NationStates Jolt Archive

"This is the situation," said Star Colonel Hall. He was the only one standing in the room, where there were just a few people, such as Khan Kell and the other Star Colonels of the Alpha Galaxy. The others sat around the rather large table, with the Khan facing the one speaking. They were in a rather inconspicuous-looking building, as all buildings were in Wolf City, except this was the one dubbed as their command center.

He had a remote control of sorts in his hand. He pressed a button on it, and a holographic image of the Inner Sphere and Clan controlled areas emerged. Or, what had once been those. Something had happened during their... Rather lengthy time of isolation, which wasn't exactly one they had caused themselves. All the "borders" were gone, as were the Successor States. The Clans had vanished from Strana Mechty as well as from the colonies they knew of. Now, instead, there were hundreds, thousands, maybe even hudreds of thousands of different states occupying just a fraction of those places. Seeing this caused much quiet and discontented whispering amongst the other Star Colonels. The Khan's expression did not change.

"As you can see, the scouting we have done reveals a fact we did not know of: Everything has changed within the Inner Sphere. The star systems are there, but... But this is just the tip of the iceberg."

He pressed the same button, and new imagery came. Footage of something almost as disgruntling as the knowledge of everything they knew of had just suddenly disappeared. The footage changed each ten seconds to something else.

The warships they saw in those images, the... Things they saw crawling upon planets. They were completely and utterly alien to the Clansmen. Even if their purposes were quite straightforward most of the time.

"This footage we have gathered show quite well that the emphasis of war is now different. We fought over control of planets. Now it seems to be customary to fight of empty space. So, instead of protecting planets from ground assaults, they protect assets they have built in space. Planets are also protected with spaceborne defenses."

He again pressed the same button on the remote he had. An image of the star system where Terra is came to view. It was obvious that the reactions of the others was making him a bit too excited about the situation, bold, even.

"This also means that the cradle of humanity is also fragmented. Taking Terra or planets around it would most likely prove impossible, as due to the massive amount of different states within it - which would, in a worst case scenario - force us to fight against all of them in consequent Trials of Possession... Not to mention the fact that finding any lostech on Terra is also quite likely an impossible task, controlling even a small part in that star system would mean much symbolically."

The Khan smiled as he listened to the Star Colonel. The man was obviously forgetting his position in the Clan, no matter if he was Bloodnamed.

"Are you not getting a bit over your head here, Star Colonel Hall? You might be in the Council, but you are not me."

The Star Colonel's face turned as white as a sheet.

"I apologize, Khan, I did not mean..."

"There is no need for an apology. What you say is true. But before we let anyone of the lower castes anywhere, we must make sure that the lands we are to take are made ours properly."

He looked up and sighed. This wasn't exactly what he had expected.

"Since the situation is not the same as it was before, we can not simply choose to be 'Wardens' or 'Crusaders'. Without the other Clans, there is no need nor use for such doctrines. Even the Grand Council is no more. Of course, for us, this is a good thing. But without those in the Inner Sphere... We must help ourselves if we are to survive. Right now, we do not even have any contacts to any of these states you just showed us. We do not even know what they are like. We are 'Clan Wolf in Exile' even more than we were before."

He then looked at the others who were slightly nodding to what he had said, as if he was waiting for any of them to speak.

"So, what are we to do?", one of them said at last.

"You, Star Colonel Hall of the 13th Wolf Guards Cluster, will go back to Terra's star system. Your Cluster will be backed by the 16th Battle Cluster if things go awry. I hope they will not, or this might become a costly effort. Take only the ships you need for transport."

"... But I think we need all of them. The Full Moon is needed for escort, and putting all the Stars in one ship could spell doom for our clusters," said Hall.

"Point taken. Go."

Star Colonel Ward rose up and the two Star Colonels bowed ever so slightly to the Khan, after which they left. The last remaining Star Colonel was close to being offended.

"What about our Cluster?"

"Your Cluster should go to Strana Mechty and claim it as ours. As much as having land on Terra or its surrounding planets would be symbolically significant for us, I think having Strana Mechty would be even more so. It still wouldn't change our status, though. Without the other Clans here, we are as much exiles as we were before."

