DaVinci's Devils AU[]
- Chapter 1 – CASE:WHITE, The Seven Sisters, and One Hundred Stars -[]
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Oath of Service for all Branches of the Pleaides’ Équipes de Sécurité Aérospatiales
(Aerospace Security Team aka PESA)
….
The Pleaides’ Star Cluster has served as a guiding path for humanity.
We are the stellar compass that Terra has followed since ancient days.
In modern days we shall not stray from this duty.
It is my Oath and Privilege to live and uphold or without hesitation sacrifice in defense of this Confederation’s sacred values and people.
So, help me God…and Blake.
03/11/3068
Sasseneire Station continued its eternal transit in the Jovian system. A boy looked upon the planet’s majesty through one of the viewports, entranced by its many colored bands dominating the system where Sol was far away. Grown-ups were glued to broadcasts from Ganymede by Emperor Baldric the Sixth about something called CASE: WHITE and its failure. By the time it was done their faces showed clear worry about The Word of Blake.
His mother pulled on his hand, urgent but soft, he looked up at her to see her white uniform with its silver Omega insignia on the fold, “Philip, we must go.”
“Home Mutter?”
“To get our things, then we must leave. It’s not safe here anymore.”
“Where will we go? Venus? Mars?”
“No, we can’t go there we have to leave Sol before they come for us.”
“What would they do?”
She paused, kneeling to his level, “Its not just what they will do to us. It is what they would make us do for them. Just be strong Philip, we’ll find a new home out there somewhere.
Where we will be safe from these heretics.”
07/08/3086
Philip de Luca stood at attention alongside the 81-strong Cadet Company of Vanguard Air Warrior. All fit on a tiny patch of the parade ground of the Braune Security Academy, once filled shoulder to shoulder with prospective pledges. Commandant Albano and the 9-man Vanguard Cadre Equip paced together around the formation wearing PESA’s uniform.
“Six years you have been training hard to earn your Vanguard patch. Less than one hundred out of our one hundred star systems in the Cluster have made it to this point. The Vanguard Brigade are Masters of Battlemech and Aerospace combat utilizing the most complex pieces of equipment in our security forces.
This week I expect you will exceed our expectations in your final examination. The Cadre Equipe will distribute orders when everything becomes available for your test. Until then keep ready, you will not know the time when you might be called upon.
You are dismissed.”
Philip saluted the Commandant and walked back to the Barracks alongside Marina, a fellow Jovian refugee in a class filled with them. “Six years passed in the blink of an eye. Now it’s almost done.”
“Oui, to think we could have just stopped at only Air or Land.
Strange for a people from Space.”
“And yet here we are, on the ground, in a different section of space.”
He chuckled as they separated toward the mess hall. More young cadets marched toward the parade ground for morning inspection. “Indeed, I suppose we are.”
07/14/3086
Electra loomed beneath Philip aboard Braune Academy’s orbiting Leopard dropship. Red lights blinked in the bay as his sharply angled Vanguard fighter form waited for the release signal. “Greenlight Bravo-Three, follow the pre-brief.”
Thrusters fired behind him and his stomach dropped within. The fighter jumped out of the dropship before diving to atmosphere. His Electra Scorekeeper found the target, a satellite moving erratically through orbital rings. Two laser flashes burnt armor already blackened by previous cadets before passing it at high velocity.
The next target was a drone shuttle flying near the interface it’s peculiar manta shape made it an easy target despite attempted evasion that required expending more of the Land-Air Mech’s precious internal fuel. Another pair of laser flares slashed across its’ armor generating plumes of vaporized metal. In space the Vanguard held close to itself becoming little more than a tiny dart minimizing its radar and thermal profile while its gyro and wings could execute thrustless motion by shifting their positions.
