Onto Chapter 2, where I vomit a whole bunch of stuff at all of you. I have pre-written up to about halfway through Chapter 11, as well as plotted out up to the Clan Invasion - including a couple of different paths it can take depending on how gaming some of this stuff out works.
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Law Offices of Kirigaya, Persimmons, Chao and Urquhart
Farmindas
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance
2nd January 3011
Well, the rest of yesterday proved to be entirely unexciting. Food secured I'd gone back to my dorm room and shut the world out as much as possible, grabbing a notebook and writing down as many things as I could remember - for now - of the information from my other self (I'd decided that since I was likely stuck here, all my outside knowledge was my others knowledge. Better than going "young me/old me" all the time). I'd taken breaks to stretch and finish the final bits and pieces of packing I'd needed to do, but even with those minor distractions I'd filled several notebooks with what I remembered both exactly and somewhat vaguely. I was also a bit more cognizant of the actual date – I had nearly forty years to prepare for the Clan Invasion, over fifty to stop the Jihad and plenty of potential points to butterfly things away, from saving Joshua Wolf on New Delos, to stopping Phelan Kell from falling into the hands of the Wolves or stopping Myndo Waterly from coming to power. There was only one thing I was vaguely aware of happening this year, that being Hanse Davion taking command of the Third Davion Guards. Last year had been a bit busier, Melissa Steiner had been born and her father, Arthur Luvon, died; the Kell Hounds had formed and the first completely new Battlemech design in centuries (in the Inner Sphere) had walked off the production lines, the Merlin. Right here in the Alliance, interestingly enough for a place so against the idea of Battlemechs. Next year was also going to be kind of quiet as well but 3013/14 was where it got interesting.
I woke up this morning, packed my dirty clothes from yesterday into my suitcase and got dressed in the only thing I'd left out – my sole business suit. I realised how nervous I was when I found myself debating taking my suitcase with me to the meeting, dithering over it for some reason I didn't want to look into before I shook it off and strode out the door.
There were good public transport links between the university and the capital itself, so I was quickly on my way. It was actually a really pleasant journey, quiet with decent scenery and the train itself was pretty clean too. A quick transfer and I was soon standing outside the law firm. Again I was hit by a sudden bout of nerves keeping me from going forward. I looked around the street for a distraction, something to spur me into movement and got nothing – it was New Year's Day, no one was around in the middle of the city's business district at this time of the day on a public holiday. Shaking my head at my mental state, I moved over to a mirrored window nearby and stared myself in the eye for a few seconds, psyching myself up a bit. Then before I could let the nerves freeze me up more I went through the front door of the firm's building and headed for the reception desk.
The man behind the desk looked up as I walked inside and immediately stood up. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and was in professional attire, even considering the day and time.
"Mister Karter, Logan Persimmon. Good to see you, if you'll just give me a moment I'll finish up my business here I'll take you on upstairs." I'd gotten close enough to shake his extended hands as he started to talk though I did freeze up for a second as I did so.
They had my picture on file. And the partner I'd been talking to yesterday was on the reception desk to meet me. Seriously, what the hell was going on to make this so… so urgent?
Logan had quickly sat back down and hit a few things on the terminal at the desk as I stood awkwardly there, racking my brain as to what the potential issues could be. Yes, being seen by all the high level members of a firm due to the huge inheritance I was receiving, that I could understand but a partner calling me on a public holiday and then being on the reception desk when I turned up the next day, even though no other businesses were really open? Once he'd finished whatever it was he was doing, Logan stood up and gestured for me to head towards the elevator banks as he walked around the desk himself.
As we moved he made small chat, obviously trying to fill the air with noise and put me at ease but I was still a little off. The lift opened as we approached, the doors shutting as we were both inside and taking off without Logan pushing a button. So we were being watched or something? I'd been more or less responding to the pleasantries he'd be offering, but I had to ask something so I just blurted out a question.
"This has been bugging me since yesterday, but are you the Persimmons' in Kirigaya, Persimmons, Chao and Urquhart? " I got a polite chuckle from him, so I was pretty sure I hadn't offended him or been especially rude. His head was shaking no before he finished chuckling and replied.
"No, no, goodness gracious no. The four families have been practicing law together throughout human space for going on eight hundred years, though these days we do primarily work within Outworlds, Taurian and Suns space. My great uncle is currently the senior Persimmon; I'm something like the fifth or sixth in line for that honour. I'm actually shortly due to head into the Federated Suns interior to visit firms there we have ties with, hopefully good experience for later in life!" He laid it out for me fairly clearly and concisely and it had a slight calming effect on me. At least I wasn't talking to a senior partner in this situation.
