Chapter 28
The Wolf Whimpers
Artru
21st April, 3025
Otto and his people were chafing at the bit, and were displeased when we specified they had to leave their Jumpship with the Watchman as we burned to Artru and now I stood overlooking one of the vast cargo holds watching the mass lifted bringing up the STC. The awe on his face as he watched an entire facility being lifted into a 'mere cargo hold' was worth seeing however. Miranda watched the operation, somewhat bored, the forced idleness of her pregnancy was eating at her and she chafed to be out in the action again. I threw an arm over her shoulder and hugged her tight, keeping close.
Trotter stood on the other side looking useless, his experience as a Sacristan didn't equip him to deal with this. At the back of the chamber the door hissed open and the Forgeworlds chief Magos stepped in, Otto recoiled from the man and the multiple mechadendrites and other implants to his body. "The Omnissiah is with us. The STC was moved without much difficulty, and the Machine Spirit is being transplanted to join with the Forgeworlds Cogitator Interlink."
"Why do they speak like that." Otto asked me trying not to look at him.
"Like what?"
"Like its a religion." He said.
"Oh, that. A curse of sorts." I remarked.
"You believe in such things?"
I looked over at the techpriest who turned to Otto. "The method of our speech is unfortunately a result of our hypno-training in the secrets of the machine spirits. As best as we can tell, one of the key developers in the programming of machine spirits had a cruel sense of humour, or unholy reverence for machines and designed the programming language as a sort of pseudo-prayer. Unfortunately, the programming is highly adaptive, learning ... and yet rigid. It did not allow for removal of the code-base that imparted a semi-religious bent to such dealings." The magos explained, "Our augmentations that seem to trouble you are however, a conscious choice that makes us better suited for our work. We could certainly produce robotics that might serve the same function, but it would lack the instinctive adaptability of the human psyche."
I looked at Otto. "It was the problem of being born in a Skunkworks project that was quite specifically unlimited in oversight and research goals. The Project heads were able to run their research however they felt fit."
Otto looked at the tech-priest and shuddered again instinctively, the mans cybernetic eyes boring into the Davion unblinkingly. "Thank you for the explanation..."
"Magos Cortezar Helm." The magos put out an all too machine hand to shake Ottos.
Otto took it and winced slightly as they shook hands, "If I may ask, did you choose that too?"
"This? Oh, the bionic arm, yes after I lost the original in an accident involving a plasma regulator I could have it replaced with this or a clone graft. This seemed like the most practical option given my line of work." He explained.
"Do many of your people engage in such augmentation?" Otto asked me.
"Yes and no. Those who work in certain fields are almost universally augmented in many ways. You've noticed the augments that all my Knight Pilots bear, and those are only the visible ones." I watched the window as the lighting shipwide went red. I tapped the Vox. "What the hell is going on, did the STC brownout the ship?"
"Negative sir. We've had a notification from the Watchman, a ship arrived at the jump point. It's bearing the insignia of the Wolf's Dragoons. It has them under its guns now."
"Oh for fucks sake."
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Jaime Wolf
Shit shit shit shit shit. What the thoughts of the ex-Clanner lacked in eloquence they made up for in contextual meaning. The Jumpship he'd brought out with his star and a broadsword seemed entirely inadequate for the meeting he envisioned when he found himself face to face with one and a half kilometres of angry ship pointed at him with open tubes and what looked like colossal missiles nestled within.
<"This is the Lathe Nation Warship Ironsides. You have intruded on Lathe space. You will hold position and await further instructions. If we detect power to your KF drive you will be destroyed. If you deploy your sail you will be destroyed. If you so much as take a shit out of an airlock in our direction you will be destroyed.">
Jaime keyed in the communications. <"This is Jaime Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons. We understand and will comply."> Shutting it down he sat back.
"Jaime, what the hell is that?" One of his techs asked.
"I have no idea..." Jaime responded, "Look at it though. Those gun batteries make a Naval Gauss look small, and those tubes at the front...."
"Missile tubes." Another said. "Passive scans suggest each of them is about seventy metres long. And it has four pointed right at us. What do you want us to do?"
"Don't deploy our sail, don't power up the KF drive using the battery, and for Kerensky's sake, don't shit out an airlock in their general direction. We wait."
Hours later the techs reported a drive flare from the planet Artru.
"What can you tell?" Jaime asked as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.
