014. Any volunteers for point? I didn't think so

Colonel-Duke Kleist, soon to be Colonel Kleist of the Blackjack School of Combat, stood in the auditorium, the graduating class standing at attention. Their uniforms gleaming in the lamplight, all the better for publicity photographs.

As a Regimental Commander for some time, before 'retiring' to this post to carry on the tradition of... unethical allowances in the military, he had been exposed to a great deal of different situations.

The Officer Aspirants perspired slightly in the glare of the floodlights, ready to receive their rank tabs and become full Leutnants in the LCAF. Spread out to... certain Regiments that understand that war is not a game, that there may be a few things that need to be... done for victory.

This year, however, things had been upended with the introduction of Huu Eggers unto the Lyran Commonwealth as a whole. This new batch of graduates would be going out into an uncertain future, how many of them would survive? He had no idea, not now at least, with so many changes coming, all at the same time.

"With this, you are now Mechwarriors in full. With this, you are now officers of the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces, ready to defend the Commonwealth against our enemies. They stand tall and numerous, do not be fooled by the stories put out by the Propaganda Department. If the LCAF had been as invincible as portrayed, we would not have lost worlds to the Draconis Combine as recently as within your very lifetimes. Yet, the world has changed." His eyes swept over the Aspirants. They had heard this from their instructors repeatedly, but one more time wouldn't hurt.

"Training as you have been with the Militia in recent months, new, deadly weapons have been added to your arsenal. With it, you will find defending the Commonwealth a much easier, much simpler task. The same applies to your enemies, do not be overconfident, do not be arrogant, understand your enemy aspires to victory just as you do. The future is uncertain, one which both the teaching staff and myself entrust to you now. Please come up to receive your commendation and deployment orders. Martin..."

+_+

With the graduation of the senior class, there were now a new batch of recruits, itself much larger than the previous year.

Indeed, instead of only Mechwarriors, the new class was that of infantry officers.

It had been difficult to convince the staff to accept the changes to the curriculum and student body, but, well, with the return of Leutnant-General Sanae Mutou and her endorsement of the new infantry school? Well, it was difficult to refuse.

The doctrine they were teaching was rather different from the other Successor States, or even the Commonwealth as a whole.

The infantry was to entrench and hold themselves, the anvil to the Mechwarrior hammer.

Valuable enough now that it was useful to have an infantry curriculum.

Once again, the Blackjack School of Combat would be at the forefront of education, proving, once again, that they were simply the best when it came to education, to graduate success post-graduation, to graduate survival rates, and every other metric that mattered.

Heralding a change in infantry doctrine would, in and of itself, demonstrate the capability of Blackjack beyond just Mechwarriors. If he could do the same with aerospace, then Blackjack would be the premier combat school in the Lyran Commonwealth. Premier in terms of results, that is, not social mores and learning to add useless self-awarded bits of metal to their chests.

Standardising the new infantry doctrine was his current push, his legacy. Different even from the Federated Suns and their used of combined arms, he had to accept that matters were different in the Lyran Commonwealth. The bridge between Mechwarrior and infantryman was too great, at least when it came to social status. In a world full of social generals, trying to mend that gap was beyond him. It would require true top-down authoritative change, cultural change, results-based change. Convincing the LCAF, nobility, militia, and every other interested party... that was far beyond a simple headmaster of a Mechwarrior training school.

Worse, the Commonwealth did not truly respect his school. Too different, too results based, not focusing on the 'process' as the social generals did. An anathema to them, in other words.

Only his results mattered.

Instead, working towards the strengths of the two was the best option, especially as infantry became, especially, extremely, relevant in the low-intensity conflicts of the third succession war... and the escalation that was no doubt coming soon. Already he could see the embryonic form of a new infantry doctrine emerging from the information couriered in on the monthly shipment.

Courtesy of his position as planetary duke.

Large numbers of primitive weaponry able to damage BAR10 armour had seen several raids off already. Mercenary commands would receive damage before retreating in good order. As was standard in this late stage of the third succession war.

Where it became... a problem, was with the House units of the Combine. Seemingly enraged at being defeated by infantry. Not even with tricks in a bombed out city with mines or something equally devious. No, they were arrayed in the open, beating the Draconis mechs back with range advantage and sheer numbers. Enraged at the temerity, the house commands had charged forth and died spectacularly. Failing to do so, retreating to infantry? Would see them kill themselves for the dishonour of retreating before infantry.

