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Chapter 14 - Time Enough For A Cat -
- Pizza Time -[]
Perfect Time to Laugh[]
Waking up in my bed, I tried not to panic. I had kids now. Just saying it to myself in my own mind was a terrifying thought, the sort of thing that rolled around the head and threatened to overwhelm. I had kids now. Children who'd never seen their dad, and had only grown up under their mother and grandmother- and my mother herself was an evil bitch, so that was a really ill omen to have to deal with.
I couldn't visit- not when they were half the Inner Sphere away. If I did, I'd be at Kyalla's mercies for interacting with them- and while I knew she liked me, I wasn't comfortable with the thought of her using them to control me. What a thought to think of your own flesh and blood, though! Duty raged with freedom in me, and I had to bite my lip to ignore it as the heat flushed through my veins. Damned if I stayed, damned if I went. Still, I could write letters, send them home, and hope like hell Kyalla didn't sabotage them. That was my best option to keep from being the 'parent who left inexplicably' and then had their children hunt them down in a misguided quest for revenge. Normally, I wouldn't apply wuxia tropes to my life like this, but damnit, this was textbook wuxia bullshit.
Hearing the door open- the ensuite door to be specific- I opened my eyes and tried to focus. It was Anne, thankfully, and she crawled into bed with me before coming to snuggle up around me.
"Well," she said, half-whispered. "Looks like I'm actually pregnant. Good work, Tam."
Ah. That was good to know. Now I had three children I had to take care of, and only 2/3 were outside the radius of "where I can interact with them" so that was good. Taking a minute to roll over and throw my leg over Anne's, I pulled her in close, before getting slowly engulfed in her. Most people didn't notice since it was only a few centimeters, but she was the bigger of us- and now she put that entirely to work, making sure I was wrapped up safe and tight.
"I don't blame you," she said, taking the time to stroke my hair. "Kyalla tricked both of us."
I know, Anne, but that doesn't make it feel any better!
"So, relax. Write them letters, we can spare the money to get the HPG station to send it. When we get back to Canopus again, we'll talk to Kyalla and get the rest back, and for now you can work on taking care of yourself until I get my half the work done," she said, putting my hand on her belly. "Then you can focus on what you need to do here, instead of panicking about what you need to do elsewhere."
I chuckled for a moment, just enjoying the feel of my wife around me. It was warm, it was soothing, it was absolutely terrifying to think I'd probably be bringing my kid on campaign with me, and then the thought struck me: we'd probably need to build a nursery, because I highly doubted I was the only one bringing a significant other with pregnancy and child concerns. I had to build this on a DropShip.
Oh hell. Suddenly, I was really, really glad for having the Argo.
Breaking the moment of compilation, Anne poked me in the nose.
"Hey, Tam?"
I looked up at her, blinking. Since I didn't feel like talking, I wouldn't- Anne knew I got like that, so she wouldn't mind.
"You think I'm gonna need to get a new cooling suit after my boobs get bigger from this?"
I might not have felt like talking- but laughing? Oh, laughing was perfectly fine.
A Very Big Christmas Gift[]
NAIS Mech Bays
New Avalon, Federated Suns
December 25th, 3025
Christmas Day
"Okay, Mersies," I said, sighing. "I love you dearly, but having me hold hands with you while blindfolded is cute when it's ten feet. When it's a whole mile, I think I get to complain a little."
"You still love me, though." Mersies smirked.
"Yes, but when you're telling me you want to show the Biggest Christmas Present possible, I'm going to be a bit piqued about it when we both know its a mech and you still make me wear a blindfold on top of the piloting rig."
"Technically, the Christmas present isn't the mech, it's what we did to the mech," Mersies sighed, before kissing me. "The mech was Kamea's wedding gift since she had, ah, an Excess of Good Metal and wanted to apologize about the thing on Artru."
"Can I just see the thing already?!" I snapped.
"Fine, we're here."
Giving me one last kiss, Mersies pulled the blindfold off, and I gulped. That… that was a mech alright!
"Holy shit," I muttered. "That's a Cyclops."
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Cyclops Assault Command 'Mech
"Yep. There were two in the cache: a ten-zeta and a ten-headquarters. We got the Zeta. I already worked with Yang to get it suitably customized, also known as having real armor and firepower."
"So," I muttered. "Give me the ten-cent tour."
"Right, first things first: fourteen and one half tons of extra-extra heavy ferro-fibrous plating. In terms of 'you dying', I said no. Had to pull the gyro to do it, but frankly you and I don't need those anymore."
