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"This is what happens when I watch old war movies..."
--Note from Author
Story By JA Baker[]
| Hold Until Relieved | |
| Facts | |
| Author | JA Baker |
| Series Name | Tall Tales |
| Alternate Universe Name | |
| Year Written | October 8th, 2020 |
| Story Era | Early Republic (Dark Age) Era |
We were on mopping up duty at the tail end of the Jihad, running Blakist stragglers to ground. Terra had been liberated, but there was still a concern that some of the senior commanders might try and sneak away during the confusion. We'd be right back where we started at some point in the future. They'd already shown just how far they were willing to go, and nobody wanted any remaining cells to get their hands on any weapons caches that might have been missed. Hence why they dug up some old maps and start digging around systems that may have been deliberately kept off the maps that ComStar had been so kind to provide during their long period of ****** over the rest of the Inner Sphere to further their own agenda. LV-4047 was one such world: it had been surveyed back in the early 2200's, shortly before the start of what would become known as the Outer Reaches Rebellion, and had supposedly never been revisited.
We'd visited a dozen such systems and found little more than a few old Pathfinder beacons, but we treated every one like we were jumping into hell itself.
So, you can imagine our surprise when we almost jumped on top of the remains of a derelict ship floating at the nadir jump-point. After making sure that it wasn't pointing weapons at us, and identifying it as the remains of a Potemkin class transport that looked to have suffered a drive failure. We sent a shuttle over to try and recover the flight recorder. They managed to identify it as the SLS Light Brigade, and a check of the records provided by our Snow Raven friends indicated that it had been listed as missing, presumed lost with all hands in 2765 at the height of the Star League Civil War. That didn't mean shit, as more than a few ships supposedly lost during that conflict had turned up again during the Jihad, so we were hands off cocks and on with socks as we moved in system towards the only habitable planet.
Well, we soon picked up faint, highly encrypted communications from the planet. There were signs of a few primitive satellites in orbit, mostly clustered around a ramshackle space station that looked to have been formed around a pair of Confederate class DropShips, linked nose-to-nose by way of their docking collars. Years of experience and the best technology the coalition had access to allowed us to keep out of sight while we scanned the planet from orbit.
To say we were confused by what we saw would be the mother and father of all understatements.
DropShips, around twenty of them, all different types, sat clustered around the shore of a large lake with two of them actually semi-submerged in the water. It was clear. Even from orbit, that none of them had flown for a very, very long time. Given how several of them had openings in their hulls with cables and raised walkways connecting them. And not just with each other, but with a number of stone and wood buildings of various sizes. More buildings lay scattered around, connected by a crude network of roads, but it was clear, once night fell, that only those closest to the grounded DropShips had electricity. It didn't take long to work out that the two ships actually in the lake were using the water to synthesize reactant mass, then acting as crude but effective power stations for what could only be called the settlement.
More roads, little more than tracks formed from compacted earth, led off in several directions, leading to a number of farms that seemed to be cultivating local plants and animals, the further out to what looked to be an ongoing logging operation and even a primitive mine. A few of thee even seemed to have their own small-scale power sources, sensors indicating active fusion reactors, which seemed oddly out of place with the far more rustic aesthetic on display.
Everywhere, and I do mean everywhere, there was a Cameron Star. Painted on the side of the DropShips, hanging from flagpoles and even arranged on the ground in massive stone glyphs visible from low orbit. Someone really wanted any new arrivals to know who they claimed allegiance to.
Well, sitting in orbit could only tell us so much. So the order was given for recon teams to be sent down by shuttle, and I found myself assigned to one. We landed a night's march from the main settlement, setting up shop amid a rocky outcrop atop a low hill. It was cold and damp, but at least we were out of the wind for the most part. We were all experienced, veterans of a dozen campaigns before and during the Jihad, so we set to work without orders needing to be given, digging in and setting up a hide under cover of night. I was assigned first watch, so I got to observe the town I guess you'd call it, coming to life.
The general population were dressed in basic clothes, but there seemed to be a variety of styles on display, some almost painful to look at. Everyone seemed to have some kind of job, but moved abut freely, welcoming friends and family alike. There was a distinct lack of motorized transport, with only a few ancient looking but seemingly well maintained ground vehicles in evidence. What little mass transit I could see seemed to be limited to coaches drawn by some kind of domesticated native species that filled the same niche as a Terran horse, all be it larger and with six legs, not four.
