Chapter 3:
The rest of the trip to Solaris is calm and quiet. I manage to make it through without any more threats needing to be made, and the three are currently clear of suspicion, as they all came to me together, and James left after getting his troops' gear squared away. On that note, I basically looked at what we had in the armoury, and said feckit we need better weapons than this garbage. Thankfully, I had gotten my hands on three more tickets since the journey started, two bronze and a silver.
I had torn all three tickets netting me Tinker - Ranged Weapons I which implied higher levels of Ranged weaponry, which makes sense as all I have access to is weapons that are not energy based or high tech, so no rail or gauss and no laser or plasma but everything else from my time was on the table, which meant I could work up the needed blueprints and have them made hopefully at a machine shop on Galatea or Solaris, or push comes to shove, where ever we get a garrison contract.
The other two were a lone singular B1 with his carbine, and a 2-1b Medical droid. All of these I would have to summon together when I finally get a chance away from people. Or you know workshop time. We shall see what happens.
One thing I did learn during the 8 jump trip was that all of the Lees had simulator pods on board, not many, but enough for five lances to go at it with each other. So I broke out the noteputer terminal, grabbed all of the simulators' data and AI and scenario settings and got to work making them more effective training aids. It took five of the eight jumps, and we were only a week out, two weeks out from Solaris, but I had managed to finish and upload everything.
The Mech Pilots immediately found that they were getting rofl stomped and had to go back and do the training instead of just jumping straight in and fighting as they were used to. I had also loaded in all the specs for our Mechs, and Tanks, and as such, everyone could get in on the action. The end result was large-scale crew wargames and training for the last two jumps that had everyone learning a hell of a lot more than the old sims used to teach.
One of the Mech Warriors commented that, "It is like I am always facing an enemy that is just slightly better than me, they know my move before I do and force me to constantly adapt or die." cursing the Sims while chowing down, and simultaneously praising the increased life-like feel and reactions of the AI opponents.
The training gets a big thumbs up all around for making things more realistic and infinitely more difficult. I just can't wait till I can get some actual manufacturing time and put together a proper FIVR system for them to train in. Then I can have almost the entire crew practising all at once, from system entry all the way to planet fall, to the actual job. Should make for some rather interesting times.
The last two days before our final Jump, I finally decided to give the Sims a try myself and see how my Gacha skills transfer. Answer, I took out one of the MON-66bGX and absolutely clowned on all the mech warriors, even when they went with a full three MAD-2R lances backed up by three of the four NSR-9Js that we have. I still have no idea how that happened, but the result was that all but three of my opponents' were mission killed before I had to punch out. The briefing for the Mech Warriors was honestly kinda depressing to sit through and contribute to. I mean, the guys who prefer to be our scout lance had a million and one questions for me, and basically spent the rest of the time in the sims trying to mimic how I had used the thing.
Between Master Driving and Adept Shooting, I am pretty sure that only Natash, Morgan, Allard and Yorinobu currently match me. I might be tooting my own horn, but I plan to put it to the test in the arena just to see if I have what it takes. I also want to use it to gather some interest. Maybe see about getting some folks interested in serving with a Solaris champ, not that I would make it there in the six months we plan to spend on the world, but a girl can dream.
After landfall on Solaris VII, we have a hectic first week, renting office space, putting out feelers and just running admin. Thankfully, there are enough Mech warriors on the planet looking for stables and rides, and just to get in a cockpit that when we rock up with as much free metal as we have, folks tend to turn up.
Now granted, when they see the terms of the contract, we generally lose 75-80% of them, but that does not bother me; that still leaves us with almost a hundred candidates. Which is nuts, and really goes to show that you really can run into people willing to do almost anything to get back in the hot seat.
None of our joiners would rate as anything more than green, unfortunately, but that still means that we have all the pilots that we need inside three weeks. Which is, unfortunately, all we get done on the recruitment side.
Several potential leads on Infantry, tankers and ASF pilots don't pan out, half just straight up lying to try to get their hands on our gear, a quarter waving off the intended training, and the rest all being preestablished groups that have fallen on monetary troubles and that all contain at minimum one spy. It is a sad fact, but I just can't hire them for those reasons.
That said, I did find a small arms and tactical gear manufacturer that I could put orders in with for my infantry and marine gear. So we do leave Solaris with a full 2500 sets of custom Black Cats infantry kit, as well as replacement parts and repair kits for four times that number. Now this takes up a load of space, but better to have and not need than need and not have.
As to my stint in the Arena, well, after the first five matches where I clowned my opponents in increasingly embarrassing ways, I was politely asked not to attend by some money handlers who managed the games. I mean, there were no rules against betting on yourself winning, and definitely no rules against having your XO doing the same. So I basically made back all my money and then increased it, taking my total liquid wealth to half a billion C-bills.
The annoyed bookies kindly asked us to leave at that stage and stop causing them to make losses. I mean not my fault that they thought the first two wins in under a minute were flukes. So that was us, planned for six months, stayed for one and a half, before boosting off world.
