Because We (Trash) Can 04
-.
Living on a border world was a hit or miss affair. Apart from the literal hit or miss of being shot at and your homes and workplaces shot up in raids, border worlds tended to have the attention of their ruling powers. This was both good and bad. Bad, because border lords tend to be able to get away with more skeevy things due to their necessary role to the safety of the realm. Good, because the need to keep the border well-supplied and ready to repel assaults mean that border worlds also tend to see higher economic activity and social mobility.
There was always a danger of worlds being lost. Some worlds survived by not caring who their actual ruler is; the old boss was the same as the new boss. No real loyalty, but no real will to rebel either. Others had nothing but loyalty and never forgot their roots no matter how long they have been suppressed.
New Aberdeen was a world that belonged to the Federated Suns since the days of the Terran Hegemony, and had been lost to the Combine in their great offensives in the 2860s. Only relatively recently had they been retaken by the Federated Suns. But that was still a hundred years of Draconification, and the planet still retained the scars of the Draconis Combine attempting to erase a Davion culture and replace it with a Kuritan one. And when they were driven off world, the left with the promise that when they reclaimed the world, their wrath would be great and terrible for those that failed to show loyalty to the Dragon.
People on New Aberdeen didn't feel safe that the Federated Suns could exert permanent control over the world, and as such there was a vague feeling if they should show token resistance. Some felt that their lives had been better during Kuritan control, as Kuritan nobility and military had almost zero accountability to the populace. They loved being able to exert their desires upon the cowed and fearful masses.
The Draconis Combine had spent several months on the planet without being driven off due to this support.
However, outright conquest was still out of the question. Davion could not move in sufficient troops to repulse Kurita forces because the Wolf's Dragoons were supporting them. Any other weakness in their border worlds would be pounced upon. At the same time, House Kurita lacked the ability to fully take over because of that same threat - turning this area into an invasion corridor would focus several RCTs into the zone and might end up backfiring as House Davion flooded into a counter-offensive into Combine space.
So this was the situation on the ground: months of little skirmishes and resource raids. The only ones that suffered were the common people. House Davion had to ship food and consumables across interstellar at great expense for them to maintain their claim of being better and more responsible to their citizens than the Combine, and these supplies which indirectly or directly, would be seized by the Kurita raiders.
The one in charge of planetary defense was Major Roland Kaplan of the 4th Battalion of the Fourth Deneb Light Cavalry RCT. The 4th Deneb RCT was based on Harrow's Sun, just a short jump away from New Aberdeen. These months have been a (heh) harrowing time, especially in this world's hot climate.
A Davion RCT, unlike a SLDF RCT, was a much larger assembly of forces with a single Mech Regiment attached to Vehicle Regiments, five Infantry Regiments, two Aerospace Fighter Wings and a Battalion of Artillery. They absolutely could take over and hold a world with little difficulty.
A SLDF RCT mixed all these forces into one regiment but had at least three such regiments, but a Davion RCT was five regiments moving cooperatively.
The reason why 4th Deneb high command only sent a combined-arms Battalion with the same force proportions as the RCT into New Aberdeen was the deep suspicion that this was all bait. Specially with the Black Widow, Natasha Kerensky herself, on planet. Overcommit and send an RCT to drive the 33rd Galedon off-world, and the Wolf's Dragoons Epsilon Regiment drops in. As long as this remained mutual Battalion-level conflict, it seems both sides were fine not to allow this to escalate. Kerensky wasting time on New Aberdeen was her not raising hell elsewhere.
4th Deneb RCT was good, but they were not Wolf's Dragoons good.
-.
Major Kaplan didn't think much of the Eridani Light Horse. The 4th Deneb was also a SLDF-derived unit, and had a deeper and more painful past. Their homeworld, Deneb Kaitos, had been struck directly by the Amaris Empire with nuclear, biological, and orbital attacks. When Kerensky made the call to leave the Inner Sphere, only the 4th Deneb regiment of the SLDF Deneb Light Cavalry Brigade chose to remain, in loyalty to their world. They begged for any House Lord to support the world, save their people from starvation, and in exchange the 4th Deneb would give their skills at war.
Only House Davion responded, and as Deneb Kaitos was saved from mass deaths through starvation and pandemic, the 4th Deneb served the Federated Suns loyally through centuries.