Walking around the mech, Mersies busted out a little laser pointer to show off certain bits. "Four medium lasers in the arms in case of Bugmechs, and we bolted Artemis IV to the ten-pack of LRMs to make up for the small salvo size. The big ticket item, though, is where there should be a class-twenty autocannon. We have Gauss Rifles. I made the call we were gonna use 'em- this bad boy has two tons ammo and a CASE covering it so even if you lose the gun we don't lose the mech."
"Standard movement?"
"Yeah, pretty much. She's a bit faster on the walk and slower in the sprint since the myomers got froze to shit in storage, but it'll wear in after a hundred hours or so. No jump though, flyboy- we can work on that once we develop an extralight engine in size fucking huge for this thing."
"Ninety-tonners are in an awkward spot," I just said, shrugging. "There's the illusion you can get up to sixty like you can in an eighty or eighty-five tonner, but the engine gets so damn big you can't fit anything else in. Or you go for fifty, and then bada bing bada boom, same engine you've got for forty-five tonners."
"We considered taking it down to fifty, but then we wouldn't be able to fit in the wings and the Gauss Rifle unless we arm-mounted the Gauss and that's, ah, tricky."
"Yeah, I can see that," I muttered. "Well, I guess there's only one thing to do- take it for a spin!"
"We can't use a weapons range today, but I did get permission to put her through the paces on one of the walking areas."
I smirked. "Then let's saddle up!"
Getting situated in the Cyclops was, contrary to what some people might think, not actually fast. First we had to get to the cockpit, then we had to find the cockpit hatch (across the front upper glacis, adjust a set of headlights out of the way on a pre-notched pivot to get under the cowl, then open the door into the cockpit and forward past the computer banks about a meter and a half to get to the main piloting chair and permanent jumpseat where the B2000 operator went if I wanted one) and then I had to call up the bay techs and get my ride hooked up to auxiliary power. While I was pretty sure Yang had replaced all the starter cartridges et all on the APU and everything, I didn't want to burn one for what was basically a kiddy hour walkabout.
Once aux power was in, though, preflight checklist time.
"Col. Nyan, start BattleRom recording. Time, 1632 local, December 25th, 3025. Thanks for the wedding and Christmas gift, everyone."
Perched in the jumpseat behind me, Mersies cooed.
"Love you too, Honey. Primary starter, armed. Secondary starter, armed. Myomer heaters are on, no gyro to arm- God, that's gonna take some getting used to-" I said, hand automatically going to the GYRO ARM switches and finding them pulled from the console. "-reactor in priming cycle from offboard power. APU armed."
"You know you don't have to be so formal, Nyan," Mersies joked. "It's only ever gonna be you and me here."
"Unless I crash somehow."
"You're not gonna crash."
"Darling, this is the first mech with arms I've driven in about ten years. I make no promises."
"Spoilsport."
I laughed. "Yep. Reactor reading as warmed, starter plug hot, initializing reactor."
Below my feet by a dozen feet or so, the 360 SFE started spinning, before slamming online into a burst of fire and life that brought the mech to a powerful thrum. I just smiled.
"Reactor is online!"
For a second, I just sat there, waiting. Finally, Mersies got up and wrapped her arms around me. "Want to jack in, now?"
"Kinda, yeah," I admitted softly. "It's just- well-"
"New 'mech jitters?"
"Yeah. That and what happened to Tybalt."
"We knew that there needed to be an airgap window, we knew it would be risky, and let's face it- we knew we'd have to off him later anyway."
"Then- if you don't mind- could you jack me in?"
Mersies smiled lightly, and rubbed my helmet. "Sure."
Clearing my mind, I felt the datacable slowly plug into my skull. In, twist, set, lock. Easy as.
"Initializing-" I said, and then the world went white. Everything was void- a sensation of sensationlessness. The world was empty and pure in the emptiness, so I just closed my eyes and breathed. Slowly, I felt my soul settle into my new body. Two, then four, then six and eight and ten and twelve eyes opened. This wasn't a mono-eye'd mech now, but rather a Panocepticon: from every degree and every angle could I see! Each hand had binocular vision, and the cockpit's own 'eye' was secretly four- two optics, a thermal, and a radar rangefinder separate of the laser systems, painting yet another layer of depth over the world. The last four eyes were of my flanks and back: the full-surround of the world.
My ears were next- hearing the thrum of the engine and the low, rhythmic almost-static noise of the myomers and the whine of the electronics. Each sound connected to a system, each system connected to the mech, and the mech connected to me. Shifting my balance slightly, the mech shifted with me, and I took a first slow, stuttering step. Then another, and a third. I was alive!
