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Chapter 34 - Time Enough For A Cat -
- Victoria II 3: Procession of the Malik -[]
Challenges of Fitting In[]
Base Camp ASTGHIK
Victoria, 'Capellan Confederation
January 12th, 3029
Perspective of Hierophant 37
"Good morning, Hierophant-37," a voice said to me. "It's time to get up now."
It should not be time to get up. Sleep was holy, sacred, and most importantly very difficult on Argo, what with all the noise and vibrations. Unfortunately, the time for sleeping had passed; cast out from the Good Doctor's demesne as we had been to this frozen wasteland.
"Give me a moment," I replied groggily, rolling over my fusion engine, groggily spooling it up from the long cable of shore power. Once that heartbeat was steady in my chest and I didn't have to risk spending an APU charge, I could roll myself upright and look at the handler outside. "Could you unplug me?"
"I thought you could unplug yourself," another voice said. Great. Multiple people. I'd have to actually turn my optics on now, the systems whining into alertness. One of our usual mechanics, crossing his arms, and another person wearing a Sableye. Hah, as if those tin cans were useful.
"I can," I said, affecting a yawn and stretching my very large and very sharp maw of vibroblade armor-cutters. "But it's less damaging to the plug for someone else to do it."
"I'll get it," the tech muttered, going in and taking no care not to step on me. It wasn't horribly comfortable, mind, but he was at most a hundred kilograms. Practically a feather, really, as long as I ignored the squeaking of his boots on my nice and fresh desert camo. Speaking of which, as I connected to the base's wireless- it wasn't the eleventh?
"We had a storm roll in," the PA(L) jockey said bluntly, "so we're a little behind schedule. If we get a weather warning, find a good rocky crevice, hunker down, and pray. Around here, bad weather means winds fast enough and full of enough grit and hail to abrade armor."
"I will take that under advisement," I replied, "even if I know no god will hear me."
The PA(L) trooper stared at me, so I focused my indicator lights on him in the closest I could get to a glare. It generally worked wonders at scaring people, so I'd assume they got to him when he huffed and left. Moving out of my kennel, I steadily made my way to where the armory was. "Do we have a mission briefing yet?"
"No, but there is a notice to get your long-range fit on."
"Understandable," I replied, sighing. "I was feeling feminine, too."
"You'll get your chance soon enough- ah! Captain Danzig!"
Snapping into a salute, my tech looked serious while I just came to a 'sitting' posture, bringing my head up well above eye level on any human. Since we Malik had no officers, several had been detached from the Mech corps after their rides had been downchecked- Danzig would normally be piloting a Shadow Hawk as part of Red Horse, but his machine had been found with too much actuator damage to get deployed promptly.
If he did well with us, he'd get promoted- although my secret hope was he did well enough with us to be assigned with us permanently.
"At ease, Hierophant, Technician," Danzig said, his smile invisible under his own Sableye. "We're rousing Romeo company to do screening, load up with LRMs and get to the muster station please."
"Yes, sir," I said, before going to the armory. Since all my weapons were turret-mounted, arming up was fairly simple- just accepting the turret into the mount, synchronizing my sensors with it and riding out the feeling of another set of eyes opening, and letting the techs hook up my feeds. It was quite relaxing, especially once the turret interlocks came off and I could look at things without going to the trouble of moving my head. One of the few things I missed from being entirely made of human was the proprioception to turn my head to the side while walking. As a Malik, that was significantly harder. Ah well- Magicians could do it, and so could Fools, so eventually I and the rest of the Hierophants would learn. Speaking of other Hierophants, though- that was 27, and Emperor-55.
"Hey guys!" I called out, bounding over to them. Both had been armed up already, and their turrets tracked me quickly, before acknowledging I was another Malik and opening up the formation to let me in. "So, screening?"
"Yep. First Auregian and the Black Horse Armored are gonna be pushing up the line today, so we're covering the left flank," Emperor-55 said, lolling his head around. "If we can make hard contact with Bougainvillea, then the main assault will kick in with Second and Third Adelherwin going to start the press."
"Pity them," Hierophant-27 sighed. "I didn't like the Ducal Guard before, but now? The wretches don't know what they don't know."
"You're being melodramatic, Twenty-Seven," I replied, bumping his shoulder with mine. To us, it was a friendly gesture. To the several troopers nearby who were diving for cover, it sent them dumpling to the ground as metal screamed from us trading paint. "C'mon, let's get to the muster point."