"Very well. We shall depart as quickly as possible," the Star Colonel said, bowed as slightly as the ones before, and left the room, leaving the Khan alone.

Internal Alpha Galaxy actions... I do not think the others are going to like this if they will find out, us doing things rather independently. But as long as I am the Khan...

(OOC: I'm just gonna say that this isn't going to be 1:1 to BattleTech canon. My knowledge of the inner workings of the BT universe is rather limited and I don't really care making everything go the way they "should" go. So, if something I do is wrong according to BT, too bad, the whole concept of NS is wrong for BT. And the reason why I put this into the II forum is because this has the potential to grow into an "international incident".)

How prolific.

After the BattleMechs, Elementals and fighters of the two Clusters had been loaded into their dropships, which in itself took only several hours to accomplish due to the fact that the dropships are usually kept on planet where it is easier to maintain them, they had taken off into space. They were so full of different equipment, military units and supplies that the actual leaving from the atmosphere part was quite arduous, but they still did it. This in itself was quite a normal occurrence, as those dropships usually were filled with as much as they could be, since it would be inefficient to take anything else but full loads. And so, the Clan-type Overlords and Unions found their way into space, as full as they could be.

The three Overlords were taken in by the Potemkin class warship called "Full Moon", while the five Unions were split between the three Invader class Jumpships. The Star Lord of the 16th Battle Cluster was not needed, and was left behind. The Star Colonels of both Clusters had boarded the Potemkin through one of the Overlords, as they needed to discuss some things. Those Star Captains unable to attend would be briefed through the comm system, which means the Star Captains of the whole 16th Battle Cluster, but then again, the Battle Cluster was smaller than the Wolf Guard one.

The two had walked into the briefing room of the ship, where the Star Captains already waited, and the comms were already open for the unattending Star Captains, so everyone was there. Now the two Colonels told the Captains of their Trinaries of what they were going to do, that they were going to go to the star system where Terra is located, and that they would claim land somewhere in the system. Where, it did not matter. But still, the closer to Terra, the better. This fact caused some gasping and whispering with the Star Captains. Some of them asked questions about the mission, ones quite trivial from the point of view from one not a Clansman, but all in all, they all acknowledged the order of the Khan, and returned to their Trinaries to brief the MechWarriors below them in the hierarchy. The two Star Colonels remained in the room and discussed the mission.

Then came the time to leave the system. The fact that the Clans knew where Terra was made this part of the mission quite easy. The people within the ships took their positions, after which the crews of the Full Moon and the invaders punched in the course to Sol, corrected it considering the movement of star systems... And then the ships disappeared into the cold, desolate space.

Some time passed, and there was some rejoicing as they reached their destination. Finally, they were there to make a Clan presence within the ancient home system of the human species.

Sol.

Of course, they did not call it that. They only knew the Sol system as the star system where the fabled, ancient Terra is located in.

The two Star Colonels stood in the bridge of the Full Moon, looking at the monitors, some of them showing visual data on the surroundings, some sensor data. It wasn't quite the place the Clansmen had heard of before. In fact, it was completely different. While the Star Colonel of the 13th Wolf Guard had been here before and seen the changes with his own eyes, and was not quite as awed by the fact this time, the other one was. It was not quite the place he had imagined it to be. Too much seemingly random space activity.

"Get us in closer. Let us get this over and done with," ordered Star Colonel Hall. The ship was under his Cluster's command, after all.

After a few minutes, Star Colonel Ward regained his composure. This really wasn't what he had expected that they would find in Terra's star system.

"... So this is what it meant? This is how the Terran star system is different from what we knew? I... I saw the data, but I never expected it to be like this. The sheer amount of starships is... How did they even have the resources to build all of them?"

"You have not seen the surroundings of Terra yet. This is nothing compared to it. One of the best things about these odd changes is that most do not even care of our presence. It appears that the... Thing that controlled Terra, ComStar, I think, is also gone."

The ships slid deeper into Sol, passing the gas giants and the asteroid field with a level of ease. The two Star Colonels had watched the monitors all this time, and the amount of traffic in space seemed to grow exponentially every time they passed planets, although much of it was quite distant. The Star Colonel was more amazed by the second they went closer and closer to Terra. They were now getting close to passing the fourth planet, the red planet of Mars.