It was only four jumps to Galatea from Solaris, so I got paperwork squared away, worked on the training plans with my Section chiefs and then dove into the simulators. Proceeding to run all of the newbies through their paces and then starting everyone from the beginning, and moving up from there. Our Mech Warriors and Tankers got in a hell of a lot of target Practice and team manoeuvring practice.
Everyone also got a metric fuckton of PT every day. It was required for everyone to attend a minimum of forty-five minutes of gym time a day on the grav decks. This means that there were lots of complaints for the first week until they saw me putting in triple time and still doing everything else I needed. I was also pushing at or above my body weight in all areas for weight training and running three-minute miles on the treadmill. Now, thanks to gene editing and other things, that is no longer that amazing. The record currently stands at 2:45 for women and 2:22 for men, but I am not pushing myself. I am getting a workout done, cause I maintain that pace for a minimum of five miles when I do my cardio and callisthenics sets. I had a lot of them just staring at me when I worked out because, honestly, I really do break some things, mostly their understanding of how much raw physicality fits in one small package.
With everyone now working on basic training, I was hoping they would be able to keep up when we finally started boot camp. Everyone had signed on knowing that they would have to take the boot. No exceptions were going to be made, but I was hoping it wouldn't cost us too badly. There was even a Marine's boot being run on the jumpships and Dropships. That would take place at the Jump points over the course of six weeks. That would probably be the hardest one. Many people do not yet realise what they have signed on for when they agreed to this. I guess we shall see who sticks it out. We are not just another Merc company, we are a PMC, Military is in the name.
Galatea is both easier to get things organised on and harder. With our size, we need to rent a base location, but that also means that we are going to have to do rotating trips into town for the recruitment. Considering we no longer need mech Jocks, that should not be much of a problem, as the bigger commands should swing out our way, though it may change depending on whether or not there are groups interested or desperate enough.
The first week, we are overhauling the new base we are renting, earthworks are dug, sandbags filled, and fencing put to rights. The bunk houses, Mech bays, and Repair workshops for the Combat vehicles are overhauled. We laid out a strip for our ASF and VTOLS, as well as having our engineering crews build some secured hangars. All of this I claim back on the rent, as I put a clause into the lease saying any improvements carry returns and lower rent. As it stands, by the end of week three, we have paid off a full six months worth of rent in work that I would have had them do anyway. So winning on my part. Eventually, the Star Fort defences are up and running, four connected internal points with four floating bastions. Deep enough trenches and earthen berms to prevent all but the longest range jump mechs from clearing outside of designated entryways. Those engineering vehicles can really clear out a bunch of space if used by proficient operators for nearly three weeks solid.
The artillery parks have been equally split between bastions, giving me one Partisan heavy tank, one Schrek PPC carrier, one Fury, two Ballista, two Chapparal, and three towed snipers, per bastion. The centre has the towed Longtoms and other tank forces as well as the mechs and ASF fields. Roving patrols ten klicks out have Vectors, Chevaliers, and Skulkers on the move and keeping a perimeter.
Hull down earthworks for the Tanks are also present in multiple places, allowing for even more defensive cover. The planned tunnel network is not in place yet, but should be by the end of month three. We also have prefabbed Guard towers and duracrete bunkers going in in places to give the infantry places to bunker down and fight from. Honestly, by the time we are done, I will probably have to ask for payment from the base owner.
On the side of getting more warm bodies. Well, success is an understatement. We have actually spent most of the three weeks weeding out individuals and commands. But we did find four gems in the rough, as it were. A breakaway from the Crater Cobras brought me all the artillerymen I could want, all at veteran levels. They were also happy to take on a more regimented and driven sort of command, especially when I told them that as the boot rotated, they would be called on to drill everyone on their systems. They grumbled at having to do boot as well, but they saw that even I was doing it and just fell into following along.
The second gem was that James had reached out back home, and apparently, there was a group of ex-marines, released from service for medical reasons, who were all on planet currently looking both for a training contract and also to get back in the saddle if someone could pay the medical costs. I ate the cost and hired on a Reinforced Company of Tuarian Space Marines. I don't know who was happier, James, the Marines' LT or me for getting some boys and girls who were a little touched and about to learn to be even more special.
The third and fourth gems were a matched set, Techs, mainly on ASF and combat vehicles, attached to a formation of Pilots and tankers who were out of their gear as the last employer had abandoned them in the system, and they had to sell it to their captors for release and travel fees. Hence, currently they were up shits without any idea what they were going to do. I covered them and brought them on because that got me ten more ASF pilots, all my VTOL pilots, and half my tank crews.
It took a full four months to fill out the rest of my empty positions, but eventually I had all of my combat and logistics staff slots filled. We were at the point where we needed a contract, so I continued looking for one of those as the last of the ASF pilots got hired and the Marines got more friends to arrive and join up.
