Sakhara 1.8​

Sakhara 1.8​Yvonne Davion couldn't quite say honestly she was glad that Lord Aaron of House Sandoval had arrived... it did eliminate the waiting portion of the problem. It was difficult to deal with that her current conundrum was Jackson's age. The idea that Jackson could have given her these sorts of problems was absurd...

"I need you to repeat that again."

"Amaris had surviving children." He repeated, and shrugged. "The whys, how and specifics I don't know only that that's the case." The somewhat amusingly named Colonel Robinson of Clay's Armor Force, named the Assault Cluster, nodded eyes narrowed in a ferocious scowl but didnt' say anything. "Admittedly House Amaris surviving in the former rimworld was one thing, but besides cousins and nephews there were direct descendants and... "

And there were mad men who wanted to restore the Rim World's Empire, or fight the whole Inner Sphere. There was even some horrible little world on the periphery ruled by the von Strang's even.... that would bear looking into. It boggled the mind at times how the Combine could have such ardent supporters that the Amaris dynasty could still command loyalty and attempts at restoration was enough to flabbergast her. "Well," She sighed, "that is a positively ghastly matter to contemplate."

Jackson she reminded herself hadn't even started his time at Albion yet. God, what if the Taurians were supporting some Amaris pretender... that was horrifying for her to contemplate... but she decided not to bring it up. There was enough bad blood with the bulls as it was she didn't want to be the one to start a fresh wave of disgust and revulsion of the periphery tyranny over something that might not be true.

But that wasn't the focus of today... it had just been a topic that had come up... or that she had stumbled into. As if they needed one more hereditary enemy to appear. The Combine, and the Capellans were enough without having to deal with the delusions of taurian grandeur on their border rimward. Amaris? An enemy who might well bring back the worst of the succession wars' atrocities... she hoped not.

The warning, and the fact that Lord Clay considered it a serious enough danger to contemplate Amaris as equal to a threat as the Combine reprisal possibility was concerning. Perhaps it was the facet of his age but the fact he treated that as seriously as he did, in comparison to usual... admittedly that might well have been in the face of how his retainers acted. It was an oddity, but his armor officers were more present rather than the BattleMech company, but Colonel Robinson bordered on feral regarding the potential threat... and that would be hard to fake.

Somewhere out there was a threat that they'd been unaware of even existing... but further conversation had to be put aside as Lord Aaron was here. The Duke of Robinson was a natural ally for Yvonne Davion to have in most cases. You learned a lot about how a man responded to adversity but especially to physical adversity... Aaron had never been his father's heir only happenstance had lead him to the ducal throne. As third son of the ducal house he had run off to join, to enlist in service with the AFFS... he'd been a tanker, rising then to an NCO commanding a tank when he'd lost his legs to the Capellans. His actions on Rio had also cemented the subsequent lifelong friendship between himself and the heir, and current duke of Rio, such that the reigning duke's heir had gone to attend the Robinson Battle Academy.

They should have been on the same side. Their interests aligning.. but he now posed a potential complicating factor as competition in the great games of the nobility, while still remaining an ally in other factors.

"First Robinson Rangers." The duke's personal command, though truthfully the unit was more a facet of the Duke's administrative role. It wasn't a purely ceremonial role as colonel of the regiment, but he also wasn't leading them directly into battle. That was how it had been that Lord Aaron had been told of the actions of the Madison Plains on Halstead Station. Yvonne wasn't looking forward to the necessities of ceremony. As Field Marshal for the Draconis March Lord Aaron had seniority.

--

As heiress apparent to the duchy of Kestrel she had both seen the receptions her father had organized, as well seen receptions to receive House Cunningham and other potentates throughout her life. This was really no different. It might have felt that way, in the sense of her vantage point, because she was a student of Sakhara and not in the assembly as the countess of Kestrel, but she was still nominally representing her father.

... but it was still somewhat of a different experience.

"Oh god those are the Vols, we're gonna get our asses kicked twice this week." One of her classmates muttered... thankfully it wasn't Justin. Vice Chancellor Coleridge was too distracted to have overheard the comment... but if he'd planned to try and have them run the exercise before Lord Aaron's arrival he'd misjudged the timetable.

Now the duke of Robinson, and the RBA instructors were going to get a front row seat to their rematch... and she expected that as it was some of her classmates had yet to read the combined arms packets that had gone out the day before.

Someone who must have read the packet remarked that that would also be something the Duke of Robinson would likely sit in on. Being a former tread head, the fact that the New Avalon native had just called a sitting duke a tread head didn't even warrant a raised eyebrow... but she was more concerned looking around to make sure the instructors hadn't heard.