I was about to talk about my previous university plans and how I'd looked forward to going to study abroad, especially in the Suns, when the lift came to a halt (I'd hardly noticed the movement at all, smooth) and he led me out into a richly appointed waiting room, right through it and up to a somewhat imposing set of doors. Pausing for only a brief knock he opened the door and ushered me in without waiting for an acknowledgement from those inside.
There were five people sitting down at a long table, with another four moving around the room behind them carrying files, folders and other things – pretty sure one had a tray of drinks that he was taking from the room. The five sitting down were all older, forty and fifty-ish all round I would guess, the movers being much younger – I'd say my age or a little older. Obviously they were the senior partners of this office and some of the junior flunkies and assistants. Logan showed me to a chair opposite them before making his way around to the sixth opened slot. The oldest female (actually the oldest person and obviously the senior person overall from how everyone was reacting to her) spoke up as he settled in, the juniors all leaving the room as she began to talk.
"Good morning, Mister Karter. We all are aware of who you are but for your information I am Melinda Kirke, we have Carroll Cleveland and Francis Lazarou to my right, to my left Larissa Sandmeier, Sevki Atalar and of course Logan. Before we begin, is there anything you wish to ask?"
Six experienced lawyers looking across at me from a table at short notice regarding my inheritance in what felt like really rushed circumstances? Of course I had questions, but I felt like I had to put it off for now. It would have to be all wrapped up in whatever I was going to be inheriting.
"I have many, many questions but I'm guessing the majority will be explained as you all explain what exactly it is my father has left for me, especially since I am reasonably certain that it is all mixed up in the details of that."
"Excellent, then we shall begin at once." With that Melinda introduced me to the details of my father's last few weeks and what he'd left for me.
Like I'd already said earlier, Father would take his jumpship off the beaten track between contracted runs, relying on the protection of whichever of the two dropships he had with him to see off pirate attackers lying in wait for such risk-takers. If he had the Honesty (the Intruder-class dropship) with him he'd deploy the two small craft he'd had built crammed with extra surveying gear – everything needed to do distance observation of in-system celestial bodies. He'd usually sell off any information he found that pointed to easily accessible resources to anybody looking to buy or just add it to his private records. Considering the crews would be scanning for at least a week while the jump-drive recharged, he'd managed to amass quite an amount of information over the last couple of decades including pirate point formation times for several systems.
On this last trip he'd hit the jackpot – a derelict Leviathan-class jumpship. It was an old class of vessel - they'd not been manufactured in centuries due to being surpassed in various ways from their original couple of century building run - but had once been wildly popular, largely due to the fact they had the most drop collars of any civilian jumpship (until the Monolith came around they kept that distinction) but also due to several design choices that meant they were ridiculously easy to maintain. Unfortunately, those design choices ended up being a serious flaw - as interstellar piracy became a major thing the Leviathan-class suffered from being easy to board and seize or from being easy to disable due to handily accessible fuel tanks.
You could still find a few floating around the space lanes even in these later days, even in the pirate-infested Periphery, but they were incredibly rare due to their age. But eight drop collars were considered well worth it, especially since they could be run almost as cheaply as a Star Lord with a significant amount extra carrying capacity.
There had still been dropships attached to it as well and this was where he hit the jackpot again. They were an Overlord, Union-CV, two Mules and a generic cargo aerodyne. And on board those dropships had been thirty six Battlemechs and eighteen aerospace strike fighters - all in deployable condition - along with over seventy combat vehicles and a battalions worth of infantry gear all stowed away on one of the Mules, the rest of the cargo spaces filled with support vehicles including artillery, along with spares and ammunition. The dropships were in nearly fully intact condition in and of themselves – some minor armour and weapon damage which had proven to be easily repairable.
Even if the jumpship had proven to be unrecoverable, that was a pure fortune right there. Pretty much a full combined arms regiment, right down to the support elements. His luck had really came through though, because the jumpship had ended up requiring next to no repairs and had easily made the jumps to Alpheratz with no further issues.
As soon as he knew what he had, father had begun making plans and sent messages ahead to get them set in motion. The weapon systems damaged on the dropships were removed and replaced with spares from on board the cargo dropships, except he removed all the ballistic weapons and replaced them with either Particle Projection Cannons or 8cm lasers – Large Lasers, the Battletech fanboy in me said - the space and tons saved used to install extra heatsinks to deal with the added heat load. He'd also ordered some modifications to a dropship he'd had on order from the Suns for over a year by that stage – a Seeker-class, with most of its cargo capacity removed to carry a full battalion of troops and a bunch of extra passengers. Finally, he'd set out modifying one of the Mules that he'd found to be able to deploy the rest of the vehicles as well as carry additional support staff – pretty much reducing its carrying spaces by two thirds.
