total — and still take off. That's more Mavericks than the 64-D Apache could carry in Hellfires," Clint said.

"Also correct, though to do so is a load of 20400 pounds — close enough to 10 metric tons that the helo loses roughly 35 to 40 percent of its overland speed until 16 missiles and their associated racks were jettisoned, at which point the load is reduced enough to get up to full aerial speed."

"Still, if we have to go tankbusting, that's a shit-ton of firepower that costs less than a pair of 9-racks of Hellfires, and the standoff range is far better than Hellfire," Clint pointed out. "While I'm thinking about it, are there any weapons not usable off the Apache IIM R3?"

"Some of the Russian AS-series missiles are not compatible with the Apache IIM R3, as they were designed to be carried in by heavy bombers. The rule of thumb is that any Russian missile weighing over 5000 pounds has to be center-mounted singly, and any Russian missile above 7500 pounds is unusable or untransportable by the Apache IIM R3. As a practical matter, the only two missiles that fall inside the center-line usable bracket are the AS-15 Kent and AS-1 Kennel, and of those two missiles, only the AS-15 would have any practical value for either conventional or nuclear operations. The AS-1 Kennel, by any quantifiable standard, is more valuable as scrap material than a weapon system."

"Sucks to be the Russkies in that case," Victoria said. "So, we have a good idea that this is doable using newer helos, Magi pilots for now, and older American surplus missiles. Fifty C-bill question of the hour: how fast can Boeing-Federated hock their helos? And how fast can the Magi scratch up the volunteers for the operation?"

"Boeing is sitting on 200 helos that are not committed, though purchase requests come in at a fairly brisk clip. Not counting craft on hand, they report they are turning out one helo a day on average," Virtue had already requested that information from the Boeing-Federated AI entity, who went by the common moniker Backblast.

Clarence saw an opportunity in the works. "Virtue, could you inquire from Boeing-Federated's purchase agent if they are willing to finance a production run, and what quantity we would have to commit to purchasing from them to allow us to finance based on a percentile of contract income."

"Standby," Virtue sent a 2.50 C-bill HPG pulse with the request, as well as a request for updated inventory on their helos and all major disposable stores racks available.

"What are you thinking?" Victoria asked of her husband.

"I've been reading on this subject, and Boeing-Federated is running on hard times. The older R2 and R1 frames are still in use and nobody except the Magi really want to expand their helo fleets, so they're looking for new customers. If things are as bad as I read in a financial sector rag last night, they may be willing to jump at a new client especially if it makes a proper amount of noise and good press. They're nowhere near as bad as Vandren before we bought them out, but they want business and there aren't too many people buying right now."

"Got it," Clint said. "So, we save their flaccid business model by offering to do a production run? And pay them back on a percentile of the contract income we generate?"

"Sounds right, and we have an MRO company in the fold that can do repairs and periodic maintenance for those helos," Clarence confirmed the plan going forward.

The group was silent for a few minutes, mostly as Clarence reviewed financial data, his wife reviewed personnel records, and Clint toyed around with theoretical ordinance loads for the Apache IIM R3. In classic counter to Virtue's 'jack of all trades' planning, Clint went full 'Merica' on a load and ended up with 48 Hellfire missiles across 4 racks, a pair of 20mm gunpods, and a pair of 40mm grenade launcher pods, with four Stinger ATAS missiles 'just in case'. Not that a 20mm cannon (or a pair) would have any trouble tearing up most non-aerofighter craft in the sky…

"Boeing-Federated AI entity Backblast has requested a Micro-Gate Laser Conference Call with the CFO as of 1615L. Accept or reschedule?" Virtue asked.

-x-

"Incoming micro-gate laser communications from Boeing-Federated corporate headquarters," Virtue reported after Clint began working on a loadplan that involved cluster bombs as well as more conventional standoff munitions.

"Accept call, charge it to the business operations account," Clarence said.

The view popped on to a rather swank corporate office and a guy at the desk. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Kyle Teller, CFO Boeing-Federated International. I presume I'm speaking to at least part of the command level of the Protectorate of Sigma?" he opened the greeting.

"That you are. Clarence Williams, Business Operations Officer. My wife, Victoria Williams, Personnel Operations Director. Clint Jamieson, commanding officer Sigma TRADOC. Absent is Sigma One, Erich Hess, who is seeing to other matters of state at this time."

"Ah ha! Much as suspected, the structure runs deep for the Protectorate with the most press. So you are looking at building a fleet of attack helicopters? Same purpose, rescue operations?"

"Maybe used for that in part, but not the primary goal," Clarence answered. "We are thinking, low-end contracts, under 5 or 10 million c-bills per contract, use the helos as support for other forces — ours or contracting parties — to complete missions. The rescue or relocation contracts are only one small segment of our planned operations."

"Listening," the CFO said.

"Sigma's business model does not match the large merc units — and likely will not for some time. On the other hand, as a side effect of a special contract, we have access to extremely-low-cost interdimensional travel. Have you read the details on the three completed contracts?" The CFO nodded yes. "All three of those contracts were technically at a profit, even counting paygrades of persons involved. In two such contracts, we gained personnel, untrained but motivated — Clint's job is to make sure they correct the shortcoming in that list."

"And that comes to question two on my list. Personnel for these warbirds."

"Well, purchased through secondhand parties, we already have four in our inventory and VTOL-rated pilots working their way into flight rating on the birds. Their lead is a United States Marine with time in the Whiskey-Cobra gunship, so he knows his way around combat helos," Victoria stated. "As to our interest in new airframes, we have an offer from the Multimage Techstrikers to provide pilots for type training if we can provide airframes and missions."

"Free training for the Magi rotor-heads, you get contracts completed and funds, and when your own pilots are online, you take over the airframes and continue from there. Is my readback correct?"

"Conditional yes," Clint answered. "If the Magi want to use our contract work as something of a permanent cadre for their incoming rotor-heads, fine by me. We'll just expand the fleet beyond that for our own pilots."

The CFO smiled devilishly. "This is rather interesting news, and as it happens, not a bad model. So, this comes to the financing request. Can you explain exactly what you intend?"

Clarence sighed. "Sigma's merc work, when paid out, is divided presently into three payouts. 25 percent goes to the involved personnel, since it is their hides flapping in the wind they get the first cut. 25 percent goes specifically to the Mercenary accounts to help finance the unit as a whole, purchase ordinance, gear, pay monthly salaries and expenses. The remaining fifty percent goes into the Protectorate General Fund for planetary improvement, expansion, government funding, similar tasks."

"That's the most brazen financing plan I've ever heard of a Merc unit," CFO Teller said. "But, given the way your Protectorate is structured, it makes perfect sense. So, where does Boeing-Federated Financing factor into this?"

"My proposal to Boeing-Federated is that contracts involving the use of financed helos be split into four quarters — personnel, merc unit, Protectorate, and Boeing-Federated. A quarter cut, after liquidation of assets and salvage or valuation thereof, to be paid against outstanding debt accounts held by Boeing-Federated. The cut will be paid against the individual frames involved in the contract first, then against outstanding debt on the rest of the production run until the entire venture is paid. Sound reasonable?"