Settling into the muster point, I watched the rest of the company form up by the numbers. My squad- creatively made of my littermates Hierophant 33-38- was six Malik, then our platoon was four squads. The company was then four platoons, bringing us to ninety-six line Malik and one command squad for the company headquarters, totaling one hundred and two units. That was, in short, a lot of Maliks, the airwaves nearly shimmering from all the microwave transmissions we were pushing at each other to chatter amongst ourselves.
"Romeo Company!" Captain Danzig snapped out. "Today we will be screening the advance of the Black Horse and First Aurigian Armored as they move in to engage Bougainvillea with support from the 2nd and 3rd ADG Infantry, and the first showing of the 103rd Aurigian Foot as support elements. Your platoon officers will be directing the operation, and we expect to hit resistance from light armor elements, potentially including 'mech elements. Current SIGINT suggests any mech forces present will be from the 3rd Capellan Reserve Cavalry, but Argo predicts with fairly high certainty that it is a ruse. As such, be careful out there. Platoon officers will be given detail briefs; company dismissed!"
Every Malik nodded at once, and my platoon circled around our assigned minder, Lt. Corvo. "Alright, everyone!" he called out with a squeak. "I'm using Squad 3 as the command squad today, and we'll be doing a two-by-two advance! Remember to stick with your battle buddies, everyone, and at least a hundred meters between squads! We'll be moving to point Golf here, then moving forward at bearing 258 until we hit resistance or Bougainvillea. Questions?"
Nobody had any, mostly because everyone was confirming leadership roles. I'd managed to pass the buck for my squad off to 31, poor guy, and was feeling quite smug about it until Lt. Corvo mounted up and grabbed the backside of my turret. "Let's go!"
My platoon was silently mocking me as I sighed. "Sir. You're supposed to sit in front of the turret."
"Eh?"
"We dump exhaust gas out of the back of our turrets, sir," I said, sighing. "You're supposed to sit in front, over our necks."
"Oh…"
Slowly, gracelessly, Lt. Danzig dismounted, and I lay on the floor to make it easier for the poor confused fleshy to get on me. Oh, how I wished I was still asleep. Now correctly saddled, I let him hold on to my entirely-decorative head spikes as we started moving out.
The two-by-two advance was simple enough that we could do it in our sleep. Two squads in a line would advance, and behind each one was another squad, slightly staggered. With this plus our broad, dispersed marching order, it was almost impossible to figure out where we were while our sensors stood the best chance to pick up packets of infantry. Once we were formed up with the rest of the company, it was off to the races we went- somewhat literally.
Making a solid ninety kilometers per hour at a dead lope, we cleared the local security zone around our barracks quickly, and passed by the advancing 1st Aurigian Armored without fanfare. From then on, radios were cold as ice- we were on the hunt. Occasionally, little bursts of chatter would come in from the other platoons on the line- short things, indivisible bursts of almost noise before we ran it through codexes to unscramble it and cyphers to respond.
It was two hours before we saw Bougainvillea- or, more precisely, what we could recognize as Bougainvillea. Massive, gently sloping motif taureau walls covered the city taller than any building, forming an impressive bit of pseudo-terrain around it from which only a few smokestacks and signal towers stood. I personally figured out it was our target when a cloud, pregnant with hail, rolled overhead and we could see the glow of the city's furnaces in the underbelly of the sky.
We were about eight kilometers out when the first call of 'contact!' came out, shortly before the AC/5 rounds started coming in. As it turned out, we weren't running into the 3rd Reserve Cavalry, but instead a local militia unit made up almost entirely of Scorpions and Vedettes. They'd layered themselves deep, and I juked easily and habitually around lines of fire while the 3rd Squad re-centered around me.
"34, 33, you're in front," I said easily, warming up my search/track radar set to generate locks for my LRMs. "36, cover me in the middle. 35, 38, rearguard. Lieutenant, please press flat to my neck. I need to start shooting."

Whitworth Medium 'Mech
With that, I took my lock on a stray Scorpion, and dumped my LRM pack. With eighteen salvoes, I could afford to splash them around quite a bit- even if I only had a three-tube launcher. Three tubes multiplied by six Malik, though, was almost indistinguishable from a Whitworth firing, though.
It didn't take long for the militia to start breaking and falling back, to no surprise. If every squad was equal to a Witworth, then every platoon was equal to two Archers, and there were four platoons on the field. All our LRM fire was scary, even if it wasn't much individually. I wasn't sure if we killed anything with it- but the one Vedette that was unlucky enough to run straight into us certainly paid for it as we opened up with machine guns on a charge in.
"Slow dooooooown!" Lt. Corvo yelled, but that was really more a suggestion as my machine gun opened up shortly before my claws did. I wasn't as nasty as 34 though, since he managed to pry the turret off and reach in, tossing the crew out in mostly-intact pieces like an abstract art project.