The sooner they were seated and could eat dinner the less... reduced chance of chattering among the ranks of cadets would get their class in trouble. Unfortunately the Chancellor yielded the podium to the duke of Robinson and there was a gathering of lesser speakers that followed lasting until about eight thirty before they were finally allowed to move to their seats and start dinner.

There was some ruffling of papers, and someone passed around a schedule sheet. The contents of which prompted more grumbling, and talk. Combined Arms exercises, engagement exercises against the Medium Mech Company, and then probably on top of that a trial run against the Robinson Rangers as their OpFor... all while under the scrutiny of the Field Marshal of the Draconis March, and the director for MI2 on top of that. The Vice Chancellor was sure to be breathing down their necks.

"What do you think they're talking about up there?"

"Nothing good for us I imagine." Justin replied to the cadet's question.. and Alexandria had to agree... it might have looked like an amiable discussion but it surely was bad news for them.

--

Her readouts showed the heavy vehicles by the heat of their fusion engines... but she could see them so it wasn't really necessary. By conventional wisdom you needed a battlemech to fight a battlemech... such wisdom had not precisely been constructed around a uniform formation of eighty ton vehicles that even if you managed to close in would likely maul you with assault auto cannon fire.

Her computer labelled the formation as 'Robinson's Assault Cluster' and according to the data from organization they were only part of the armored formation. No surprise it was thirty eighty tonners presumably there were lighter vehicles and possibly other forces being kept in reserve in case of a real emergency.

"Wouldn't want to attack these guys head on, especially not out here." one of her classmates observed emphasizing the point as their medium mech visibly turned its torso back and forth looking out over the wide expanse of red sands.

"Yeah there are easier ways to commit suicide." Someone else chimed in.

A third classmate observed that it made sense that the Schreks were paired up with their auto cannon equipped sibling design. 3 PPCs and the ability to fire them continuously they could focus on long range fire support while the Devastators fired their ChemJet Assault Auto cannons, SRMs and flamers at anything Mech, vehicle, or infantry stupid enough to get within range.

They were friendlies.

Today, her subconscious added. They weren't the opposition today, but rather an allied unit they were supposed to working in conjunction with. There were no sensor returns from the Rangers unit, their officers, and presumably the MechWarriors of the House Guard were all inside a nice air conditioned Operations Center.

Light beacons in the desert turned on illuminating visually the path as navigation radio signals fed data to their maps. "Don't over think things guys," Justin instructed his lance mates, "This is a pretty big formation, so watch your sectors and trust your adjoining units, we've got this."

Inside of a plush well apportioned and more importantly air conditioned command center Don Juan's much more boisterous pep talk to his lance followed. Henry Clay smiled slightly. He'd given Justin the instructions not to over think things. This was a fairly simple field exercise, but one intended to use a lot of moving parts which added its own complexity.

The point wasn't to make anyone fail, but give them some idea of working with a large number of conventional units. "This force would have been useful on Mallory's world fox." Bard Cameron remarked.

"Yes well they weren't with me at the time." He replied to the Robinson Ranger's officer. "It certainly would have helped... and if the Combine wants to try here, well I'd just as soon have my slantbacks splash their DropShips," and he'd almost just said JumpShips, which would have been a faux pas, "On the ride in. If they do make it to the surface, well then I hope they like sand."

The Wolverine BattleMech pilot laughed, "Yeah, I hear ya." The conversation the night before had been quick to touch on their ability to supply 240 rated fusion engines.

They had only touched on what those engines meant for tanks. Tanks that wouldn't have to use ICE engines. There were advantages to that... and of course the Partisan tank mounting a lighter fusion engine meant it could carry more armor... or any number of other modifications that the DMM Armor Force might decide it wanted to implement. He wasn't going to meddle in that he'd just sell them the engines and let them go for it.

Robinson though was also definitely onboard with expanding local BattleMech production. The Centurion might not have been an amazing mech, but it was a good entry mech. It would be, along with the trebuchet a nice standard design... and light enough weight to not cost too much. They could bring in other things. "Slantbacks?" A younger Davion guards officer in BattleMech spurs questioned.

"Oh, the F 90. I think they're official marketing name is actually Stingray. They're a swept wing design based off the F 77. Same engine just a lot lighter air frame."

"And this engine wouldn't happen to be a 240?" Yvonne Davion asked.

"Yep, you got it. Its a really great fusion engine. The only thing I'd think you get more mileage out of is the VLAR 300, which is arguably hands down the best engine ever made..." He paused, "In terms of wide scalable application since you can even use it to power buildings and crack hydrogen for water purification." He trailed off. "Its a really good engine." The cadets were coming up on their first skirmish of the exercise. The Field Marshal gave a shuddering sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose. He blinked, "Oh that was a rhetorical question wasn't it? My bad."