He hit the interface and immediately felt the rumbling as thermal management turbopumps pulled heat from the leading edge to be expelled along the back ribs built into the variable geometry wings. Heat of reentry turned the atmosphere to plasma temporarily blinding his sensors and generating a large sonic boom. Once reentry was completed the armored canopy pulled back and myomer enhanced actuators expanded the wings as if one could their shoulder blades. In atmosphere the thrusters’ changed pitch and tone as they superheated air to provide thrust rather than expend reaction mass. His avionics computer spoke through the neurohelmet and his console displays changed from their former form. Everything in a LAM was mutable. <{“Now operating in Aerodynamic flight.”}>
Beneath him was the Braune Badlands, a landscape ravaged by glaciers and centuries of mining since the planet’s habitation. Toxic lakes, steep defiles, and no tree cover lay below It was an ideal training ground for Land-Air Mech.
Lasers were powered down ‘marker mode’ as RADAR found his next target, CASSOWARY’s Bullfrog Jump Jet. Cass had been in the same class as she but never made it past Jet training. Instead, she joined the Territorial Defense Force on Electra and volunteered to serve as OPFOR.
Philip tried to get a bead on her, but his LAM was no more capable than a conventional fighter in atmosphere. If Cass could have made it the MechWarrior phase of Vanguard training she would have been a contender. She didn’t have to worry about fuel but there were few more pressing concerns for a LAM in Aerofighter mode.
He was a Belter though, his father a former Fighter Pilot in the Jovian Defense Force and while he flew a desk on Maia now the man had taught him much about flying before he was in the program. Cassowary had a bead on him and fired her missiles, he evaded then executed a Cobra maneuver to let her pass below then fired his lasers.
Flares erupted from Cass’ fighter signaling a solid hit, Philip looked at the fuel gauge, just enough to make it to orbit again without taking a refueling penalty.
“A good effort, Cass.”
She passed by him tipping her wings to him, “Next time I’ll be the one looking at your tail, Phil. Time to get ready for the others.”
Keeping an eye on altitude he looked over to the transformation lever, <{“AirMech mode.”}>
Sudden deceleration threw him back in the seat as the LAM’s legs lowered beneath it, wings extended fully, the LAM’s arms extended outward from their position near the fuselage. The console changed once more showing his mech’s current confirmation and relevant details. <{““AirMech mode active. Wing in Ground flight.””}>
Even at relatively low altitudes the AirMechs sensation of glide falling was a strange one, closer to autorotation in a helicopter than actual flight. Air rushed beneath the wings providing a soft landing near his target zone.
The AirMech picked up the handheld Thunderbolt launcher, in its hands the weapon looked like the Gyrojets that some Drop Troopers used but it was substantially more dangerous. A timer appeared on his HUD just in his peripheral vision, “Bravo Three you are on the clock, engage all targets.”
“Roger command. Bravo-Three boosting now. Engaging all targets.”
The Vanguard lifted ever so slightly off the air on its jump jets, capable of moving faster than most ground vehicles. A LAM in AirMech mode was incredibly difficult to control requiring a rare combination of instinct, awareness, and response time to avoid collisions or crashes at high speeds.
A race car on ice piloted by an ice dancer.
That timer clicked up as target markets appeared on his neurohelmet’s visor. At high speed Philip shifted his whole LAM into every shot firing the missiles and immediately moving to put himself on the right line to engage his next target without upsetting trim beyond which his avionics and gyro could negate.
Every motion was controlled in perfect harmony only upset by the occasional machine gun turret trailer that lay on the easiest path that required higher altitude or a riskier approach. Flares and smoke erupted from small grenade launchers attempting to spoil his shot, but each missile landed roughly where it was aimed.
Out of Ammo the Thunderbolt launcher was dropped at the next designated arming zone. <{“Battlemech mode engaged.”}> Once more the console switched over to show relevant details concerning the LAM’s current configuration. This time the weapon was Magshots and he stalked through the confining arena against a series of drone tanks while avoiding return fire from their longer ranged cannons that could lock him into this form. He engaged them with high velocity armor piercing darts until they stopped moving.
Finally, he dropped the Magshot at the last arming area. Commandant Albano waited for him piloting a Phoenix Hawk LAM left over from the SLDF. “Good work, Cadet, one last test, get back home. Consider that a standing order after all missions.”
“Aye, Aye Sir.”