"I'm guessing agreement severed upon payment of all debt and delivery of final frame in the production run?" Clarence nodded his acceptance. "If I was talking to any other startup besides you guys, this call would have been terminated five minutes ago. As it stands, this is a bit of a bizarro offer that is both too good to be true, and too gold-plated to pass up. The kicker, though, is the involvement of the Techstrikers in this engagement, given that the Magi don't normally offer their services on such a scale or for such purposes unless they have good cause to do so. Point one in your favor. Master Executor Atrebas also doesn't go out of his way to defend start-ups, unless something major is involved. Point two in your favor."

"That was a bit unexpected," Victoria admitted. "Granted, we are under contract with the Executors for certain specific and classified taskings, but…"

"But nothing on that count," Kyle rebuked her. "When the Executors make noise about a start-up Protectorate, everyone watches closely. Point three in your favor is actually your existing success stories: three contracts in four days is not something to be argued with, especially when the average merc unit's career is 4.6 contracts."

"We've already come that close to — " Clint was cut off by two knocks at the door. "Enter," he said after a moment.

"Sir, I have High Executor Nereus for the 1630 briefing on territorial expansion," Moira announced.

"Send him in, nothing classified here," Clint said. "Sir, welcome to the Boeing-Federated pow-wow," Sigma Two said.

"Boeing-Federated, huh? Been a while since I strapped a Seahorse II LAMPS to my arse and went submarine spelunking," High Executor Nereus said as he took a seat next to Victoria.

"Been a while since the Seahorse II was in production, as well, High Executor," Kyle Teller said. The Seahorse II had been produced shortly after the end of the Star Empire Wars and ran for only a couple centuries continuous type production, meaning the absolute youngest of the frames was somewhere north of 7000 years old. "Now, on point four in your favor, CEO Branson received a letter from Empress Atrebas, stating that the Techstrikers will pick up 20 percent of the cost should you go forward with any purchases from Boeing-Federated. That's a hell of a vote of confidence in your unit. The flip side of that boon is the mirror-image letter we received from the Senate of the Star League, threatening to terminate all business with Boeing-Federated if we directly do business with a rogue state such as yourselves."

"Awesome," Clarence and Clint bumped fists in a show of celebration at that declaration. "Day ten of this adventure, day 6 of the Protectorate being in power, and we're already listed as a rogue state by the local Socialist Kollectiv."

"Tell me about it, guess we're doing something right," Victoria said with a savage smile.

"What's your exposure?" Clarence asked the Boeing-Federated CFO.

"Not much, we do MRO for their existing frames, but they only replace by attrition. Five, six orders a year, never more than 10 million an order," Kyle admitted.

"So, grand total 60 mikes, that's roughly ten Apache IIM R3 frames. I'll be sure to drop an extra dozen frames on what we settle as a base order," Clarence said offhand. It was an easy olive branch to wave in Boeing-Federated's direction, given that he thoroughly expected to use all the frames and need more by the end of the year.

"I strongly suspected you would say that," CFO Kyle Teller said. Nobody missed the crack in his voice in his comment.

"And, as to the letter you received, send a copy of it to the Empress of the Magi and send a copy to Lord Tenchi at the Executor's Temple. The Star League is not supposed to threaten businesses based on the Senate's political whims," High Executor Nereus said. "That manner of conduct will get a Senator drummed out, or demoted if they are lucky."

"I will pass it along to my boss, Sir," Kyle answered.

"I guess the last outstanding point is, how much for how much?" Clarence asked.

Kyle sighed. "That question depends on how fast you can provide the pilots and ground crew."

"Virtue?" Victoria requested.

"The Magi proposal is ten crews plus ground personnel per week," Virtue suggested.

"Are they willing to scale back?" Kyle asked. "We can do five frames a week, seven if we push it, but ten is outside our capabilities without a major expansion."

"The proposal cites up to ten crews per week. We can likely suggest five a week," Virtue answered.

"Five a week? Works for me," Clarence said. "Five hundred frames sound good?"

"Aap," Victoria chided her husband. "512, remember the bad business practices of the Senate, and we'll need the frames soon enough."

"True, and since that's 60 mikes down a year, two years cover would make it 24, so 524 it is. How fast can you have it written up?" Clarence asked the CFO completely deadpan.

The only thing stopping CFO Teller's jaw from slamming into the desktop below his face was the lack of slack to travel that far.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1730 Hours Local Time)
(Base Boarhound Urban Area, West of Boarhound Admin, Outside Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"Man alive, when the Star League screws the pooch, they go full bore," Engineer Officer Verna lamented as she moved through the structure, shotgun with flashlight leading the way.

"Whole Star League is about as solvent as a dick in the eye," Engineer Officer Ruby said. "I'm liking this. Good guy with minerals shows up, rips a planet out from under the Star League, turns it around into a Protectorate that houses some mercenary forces. Lateral thinking, especially for a 21st century American."

"Whoa, problem guys," Engineer Point Commander Kirk Mahrowicz said as his flashlight danced across a household appliance that most people would ignore unless it stopped working. "Big problem here."

"Yeah, that's going to render this building unusable here shortly," Verna acknowledged the problem. 'That' was referring to a 2500-gallon water heater unit that serviced the entire building, and it was leaking out of three of the heating elements and at least one connection point. 2500 gallons of water leak would not flood the building, but that much water left to putrefy would assuredly cause a major mold problem before it could be corrected.

"Got it recorded, Maia?" Verna asked the junior Engineer in the group. She wasn't the youngest trooper, that honor went to Cassandra by two years less age, but Maia had the least amount of time in service given that she enlisted at fourteen, not at 12 like most Magi recruits.

"Aff, that and the cracked support beams," Maia waved her gauntlet-mounted light at the cracked supports. "Definitely a fixer-upper, but this might be usable for our purposes unless you want to find a single-floor pad?"

"Support personnel, yes, not for the heavies," PC Mahrowicz answered. "We really do need a heavy factory or some other similar building we can convert to an Armored Infantry Barracks — or we need some land to set our own up."

"We done down here?" Verna asked.

"Aff, we need to do a survey of the upper floors. Make sure your anti-grav systems are cranked up, don't want to punch through a floor," the point commander cautioned them.

For seven Armored Infantry, outfitted with their shields and no heavy weapons, movement inside buildings tended to be a bit of a tricky proposition. Each armor and trooper set weighed in at five tons, and in most circumstances the only way for the troopers to get around was by way of anti-grav systems built into their armor. Each trooper also typically carried another ton of gear, add-ons, munitions, and weapons, so the effective terran standard weight of a single point of troops came out to something on the order of 30 tons. In this case, the troops came out above 45 tons for seven, given they carried engineering equipment as well as weapons and munitions.

