Book 1 - Chapter Eight

And so we come to the end of Book 1. I'm highly encouraged by the support and I will write the second book now (and won't take years I promise, that was just playing with it, the core of this I wrote in like 2 months a few years back and just fiddled really). But first comes the next chapter of First Movement of the Odyssey, then Ice Duchess of the Federated Commonwealth. Going to kep writing though this little break from work, lets see how much I can do before I'm sucked back into the vortex again 

Chapter 8: Jump! Go ahead and Jump! Might as well Jump! Go ahead and Jump! Jump!

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After that came a week of recharging boredom in a relatively safe uninhabited system, followed by another jump that had us appearing in the Launam system, the Lyran Commonwealth proper where Snords Irregulars of all groups were waiting for us. The Mercs had withdrawn from their own raids on the FWL to here and we swiftly received verified orders that Katrina had ordered them to move with us at least as far as Clinton, for just a bit of extra security.

Cranston Snord was eccentric, not idiotic. One look at the Monoliths, their cargo Dropship parasites and the Davion Heavy Guards heading to Tharkad with the Kell Hounds would surely led him to the natural conclusion that we were what this whole crazy campaign had been about - he was smart enough to know when he was being used as a diversion. He was also smart enough not to make a fuss of it, simply welcoming the Heavy Guards and Kell Hounds back and inviting the senior officers over to his dropship for a private dinner with his command staff - having picked up a load of fresh food from the recharge station only yesterday.

I would have liked to go. Snord and his people were genuinely people I'd be fascinated to meet -and FRESH FOOD!- but I didn't ask and Ardan didn't offer. There was no reason to have Wolfnet open a file on me just yet and if any alcohol was involved, well, there was a better than even chance I'd probably find it too damn hard to avoid snarking about weather on the Clan Homeworld after I got drunk.

Thank you EdBecerra.

So I sat in my quarters that night chewing on the military rations we still had in plentiful stock. I was brought up to speed the next day at breakfast - Ardan (who aside from me was the only one on the ships who knew of the Clans and Cranston's full story) noted that Cranston hadn't pressed anyone on the question of what they had been doing when it was made it clear we couldn't talk about it. Instead he had regaled them with tales of his little raid on behalf of Katrina.

It was at least possible the Merc had just wanted to brag. And kudos to him; he had more than earned both the right and his pay from what I heard later.

Snords little war with the FWL (seriously what was it with the original Dragoons starting private wars with Successor States?) had always been I think more about trolling and embarrassing the hell out of Janos and the FWL than trying to kill people or destroy things like Jamies future feud with Takashi. Accordingly, when offered the chance to launch a raid and be paid to troll his nemesis by Davion on top of his Steiner retainer, the predictably cash poor Cranston had leapt at the offer with both hands. His assigned target had been Nestor - a planet they had infamously hit before and one guarded with no less than two Regimental sized units that should have dissuaded any raid.

But while his daughter Rhonda had led the 21st Centauri Lancers and 5th Defenders of Andurien on a wild goose chase with COMINT hints they were after some old Star League cache (talk about irony) in the boonies, her father's command company had moved undetected to emerge above the undefeated capital on the massive rock cliffs that dominated the skyline … and start an art class.

Efficiently, the Mechs had unfolded giant Mech sized stencils before using a fluid gun one of his techs had somehow crammed into an Enforcer, spraying the stencils with a special neon green paint normally used on the exterior of Zero-G installations that was apparently all but impossible to remove short of ripping the rockface out.

Said stencil had then been removed half an hour later, leaving a work of art that would surely go down in history. A giant 30 meter tall figure easily recognizable as Janos Marik. It would no doubt would have been a rather stirring sight … if not for the fact that he was on a knee bowing to a grinning Maximilian Liao, with a smirking ghostly Anton Marik hovering behind the Capellan Leader. With text simply saying 'The Concord of Kapteyn'

Well, that was about as subtle as an Atlas.

The Irregulars had then packed up and hastily beat a retreat as the chagrined and bewildered Defenders had hurried back to the capital, allowing Rhonda to give the Lancers the slip and for the Mercs to run to their Jumpships, chased by two lances of Aerospace fighters who seemed disinclined to press any attack, probably out of confusion over what the hell was going on.