What surprised me most was the number of armed troops that seemed to be about. Dressed in crude replicas of SLDF field uniforms, but armed with what looked like Mauser 960 rifles, all be it with the integrated grenade launcher removed. From what I could tell, the settlement seemed to have a sizeable Militia or standing security force. However, nothing we had seen indicated that there was another, hostile power on the planet or that there was so aggressive native species that required such extensive precautions to face.
The next night, two of us attempted to get a closer look at the outlying buildings, but we soon encountered crude but effective alarms that kept us at a distance. We did, however, manage to place a number of surveillance probes, before pulling back without being discovered. Listening in on the locals, we soon discovered that they use a very formal version of Star League Standard English. Not full-on Clanner talk, but certainly far more precise than most people used, almost as if they'd learned it from old recordings. This got us thinking that maybe we'd stumbled upon some kind of Cargo Cult world.
Oh, sure, they exist all right: planet gets cut off for a few centuries, tech level drops through the floor and places like Terra become mythical. Then someone fails to make an emergency landing, and suddenly they discover a cornucopia of goods and equipment the likes of which they've only heard about in stories passed down generation to generation. Next thing you know, they're painting crude replicas of any markings they can find on rocks and trees, hoping that the Sky Gods will deliver another bounty. Hell, back at the start of my career, we were hunting for the remains of a pirate band that had made the mistake of targeting an outpost that had been under the protection of a mercenary company led by a woman who only went by the name of Joker, and got wrecked for their troubles. We tracked them down to some long forgotten SLDF base, on some equally long forgotten world, were they had the locals convinced that their one functioning 'Mech, a Panther, was actually a god, with the ability to cast lightning about.
I took great pleasure in seeing said 'god' killed by a Gauss slug through its head.
None of this meant that there weren't any Blakists hiding on the planet. They're tricky bastards, more than one unit was decimated during the Jihad due to a hidden agent slipping behind the lines and doing untold damage before being put down. Assuming, of course, that they didn't manage to slip away in the confusion. This left us with two options: we could try and infiltrate the settlement by stealth and do some investigating, or we could land such overwhelming force that they had no choice but to surrender.
Decisions went quite literally all of up to Colonel Fraser in orbit, who decided to go with Option 2, and we got to watch the locals reaction to seeing the advance fighter wing passing overhead. Where as some people might have scattered in fear and confusion. The locals reacted with practiced ease, with the majority of people making their way to obviously prepared bunkers, while the rest assembled in orderly lines outside several of the DropShips. They'd march in one door civilians, then come out the other uniformed troops, complete with a scattering of support weapons. Then we were surprised when another DropShip, a battle scared Lion, opened up and a lance of factory fresh looking Beagle scout tanks emerged, followed closely by a line of eight Gabriel reconnaissance vehicles. Then a second Lion opened up and a companies worth of Hover APC's emerged. Their engines belching smoke, but moving smoothly to the mustering ground where the gathered Militia quickly started boarding. Other troops took up defensive positions around town, setting up their heavier weapons in obviously preselected and prepared positions to provide maximum fields of fire, while also allowing for mutual support. Companies broke down into individual platoons and even fire teams, everyone taking their assigned post with an almost professional calm.
Hell, I've seen line units that weren't nearly as smooth!
Well, didn't take us long to realize that they were performing a textbook example of an SLDF deployment, and this got reported back up the line. So a decision was made to hold off on rolling an entire Battalion of 'Mech's right into the middle of town, and instead they formed upon the next ridge over from ours in parade formation, and sent out a standard ID challenge over an open frequency. We were lucky enough to be within range of the responses.
"This is acting Lieutenant General Constance DeWalt of the 6th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, Star League Defense Force." a commanding voice crackled out over the radio, "Our ancestors were stranded on this planet when their transport suffered a catastrophic miss-jump. They ordered their descendants to hold this planet in the name of House Cameron and the Star League until relived."
"This is Major John Howard, Coalition Forces... I guess we're the closest things to the SLDF you're likely to find." the XO responded moving his Cyclops forward half a step forward, "General DeWalt, I relive you. Welcome back to the galaxy."
The End