How much longer this could continue was unknown, but the Combine was being savaged by running into a Castle Brian... headfirst... repeatedly.

They would learn, of course, one did not achieve their success on the battlefield without some ability to adapt. The cost to the Commonwealth when they did so was what Kleist was attempting to mitigate. Train the Mechwarriors to be on the other side of the equation, to work alongside infantry to learn their strengths and their weaknesses.

Because, no doubt, no doubt at all, what the Combine Mechwarriors were experiencing would be the exact same feelings that the Lyran social generals would be experiencing soon enough when they went on the offensive.

Once both sides had savaged each other, there would be time to pause, to take a break, reevaluate their priorities, their training, doctrine. And the Blackjack School of Combat would be at the forefront of this, already having redeveloped infantry and battlemech doctrine to match this terrifying new reality.

No more small raids.

To achieve localised superiority of force, one must deploy a much greater number of units to the field. Full scale invasions, in other words. Worse, they would truly be invasions, from the reports emerging from the Eggers Defence Force he had been receiving. Being able to produce your own equipment on the field was going to be crucial to ensure the sustainability of an invasion. To keep the battle going, to grind down the opposing force who would be doing the same.

If one side could not replace their equipment losses in the future wars, they would be torn apart by the other, which was constantly growing ever stronger. Impossible with modern technology, horrifyingly possible in this new reality of effective primitive weapons.

Massive invasions, massive grinding fronts that spread across planets...

For that to work, there needed to be stronger aerospace and void craft capabilities. Matched with the recent announcements of Nashsan Diversified (a strong jumpship service provider... and the largest corporation in the Lyran Commonwealth), Bowie Industries (A dropship manufacturer of Leopards and Unions), Shipil Company (Overlord dropships), Defiance Industries (the research division at least), and most importantly, the Commonwealth through the Archon, forming a new company dedicated to jumpship and dropship production.

Not merely production, but research and development of new, cheaper, more efficient designs of dropships, aerospace craft, and jumpships. Building aerospace in enough numbers to defeat their enemies... Someone had clearly seen the same things that Kleist had and was moving to bolster all void assets for future invasions. As it had been said since time immemorial, for the fleet you want tomorrow, start twenty years ago.

The amount of kroner being shifted was truly enormous, the weight of the Commonwealth's monetary reserves adding to that already mind-boggling number.

A new terrifying future was coming and Kleist... Kleist was not sure that he was the right person for it.

Kleist wasn't feeling old, he was still young dammit, but there was a definite sense that his thoughts were calcifying. Perhaps it had been that the third succession war had gone for so long that he felt 'this was how things are', forgetting that when one started to think of war like this, they should leave the battlefield and never return.

This was perhaps his last great innovation before he too had to leave the battlefield. Leave the school to someone who was ready for these tumultuous times. He was sure Eggers would be creating yet more change to the Commonwealth... no, the Inner Sphere.

Turning to the computers on his desk, one for each of the monitors (a pain in the ass to turn them on every day, that was for sure), each connected to a different network. He checked the data coming in, noticing that his conclusions had not been wrong. An invasion was headed towards Romulus based on Military Intelligence dispatch, three regiments of Combine soldiery, hellbent on avenging their honour.

Soon to learn that three regiments in this new Inner Sphere was a drop in the bucket. And like drops, it would do nothing to a concrete wall unless supported by thousands more behind it. Slamming face-first into Romulus, they would splatter and soon evaporate.

His eyes tracked to the different monitors, all from different agencies. Agencies that would be rather cross if he kept all the information on one computer. Better to keep these things separate, that much was true.

LCAF - Military Intelligence, Tamar Pact Regional Command, Blackjack Internal Network, LIC, and yet more monitors from yet more agencies.

As a Planetary Duke, specifically a military Duke, he was expected to be on top of these different connections. If there were matters that were relevant, then they would be disseminated out to his planetary command (what there was of it).

With the Eggers becoming the dominant powers on Blackjack with their ever-increasing industrial strength, the title would pass over, and he would be expected to brief the new duke on all of this. This set-up he would be keeping as headmaster of a Mechwarrior training school.