Then as night had fallen the hilarity had increased by a factor of ten as the paint started to glow rather brightly in the dark, local authorities trying to find some way to cover it up even as hoards of news VTOLs circled overhead and beamed the news out into the wider FWL and tourists showed up snapping pictures.

It probably didn't help that the CO of the Defenders Regiment was clearly trying not to laugh his ass off in a TV interview about the little raid and the message it pushed that he probably completely agreed with. 

Gotta love Free World League politics...

Anyway, our yet again expanded fleet jumped again, slowly moving deeper into the Commonwealth and further away from any realistic pursuit. Jump drives might be slow, but once you were a couple of jumps ahead and committed to keep moving, it was damn near impossible to be caught so I started to feel increasingly secure. Snord tried several more times to get casual conversation going about the raid as the weeks passed - and his questions seemed to cannily zero in on Helm and the legendary cache without explicitly asking. I mean if anyone was likely to have a hint about the cache it would be Snord, but discipline held and no one said anything. 

I frankly doubted he knew about the memory core itself, although he probably knew about the Fleet Base and possibly even what was left behind. The memory core however I was pretty sure had only been put in place after the Exodus fleet left...but why take chances?

At any rate, his ships broke off at Clinton with many promises made to visit his famous museum that was totally not on a Castle Brian turned Brian Cache he had 'neglected' to tell Katrina about (it was a really good thing I had been kept away I think) and we carried onwards on the final leg of our journey. 

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One didn't, couldn't, have a real appreciation for how horrible space travel was in Battletech until you were stuck in a tin can for two months. Floating around as the ship recharges, jumps, then recharges again over and over. I had never suffered from claustrophobia, but damn if I didn't come closer than I wanted to admit a couple of times on that ship.

I had to admit some grudging respect for Clanners at that point in time, their trips down the Exodus Road would have been Gods damned nightmares for me.

Maybe because they were born in cans they had no problem with living in them?

Anyway, Katrina managed to set up a command circuit from Clinton to cover the rest of our trip. No small order given the number of dropships we were carrying, but then again what we were carrying pretty much entirely justified getting us to ground sooner rather than later and I wasn't going to complain about cutting three or four weeks from the trip!

We materialized at the Zenith point at Tharkad to find an Achilles class dropship from the 2nd Royal Guard waiting for us. Greetings were exchanged (along with current AFFS recognition codes) and the usual ballet of ships undocking and forming up into a convoy took place. It did take some time to crawl out of the zenith point however, perhaps unsurprisingly. This was the economic center of gravity of the Lyran Commonwealth and priority clearance or not, it was a seriously busy place with space stations and Jumpships and dropships in every direction and no-one wanted to send a spray of debris through hundreds of billions of kronor worth of Jumpships.

Still, it only took a few hours before we cleared the Zenith perimeter and throttled up for our burn in system, bringing the glorious return of simulated gravity.

Morale was already rather high given what we had accomplished, but it only perked up as we headed for some well-deserved R&R and solid ground. Locally, the arrival of the pride of the Federated Suns alongside the famous Kell Hounds had clearly created a great deal of excitement in-system on the local media. Our unannounced yet officially expected presence was causing no end of excitement. Smarter talking heads seemed to be starting to connect the dots with the confused and bizarre 'raiding' on the FWL border, although they only got the same disinterested 'We neither confirm nor deny these reports' responses from LCAF press officers when they asked, with the only real statements from the Triad being that the Archon had invited the Davion Heavy Guards who were 'in the area on joint operations' to spend Christmas on Tharkad as a gesture of friendship and gratitude to their gallant FedSuns allies bla bla bla.

Still it didn't take a genius to realize something had happened. The media were quick to point out that one of the finest units in the AFFS and Katrina Steiners personal 'fix-it guys' escorting a massive cargo convoy suggested someone was getting a Christmas present this year – which was true enough I supposed. That every other major power would know where the Helm cache had ended up was also inevitable … but I have to admit I took a sadistic pleasure in the fact that a great many Christmas dinners for people in ROM, the ISF and Maskirovka were sure to be completely ruined as they were called into all night crisis meetings...