"I never thought... Insane... How... I mean, how is this even possible?! These freeborn have more space ships than the Clans ever had! Do they have similar ground war capabilities as well?!"

"The miracle of fragmentation, good colleague. The more states there are, the more assets they need to protect themselves from also a much greater number of possibly hostile states. Not to mention the fact that they do not seem to have the same drive for ground war as we do. I would guess that their ground forces are mostly vehicles and infantry. It is as I said, these people prefer space warfare over ground warfare."

"Ah. I think that does make sense, somehow. And due to this fragmentation, I am sure it would be easier for us to fight and win in Trials of Possession, as long as our demands are reasonable. Unless, of course, we present ourselves badly somehow, and everyone here turns against us. But we are also human as they are, so..."

"Yes. That is how it is. Of course, presuming that they are actually still freeborn humans and not of some alien species that has taken out the Inner Sphere."

"Considering that these freeborn still were able to halt the progress of the Crusader Clans, I am sure they could also handle some alien incursions, if there have been any."

"And if they have not, even the lowest of our species know how to adapt when put into new situations. But the freeborn of the Inner Sphere did unite against the Crusaders and even found their way to Strana Mechty, so I am sure you are right."

Star Colonel Ward nodded, and the discussion continued.

They were getting very close to Terra. So close to the ancient home of humanity, the home of the Star League... Or anyway, almost it. It was the same Terra, but the people were different. A poor substitute, maybe, but it would have to do.

And there they were, in the orbit of Terra. The ancient, fabled Terra, home of the Star League, and as such, it was the place all Clansmen had originated from. The place Alexandr Kerensky had left behind when the Star League fell, the place the Clans had always wanted to return to, to recreate the ancient Star League. Some of them had wanted to recreate it in their own image, to conquer the freeborn states, the Successor States of the Inner Sphere, as they were called. Some of them wanted to recreate it whilst cooperating with the freeborn of the Inner Sphere. That conflict tore the Clans apart.

Terra was as much the home of all the freeborn in the galaxy, which was not always a thing the Clansmen thought very fondly of. Even if the Clan Wolf in Exile consisted of the Wardens of Clan Wolf and were exiled because of what they thought, the Trueborn of the exiled Clan still felt contempt towards the lesser freeborn, but not quite in the same way as their Crusader brethren. Even if they thought cooperation with the freeborn was a better course of action than battling with them, they still did not think that the freeborn were quite on their level. Children, maybe. Children that needed the help of the Clans to regain what was once lost due to corruption.

But the situation was different now. The Successor States had disappeared. The Inner Sphere was no more. Even the planet itself was much larger than the remaining records from the times of the Star League said. In the Inner Sphere's place were so many splintered states with so many military units that the Clansmen had hard time to keep track on the excess of movement on Terra. For the very first time in their history, they could not keep track of even the things that happened on the parts of a planet they were searching for a suitable location in, not to mention the constant traffic in and out of the atmosphere and within the orbit of the planet itself. At least by now the Star Colonel of the 16th Battle Cluster realized that it would take far longer than he had thought to find a place they could claim without contest. Far longer than it had ever taken.

Even now they scanned the planet, searching for a location to plant the dropships in and claim as land of the Clan. Places sufficiently empty of human life, or at least of man-made constructs.

The transmissions differed. The languages differed. The buildings themselves differed. The people differed. It was quite like it had been with the Inner Sphere, but overdone to the nth time. The only great difference between the Successor States and these splinters was that even the technology of these splinter states differed much based on the state.

The Clansmen had begun to understand the concepts of states of this current Terra. All they had done was observed it. It all made sense, in a way. The state Terra was here and now was quite similar to what Terra had been before the Star League. The borders between nations were quite easy to detect, as even the base of their transmissions were different. Lands from which nothing seemed to originate and nothing seemed to be located in between others had begun to make sense to them. Buffer zones? Perhaps. Still, those were the most potent locations to build the Terran colony into. They weren't prepared to commit themselves into Trials of Possession. Not yet, anyway. Their supplies would not last for the extended period of time required for such Trials.