"It's massive. And we can't fully see enough detail, but she's burning at six gravities." The bridge went silent as it approached. Trying to maintain a fiction of normalcy as the vast vessel closed in on them with an air of inevitability.
But it didn't take long, with such a frightening acceleration despite its mass the monster was there in record time. Burning to decelerate and the Wolf's Dragoons felt a new fear as a vessel that dwarfed the one holding them hostage approached, missile tubes studding the prow of it open and prepared to fire.
"That thing can't be." One of them said. "It's over four kilometres long and masses.... just under twenty one million tons." The communications gear piped up.
<"This is Duke Kane Giordino of the Lathe Nation, Warmaster of the Raven Guard. Prepare to be boarded.">
Jaime's face descended into a thundercloud. <"This is Colonel Jaime Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons. We will not be boarded.">
A crimson light descended on the ship and there was a bang of ozone and the actinic stink pervaded the bridge as Jaime spun to find a dozen men with weapons levelled. "You make it sound like you had a choice." Kane said.
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Jaime Wolf
Jaime resisted the urge to reach for his laser pistol as the weapons levelled at him twitched at the movement. "Come with me Colonel, we need a private room." Kane walked from the bridge headed for the mess quarters, Jaime followed, one of Kanes men several steps behind with laser rifle aimed at his back when they reached the mess Kane sat down at a bench and indicated Jaime should do the same.
"Warden, of the Raven Guard. I come to meet and speak with you, and perhaps seek some of your technologies, but I see you have been holding back significantly." The tone in his voice brooked the level of offence. Noticing that Kane had not brought his guard into the room either.
"Says the man who was playing spymaster for Clan Wolf." Kane said and Jaime stood up and back. How... "I could start this conversation by asking where your cache is you've hidden a few of your warships, but bluntly, I no longer have any need of them."
"How did you know any of that?!" Jaime said a grip of terror in his heart.
"Be calm. Only I know it. It's not knowledge i've seen fit to publicize nor is it something I intend to publicize." Kane sat back. "But I felt it was imperative to make it clear that I understand what you are. I understand the irony you have in using my callsign as it matches your own political affiliations."
"Who the hell are you!?" Jaime snapped.
"Kane Giordino, Duke of the Lathe Nation, Warmaster of the Raven Guard, direct Descendant of Zachariah Cameron. Ally of the Aurigan Reach. Hopefully Ally of the Federated Suns. But I would not expect you to be familiar with Zachariah Cameron, not even Kerensky knew of his project." Kane indicated that Jaime should resume being seated. "Kerensky took the best of the Star League with him. Zachariah took the future of the Star League."
Jaime forced himself to calm. "What do you mean."
Kane leaned back, as if deciding what to say. "Zachariah's project was a skunkworks with unlimited scope. The technologies you hoped to purchase off of us, all came from that project. As a public mercenary company, i'd wager your big ticket items were hoping to get the Heat Sinks and Gravity plating, but tied up in the Draconis Combine I'd have had to refuse you."
Jaime laughed. "Actually. I came to see you, and decide the truth of the rumors that had been reaching even as far as the combine. Just your Heat Sinks and Gravity plating has upset the apple cart. The Combine is on the verge of panic, a powerful Capellan seems to have an unbridled hatred for you. And let's be honest Kane. If you are hoping to make the friends you claim, then Thomas Calderon is going to want to breath down your neck in no time. Not to mention the untrustworthy ComStar."
"Very well. Teleportarium. Teleport us to the Knight Bay." Kane declared. Jaime didn't have the time to panic as the red light enveloped him.
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The panic on Jaime's face as he found himself on my ship was almost precious to behold. But the problem it faced was manifold. The Davions would know, now the Dragoons knew... the secret was as good as out because neither of them were subjects I could afford to butcher. And still Jaime looked around at the Knights stored under servicing.
"They're not as big as I expected from the descriptions or footage I have gotten." He finally said.
"An Atlas doesn't look so big until its in motion either." I remarked as I headed for the bay doors followed by Jaime. "Duke to Melodium. Beethoven's 9th. Shipwide." The symphony began to play as we made our way through the doors and headed for other parts of the ship.
"How did you know of the Clans." Jaime said as we passed towards the Manufactorum.
"Classified. It's not recorded in any computers if that is what worries you. It was passed directly from descendant to descendant. I believe that Kerensky's exodus was tracked, but there is no hard records. After passing beyond the Inner Sphere, I believe Zachariah and the project turned insular, and tracking stopped." I passed into the manufactorum where production was finally ramping up. Especially now the STC was being installed and was about to take up the bulk of manufacturing.
