Scavenged Restoration
Chapter 92
-VB-
She was a relatively new Khan, and that meant that, despite having earned her position, she needed to prove herself to keep ambitious insiders and outsiders from challenging her.
This was the conundrum that left her with a headache as Lynn led her clan around the Periphery.
Because her clan, Clan Snow Raven, was the best naval clan. This was not in dispute. Ask any honest mechwarrior, elemental, laborer, or scientist with a hint of naval knowledge, and their answer about who the best naval clan was among Kerensky’s Children would be to point at her clan.
And before Operation REVIVAL, that was simply the way of things.
Operation REVIVAL and its failures made it clear that her clan’s position was not as stable as she once thought.
The problem?
The Capellan Confederation.
The nation, when she learned about their history from the records of the Star League and before their time, should not have been strong. The Inner Sphere Great House that was the furthest from the Clan Homeworlds was the one that was giving them the greatest difficulty because of their surprising naval development, one that had been hidden from the other Great Houses, too.
So what was she supposed to do? Ignore the challenge? She would have been challenged unendingly until either she gave up or eventually lost. And so, once word got back to the Homeworlds after the near complete annihilation of the Clan Smoke Jaguar’s invasion force in 3053, her clan had petitioned her to send an expeditionary force. So she had. With herself as the head of that force while her saKhan reorganized their Clan in the Homeworlds.
After all, why should they stay there when it was clear that Clan Snow Raven might have a better chance
That’s why she had ignored the ilKhan’s plans for more invasion corridors and instead chose to travel around the Periphery to reach the Capellans.
And here, she had run into the second problem of the journey: the Outworlds Alliance.
Like the Star League records stated, the Outworlds Alliance had focused on their aerospace fighters, which had been further honed in the years since the Degradation (as some among the Clans were calling the years before the Inner Sphere’s Fourth Succession War).
Of course, this was still a Periphery world, so when her clan came across the first Alliance, she expected to run over them.
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“Aff, we understand that the Periphery do not know of our way of life,” Khan Lynn remarked. “We Clans prefer not to waste thousands or millions of lives on a world or property that can be exchanged with just one battle with under a hundred warriors.”
“That is … surprisingly better than what the Innies get up to,” the jumpship captain on the other side of the call hummed in Star League English.
Lynn nodded to herself, even though the jumpship captain could not see her. “So this is my proposal. Since the Clans possess superior fighters and warriors, we will wage a two-to-three battle. For every three fighters you put to the battle, we will only send out two.”
“We only have a dozen fighters on us.”
“Then we will only send out eight.”
“... So eight versus twelve, huh?”
“Aff. And if we win, then we will take your jumpship and all hands aboard as bondsmen. Should you win… we will give you a Colossus dropship.”
There, that should be fair.
For a long moment, there was no response.
“You know what? That’s a good wager. It’s not like we have any other choice right now, don’t we?”
Indeed, because this jumpship was within the range of Clan Snow Raven’s expeditionary force, which included three warships. If the captain refused this batchall, then her clan would have no choice but to take his jumpship without honor, though a lack of honor did not mean dishonor. It was a distinction that many in her clan and those out of it sometimes tended to forget. It would only be dishonorable should her warriors commit dishonorable deeds.
“Very well. We shall meet among the stars.”
She turned around, and immediately, there were two dozen eager warriors putting their names on the line.
…
In the end, only eight warriors were chosen.
Star Commander Jeffrey Cooper, Point Commander Erica Kim, Point Commander Shin-You, Point Commander Sozo, and four other warriors were chosen to fly the Issus and Jagatai omnifighters.
When the Outworlds Alliance jumpship and its dropships launched its fighters, her warship’s computer was quick to identify the fighters. One of her eyebrows rose up in surprise.
Because the Outworlds Alliance captain had released twelve Lightnings, medium weight aerospace fighters. It was a venerable design that’s been in existence since the Star League era but it was also one that was … how to put it … rather aged.
She watched as those twelve Lightning spread out against her four Issus and four Jagatai. Weight-wise, it was their six hundred tons versus her four hundred ten tons. Even so, the Outworlds Alliance was supposed to be the Periphery nation that suffered the most degradation out of the big three. Which meant that unless she happened to run into the most elite and best equipped Alliance fighters, she expected her warriors to achieve victory with their superior genetics and omnifighters and regular but still better Clan fighters.
The Alliance fighters split into four groups of threes while her warriors split up into four groups of twos.
Seeing that there were too many groups for her to keep an eye on at once, she chose to focus on Star Commander Cooper’ point, which had one Jagatai (Cooper’) and one Issus. She watched two Lightnings quickly isolate … the Issus? And the leftover Lightning chose to dogfight Cooper’ Jagatai.
