09 - Winter Clouds
Well, unfortunately I caught CoViD at the cusp of December, and I still haven't been able to shake soe of its effects to this day. Hence this has taken me longer than I had hoped, and it went through a full rewrite to boot.
'The Pad', Landing
Landfall
Free Worlds League
Late 3010
Justin Crechard had to hold onto his ragged straw hat with both of his hands, squinting his eyes against the hot air and dust the fusion torches of dropships in their terminal descent phase cleared off the ferrocrete landing pad of Landfall's sole space port.
Far from the traffic of its heyday during the Star League, the vast grey field lay barren most the time, except for once every five or six weeks that a trader dropped into the system to pick up goods – and sell foreign crap at extortionate prices, but that was just Justin's personal opinion. Four dropships landing at once? That was almost unheard of.
He pushed his wiry frame out of the blast zone and back through the doors of the control tower. Like everything – him included, he conceded sourly – it had seen better days. Coughing and spitting out dust and sand unceremoniously into a nearby sink as the door shit behind him with a metallic creak. Patting off the dust it only now dawned on him that all the sweeping and window cleaning he'd done the past week was all for nothing. 'The Pad's janitor-slash-maintenance guy-slash jack of all trades closed his eyes and silently counted to three.
Spitting a wordless curse into the sink, along with the rest of the sand he adjusted his eyes to the cold neon light of the control tower before climbing up a set of steep metal stairs to the control room. There usually wasn't much to do here, so the crew was small, tight-knit, and everyone knew everybody else. But today the two controllers on duty sat tense in their seats, monitoring a whole slew of screens, listening intently into their headsets.
Rasca Untherman greeted him with a curt nod while she listened to a voice in her headset, a frown burned into her narrow face. Outside, a column of vehicles was approaching fast from the nearby town.
Quietly, Crechard mouthed 'What's going on?!'
"Three Unions and a Mule are coming down," the third person in the control room answered him instead in a whisper. Colin Matambe's hair was a sparse gray fringe despite not even being fifty years old. "It's the army!" he proclaimed with wide-eyed excitement that did little to pierce Justin's shell of well-maintained cynicism.
He did some quick math in his head and came to the conclusion that, no matter what, he was going to hate the resulting work.
"So, the Army, eh?" he leaned on his broom. "Someone's feather must've been ruffled mighty bad for them to come to Landfall," he stated casually.
"It's the business down yonder in the Palatinate. Boy, I haven't seen the boys in purple in decades!" Matambe beamed.
"Will you two cut it!" Rasca spat through clenched teeth, pointing at her headset and the voices coming through.
Holding his hands up pacifyingly while making a face, the maintenance man turned and made his way back down and outside. The roar of engines was more then deafening now, and the air almost scorching hot. Then, from one moment to another, both cut off. Crechard blinked, looking up at the four towering spheres sitting on 'The Pad', purple eagles and alphanumeric codes painted onto their hulls in larger than life patterns. They'd wait a few more minutes until the ground cooled off before disembarking.
Drawing his eyes off the remarkable display of, he stepped into the maze of abandoned sheet metal warehouses and empty offices with milky windows until he reached a public phone. Security cameras were off in this part of The Pad – had been for years – so he did not waste another look around before typing a long number into the numberpad. The dial tone repeated exactly three times before a gruff voice answered on the other end. The connection was audio only.
"Vinnie's Diner, what can we do for ya?"
Justin licked his suddenly dry lips. "Ah, hey there. I'd like to make a reservation for dinner. Uh, a big one. Family from out of town, a surprise visit, heh."
There was a slight pause before the voice spoke up again. "I got ya. How many seats do you want?"
"About three dozen. Big fellas, the lot of them," he answered more fluently this time.
"Got it, I'll let the cook know. Thanks for the reservation. With an order this big, there'll be a rebate next time. You can also redeem that one at the hot dog stand at the big duck pond in Central Park."
"Thanks, I know where that is."
"Pleasure doing business with ya." The gruff voice fell silent and there was a 'click' in the connection.
Crotchety Justin Crechard turned and looked back at the hulking steel spheres out there. A pleasure indeed.
Mount Caelius
Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
December 14th, 3010
"Confidence is high on reports of League battalions having landed on Landfall and Hazeldean. This is backed up by rumors that additional forces have been sighted moving to bolster Sierra, facing Bobby McIntyre's lot, as well as along a corridor from Huntington all the way down to Romita." Each star system briefly lit up and magnified on the wall-covering screen as Blackwood spoke. "Atreus has also allocated funds to stand up planetary militias for up to six months to bolster local readiness."
"How much League metal are we looking at?" Marius had dark rings under his eyes and uncombed hair. Hours of sleep and rest had been few are far between these past weeks filled with the anticipation of the Hegemony's biggest neighbor starting to move. One emergency meeting had led to another. Reports from the border and from events in the Palatinate worlds had to be digested daily, all the while trying to manage domestic efforts to prepare as best as they could, and maintaining a careful balance so that public sentiment was concerned, but not panicked. Never in the six decades of his previous life did he remember feeling this anxious. Anxiety led to anger and frustration, emotions for which he only found limited release for in his increasingly aggressive fights with his personal defense trainer – or his nightly encounters with Olivia. "Give me your best estimate," he held up a hand to ward off Blackwood's usual spiel about unreliable information.
Blackwood pursed his lips for a moment, shuffling through printed reports for effect before he spoke. Compared to Marius the man was immaculately groomed and seemed to be beaming with energy, as if he drew sustenance from the whole situation. "Realistically, we're looking at four to six battlemech battalions plus support elements spread across the part of the border that could be of concern to us. Discounting local militias."
Leaning on the large table in Mount Caelius' underground operations center, almost half a kilometer below the surface, Marius closed his eyes and audibly exhaled. "Anna, could we handle that?"
The Hegemony's highest ranking officer's precisely ironed uniform dotted with medals and countless service ribbons matched Blackwood's appearance in its pristine presentation. But that was where the similarities ended. Anna Volkova was rough-hewn granite where Blackwood was polished marble, though Marius suspected if one were to hammer off the surface one would soon find steel below. Volkova pressed a few buttons and a section of the main screen came alive with charts showing force compositions.
"If they did us the favor of attacking us piecemeal, in a terrain of our choice where we could concentrate our forces for maximum effect? Big fat maybe," she frowned. "They've got the means and expertise to move large forces easier than we do, so chances are they'd be smart enough not to seek out battles with relative parity. Besides, them having air or space superiority is almost a given. Depending on what their strategic objective would be, they could either strangle us by taking our worlds one by one, or simply cut off the head of the snake directly."
"We have five cohorts ourselves," the emperor reminded her.
"Almost five cohorts," she corrected him. "Trust me, your majesty, nobody knows that better than I do. But the numbers don't lie. One of our cohorts is already twenty percent smaller than its League counterpart. Additionally, a League battalion on average is comprised of heavier mechs than our forces, with a higher degree of standardization and cohesion. And even if we were to magically achieve numerical parity by scratching together every personal Patrician levy: half our forces are green. Most of theirs have already seen action." Volkova shook her head. "Oh, we could make them bleed, especially with the new combined arms doctrine, but they'd come out on top. And they've got the kind of reserves we only can dream of."