We finally get a break, coming to the middle of our fifth month on the planet, and a garrison contract is offered to us. Apparently, the fact that an FWL officer had swung by had the LCAF immediately up in arms about potentially losing my group, and they offered us Garrison duty on New Kyoto. Now I know there are going to be attacks on it inside the next ten years, I also know that by the time the Snords Irregulars roll through, I should hopefully be long gone. So hopefully I won't have to deal with any of that nonsense. Plans are to take a contract which is currently set at three years. Meaning we will be off planet the same time the attempt on Katrina and company happens, and we will be heading out into the periphery for Alloway to go grab the Argo.
The Contract is for Garrison duty as well as for training Cadre. Apparently, the Duke of New Kyoto would like his Militia trained up to the same spec that I am going to be setting for my own folks. As a bonus, all training ammo is on his own dime. Same for fuel, the only thing that is on me is the armour and general wear on our machines.
I, along with my Senior officers, all thought this was a good deal, especially as we had to run everyone through training anyway before we could really get started on taking more offensive contracts. So the end of October rolled into November, and we were packed and burning for the Zenith point where our two Jumpships waited for us.
The trip was uneventful, and we touched down on Zuishami in the Southern Hemisphere. The North was being protected by the Blackhearts, the remnants of the Seventy-Seventh SOG that did not head off with Kerensky. Honestly, I did not mind sharing a planet with them, and planned to reach out to them for some intercompany training in a year or two.
I had by this stage grown a nice stack of tickets for the gacha, between the training in sims, the fights in the Solaris arenas, and my application of my knowledge and skills to help outfit my company, I was sitting on three bronze skill tickets, two bronze ability tickets, two bronze familiar tickets, three random silver, one random gold, and finally a gold item.
Yeah, lots happen in eleven months when you are building an entire Mercenary company of Regimental strength from scratch. The number of times I had to clown on new hires in a Mongoose, just to prove a point. That and spies. So many damn spooks are trying to infiltrate that, at this stage, I stopped getting tickets for catching them.
Since I had a week from the Zenith to New Kyoto and touchdown, I figured I might as well get my pulls taken care of. Honestly, I don't really need them at this stage, but I may as well; every edge is another that keeps you alive in a universe of big stompy bois. Lying back on the bed, I tear each ticket. The results are decent, I would say.
[Intermediate Chemistry]
|Uncommon Skill|
You are learned enough in the field of Chemistry to be a professor, you understand how most common compounds are formed and remember the interactions of chemicals and reactions well.
[Krav Maga]
|Uncommon Skill|
You are an apprentice of Krav Maga, a brutally efficient martial art made for military use. It emphasises instinctive movements, rapid strikes, and efficient takedowns to neutralise threats as quickly as possible. Krav Maga incorporates techniques from boxing, wrestling, judo, and street fighting. With sufficient mastery, you can enhance your strikes with your internal energy
[Novice Blunt Weapon Mastery]
|Common Skill|
You are reasonably talented in handling blunt weapons such as hammers or clubs. You know how to move your body to do damage with the instrument you are holding, but there is only so much finesse to handling a large stick.
[Tinker - Defence(I)]
|Common Ability|
Allows you to design, modify and build technology and technological constructs related to Defence and Protection. At this level, you are limited to modifying existing stuff to make them more sturdy and durable, and also creating things like basic shields, bulletproof glass,
[Tinker - Augments(I)]
|Common Ability|
Allows you to design, modify and build technology and technological constructs related to Augments and Implants. At such a low level, you can only do augmentations such as replacement limbs, metal bone plating, camera eyes, and functional metal teeth. You are also skilled at performing surgeries to install said augments.
[Yes Man]
|Common Familiar|
Fallout New Vegas - Yes Man is a reprogrammed RobCo brand Securatron. As an AI Yes Man is capable of interfacing with technology and writing code when provided with the right materials. While not very impressive his body is armed with guns strong enough to protect itself. And by its namesake, Yes Man is physically incapable of saying no. Fortunately, this only applies to you.
[B-1 Battle Droid]
|Common Familiar|
Star Wars - One, singular B-1 Battle Droid equipped with a blaster. His skills and effectiveness are... questionable. Good luck with him.
[B-1 Battle Droid]
|Common Familiar|
Star Wars - One, singular B-1 Battle Droid equipped with a blaster. His skills and effectiveness are... questionable. Good luck with him.
[Herrera Outlaw]
|Common Item|
Cyberpunk 2077 - Sometimes all you need is a stylish drive around. Herrera Outlaw is a luxury limousine, but it is also built to survive the streets of Night City, so don't expect anything below .50 calibre to get through the windows. Not the best car, but it is a stylish set of wheels sure to impress any girl.
[Tinker - Scraps]
|Rare Ability|
- This tinker allows you to build much more functional and useful technology out of scraps. You could probably build a working tank in a scrapyard, a phone out of a broken radio, a mech out of demolished cars, and easily jury-rig existing technology out of subpar materials.
[Tinker - Prosthetics]
|Rare Ability|
Allows you to build technological constructs or contraptions related to prosthetics and limb replacements, such as bionic arms, mecha legs, weaponised arms with guns and blades hidden inside, etc. Tinker powers can also draw inspiration from your ability and traits list to expand on the list of technology you can build.