Given it was Phan and Katherine Eggers that would be receiving it, he wasn't sure he needed to, Phan probably had a setup nearly identical to this one.

A snort of laughter emerged from the Colonel's lips.

Phan Eggers, a man who had taken his wife's name, abandoned his past, and continued to play the different factions in the Lyran Periphery against each other. The different unions and corporations, the ducal houses, the lower nobility, the higher nobility, the LCAF against... well, itself, the LIC, and so on. So many different factions, all on the palm of Phan's hand.

Why had he settled on such a backwater as Blackjack III, Kleist had no idea.

Perhaps he thought it was funny?

Perhaps it was that out of here he could play kingmaker, a big fish in a small pond? Perhaps he just found it interesting to constantly pit different groups against each other, something much more difficult in the churning waters of Skye or Donegal.

But as an intelligence agent, he wasn't making waves.

No, that was his son.

Huu Eggers.

A boy, growing into a man who had radically altered the Commonwealth in a year, more so than even Alessandro the Archon had done when he tried to make his name known.

One had to wonder just what insanity he was planning next, the transportable fortress idea had already been taken and run with.

Eggers Construction called them... demountables.

A single fortress hex, built in two halves.

Both transported separately to avoid over stressing the vessels or vehicles transporting them. Nearly 2,000 tons each, it had required a considerable amount of effort to get the hexes onto the campus. Necessitating the train that had been constructed recently. All the better to allow transit of students to and from the Eggers zone of influence to do their patrols and keep the peace.

All the better to have the practice for when it became a real issue to be concerned over. With so many new bodies coming and going, the strong presence of assault mechs would keep the open malcontents quiet. The Aspirants would have a chance to rub shoulders with the influential and powerful, practice their negotiation skills, and get in on the ground floor of new developments.

The demountables were just an example of that. Several had been bought using the Lyran Commonwealth's grant for a Mechwarrior school, some for use in the field for Aspirants to identify. More importantly, they were to learn how to counter them being used in an offensive or defensive role. A dropship deploying several with defensive long ranged guns (the new 25-pdr field gun produced by Eggers Armaments as an example) would cause enormous issues for anyone coming in unprepared.

Creating an area of denial, to force opposing forces into unsuitable ground, or to create a sudden defensive fortification, necessitating a pause in an attacker's momentum. With a range of 10812 metres, it barely outranged Thumper artillery pieces. Definitely outranged it when elevated. Very definitely outranged it at 12,000 metres with a super-charge powder bag to its load. Combine that with the lostech (how was it even lostech he pondered, this was pre-spaceflight technology, how had it been lost?) VT fuses.

The options were numerous, all were dangerous, to infantry and mech alike.

The influential and powerful had seen just how easy it was to build one. They were now interested, and the interests would now start knife-fighting behind the scenes to receive the first of the fortress hexes. All the better to protect their investments.

Better for the students to learn now than later. Learn that there was the physical danger of new technology or techniques... and the monetary/influential danger of the interests behind the scenes that revolve around new technologies and techniques.

The calmest waters were the most turbulent under the surface.

And there would be a later, the idea that these wouldn't spread through the entire Inner Sphere was a ridiculous one. Likely less effective than the original moulded hexes, for a time at least... but they would still be emerging on the battlefields of the future. None of the successor states were stupid, a simple yet effective development like this?

Proliferation was inevitable.

Just like the onset of primitive weapons. Systems that were, on their own, rather ineffective. Yet, when deployed in vast numbers, proved the adage that quantity was quality in its own way. Whilst the Commonwealth held the advantage now, it was a matter of time before it was adopted elsewhere, where battles would turn into mass, grinding affairs.

Where the slowdown of the third succession war was due to the destruction of infrastructure. It would soon reignite itself. Why fight with invaluable lostech, when you can fight with sticks and stones?

The scale of the war would only increase.

The spread of Eggers Cradles or Castle Eggers... would that bring back the horrors of the second succession war? Of nuclear deployment on the regular again. The death of trillions.

Kleist felt the rush of the future rolling in.

Again he felt that he was perhaps too old for this, that this was not his war, that there needed to be someone younger, more flexible to surf the wave of change.

He wasn't sure he was ready for it.

He would take it on of course, but perhaps someone... younger, proven in the new ways would be better in this role.