But they still wanted to have neighbors. The more the better, the different the better. It was also obvious that the less hatred they would cause by landing there and practically force to become their neighbors, the better.

And the cooler the location the better. It was common knowledge, common sense that BattleMechs heated less drastically in cool locations as opposed to warm ones. If they were to build a colony on Terra, they would have to find a location that would fit within the boundaries of their requirements.

They could find several locations that did seem to be as required, they just usually were too small in size. So small that any possibly hostile forces would have the ability to shoot down their dropships from within their own borders, easily cutting off all supply lines. They knew that most of the freeborn did not share their position in warfare, and that they would wage their wars dishonorably.

Only one location stood over the others. Only one. Considering the size of the planet and the amount of people who must live in it, finding only one location suitable for colonization by the Clan, meeting all the requirements they had set and with ease, was almost unbelievable. Maybe they had just not been thorough enough, but it did not matter anymore. They had found their drop location.

The two Clusters were to be placed onto the ground and secure the area the two Star Colonels had chosen, as the Khan had told them to do. The Star Colonels would assume control of their own Stars in this mission. All the Star Captains had been briefed and given a map of the locations they were to secure, and the codes they were to transmit back to the Full Moon once they had reached their destinations. Two of the Overlords of the 13th Wolf Guards Cluster were to land onto the southernmost part and the last remaining one was to land further north. Three of the Unions of the 16th Battle Cluster were to land even further north, whilst the two remaining ones were to land to the west from their location.

When that would be done, the Stars and the Novas of the Clusters would seek their designated positions and send in the transmissions, simply to state whether or not those areas are secure. Then, if they are deemed secure, they would then keep their positions until the space ships would return.

A simple enough plan, but countless things still could go wrong.

The lands they had brought themselves to were desolate, at least in the sense that they could not find any active human settlements there. Those were quite far away from them according to the maps they had been given when they still were in orbit. Only frightened animals and some scarcely spread vegetation were there. Nothing more, nothing less. And only those welcomed them back to Terra as they left their dropships and advanced to where ever they were ordered to go. Springtime was upon them, that they could see. The snow had begun to melt, showing the ground which was covered by dead grass, with some tufts of living plants trying to push through them. But they had not come here to look for signs of life on Terra. They had landed to find out if there were any hidden enclaves within the area. The Stars and the Novas spread to their assigned locations.

They found nothing. Nothing at all, unless one counts abandoned, ruined buildings and other signs of long gone settlements. Who ever had been there was there no more, and it suited the Clansmen well. More and more signals reached the space ships that were simply waiting for this to occur in Terran orbit, indicating that they had found nothing to prove that these lands were already claimed by some other state or faction. Soon they had received such a signal from all of the Stars and Novas. The Full Moon sent its own signal to the Stars in which the Star Colonels were supposed to be in, simply to tell that the space ships now waited for the command to leave as the locations had been secured. After a few moments, such orders came in. After a few more moments, the ships had disappeared from the orbit.

The ships had already begun their journey to Arc Royal. Empty, as they were supposed to be. The 'Mechs, elementals and fighters were left to patrol the areas they had been assigned to. Until the ships would return, the Clusters would have to survive with what supplies came with them down to Terra. They were under strict orders to maintain radio silence unless utterly necessary - a hostile assault upon them was such a reason - and of no contact with the freeborn that surrounded them in their own states. Unless, of course, the freeborn are the ones who contact them first. Then they would have to contact their own Star Captains for further orders.

Finally, they had returned to Terra. Even if it was not quite what they had hoped to find, it was still the home of humanity. But much was to be done, with the fact that the Council would find out about this sooner or later not being the smallest of issues surrounding the whole endeavor.

So, the space ships were now back in Arc Royal, and they had begun transmitting the simple code the Khan had told them to use if they had successfully found land that the Clan could build a colony upon in Terra or its surrounding planets. There was no reply immidiately, as they had been told that would be the case. The planet was still there, the people still obviously were there, and everything was as they had been when the ships had left the system behind some time ago. But once the reply came, it wasn't exactly what they had anticipated. They came to realize that even if the Khan is given many privileges and is practically the de-facto leader of the Clan, even he cannot keep such things as this secret from them.