"Fine." Marius shook his head with a resigned sigh, a thought appearing in his mind. "So, we're outgunned and outclassed. And to top it off, all that even our experienced formations have ever done is do mid-sized clashes against other Periphery powers like the Canopians. I guess those don't really compare against a fully-fledged successor state military?" That had been a lesson the Magistracy had learned the hard way when it had allied with Andurien and jumped the weakened Capellans. In another life.
"The new curriculum at the Imperial War College will account for that, sir," Volkova promised.
"If we make it that far, sure." Blackwood said it with a smile, but there was no mirth in his words.
"We better should!" Marius growled impatiently. Blackwood was hard to read, and his little quirks made for dubiously enjoyable company even in the best of times. "Least of all because you'll be out of a job otherwise and sitting on a silver platter, ready for your old enemies to come and pluck you up!" The black-haired, well-styled man's jaw tightened, but to his credit he simply nodded.
As if to hammer home the point, one of the many smaller screens in the operations center showing news programs flipped to a rerun of Marius' visit to the War College's construction site about a week ago. The Emperor carefully rode a horse on a trodden hillside path, a purple cape billowing in the wind, dragging on his shoulders, demanding his conscious efforts to sit calm and regal in the steed's saddle. In the recording he wore the equivalent of a parade uniform, layers of cloth and kevlar, golden stitchings, mixed with a classic toga, all topped by a brass laurel wreath pressing on his hair. It had been truly representative showing of the throne's hands-on approach to matters of state. A whole army of make-up artists and what felt like a gallon of coffee had seen to that. The camera swept across the scene. Down below, extending over more than a hundred square kilometers, the skeletons of what soon would emerge as administrative buildings, lecture halls, dorms, armories and towering halls in which different biomes would be simulated rose skywards. Areas for physical education and training mingled with the framing of halls where tactics and strategy would be taught and trained on holographic battlefields once the academy opened its gates. It would still be years until graduates left the college. If they made it so far.
"The army we're building, Anna? I want them to be able to operate in any condition. At least some of them. A true strategic force, not some fair-weather raiders. That means low and zero G, vacuum or toxic atmospheres."
He rubbed his eyes.
"Anyway, discussion for another time," he whispered more to himself than his audience before he straightened. "What else do your eyes report, Mr. Blackwood?"
The Marian spymaster changed the main screen to a tumultuous scene showing the interior of a large parliament, dominated by the crest of the Free Worlds League. "Events on the border have had a mixed reception on Atreus. Word has it parliament basically had to bludgeon Janos Marik into action. His brother came out swinging, indirectly accusing the Captain General of dereliction of duty. The news faxes report he's stated that 'the authority bequeathed onto the Captain General by Resolution 288 carries with it the responsibility to shepherd the protection of all citizens of the league, not just those that the Captain General may deem as relevant for his personal political support'. There've long been rumors of a falling out between the two brothers, but this has been the first time the younger Marik opposed Janos so vehemently and publicly. Now, with the words in the open, there's certainly bad blood between the brothers. And since many think it's been the Duke of Procyon's push that finally got the Captain General to act, his support in the provinces has grown rather than that of his brother. The silver lining for us in this is that the words Marian Hegemony don't appear in the resolution, and that by and large the League once again appears to be more occupied with itself than with us, or the Palatinate."
"Let's pray it remains that way. What little they have done so far has posed nigh insurmountable obstacles to us, should the going get tough," Volkova sounded resigned.
"League troops may be staying on their side of the border. League money certainly is not," Blackwood explained with a hint of worry. "Part of the resolution was the allocation of funds for foreign aid, which is a very tame way to say that Atreus is pretty much openly bankrolling the Illyrian resistance." He flipped to another menu and the dossier of a middle-aged blond man with a long beard and a long red scar across the breadth of his face appeared. "Herod Gundermann, a member of the former ruling council and now the de facto leader of the Palatinate rump. He's been gathering loyalist forces on Reykavis, and also several mercenary companies have entered his employ, both with mechs and with armor. No known big names, mostly smaller formations: Markham's Marauders, the Flashlords, Loki's Lance," he named a few, but none of them directly rang a bell with Marius, despite the feeling of fleeting familiarity. "Needless to say, the Illyrians don't have the funds left to pay for all those mercs. So, where's the money coming from? Atreus."
"It stands to see what that money really buys 'em," Volkova shrugged.
"Well, apparently, it buys them success." The main screen switched to battle rom recordings, showing a clash in a wide valley. "Black market salvage got us this here. Supposedly a battle on Trondheimal between the Void Wyverns and a mixed Illyrian-mercenary force that dropped in via the planet's pirate point. It's only rumor so far, but word has it the Wyverns got mauled, badly. Bad enough to withdraw from the planet. And the Patties have continued to probe both Trondheimal and Trasjkis, though the latter seems to be held by pirates made from sterner stuff. Or with better brains."
"I suppose that's the cue to ask about our most ambitious acquaintance in the field of spontaneous illegal passing of property. What's Fletcher doing?" Marius turned his attention to the big screen and found himself surprised at Blackwood's hesitation. "Well?"
"Ambitions meets ability, if I had to give you a quick summary." Blackwood sounded surprised at his own words. "Fletcher's Silver Moon Syndicate has tightened its grip on the majority of Illyria, and for now he's content to keep Blaze Mercer's men for when he needs a scapegoat for the really dirty stuff. I doubt Mercer understands that Fletcher is using him as an easy means to pin the blame for any atrocity on him. The man is sly as a snake. 'Statesmanlike' is another adjective that seems to fit."
"Not exactly the words one would usually associate with a pirate," Volkova commented.
"True, but the shoe seems to fit. Word from the planet – Illyria, that is – has it that he's been hiring mercenaries of his own, but there's been no confirmation via MRB so far. Fact is, however, that large numbers of both armor and infantry have appeared on the planet, mixed in with a few battlemechs here and there, as well as three lance-sized units," Blackwood explained.
Volkova and Marius exchanged a few glances before the older officer spoke up. "I may actually be able to shed some light here. Your perspective is still that of a man from the Inner Sphere, Mr. Blackwood. The mechs are most likely singular guns for hire, or pairs of ronin. Those are far more common out here than established mercenary commands, even if the command in question is just a lance. As for the others… The worlds of the Periphery – the real, deep Periphery – offer a vast supply of men and women with little to lose, but much to gain. Many mercenary commands hail from worlds deep in the void: infantry battalions, sappers, armor companies fielding what is effectively Age of War kit, sometimes just a group of friends with guns and acquired skills. These are cheap, and there are plenty of them, and they don't appear in any MRB database because MRB has never ever heard of 'em in the first place."
"Fletcher most likely uses the bulk of those mercs to pacify Illyria proper, and the mechs he can use to bolster his own core forces?"
It was a statement phrased as a question, but General Volkova simply nodded. "That'd be my guess, too, your majesty. A company of armor using primitive heavy tanks is still a formidable show of force, and will threaten any light or medium mech stupid enough to waltz into its middle. And boots on the ground mean Fletcher can control the Illyrians."
"Turns out he's doing more than just that," Blackwood pointed back at the screen, now showing a multitude of sales documents, security cam footage and cargo manifests. "A number of larger Hegemony corporations have just recently started their switch from slaves to trained pleb labor forces, gradually dumping thousands back onto the markets, here and on Suetonius. Seems your reforms are bearing fruit," he smiled sardonically. "Well, as it turns out, the Silver Moon Syndicate and its associates have been buying up those slaves in bulk and shipping them to Illyria."