Anti-gravity systems made the infantry armor of today feasible. Each armor set still relied on myomer musculature for movement (the same as in battlemechs and omnimechs), but the anti-grav lattice built into all the armor plates reduced the effective weight per trooper by up to 99 percent. Thus, a trooper with a standard Terran weight of 6.5 tons would have only an effective weight of 65 kilograms with the anti-grav systems at 'practical maximum' of 99 percent. This prevented a point of Troopers from, say, climbing up to the third floor of a building, then over-grossing the structure and inadvertently collapsing it.

Engineer Officer Serena lead the path forward and up from the basement of the structure to the ground floor. She caught a hint of movement on the left, though her spotlight caught the arse of a cat as it passed out of sight behind a corner. Other than that one feline, there was no hint of movement or signs of (recent) life on the ground floor.

"Second floor: winter coats, pants, jewelry, and electronics," Engineer Lleucu said in the classic old-world fashion of an elevator consigliere before she opened the door to the second floor. Maia and Ruby both went through first, one in each direction, though again they caught no sign of appreciable life.

"Do room checks, standard fashion," Kark said as he moved across the floor to the secondary staircase up into the next floor.

"Aff, boss," Serena groused. The building wasn't terribly large, and each floor only had twenty apartments, which lent itself to a fairly easy apartment-by-apartment search.

Nine apartments in, the name of the game changed drastically.

"Door is locked," Lleucu reported after she tried the handle and got nothing. "Your turn, Verna."

"Aff, my pleasure," the Elven Engineer Mage stepped up to the door and put her finger to the doorknob. "The motions of energy shall reach into the barred way and release all wards by Knock," she chanted the full version of the Knock spell, used to disable locking mechanisms and open a door. Being 80 years old and just barely shy of Transcendent rating, the locking mechanisms flew apart in a flurry of fragments and sparks, then the door swung open and slammed into the doorstop with a rather loud echo. "Multimage Infantry! We are entering!"

"Don't shoot! We're not involved!" A lady responded as Lleucu made entry, Kriss sub-machinegun leading the way. After she entered the short hallway and went right into the kitchen, the source of the shout became obvious: A lady, late twenties or early thirties, young daughter and baby in arms. "Please don't shoot, we're not a threat," she said before Lleucu lowered her gun.

"Point Officer Lleucu, Multimage Combat Engineers. I was not aware that anyone was in this building," she said.

"There are a few families on this floor and the third, those of us they allow to live," she said. "I get to remain because their leader likes having his way with me."

Lleucu entered and stepped aside so Verna could also enter. "Okay, take this from the top, ma'am. Who allows you to stay?"

"Harold the Horrid, he leads the 4th Heaven Gang on the top floor. About ten of them, all heavily armed. They killed my husband, killed most of the occupants of the building, and keep a few of us around to violate from time to time. James, here, is a product of one of those violations."

"If he is captured alive, are you willing to submit to testify and provide genetic sample?"

The lady recoiled in shock. "Do you — are you now in control of the area?"

"Yes, we are operating as part of a Protectorate," Lleucu said. "We will ensure you never have to fear their group again."

-x-

"Perimeter point one, we are in place."

"Perimeter two, in place."

"Perimeter three, ready," the final troops reported.

"We execute on Darkness, go in hard with lights and thermals. Standard rules of engagement. Operation completed on call of Lightswitch. Basement, are you ready?" Kirk asked.

"Ready on your call," Secret Service Officer Rasine said.

"Moving to staging now," Kirk said as he pushed forward through the stairwell door into the stairwell. He went only four steps before he stopped, though, alerted by his sensor systems to a tripwire at the top of the first stair interchange. "Hold, tripwire," he traced the wire to the device. "Grenade in a cup, pin pull," he reported. To disarm, he removed the still-safe grenade from the cup, untied the tripwire, and hooked the spoon of the grenade in a storage loop on the inside of his shield. "Free grenade."

"If that's the measure of their traps, this must be amateur hour," Serena said with a smile.

"No equivalent trap on the west side stairwell, Sir," Cassandra reported. "We are at jumpoff point."

"Roger, we're staged and ready on the east side. Call is Darkness, repeat, call is Darkness." Four floors below the Engineer point, Rasine pulled down on the power transfer box that connected a portable fusion reactor to the building's power grid. With one lever throw, all the lights and electronics in the building were disabled, except for the security system which had been bypassed with a satchel battery and a data feed to Virtue for recording.

Up top, Kirk yanked the door and Maia heaved a '9-Bang' into the hallway, a specialized Flashbang that ejected 8 submunitions in a circular pattern, each with distinct detonation timing, so that anyone in the area was blasted with 9 separate flashbang strikes inside the space of a second, tripling the sensory overload. On the far side of the apartment building, Cassandra did the same. resulting in double the aural and visual abuse to the one guy who had come out to inspect why the lights went out on his episode of Immortal Warrior.

"WE ARE MULTIMAGES! SURRENDER YOUR ARMS!" Kirk bellowed by his loudspeakers, a shout that was audible to the sound pickup on the Calliope turret 300 meters from the building.

The entry plan was simple. Four troops would do the apartment by apartment sweep, three would hold the hallway. Cassandra, Maia, and Ruby had volunteered to hold the hallway, leaving Kirk and Serena to do entries from their side and the Lleucu / Verna pair on the far side. As the four entry team troops moved forward, the one guy in the hall pulled his mexican appendix carry (1) revolver and aimed at Lleucu, fired one round, fired a second, and tried to fire a third before she ventilated his skull with six rounds of .45 ACP.

A doorway halfway down the hall swung open and a guy in boxers and socks, no other clothes, came out with a pump-action shotgun. He racked the slide as a show of force, then aimed at Kirk. "Drop it asshole!" Kirk shouted as he took aim with his own shotgun, a MDBS-08C double-barrel 10-gauge shotgun with a half-meter bayonet spike on the end and paired underbarrel lights. The tango aimed at the lights and shot once, completely missing the Armored Infantryman, though Kirk did not miss. The paired 00 Buckshot struck him with 28 of 36 pellets at the range, easily enough shot to cause a central nervous disruption in the target. He skidded down the wall away from Kirk and never moved again from where he landed.

Most of the doors were storage rooms for supplies, but two doors held guns and munitions; both doors listed that a bomb had to be disarmed before entry, so the Engineers took that at face value. Four of the rooms on the fourth floor were human occupied per their sensor readouts, so the entry teams did it two rooms at a time.

On an assault action, there was no time for finesse. Kirk kicked the door in with his armored foot, then Serena heaved a 9-bang into the room to disrupt as much of the area as possible. Once it detonated, she lead the way into the apartment and immediately began the sweep. "We are Multimages! Surrender your arms!" she shouted as they made entry.

"What the fuck is this shit — HOLY FUCK!" The one mostly-conscious guy in the room said. Two others were just barely rousing to consciousness, but found themselves under threat of shotgun ventilation fast enough. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Multimage Infantry. This area is now a Protectorate of the Mages, and you sods have already racked up a long list of high crimes," Point Commander Mahrowicz said. "You get to decide how this is done, easy or hard."

"Easy for me," the first-awake guy said. In another room, the sound of an assault rifle was answered by the sound of a shotgun, then some screeching. "Jesus!"