4th Deneb didn't see anything special about once being the SLDF. Kaplan thought that the Eridani Light Horse were being just uppity and pretentious about being elite for no reason. After seeing Captain Anton Stedman he thought that all those rumors of the Light Horse being a professional unit cut above the rest was so much bunkum.
The Eridani Light Horse didn't look all that different from his own troops. They used the same mechs, the same cooling equipment, nothing really out of the ordinary. These had the reputation of the best mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere why now?
That only really said something about the sad standards of mercenaries until Wolf's Dragoons got into the picture.
He was not at all impressed with young Anton Stedman's arrogance. He could appreciate how the ELH had all of its Mechs going 86 kph, but their heaviest Mechs were 55-ton Griffins and Shadow Hawks and 45-ton Phoenix Hawks, made for running and skirmishing. In a drag-out fight they didn't have the firepower or armor to last - what good would mercenaries only good at running away do?
He didn't know if he fully believed reports that Stedman's Company had already driven off Kerensky's Company three times with only minimal damage. That was Kerensky! She won against the 3rd Davion Guards! If Stedman was only good for running away, then Firthhaven would already be lost by now.
The Black Widow could play with her food. The Firth wasn't the only place Kerensky struck - wherever the 4th Deneb moved, she was already gone and leaving burning wrecks behind her. How she was managing to outmaneuver entire scout mech formations with her slow heavy mechs was infuriating.
Which led to a further mystery of how the hells then does the Eridani Light Horse keep finding her?! 4th Deneb had hovercraft instead of tanks, and were very ASF focused. Originally they were a fast response regiment, faster even than a Light Horse regiment.
The losses that the ELH sustained on Hoff precluded the idea that Kerensky and the ELH were somehow colluding. This was a personal crusade to Stedman too.
Kaplan had to conclude that okay, maybe the ELH were that good. But from the reports he was getting, Stedman's Company was accruing damage that only his group's ability to disengage quickly was able to minimize. Eventually that damage was going to catch up to them, and then they were in serious trouble. Stedman's Company had to be relieved.
Unfortunately it seems Kaplan's message to Stedman about letting them know that the 4th Deneb was ready to help at any time due to the Kuritan forces down south were being docile, and that he was ready to shift forces in support seemed to have been taken as an insult.
He debated whether he should send a pair of lances north before that young officer's temper led to him doing something foolish and his company of good men getting crushed by Kerensky's nasty bag of tricks.
Then he received word that another company of Eridani Light Horse, alongside fresh supplies, was inbound.
-.
-.
Even at first glance, Kaplan knew that something was odd about these new ELH arrivals.
Two lances of Urbanmechs exited the Union DropShip.
All right. Fine. This was good too. Getting urban combat support means being able to divert other more mobile troops to beat the Combine on the field.
But there was something even disturbing about them. As the Battlemechs formed into two lines, he realized why.
First, they moved with strange almost organic smoothness. They moved with speed and agility that you would expect more from a more humanoid Mech like the Wasp or Valkyrie, not a trashcan on legs.
Second, these Mechs looked not just new - but pristine. They gleamed under the hot sun. The pale green paint looked as if fresh from the factory, and there were three distinctive markings on the mechs.
First, the tan "prancing pony" symbol of the Eridani Light Horse.
Second, a strange round grinning face with a mustache in black and red.
Third, shining white, the Cameron Star symbol of the Star League.
-.
When the commanding officer of the ELH company presented herself, Kaplan's disquiet grew. That form-fitting suit with the vest lined with thin tubes. That thin and light helmet. And again with the symbol of the Eridani Light Horse opposite of the Cameron Star.
She saluted "Sir, Barbara Mosley, Captain, 121st Dark Horse Regiment, 9th Company. Reporting in, sir!"
Kaplan nodded. "At ease, Captain. And thank you." He closed his eye briefly and then said "You know what, I'm just going to say it. That's lostech." He pointed at her gear. "I know it's rude and I shouldn't expect an answer if I asked where you found that, so I'll ask instead - is this the Eridani Light Horse finally breaking out the secret SLDF stocks and getting serious?"
No one could so brazenly wear the symbol of the Star League without it feeling like sacrilege. But looking at Barbara Mosley was like looking nearly half a century into a more civilized past, with her nonchalant confidence about the weight of the name she carried.
The Eridani Light Horse had been on the verge of destruction several times, and had to scrounge for supplies and refits like any other mercenary unit. The 4th Deneb was also a SLDF unit and similarly, apart from the degradation in tech levels through the Succession Wars, their methods and equipment didn't really change much under Davion employ.