Scent wasn't normally something that people thought about with mechs, but it was possibly the most important of them all. Every drop of oil, every whisper of lubricant, every pulse of hydraulics and bubble of coolant: I smelled it. Not with my nose, but with the ten million sensors scattered through the lines of my mech. Everything had to be tracked, every chemical trace sorted, and all the information needed to flow through me. Warming the knees up with a high-step, I kept moving happily.
Finally, I came to the center of the field. I expected some trouble- moving from a digitgrade to a plantigrade leg design was going to be a thing I'd have to get used to, and now that I had, gasp, arms, that'd need to go on the 'develop abilities' list too. For now, though, I was in the middle of the field, sighing happily.
"So," a voice from inside the cockpit came, and I pulled my focus inward, twisting a little to almost invert myself back into the meat. "How's it going, Nyan?"
"There's no way to describe how much I missed this," I muttered, turning around to hug Mersies. Unfortunately, the rust was pretty thick on me- as I turned, the mech's torso did too, so I tried to flex my mech's knee to account for this. Unfortunately, my mech's knee bent forward, not backwards, and most of my weight was straight above the legs instead of fore-slung. I couldn't correct my ballance, and the mech started to go over. For all it'd been a decade since I actually drove a full-actuator mech, though, I still remembered what to do: arms in, hips twisting to take the hit on my back. The fall wasn't pretty, but I'd kept the guts of the mech safe and my piloting seat took the hit. Mersies was slightly less lucky in her abbreviated jumpseat, but good discipline of wearing chicken plate and helmets saved her any grief.
Since she wasn't swearing at me, I figured she was fine. Pulling my thoughts back from the mech a little, I carefully unbuckled myself and climbed out of the hot seat. Wrapping Mersies in a hug, I grinned. "Sorry about that."
"This is payback for when I accidentally knocked you over on parade that one time isn't it."
"No," I replied, shaking my head lightly. "That's the- well- hmm. I think I got you back for that?"
Unfortunately, a voice cut us short. <<"Tower to Cyclops, come in Cyclops.">>
"Cyclops, callsign Nyan, reading you Tower."
<<"You've been on the ground for a while, do you need recovery?">>
"Negative, tower, just checking some cockpit things. Beginning recovery now."
<<"Afirm, Nyan. You've got another two hours out here.">>
"Roger that. Nyan out."
If I had two hours left, I better use them!
Planning for the Revenge Campaign[]
Offices of the First Prince
New Avalon, Federated Suns
June 12th, 3026
Looking over at Mersies, I fingered the slot on my belt where my dress dirk would sit. We'd been called in, by name, rather explicitly, about a week after Emma had done some business deals with Panpour looking for scratch CF assets. As we entered the offices, though, Emma met us in her full press clothes- a Harvest Blades class A, and was running a hand through her hair nervously.
"So, I've got a few minutes," she said, looking us over and taking a minute to correct my collar, "and Hanse is cooking up a storm. We're in the preliminary stages of the war planning, and since he knows we know he's getting up to shit, the middleman has been cut out entirely. While we're not directly coordinating war efforts, we do need to assemble lines of demarcation."
"To make sure we don't cross the leads with him, got it," I said. "What's the Canopian stance on the matter?"
"Fuck if I know Hanse, probably started his war planning before we started our war planning, assuming the MAF has done any war planning at this point at all."
"So in short, we're the ones doing all the Canopian War Planning, got it," I grumbled.
"Probably!"
"Fucking christ," Mersies muttered. "I hate it when we're the competent ones."
"Oh, you'll hate this even more then," Emma added. "I got mail from the Magestrix: we're to secure Aurigian assistance in this operation."
"She's up to shit isn't she?" I probed
"Yep."
"Christ," I muttered, looking over at a clerk who was hard at work. "Hey, dude, you know if there's a map table around here we can bum until the Prince wants us?"
"Third door to the left,"
"Thanks."
Getting to the map table room, I got to work. It was surprisingly comfortable, after all my work platting out the work on the Argo for the Aurigian Campaign, and I fell back into old habits without question. Generating tokens with alacrity, I started arranging them- battalion by battalion, formations of mechs, armor, BA, and infantry. With each token I added additional modifiers- experience, gear quality, reliability, faction, and more. Finally, I started generating tokens for droppers and jumpers.
"Right. Brass tacks. Emma, do you know how the Magestrix is setting her forces up?"