[Hei Gui Stealth Suit]
|Uncommon Item|
Fallout - A special armour designed by China made for infiltration and stealth missions, given to special units. In addition to its dense armour and mesh, the stealth suit is capable of emitting a force field that bends light around it to make the user invisible.
The Droids go on the cannot deploy pile, the car will be found in some random garage for sale, and I will buy it. The Stealth Suit is going to be part of my standard kit immediately after I take it apart and study how everything works. Between all my tinker aspects, I should be able to figure it out, such that I might be able to make up lightweight stealth kits for my troops. If I can figure out an under-layer suit that provides decent protection while also potentially allowing for limited invisibility, then that might just be perfect for working as a Special Operations group going forward. Between Stealth infantry and the MON-66bGX, we would have an invisible light cavalry strike force for execution strikes.
Yes Man, I think I am just going to take him apart to learn exactly how he is made, and then tweak his programming such that he is only a Yes Man for me. He would probably make a decent Foreman if I built up a Factory with high automation. Or even for the Argo, maybe we shall see; I might just have to go without ever summoning him.
Getting more B1s is not a good thing. Seriously, I basically need to replace all of their base hardware for them to be useful. Then again, the BX series is basically upgraded B1s, so I could technically do the same and give myself some sturdy, loyal and more importantly, untiring guards. I will see what I do with them after I 'Find' them in the Argo.
The skills draws were almost a complete bust; the Krav Maga and Blunt weapon mastery are already dated, as I have been learning them in my free time, and Expert Hand-to-Hand makes it trivial to eclipse the level that those take me to. The Intermediate Chemistry is actually useful, because it matches the current era, but that also provides all the past information as well, so I technically ended up getting a massive data dump on theoretical papers that only people working for ComStar would have seen. It also covers all humanity, which includes the clans, so all the chemistry knowledge they have up to a professor's level, I now have. This was probably an unintentionally overpowered draw.
The tinkering abilities just make me even better at what I do already, with prosthetics and Augmentations. Synergising really well together and building on my Biodroid trait. Scraps synergise with all of my fields and basically mean my upcycling and recycling ability is insane. I can basically pull all wreckage off a battlefield and turn it back into working tech. Honestly, it is scary how well that particular ability pull works.
The synergistic energy between multiple of my tinker abilities basically puts me into a design fugue for the seven days until we land. It actually takes Lady Montgomery, overriding my door and coming in to pull me away from what I had been working on. Thankfully, my noteputer was hooked up to a basic alarm program, causing it to black screen and lock if my door is opened.
When she walked in and saw the state I was in, as well as the scattered, crumpled-up paper, she immediately called for a medic team and then helped me over to bed. The papers were mostly math, with the occasional comment or note about how x and y worked. I was almost completely out of it, having survived only because I had snacks and drinks stored away in the room, but I had not slept in almost five days. Even with my race change, that was pushing things massively, and I collapsed into unconsciousness as soon as I made it to the bed.
I awoke two days later to a lecture and an ass chewing from the Senior crew. Lady Montgomery has basically taken to being my caretaker when I am not busy with training or dealing with the troops. Apparently, a single moment of fugue caused by getting super excited has scared my officers into thinking that I am working myself too hard. Go figure that my father managed to collect a group of folks who are going to look to me as a kid in need of direction. Hopefully, by the time we leave the planet and go capture the Argo, that will no longer be the case.
On the plus side, I now have design documents and specifications for several very interesting prosthetics, tanks, VTOLs, and even three company-specific Mechs. I also managed to work out the stealth armour and figure out how to incorporate it into the general kit that we have, and make it vacuum-rated, which should make life much easier for us.
Those are, however, all locked away in my noteputer until such times as I get access to a workshop in which to make them all. I mean, I could build factories to produce them, but I need my own space for that sort of thing and also need it to be legally distinct from the Merc company. Related is fine, but I would honestly prefer it to be a standalone enterprise that I am the sole or 75% majority stakeholder in.
Thankfully, my two-day nap has not slowed things down, and the base we were given for the duration of our stay is actually in decent nick. Not that that is going to stop us from improving on it, and with my new defence tinker knowledge and abilities, that is going to be even better for us.
The first five months are a mixture of getting the base brought up to our code and getting everything ready for training. The veterans thought that they would be exempt right until I pulled them aside and quizzed them on the material, at which stage they resigned themselves to learning new tricks.
This went double when I spent a week putting everything I remembered of the SERE manuals for the SAS and Delta Force to work against everyone else. Let's just say that with the added capabilities from expert stealth, I ran circles around everyone and had them jumping at ghosts by the end. That was also without the use of the stealth armour or the MON-66bGX.
When I was shooting with the best of them and fighting better than any of them, they realised that they needed to up their game. So at the start of the Sixth month of our stay in New Kyoto, the Black Cats PMC Bootcamp started. Award Quote ReplyReport49QueenKitsuneFaeMonday at 5:48 PMReader modeNewAdd bookmark Threadmarks Threadmarks Chapter 4 New Threadmarks QueenKitsuneFaeMonday at 5:51 PMNewAdd bookmark#4Spoiler: Author's Note
Chapter 4:
Boot is hell. Everyone who has ever done boot camp for the military will tell you that they do everything they can to break you down until they have malleable clay with which to reform you. Special Forces takes that further, and the SOG people, the people that Special Forces' best and brightest go to, that requires a certain level of mindset that just is not there in everyone.