"This is a new world, kids. You can choose how and when you want to depart it, but keep in mind one thing: the rights of all will be respected. And I do mean everyone." The look of shock on the guy's face said enough.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1830 Hours Local Time)
(Barracks FL-1-3, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"This is what you need to be looking for," Captain Ellsworthy said, then pressed play on the recording of rocket attack footage from Helmand Province in Afghanistan. "Your rockets have some precision, but not guided missile accuracy, not without TALON packages. So, you can use several rockets to attack a point target, or you can use several rockets to attack a specific point in an area target, and like this —"

Beck Ellsowrthy halted what he had to say while the video ran through the meaty part, where the 64-D Apache gunships hit a column of light vehicles with rockets and chainguns. It reminded him of his time in the AH-1W 'Whiskey' Cobra Gunship in Iraq in 1991, when he took his team of helo pilots against the Iraqi Republican Guard in the deserts of Kuwait.

The video showed what was effectively a picture-perfect attack against a light vehicle convoy, complete with some secondary explosions from carried munitions in the beds of trucks. Two Apaches, probably about 40 or so rockets and maybe 75 gun rounds, no more vehicle column.

"In this case, they hit the target side-on, maximizing the exposed area of the convoy for their rockets and guns to do the dirty work. This is what I want to see, when we hit the targets out there in the real world, we hit them from the direction that maximizes target area for our weapon systems. Unless we have to use terrain to mask our attack vector, like in the case of engaging enemy forces with ADA systems in play, we always hit from the angle of maximum effectiveness. Always."

"That is some slick shit, Sir," Pilot Candidate Zoe said.

"Damnably effective, but needed more rockets. I saw at least two vehicles survived," Curt pointed out.

"Remember the Apache only carries the 19-round LWP for rockets. We have both more weight capability and larger pods at our disposal, so loading up with the 44-rocket pods is perfectly doable."

"If I may, Sir, why would we need that many rockets? You said that Gulf War pilots often came back to the FARPs or home base with rockets still in their pods," Curt asked.

Beck nodded. "Damn good question, Tex. I had the same question when I saw the list of rocket pods available for the Apache IIM series, then I saw the list of contracts we could apply those rockets to, and I figured we might need more. Some of those contracts have OpFors on a single battlefield of 150,000 troops, 200,000 troops, 300,000 troops, more even. A classic one, Battle of Thermopylae, the 300 Spartans against either 300,000 Persians or a Million Persians. I think the 300,000 number is revisionist bullshit history by some pussy historian that wanted to downplay the Spartan hardasses, so we'll play the million number. By that metric, if each rocket kills or incapacitates 20 troops on average, how many do we need to reduce Xerxes' army to combat ineffectiveness?"

This was actually an equation built on the lessons of the prior days' classroom work for the cadets. Rendering a force combat ineffective was not always a case of eliminating them all, it could be done in as little as 30 percent casualties. Hence, 300,000 kills would cripple Xerxes' invasion plans, which meant that 1500 rockets would be needed assuming no other weapon systems were employed.

"1500 if I am doing the math right," Zoe answered. "Assuming we don't do anything creative like grenade launchers or AP Gauss or similar."

"Honestly, if I had to do that mission, I'd go in with rockets, grenade launchers, 50-caliber machine guns, and probably napalm," Beck said to acknowledge the point. "Still, 1500 rockets. Assuming a four-ship flight, that's only most of the way to the goal of 1500, and only if we load heavy on rockets and light on everything else." The largest presently-available pod was the 44-rocket LWP, which meant that each Apache IIM could carry a maximum of 8 pods for a grand total of 352 rockets per craft and 1404 in a four-ship flight, assuming only self-defense missiles on the wingtips. "Doesn't quite make it to where we need to be, and that assumes that Xerxes' army breaks at the mystical 30 percent casualties — no guarantee on that battleplan, which would force us to improvise once we ran out of ammo."

"Ugh, good point," Zoe grumped. She detested the thought of having to cause that kind of carnage, but she would do so if ordered. In years to come and seeing the aftermath of Xerxes' army marching through other lands firsthand, she would change her tune on killing them by the numbers.

"So we would theoretically need more," Curt said. "What about…"

"Something to add, cadet?" Captain Ellsworthy asked.

"What about, erm, like building a stackable rocket pod? If we need only a few rockets, take one size pod, if we need more we stack on more pods? Would that be doable?" He asked.

"Modular Pods? I'll have to fly that one with the Engineering guys, see if they can make it doable," Beck said. "So, two lessons, carry enough gun for the job, and attack from the right direction to maximize every shot you take. Now, we're going to apply that to scenarios for — " he was cut off by his tablet beeping to signal important traffic. "One moment." He picked up the touchscreen tablet and swiped it to open, then clicked on the 'high-interest / moderate priority' message waiting for him. "Huh? News article about us and Boeing-Federated?" he asked after he read the tags on the newsfeed header.

"What's up, Sir?" Curt asked.

"This," Ellsworthy swiped the article toward the main viewscreen in the room, which put the news article on the screen.

" 'Boeing-Federated Inks contract to sell Sigma 525 Apache IIM R3 attack helos for mercenary and protectorate military.' Holy shit, that's a lot of helicopters," Zoe said.

" 'A deal inked between the two companies comes out to 2.42 billion C-bills, with twenty percent of the cost defrayed under an agreement with the Multimage Star Empire's Techstrikers Division, and the other 80 percent of the contract value to be repayed by way of 25 percent of the value of any contracts executed by the Apache IIM units.' 2.4 Billion C-bills? That has to be either Sigma Three or Sigma One that brokered it," Curt twigged to the size of the deal fast enough.

"Could not be Hess, he was in meetings and planning sessions all day with Century Commander Vickers and High Executor Nereus, determining expansion plans going forward. Has to have been Sigma Three," Captain Ellsworthy said, then smiled. "Holy fucksticks, that is an elegant plan!" He half-shouted after the totality of what Curt had read aloud sunk in. "Operationally perfect. We're not on the hook for the unit cost up front, we pay them a cut of our proceeds, and the three contracts we've done in the past four days are proof we can go anywhere and do any job we need."

"We're gonna need pilots, a lot of them," Zoe pointed out.

"That's defrayed as well, here," Beck highlighted the fifth paragraph down the news article. "We take delivery of five units a week for the next two years, with an assorted 25 thrown in when extra production is available. Next paragraph down, a source inside the Techstrikers confirms that they will be providing air crews and ground support personnel to Sigma for cross-training programs and to 'reinforce the already sizable Multimage presence inside the Protectorate'. That means Sigma Two and Sigma Four were involved as well, since training is Clint's job and personnel allotment is Victoria's bailiwick."

"Awesome," Zoe said with a half-squeal. "And frightening! If the Mages are sending in 500 air crews, we've got a lot to learn!"

"Well, we know management knows how to get shit done, now we need to get out there and make a few bucks to pay back the loan on our toys," Beck said. "Damn refreshing to know the entire command section can get the shit done on time and in full. Now it's our turn to deliver results, kids."