We reached Tharkad as dawn was breaking over the capital and while the Kell Hounds had gone right in with barely a pause, the Heavy Guards had been held in orbit with the loot for a few hours while final preparations were made and paperwork signed by various players. I mean we were bringing a fully armed RCT of a foreign power down onto the soil of the capital world of the Lyran Commonwealth after all so it wasn't really surprising … but I suspected that the given reason was mostly an engineered one, to give Katrina politically acceptable cover to get a report from Patrick Kell in person on what had gone down on Helm, given that we had been 'black' all the way here. It was really too bad I wouldn't be able to see the look on her face when Patrick revealed what we had brought her for Christmas this year.

On the plus side, it also let me finally just sit and watch a planet from space in all its glory – with a sunrise over the horizen no less! And it was really something special.

From my recollections, I had half expected Tharkad to look like Hoth. I shouldn't have of course; such a biosphere wouldn't exactly be viable for billions of people to make it their home - it's kinda hard to photosynthesize when you have no plants after all. So while the planet's polar caps and arctic regions certainly looked quite a bit bigger from orbit than Earth's, most of the planet was actually shades of green and brown with the dark blue of oceans mixed in. Apparently the equatorial regions - mostly reserved for food production on factory farms owned by Megacorps - were quite pleasant all year round thanks to the planets minimal axial tilt, but the capital and most of the population heavy cities were in the 'snow zones'.

It wasn't exactly the Lands Of Always Winter with White Walkers sulking in the arctic regions dodging patrols of Firestarters or anything, but it was chilly all year round, with only three or so months a year in the capital where there temperatures could be considered even remotely non-freezing. Come to think about it, the location of Tharkad City said a lot about the Lyran mindset in its own way. That there was no such thing as 'cannot be done' - just 'throw resources at it and then throw some more until it works!'

Screw the cost, we would put nature in its place!

Our fleet of dropships when finally cleared didn't however follow the Kell Hounds in or land at any of the civilian or military spaceports in the capital proper. Instead we were directed by flight control to land a few hundred klicks to the North on the far side of Mount Wotan. This was the 'Victoria Steiner Military Reserve'; a military staging ground used by the LCAF for both major exercises and to house visiting units swinging through the capital for this or that reason. The entire region was under a no-fly zone from ground to orbit and totally secure on the ground, with underground warehouses on a Star League Lyran scale more than sufficient to hold our loot and house the troops, making it both protected from observation and somewhat more discreet than plonking down in Tharkad City.

I for one was looking forward to the whispered stories of real beds and real food and real showers that awaited us in the Promised Land … when Ardan took me aside and told me to get dressed formally, the shore party to go and meet the brass had just been announced.

And it was minimal. Very minimal. As in just Ardan Sortek, Ran Felnser … and me.

I had protested initially at my inclusion - until I was told that the request had come from the highest authority. Ergo, it really wasn't a request.

Not good.

The only reason Katrina Steiner would ask me to tag along would be because Hanse had sent her secure messages about me – probably even hand delivered. So I really hoped he hadn't forwarded everything to her. My less than flattering comments about her sister's future loyalty might make things a tad awkward…oh God, what if Nondi Steiner herself was present?

I tried not to think about it as I waited in the airlock, fiddling with my cufflinks. The new suit I was wearing was, I felt, a very nice piece of work. It was the work of the Davion Palace tailors (yes they had a permanent tailor team on staff) who had taken my 21st century business suit and closely copied it with just a few 31st century flourishes -and far superior luxury fabrics. It fit like a glove and I thought looked rather slick … but it also ensured I stuck out like a sore thumb next to the two AFFS officers in their dashing dress uniforms, medals and spurs.

Oh well, nothing to be done for that now. There was a clunk and a hiss from the other side of the airlock we were standing in and a status board went from yellow to green as a gantry in the docking ring wall locked onto the ship's hatch - a feature I was rather grateful for given the snow I had seen outside on the ships monitors. The hatch now opened and agreeably warm air mixed with ours as we stepped out and I could just make out a single figure waiting for us-

"Roman!" Felnser greeted the figure in surprise and pleasure, stepping forward and extending a hand with a broad smile. "Didn't think you'd be here to greet us! I thought Katrina had sent you back to the border with the Third Guards?"