We took a similar approach, but instead of entirely breaking you down to build you into a single mould, you got broken to Special Forces levels, then you got trained to SOG, where you showed your best aptitudes. Sure, I had a core of a hundred troops that made it all the way through, but everyone else passed basic. Sixty per cent of the crews also passed Special Forces, and then all the infantry passed through to SOG.
The pipeline was four months basic, four months Special Forces, four months SOG. It took us a full year for me to feel like folks were at the levels I wanted. In that time, we managed to pull everyone to recruit, with the Infantry and Marines hitting Veteran. The Artillery men put enough shells through their guns that by the end, they were Elite, or as near as you can be without real combat.
Our Mechwarriors and Pilots spent more time in the sims and cockpits, going up against increasingly harder and harder enemies. To the point where some of them were beginning to keep up with me. Yeah, that shocked the Flybois; the Mechwarrior Colonel could outfly all of them and then some. The same thing happened to the tankers when I took one of the Schreks and took apart a company of our mechs.
Most folks just chalked it up to me being a genius, they all knew the gear that the Infantry and Marines were using was my design, hell it blew away anything that they had seen in the past and most of them now carried the service pistol as standard. Our assault rifle was better than any most had used, unless they counted laser weapons, which most didn't cause ours weighed about half the weight with a normal combat load.
So when I gathered everyone and announced that we had one final test, everyone thought I was going to ask them to do the impossible. Instead I informed them that the Blackhearts had agreed to play Opfor with the planetary Militia. We would be simulating a combat drop onto New Kyoto and an attack on the Capital, Hirihito. Our objective was to destroy the RAMtech facilities and wipe the opposing forces.
We were allowed to approach however we wanted. Any and all tactics were on the table and we were to perform this over two months of exercises. So I told them to get ready for an uphill battle and also to put all the training we had done to work.
Signalling for everyone to fall out and for the senior officers to join me we headed back to the CIC inside the Old Tomcat. Once everyone was present I had them all take seats before stepping to the projector and booting the maps up.
"Alright folks, we are now in June of 3002, we have two months to complete our objectives and 'safely exfil' from the planet. For us that means complete the objective and make the hop back to our base here after a single complete orbit of the planet." I start out looking over both the old hands and the new.
The Old hands had not all stayed in their positions, this was a meritocracy and those who could lead and were good at it got promoted. There was no politics in the way people got moved up the ladder in my PMC. You had the chops or you didn't, that was all that mattered for promotions. In this case it meant that we had additional members for Mark, Maine and James, though James is more due to him moving to the Marines from the PBI.
Our four newest Officers were Finn Jett, aide to Mark and XO of the Mech Warriors. He liked our big stompy Nightstars and was more than happy to help command from behind instead of hunting for more glory. Cleo Aidiar was Maine's new XO and the one who apparently took to my tanker tactics better than all the others, always pushing the limit on what was the right way to use tanks.
Kira Nox was the new Wing commander for my ASF and VTOL pilots; the VTOLs fell under her domain even if they were not ever going to be flying with the ASFs. Kira had taken it as a personal insult when a supposed groundpounder and flown circles around the lifetime flyers, and had shanghaied them all into ever more practice and cohesion. They now flew with the trust and respect that generally takes years or decades to generate. She did it by basically bullying them all into understanding that they had to be at least as good as me if they hoped to keep flying with any honor or respect for themselves. It worked and I now have a lean, mean flying machine that is good for anything ASF related. If I need the sky to fall on someone I call her and her bois and girls or I call Kellan Pyre if I want the grid square deleted.
Kellan Pyre is the new officer in charge of the Artillery that we have. Originally from the Crater Cobras, his unit was left out of one to many bonus cuts and were tired of the slowly slipping standards. So they broke off the last time the Cobras had swung near enough to Galatea to make it viable to get civilian transport there.
His little company folded into mine quite happily when I said I like having grid square removal exist and yes please drill till the barrels warp. I got what I wanted and have had to use my tinker abilities more than once to fix my artillery park from wear and tear. That said, even with the expenditure on practice shells and repair materials, I am happy to say if I say these co-ordinates have to be removed, they remove them, and only them unless told otherwise.
One of the heavy weapons teams that train with them is my mortar crews, the basic requirement to be on those teams is the ability to put a mortar within two inches of called coordinates at a minimum of normal maximum range. Then you have to get it within a meter at hotload maximum range.
To say my mortar teams are a bunch of deadly SOBs is an understatement and my arty park is the same.
Looking over the lot of them as they take in the brief that they have now all received I continue, "We will be moving out to the jump point, fully packed as if we had just arrived, yes that means the base will be stripped of everything we would take with us on campaign. So we are going to have work to do. I want plans from all of you about how we are going to achieve our objective, remember we are a combined arms regiment, we don't believe in the mechwarrior being the best tool everytime." I say looking over my people. Most commands and officers would argue with me. Most would argue that the mech is the preeminent tool of war. My officers had seen me take apart three quarters of my command with a knife, and our basic kit as well as what I could scavenge. They had watched me use an ASF to wipe our Mech battalion, and they had watched a single tank do the same.