I needed to find that guy some hobbies, honestly.
Once the militia were routed, we naturally kept moving forward, even thought Lt. Corvo was calling Cap. Danzig and trying to figure out if we were supposed to be going forward or not. I personally thought orders had been pretty clear: screen for resistance against conventional elements while Black Horse Armored moved up to assault. If we could wipe a target out, as a screening force, then we should and keep screening; no need to go home after every fight. Speaking of which-
"Everyone, sound off on damage," I called carefully.
"I took a class-five to the leg," 35 called out. "Can still run though."
"Sprayed by a machine gun, otherwise good," 38 yelled.
Everyone else called out green, and I grinned. "Lt. Corvo, do we resume screening?"
On my neck, the man gulped. "Er, um, yes. We resume screening."
I couldn't stop myself, before laughing hard enough to jerk my shoulders. "Are you nervous, Lieutenant?"
"Of course I'm nervous!" he snapped. "I was a Vedette commander, you know, like the one your beast over there bit the turret off of!"
"It was tasty," 34 said, proving that he would not piss on someone that was on fire even if he could.
"Let's just go," I grumbled, before everyone formed back up and we got back to running.
About a kilometer out, though, we learned something very important as Thumper shells started landing in the ground- we had entered spotting and tracking distance from the walls, and they were very happy to splash shells everywhere on us. Still, we pressed in, trying to get as much info as possible- and then the PPCs opened up. Across the top of the wall, it must have been at least a dozen Schreks were parked in revetments, hammering down salvo after salvo of PPC fire- and LRM carriers were there too, slinging salvos at us whenever a unit entered whatever predetermined area they were using to get better aim at us with.
"How the fuck are we supposed to clear that?" Lt. Corvo muttered, when I heard a callout on the radio.
"Target ranged and identified. Time to punch a hole."
That's when the missiles came screaming in. Six of them, all landing within a dozen meters of the rest, blowing a titanic hole through the wall.
"Door's knocked, boys. Go get 'em."
"Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy," 34 was chanting, and I just chuckled loudly as my claws started slipping out.
"Everyone, get ready to run," I said, laughing. "We'll be-"
"Orders came in," Corvo the Party Pooper said, "you all need to re-arm to SRMs."
"-dumping our remaining ammo on the targets atop the walls," I continued with a sigh. "C'mon, we're not getting paid to take it home with us."
"We get paid?" 35 asked.
"Well, we get to have fun like this, same thing!" 34 called back. "Let's go!"
"They wanted you back sooner-!" Corvo yelled, but we were already off, locking and dumping salvos as fast as we could, screaming across the gravel plain, our armor still shiny and chrome.
What Odds against New Opponent[]
Dropship Argo
CIC Annex
Victoria, Geosynch Orbit
Capellan Confederation
January 12th, 3029
Perspective of Lt. Gen. Tam Gallowglass
Stumbling through the CIC's butler's pantry to grab a coffee and a breakfast burrito, I stared blearily at my adjunct. They were saying something. It sounded important.
"Sir? Sir!" they snapped, before literally snapping their fingers.
"What?"
"The Aurigian Hussars finished deploying, sir! We can start loading the Harvest Blades units to go planetside now!"
"Great," I groaned, taking a sip of my coffee. "Didn't we write this into the load plans? Red Horse goes first, I'll sign off on it once I'm at my chair…"
"Yes, but, sir! We're actually moving soon! And they've barely shown any resistance so far!"
"And the damn Big MACs still on planet," I reminded them, getting to my chair, putting the coffee cup down in the holder and the burrito on top of a spare copy of the Argo's staff kitchen sustainment report. "They've barely shown any resistance because they're waiting for us to get landed, I think. We've been dangling a pinata over their heads, kid, and I don't think they'll jump until they know it's empty."
My adjunct gaped like a fish at that. "That- it seems ridiculous, sir, but I can't deny the logic."
"We invented a whole new PPC type. We invented a mind-machine interface. We discovered one of the largest Dropships ever built. We re-developed Endo-steel and extra-light engines. We are the Inner Sphere's most dangerous infantry source, bar none. In short, we are a giant loot stocking like an oversized Christmas pudding."
My adjunct rallied, getting their own cup of coffee out. "Then we'll just have to make them choke on us, then."
That earned a laugh. "That's the spirit! Anything interesting in the reports?"
"The Maliks had their first real combat, sir, and it went pretty well. Do you want the full report?"
"Sure, lay it on me…"
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