"What the hell does Fletcher want with that many slaves?!" Volkova frowned as she straightened her shoulders, some of her larger medals audible clanking against her uniform buttons.
"He's rebuilding the planet. Restoring infrastructure, expanding mines, setting up new ones," Marius quietly answered as he watched the footage of rows of people being herded off the ramps of dropships like cattle. "Isn't that right, Blackwood?"
"Indeed, it is," the spymaster hid the flicker of surprise well. "How did you know."
Marius smiled wearily. "Because it's what I would do." He looked at a picture of Fletcher. The man who would be king. A momentary uncomfortable silence descended over the room as none of the three felt inclined to expand on the line of thought of Jason Fletcher as an established ruler of his own fiefdom. Then, surprising himself probably as much as the others, Marius flashed a grin. "Well, who's going to be the one to slap their thighs and carry on? Anna? What about recruitment and production?"
"Bear in mind this is more of the Magister Militum's purview, your majesty, but since your uncle is indisposed I'll be relying on the data he provided," General Volkova prefaced her statement, shuffling through some papers on the table before finally booting up her noteputer instead. She cleared her throat. "Right now, we're in the middle of raising Cohort V, Legio II. We're looking at a two-edged sword, your Majesty. At the moment, there are waiting lines in front of every enlistment office on every Hegemony world. Even on the new ones. In fact, we're getting for more people willing to enlist than we could reasonably take. The media coverage of the ongoing crisis has been extremely effective, especially so as this is the first time in Hegemony history that the possibility of an actual, direct foreign threat to the nation has manifested."
"We may have to tone it down a bit. We're walking a fine line between raising concern and inducing panic. And we don't want the latter," Marius mused.
"The last we need is a public panic when we're trying to maintain the impression of being in control of the situation," Blackwood agreed. "With your permission I will approach the relevant media conglomerates to offer 'guidance' on the issue?"
"Granted," Marius nodded. "Proceed, Anna."
"We're looking at a number of currently insurmountable bottlenecks. Even if we take only every tenth recruit lining up in the streets we're still critically short on instructors and training facilities. The latter can be somewhat helped by prefabs and old-fashioned tents, especially on the less densely populated worlds were space isn't an issue. But as far as instructors go, there simply aren't any. I'm currently rotating NCOs out of the two legions to fill some gaps, but half of those legionaries are green themselves. And the move leaves gaps in the existing command structure."
"What about mercenaries?"
"Using access to the army's discretionary funds I was able to secure the services or a few mercenary lances to temporarily bolster our defenses. With the League financing the Patties, and beefing up their own borders the local market is pretty empty. Most larger formations are already employed at the moment, and those that aren't are too far away. There's also the issue that our overall reputation does not endear us to some of the better-rated commands. With that said, only a few of the ones we hired are suitable as trainers for recruits, especially given our new paradigm. They can teach some basic mech handling, but that's about it."
"What about your secret deep periphery mercenary hordes?" Blackwood asked only half in jest.
Volkova snorted and the veins on her neck stood out. "Sure, I'll hire some three-toothed yokel who barely speaks understandable English or Latin due to language drift to train a centuriae of new Marian shock infantry. Or have three inbred guys and a mangy dog from six hundred light years away with their tank that's four centuries out of date teach new recruits the fine details of cohort-sized armor operations."
"Doesn't that stand in contrast to what you said earlier about Fletcher hiring them?" Blackwood inquired.
"What's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander here. It's one thing to suppress unruly locals or fight off a few raiders. It's something entirely different to have the same people attend to the training and creation of a regular army," Volkova shook her short-shaved head. "We'd have to train and equip them first to our standards to use them as force multipliers. Which, incidentally, leads us to the next bottleneck. Production and procurement aren't keeping pace with the speed by which we're trying to set up new cohorts. Infantry equipment and support vehicles, that's something we can handle domestically, even though suppliers are strained to expand their base of operations to keep pace with our demand. It's everything else that's a problem: energy weapons, main battle tanks, ASF, let alone mechs. We're reliant on salvage, the secondary market, and outright theft for those."
Marius nodded and sighed. "And, of course, our domestic efforts to remedy this are still in their infancy. Great," he winced. "Do what you can. In the meantime, concentrate on those formations that we can actually get battleworthy. We need boots on the ground, in case bad comes to worse."
"Losses from the punitive expedition have been restored, so we are no worse off than before, and at the current rate we're adding about a centuriae of armor and a cohort of infantry to the active forces per month. Mechs are about a maniple per month that we're standing up, but only because we draw some from the existing units and replace those with salvage from RICHELIEU."
"We need to keep that strictly limited, Anna. A lot of those pieces won't do us any good if we lose them in the field, but they're worth their weight in C-bills if we let our schools and corporations study them eventually. It's also not worth inviting undue foreign attention," Marius cautioned.
"I understand, your majesty, but we're talking about one or two mechs per month at most, and those are basically Frankenstein-mechs as long as the boys and girls at Alphard Trading don't get that salvaged automated repair suite running again," Volkova explained. "We've also started to equip select squads with the pulse laser Mausers. Feedback has been… subdued, except for the obvious moral and PR boost."
"Having held one of these, that doesn't surprise me, to be honest," Marius sighed. "For all its bells and whistles it's a bloated piece of hardware, more of a squad support weapon than a battle rifle. Still, beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes."
"We've got more than ten thousand of those things stashed away. Maybe there's a way to cut some of the fat off some of them?" Blackwood spoke up. "Get rid of the survival kit, redesign the stock, things like that?" Noticing their surprise, he chuckled. "Firearms aren't my specialty, but I do deal in information. I did my due diligence."
"He's got a point," Volkova agreed. "And with so many in pristine condition, maybe someone figures out the pulse mechanism in the process."
"Fine. Put it on my uncle's roster," he stifled a yawn. "No, scratch that, I'll tell him myself. He wants to meet me later today. Something else?"
"You'll be pleased to hear that the mechanized Infantry Legio I is almost seventy percent ready. Although…," she paused.
"Although what?" Marius raised an eyebrow.
"There have been persistent, ah, 'hickups' regarding supplies. Deliveries have been mixed up between the infantry formation and the actual, combined arms Legio I," Volkova looked like a child anxious to tell its father it had destroyed some heirloom vase.
Marius' face stiffened and his voice fell to an almost whisper.
"Anna, I've had about three hours of sleep each night for the past three weeks, and I've got zero patience left for utter dogshit like this. Drop the Roman pretense, rename the formation to 1st Infantry Division, discipline the ones responsible for messing it up. Severely." He took a deep breath. "Anything else?"
Glady, there was not.
Camp Sulla
Forty Miles North of Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
Afternoon of the same day
He had barely even closed his eyes when Hegemony-1 sat down on the landing pad, but Posca, always hanging in the back like an observant shadow, had commanded him to try and take a nap. He also had had to promise him to go to bed early and actually sleep the whole night. Like a six years old boy. Sometimes he wondered who actually was the most powerful man in the Hegemony. Right now, he wasn't sure if it wasn't actually.