"That was the original plan, yes" the man said in perfect if mildly accented English, taking the hand and shaking it firmly. "But the Archon seems to have other ideas for me" he noted turning to smile at Ardan and offer him his hand - although it was hard to see through the two towering Mechwarriors. "Colonel Sortek, a genuine pleasure to meet you at last".

"Likewise General" Ardan agreed, stepping forward to take the hand and shake it firmly. "Ran speaks very highly of you and your men. That flanking attack down the Whitecap River you pulled off was put into the textbooks at NAMA and Albion almost as soon as we heard of it".

"The Marshal is perhaps too modest of his own performance in that battle" the General downplayed his own actions with a tolerant smile. "But that was quite the engagement I must say".

"Indeed" Ardan agreed before stepping forward into the docking arm to the dropship to make room for me as I stepped forward, Ardan gesturing at me. "And this is-"

"Herr Smith, I presume" the LCAF General smoothly broke in as he turned to appraise me, smoothly clicking his heels and offering me a bow before offering his hand. "It is a true pleasure - there has been a great deal of talk about you in the Archons inner circle over the last week".

Well that was a warning if I had ever heard one.

I wasn't taken aback by his reaction and recognition, after all Katrina Steiner had insisted I come along. But it sounded like a great deal of information about me had made its way to Katrina Steiner-

Wait.

Hang on.

Roman? That had to make this-

"The pleasure is mine General Steiner" I responded smoothly as I wracked my brains for what I could remember of Roman Steiner, which wasn't much. Except that he had been a very competent officer in the LCAF and then AFFC. Always nice to see someone from the LCAF side of the fence kicking ass and all that.

"Welcome to Tharkad, all of you. If you'll follow me" Roman continued after releasing my hand, clearly unphased by my revelation of his identity (or perhaps thinking I had simply read the silver and gold name plate on his chest I belatedly noticed) as he gestured down to the docking bag proper.

We followed the General from the ramp to a lift that dropped us to below the tarmac level and from there we hopped onto an internal tramline of sorts along which we rolled to the main HQ building. The three officers made small talk as they went, with Roman confirming a grand ballroom at this base sufficient to fit the entire RCT was ready and waiting to give all RCTs troops a five course meal, in about three hours. And that a luxury barracks had been prepared to ensure every man and woman would have a real bed to sleep in with unlimited hot water showers and so on because the LCAF did like their comforts at home.

God I would kill for one of those beds right now…

Felnser thanked Roman on behalf of his RCT, with Ardan noting dryly that after months of dropship rations, he suspected the troops would have gladly charged the 2nd Sword of Light armed with sticks and rocks to get their hands on a decent meal and good bed.

Soon enough small talk shifted to more strategic matters. No questions came about our mission, but again, Patrick Kell surely briefed Katrina and her staff on everything already. Instead Roman kindly spent the time filling them in on what they had missed while out on the raid. It seemed that the diversionary attacks had gone off even better than I could had hoped; civilian damage and combat losses both negligible, with the FWLM caught flat footed by the attacks that had been carefully aimed away from critical strategic targets and wildly uninterested in really shooting much up at all. Our little raid had thus been counted as just one more until reports of a missing sea reappearing on Helm had started to appear on Atraus and Stewart. First earning flat 'WTF' responses and then a slowly growing investigation eventually stumbling onto the landing zones of our dropships and multiple regiments of burned out APCs in neat little clusters and SAFE coming in to investigate. By which point our units were already two jumps into Lyran space and moving deeper.

When it worked in your favour, 3025 Battletechs OODA sloth on the strategic scale was a glorious thing.

Roman had also brought news from the Federated Suns. The Wolf Dragoons Alpha Regiment had attempted a raid on Barlow's End, alongside elements of a new DCMS unit known as the Ryuken. They had skirmished for a time with the elite Eridani Light Horse and white Witches along with a couple of other small detachments such as the Fox's Teeth before pulling out. Word from DMI passed to LIC was that the Mercs and DCMS units had been surprisingly sloppy, uncoordinated in a way that suggested friction between command elements.

That sounded about on the money for the events as described in Wolves on the Border … except that I did not remember anything about the Fox's Teeth being involved. Or any other units for that matter other than the two Merc commands.

Conclusion; Hanse Davion was plotting something. Shocking, truly.