The Council had found out of this little project somehow. They had been pressuring the Khan about it ever since, so the arrival of the ships was like a godsend for the Khan. Finally he would have something to show them. Something concrete. Well, concrete in the sense that they would now have what they require, proof, that they could plant people on Terra. Something the Clans had wanted to do ever since they were conceived. Even the Wardens had at least wanted to see the planet, if not have any control over it. Having a colony upon its soil had been practically unthinkable.

The reply to the ships went in this manner:

BRING ALL LOGS AND A DETAILED TRANSCRIPT OF EVERYTHING THAT TRANSPIRED
WHILE YOU WERE WITHIN THE STAR SYSTEM OF TERRA. A DROPSHIP HAS BEEN SENT
TO BRING YOU TO THE PLANET, AND A VEHICLE IS INSIDE IT FOR YOU TO BE TRANSPORTED
TO THIS LOCATION. THE COUNCIL REQUIRES IT. NOTE: NOT ALL OF YOU MUST COME HERE.
ONLY THOSE WHO KEEP YOUR LOGS MUST ATTEND.

They replied with a simple "Aff." They could already see the dropship the message had spoken of, and took the necessary steps to ensure it can dock safely. While this was taking place, others in the ship were compiling the logs of the ship into some readable form and making that transcript that was largely based on those logs.

A few minutes passed and the dropship had reached the Full Moon and docked to the ship. People came from the dropship and began to demand the crew to make haste with the transcript, as it was the only thing still being readied. It would give a clumsy impression of them if they let the Council read complete gibberish, so they simply told this impatient "escort" group to wait, and that they were working as fast as they could.

After an hour they finally were finished. The transcription was as good as they could ever make it. They copied it to something that looked much like a crystal, and told the "escorts" that they now were ready, and that they could go with them now. They did not just send it because they did not want anyone to be able to intercept the data, especially since the Full Moon did not quite yet have the most current encryption technology.the Clan scientists had come up with. And so, the crewmen who were to present the requested information to the Council, half a dozen in total, were escorted to the dropship, in which they still were pointed to a hovercraft, which they boarded. During this time the dropship undocked from the Full Moon, and quickly began its re-entry to Arc Royal.

The re-entry and landing of the dropship were quite uneventful, as one might expect, unless one counts the fact that the crewmen were debriefed while in the hovercraft when the ship was still landing. They were also told that the Council members weren't questioning the Khan's authority by doing this, they just wanted to know what was going on. This meant that they wouldn't hurt their Galaxy Commander in the process in any way. Quite the opposite, actually, if the Council is content with what they are given.

The dropship had landed into the primary space port of Wolf City, which was what outsiders might call their "capital", since their governmental bodies resided there, not just those of the warrior caste, but of all other castes as well. The hovercraft had left the ship behind and had begun its trip to where ever the Council had wanted it to go, which happened to be within the city they had landed in. The crewmen did not know exactly where they were going, as it could be in any of the governmental buildings within WOlf City, and there were quite a few of them.

After ten minutes of seemingly pointless cruising around, they finally reached the place they were supposed to go, or at least so did the guard who was with them say when they asked why they had stopped. The crewmen left the hovercraft as ordered, and walked into the building. A few men were there waiting for them, to whom they were told to give the required information. They would be summoned into the council chambers if needed.

After a few hours they were given the crystal back and they were thanked by the same men who had taken it from them for their patience and efforts. They had no idea what had happened as they were being taken back to the hovecraft so that they could go back to the dropship and return to the Full Moon. They discussed it while they were going back, but couldn't really figure it out. No one told them anything. That is, until they reached the Full Moon again.

The Khan had dodged the bullet this time. The texts the crewmen of the Full Moon had brought to the Council had answered all theunanswered questions they had had about the voyage to Terra. All that secrecy to build a colony on the planet! While this had shocked some of them, they still could see how much this would mean to the Clan. Having a presence on Terra, the home of the Star League (even if things had obviously changed much), would be like a dream come true for all Clansmen, even if this was not exactly what most of those Clans had had in mind. The Council was contented again.