The Vanguard Battlemech leapt into the sky transforming first into an AirMech then Aerospace Fighter gradually gaining altitude until he could see Electra’s curve in the high atmosphere. Then it faded replaced by the black of space and the white Leopard dropship Braune. Tech crew in space suits started refueling the Vanguard before it even cooled down or Philip even made it to debriefing lounge where this Section waited for their turn or the return of their companions.
Captain Falk walked in an hour later awarding patches to twenty of twenty-seven that passed today’s examination. “Don’t despair, you will get another opportunity next year. Until then you’ll be given a temporary assignment where you can work on your shortcomings.
As for you that passed. Welcome to the Vanguard.”
Historical – Stone’s Long Shadow, The Republic’s Early Years[]
Exarch Devlin Stone came out of obscurity rising to a high station through a rare combination of charisma, competence, and sheer ruthlessness. OPERATION:SCOUR lived up to its name rooting out the Word of Blake Militia and Shadow Divisions with maximum force from Stone’s Coalition. The unknown was championed by Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion, Coordinator Hohiro Kurita, Princess-Regent Yvonne Steiner-Davion, Archon Adam Steiner, and other political and military leaders as something of a compromise candidate among them and whose extreme or brutal 'methods' of dealing with the Word of Blake and its allies would not transfer to more respectable leadership.
With the death of Thomas Marik, The Word of Blake’s False Prophet, on Circinus in 3081 the newly formed Republic of the Sphere assumed control of the former Word of Blake Protectorate along with other worlds, often by force. All the Successor Lords except Chancellor Sun-Tzu Liao allowed the Republic to occupy some of their worlds near Terra by treaty to create a buffer state and because Stone burned or savaged them in his long march to Terra so they were much reduced in value.
It was not until 3085 that the Chancellor acknowledged Terra’s dominion and recognized the Republic’s existence with the Tikonov Treaty of 3085 which was signed only at the urging of his wife Magestrix Naomi Centrella. After four years of fierce fighting between the CCAF and the Republic’s Armed Forces formally ceding control of the strategic world of Tikonov which the CCAF had attempted to retake for almost half a century and the loss of many others was costly for the Chancellor. He faced multiple internal challenges to his power that were handled by the Maskirovka and forced a fundamental shakeup in the Sheng nobility. The fact that the Capella Transitional Authority was led by his cousin's son David Allard-Liao and sister Melissa as a shadow government to incorporate conquered Capellan worlds fed into Sian’s resistance to the Republic’s assimilation of the former Chaos March and dozens of other worlds.
More impactful than its formation were its first steps. Exarch Devlin Stone issued many sweeping edicts as the undisputed executor of his Coalition’s will. The first decree was the most controversial, the Resettlement Act of 3082 forcibly resettled occupied populations within Republic space. Ostensibly this was to foster unity and reduce the animosity of the Successor State populations toward one another. It was immediately met with hostility by those same populations and even in their new homes years later there continue to be riots opposing the measure and ethnic strife between populations.
To combat this ethnic strife additional measures were imposed, the Military Material Redemption Program seized or strongly encouraged the surrender of all military grade equipment in private hands. Some of these were melted down, others were put in reserve or museums, and the rest were incorporated into the RAF under the control of Exarch Stone’s Paladins.
This program was an outgrowth of the Citizenship Priority Act of 3083 which functionally turned the Republic’s population into something akin to the Capellan Confederations’ servitors. Surrendering military hardware to the government was a fast track to citizenship making Stone’s initial Coalition an esteemed elite within the Early Republic with immediate vesting as citizens and rewards of prime land or other assets seized from The Word of Blake.
Those that didn’t submit themselves to at least five years of government service (or were in possession of wealth or other valuable assets) found themselves second class citizens unable to hold public office, own major real estate or corporate assets, or vote in what were widely considered sham elections for the Republic Senate in 3084. Those first Senators were almost entirely the former nobility of conquered worlds who had turned their private arsenals over to the RAF while retaining political and military power. This further disenfranchised a population already in turmoil at forced relocations and rationing as well as the heavy hand of the RAF enforcing absolute order over its domain and still rooting out Blakist sympathizers without due process.