Members of his praetorian guard ushered him into a large, well-lit warehouse where Corvinus O'Reilly, the acting secretary of defense for the Marian Hegemony, awaited him together with a corporate delegation that introduced themselves as members of a joint venture of Brubaker-Botamu Automotive and Maccallan Steelworks. The former he knew as producers of construction equipment and busses, the latter he had to admit he had never consciously heard of. Polite greetings were exchanged as his giddy uncle introduced the industrialists, and in a calm moment he managed to slip the Mauser issue into Corvinus' purview. Much to Marius' surprise – and gratefulness – the rotund O'Reilly accepted the additional task in stride.
Loudspeakers at the ceiling cackled, and with blaring pompous music Marius' fatigue gave way to sudden surprise and interest when the anxious delegation pulled the tarp off a large construct in the center of the warehouse, revealing the rough-hewn metal chassis of what was presented to Marius as the working prototype of the first domestic ICE-powered 40-ton tracked tank.
"We're calling it the Tonitru, or 'Thunder'," the leader of the delegation explained with a beaming smile.
To say it looked rough would have been a monumental understatement. The armor was all hard angles and visible weld marks, and the basic track layout reminded him more of a caterpillar than a tank. Less of a thunder and more of a burp vanishing in a gust of wind.
Sensing his mounting disappointment his uncle drew him away, sending reassuring smiles at the gathered industrialists.
"It doesn't look like much, but having a tank is always better than having no tank. And, praise where praise is due, making the initial investment is something that takes courage. Building military gear that can survive in the Succession Wars is no small feat. Besides, that's just the thing they cobbled together to actually have something to show up with," he patted the cold metal covering the top of the tracks. "But I've been assured it works. Well, it can drive and shoot, that is. They are even confident enough to have a design team look into a version that could be powered by a fusion engine – should we ever get a steady supply of those. That would be faster, better armed, and carry more armor."
In roughly twenty years or so, Marius thought glumly, baring a sudden outburst of high-tech manufacturing across the Hegemony. But there was the memory core…
Corvinus O'Reilly waddled over to the tank and heaved himself up to dig his hands into the exposed engine on the machine's back.
Marius could see how closely the older, stout man inspected everything in front of his eyes while the delegation's attention switched between the Emperor and the Magister Militum and back again. After a few minutes that felt far longer, the older O'Reilly untangled himself from the exposed engine block, wiped his hands down on his camo pants and unceremoniously walked back to the Emperor.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please give us a minute," he called out to the company men and gave Marius a wink with his head. The two men walked a few paces off and stuck their head together.
"So?"
"Let me tell you something, boy: I've seen a lot of unimpressive gear in my active year, but this here? That's most unimpressivist heap of metal and wires these tired old eyes have ever come across," he huffed.
"Is that even a word?" Marius frowned.
"It is now," he stated with the iron-clad certainty only someone who slipped into clothes far too tight everyday and proudly wore a double chin could muster.
"So, it's that bad?" Marius couldn't stop the disappointment from flowing full-speed into his voice. He couldn't realistically have expected something spectacular, no. But at least something that wasn't an embarrassment would have been... nice. He caught the project lead expectantly staring at the two of them and forced a weak smile.
"Bad? Ehhhh... a harsh word that. See, if the universe could give the concept of 'below average' a shape? That'd be it," he nodded at the steel beast. "The speed is utterly ordinary for something in that weight class. Probably a bit on the slow side even. On paper it's supposed to have a top speed of just below 65 kph. The firepower? Well, the radio operator can also handle the frontside machine gun to take potshots at infantry, and the large laser's a, well, utterly uninspired slightly-better-than-midrange workhorse. Shouldn't go toe-to-toe with anything the same size on its own if it wants to come out of it alive, though. The armor's real tough for a thing of that size, though. Something you'd find on machines ten to fifteen tons heavier, usually." He sighed, then shrugged. "The boys are gonna love it."
"So, it's a doozy and – wait, what?" Marius raised an eyebrow and stared over his shoulder, back at the machine with open skepticism. "That thing looked like someone stacked some bricks and gave them a vague metal-ish paint job as an afterthought."
"You're thinking in terms of firepower per ton, of pure speed, of martial prowess. You're thinking like a mech jockey... your majesty. What you need to do is think like a general, a leader." All joviality had left his voice. "That rumbling diesel engine? Every mechanic in every garage on each and every one of our worlds can fix it, jury rig it, get it running again. That's how basic and simple is it. The armor? Every machine shop in the most remote parts of the Hegemony has the cranes and blow torches to fix or replace it. And it carries seven tons of it. The electronics? Half the equipment is commercial, off the shelf stuff. And the pieces they purpose-built is also made up of parts that are off the shelf. And that large laser? Its mount and capacitors are built so that the one Lockley-Odinson is working on here on Alphard will be able to replace it." He gave the emperor a long, hard look. "By then, every nut and bolt of that tank will have been domestically built. And every militia unit raised, ever, they'll be wanting to sell their reproductive organs to get a hand on that ugly piece of iron. Seven tons of armor your mates can hide behind, and a big ray gun to shoot back at the enemy? Times ten, times fifteen?" He shook his head. "That's a hell of a lot of leverage your average weekend warrior suddenly gets."
"A Magistracy 'mech company won't bat an eye at an ordinary motorized militia formation, but it's a whole other song if they are backed up by a maniple of tanks or two. And we can replace them far easier than they can replace or repair their mechs." Understanding dawned on Marius' face.
"Precisely," Corvinus nodded emphatically. "That ugly thing over there? It doesn't have to be great. All it needs to be is just good enough. And they can probably keep that thing in operation with wires, duct tape and a prayer for months on end. In a sense, it's actually perfection." He flashed a smile. "Cherry on top, it's dirt cheap. Also, as long as we can't buy enough better vehicles for the legions, this is a viable stop-gap solution. Remember: a tank…"
"…is better than no tank," Marius finished. Looking back over his uncle's shoulder at the prototype and the men waiting for them, a resigned but somewhat reassured smile slipped onto Marius' face. "So, we're going to buy it then?"
Brubaker's eyes met his and he nodded, pursing his lips. "A lot, my boy. Like, a lot."
Following its introduction in early 3012 C.E. the Brubaker-Botuma Tonitru medium tank lived in the shadow of mote established, more versatile and more capable designs for the first years of its existence, largely unnoticed by the successor states and the main periphery powers. But that did no harm to its popularity in the Hegemony's backyard. First used by the Marian legions and soon it's planetary militias, Brubaker-Botuma quickly received export licenses when tentative relations with the government on Stettin were established. In the following two decades the design proliferated throughout the near periphery as a result of Marian diplomatic relations and security treaties with planetary governments rimwards and anti-spinwards of the Inner Sphere. But it was the warming of relations with the Magistracy and, eventually, the war that escalated from the Andurien-Canopian thrust into the Capellan Confederation that catapulted the design into the limelight as one of the pillars used to hold onto confederate worlds during the course of the war. Outperformed in almost all aspects like armament, speed and versatility, it became the prime target for field refits and impromptu upgrades. Despite its performance deficits, the 'Thunder' was well-received by tankers and infantry as its heavy armor let it excel where it really mattered: survival. Even in the 32nd Century the Tonitru in its original configuration can still be found across the periphery, despite the fact that Brubaker-Botuma has long since concentrated on upgraded designs […].
