Frederick Steiner looked at the machines that would lead his invasion of the Draconis Combine.
Revenge for the attack on Mount Utility.
Or, so that had been the initial impetus.
Now it had evolved.
A chance to end the conflict between House Steiner and House Kurita… by demolishing House Kurita in its entirety.
All it would take was a force so overwhelming that no matter how incompetent his officers, so long as they could say the words 'advance', then it would be enough.
He had low hopes… but even the most social of social generals couldn't be that incompetent.
Their forces were completely green. The mechwarriors recruited from the common populace given the number of machines that they now had outstripped all the possessed in the Commonwealth… and possibly the rest of the Inner Sphere given the foreign recruits, by the 6th month.
They no longer had dispossessed to conscript. He never thought it would be possible to say such words but it was true.
The formations were green, greener than grass.
But there were so many of them that it should not matter, not when they were arrayed in the finest machines assembled this side of the Star League.
That was just the mechs.
It didn't involve every other vehicle and vessel.
After all, seeing the hundreds of Primitive Warships arrayed before him in the slipways, their armour assembled at a different factory to speed up the production, brought here and riveted (or was it welded?) on, the ships being shoved out in a matter of 2 months was an… enriching experience.
After all, knowing just how much logistical capacity he had no was no small thing.
They were his, under his command, ready to deploy and kill with great aplomb.
He hummed.
Arrayed nearby were the warship variants, their weapons and armour also being constructed at different factories to speed up their production.
He wasn't sure exactly how that worked… it wasn't like they were built in-place, but if the master industrialist said it must be so, then it must be so.
Huu certainly knew what he was doing.
Looking down from the space facility, he could, if he imagined hard enough, see the factory churning out the Medium and Heavy universal mechs.
The aerospace.
The infantry armour and equipment.
All of it marshalled under his command.
He wasn't an idiot, it was only because of his name that he was in this position.
Uncle Alessandro wanted someone with a Steiner name leading this assault, promoted him to General for the purpose and here he was.
All he needed to do was say "begin the operation," and his part in it was over.
Frederick clenched his fist.
He wanted to get here on his own.
To prove he had what it took.
He sighed.
"When are we getting the last of the allotted ships?" He asked.
Huu looked back at him and raised and eyebrow.
"Last? You're getting all of these ships and every ship that comes off these production lines General. We've got a war to win, and I've got the capacity to support you all the way to Knowhere." The reply had Frederick looking over, his eyebrows flying upwards.
"Don't you have other commitments? I know you have a contract to build depots along the Free Worlds League front as well."
"I've got the capacity General. I've got so much capacity, that I literally don't know what I'm meant to be doing with it."
Frederick took his word for it.
"I've got so many Battlemechs that I'm literally just digging holes and sticking them inside. You don't understand just what scale I'm operating at here. Like, I could, like… just, redo the SLDF and build… Huu Caches everywhere. Like, literally everywhere. Like, you don't understand-" He was cut off as Frederick placed his hands on his shoulders.
"It's fine Master of Ordnance. I get the idea. Duke Vu, consider this. Once I overrun the Combine worlds with more Battlemechs than they have infantry, well, you will have new worlds to improve and spend your vast industrial capacity on." He said with a chuckle, marvelling at how fast his mind was able to move.
"Improving worlds. Well. Yes, that… that I can do. You know what, I should do that." The Duke muttered, his mind wandering. Frederick turned back to look at the industry that was churning underneath him.
Yes.
He supposed, upjumped Captain that he was, he would be able to conquer even the Star League with just how much production was streaming out of this factories.
"Sir. We're ready." The voice of his adjutant caught Frederick.
He turned and nodded, there was a war to start… a war to win, and history to make.
+Break+
Turbo checked his LIMB, the machine humming in the back of his mind.
It was eager.
It wanted to fight.
It wanted to kill.
Or, maybe, that was the feedback that was coming back to him from his own brain.
He, Turbo, wanted to kill and to main and to fight.
To bring to the Combine what they had brought upon his home a year ago.
He practically vibrated in his seat.
"Bridge to all crew. Ready for translation. Ready for translation. Hold onto your asses boys and girls, we're going in hot." The voice was gentle, soothing even as it washed through his cockpit.
Turbo gripped the control sticks even harder than he had been prior.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
"Let's gooooooo. We need to get down there and fuck up some Dracs before Turbo over here creams himself!" The voice of Major Major broke Turbo out of his stupor long enough for him to try and put a finger up at the man.
There was general laughter from the rows of machines, encased in their eggs.
Heat proof.
Friction proof.
Stupid proof.
The entire thing was automated so there was no excuse for things to go wrong.
He just needed to sit inside of it and it would handle everything up to the deliverance of his machine to the planet that was his target.
Still.
He wanted to be out there, killing.
Getting revenge for his lost Lance mates, his lost Batch mates.
"Eager to kill sir. Eager to fight." He replied.
A year was a long time for him to think, to marinate, to ruminate even about the losses and how… diminished he was now without them around.
"Well, hold on tight, we're jumping. And we'll give them back everything they cost us." Growled Major, "you know the mission. We're going in close, the Dropships will drive us to Yorii, then we drop. We drop, we kill, we break, and we annihilate until there is nothing left but wrecks and ash."
Turbo was going to hold him to that.
They all were as they roared, "kill! Kill! Kill!"
+Break+
Captain Audrey listened idly to the chatter of the mechwarriors in her dropships (well, technically they had their own captains but they were connected to her, they were hers).
She paid them little heed.
After all, this was her ship, they were using her comms, why wouldn't she be able to hear everything?