“A Jagatai should be nimble and fast enough to keep the lighter fighter off its tail,” someone muttered in the bridge, and Lynn found herself agreeing.
Cooper fired her Jagatai’s ER PPCs but they missed the faster medium aerospace fighter and then she overshot in close range, missing the Lightning with her pulse lasers. She quickly pulled up, but the Lightning turned far tighter than any Clan Lightning did - in simulation or in actual use - and Lynn watched as what should have been an easy kill became a one-circle flight where Cooper had the disadvantage.
The Star Commander shot off all of her LRMs, but the Alliance Lightning launched her flares. That took care of a few but at least half of the missiles went for the fighters. But the Lightning pilot didn’t care for it and focused on turning.
And no matter how tightly Cooper tried to turn and show a narrow profile, it wasn’t good enough. The Lightning turned faster and harder, and it lined up its shot.
Lynn’s fingers clenched on the arms of her command chair as she watched the Lightning come around and fire its AC/20.
The AC/20 slammed into one of the Jagatai’s wings, and the wing snapped off.
“Surat,” someone else muttered. The Jagatai began to spin uncontrollably and even as the Star Commander tried to get her fighter under control, the Lightning chased after her doggedly, raining laser blows one after another. “The Star Commander’s not going to make it.”
And she didn’t.
The stubborn warrior refused to lose, not to a Periphery barbarian, and did not strike the colors.
Instead, the Alliance Lightning landed one more good AC/20 shot right on the cockpit, and the entire heavy omnifighter exploded with the blast.
With the Jagatai out of the way, the third Lighting went back to join its brethren and take care of the Issus that had accompanied the Star Commander. The Issus had done a great job dodging and weaving through the attacks of the two Lightnings, limited to the AC/20s and lasers only, but when the third Lightning joined, it was too much.
Its wing got clipped. Then a near miss nearly took its cockpit out. Then a medium laser punched through one of the thrusters. The Issus struck her colors and shut down its weapons. The Alliance fighters didn’t finish her off, and instead, one stuck around to make sure the Issus slowed down while the other two went off to help their comrades.
But similar situations were playing out across the entire skirmish. Either by one or twos, the Jagatais were outmaneuvered by the Lightnings while the Issuses were helpless to fight back against a heavier aerospace fighter that could and did match their maneuverability but with a heavier firepower.
Soon, one by one, her warriors either died trying or shut down their engine to the bare minimum necessary to keep the thrusters working.
A mere ten minutes after first engagement, all eight warriors had lost. And in return, the Alliance lost three.
A stunning defeat.
Lynn sat in her chair and stared at the screen for a long time before she finally reached out and -.
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She had been impressed.
She later learned that it was not normal for Lightnings to be able to turn that hard and fast. It was simply that not only did the Outworlds Alliance train their pilots better but their focus on aerospace fighters (partly because of the Draconis Combine’s focus and the need to match their raiders) had resulted in technological differences that made Alliance Lightnings slightly better at maneuverability compared to their counterparts across the Periphery and the Inner Sphere.
Khan Lynn … truly had been impressed.
Unfortunately, the loss meant that she had lost a Colossus dropship. Worse, many of her warriors were also impressed by the Outworlds Alliance. They also saw the decrepit state that many Alliance worlds were in, and were further impressed that the Alliance were able to produce such excellent pilots on such old designs.
And now, she had on her table a petition from many warriors for a new direction for the expedition.
‘Allow one jumpship with accompanying dropships to remain in the Outworlds Alliance space to face off against the excellent pilots raised in these worlds.’
Which meant splitting the already small expedition even further and reducing the fighter capacity of the expedition. Should she not allow it, however, she would have disgruntled warriors who might feel that she was deliberately taking away their chances at glory.
She stared at the petition for a long time.
… Then she had an idea.
Why not take a detour in the tri-point border area between the Outworlds Alliance, the Federated Suns, and the Draconis Combine? She could use this as a distraction and cover for what she and her Clan really wanted: to fight the Capellan Confederation’s navy. This might give the confederation the false idea that she wasn’t coming around to fight them, which might mean that they might place a majority of their naval assets away from their periphery border. This will allow her people to, once they get around to traveling again, emerge in confederation space without the fear of dying in vain against overwhelming naval assets and allow them to engage the outnumbered confederation ships in honorable combat.
Yes… this was the way.
She would have to discuss this with the galaxy commander and star colonels in the expedition force, of course, but she knew they would agree. Why wouldn’t they? They would have plenty of chances to make a name for themselves fighting the Combine, the Suns, and the Alliance. This was a win-win for all warriors.
-VB-
A/N: in canon, it was a Titan-class fighter carrier dropship that was offered, not a Colossus.