Origins of an Arsenal: Hegemony Weapons in the 31st Century. Imperial War College Press, 3105 C.E.
C h a p t e r 0 9: Winter Clouds
'The Pad', Landing
Landfall
Free Worlds League
Late 3010
Justin Crechard had to hold onto his ragged straw hat with both of his hands, squinting his eyes against the hot air and dust the fusion torches of dropships in their terminal descent phase cleared off the ferrocrete landing pad of Landfall's sole space port.
Far from the traffic of its heyday during the Star League, the vast grey field lay barren most the time, except for once every five or six weeks that a trader dropped into the system to pick up goods – and sell foreign crap at extortionate prices, but that was just Justin's personal opinion. Four dropships landing at once? That was almost unheard of.
He pushed his wiry frame out of the blast zone and back through the doors of the control tower. Like everything – him included, he conceded sourly – it had seen better days. Coughing and spitting out dust and sand unceremoniously into a nearby sink as the door shit behind him with a metallic creak. Patting off the dust it only now dawned on him that all the sweeping and window cleaning he'd done the past week was all for nothing. 'The Pad's janitor-slash-maintenance guy-slash jack of all trades closed his eyes and silently counted to three.
Spitting a wordless curse into the sink, along with the rest of the sand he adjusted his eyes to the cold neon light of the control tower before climbing up a set of steep metal stairs to the control room. There usually wasn't much to do here, so the crew was small, tight-knit, and everyone knew everybody else. But today the two controllers on duty sat tense in their seats, monitoring a whole slew of screens, listening intently into their headsets.
Rasca Untherman greeted him with a curt nod while she listened to a voice in her headset, a frown burned into her narrow face. Outside, a column of vehicles was approaching fast from the nearby town.
Quietly, Crechard mouthed 'What's going on?!'
"Three Unions and a Mule are coming down," the third person in the control room answered him instead in a whisper. Colin Matambe's hair was a sparse gray fringe despite not even being fifty years old. "It's the army!" he proclaimed with wide-eyed excitement that did little to pierce Justin's shell of well-maintained cynicism.
He did some quick math in his head and came to the conclusion that, no matter what, he was going to hate the resulting work.
"So, the Army, eh?" he leaned on his broom. "Someone's feather must've been ruffled mighty bad for them to come to Landfall," he stated casually.
"It's the business down yonder in the Palatinate. Boy, I haven't seen the boys in purple in decades!" Matambe beamed.
"Will you two cut it!" Rasca spat through clenched teeth, pointing at her headset and the voices coming through.
Holding his hands up pacifyingly while making a face, the maintenance man turned and made his way back down and outside. The roar of engines was more then deafening now, and the air almost scorching hot. Then, from one moment to another, both cut off. Crechard blinked, looking up at the four towering spheres sitting on 'The Pad', purple eagles and alphanumeric codes painted onto their hulls in larger than life patterns. They'd wait a few more minutes until the ground cooled off before disembarking.
Drawing his eyes off the remarkable display of, he stepped into the maze of abandoned sheet metal warehouses and empty offices with milky windows until he reached a public phone. Security cameras were off in this part of The Pad – had been for years – so he did not waste another look around before typing a long number into the numberpad. The dial tone repeated exactly three times before a gruff voice answered on the other end. The connection was audio only.
"Vinnie's Diner, what can we do for ya?"
Justin licked his suddenly dry lips. "Ah, hey there. I'd like to make a reservation for dinner. Uh, a big one. Family from out of town, a surprise visit, heh."
There was a slight pause before the voice spoke up again. "I got ya. How many seats do you want?"
"About three dozen. Big fellas, the lot of them," he answered more fluently this time.
"Got it, I'll let the cook know. Thanks for the reservation. With an order this big, there'll be a rebate next time. You can also redeem that one at the hot dog stand at the big duck pond in Central Park."
"Thanks, I know where that is."
"Pleasure doing business with ya." The gruff voice fell silent and there was a 'click' in the connection.
Crotchety Justin Crechard turned and looked back at the hulking steel spheres out there. A pleasure indeed.
Mount Caelius
Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
December 14th, 3010
"Confidence is high on reports of League battalions having landed on Landfall and Hazeldean. This is backed up by rumors that additional forces have been sighted moving to bolster Sierra, facing Bobby McIntyre's lot, as well as along a corridor from Huntington all the way down to Romita." Each star system briefly lit up and magnified on the wall-covering screen as Blackwood spoke. "Atreus has also allocated funds to stand up planetary militias for up to six months to bolster local readiness."
"How much League metal are we looking at?" Marius had dark rings under his eyes and uncombed hair. Hours of sleep and rest had been few are far between these past weeks filled with the anticipation of the Hegemony's biggest neighbor starting to move. One emergency meeting had led to another. Reports from the border and from events in the Palatinate worlds had to be digested daily, all the while trying to manage domestic efforts to prepare as best as they could, and maintaining a careful balance so that public sentiment was concerned, but not panicked. Never in the six decades of his previous life did he remember feeling this anxious. Anxiety led to anger and frustration, emotions for which he only found limited release for in his increasingly aggressive fights with his personal defense trainer – or his nightly encounters with Olivia. "Give me your best estimate," he held up a hand to ward off Blackwood's usual spiel about unreliable information.
Blackwood pursed his lips for a moment, shuffling through printed reports for effect before he spoke. Compared to Marius the man was immaculately groomed and seemed to be beaming with energy, as if he drew sustenance from the whole situation. "Realistically, we're looking at four to six battlemech battalions plus support elements spread across the part of the border that could be of concern to us. Discounting local militias."
Leaning on the large table in Mount Caelius' underground operations center, almost half a kilometer below the surface, Marius closed his eyes and audibly exhaled. "Anna, could we handle that?"
The Hegemony's highest ranking officer's precisely ironed uniform dotted with medals and countless service ribbons matched Blackwood's appearance in its pristine presentation. But that was where the similarities ended. Anna Volkova was rough-hewn granite where Blackwood was polished marble, though Marius suspected if one were to hammer off the surface one would soon find steel below. Volkova pressed a few buttons and a section of the main screen came alive with charts showing force compositions.
"If they did us the favor of attacking us piecemeal, in a terrain of our choice where we could concentrate our forces for maximum effect? Big fat maybe," she frowned. "They've got the means and expertise to move large forces easier than we do, so chances are they'd be smart enough not to seek out battles with relative parity. Besides, them having air or space superiority is almost a given. Depending on what their strategic objective would be, they could either strangle us by taking our worlds one by one, or simply cut off the head of the snake directly."
"We have five cohorts ourselves," the emperor reminded her.
"Almost five cohorts," she corrected him. "Trust me, your majesty, nobody knows that better than I do. But the numbers don't lie. One of our cohorts is already twenty percent smaller than its League counterpart. Additionally, a League battalion on average is comprised of heavier mechs than our forces, with a higher degree of standardization and cohesion. And even if we were to magically achieve numerical parity by scratching together every personal Patrician levy: half our forces are green. Most of theirs have already seen action." Volkova shook her head. "Oh, we could make them bleed, especially with the new combined arms doctrine, but they'd come out on top. And they've got the kind of reserves we only can dream of."