None of my people believed that you could not beat on Mechs if you knew what you were doing. So all of them crowded around the holotank and started going over what we knew. Laying plans and going over ideas. I stood back, this was as much for them to figure out how to work together as it was for me to see the results of our training and show it off.
The plan that my officers eventually settled on was done in three phases, the first phase was prep, and to do it, they had our best SOG teams catch rides off world and then smuggled themselves back from the drop points with merchant dropships. They would go to ground in Hirihito and gather intelligence as well as begin espionage campaigns. Including a number of high yield explosive devices that they would be trying to get in place within the factories.
They had access to a number of drones and UAVs that I had designed and had made in our workshops. These would hopefully allow them to plant explosives and do reconnaissance from safety. It would also work as a comms relay into and out of the city for us. The explosive sabotage would not kick off until we were already planet side with the rest of our unit, which should also allow us to see whether or not we were going to just surgical strike with guided munitions or if we were going to have to grid square removal.
Phase two was a regular combat drop. We would be aiming for a location within fifty miles of our target. Preferably out somewhere where we could set up our artillery park and then reduce the factories to rubble.
Our Mech lance would be immediately advancing to meet the enemy with the VTOLs and ASF running Recon and CAP respectively. The tankers would be pulling base defense for the moment, as we had no interest in advancing into the city.
This was set up to be a Surprise raid so everyone was going to be surprised when we came in and would only have a day to get ready as we were going to be pirate pointing in. I had had my Jumpship captains drilling religiously on making sure that we could do micro jumps within systems from Zenith to Nadir and to any pirate point that we could get the data for.
None of them had been happy with it. But after I had worked up a program that could run the math flawlessly in just under ten minutes if it had enough data they finally caved. And started practicing for it. The Jumpships and their marines had left New Kyoto at the six month mark and gone to Paradeau, practicing micro jumping and pirate point jumps. Apparently after the first three months they had finally gotten past the fear that they were about to die all the time and taken to trusting my program.
Once we were in place, all participants would go active with training computers and training rounds. Then the game was on and we would see how well the Blackhearts and Militia performed against the finished training.
Phase three would activate if we could not get a proper place to land and thus had to close with tanks and mechs to actively destroy the factory. If that happened, we would push in and through any resistance to flatten the factory before the dropships made a low orbit hop to us for pickup. If it came down to that we wanted our ASF to own the skies though so we would have to adapt based on the situation as it occurred.
Four weeks of prep and we were ready to proceed. Our Dropships were docked and ready for a combat kick from the Jumpships, while our ground team had managed to infiltrate, but we had had no word, as was assumed to be the case, so we would be blind until we hit dirt. At the five minute mark the Jump alarms sounded and everyone took their places. At the minute mark all my people who had not been part of the Jumpship training were praying. At ten seconds we were ready.
New Kyoto, Space Watch Command Post, July 15 3002, 0600
"Commander, emergence at the L1 Pirate point, Two Tramps, Four Dropships. IFF reads "Marik Raiders Black Cats PMC!" Yells the voice of the sensor tech.
Col. Monroe, remains calm aware that this is part of a training exercise but that the stakes for everyone's careers were all to real, "Send the alert and sound the city alarms, I want everyone ready to scramble for wherever they target in an hour, also send alerts to the Blackhearts, let them know we have incoming." He commands, his tone steady but at the same time his palms were sweating. This was as close to a dangerous situation as you could be without the real thing happening.
"Orders relayed, planetary alarms sounding, Units all moving to ready state one. Commander." Responded the comms officer.
"Settle in folks, now it is a waiting game and we see how the enemy is going to approach things." He responds, turning to take his seat, just in time to catch the door to the command room closing. He frowns and just as he is about to look and see who has left, there is a blinding light and thunderous bang and lots of smoke.
Stumbling into his chair he looks around the room and notices a dye spread across eighty-percent of the room, including his entire command staff and almost the entirety of the systems used to monitor incoming space traffic.
"Oh fuck" he mutters realising that they had been taken out and that he and his staff would now be watching from the sidelines. "Alright, cleanup and lock the room down, we are officially out of the fight. I want all of you to report to the spectators area as soon as you are presentable." He commands before sighing and making his way out the door and heading for his on base suite.
As he walks through the base he comes across the scene of more colourfully dyed rooms, troops and even systems. Shaking his head he gets himself cleaned up and heads for the Spectators area, where the Daimyo of New Kyoto is currently watching everything going on.
"How did they manage to get in and how have we not caught them yet." He asks himself.
New Kyoto, Militia Base Hirihito, July 15 3002, 0900
The base was pandemonium, Orders were being called out, damage control was being enacted, and large numbers of troops were marching back to barracks to remove the colourful dye that had them painted like a child's tye-dye project.