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 1900 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Administration Building 4th Floor, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

"I think we made some noise, boss," Clarence said.

"No shit, sensei," Hess answered with significant sarcasm. "We broke MercNet last night, it became obvious this morning, they have a solution in place before the end of their working day."

"I'm just surprised they didn't weight our results or some shit," Clint said, looking over Hess' shoulder at the monitor on his desk.

Nereus chuckled. "If they did, they'd have to explain to someone why they did that. It was either get butt-scrogged by the major merc commands, or get butt-scrogged by our friends in high places if they left it or nerfed Sigma. This is the elegant way out: by reclassifying us, it protects the sanctity of the major merc commands while giving us due credit — and it provides room for expansion."

"Ah yes, once someone finds a way to do what the Gate Drives do for us, we'll be up to our asses in rival units in every category. Hell, if the major commands have a burr up their asses, they could do the same thing," Clarence judged. He was right on the first part, but only partially correct on the second (not all of the major commands would go with Sigma's flow). "So, now we have a more accurate idea where we stand, and the rest of Existence has a better idea what we are. Does that mean we get to cut loose?"

"Mandated crew rest," Toni cautioned Sigma Three.

"She's right. Too much operating can burn people out," Hess said. "Still, the Magi are here, and they want some action, so we'll give them some action as subcontractors. I'll discuss the details with SC Storme and Century Commander Vickers tomorrow morning, after I hammer out some more shotgun work."

"Oh Gods, my shoulder is really not going to like you after tomorrow morning," Toni said. She had demonstrated a rather nasty bruise on her right shoulder after this morning's shotgun work, though Hess wasn't all that bad for the wear…

"I believe you and Sidonia take turns chanting 'no pain no gain' at me during morning workouts?" Hess pointed out to her.

"Cheeky bastard," Toni griped.

"Okay, the lads in MercNet were kind enough to reclassify us into the middle categories for Contract work, so we don't have to resubmit our application," Clarence said. "Should we go ahead and submit ourselves for support contract status?"

"Not yet," Hess answered. "We'll stick to the combat side for a while before — " the door buzzer rang and it popped open.

"Sir, I have Princess Alexandros to speak to you," Sidonia said from her door position.

"This is unusual," Victoria said.

"No worries. Send her in," he ordered. Dagger entered with the grace that one would expect a princess to have, but rather rapidly even still. Hess could only guess that she had something hot to discuss. "Dagger, welcome again. Please be seated," Sigma One waved to a pair of chairs opposite the desk.

"Thank you for seeing me so quickly, Sir. I have an idea pertaining to what we discussed yesterday," Princess Garnet Til Alexandros (Dagger) started the discussion.

"Rescue operations?" Hess asked. The likelihood that she was referring to the Nuremberg discussion was low.

"Yes, Sir, I was thinking, since the amount of contracts that exist for rescue and extraction work is so massive, it would make sense to set up a separate subdivision for that purpose," Dagger said.

In truth, Hess had been leaning in that direction already, but had not yet finalized the details inside the confines of his mind. He figured, if Dagger had the foresight necessary to make this happen, she would have walked through the door with a damn good plan. This was a Princess of a not-insignificant queendom, all other things being equal; she probably had similar or greater skillsets for planning and decision-making than he did, Sigma One admitted to himself. A Princess of a not-insignificant nation would likely be trained long and hard for such decision processes.

"Okay, you have my attention. I'm listening."

"The contracts for Rescue Ops are too small to justify using larger line units on, unless that kind of force is needed. As you demonstrated, this is a perfect job for a four-man team, five-man team, not a huge formation. I did some asking around and some planning on the side when I was not in training yesterday, and I came up with a workable organization and plan."

"Hit me," Hess said.

"Uhm, really?" Dagger asked. She figured the request to hit him was rather unusual, even for him.

"Uh? Oh, yeah, American slang. Means keep talking in this context," Sigma One explained his unusual request.

"Okay, well, my concept is to prepare a separate grouping of personnel solely for the rescue and extraction contracts, then the personnel will form off teams of three to six persons, and they will deal with one or more contracts in a day. Call it no more than ten hours of contract work in a day, or we can set a maximum limit of runs in a day. After their day on duty is up, they rotate out for training rest for a few days."

"Makes sense to me," Clint said. "And since most of the extract work is noncombat, the stress factor should be reduced."

"All right, I am sold on the organizational concept, but before this goes into effect I need a full write up on organization, scheduling, responsibilities, requirements, and doctrine. Do you have a list of volunteers for the duty yet?" Hess asked.

"Some, about twenty want in," she said. "I haven't asked widely yet," she admitted.

"Okay, at this point I am giving the group a conditional go, but this is provisional. Every volunteer will be tested tomorrow for aptitude against a basic entry and shooting test. Only pass results go into semi-active duty, and that assignment is provisional until they pass basic training and advanced individual training. Follow?" Hess said.

"Yes Sir," Dagger said.

Clint picked this one up, since he knew where the boss was going with it. "Second, those who receive Provisional clearance are to continue their basic training and AIT between contracts, though after an operation day, a rest day may be granted if deemed necessary. In all honesty, though, jumping straight into training after a hard day of doing extractions may not be a bad thing, helps sharpen resolve," Clint said.

"Understood." Dagger nodded at the lesson.

"Third, paygrade is by the book. You get your base salary on a monthly basis, contract bounties are the normal 25% split through the teams involved, and hazard pay is issued on the tier system. Questions?" Hess said.

"None, Sir," she answered.

"Good. Virtue, prepare subdivision of Sigma Holdings for the Rescue Rangers unit," Hess ordered of the Artificial Intelligence Entity. "List Dagger as the Division Head, provisional unless she recuses herself."

"Preparing now," Virtue said.

"Rescue Rangers," Clarence stifled a giggling fit, prompting a question from the Princess:

"I am guessing there is some manner of joke in this?" Dagger asked, immediately wary of the turn in the situation.

"Joke? Maybe, depends on how one views the source material I derived the name from," Hess said.

"Is it bad?" Garnet / Dagger asked, to which Clarence and Hess both answered 'no'.

"Virtue, do you have access to the old Disney Rescue Rangers shows?" Hess asked.

"Aye, these are considered historical archives by the Star League," the Artificial Intelligence entity said. The Disney classics were all several millennia old before the Star League was formed, so they were often considered a historical treasure of the culture of Natural History Terra.

"If you want to take a leap of faith, Dagger, have Virtue pass your tablet the series in question. I definitely don't expect the antics, but the spirit is what I was aiming for."

Hess had no idea of the monster he had just created by what he had offered Dagger. He had less of an idea that she would become something of a Disney fangirl in so doing, which would make things very much interesting in years to come, for both Zidane and everyone else involved in the project. Even more interesting, Hess would quickly find out that more than a few of the Disney classics and similar scenarios were very real contract offers on MercNet.

For his part, Clarence would have many laughs to come at the Boss' expense in coming years. Clarence had grown up watching Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers daily, whereas Hess had only caught the occasional episode every other week or so.