But at the moment they felt a great gulf between a pretender and the genuine article. Through centuries of ridicule the Eridani Light Horse persisted in their roleplay. The ELH revealing themselves as *actually being the SLDF all along* was unthinkable, but as Kaplan looked at the eyes of his officers, once the thought was out there - was not all that unimaginable either.
Surprisingly that seemed to only increase the little sheen of resentment in his heart, Kaplan realized. The ELH had suffered very little compared to 4th Deneb. Why the Eridani Light Horse; why now; and what was respectable anyway about the SLDF that in the end abandoned their duty?
-.
Speed.
This was the obsession of the 4th Deneb.
A Light Cavalry RCT was faster and more responsive than a Light Horse RCT; designed specifically by the SLDF as a fast-response strike force. Where the ELH had tanks, 4th Deneb exclusively used hovercraft. Where the ELH had artillery, 4th Deneb was a very ASF-heavy force. With constantly updated information of the battlespace, 4th Deneb used their speed to outmaneuver their opponents and act as one team even if hundreds of kilometers distant.
Roland Kaplan relished the look on Anton Stedman's face the first time he saw the 4th Deneb tactical command in action. He wanted to laugh at the young officer's sour look of 'you can do this too?!'
An older ELH officer wouldn't have been surprised. Glory wasn't something an individual could claim on the battlefield, but earned by hard effort by everyone around them. Even Kerensky wouldn't have been so deadly if she wasn't supported well by an elite crew she had personally trained and trusted to fight at her skill level. War was not a series of one-on-one duels.
"Oh, interesting," said Barbara. "So we don't have a hardline connection to Firthhaven?"
Many worlds still relied on simple copper cabling and telegraphy. It was cheap, easy to deploy, and could be made by any world with even the slightest hint of industrialization.
Fiber-optic cabling was the foundation of communications across the Inner Sphere. Easily deployable, immune to EMP, easier to bury, harder to find via magnetic scanning, and capable of massive information throughput. Unfortunately, because hardline communications were so useful, it was also something that should not be risked falling intact to enemy hands.
Radiotelephony was the main way less-industrialized border worlds like New Aberdeen communicated between major settlements.
It was also very prone to being jammed or tapped. In addition, only certain hours of the day had the atmospheric conditions to support very long range radio transmissions. Relay stations were obvious targets, and in the expanse between Firthhaven and the world capital Conlan City all had already been destroyed in the five months of fighting.
"This is our most recent report on Stedman's Company. They are doing well enough. Artillery had been emplaced around Firthhaven, and combat vehicle companies are supporting urban defense. This leaves BattleMechs to serve as a mobile interception force. If you lift off and contact their HQ directly you would have a better signal to get updated."
"I did, HQ just reported that Stedman was out on patrol and out of contact."
Kaplan frowned. "That's bad form. Company command should never be out of contact."
"This is why I'm afraid Kerensky's got her mind games into him and he's doing something stupid."
Kaplan nodded. "You have a DropShip, so you can move out sooner than we can. We can task a wing of ASF to support if you want."
Barbara raised her index finger. "Wait one-"
Comms to the Super Urbanmech parked outside crackled "SATCOM engaged, Captain," said Idun Nikkole piloting the Super Comms Urbanmech.
"Major, would you accept the datalink?" Barbara added.
Kaplan nodded over to the comms officer. Then the holotank bloomed with new information.
4th Deneb positions were highlighted in blue. Even the ones that were hidden. Kaplan cursed under his breath. Fortunately Combine positions were also highlighted in red.
The SLS DropShip SOLITUDE had spent days burning with its engines pointed towards New Aberdeen. In the last day as it had to flip around to match planetary velocity and enter a parking orbit, the DropShip had all the time it need to scan the surface with not merely SLDF orbital scanner suites, but Robotnik-optimized Orbital Scanner Suites.
The DropShip blossomed in space, like a flower spreading pollen into the wind. Microsatellites stared down at the world with a hundred hungry eyes.
The new holotable projected a tactical map of the area with updated real-time information. The map recognized and displayed military assets. Objects in view were displayed and highlighted from a bird's eye view. Mobile objects detected by non-visual sensors were sorted according to their most probable type - cubes for BattleMechs, pyramids for Vehicles, tetrahedrons for flying vehicles, which would then resolve into 3D visual information when they entered full sensor range.
For a MechCommander, information was ammunition.