"Fine." Marius shook his head with a resigned sigh, a thought appearing in his mind. "So, we're outgunned and outclassed. And to top it off, all that even our experienced formations have ever done is do mid-sized clashes against other Periphery powers like the Canopians. I guess those don't really compare against a fully-fledged successor state military?" That had been a lesson the Magistracy had learned the hard way when it had allied with Andurien and jumped the weakened Capellans. In another life.
"The new curriculum at the Imperial War College will account for that, sir," Volkova promised.
"If we make it that far, sure." Blackwood said it with a smile, but there was no mirth in his words.
"We better should!" Marius growled impatiently. Blackwood was hard to read, and his little quirks made for dubiously enjoyable company even in the best of times. "Least of all because you'll be out of a job otherwise and sitting on a silver platter, ready for your old enemies to come and pluck you up!" The black-haired, well-styled man's jaw tightened, but to his credit he simply nodded.
As if to hammer home the point, one of the many smaller screens in the operations center showing news programs flipped to a rerun of Marius' visit to the War College's construction site about a week ago. The Emperor carefully rode a horse on a trodden hillside path, a purple cape billowing in the wind, dragging on his shoulders, demanding his conscious efforts to sit calm and regal in the steed's saddle. In the recording he wore the equivalent of a parade uniform, layers of cloth and kevlar, golden stitchings, mixed with a classic toga, all topped by a brass laurel wreath pressing on his hair. It had been truly representative showing of the throne's hands-on approach to matters of state. A whole army of make-up artists and what felt like a gallon of coffee had seen to that. The camera swept across the scene. Down below, extending over more than a hundred square kilometers, the skeletons of what soon would emerge as administrative buildings, lecture halls, dorms, armories and towering halls in which different biomes would be simulated rose skywards. Areas for physical education and training mingled with the framing of halls where tactics and strategy would be taught and trained on holographic battlefields once the academy opened its gates. It would still be years until graduates left the college. If they made it so far.
"The army we're building, Anna? I want them to be able to operate in any condition. At least some of them. A true strategic force, not some fair-weather raiders. That means low and zero G, vacuum or toxic atmospheres."
He rubbed his eyes.
"Anyway, discussion for another time," he whispered more to himself than his audience before he straightened. "What else do your eyes report, Mr. Blackwood?"
The Marian spymaster changed the main screen to a tumultuous scene showing the interior of a large parliament, dominated by the crest of the Free Worlds League. "Events on the border have had a mixed reception on Atreus. Word has it parliament basically had to bludgeon Janos Marik into action. His brother came out swinging, indirectly accusing the Captain General of dereliction of duty. The news faxes report he's stated that 'the authority bequeathed onto the Captain General by Resolution 288 carries with it the responsibility to shepherd the protection of all citizens of the league, not just those that the Captain General may deem as relevant for his personal political support'. There've long been rumors of a falling out between the two brothers, but this has been the first time the younger Marik opposed Janos so vehemently and publicly. Now, with the words in the open, there's certainly bad blood between the brothers. And since many think it's been the Duke of Procyon's push that finally got the Captain General to act, his support in the provinces has grown rather than that of his brother. The silver lining for us in this is that the words Marian Hegemony don't appear in the resolution, and that by and large the League once again appears to be more occupied with itself than with us, or the Palatinate."
"Let's pray it remains that way. What little they have done so far has posed nigh insurmountable obstacles to us, should the going get tough," Volkova sounded resigned.
"League troops may be staying on their side of the border. League money certainly is not," Blackwood explained with a hint of worry. "Part of the resolution was the allocation of funds for foreign aid, which is a very tame way to say that Atreus is pretty much openly bankrolling the Illyrian resistance." He flipped to another menu and the dossier of a middle-aged blond man with a long beard and a long red scar across the breadth of his face appeared. "Herod Gundermann, a member of the former ruling council and now the de facto leader of the Palatinate rump. He's been gathering loyalist forces on Reykavis, and also several mercenary companies have entered his employ, both with mechs and with armor. No known big names, mostly smaller formations: Markham's Marauders, the Flashlords, Loki's Lance," he named a few, but none of them directly rang a bell with Marius, despite the feeling of fleeting familiarity. "Needless to say, the Illyrians don't have the funds left to pay for all those mercs. So, where's the money coming from? Atreus."
"It stands to see what that money really buys 'em," Volkova shrugged.
"Well, apparently, it buys them success." The main screen switched to battle rom recordings, showing a clash in a wide valley. "Black market salvage got us this here. Supposedly a battle on Trondheimal between the Void Wyverns and a mixed Illyrian-mercenary force that dropped in via the planet's pirate point. It's only rumor so far, but word has it the Wyverns got mauled, badly. Bad enough to withdraw from the planet. And the Patties have continued to probe both Trondheimal and Trasjkis, though the latter seems to be held by pirates made from sterner stuff. Or with better brains."
"I suppose that's the cue to ask about our most ambitious acquaintance in the field of spontaneous illegal passing of property. What's Fletcher doing?" Marius turned his attention to the big screen and found himself surprised at Blackwood's hesitation. "Well?"
"Ambitions meets ability, if I had to give you a quick summary." Blackwood sounded surprised at his own words. "Fletcher's Silver Moon Syndicate has tightened its grip on the majority of Illyria, and for now he's content to keep Blaze Mercer's men for when he needs a scapegoat for the really dirty stuff. I doubt Mercer understands that Fletcher is using him as an easy means to pin the blame for any atrocity on him. The man is sly as a snake. 'Statesmanlike' is another adjective that seems to fit."
"Not exactly the words one would usually associate with a pirate," Volkova commented.
"True, but the shoe seems to fit. Word from the planet – Illyria, that is – has it that he's been hiring mercenaries of his own, but there's been no confirmation via MRB so far. Fact is, however, that large numbers of both armor and infantry have appeared on the planet, mixed in with a few battlemechs here and there, as well as three lance-sized units," Blackwood explained.
Volkova and Marius exchanged a few glances before the older officer spoke up. "I may actually be able to shed some light here. Your perspective is still that of a man from the Inner Sphere, Mr. Blackwood. The mechs are most likely singular guns for hire, or pairs of ronin. Those are far more common out here than established mercenary commands, even if the command in question is just a lance. As for the others… The worlds of the Periphery – the real, deep Periphery – offer a vast supply of men and women with little to lose, but much to gain. Many mercenary commands hail from worlds deep in the void: infantry battalions, sappers, armor companies fielding what is effectively Age of War kit, sometimes just a group of friends with guns and acquired skills. These are cheap, and there are plenty of them, and they don't appear in any MRB database because MRB has never ever heard of 'em in the first place."
"Fletcher most likely uses the bulk of those mercs to pacify Illyria proper, and the mechs he can use to bolster his own core forces?"
It was a statement phrased as a question, but General Volkova simply nodded. "That'd be my guess, too, your majesty. A company of armor using primitive heavy tanks is still a formidable show of force, and will threaten any light or medium mech stupid enough to waltz into its middle. And boots on the ground mean Fletcher can control the Illyrians."
"Turns out he's doing more than just that," Blackwood pointed back at the screen, now showing a multitude of sales documents, security cam footage and cargo manifests. "A number of larger Hegemony corporations have just recently started their switch from slaves to trained pleb labor forces, gradually dumping thousands back onto the markets, here and on Suetonius. Seems your reforms are bearing fruit," he smiled sardonically. "Well, as it turns out, the Silver Moon Syndicate and its associates have been buying up those slaves in bulk and shipping them to Illyria."