-x-x-x-

(27 March, Magi Year 14408 / Year SL 8838, 2130 Hours Local Time)
(Hess' Quarters, Administration Building 4th Floor, Base Boarhound, Terra 232)
(Day 10 of Campaign)

Hess exited the shower in his typical dress-down clothes, light shirt, light pants, socks, shoes. Toni, like usual, had done her shower first and was in bed. Hess did not miss the rather abrupt change in her preference for sleepwear, though his view was partially obscured by her tablet as she laid propped up in bed.

In consideration to possibly elicit a reaction, Hess decided to prop himself up in bed and do some paperwork on his tablet, mainly review persons that had volunteered for Sigma. And he decided to start with some serious retro music for the test. "Virtue, how much access do you have to old video game music?"

"Certainly not all, but I have a decent archive. Name the system and game, I will identify if I have it."

"Super Nintendo, UN Squadron is the game," Sigma One requested.

"I have 21 tracks available from that game, as well as the SFC file for analysis," the AI declared.

"The track from the battleship mission, can't remember the name of the ship," Hess said.

"Battleship Minks, Sir," she reported.

"If you would, run a low-volume loop of that theme through my tablet speakers, something to listen to while I review incoming personnel." It only took two seconds before Virtue had the file set up and playing on his tablet.

"That's stranger than the usual stuff you listen to," Toni commented.

"Nostalgia factor, in my case. I used to be pretty damn good at that game."

"And now you run the risk of actually participating in it, to a degree," Virtue said. "The contents of the SFC file and game are strikingly similar to a series of contracts that I have seen on MercNet, though there are some variations across the spread I have seen."

"You mean that a video game from his homeworld is reality somewhere else?" Toni asked.

"The fiction of one world is the reality of another," Hess answered for Virtue. "To a degree I expect this, but to another degree I expect differences. Still, knowing a goodly portion of what to expect gives us the advantage," Hess said. "At least, in fictions where I am versed in what should happen, and to the extent that our involvement does not skew the happenings. As soon as we show up, the story will change, and for that we have to think on our feet."

"Oh, yeah," Toni said as she set aside her tablet and stretched. Hess did not miss the opportunity to take in the view. "Oh, come on, no comment?"

Hess chuckled. "I like to think of myself as an old-school observer in these things. Watching carefully but keeping my peace."

"Oh really, do tell," Toni said. "This I gotta hear."

Hess snorted, but was smiling nonetheless. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't pay attention, but out of some backwards sense of chivalry I won't push my luck. That, and I generally don't go looking for ladies to slap me around, given that my analysis skills are technical, not fashionable."

"Oh come on, you have your opinions, I can tell," Toni prompted him, wondering if she could get any manner of reaction in this direction out of him.

"I do, and a long list of appraisals and judgments to go along. Certainly would say I have no objections to the view, if that's the direction you're leaning." The flinch from Toni told enough of a tale, she had been thinking about that.

Toni saw through the attempted obfuscation quickly enough. His answer wasn't a direct dodge, it was a defusal, an attempt to close the conversation out without being uncivil about it. She considered that his answer could be considered either neutral or flattering, and she didn't really know which way it was leaning. The way he answered it, though, told a hint of a story. The Phoenix was silent for a few moments, considering other things said on the subject, and her mind came back to the warning she received from Victoria on the subject, and thereafter a snippet she remembered about the boss and his 'fun' with the dating scene at his prior job. Adding those three disparate snippets together created one conclusion:

"You've been burned before," Toni concluded her thoughts on the subject.

"What?" Hess asked, given she had said it after a couple minutes' pause in their conversation.

"Oh shit, that was extremely tactless! I — " She cut her sentence off abruptly when she realized Hess was looking at her.

"You came to that conclusion somehow. Care to explain your thought process?" Erich asked after a moment of silence.

"It's, well…" she hesitated after she realized (not incorrectly) that she had just hit a very sensitive subject. "Should I just, erm, drop it?"

"Do you really want to know?" Hess asked after a moment of trying to consider where this was going.

"Yes! I think," she answered immediately, which told Hess that the subject was desired, even if she knew she was pushing the bounds of proper conduct on this topic. "I'll start. Yes, I did guess at the issue, and it's three parts: what Victoria said about how you move, somewhere I heard about your various dating disasters and the last one that you haven't told anyone about, and the fact that you just basically shut down the conversation about appearances. That means relationships are a sensitive subject to you, and that probably means you've been burned once or twice before."

Hess nodded twice. "What I'm about to tell you is properly known to maybe seven people, and that total includes the involved persons, myself and one lady by the name of Katherine."

"The one that you dated but never told about?" Toni asked, to which Erich simply nodded affirmative.

"Katherine was hired into our company under interesting circumstances — she had apparently had a fairly large blowup with her former employer over ethics, and she walked into us with a stellar record except for that one incident. She was hired into HR, then gravitated to Accounting, then into Research. No big deal, we have some mobile persons in the company, no sweat there."

"Doesn't sound bad," Toni said as she pulled a chair up next to Hess' bed.

"She turned out to be real active on the company dating scene, trying to get with more than a few of the single guys. Someone pointed her toward me, and we hit it off real fast. She showed quite the interest in my work, even if it most of society considers it inane and boring, and more so about my firearms habits and practice. Well, one thing led to another, and after our third date we banged it pretty hard. All that night, into the morning hours, and since we were both off that following day, I did the cooking and we kept at it most of the day. We split up that night, apparently both happy where this was going."

Damn, Toni thought but did not say aloud. Something about that kind of progression caused her to flush rather red…

"We had a couple more dates that ran late into the night, and things looked like they were going heavily in that direction, but that conduct was only part of the story. Come to find out after the fact, she was a nymphomaniac of a pretty high order, and she had set her lust on me, but that wasn't her only reason for hanging around."

"That's… kinda wrong," Toni said.

"Oh, you think that's bad? That ain't shit compared to what she was really after," Hess said with a grim chuckle. "Fourth date, long Friday night and Saturday to about midday, then we cleaned up and went out to a shoot meet — Claiborne County Sheriffs against Claiborne County Militia. She got her first taste of what my nightlife really was like on that day, and I think it kinda scared her off her true purpose vis-a-vis our relationship. Unfortunately for her, she also tipped her hand the following Tuesday, and with it her plan came apart in shreds."

Toni nodded silently, wondering what manner of intrigue this was leading to. She would not be disappointed:

"So, Katherine's personal goal was to get in some pants, but her professional goal was a bit different. When I said she came to us under unusual circumstances, we didn't know what the ethics blowup was about — she never said, and her former employer didn't volunteer the information. The employer not talking is both legal and in this case deliberate, and Katherine explained why after she made a grave mistake. She decided after the shoot comp that she wouldn't try to compromise me, but she did compromise another guy in her department. She got his username and password from a sticky note on the bottom of a keyboard, and logged in to our systems with his elevated permissions."

"A thief? Or fraud?" Toni guessed.