"Kerensky's blood. What..."
"We are not going to be using the Inner Sphere's unit organisation charts any longer." I said plainly.
"You plan to adopt the Clans methods?" Jaime asked, surprised.
"No. Our own." I remarked heading into an office. "There highest unit size I have in mind is the Legion. About three thousand units. With each Legion consisting of six Cohorts of five hundred which break down into five centuries of one hundred. The two primary Cohorts will be the Knight Cohort. Each Knight Century will be formed of 20 Knights and 80 Armigers. Which will break down into Squadrons of 10."
I examined files being displayed as Jaime tried to process what I was saying. "The Combined Arms Cohorts, like the Knights, will break into 5 centuries. Each Century will be comprised of 2 Superheavy Tank Squadrons, 8 Tank Squadrons, 35 Iron Fist Squadrons, 35 Infantry Platoons and 20 Support units, such as anti-air squadrons and artillery squadrons."
Jaime studied it freely. "But.. that means each of your combined arms centuries are about five thousand men?" He did the maths further. He paled. "A Legion,... of a hundred thousand men, not counting your Knights."
"It's a dream." I said. The idea was to get him to sweat.
"A bit of a fantastic one you must admit." Jaime said, recovering from his surprise.
"How so?"
"You are, to all appearances, a mercenary unit, where do you expect to get a hundred thousand men?"
"I have half a million of my people on our Forgeworld alone. As we grow, and bring stability and peace to the region, where exactly do you imagine I would find it difficult to find such forces?" I turned to face Jaime. "My dream is not some sort of fantastical far away thing. Look around you at the Periphery. It's a technologically regressive civilisation of techno-barbarians for whom pirates raiding their worlds is a fact of life." I pointed out of the window. "Look at it Colonel Wolf. With my technology, with my technology the periphery can be brought peace. The great houses squabble and snap at one another and it's the outer worlds that suffer. The only question is, whether the Wolf's Dragoons are willing to stand up and join this endeavor."
Jaime looked worried, but paused. "Kane, you know of the Clans. But I'm not sure you know how much more there is. We were sent here, as you said, to gather intelligence on the Inner Sphere. But we severed contact in 3020 under instructions to prepare the Inner Sphere for a coming invasion. We could never explain this to the others, but you..."
"I knew war was coming. War was always going to be coming, if not from the Clans, then from the next succession war or perhaps Comstar finally blowing its lid and going on some sort of crusade." I said sitting down.
"And let me guess, we join your crusade and you'll give us Knights?"
"By default no." I said plainly. "The control technology for Knights is highly advanced, they can be modified to work with a Neurohelmet and standard mech cockpit controls, but a great deal of the benefits are lost in doing so. And the standard technology has consequences."
"Like what?" Jaime asked suspicious.
"There is a significant amount of mental reprogramming and conditioning, including a degree of induced loyalty to my house, all those who are offered the chance are made aware of this and its other consequences, such as exaggeration of personality traits, a significant increase in ambition, decreased empathy towards anyone you perceive as an enemy. And the most significant of all." I said with a shrug, "You'll never feel complete outside your machine ever again. It calls to you, the machine spirit and you become unbreakable together, when you are separated you feel weaker, less... alive. And that's if you survive the bonding process."
"Survive the bonding process?"
"The bonding with the Throne Mechanicum is not safe. There is a one in ten fatality rate."
He looked angry. "So to train two thousand Knight pilots, you will need two-thousand, two hundred candidates minimum?!" His voice reflected his anger.
"Two hundred and forty, the training for the Armiger is less intensive and fatalities are exceptionally rare. But the effects are also less pronounced." I said plainly.
"Why not use whatever control mechanism the Armigers use in the larger Knights then?" He snapped.
"For the same reason you wouldn't put a Locust's cockpit into an Atlas. The controls are similar, but not the same. The problem isn't the hardware, but the software. A Machine Spirit of a Knight is significantly more advanced and powerful than an Armiger. They are not compatible." I said as I leaned back. "I am going to need to know, are you willing to stand with me on this, or are we going to have problems?"
"I need time to think on the matter." He said sitting down. "But even if I do want to help you on your endeavor, I cannot, we are under contract to the Combine until 3028."
"I understand that." I said, "Now, let's head for a more comfortable section of the ship."