"What the hell does Fletcher want with that many slaves?!" Volkova frowned as she straightened her shoulders, some of her larger medals audible clanking against her uniform buttons.
"He's rebuilding the planet. Restoring infrastructure, expanding mines, setting up new ones," Marius quietly answered as he watched the footage of rows of people being herded off the ramps of dropships like cattle. "Isn't that right, Blackwood?"
"Indeed, it is," the spymaster hid the flicker of surprise well. "How did you know."
Marius smiled wearily. "Because it's what I would do." He looked at a picture of Fletcher. The man who would be king. A momentary uncomfortable silence descended over the room as none of the three felt inclined to expand on the line of thought of Jason Fletcher as an established ruler of his own fiefdom. Then, surprising himself probably as much as the others, Marius flashed a grin. "Well, who's going to be the one to slap their thighs and carry on? Anna? What about recruitment and production?"
"Bear in mind this is more of the Magister Militum's purview, your majesty, but since your uncle is indisposed I'll be relying on the data he provided," General Volkova prefaced her statement, shuffling through some papers on the table before finally booting up her noteputer instead. She cleared her throat. "Right now, we're in the middle of raising Cohort V, Legio II. We're looking at a two-edged sword, your Majesty. At the moment, there are waiting lines in front of every enlistment office on every Hegemony world. Even on the new ones. In fact, we're getting for more people willing to enlist than we could reasonably take. The media coverage of the ongoing crisis has been extremely effective, especially so as this is the first time in Hegemony history that the possibility of an actual, direct foreign threat to the nation has manifested."
"We may have to tone it down a bit. We're walking a fine line between raising concern and inducing panic. And we don't want the latter," Marius mused.
"The last we need is a public panic when we're trying to maintain the impression of being in control of the situation," Blackwood agreed. "With your permission I will approach the relevant media conglomerates to offer 'guidance' on the issue?"
"Granted," Marius nodded. "Proceed, Anna."
"We're looking at a number of currently insurmountable bottlenecks. Even if we take only every tenth recruit lining up in the streets we're still critically short on instructors and training facilities. The latter can be somewhat helped by prefabs and old-fashioned tents, especially on the less densely populated worlds were space isn't an issue. But as far as instructors go, there simply aren't any. I'm currently rotating NCOs out of the two legions to fill some gaps, but half of those legionaries are green themselves. And the move leaves gaps in the existing command structure."
"What about mercenaries?"
"Using access to the army's discretionary funds I was able to secure the services or a few mercenary lances to temporarily bolster our defenses. With the League financing the Patties, and beefing up their own borders the local market is pretty empty. Most larger formations are already employed at the moment, and those that aren't are too far away. There's also the issue that our overall reputation does not endear us to some of the better-rated commands. With that said, only a few of the ones we hired are suitable as trainers for recruits, especially given our new paradigm. They can teach some basic mech handling, but that's about it."
"What about your secret deep periphery mercenary hordes?" Blackwood asked only half in jest.
Volkova snorted and the veins on her neck stood out. "Sure, I'll hire some three-toothed yokel who barely speaks understandable English or Latin due to language drift to train a centuriae of new Marian shock infantry. Or have three inbred guys and a mangy dog from six hundred light years away with their tank that's four centuries out of date teach new recruits the fine details of cohort-sized armor operations."
"Doesn't that stand in contrast to what you said earlier about Fletcher hiring them?" Blackwood inquired.
"What's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander here. It's one thing to suppress unruly locals or fight off a few raiders. It's something entirely different to have the same people attend to the training and creation of a regular army," Volkova shook her short-shaved head. "We'd have to train and equip them first to our standards to use them as force multipliers. Which, incidentally, leads us to the next bottleneck. Production and procurement aren't keeping pace with the speed by which we're trying to set up new cohorts. Infantry equipment and support vehicles, that's something we can handle domestically, even though suppliers are strained to expand their base of operations to keep pace with our demand. It's everything else that's a problem: energy weapons, main battle tanks, ASF, let alone mechs. We're reliant on salvage, the secondary market, and outright theft for those."
Marius nodded and sighed. "And, of course, our domestic efforts to remedy this are still in their infancy. Great," he winced. "Do what you can. In the meantime, concentrate on those formations that we can actually get battleworthy. We need boots on the ground, in case bad comes to worse."
"Losses from the punitive expedition have been restored, so we are no worse off than before, and at the current rate we're adding about a centuriae of armor and a cohort of infantry to the active forces per month. Mechs are about a maniple per month that we're standing up, but only because we draw some from the existing units and replace those with salvage from RICHELIEU."
"We need to keep that strictly limited, Anna. A lot of those pieces won't do us any good if we lose them in the field, but they're worth their weight in C-bills if we let our schools and corporations study them eventually. It's also not worth inviting undue foreign attention," Marius cautioned.
"I understand, your majesty, but we're talking about one or two mechs per month at most, and those are basically Frankenstein-mechs as long as the boys and girls at Alphard Trading don't get that salvaged automated repair suite running again," Volkova explained. "We've also started to equip select squads with the pulse laser Mausers. Feedback has been… subdued, except for the obvious moral and PR boost."
"Having held one of these, that doesn't surprise me, to be honest," Marius sighed. "For all its bells and whistles it's a bloated piece of hardware, more of a squad support weapon than a battle rifle. Still, beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes."
"We've got more than ten thousand of those things stashed away. Maybe there's a way to cut some of the fat off some of them?" Blackwood spoke up. "Get rid of the survival kit, redesign the stock, things like that?" Noticing their surprise, he chuckled. "Firearms aren't my specialty, but I do deal in information. I did my due diligence."
"He's got a point," Volkova agreed. "And with so many in pristine condition, maybe someone figures out the pulse mechanism in the process."
"Fine. Put it on my uncle's roster," he stifled a yawn. "No, scratch that, I'll tell him myself. He wants to meet me later today. Something else?"
"You'll be pleased to hear that the mechanized Infantry Legio I is almost seventy percent ready. Although…," she paused.
"Although what?" Marius raised an eyebrow.
"There have been persistent, ah, 'hickups' regarding supplies. Deliveries have been mixed up between the infantry formation and the actual, combined arms Legio I," Volkova looked like a child anxious to tell its father it had destroyed some heirloom vase.
Marius' face stiffened and his voice fell to an almost whisper.
"Anna, I've had about three hours of sleep each night for the past three weeks, and I've got zero patience left for utter dogshit like this. Drop the Roman pretense, rename the formation to 1st Infantry Division, discipline the ones responsible for messing it up. Severely." He took a deep breath. "Anything else?"
Glady, there was not.
Camp Sulla
Forty Miles North of Nova Roma, Alphard
Marian Hegemony
Afternoon of the same day
He had barely even closed his eyes when Hegemony-1 sat down on the landing pad, but Posca, always hanging in the back like an observant shadow, had commanded him to try and take a nap. He also had had to promise him to go to bed early and actually sleep the whole night. Like a six years old boy. Sometimes he wondered who actually was the most powerful man in the Hegemony. Right now, he wasn't sure if it wasn't actually.