They had even held a vote whether or not to proceed with the plan of building a colony on Terra, and they had unanimously voted for it. All available Jumpships would be used solely for transporting supplies, building materials, vehicles, civilians - members of the laborer and technician castes at first - and many other things required for establishing a colony. Apparently there were complete abandoned cities in the claimed area, although ones broken down due to extended periods of disrepair and lack of maintenance. Still, those would work well as a base for buildings.

(OOC: Just out of curiosity... Do you want to RP with someone else with situation?)

It was no small undertaking - millions of people would have to be transported to Terra to make sure that everything is ready before the other castes would be let to go there. As it was, at least two thirds of those people now going to Terra would be Clan laborers, and one third would be Clan technicians. While the laborers would be able to do the actual repairs to the buildings, the technicians would be needed to make the necessary repairs and conversions to the local power grid - if there is any. Also, one of the priorities would be to assemble the fusion power plant which parts were also put into one of the dropships that had gone to the Full Moon. Whilst the laborers would know how to assemble most of it, the technicians would be needed to make the more intricate work on them. The Clan did not want the primary - and for the first few years, it would be the only - fusion reactor in the colony to melt because of some human error made by people who had no idea what they were doing.

The Clan's warrior caste had a monopoly of sorts over the jumpships of the whole Clan and as such, they monitored everything that entered their ships closely. Everything that was inside the dropships and loaded into the jumpships was logged and processed before actually permitting them to be loaded. This first "shipment" would be the largest. All jump capable ships were to be used for this first push to actually go and make the colony a reality. This also meant that their cargo holds, even those usually meant for 'Mechs, would be filled with things that were required for the effort.

Even if the warriors had many ships capable of re-entry, so did the civilian castes, especially the merchant caste. It was just that they were all called "dropships", even if they were capable of space travel within the system they were in. The merchants were more than happy to lend their own dropships for the operation. It was not simple generosity - they knew that this colonization project was a great opportunity for them. The Clan had been alone for quite some time, and the economy, as they saw it, had been stagnant for all that time. The warriors only sought to better themselves in warfare and to have more 'Mechs, and those were something the freeborn merchants were not allowed to put their hands on.

There was constant activity within the several space ports of Wolf City. Dropships re-entering the atmosphere, dropships loading materials and people, dropships leaving the planet, dropships unloading their cargo to the jumpships... They would have to repeat this when they would reach Terra, but in an inverted fashion, of course. Thousands of people boarded the jumpships every time a dropship reached it, until they had the amount of people they required for the initial stages of creating the colony, after which only cargo, as in equipment, supplies, building materials, stationary turrets etcetera were still being loaded to the ships.

Even vehicles for the protection of the colony were brought to those ships, as it had been decided that the Clusters would return back to Arc Royal right after the first parts of the colony would be made operational. Protection of the colony would be left mostly for lowly freeborn warriors, and the Council had, with the suggestion of the Khan, come to the conclusion that they might even create a new Galaxy for the sole purpose of working as a garrison of the Terran colony. They would not give any Clan 'Mechs for the Galaxy, but they would give it 'Mechs the freeborn of the Inner Sphere called "Urbanmechs", some of the worst 'Mechs they could think of but still would be able to pack a big enough punch. They would even be equipped with Inner Sphere technology, so if someone actually was able to steal some of them, at least the Clan would still have better weaponry.

And so, after a few days, everything they needed had been loaded into the jump capable ships' cargoholds and the dropships had docked into the jumpships, as ordered. After a few hours from the arrival of the last dropship, the "fleet" disappeared as it made its jump into the Terran system. This time they would come much closer to Terra itself than the last time, lessening the loss of precious time.

(OOC: Well, 5CN, if you want to make contact with Clan Wolf in Exile for some reason, you can do it. I'm not going to stop you from doing it or anything.)

The sound of dropships entering Earth's atmosphere and coming all the way down to the planet's surface as they had taken the first steps of what was to be done in the colonization project's Terran side were heard by none, although it was seen by many. The MechWarriors, the Elementals and whomever of the two Clusters on the claimed area who were watching those swarms come down as ordered had cut the audio inputs of their machines of destruction. It was either that or risk losing your capability to hear.