"Right now, the plan seems simple. Form up three regiments into Task Force Duo, and ram them straight in as hard as possible. Follow-on forces with mercenaries and second line troops will serve to clean up after."
"Simple, elegant, and easy for our piss-poor communication and control to handle. I fucking hate it," I said, forming up a divisional header for Task Force Duo. "What units are earmarked for it?"
"Second Canopian Light Horse, Fusiliers, and Cuirassiers. Literally the second regiment of each. I hate the Magestrix sometimes."
"Alright, so we have Meme Division, and then follow-on forces. Which are presumably everything else?"
"Yeah."
"Great, great," I muttered. "Well, first things first, we need to either need to buy up more BA sets than God or start making our own. Mersies, put a pin on that, I want the Ducal Guard of Adherwin to be a regiment of Battle Armor so that anyone stupid enough to go in gets turned into swiss cheese."
"Wilco. I think there's talk about setting up an engineering PA(L) line already, think we should get in on that?"
"Absolutely! That means more people to man the field guns. Get that signed off and moving, it'll be great."
Putting Task Force Duo down on the map, I took a minute to set up the Harvest Blades force icons. Pale Horse battalion got marked down as a BA battalion with mech, armor, and aerospace assets, while Black Horse was a short BA battalion with expanded support pools. When we went to war we'd be taking the students with us as additional techs, bunked in the Argo. Ideally I'd have enough mechanized/armored forces to bring them to bring them to a full battalion, but if I didn't then it wouldn't be a great loss. I'd mostly spun them off for admin purposes, so if shit happened and we ate turf I'd be willing to fold them into Pale Horse or Red Horse.
Speaking of Red Horse: Wyrm had been busting ass to get them up to speed, having pushed the poor old Borozoi as hard as she could to load the thing to the gills with battle armor and a combined mech/armor company before getting on the road. Reports from Horsefeathers were mixed- he was more than a little upset at her spartan nature- but the kids were learning and getting to be battle-ready at a remarkable rate without turning into complete nutcases. I'd probably have to water down her command staff, but that was expected to be honest. Red Horse would be another short battalion, but one with extra dropper support on the map.
"I see planning is going well," a voice said from behind me, as I finished that up and got everyone on their barracks zones. Nodding, I grabbed a dataslate to cross-reference a shipping line chart.
"Yeah, if by 'going well' you mean 'we are massively unprepared for this shit'," I muttered as I arranged the Auregian Reach's domestic military. "We're basically going to be flailing around in the dark until we get an internal line of communication and supply from Hanse, and by that point the war's already over."
"If you know there's a problem, you can fix the problem."
"If you're in command, you can fix the problem. Primary issue here is I don't have command of much," I griped. "Formally I'm only a colonel. Practically, I can probably command the southern front, but then that raises the question of 'what the fuck do I do with it that doesn't get the Big Mac coming down on me like a ton of bricks. I can probably pull clout with the Auregian army, but-"
Looking up, I saw Emma and Mersies looking at me, white as a sheet. I squinted at them, trying to figure out what was up, before sighing. Girls being girls.
"-well, they're not 'ah we'll casually tangle with a few regiments of assault-weight metal' yet, and frankly I don't think they'll ever get there," I said, tapping my hand on the board. "Quite frankly, I can't think of many units that are."
"I could probably shake loose Team Banzai, maybe the Assault Guards, but that might not get the job done and they're not worth risking unless I know it'll work."
Huh? I didn't expect one of the clerks to be able to say that. Looking over at my conversational partner, I blinked. Oh.
That was Hanse Davion, who had exactly enough of a smirk to let me know that yes: this was intentional. Well trolled, sir. Well trolled.
"You'd definitely need more metal than that- add a unit or two as line-filler, and it'd probably hold open. I can't promise support, though: that's four jumps out of my staging ground on Ichlangis, so I'll be out of steam if I try to thunder run Menke."
"Quite. Can you reposition forces to Andurien?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Then the only important target for you is Victoria."
I started doing finger-math. "Ichlangis to Pojos, Pojos to Quimberton, Quimberton to Victoria. Two nowherevilles we can roll with infantry and battle armor, and then a big fight. Issue is, that's one jump to Menke."
Hanse grinned, taking a dataslate from one of his aides. "Screaming Eagles, Wiley's Coyotes, and the Davion Assault Guards, plus any infantry I can scrounge droppers for. Think that's enough to get the job done?"
Screaming Eagles? Wracking my memory, I shot Mersies a look. She kept up to date on the competition more than I did, and her answer was quick. "Old SLDF regiment; fairly well-regarded and have their own jumper."