"Deeper than that. Industrial Espionage. We didn't know that she had compromised someone else's account, we found her by trapping her sending files out to a rival company. When I traced the terminal and went to it physically with armed security, I had a pretty good idea I'd been burned."

"But you caught her red handed," Toni pointed out. "Pervert or not, that counts for something."

"And she knew it, and she knew what my weekly hobby was, so she really didn't try to hide it or anything. She broke willingly in the security president's office, told the whole thing. The blowup at her old company was staged, she broke with them as cover for going undercover to try to get information on us. She hired in, integrated, and tried to find something that she could send to her former boss. She also used the company as something of a personal dating service, and I wasn't the only one."

"So what happened?" Toni asked, deliberately not dwelling on the two level betrayal of the matter.

"Nothing. Literally nothing happened. When we took the matter to HR, they said no prosecution, bad publicity would result. Never mind that for an IT security company, demolishing an industrial spy ring is one of the best publicities possible, but HR thinks it would look like retaliation, so they quashed it. She got the boot, and I never heard from her again."

"That…" She shook her head. "That is so bizarrely anticlimactic, I feel like I need to ask for a refund for that story."

"That is about what I had to say about the matter after HR put the brakes on running her through the grinder. That is one of the more recent examples of why I hate the bureaucratic hivemind personae, it does dumb bullshit like throw away justice and honor for the perception of proper publicity."

Toni nodded silently. "I think I understand now why you're so quick to shut down on that subject," she said. "Defense mechanism — burned once, shy away from the flames a second time."

Hess chuckled again, though this time it wasn't a grim one. "Two conflicting defense mechanisms at play here: the American that was burned badly by a corporate spy, versus the Phoenix chasing the guy she thinks is right." Toni flushed red again, a hard-to-miss change that told Hess he had the right of it. "Neither is wrong, but neither knows what the appropriate path forward should be."

"Better question, if I may?" Toni asked.

"Hit me," Erich answered.

"Have you given up on the path forward?" Toni asked after a moment to steel herself for the answer.

That answer took Hess more than a few seconds to come to. "Let's just say that the American is staring down the road, trying to decide whether to turn off or continue, and isn't in a rush to make that decision."

Toni considered the metaphor and decided that she wasn't sunk yet, she just had to be patient. Which was both an alien concept to a hotheaded Phoenix such as herself, and an entirely easy one to her given her lifespan was theoretically infinite if nothing untoward happened to her physically or mentally.

Time was one thing she was sure she would have.

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

This has been a chapter long in the making.

I actually wrote 90% percent of this chapter in 2015, before I pulled the plug on writing Sigma so I could do the database rebuild. That said, I decided to revive my Sigma writing to see if I could better motivate myself to write again, and so far it is working. Revising my writing schedule also helps. And, keep in mind that I haven't worked on any of Sigma since October of last year, so, in classic case of brown material versus ventilation impeller, I have had to give myself a crash-course in how to operate the backend game that I designed almost two decades ago, just to resume normal ops for the story.

Of course, once you break the learning curve, it's game on. For I, the backend was built basically wide open to allow me to put in a modicum of data and track the core stuff, and I would fill in the details in RP (then) or story prose (now). After rereading the prior chapters and deriving my bearings from prior writing, I decided to go for it again even if adding hundreds or thousands more records to my existing databases would only complicate my conversion to the new database I am still building. The story comes first, such as these things are.

And now, onto the writing part.

In terms of action, I'll admit this chapter is kinda thin. That said, Sigma is still kinda thin, working on building up size and building a proper military. More to the point, Clint and crew stumbled upon a shortcoming that they luckily quickly analyzed and began corrections on, namely the leanings of their boss. And, as said more than once in the chapter, crew rest is a necessity to prevent burnout, so not every chapter will have operations in it. At some point in the future (several years down the road), Sigma will be large enough that the action will be self-sustaining.

The planning is the big thing going forward. It's all well and good to have an idea what you want to do, it is an entirely different enigma to have an idea how you want to do it. On this, Hess screwed up to a degree but was caught early on by Star Colonel Storme and Clint, and caught early enough to correct the problem with no major issues. That correction, though, pay attention to it: a goodly portion of the mystique surrounding Sigma will be born from their early forays into close air support contracts, and from that early base will be born the later offerings of Sigma Mercenaries.

The other major factor of planning going forward is the educational aspect. As someone pointed out in a review for one of the other stories in this early phase of the series, after the circumstances that Matilda came to Sigma, she would not be entirely stable. This is acknowledged by the author, but remember that the dice govern; in this case, her modified stability check came back 77, so she's holding on for now. Matilda will have both periodic and stressor checks going forward, so the dice may force her over the edge yet, but in time if she manages to pass her checks then she may simply 'recover' to a degree from the incident.

The educational aspect is the critical issue going forward. Education is not a cure-all for a society's ills, but it helps to a very big degree. More to the point, the advanced disciplines of warfare and peacetime require highly advanced education systems to cover the disciplines at the top of the extant technology and magic trees. Rome was not built in a day, nor was it built by a completely unskilled labor force; the engineering principles used in Roman times were the best of the best of their day, and modern processes harken back to those older forays into the realm of engineering. Those engineers weren't born with the skillset, they trained up under the masters of their day, hence the necessity of a proper education and training system.

And that is that. NEXT UP: Sigma One thought the next day would be a "normal" day for the Protectorate, but the Protectorate (and the rest of Existence) is in for a rather interesting surprise...

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Review Replies: Five reviews in the span since my last chapter. THANK YOU ALL!

Sajuuk: There are more than a few possibilities of places for Sigma to go, and you hit on a few that I am already planning. Kudos!

One thing to keep in mind: an army is not only as strong as its weakest soldier, for the weakness of one (or a few) can be disguised in the mass of the rest. Weakness in an army comes from lack of discipline, lack of morale, lack of training, inadequate supply, or incompetent officers. The Callsigns know these points, and they are working on prevention of such problems going forward.

Knives91: Next up: ACS with SheVa Support from low orbit (John Ringo's Posleen War series).

Might be a while before Sigma visits the Borderlands, but it is definitely a possibility. And yes, there needs to be more meat bicycles, and Gaige says to hell with the First Law.

KPhoenix: Remember that the founder of what will become the Multimage Star Empire is an old combat wizard who was commissioned by the Gods to stave off Ragnarok in some fashion. It's not any manner of classified information, even if it is a bit outside the sensibilities of the average American.

Akira had his 'breakdown' on this issue, and actually he will make some noise in later stories of the series, mainly as a political pawn for people who don't like Sigma.

The Star Empire Wars are an even sadder, stranger tale than the snippets of history properly play out. The war was not voluntary, really, it was a one-sided issue that pretty much went downhill into a three-on-three scrap between the Big Six.

Point taken on the praise issue, but keep in mind the President effect: the sorry sod at the top gets most of the blame and praise, regardless of whether or not it is his fault. In this chapter, though, the big shout-out is for the other Callsigns, so…

Hess made Clint Sigma Two because Clint has the best aptitude for strategic thinking below Hess, with Clarence a close third and Victoria a bit behind. Hess didn't offer Clarence the position because he wanted Clarence in the financial officer position, which is deliberately divorced from the mainline command authority to prevent financial conflict of interest.