General Marcus Fuller looked across the base and cursed out the Saboteurs that had apparently set a number of simulation explosives throughout it. They had lost the fuel dumps, armouries, Ammo stores, and the armour and Mech bays had all been judged as right offs until they could get heavy engineering equipment onsite to excavate them out, and then it was judged that they would all need a minimum of twelve to eighteen hours of individual repair time.
General Fuller looked across the base and judged what he had to work with, the grim reality that stared him back was that the Militia may as well be entirely out of action. He had four platoons with basic kit and around a dozen SRM launchers with half again as much ammo. Four APCs, three Scorpions, and two Hetzers. Effectively the Militia had been gutted, and the enemy had yet to even land the majority of their troops.
Shaking his head, he headed to the makeshift command centre that had been erected and tried to start wrangling everything that was left into some semblance of a defence. He did not have high hopes for the Militias performance here, but at the same time, he knew that the real work would be done by the ASF and the Blackhearts. Even though it stung to admit that.
That hope died when three hours later he got a message from what was a brightly coloured parade of mechs, and vehicles. Numbering only fifty two mechs, and thirty vehicles, the remnants of the Blackhearts had moved to his command as their base had apparently suffered what they called a rolling mortar barrage that flattened everything. They only had as many mechs as this because that was all the able bodied personnel that they had left.
General Fuller had a sinking feeling in his gut that this was not going to be an exercise that lasted for two months.
New Kyoto, Blackhearts Main Base, July 15 3002, 0600
The Day started for Colonel Johnson with the start of planetary raid alarms followed by the rolling thunder of simulation mortars landing on their base. He rolled out of bed and managed to make it safely out of housing and into the muster yards and from there to the mech bay. Unfortunately by the time he had his trusty Warhammer The barrage had ended and his command was in chaos.
"All channels sitrep!" he barks over comms as he moves to make his way to the gates. As he heads out a lance of lights runs past beelining for the hilltop that the mortar barrage came from.
"Sorry Colonel but we are still getting reports in, currently it seems like we are down with over fifty percent KIA and more casualties and walking wounded then we have bodies to care for them." responds Major Summers from what appears to be a rapidly filling triage area.
"Damnit, how did our patrols miss this," Johnson responds, "Get me firm numbers when you can. I am headed out with whoever is still able to recon, we need to find these saboteurs and stop them from acting further." He finishes as he pushes the throttle up and starts a lap out from the base heading down the road.
He is joined not long later by several more lances and directs them to start fanning out and searching. Two hours of searching later and there are still no results. The attacking force vanished like ghosts. The only sign that they were even there was the flattened ground the mortars had been resting on.
He had to release a sigh and call everyone back. The damage tallies had come in and it was time to receive the reports. The butcher's bill was higher than it had any right to be. Sixty percent Mission killed for this training op. The opponents had apparently taken to using Sabotage and Espionage tactics to cover the lower metal count. Smart, strategic, and entirely counter to how the rest of the IS did these kinds of things.
It was however only the first part of their attack it seemed, as their dropships had yet to reach the planet or touchdown. They would have to discuss that in the After action debrief. Shaking his head he ordered all survivors to man what machines they could and mark all others as made inoperable for the rest of the mission. Then with all the remaining survivors he made for the Militia base as their own was just a bunch of craters.
New Kyoto, Central Command, July 20th 3002, 13:42
"The remaining assault went entirely without a hitch from that point, we made landfall thirty klicks from the factory complex, unloaded and pushed out our screening force, while artillery set up. By the time set up was complete our infiltration teams had ranges and sightlines on the complex and radioed in the firemissions. An hour later the job was done and we decamped." I continue my run through of the debrief. Looking across at all the commanders and the Planetary leaders.
"What exactly was the mission profile you agreed to with the Blackhearts and Militia Col Wylde?" The Daimiyo asks me.
"Destruction of RAMtech factories and facilities, with damage or destruction of any guard forces as Secondary objectives. My Officers judged that we had no real need to engage the forces if we could complete our objective at range. Or through the use of our infiltration teams." I responded nodding to my Officer Cadre who were all to one side of the room.
"And how exactly did your infiltration teams get in position? It was agreed that all forces would have to get on the planet from the Jump points, was it not?" Col Johnson asks. He had been a little sore that my infiltration teams had run circles around his command, when they were known for similar types of fighting.
"They lifted off world two days after we announced to our teams that the training operation was to happen. Commercial ships off planet, and then a change at the Jump point and commercial ships back in. Their gear was smuggled on those same ships and went both out and came back in with them. After which they did as trained and sourced whatever else they needed on the planet until the attack began. They had been ready to begin the operation for six days by the time we made our jump and the alarms went off." I reply, getting raised eyebrows and muttered curses at the fact that an entire company of troops had been missed while actively working to sabotage everything.
"Okay so you had teams infiltrate as if they were DEST or Death Commandos or Loki." General Fuller starts eyes roving over the holotank replay of the brief attack. "They got set up with the prearranged signal being the jump alarms. Their targets were what exactly?" he asks as he looks from the tank to me, "Because I can see no connecting thread between methods and types aside from the military here." He finishes indicating all the targets that were hit by the infiltration teams at the start of the simulated raid.
