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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!)
Chapter 9 - Diagnosis of distortion[]
"Well...
…something was here." you could see what was left of the original colony city from orbit, including where the current residents were scavenging materials for the hovel-like villages in what used to be suburbs, and where it was clearly intended by urban planners to have green-spaces and parks??
Fields.
"Turn up the gain. Are they using-?"
Amanda didn't have to look long, "Oxen to pull the plows, looks like baseline Bovine class A." she said, "Terran Hegemony developed Aurochs derivatives based on water buffalo and Highland Cattle."
"Desmond?"
"Nope, My brain decided to re-connect some of my childhood." she said, "The Findlays, Huangs, and MacAmmonds raise similar animals on the south end of the Valley back home. The strain was sold to colony groups by the Terrans sometime before the age of War really kicked off. Good milkers, good meat, strong, high-torque pullers and docile as a drugged out infant. Meant for first-stage or low-tech colonists on people-friendly worlds."
"So, we know the place still has inhabitants…"
"They let the city collapse, but the spaceport's in pretty decent shape, looks like the ferrocrete's had maintenance."
"No defense squadron and they have a well-maintained spaceport, but the city next to it is in ruins…I think we can safely say the Bandits are a regular occurrence." Larry mused.
Amanda looked pained, "Larry, you want to take this one?"
"Not particularly." he said, "if you don't mind, Captain."
She sighed, "Mister Seron, missions yours. Land, make contact, get Intel and come back-take a full team and a support vehicle with you, full protection."
"Full protection?"
"Just do it. Lori, fire up the on-board HPG and call it in. Send them the imagery we're getting and check to see if we have mail."
"Aye, Ma'am."
"You're sending the Marines in without going yourself. This is a first."
Amanda nodded. "Yeah…Desmond doesn't get to come out and play unless Mister Seron runs into something. I want the first landing force to be impressive, or at least, make an impression, battlesuits and fifty tons of Protomechs should do that-at least, enough maybe we'll get some brave soul to tell us who's been extorting them and whose boot's on their necks."
"Why that?"
"Place is too nice to be this far knocked down, and it wasn't three hundred years ago." Amanda stated, gesturing at the ruins of the city. "We can see the aqueducts from here, count the potties that's supposed to service-there used to be a hell of a lot more people than are here, but no big radioactive craters..so, why are they dirt-farming?"
Seron never expected to USE his skills as an Elemental Warrior after his age transferred him to the Clan Watch. The new suits weren't Elemental armor, but they were in good shape, and well armed for what they were.
"Everyone check your fellows." he ordered. The Protomech point was already loading into their Mark-VIII shuttle, A modified Mark VII with locking clamps for ProtoMechs instead of regular cargo. The Warriors in those Protomechs were almost aged out of service thanks to the negative effects of EI implants.
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Mark VII Landing Craft
Negative effects that have been largely corrected for the next generation, negative effects these warriors have already learned to cope with (and gotten experimental treatments for, which is WHY the Clan had found ways to correct for EI sickness.)
"Tessa?"
"All are in readiness, OvKhan." Point Commander Tessa wouldn't be able to stay in active duty without this, and like Captain Roberts. The woman was about half crazed only this was due to the side-effects of her pattern of implanted interface hardware and an eidetic memory that recalled the horrors of the Reaving times she'd grown up in.
"This mission is a civil affairs mission," he began, "because of course it is. We are here to make a positive impression, and gather intelligence. As well as preparing these people for the follow-up contact teams that will bring them and their world into the Alliance. For the younger warriors and Marines, this is practicing and laying groundwork for Kappa Galaxy to place a garrison here."
"Why here?"
"Because it is habitable, and has people on it-and because that is the mission which is to deny enemy forces havens and support. The Captain suspects these people have been used as a sort of 'larder' for the Bandits. We are, among other tasks, to verify this, and to verify the lack of defenses seen from orbit, let me be perfectly clear for all of you. We may be Privateers under Letter of Marque, this may be a sort of purgatory, but out here, we are the Raven Alliance. Our conduct reflects on both Nation, and Clan, and making a poor impression here? Does not speak well to the character of anyone on this deck at this moment." He tapped his Pauldron, "BEST behaviors. Load up."