You got another of the meetings in this chapter, and Hess doesn't know it, but he just created a cult Disney following in his ranks that will bite him in the arse in years to come.

Hope this chapter was more to your liking!

By Lantern Light: Alpha is all males. Bravo is all females. Charlie is teen and below. Delta is late teens and adults only. Those were the four core Mafiosi of my original game model. There will be new combinations coming up on more Trains to come, but you'll also see a lot of cases where the core Mafiosi are still in play even if under new names (Weebs in the case of Train 133628 for the Charlies).

Hellhound DOW: I already have both the USAS-12 and AA-12 listed in my random generation files, but both are rather rare weapons systems in random results. That said, They will be seen and deployed by some Sigma forces as teams advance and begin specializing out into their own weapons preferences.

Actually the first Train is number 523. There is a minor passing hint of dyslexia in my family, and sometimes my fingers outpace my brain on the number pad, sooo….

Anti-Materiel Rifles will definitely make a big showing in Sigma, as the sniper ethos will be fairly big courtesy of Hess' spectacular feats with DMRs and Sniper Rifles. Plus, in addition to the 20mm and 25mm payload rifles, the Magi also have the 20mm Armor Sniper Rifle 'Shortbow' and 30mm Armor Sniper Rifle 'Longbow', both of which are available to Sigma, so there will be a hell of a lot of options for punching holes in high-value targets.

THANK YOU ALL FOR THE REVIEWS! Got PLENTY more to write out for Sigma, so stay tuned! Working on the next parallel chapter for the Rail Guards as I type this!

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The Gripe Sheet:

Only a minor datum point and a minor procedural point as complaints from the last chapter, these issues have been partially rectified in this chapter (and explained in the author notes). Much thanks to Takeshi Yamato, Sieben Nightwing, and Necroblade for the cleanup job on aisle 7!

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Footnotes:

(1): This is actually a pair of descriptors combined. Mexican Carry refers to any pistol carry without a holster for a pistol that is not designed or modified specifically for carry without a holster. This is typically a pocket carry or inside waistband carry without a holster or any manner of protection for the trigger or trigger guard. Appendix Carry is considered one of the fastest carry options for a pistol, whereby it is in front of the appendix for a right-hand shooter, or on the equivalent station for a left-hand shooter on the left side of the body. The one screaming downside to Appendix Carry is that there is no room for error in this position, as an accidental discharge during draw or holster will shoot the carrier in the upper leg, with a possible chance of shooting a person in the femoral artery (which runs the risk of bleeding out so fast that a person is not expected to survive such a wound.)

(Yes, I am aware that this a politically incorrect term, but I say too bad. I will not modify common terms or labels of the English language to suit the feelings of certain persons.)

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Included Works:

—Real Life Armaments — too many to name, that is most of the arsenal shown.
—Real Life Combat Gear — the vests and gear carried by the Militia troops are easily constructible from stuff you can buy on Amazon or Cheaper Than Dirt. No, Seriously, Look it up. Do a search for "UTG Modular 10-Piece Complete Kit", and you have a good look at a starter kit for any serious gearhound.
—Real Life Concepts
—Real Life Time Period: 1930s New York City (Shown in Chapter 2, referenced in chapter 3)
—Real Life Equipment: The Caterpillar equipment showcased in the chapters is based on real life designs or equipment from said manufacturer.

—Real Life Mythology: The Phoenix race of beings are derived from the mythological Phoenix (Egyptian) and Thunder Bird (Native American). That said, I have made some serious modifications to the whole principle that will be revealed in coming chapters.
—Real Life Mythology: The first of many Valkyrie have joined the blossoming Protectorate. That said, do not confuse the Valkyrie with the term Valkyria — separate work, separate purpose. (Shown in chapter 7)

—Personal Works: The Star Empires are mentioned briefly here. Additionally, the Magi Empire is named specifically.
—Personal Works: The nations of the Jokers Wild are mentioned in Chapter 6. There is a very good reason for that.
—Personal Works: The Star League is a derivation of the Star League from Battletech, but founded by Queen Sora Serenity (Executor-Queen Sora Takenouchi).
—Personal Works: The Executors are specialized Mages who have transcended a minimum of twice (Gods and Goddesses are a minimum Transcendance of once) and are specially commissioned to defend life and honor amongst the Star League territories or member states.
—Personal Works: The 10mm Kurz cartridge is a shortened / lower velocity / lower weight version of the 10mm BG round, developed by the Magi for 'crowd pleasing' against large masses of Negaverse troops, most of which were unarmored during the Star Empire Wars. It quickly became a favored heavy machine gun round for multiple purposes after the fact. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Personal Works: Gerald Lightbringer is most famous for his participation in my Jokers Wild series, but his history is far stranger than either story properly shows. (Last seen in chapter 5)
—Personal Works: The last section of Chapter 6 makes it clear that the Jokers Wild, Sigma, and Multimage Chronicles are interconnected at multiple levels. This WILL come back to haunt everyone involved, in multiple ways.

—Anime General: the oddball hair colors, especially endemic to nonhumans.
—Anime General and D&D: the nonspecific concept of Elves, Nymphs, and Sylphs.
—Anime Trigun: Vash The Stampede, Millie Thompson, and Meryl Strife took the wrong train, ended up hanging out, and now are tagging along with the Militiamen.

—Cartoon Publishing Group: Disney Works in general are mentioned here, but have not made an official showing yet.

—Cartoon: Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers is mentioned in this chapter as well, and due to the show mechanics may not actually make a showing except as a show within a story, but you can rest assured that it will influence things going forward.

—Game: Battletech: You are starting to see some serious discussion of Battletech units and force concepts in this chapter. They will become more prevalent as the story marches on. (Happens off and on.)
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): A lot of the spellcraft will be drawn from D&D as well as other sources to be named.
—Game: Dungeons and Dragons (First Edition): The concept of the Dragons of many colors is drawn from the D&D First Edition
Monster Manual. Some mods were made (the Platinum dragon is not unique, and the Eternal Dragon is a wholly new class).
—Game: Final Fantasy IX: The player cast of the game (Zidane, Dagger, Steiner, Freya, Vivi, Eiko, Red, and Quina) were residing in one of the dining cars, but are now members of Sigma's Basic Training Group.
—Game: Infantry Online (Sony Online Entertainment): The CAW from the early section, and named in the stinger, is a different-manufacturer version of the Kuchler A6 CAW. (Shown in Chapter 1)
—Game: Call Of Duty MW2: The Remington ACR in use in this story is based on the Magpul Masada / Bushmaster ACR / Remington ACR in use in said game. Hey, even if it was pooh-pooed in real life, someone in an alternate dimension would do it right, ne?
—Game: Command And Conquer Renegade: The Infantry Ion Cannon (Portable Ion Cannon) is a personnel weapon from Renegade, and is considered a mainstay amongst the Star Empires. (Seen in Chapter 8, to be seen frequently in the future))