None were more disenfranchised than former COMSTAR personnel within the Inner Sphere. Primus Gavin Dow was unabashedly corporate COMSTAR and during the Jihad was under extreme external pressure from returned Precentor Martial Victor Steiner-Davion to crack down on the mystical aspects of COMSTAR. This made him extremely unpopular among longtime members of the order who saw him as an external plant to end their religion. The only thing that prevented a revolt and overthrown of the Primus was the fact that any opposition to the Primus made one equivalent to a Blakist, even if they did not hold the apostatic and radical views of The Master, and thus an enemy of Stone's Coalition that would be dealt with immediately, permanently, and without remorse.
When Devlin Stone assumed the title of Exarch of Sol Primus Dow was immediately ordered to finish the job that Victor started. Gavin’s marching orders were simple; purge COMSTAR of its religious underpinnings, strip it of extraterritorial privileges, and divest of anything unrelated to core function as a communications and transport corporation. This corporation would also have to pay taxes for the first time in its history with a fraction of all fees and earnings split between the Republic and originating Great House.
Suddenly stripped of their extraterritorial status COMSTAR personnel had to sign on for at least five years to acquire Republic citizenship and serve as an employee of COMSTAR or apply for citizenship within the Successor State of their enclave. Recruiting as it often did of the castoffs of the Great Houses many COMSTAR personnel were fugitives from the law, abandoned as infants, or disgraced nobles not welcome within the Successor States. At the same time a sizable minority of COMSTAR’s many millions of members scattered across nearly two thousand worlds did not want to lose the mystical trappings that had become core to their identity and become just another subject of some Successor Lord.
So, they sued and sent petitions to Primus Dow and Exarch Stone on Terra imploring them to retain COMSTAR’s core identity as a separate spiritual entity. The first act of Stone’s new Senate in 3085 however shut down any attempt to reverse these decisions.
The divestment of COMSTAR was absolute and the Republic government assumed control of its many diverse organs including all its important financial institutions while demobilizing any COMGuards that hadn't already joined the RAF. Allegedly under duress Primus Dow signed over the Order’s substantial investments and centuries of accumulated value in a myriad of interstellar corporations to the Republican Treasury. These investments were then sold off to the Great Houses to gather funds which the Republic Disaster Management Agency used to provide much needed liquidity to hasten the Republic's economic recovery after the Jihad, pay out the lump sums for the MMRP, and for use by the RAF to finance the war against the Capellans. The sheer value of these funds was so significant that it caused a significant drop in liquidity across the Inner Sphere as the Great Houses leveraged themselves to the hilt in order to reassert control of major corporate interests that had been sold to COMSTAR during the nadir of the Succession Wars in exchange for critical technology only the Order possessed.
Without good options COMSTAR personnel decamped in mass emigrating to the four Belter Confederations (within the Pleaides, Trznadel, Brocchi, and Ender Star Clusters) or independent worlds (like Randis or Herotitus) remaining free of House control. These places long struggled with small populations so initially welcomed the arrival of a skilled and motivated population of refugees. Problems arose however as a large influx of newcomers threatened political and cultural stability with any or all economic gains lost to security or military spending now that these independent worlds could not longer rely on COMSTAR's Aegis to protect them now that the COMGuards and MRB/MRBC had been shut down or incorporated into the RAF.
This turmoil was not only within the destination of these COMSTAR personnel but in their origin. Many COMSTAR personnel had never been paid in their lives as they were never in it for the money. Now that they were in it for the money corporate interests poached highly skilled individuals that were now on the market removing key members that helped the enterprise function particularly in the transportation sector. Thus whatever COMSTAR personnel were paid had to be raised in response to prevent a complete collapse of their various revenue streams and recruitment had to work even harder to acquire individuals to replace them. They were also no longer allowed to use methods that were enabled by their former extraterritorial status to raise new recruits such as operating maternity hospitals and directly adopting orphans or abandoned infants into the order. This plus the sudden need to pay taxes to the Great Houses spiked transmission and shipping rates causing the C-Bill to fluctuate widely in value week by week. This tsunami of economic uncertainty along with the highly leveraged positions of the Great Houses are only beginning to have massive implications in the Inner Sphere's greater economy that is still recovering from Jihad-era damages.