I was broken out of my musing when the tram came to a halt and we double timed it up some stairs into a large atrium. Here the base bustled with activity but Roman led us through the crowds smoothly, nodding at the flurry of salutes he generated in passing as we headed for the skyscraper at the core of the base. We passed through a security checkpoint in front of a bank of lifts, but the guards just waved us through, clearly expecting us. A quick elevator trip up thirty floors to one clearly labeled 'VIP receiving lounge' and we stepped out into a richly decorated anteroom filled with officers … including one in the olive-green uniform of an AFFS Field Marshal who stuck out like a sore thumb in the sea of Steiner blue.

Salutes flew everywhere and I belatedly recognized the man across from me as Stephen Davion, the acting commander of the Davion Guards Brigade.

Was he was the man Hanse had sent out to brief Katrina?

In a whirlwind of orders, Ran and Roman split off to join Stephen and a gaggle of other flag officers, leaving Ardan and I behind as they moved to a door at one end of this little antechamber which slid open at their approach. A roar of conversation flooded out (along with the distinct smell of cigars) and I spied what seemed to be a large officer's filled to capacity inside. Moments later, a thundering round of applause started - cutting off a second later as the doors shut.

But before I could ask what was going on, I found myself ushered forward with Ardan through the heavily guarded doors directly in front of me guarded oddly by-

Ah. That was why 1st Davion and 1st Royal soldiers were standing around outside this door.

Hanse Davion was casually lounging in a not-quite-throne chair chatting animatedly with a very striking woman, who was also at ease in a not-quite-throne chair next to him. A quartet of other people in a mixture of uniforms and civilian clothes were sitting around the table in polite silence - but otherwise the room was empty of people despite the table being big enough to easily fit a dozen. Flawless floor to ceiling glass walls to the left and right offered a spectacular view of the military spaceport and hoard of dropships dotting the place … and that was about all the time I had to take in the situation as I braced myself.

Well, here we go again...

"Ah, Colonel Sortek, welcome back to Tharkad" Katrina Steiner greeted Ardan with a warm smile at the AFFS officer who stepped forward to offer her a bow and state how happy he was to be back. Sounding entirely genuine about it too.

Okay, I couldn't help it as I stood there watching the two exchange greetings. My entirely inappropriate first thought upon seeing the ruler of the Lyran Commonwealth as she and Ardan renewed their acquaintance … was that she really was a Mega-MILF.

I immediately gave myself a mental Gibs Slap.

While Ardan was talking, I took a second to note the presence of the various people present on the other two sides of the table. Patrick Kell was sitting two seats down on 'Katrinas' side of the table and he was studying me a lot more closely than before - I suspect if he was in here with this group he had been led in on 'the secret'. Nonetheless he offered me a reassuring smile. Next to him was a woman wearing an LCAF duty uniform, whose glitzy Steiner Cross and clear resemblance to Katrina -to say nothing of the way her eyes narrowed in not quite hostility at me - meant two things.

One. This could only be Nondi Steiner and Two, Hanse had provided the full report.

Joy.

Perhaps I should have used language other than 'Later will blindly follow whoever waves the TRUE STEINER banner hardest even if said person first carefully covers said banner in excrement'…

On the other side of the table was Quintus Allard and next to him was a man looking equally as nonchalant in a business suit, whom I guessed was probably Simon Johnson, the head of the Lyran Intelligence Corps.

And I had this rather select group's complete and undivided attention. You know, short of standing in front of the First Circuit doing standup comedy about a war between blenders and toasters, I couldn't think of many crowds tougher than this one…

Having finished exchanging pleasantries with his host, Ardan saluted his Prince and then took the seat he was gestured to, opposite the ruler of the Federated Suns, leaving me the sole focus of the entire room

"And Mister Smith - our welcome to you as well" Katrina called to me as her icy blue eyes settled upon me.

"Archon" I offered her a respectful sort of bow as we studied each other for a moment. I didn't move, feeling that I had not been invited to sit down as yet as she studied me and I studied her.

Yup, total MILF - damnit John, STOP THAT! Bad mind! Bad!

"Prince Davion has told me a great many things about you" she continued after a moment, her eyes focused like lasers that burned away any happy thoughts in a flash. "Things that are utterly impossible and yet" she gestured to the window where our dropships were starting to gather a light dusting of late afternoon snow on their hulls, "here we are".