This sensor range was twenty kilometers around each high-flying drone. Like NapFind drones, these drones relayed information to each other until reaching drone command, so that the effective information range was eighty kilometers around HQ.
By bouncing information up to the armed scout ASF in low orbit, other operational areas across the continent could share real-time information back to HQ.
Other screens showed a strategic view of the continent. One screen monitored the near environs, another of the estimated Kurita locations, and another of Stedman's combat area. All screens had moving icons representing detected militarily significant objects. Vehicles of any size as long as they were moving. Look-through thermal information from houses and other light buildings. Infantry were ironically much more visible at night. Moving Mechs could be detected at great range; shutdown mechs less so, but AI-boosted imaging could eventually spot them out from other shapes. All combined and delivered as information accurate enough for artillery fire direction.
All of this was grossly lostech.
Technology, mysterious and lost, that somehow the ELH just happens to have with even that newly manufactured thermoplastic smell. A near godlike awareness of the battlefield explained so much about how the Light Horse could do so much with only three medium-weight regiments.
4th Deneb were faster, but that was also for sake of maintaining a picture of the battlefield. If you knew where the enemy was at all times, you didn't need to sweat to outmaneuver them.
Kaplan's face all twisted up like a pug. He had to ask "With all due respect to Eridani Light Horse high command - is it fine to supply us with this? The relationship between the ELH and the AFFS is one of employment, not… formal incorporation. Or have things changed?" 'Did you become like us?' was the unspoken question. 'It's not such a bad thing, being a Davion dog, you know.'
Barbara shook her head. "I can't say anything about it, but OPSEC isn't a problem with tech like this. We'd like if command and control elements like this stopped being lostech even if opposing forces start using them-"
"Because then you would be able to tap into their own sensors and comms?!" a 4th Deneb radio operator piped up excitedly.
Barbara pointed at her. "This one is a smart cookie, keep an eye on her. When things start filtering down, we might have gear with her name on it."
The operator raised both fists to the air "Hail the SLDF!"
Kaplan rolled his eyes. He couldn't even blame the girl.
Barbara turned back to the holotable. "I am leaving one Communications Urbanmech and a Brawler Urbanmech to support the HQ," said Barbara. "This will tie you into our Stalking Horse intel assets. I have to go right now," she added as she pointed to movement on the Firth combat area. "Stedman's moving and that looks like Kerensky's provocations got to him anyway. From what he can see, it's two just two Mechs - two Heavy Mechs, and his company is made of really much faster mechs. Enough mediums can kill a heavy just fine."
Normally fighting at night was stupid, but it was also the best time to test perimeter defenses and the dark removed the advantage of range. On the other hand, this was also the best chance of a bunch of light mechs surviving being in the crosshairs of a Warhammer with two PPCs or Crusaders and Archers with a hell of lot of LRMs.
"He's young and, from what I learned about ELH's roster, wants to move out from the shadow of a more accomplished sibling. I can understand that, but it's bad enough that it's the sort of thing that can get him killed, he shouldn't be bringing his men down with him." Kaplan sighed. "But I can't call it unprofessional either, because if someone has the deep belief that they can kill or disable Kerensky - well, he's not the first to try, but it only takes one to succeed. If no one ever tries, then there's no point in fighting a war. Aces are supposed to attract fire as much as they inspire fear."
"Yeah, the Lady in Black's good not just because of her kills but because she keeps surviving shit no one has any real right to," replied Barbara.
-.
-.
Winds and the roar of rocket engines roared through the Union Dropship. "What's that?" Barbara flicked the noise-canceling switch on the console and a part of her went 'nice!' as the cockpit suddenly quieted down; another part of her was still going 'holy shit' about all the little comforts and conveniences available to standard SLDF gear. 'Man those guys way back were super duper spoiled.'
"What?" she asked again.
"I said, it's easier to make hot-drops out of a Leopard DropShip! So there's the reason why people still keep making that cheap piece of shit!" shouted Jack Finsrud. Rather than be given his own command, high command wisely realized he was too much of a wiseass to be trusted with impressionable new lancemates and it was better to maintain him in someone's command lance.
The Leopard DropShip, capable of carrying only four BattleMechs/one Mech lance, was the very picture of the mercenary lifestyle. The broke-ass mercenary lifestyle.
He was right though. A Leopard had four doors for its four BattleMechs in individual cubicles. Its flat if bricklike shape was stable at hovering with downward-facing transit drives. It could skim much closer to the ground.