He'd set in motion some minor recruiting, focused on getting crews for all the dropships and the new jumpship and some extra marine security for everything. This had all occurred through the security contracting and transport company he ran, so all my ships were fully crewed and I had five companies of marines on board, three on the Honesty, one on the Leviathan and the last spread out amongst the different ships, largely in squad sized detachments with the overflow back on the Honesty. All could be considered to be quite loyal, being previous employees/retainers.
The only other local recruiting he'd done had been for aerospace pilots and technical crews. It really was the only place where the Outworlds managed to shine militarily, so it made sense – the pilots, not the tech crews. According to the information that had been relayed to the lawyers, my father had managed to attract a number of ex-AAA pilots and crews, with more apparently responding every day so we were almost at full roster there.
Then we came to the end of the brief run down. My father had planned to take the hardware with him to Galatea, forming a mercenary unit to recruit experience fighters and attract recruits from back home later, using the ongoing Succession Wars as a training ground until it was time to come back home and hand over the unit to the Alliance as an experienced military force to garrison a few worlds – hells, even win back some of the old Trader Domains worlds that seceded during the First Succession War, now that we would have the forces to actually protect them from raiders.
One of the flunkies re-entered the room, this time with a drinks trolley. I was given a coffee and the actual listing of what my father had found exactly, then told to go through it and ask if I had any questions about the details. Ohh boy, what shinies do I have in the bag?
Battlemechs first. Because that was the point of the setting and all that jazz. Four assault weight, a Battlemaster BLR-1C (command variant, there was the battalion leader's mech), Awesome AWS-8Q (PPC all day), Thug THG-11E (more PPCs!) and a Stalker STK-3F. Some nice fire power there, definitely the headquarters lance.
And damn, that was a lot of heavies. Sixteen! Though it was a bit weird to my understanding of how lances were organised – there were all the same design in each lance, though they probably could be switched around now. Four each of Black Knight BL-6-KNT, Flashman FLS-8K, Lancelot LNC25-01sl and finally Ostsol OTL-4D designs - all energy heavy builds, though something about the Lancelot variant number was tickling at the back of my head.
Then we had twelve mediums and only four lights. That tickle was getting a touch stronger, I think I was onto something, especially with it again being four of the same design in each lance. They were the Crab CRB-27, Dervish DM-6Md, Wyvern WVE-5N and Mongoose MON-66.
Like a bolt from the blue, it hit me. These were all Star League Defence Force Battlemechs. This had been a SLDF convoy! Jackpot a third time, especially if the vehicles and fighters matched up. Also if there were any Royal grade machines in there – I didn't think it was likely, this looked like a partial garrison force for out here in the Outworlds, somewhere they might not get a lot of resupply.
Sure enough, the infantry gear was the standard SLDF jump infantry kit, including man-pack SRM launchers. And the vehicles and fighters were indeed all SLDF designs, the vehicles were even all fusion powered. No Royal grade equipment though and it looked like no ballistic designs had been included, though missile designs weren't avoided.
For tanks I had twelve Manticore heavies, eight Chaparral hover support tanks (pretty sure they had Arrow-IV launchers which would be very difficult to keep resupplied), twelve each of Zephyr hover recon tanks, Chevalier wheeled scout tanks and Gabriel hover scouts. I also had twenty four infantry support VTOLs – four Cyrano attack ones, eight Ripper fast troop transports and twelve Cobra transports, split between nine troop transports, one command variant and two MASH units. They'd thrown the eighteen Marksman artillery pieces in at this point of the list as well.
Fighter wise I not only had the recovered eighteen SLDF craft but the six mediums and their pilots who had worked for my father for years, four Shilone SL-17 and two Corsair CSR-V12. The others were split pretty exactly, a squadron each of Rapier RPR-101, Gotha GTHA-500 and Tomahawk THK-63. Four squadrons in total and the ability to drop them all in space in short order, air cover for anything short of a major planetary invasion - nice. Like they'd mentioned earlier I'd held onto all the existing pilots and their ground crews and had managed to recruit eleven more pilots and thirteen crews with more being interviewed even as we went through all this.
Finally, the support vehicles. A large number of cargo trucks and personnel transports, a command van for forward headquarters support on the ground, a company of engineering vehicles – bulldozers and the like – and a pair of Battlemech recovery vehicles.
