1.2

He stood amidst the tactical operations center of the DropShip that was functioning as a briefing room. There was more than a dozen officers and several times that in terms of enlisted personnel, all heavily caffeinated and and most occasionally steeling handfuls of snacks to keep their energy up over the course of the work. He was hoping that this meeting would manage to yield something which could be put in front of the lords of the Aurigan Reach, and the visiting dignitaries.

ComStar's news reports weren't really that helpful. Big Pirate Big Gun. Lots of mechs. The news service simply didn't deal with hard facts so much as sensational news bulletins. The MRB was slightly more useful since people issued bounties on pirates, and as a result they had nominal tables of known sub units but he could appreciate that some people wer incredulous that the pirate king had so many mechs.

CID and the Regular Military Intelligence wonks weren't sure what to make of the footage. They were willing to admit given the mixed lances, the use of different models as the norm instead of the exception, might have have been skewing data... but it was hard to make heads or tails of anything other than surface level information. There was however a consensus that the story could not be as simple as it was claimed.

Black Jack McGirk had historically piloted an Orion. Fair enough. It was venerable classic hegemony design even without one of star league provenance it made sense for him to have an 'Orion', and then to potentially have to refit or change to another one over his long career. Indeed in the logic of the Terran Hegemony it was better for the pilot to survive and give him a same mech or an improved version than need to star from scratch... but he was a pirate... and there were details that didn't add up.

Black Jack's original Orion at the turn of the previous century digging through the archives available to them seemed typical succession wars era periphery hinterland fare. In or about around 3001 that seemed to have changed. Black Jack's forces had begun to expand showing significantly better equipment. Star League equipment.

It didn't take much to figure that the attack records of the next several years had to have been launched from someone using more complete star charts than what were commonly available. That wasn't per se surprising, but it was noteworthy. The problem that occurred was in the timeline from there. Something had happened in or around 3004. The pattern of activity changed.

There was a probable explanation for that. Sometime before Black Jack's forces had expanded. That was an anomaly not because he had expanded but because the expansion was atypical in its composition. It had reached regimental strength, that was unusual for a periphery bandit kingdom. The most likely explanation for the post 3004 change in behavior was probably some degree of infighting, and political reorienting.

Shortly thereafter however McGirk's equipment composition changed qualitatively again. Again, it improved, and his numbers expanded. Footage from 3006 as he had definitively begun making his away across the Combine's periphery frontier showed his new Orion carrying definitively Star League Royal equipment.

The presence of which, while not impossible, did render the usual explanation of cache find improbable. The snub nosed PPC while seeing initial testing during Jonathan Cameron's reign simply could not have been present in anything other than select royal units... most of whom had likely been sent into the meat grinder of the Hegemony Campaign.

Heron suspected few people had questioned this because Black Jack remained on the move... and because in 3005 the Wolfs Dragoons had appeared with five regiments of pristine battlemechs of their own with the almost certainly bald faced lie that they'd gotten all their stuff out of a cache.

"Suggestions in the event of an attack?"

A naval officer raised his stylus, "Aero Wing deploys and shoots them down in transit. A couple flights of rapiers supported by Wasps come in for gun runs."

He nodded at the response. "And if we have to fight them on the ground?"

Another man shrugged, "It would give us the opportunity to pull their machines internals, figure out where these machines came from. Right now we're working from little more than hearsay."

"Theories on that?" The officer of the watch shook his head, deferring the question, they just didn't have enough data. "Really nothing?"

"Two hundred plus years colonel. Their appearance in the coreward periphery is by itself an anomaly. They are definitively SLDF machines, there is no excuse for why a Brian cache, or a castle would have held some of those items. Its like he unboxed standard equipment at first, and then a few years later finds a ton of Royal gear, sir." The hegemony officer replied.

That was exactly what it was like.

A CID Outpost Castle wouldn't have explained the numbers, and also the AI in a castle shouldn't have given someone like McGirk access... and speaking of access they needed to finish work on restoring the Argo.

--

The Aurigan Coalition had no unified military command except during joint operations. Each noble house provided their own troops, and the House Lords voted on whether they wanted to act collectively to respond to something, or rather in theory how they wanted to respond. To that end, he understood the subtext of the man's question "Well, what do you think of our chances?"

"I was under the impression that the council had voted to hire mercenaries to protect Mechdur?"

"Yes, Markham's Marauders." Espinosa replied. "Commander Markham is a reliable mercenary and he will be supported by house troops from House Gallas at least for the foreseeable future."

There was a rotation schedule for House Decimis, and two other Houses of the Coalition but if there was a serious threat those troops might well be kept at home. "If the planetary government is willing to make accommodations, I can task a ground aero wing of Rapiers to reinforce them." Mechdur was a major hub world you could jump from it to eleven other Aurigan worlds. "In the short term ground assets are going to be limited. Unless the Council wants to reduce defenses around Coromodir VI?"

"No, the council does not support such a move." House Espinosa certainly wouldn't vote to reduce defenses against its sister world when it was a short dropship flight to Coromodir V if they were attack, "Perhaps you could provide, more conventional forces perhaps?"

The Coalition produced its own domestic design of armor vehicles that weren't just copies of the SLDF equipment downteched, "I can provide hovercraft, but things like Maultiers will need to be provided with infantry complements to get the most out of them. Same with Turhan APCs.

The truth was he'd expected more potential trouble from the Combine sending ronins down here to cause trouble, than a potentially conventional fight against SLDF equipment... not sense Zarantha Calderon didn't seem spoiling for a fight... and the Taurians had been the only real considered hostel force given their initial belligerence.

There was a pause, "I'll need time to reallocate forces, and personnel but the plan had been to expand habitation on Katinka and I'm against reducing our force presence on Aea, especially since it would look provocative when we they return home."

"That is a reasonable decision." Espinosa replied. In truth that ended up being the correct call for other reasons. Black Jack would eventually launch a thrust against Aea deliberately targeting the ComStar HPG and attempting to carry off the ComStar presence as presumably slaves. That was another problem... and one potentially faced elsewhere as a reality of periphery warfare. "Do you have any idea how soon that might change? You were able to deploy forces against Fjaldr and to the doorstep of the Magistracy of Canopus after all."

Heron's eyes scanned the throng of Aurigan magnates, nobles, and business oligarchs. In his mind though he was thinking about the contents of Castle Nautilius. Outpost Castles were designed to support an SOF BattleMech Regiment and its supporting forces, and in theory that included DropShips. Nautilius had been left fully intact waiting for a return, but with her stocks intact... why? The question remained, and with no good explanation. He made a vaguely affirmative noise in the back of his throat, and let his eyes slide over the ambassador from House Centrella to the Coalition, thankfully she was busy talking to Tamati's daughter and heir apparent. "A few months at least, ideally March," he said after a moment, "But more practically I may be able to spare forces from Artru, and Tarragona to other worlds by December. Unless you're referring to deployments beyond the Reach, that would be trickier we don't have enough information about McGirk or how he's been able to amass his forces and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that was more than a little worrying."