The Union had four doors for twelve Mechs, and the Mechs each had to walk to the drop. The egg-shaped DropShip wobbled.
Super Urbanmechs were small. Their steps went *clang-click-clang* upon the deck plating as powerful electromagnets set into an Urbanmech's big broad feet clamped to secure their footing. Yet another pointless luxury stripped out in the technological regression of the Successions Wars! Maybe? Barbara was not sure, but conveniences were nothing against the real test of battle.
Against the outsized hole in the hull they were like infantry but actual infants hesitating to jump. Barbara bent the Super Urbanmech's torso down as if bowing, then triggered the Jump Jets. The Super Urbanmech launched off into empty space.
The rest of her command lance soon followed. Artillery Support Lance dropped from the opposite door.
An Aerodyne DropShip like the Leopard could hover and drop Mechs from as low as maybe thirty or even twenty meters off the ground. A Spheroid DropShip like the Union as good if it could go into a landing pattern and just change its mind at around sixty meters.
Fortunately that was well within an Urbanmech's jump range.
The techs said that the Super Urbanmechs were not as efficient as they could be, perhaps deliberately so. The half-ton Supercharger was not all that useful as overuse could damage the engine; it could go into either more native speed upgrading the Fusion Engine or an extra jump jet.
Barbara chose the jump jets.
Fwooosh. Three jump jets burned from the back of her Super Urbanmech, sufficient to propel a her 30-ton mech from a standing start up to 90 meters in the air; or, falling from 90 meters, burn enough to cancel its velocity to zero.
The impact was teeth-rattling, but not all that hard.
Immediately Barbara Mosley turned around and looked up to monitor the landings. While most of her crew were experienced in jump operations, some of them - specially most of the Artillery Lance, were fresh graduates. Artillery Mechs were not expected to fight, so could be a little lacking in gunnery skills - but what they could not do without was the facility to jump.
She watched as one by one her lances dropped in a slow arc. A bad jump was almost always fatal and an immediate loss of a mech. The short distance inside their jump range made it a problem because over-burning meant that they would not only cancel their drop velocity but start to rise and then be forced into an unpowered landing when their jump jets automatically cut off.
The two lances reformed around her. The Union DropShip went off to land and unload where the rest of the Badniks could cut off a path of retreat.
Her tactical map updated with information from a hovering Egg Spy Drone. At night it would be impossible to miss the drive plume of a DropShip and mechs hot-dropping.
Thermal sight showed weapons fire and BattleMech heat signatures, relayed to her secondary display by the sensor drone. Stedman's first two lances were mixing it up with Kerensky's forces while the last light lance was screening for more ambushes. What do you do when ambushed? Doctrine was that the worst thing you could do is to turn around and flee. Turning your backs to the enemy was death and the easiest way to a rout. No, the proper response was to push through aggressively into the ambush forces and shift the initiative!
A bunch of Phonix Hawks and Wasps trying to brawl with Archers and a Marauder over there, while Stedman's command lance tried to push forward even while a trio of mechs - a Crusader, an Archer, and a Stinger launcher an LRM alpha strike from ambush. Trying to outrun LRM locks and deal with Kerensky personally.
One of the heat sources just bloomed from a Fusion Engine being cored by PPC hits. Barbara grit her teeth. She hoped the pilot managed to eject in time.
Relaying the transmission to the drone, she spoke on ELH frequency "Stedman Company, this is Mosley Company, we are here to assist. Evac route sent to your screen at Nav Alpha. ETA to contact four minutes."
Then on an open frequency "Natasha Kerensky! Cease your attack. This is Barbara Mosley, Eridani Light Horse 121st Regiment, 9th Company. We ask for a temporary cease-fire to parley."
Surprisingly there was a response. "Oh? Begging for mercy now, ponies? Parley? What do I look like, some kind of Periphery pirate? I'm not going to fall for that again. Power down your mechs first and you get to walk away. Fight me and die well, I respect you all enough not to take it easy on you."
Barbara grit her teeth. Even with that, dammit, Kerensky has such a sexy voice. It was unfair. Kerensky looked like sex on legs but was death herself in a Battlemech. It was grossly unfair for all other mere mechwarriors like her.
"Oh well, we tried," Barbara sighed. "Light them up."
Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Fwoosh. Three Arrow-IV Cluster missiles streaked off into the distance.
Barbara's command lance went into a full sprint at 97kph.