Huh. No autocannon designs in any category, but still plenty of missiles to go with the laser boats. All the vehicles were fusion powered outside of the trucks, so my fuel needs were greatly reduced. Spares and plentiful ammunition, even a large number of Arrow-IV rounds for the Chaparral tanks, though it would be a good idea to look into switching them out for fifteen tube long range missile launchers or something similar – nowhere produced the ammo itself anymore, wouldn't want to run out mid-battle. Even a number of spare extra-light engines, freezers, endo-steel parts, ferro-fibrous armour and extended range lasers in case we needed to repair battle damage to any of the more advanced designs. And the dropships were also having their ballistic weaponry replaced with energy weapons.
Sounded like something I would have done while playing Mechwarrior 2. I had been a terrible shot in that game, I always ran out of ammo within the first couple of fights on a mission. Suppose it made sense in a way to reduce the different types of ammunition I'd have to stock – it was down to long and short range missiles rather than those and three or four types of autocannon ammo. It also made sense in a way for these designs to be deployed out this way originally, cutting down somewhat on the logistics trail.
It was also a weirdly lopsided yet even dispersal of assets. Heavy on the mech side, light on the vehicles, the ASFs evenly spread – I wonder at the choices made by some long dead procurement office, if these had originally been part of a larger force or were destined as reinforcements. Then I thought about some of the Star League spending patterns and snorted.
Even on its own merits it was a formidable force, one which I was going to be using to make money fighting other people for, either in attack or defence. I had some other business shares and cash that would let me support that unit on its own for a time but eventually I'd either have to sell the equipment or sell its services.
That thing bugging me from the start kept coming back stronger and stronger the whole time though, now it was about time I got it out of the way that we had gotten through the majority of the rest of the information.
"Okay, we've exhaustively run through what I've been left and gone over again why I can't inherit the land hold back on Coraines. I really have one main question for now – why all this effort?" I shook my head a little. "I understand why all you partners of the firm would be involved in this, from the scope of what's being passed down to me and all the attachments and so on, but why the rush? Shouldn't this have taken weeks to sit down and go through with me?"
The six sitting across from me at the table took a few seconds to exchange glances, obviously deciding who would be the spokesperson before Melinda spoke up.
"The rush, as you put it, is down to the fact that in just over sixty days' time a judge will rule that your unit cannot be considered combat-ready and that as such it, by an obscure factor of Alliance law can be seized for the usage of the Alliance Military Corps (AMC) with minimal compensation to you, with the people currently employed by the unit having the option to either sign on or leave." She said this pretty bluntly, obviously going the direct "rip the band-aid off" approach rather than try and soft-sell it. It definitely felt like I'd been hit about the head and was reeling in time to take a bat to the stomach – or a bit lower.
"What the hell?" I managed to get out and I can only assume they took pity on me because they laid what information they had out for me. Apparently my father had greatly irritated several high-ranking people not only within the AMC but the government as a whole when he refused to hand over the equipment (both as a whole or in chunks) shortly after he found it for what was generous compensation, insisting he was going to form up a mercenary company and go fighting in the Inner Sphere, or at least actively pirate hunting. They'd even offered to let him keep the Jumpships and cargo dropships (minus the majority of their cargo, of course) as well as first option on some replacement fighters and dropships if he wanted to continue his anti-pirate business as well.
They'd found the law deep in the books pre-dating the Amaris War, before the Mercenary Review Board had come in to effect, that said that any mercenary unit which couldn't be considered to be a fully formed and active force within ninety days of it being established would forfeit its equipment to the then relatively new AMC with little to no compensation required. From what my lawyers could tell it was definitely not aimed at situations like mine – back then no one would have thought it possible for someone to just stumble over a lost military convoy and decide it was all theirs. It was written so that inexperienced militia or dreamers wouldn't waste precious resources that could be better served defending their homeworlds rather than fighting purely for money. And as a general fuck you to mercenaries from some elements that wanted them completely expelled from the Alliance altogether.
Just under a month ago someone senior in the government had put the wheels in motion, starting the process off. And through various underhanded methods the notice hadn't actually been received by my father or any of his senior people, though apparently some form of formal receipt had been sent back to the authorities acknowledged that the process was in effect. In fact, if my father hadn't passed away and then the lawyers had to go through all the formal correspondence and picked up the odd language of the notice they still wouldn't have found out and I would likely have awoken one morning to find a repossession team asking me to kindly vacate my bed as it was now Outworlds property.
After a few minutes to recover and mull through the bomb that had just been dropped on me, I had some questions. "Well, alright then. What are my options? Do they get everything, or just the stuff my father found? Does it include all the businesses and stocks left over too, or is that separate from this?"