Members of his praetorian guard ushered him into a large, well-lit warehouse where Corvinus O'Reilly, the acting secretary of defense for the Marian Hegemony, awaited him together with a corporate delegation that introduced themselves as members of a joint venture of Brubaker-Botamu Automotive and Maccallan Steelworks. The former he knew as producers of construction equipment and busses, the latter he had to admit he had never consciously heard of. Polite greetings were exchanged as his giddy uncle introduced the industrialists, and in a calm moment he managed to slip the Mauser issue into Corvinus' purview. Much to Marius' surprise – and gratefulness – the rotund O'Reilly accepted the additional task in stride.
Loudspeakers at the ceiling cackled, and with blaring pompous music Marius' fatigue gave way to sudden surprise and interest when the anxious delegation pulled the tarp off a large construct in the center of the warehouse, revealing the rough-hewn metal chassis of what was presented to Marius as the working prototype of the first domestic ICE-powered 40-ton tracked tank.
"We're calling it the Tonitru, or 'Thunder'," the leader of the delegation explained with a beaming smile.
To say it looked rough would have been a monumental understatement. The armor was all hard angles and visible weld marks, and the basic track layout reminded him more of a caterpillar than a tank. Less of a thunder and more of a burp vanishing in a gust of wind.
Sensing his mounting disappointment his uncle drew him away, sending reassuring smiles at the gathered industrialists.
"It doesn't look like much, but having a tank is always better than having no tank. And, praise where praise is due, making the initial investment is something that takes courage. Building military gear that can survive in the Succession Wars is no small feat. Besides, that's just the thing they cobbled together to actually have something to show up with," he patted the cold metal covering the top of the tracks. "But I've been assured it works. Well, it can drive and shoot, that is. They are even confident enough to have a design team look into a version that could be powered by a fusion engine – should we ever get a steady supply of those. That would be faster, better armed, and carry more armor."
In roughly twenty years or so, Marius thought glumly, baring a sudden outburst of high-tech manufacturing across the Hegemony. But there was the memory core…
Corvinus O'Reilly waddled over to the tank and heaved himself up to dig his hands into the exposed engine on the machine's back.
Marius could see how closely the older, stout man inspected everything in front of his eyes while the delegation's attention switched between the Emperor and the Magister Militum and back again. After a few minutes that felt far longer, the older O'Reilly untangled himself from the exposed engine block, wiped his hands down on his camo pants and unceremoniously walked back to the Emperor.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please give us a minute," he called out to the company men and gave Marius a wink with his head. The two men walked a few paces off and stuck their head together.
"So?"
"Let me tell you something, boy: I've seen a lot of unimpressive gear in my active year, but this here? That's most unimpressivist heap of metal and wires these tired old eyes have ever come across," he huffed.
"Is that even a word?" Marius frowned.
"It is now," he stated with the iron-clad certainty only someone who slipped into clothes far too tight everyday and proudly wore a double chin could muster.
"So, it's that bad?" Marius couldn't stop the disappointment from flowing full-speed into his voice. He couldn't realistically have expected something spectacular, no. But at least something that wasn't an embarrassment would have been... nice. He caught the project lead expectantly staring at the two of them and forced a weak smile.
"Bad? Ehhhh... a harsh word that. See, if the universe could give the concept of 'below average' a shape? That'd be it," he nodded at the steel beast. "The speed is utterly ordinary for something in that weight class. Probably a bit on the slow side even. On paper it's supposed to have a top speed of just below 65 kph. The firepower? Well, the radio operator can also handle the frontside machine gun to take potshots at infantry, and the large laser's a, well, utterly uninspired slightly-better-than-midrange workhorse. Shouldn't go toe-to-toe with anything the same size on its own if it wants to come out of it alive, though. The armor's real tough for a thing of that size, though. Something you'd find on machines ten to fifteen tons heavier, usually." He sighed, then shrugged. "The boys are gonna love it."
"So, it's a doozy and – wait, what?" Marius raised an eyebrow and stared over his shoulder, back at the machine with open skepticism. "That thing looked like someone stacked some bricks and gave them a vague metal-ish paint job as an afterthought."
"You're thinking in terms of firepower per ton, of pure speed, of martial prowess. You're thinking like a mech jockey... your majesty. What you need to do is think like a general, a leader." All joviality had left his voice. "That rumbling diesel engine? Every mechanic in every garage on each and every one of our worlds can fix it, jury rig it, get it running again. That's how basic and simple is it. The armor? Every machine shop in the most remote parts of the Hegemony has the cranes and blow torches to fix or replace it. And it carries seven tons of it. The electronics? Half the equipment is commercial, off the shelf stuff. And the pieces they purpose-built is also made up of parts that are off the shelf. And that large laser? Its mount and capacitors are built so that the one Lockley-Odinson is working on here on Alphard will be able to replace it." He gave the emperor a long, hard look. "By then, every nut and bolt of that tank will have been domestically built. And every militia unit raised, ever, they'll be wanting to sell their reproductive organs to get a hand on that ugly piece of iron. Seven tons of armor your mates can hide behind, and a big ray gun to shoot back at the enemy? Times ten, times fifteen?" He shook his head. "That's a hell of a lot of leverage your average weekend warrior suddenly gets."
"A Magistracy 'mech company won't bat an eye at an ordinary motorized militia formation, but it's a whole other song if they are backed up by a maniple of tanks or two. And we can replace them far easier than they can replace or repair their mechs." Understanding dawned on Marius' face.
"Precisely," Corvinus nodded emphatically. "That ugly thing over there? It doesn't have to be great. All it needs to be is just good enough. And they can probably keep that thing in operation with wires, duct tape and a prayer for months on end. In a sense, it's actually perfection." He flashed a smile. "Cherry on top, it's dirt cheap. Also, as long as we can't buy enough better vehicles for the legions, this is a viable stop-gap solution. Remember: a tank…"
"…is better than no tank," Marius finished. Looking back over his uncle's shoulder at the prototype and the men waiting for them, a resigned but somewhat reassured smile slipped onto Marius' face. "So, we're going to buy it then?"
Brubaker's eyes met his and he nodded, pursing his lips. "A lot, my boy. Like, a lot."
Following its introduction in early 3012 C.E. the Brubaker-Botuma Tonitru medium tank lived in the shadow of mote established, more versatile and more capable designs for the first years of its existence, largely unnoticed by the successor states and the main periphery powers. But that did no harm to its popularity in the Hegemony's backyard. First used by the Marian legions and soon it's planetary militias, Brubaker-Botuma quickly received export licenses when tentative relations with the government on Stettin were established. In the following two decades the design proliferated throughout the near periphery as a result of Marian diplomatic relations and security treaties with planetary governments rimwards and anti-spinwards of the Inner Sphere. But it was the warming of relations with the Magistracy and, eventually, the war that escalated from the Andurien-Canopian thrust into the Capellan Confederation that catapulted the design into the limelight as one of the pillars used to hold onto confederate worlds during the course of the war. Outperformed in almost all aspects like armament, speed and versatility, it became the prime target for field refits and impromptu upgrades. Despite its performance deficits, the 'Thunder' was well-received by tankers and infantry as its heavy armor let it excel where it really mattered: survival. Even in the 32nd Century the Tonitru in its original configuration can still be found across the periphery, despite the fact that Brubaker-Botuma has long since concentrated on upgraded designs […].
Origins of an Arsenal: Hegemony Weapons in the 31st Century. Imperial War College Press, 3105 C.E.