"Any target of opportunity they thought they could hit." I respond, my deadpan delivery, dry tone of voice and relaxed posture has them all staring at me for that line in disbelief.
"You did not give them fixed targets?" The General asks before looking back to the holotank and indicating all the places that were hit, "These were targets of opportunity that they picked out in three days?" His voice raises an octave or two as that fact ripples through the room and starts to sink in for some of the other commanders. In three days my teams had managed to infiltrate into several high security locations, and then remain there for six further days, or plant their packages and exfil without the packages being found for the six days before detonation.
"That would be correct, General. My men's orders were and I quote, 'You are going to be on your own, behind enemy lines waiting on the cavalry to arrive. Do as much as you can to make their job easier while maintaining cover and still being able to provide accurate intelligence.' I would say they managed spectacularly." I replied looking over to James, who had a smile a mile wide and was proud as anything.
"On another note I would like to point out that during the chaos, three separate members of my teams managed to get into the HQ as staff, and in rotating shifts fed us constant information on all activities of your units." I say looking back to both the General and the Colonel. They both blanch before looking from each other back to me.
"You mean to tell me that your people could have taken out the main command tent at leisure and were actively giving you up to date information on our movements and force disposition?" A white faced Colonel Johnson asks as he looks back to the officers grouped up on their side of the auditorium.
"That is correct, Lieutenants Skoll, and Jameson, get back over to your fellows and tell Morgans that he can come in from guard duty while you are at it." I call out to the assembled officers, causing two to straighten up slightly before standing and saluting with a "Yes sir." Skoll popped out the auditorium door to grab Morgans who was acting as a guard.
The shocked faces of every officer on that side of the seating as well as the Daimiyo and Colonel Johnson, General Fuller and Colonel Manroe, grimacing was enough to tell me that the lesson would hopefully stick.
"I would say that it was an enlightening exercise and has shown us all where we need to do more work." I say looking over everyone, "This includes my men, and some areas I saw that needed more work. Our ASF should have been far more effective and once on the ground our artillery should have been ready to go in far less time, completing the mission faster." I continued, making the officers on my side grimace, they knew that had I been in the air with the ASF we would have had total domination or as near to complete as it gets with a few remaining enemy birds.
Also the Artillery did suffer a bunch of problems with their unloading process and they knew that we would be drilling that going forward.
"That said, I am happy enough with the state of my men that we can serve as training cadres for anyone you wish to send our way Daimiyo, General. I think it would help both forces and I think it will be good for everyone involved." I continue looking at the two concerned. Our Employer and the man who manages the Militia.
"Well if they come out with even half the skills your troops showed I will count that as a win. How many can you handle and how often?" The General immediately asks. I can see the hunger in his eyes for the chance to learn what we have to offer.
"Fifteen hundred, four - eight months, depending on how well you want them trained. We will send you a list at the end of that time with those we feel would make it through our enhanced training and you can choose whether they remain with us for the rest of that year. After that our contract will be up for renegotiation so we will have to see." I responded, causing the General to grin widely. I can see the gears turning in his head, if even a tenth of that number makes it through to the full year he will have a solid training cadre of highly trained SpecOps forces that can pass it on.
I think he is vastly underestimating the type of people that can make it through that training but we will see. I got lucky and had James already looking for the types of people who could before we started, which is why we had our full cadre make it to the end. That and probably the fact that I did as well. Which drove the bigger stronger folks insane. But them's the breaks when you are juiced with cosmic level bullshit like the gacha.
"Very well, now let's start focusing on the individual parts of the raid, I would like to know how the ASF intercept could have been done better in your opinion?" The General asks, guiding us back on track. I have Kira answer first and fill in or add my two cents when I feel that there are other ways of looking at things. This continues for two more days, broken up for meals and rest but by the end the training exercise has been thoroughly dissected and everyone in charge of making decisions has explained their thought process.
Once it ends we head back down south to our base and I finally allow everyone to have a day of RnR to celebrate. While they do that I retreat to my office after speeches and awards and such. I have to start planning what I want us doing in 3004 after our contract is up. First I figure that we are headed straight for the Argo on Alloway. Wiping the pirates and taking the vessel before too much more damage is done to it would be best.
Next I am going to either have to look for a world with orbital yards that can service her, or I am going to have to find a garrison contract far enough behind lines that I can have my technical crews work on her. But that will be nowhere near as good. I think the best bet is probably heading for Tharkad Aerospace Group as they make or made the Behemoth-class Dropship. The only other bet would be to take it through to Federated Boeing-Interstellar in the FedSuns, but I honestly don't feel like dealing with the Sun's nobility. So many decisions and so little time to act. I have to get things sorted and squared away before I send Katrina and Arthur the message to check for cancer.
Seriously at this stage I am wondering what exactly I am going to do with my future knowledge. Maybe just do nothing, and let things proceed as they will while I work on getting myself and my people squared away for the clans. Hmm, decisions decisions.