I considered that not quite statement, not quite question, for a moment, wondering if she wanted some kind of sign from me. I toyed with several before deciding that it would be far better to keep my mouth shut and simply inclined my head briefly, which earned me in turn a simple gesture to the remaining empty chair next to Ardan, opposite both rulers. I gave Hanse a nod of greeting that was returned and I sat down, determined to keep my mouth shut and present the smallest possible target.

"Colonel Kell" Katrina nodded at her cousin-in-law, "has briefed us on the events on Helm. Prince Davion and I will be holding a joint announcement of our operation tomorrow at midday. However I wanted to take the chance to reflect on the events and how they pertain to our future strategies".

"Has the Free World League retaliated to our raids?" Ardan asked first.

"Not as yet, no" Nondi said. They still seem to be trying to figure out exactly what happened. They've moved the 23rd Marik Militia to Helm and they are maintaining a defensive alert on the border, but right now there is just confusion bouncing back and forth between Atreus and the provinces".

"Any reaction from ComStar?" I asked then - my number one concern.

"Officially, no" Katrina shook her head once, which did highly distracting things with her blond hair - stop that! "Although it would be rare as a matter of policy for ComStar to comment about these kinds of skirmishes between the Great Houses".

"Unofficially" Simon Johnson joined the conversation, "Precentor Tharkad and Precentor New Avalon have both been recalled to Terra for a 'routine meeting of the First Circuit' which suggests that ComStar have figured it out - or at least strongly suspect what happened. Quintus and I" he nodded at the head of MIIO who nodded back "are already carefully placing information that, with a little investigation by ROM, will show that while we took considerable war material, we failed in our primary objective of recovering the data core. And that the self-destruction of the cache was the result of a failed attempt to disarm the security systems. Hopefully, it will preclude any immediate action from ComStar, but we will be taking precautions none the less".

"Any plans for the military hardware as yet?" I asked the Archon in curiosity before wondering if I was overstepping my grounds here. After all when you really got down to it, I was really just a source of information for these people, not advice. She was the ruler of hundreds upon hundreds of worlds and hundreds of billions of people and at least in Battletechs point of view, perhaps the greatest ruler of a Successor State in history - present company included.

Nonetheless, my question elicited no negative reaction from anyone in the room.

"Nothing solid as yet - I expect after tomorrow when news inevitably leaks, I'll have most of the flag officers on Tharkad pounding on my door to ask for everything, probably accompanied by half the Estates Generals trying to advance this or that agenda" Katrina sighed. Then she considered me and tilted her head a fraction. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"I always have suggestions - even when I should keep my mouth shut" I noted, earning a raised eyebrow from Katrina and grin from Hanse Davion.

"Given that you've proven your unique bonafides in a rather spectacular fashion Mister Smith, I'd certainly submit that if anyone has earned the right to give me suggestions on what to do with the haul, it would be you" the Archon noted as she leaned back, gesturing me to continue.

I cleared my throat before deciding that Katrina was, from what I 'knew', one hell of a straight shooter who appreciated honest and direct advice and abhorred both kiss asses and indecisive time wasters. So...

"Use the gear to rebuild and recommission the Fourth Royal Guards as a new Regimental Combat Team" I said straight up and the slightly amused look vanished from her face. Nondi seemed to recoil slightly before getting control of herself as did Patrick - although Simon Johnson remained as neutral as ever, while Hanse looked genuinely intrigued.

In for a penny…

"Bring back the Pride of the Commonwealth to symbolically 'complete' the LCAF before you go into the alliance with House Davion" I continued. "Use the action to draw a line under the declines of the Succession Wars and make it clear that the LCAF will rise on their own to become worthy peers to the AFFS, not be dragged up by them. And as a bonus, cause Takashi Kurita some sleepless nights thinking that an elite unit with Royal grade SLDF technology and an enormous hateboner for the Combine is now sitting on his border, biding its time..."

My rather bold suggestion seemed to have stunned the room into silence for a long, long moment.

"Rebuild the Fourth…" Katrina finally said softly, her gaze distant as she carefully took the idea and started to examine something she had probably dismissed as nonsense at first and I could guess where she was coming from. The 4th had been a symbol for the LCAF for almost two centuries now - almost to the point of being a minor sacrilege to even consider touching it … and yet that could make it an even more powerful gesture - if used correctly.

