First Allee, Capital city
Terra Prima
Somewhere in the Periphery, June 2972
The Lord President road on the back of a hovertank down the main allee of the capital. A parade in his own honor, showcasing his victory. This “leader”, brought to power in a sham election, had even resurrected a long dead title. There had not been a Lord President of the alliance since the first regime of their ancient Terran lineage almost 950 years before then. That had driven the world to a devastating war and chaos. Now, we were right back there again.
“Democracy is truly dead” Overmajor Bryant Carlyle thought to himself as he stood at parade rest along the allee. He had been raised to be a patriotic member of the First Worlds alliance. Proud of the unity they had built in coming together. The signs had been there for years, moral decay, political corruption, a growing wealthy elite… Everything was antithetical to the democracy he had been raised in, had grown in, and had ultimately chosen to defend. He found himself at a crossroad, literally and figuratively, standing in front of his family’s battlemech, sworn to the First Worlds Alliance. For the first time in his life, he let his mind drift toward treason.
Even the warriors and troops in the parade seemed lackluster. Sure, some marched with pride; carrying a misplaced sense of authority from the final rise of a “pure” leader. Someone who would finally unify the Alliance with force and bring them to being a true galactic power. The rest, those with brains knew this was the death of everything the Alliance stood for. Of the 6 worlds in the alliance, none of them were populated by “natives”, as this new Lord President called them. The Alliance had always been built on, promised to, and populated by the refugees and free-thinking immigrants of other worlds in the periphery. It was a mark of pride for many to have escaped their past lives and come here. To a place where freedom reigned and there were equal chances for all.
Even as the thoughts coalesced in his head, Carlyle realized how much bullshit that had been for his entire lifetime, if not the lifetime of his father. It might have been true several hundred years ago, but this Alliance had no roads of gold. There was no glory or freedom to be found. The Alliance had always prided itself on being built by hard-working folks. The kind of people who would wake up early to work, and go to sleep exhausted day in and day out. It used to be that living that way would buy a solid and safe life for an entire family. It used to be that an honest day’s work was worth an honest day’s pay.
But there must always be profit. Things began to get more and more expensive, as the rich became richer through faulty quirks of mathematics applied to economic structures by minds too small to comprehend the mistakes they were making. The Alliance markets claimed to be free and open, where individuals could buy small components of organizations for voting rights. They used this mechanism to convince the workers that they were the owners of their labor. But no one could ever have a controlling share. That was reserved for the elites, those who were born into the power and inherited generations worth of shares and wealth. These spoiled oligarchs would play games with numbers on spreadsheets creating ever growing “wealth” that meant nothing, and inflating the cost of everything by the day. Moving money on a spreadsheet would make someone richer, and be the literal death of thousands.
Now, just to live a family would need their children to work. The schools had become engines to create employees, mindless rule followers. There were still schools you could go to that provided real educations, but those were no longer provided by the state. Your choice was labor as a civilian, service as a citizen, or education as an aristocrat. There were maybe 15 families of aristocrats, and everyone else was left in squalor.
Bryant Carlyle’s grandfather had chosen service to escape his father’s fate. Bryant’s father had chosen the same. Bryant had no choice. They were a Mechwarrior family, and Brýant’s half-sister had already proven unworthy. He was forced to take up the mantle.
He trained hard, and studied harder. He was granted a position at the Capital military academy after exemplary service in the youth brigades. He had been a runner, a courier, and ultimately a warrior in battles against Combine forces, Davion companies, and even the Concordat before his 16th year. As a Mechwarrior he had met almost every potential foe on the battlefield. He had studied Sun Tzu and Kerensky religiously. He was a brilliant tactician and had rocketed through the ranks as if he was launched from an SRM. He recognized that what he had learned about the Alliance was full of half-truths, but he always had faith. Faith that life was still better in the alliance than other worlds of the Periphery. Now, standing here today and watching this… man… with a fake tan and faker hair tout money he had never earned, put into power in an obviously stolen election on a platform of racist and classist vitriol take control of the Alliance he had been raised to believe in, he realized it was too much. Not only was this not the Alliance he had been taught about, which was long dead by the time he was born, but it wasn’t even the imperfect alliance he knew.