"Rear Admiral Dunkley to fleet. Jump in T-30. Jump in T-30. Prime all weapons. We'll be shooting the second we arrive."
"Signal the Admiral, the Defatigable hears and obeys." She said to her radio operator, turning her head back to stare out at the armada that was arrayed beyond.
Over a hundred vessels of the second wave were in front of her, more were behind.
Each was filled to the brim with supplies, men, munitions, battlemechs, tanks, aerospace and every other modern convenience of war.
Behind them was the third wave that would be leapfrogging deeper into the Combine to drive the blade home further.
One year this offensive had been in the making, she wasn't quite sure she believed it when she had first heard about it.
But, well, the ship was new, the crew was new, every single aspect of this entire venture was new.
New Battlemechs, new tanks, new aerospace. In fact, the only things that were old were several individuals she had poached from her last command… and those veteran soldiers and mechwarriors that had been dispersed out to form core cadres of newly raised regiments.
Sure she knew that everything was so new that veteran soldiers would be like green soldiers again.
Her own crew had been like that, her two decades of experience aside.
A dropship was nowhere near like a Primitive Warship after all. It could jump for starters and had enough firepower to take on any other vessel in the Inner Sphere.
Nor, was she used to operating as part of a fleet as large as this one. Movement lanes, fleet manoeuvres, all of these had been part of previous invasions… but again, none so large.
"T-5"
The words cut her out of her reverie.
"Final checks." She called out.
"T-4"
"All guns are operational, crews ready."
"T-3"
"Engines are hot, ready to move."
"T-2"
"Jump deck ready to go."
"T-1"
"Defatigable. Go."
Her words synchronised with the "T-0" from the Rear Admiral.
A moment of disorientation, where the world itself came in around her before it expanded out again.
What had been before her eyes changed, the friendly fleet remained, the space between the ships were not.
Angry red vessels streamed backwards and forth. Lasers flashed, PPCs crackled (presumably, they were in space), autocannons thundered. Blue and gold aerospace chased after them, both sides gripped close without a single moment of breathing space. The larger Draconic vessels were trying to make drives on the fleet.
The two sides had been roughly matched for the few hours that they had been engaged. One side more aggressive with their dropships, the other holding a wide orb formation with their jumpships.
Straight in the middle of a pirate point.
A pirate point that the second wave materialised inside of, in the middle of the protective orb, in the middle of a firefight, in the middle of a chance to make the biggest possible difference in this engagement.
"Guns. Engage at your own discretion." Audrey said calmly as her ship began to shudder.
The autocannon beating their own rhythm across her soul, the PPCs lashing out in bright blue bolts, lasers cutting arcs across the inky void of hard vacuum.
"Kohimas. Launch. We will clear you a corridor." She continued, the pre-planned sequences of events starting in earnest now that the entire second wave was here.
The entire ship shuddered as the 100,000 tons of dropship disconnected from their umbilicals and began the burn to the planet below.
The moon was uncomfortably close to this planet for those that lived there. Unquestionably a bonus for those willing to brave the pirate point… like herself.
12 hours and they would be on the planet.
The new Battlemech droppers would, in case of an emergency, eject the Battlemechs whole, reorient and burn planet side on their own. Much more vulnerably of course, but better than being stuck on a Dropship that was in the process of exploding.
She let out a minute sigh.
The war was coming to the Combine at last and this insignificant speck of a world beneath her metaphorical feet would be conquered in a matter of days. Then they would move on and do it again and again until they could do it no more.
They had the men and the metal for it.
Green as they were, she supposed it was finally the time to test out that pithy quote that showed up in every discussion of human wave tactics. Quantity has a quality all its own. She hated that quote.
She could see it now, in the damaged Irrawaddies, Chindwins, Margarets, and Unas that made up their fleet. Especially those of the pathfinder fleet… one that would soon jump to Asta to reconnoitre a pirate point there for them to follow.
Complete and overwhelming advantage in metal, firepower, and numbers… and the Kuritans had managed to get their licks in.
It didn't bode well for the advance forward… but that was where that damned quote came into play didn't it?
They had the ships to weather the losses with more coming off the line every day of the week.
This damage could be repaired, these ships could be rotated for new ones and the advance wouldn't even notice the drop in number, so great was their material advantage.
She shook her head.
"Skies are clear Captain."
She acknowledged it.
"Keep the corridor clear, move up to stage 2." She said, feeling the entire vessel slowly start to accelerate. They were going to provide close support while the ground forces annihilated the Combine in the area.
She was privy to the original plan. To bleed the Combine dry by annihilating their metal and armour wherever they were found.
With so much metal, the plan had changed.
Conquest.
To take and take until they were so full they couldn't digest anymore.
+Break+
I look at the RP counter.
I had over 1 million RP this month.
With a 0.2 addition to the multiplier to add to the 1.7… I would have nearly a 2.0 multiplier next month.
In other words, 2 million, then 4 then 6…
How the hell am I meant to spend all of this?
Aaaaaaaaah.
I'm fucked.
I'm stuck here forever aren't I?
Stuck in the space between life and death, waking and dreaming… until I could spent millions upon millions of RP.
No… no… no…
What the hell am I going to do?
Maybe… I would just build a Dyson sphere or something?
Next turn I would get permission to build on other planets, and then I could spend RP on others…
Too much damned RP for too few planets!
I was already being told off for producing so many mechs that we had run out of neuro-helmet compatible people to, like, actually pilot them.
I sigh.
Fuck.
Maybe… I could build non-neuro-helmet-necessary mechs?