And if there was anyone who understood the value of ideas and how to use them, it was Katrina bloody Steiner.

"It would be one hell of a symbol" Patrick took up the discussion, his eyes focused intently on Katrina, his voice sounding as if the idea had caught his imagination. "And even more of a statement. Not to mention providing a bulletproof reason to keep control of all the advanced technology - concentrated in a way not even Lestrade would dare whine about".

"The LCAF would love it - and that's putting it mildly" Nondi joined the conversation, her own eyes gleaming with a sudden intensity as the idea seemed to take hold of the room. "No-one in the Estates Generals would dare speak against the idea - and the news would indeed probably scare the pants off the Dracs if we made it clear that these are going to be the best people you can find for the job".

Well Nondi was more optimistic than I - there would always be an idiot who spoke against things, but I think it was safe to suggest that doing so would be a very bad idea.

Katrina though just sat in silent thought through the exchange before she glanced at me once again, her eyes impossible to read.

"This happened in the … original timeline?" she asked me carefully.

"Yes" I nodded - "although not until quite some time in the future" I noted, without telling her it was in fact sixty years in the future. But the gesture had scored Adam Steiner huge kudos from the LCAF and civilian population, so, why not give it a shot? "Suffice to say it was a wildly popular gesture and they became the flagship unit of the LCAF".

"You certainly think big, Mister Smith" she finally said "and are not shy about turning over tables" as her eyes bored into me making me feel about an inch high. "Perhaps because you still see this, all of this, as a 'table-top' game … but damn me if the idea doesn't fire the imagination" she said, releasing me from her stare as she turned to her sister decisively. "Put together a working group, quietly, to look at how we would make this work".

"I know just the person" Nondi nodded confidently as she scribbled a note in her papers. "I'll tap Edward Regis - and he would also be my recommendation for command if we did go ahead" Nondi said. "It would nominally be a demotion from his current position ... but the chance to rebuild the 4th Royal Guards and then lead them? Using them as a showpiece for what the LCAF can do? He'll be on his knees begging you for the chance. Otherwise I'd suggest Fredrick, but…" she finished with a glance at me for a brief second, clearly having read my notes on that wonderfully contradictory man's future.

Katrina nodded, then turned to face Hanse.

"If I'm going to use this unit as, as Mister Smith suggests, it would be rather counterproductive to rebuild forth entirely out of Assaults. So I'll trade you … let's say a company of Assaults for the Battalion of mixed lights and fast mediums you got from the cache".

"Three companies for four Lances" Hanse immediately countered her offer.

Katrina smiled like a loan shark.

"The full battalion for five lances - and I can borrow Andrew Redburn and another dozen handpicked Light Guards officers for the next four years as exchange officers" she said with a sweet smile.

"Done!" Hanse agreed with a sharp nod and Katrina took his extended hand and shook it firmly.

"Thank you Hanse" she smiled again. "Now" she continued, turning her attention back to me, "any more out of the box thinking for us, Mister Smith?"

Discarded pizza boxes are an invaluable source of cheese I wanted to snark for no clear reason. Probably stress. Holy hell that single look from Katrina had intimidated me more than the entire first meeting with Hanse Davion. But then she wasn't considered a political mastermind beyond even Hanse for no reason.

"Plenty - but none pertinent to the current discussions Archon" I said instead.

"Very well - next on the agenda is strategic threats" and now Katrina's gaze bore into me in a way that finally killed even the slightest desire to snark. "Mister Smith; we are going to start with the planet Odessa and the 'Ruins of Gabriel'. I have quite a few questions around the ruling family of a world who would bow to Tharkad … and kneel to Terra…"

Thus ends Book 1 of 'This Was Easier on the Tabletop'.

Book Two – 'Your toast appears to be on fire…' will be out, um, sometime?

Also, no other PCs will show up in this - although I'm having to admit the thought of another dropping in and the two of us getting together suddenly has me thinking of Hanse looking at the two of us something like this...

And yes, the whole 4th Royal Guards thing here was the original inspiration for bringing up the idea in LOF's Bruce Quest in case you were wondering