Best Laid Plans - Novella II in the Chronicles of the 69th VXF

Best Laid Plans

Chapter 1

Galatea
Lyran Commonwealth
3041

Colonel Jason Henley sat behind his gunmetal desk in his office on Galatea. He'd outfitted their entire quarters straight from the local Lyran military surplus store. It gave the place a sense of home. As he looked around, it struck him that he'd basically cloned the entire setup from his time with the Third Lyran Guards. Old habits, die hard.

He looked back down at the terminal screen. People were coming out of the Periphery to join his newly founded unit. He was flooded with personnel applications. He needed a MechWarrior, another tanker, and a DropShip crew. Dawg need eight more soldiers to get his squad back up to full strength. Let Dawg deal with those.

Unless he wanted to grow larger. He shoved that thought aside for now, he needed to make some C-bills first.

Vega. He sighed. In the end, it had all been for nothing. His former, and first, command, the Third Lyran Expeditionary force, basically a reinforced lance, had destroyed a full company of Second Legion 'Mechs outside of New Egypt, taking possession of a critical repair and supply facility.

In retribution, the Second Legion launched a surprise attack on the Third Lyran Guard field headquarters, destroying it.

After they had decimated the field HQ, they swung back around to the depot. His reinforced lance held off a heavy company of Second Legion 'Mechs, led by their Commanding Officer. Who, incidentally, had been piloting an 80-ton Hatamoto-Chi which, at the time, had never before been seen.

The ensuing melee cost him his command. When all was said and done, all of his 'Mechs were destroyed, including the two from the surviving members of the field headquarters. He'd lost the hovertank, and a third of the Jump Infantry as well. Dozer was killed, eight of Dawg's men dead, and Hamilton was so badly injured that after a year of reconstructive surgery, he was now practically a cyborg.

They'd all been shipped back to Skye afterwards. It wasn't long after that, the tides turned on Vega and the Third Lyran, along with Rhonda's Irregulars, we're forced off the planet. They'd held Vega, for what, a matter of months?

The whole affair was packaged up, all neat and tidy. Now it was referred to as the War of 3039.

Still, he owed his current situation to that war. He'd struck a deal with the Irregulars while he was there. He'd turn a blind eye to their activities, give them the Star League prototype CLNT 1-2R they'd captured and in exchange they'd transport the other salvage he'd omitted from the post-battle report off planet for him to pick up later, although he swore he only received a fraction of the parts and munitions they had taken from when they'd originally captured the supply depot.

Ok, so it wasn't his proudest moment in uniform. But you can't slam the door in the face of opportunity, so he'd taken it.

His subsequent and successful defense of the supply depot had allowed the Irregular's DropShip, the Junk Yard, to land directly at the StarPort in New Egypt with only the local garrison left to oppose them. It had been an easy victory. The last such victory of the campaign in retrospect.

Anyway, true to their word, once his tour of duty was over, there were six salvaged Kurita BattleMechs waiting for him on Galatea. Except they weren't salvage anymore. For whatever reason, the Irregulars had seen fit to repair and repaint them all. Fully functional. A Shadowhawk, Griffin, a replacement CLNT-2-3T Clint, Panther, Jenner, and the prize, an 85-ton Battlemaster assault 'Mech with an extraordinary rare command console.

It had been the Kurita company commander's 'Mech. Luckily, when they had initially assaulted the supply depot, it was in the hangar undergoing repairs. It never even made it onto the battlefield.