This time it was Carroll, the male senior partner who leant forwarded and answered me. "Unfortunately due to how your father merged things together and registered them with Comstar, they would be able to take all the equipment, even the ones from the pre-existing security company since they now all belong to the one entity. All the remaining cash, stocks and business interests are separated, so you would have those left over, but you wouldn't have enough to even begin to rebuild your father's former companies, let alone the new force." He shrugged. "You would receive maybe at absolute most a tenth of the value according to the law as written, down to as little as a single percent in compensation. At this time we couldn't tell you how much but it still wouldn't be enough to rebuild."
It was still a hell of a lot of money, more than enough to live my life on as well as several generations of descendants unless it was absolutely pissed away, but compared to the value of what I currently held? And if I was stuck here in this universe with the knowledge I had, that equipment would help protect me as I went and got all the shiny loot – I wouldn't have to hand myself over to an appropriate government and hope they took me seriously (and didn't stick me somewhere and drug me to my eyeballs).
Do I have any options to fight the ruling? How do they determine that we aren't fully formed and ready to go? Is there any way to delay the ruling? We went over these and several related questions for the next twenty minutes and it seemed to boil down that there was nothing I could do. Unless I could recruit thirty six mechwarriors, over ninety vehicles crews (I included some of the support and artillery vehicles in this count) and whatever extra pilots I still required for my fighters on top of the necessary support personnel (technical, medical and administrative) within the next sixty days and have them up to a trained standard within that time I would have to surrender the unit. It would end up being close to two thousand people in total, if not more – there was no earthly way to do it.
Pinching the bridge of my nose and rubbing my closed eyes I had one final question. "What do you all recommend I do, if I want to keep the unit for myself?"
They were quiet for some time while I did that. I eventually stopped, opened my eyes and watched as they again debated on who was going to answer. Obviously it was something fairly daring and probably, if not outright illegal, highly dubious. They couldn't seem to decide if it should come from the most senior (Melinda) or the most junior (Logan), though eventually Francis metaphorically put his hand up to take responsibility and spoke as he leant backward.
"I put forward as a joke almost that you were pretty much only going to be able to run as soon as we found out what was happening, but over the last two days that we've been discussing the problem it seems to be the only option you have if you want to keep the equipment."
Run away? That was what they had come up with? My incredulously raised eyebrow must have spoke volumes, because he continued on shortly.
"If, and we stress if, you manage to make it outside the borders of the Outworlds Alliance there is little to nothing they can do, depending on which direction you go. Out into the Periphery they are unlikely to follow – a waste of resources. To the Taurian Concordat, they would likely seize the equipment and send the majority of it back to the Outworlds, keeping some of the materials in recompense due to the current state of relations between the two nations. If you head in the direction of either of our other neighbours, they are likely to just let you go – the Draconis Combine would likely just take everything and ignore requests for it to be returned here outright denying they'd ever seen you, while the Federated Suns would likely make token gestures of returning some of the material while sending you back in chains, it wouldn't be worth the diplomatic hassle to chase it up. The Alliance government would likely just declare you – and anyone who goes with you - persona non grata and refuse to allow you to return for the foreseeable future."
Huh. Taking my things and fleeing into exile. And at least since it was the Outworlds I wouldn't be looking over my shoulder for assassins my whole life. Still, this high-level law team could only come up with that?
I was pretty damn screwed either way.
Well, I think if it had to happen like this, this was the best nation to be kicked out of. There really was nothing of interest to happen here for the next fifty odd years as far as I could remember, which would leave me plenty of time to make amends if I found it necessary. I could definitely find several ways to do that once I'd managed to build a reputation for myself.
After a few minutes to finish fully digesting that bit of news I slumped forward, resting my head in my hands. "You've given me a lot to think about there, is there anything else we have to discuss or can I go have a minor breakdown and start planning what to do?"
There wasn't anything else to discuss. I was given several folders of paperwork to go over until I'd made my decision, as well as a memory chip which they told me contained a message from my father to me, a final farewell to listen to in private. We went through the finishing formalities and I was escorted back out of the room and downstairs by Logan. As we exited the lift into the lobby he confirmed all the contact information I had been given was correct and asked me to call the offices any time, before bidding me farewell. I walked out into the sunlight and squinted. It felt like much longer had passed, but it was still early in the afternoon.
I needed to return to the university to get my suitcase, then I would need to make my way to the office my father had on planet to go over some more details regarding the non-unit inheritance bits with people from his administration teams. And I'd need to watch that message at some point, who knows what words my father had left for me.
And more plans to make. Always more plans