"Two regiments," Hanse corrected gently.
"We're gonna need to move fast on Victoria then," I muttered. "With luck, the Big Mac is out of the way up in your planned area of operations, and we can make a distraction big enough to drag pressure off the line of circumvention. While I don't ask to stay informed, can we set up an information-sharing agreement?"
"There's not much we have to access at the moment," Emma said, tapping her chin. "I'll get in contact with my people in MIM, but this'll take time."
"I'll get Ardann to put some people at your disposal. I'd like to coordinate with your general staffs, but frankly speaking," Hanse Davion said with a shrug, "I doubt that between communications delays and getting someone who can make binding decisions that it'd come to much good."
"Sir," I said, trying to phrase this in the most diplomatic way possible, "we are the Auregian general staff."
"And I don't trust the Magistracy general staff as far as I can throw them," Emma added. "So in that regard, I'm probably going to try and grab any of your leftovers while I'm here, First Prince."
Hanse looked at me, then at Emma, then back at me, before finally settling on Mersies. "Any mild annoyances you'd like to pull out of your hat?" he asked, sighing lightly.
"Comstar is probably reading your mail."
The First Prince of the Federated Suns decided at that point decided to facefault. "Do you have anything to back that up?" he asked rhetorically.
"You'll need to get in touch with the Archon to verify this," I warned, "but the only big one I can think of is the Jolly Roger Affair. Back around the turn of the millenium, there was a big piracy uptick in the Lyran-Drac northern border. Comstar brought the money and metal in, pirates kicked things up until Comstar fucked around and tried to pull out. That's how the HPG stations on, Loast? Lost? and Canal got blown out."
"There's Holy Shroud," Mersies added, "but that was a long time ago and mostly just them whacking nerds because tech is evil or something."
"Love, we kinda need more detail."
"Listen, you read all the history books: I learned how to speak four languages, nine dialects, pilot my mech and three different kinds of battle armor, and drive a bulldozer. We have different skills."
"Quite," I grumbled. "That doesn't mean we can just throw trash on the table that's a few centuries old!"
In the background, I heard a man softly mutter: "are they always like this?"
"Yes."
"Good lord."
Throwing up my hands, I just stopped arguing with my wife and went back to the table. "Fine, whatever, Comstar reads the mail and will probably Interdict us once this all kicks off. I'll give a fuck about that later, right now we need to set up our warplan. Force South needs to take Victoria, Force North needs to cut the line to the FedSuns, then what?"
"Are they done?"
"They're probably done."
I raised a gimlet eye to Hanse and Emma. "Yes, we're done."
"I am shocked and appalled by the lese-majeste," Hanse said, obviously feigning morale injuries.
"No you're not, or you'd have sent in the clerks and cadet branches to handle us," Mersies said with a grin. "Tell me with a straight face you don't have flunkies specifically to deal with the annoying mercenaries who can't help but making a mess, Your Majesty."
Hanse was pointedly silent, allowing my wife to score the point. Emma just sighed. "Man, I wish I had flunkies for that."
"Put it on your Christmas list for next year and I'll give you a cadet branch of a cadet branch," Hanse said seriously. "Ever since the Lyrans came up with an agricultural industrialmech they call the CattleMaster, I've had to sit through Ardan's jokes on the damn thing."
"Got it," Emma replied seriously. "I'll send a pleasure circus up so you can do it deniably."
"Much appreciated."
"Well, since you're here, First Prince," I said with a slight smile, "any modifications to the plan?"
"Not yet," he said. "I'll keep you informed if I or my staff think of any. Right now the opening is good, but you're right in that you need to figure out what next."
"Then I'll tentatively put down that we'll leave a trailing force on Victoria, and if your Team Banzai task force cleans house too fast they can jump to Victoria and we'll coordinate from there. Meantime, we'll keep our jumper ready to roll in case we find the Big Mac and need to call for help as we work our way towards Grand Base. North Force, once we figure out how to keep everyone in contact with each other, would probably be willing to help or get help to take that one."
Nodding, Hanse grinned. "If we find the Big Mac before then, though, I expect help in pounding them flat."
"I'll do what I can on that front," I said, stroking my chin, "but remember: I don't even have a full mech battalion. Think reinforced battle armor regiment: death to infantry and armor, but we suffer against fast elements."
"You're a battle armor regiment right now," Hanse corrected with a grin. "I'm willing to bet it'll be a good bit more fearsome in two years."
"I'll take your word for it, sir."
Funny thing was? I did.