“This is not the Alliance I have given so much for. This is a farce.” Carlyle resolved. He was not going to let his family’s mech, nor his own soul, be sacrificed for a cause he could no longer believe in. Like General Kerensky, he would take his skills and what power he had, and leave them to their own ends. He had salvaged a Leopard after a successufl campaign on the third moon, and been awarded a salvaged UrbanMech husk after a battle against House Davion forces in Capital City several years before. Those, along with his family’s BlackJack, would come with him. He would stop at nothing, nothing, to show this “Alliance” the mistakes it had made.
HMS Bounty
Leopard Class DropShip
Lyran Commonwealth, August 2973
“RECHTS”
The word came across his earpiece so loudly Carlyle swore the DropShip pilot outside his mech could probably hear it.
“Leutenant Grüber, I will remind you this is a simulation. Also, I would like to say again, bitte, calm yourself.” He shook his head. Leutenant Friederich Grüber was the third member of Bryant’s Bastards, as his crew had chosen to be called. Grüber was also the youngest at 22; but he brought a Warrior H-7 VTOL to the unit. Along with his youthful enthusiasm. Carlyle considered this for a moment before rotating his BlackJack’s torso right, and unloading a burst from his Autocannon at the incoming hovertank. A second burst of a medium laser came from around the Congressional Dome to finish it off.
Oberleutnant Cecilia Strauss called over the radio. Her accent heavy as she spoke to Carlyle. “Are ve sure ve have not made a mistake vith zis one?” she said with a knowing chuckle. It was hard enough to find good Mercs, even harder to find ones ready to take on the Alliance. The Lyran Commonwealth was rife with people yearning for glorious battle, but most Carlyle had come across considered his goal to be suicidal, for lack of a better word.
“I can understand you, you know.” Grüber retorted as the simulation wound down. Carlyle listened to the two continuing to bicker over the comms as he climbed down from his cockpit. Strauss was usually right to reign Grüber in, but her high-class upbringing often made her too strict, even for Carlyle. As he walked over to them, he held his hands up to quiet them down.
“We have enough to worry about with this job coming up, so maybe we stop fighting amongst ourselves and focus on the task at hand?” Carlyle asked with an authoritative dismissal of concerns. Frankly, he just didn’t want to hear it anymore right now.
Cecilia’s ears perked up at the mention of a job. “Vat job? Ve have a job?!” She asked excitedly, before catching herself and recomposing her normal stern expression. Carlyle had only gotten the contract this morning, and did not want the news to impact their latest training simulations.
“Contract work to fight of some marauders. The collapse of the Alliance is driving more and more folks to piracy. It looks like some of the smaller worlds on the edge of Lyran space are being harassed by Alliance-based pirates with some help from the Combine. We’ve got a request from one of the colonies to drive them off once and for all. The intelligence they gave us indicates a company of light hovertanks and a pair of Locusts. Nothing we can’t handle.” Carlyle explained to his ragtag pair of warriors. They were both more quiet and attentive than he had ever seen them. That said, in the 6 months they had all been together it was the first time he had actually pulled through to get them some real work.
Aran Sigorski walked calmly down the stairs, overhearing the conversation from the simulation coordination deck above. “I could just land the Bounty in the middle and fuck everything up for you… but we have no missiles… and I don’t want to.” Aran had everything you wanted in a DropShip pilot: Nerves of steel, over a decade of experience, and enough sarcasm to make the air physically drip when they spoke. They handed Carlyle a data pad. “New intelligence found where they’re hitting from. It looks like they have a make-shift base in a canyon about 6 clicks from the city. Old industrial city cum new pirate outpost. Either way we’re looking at close combat and a lot of buildings to blow up. Outpost probably has fewer civies to make casualties of though. If you want my opinion.” They walked away as quickly as they came, heading toward the bridge to start making the prepartions to dock with a jumpship.
“We have 3 days to arrival, and I want to get at least 1 more sim in before we make land. Back here at 0700 for the last one. Then, take the next couple of days to make sure your wills are in order. You know… just in case.” Carlyle said to Grüber and Strauss. “Dismissed.”