Three separate locations. Three separate and abandoned cities of varying sizes. Those three were to be the first ones to be renovated, so to speak, for the use of the colony. They were simply ravaged by the elements and local wildlife and plantlife, which meant they would first be purged of unwanted guests and then, only then, would they be able to start the reparation of the housing. And this spring, the upcoming summer and the subsequent autumn would be all the time they would have in their hands to finish it all, or they would have to suffer from the cold.

As the dropships came down to the surface and their cargo bay doors opened, thousands of people swarmed out of them, carrying equipment and what ever they had gotten their hands on and could carry it, leaving them onto the ground and then going back to get more things to unload from the dropships. What could not be carried had been loaded onto vehicles that could carry them.

Some of the first pieces of equipment they had loaded to be brought to the ground were a few thousand flamethrowers that they would use to fix the wildlife problem within the cities. While the others were unloading the dropships, those flamethrowers were taken by members of the laborer caste, who then wandered into the cities and sweeped them as groups of some fifty men, whom spread even further to make the searching within the houses easier. That was not their only task, though. They also assessed the need for repairs in their own little sectors of the cities.

The situation in them was no surprise. Animals had taken shelter in many of the buildings - and as they sweeped through the buildings, those animals still within them and did not understand to leave were swiftly exterminated - and plants grew inside quite a few of them - which also were burned with low intensity to make sure that nothing else would catch fire. Sometimes that was not enough, and they had to distinguish the fire themselves. There was no heating anymore, nor electricity, but obviously there had been both. The techies would get to work on those, but only after physical damages to the buildings would be fixed by the laborers.

As the dropships were emptied, they flew back to the fleet and soon came back with a new load. While completely emptying the ships took several days, the people on the ground had already begun to do their work during that time, repairing damages to the buildings closest to the staging areas, and much progress had begun to take place. Streets were patched or sometimes completely redone, walls, floors, ceilings and external walls of buildings were restored and reinforced or even rebuilt due to all kinds of infestations and mold, broken windows were changed... Of course, since not much time had passed, all these things had been done to only a few buildings, but the number of repaired buildings grew daily. The wonders of technology - and having a great number of people doing their work - enabled them to do this feat.

When the jumpships had been drained of everything they had and the two Clusters had returned to their jumpships, the fleet left, leaving only the Bravo Naval Reserve to orbit Terra. This was if the colonists required something and had to get a word to the Clan. The colony's defense forces consisted mostly of freeborn warriors manning all kinds of vehicles now that the 'Mechs had left. Losing freeborn would not mean much for the trueborn-dominated warrior caste, which was one of the more secret reasons for placing them to work as garrisons for the three parts of the colony.

When the laborers were renovating the cities and many of the technicians had been following them to remake the electric grid of the city, there had been a group of technicians busy assembling the fusion power plant with the help of many laborers, of course. Thanks to the machines they had - and to the sheer amount of people working on it daily -, they were able to assemble the plant itself in just a few weeks. It took a couple of weeks more to actually activate it and connect it to the southernmost city's electric grid, but it was still done with great speed, and they were even ahead in schedule. Next thing they needed to do was to connect the plant to the other two cities that were being renovated.

Another group of technicians in the city north quite a few kilometers of the one which now had power had just activated the very first water purification plant close to a nearby lake, which had been assessed to be the best source of water for the colony. As the primary one, anyway. They had been lucky and found an abandoned building of the same purpose there, so they had not been forced to build it from scratch, although much of the technology used in it was deemed ancient and inefficient and had been changed forthwith. Other ones would have to be made later on. This plant was connected to the sewage system of this "second city" and would provide water for the city. Their need was quite similar to that of the ones who had assembled the power plant - they now needed to connect it to the other cities.

During the time those two plants had been assembled, at least a tenth of all of the buildings in the three cities had already been renovated. A fifth of the power grid was ready and also a third of the streets were already in a usable condition. This was to be a swift operation, after all. They weren't giving much attention to the looks of the buildings. All that mattered was that they were safe to live in and would keep the elements out, and provide to the basic needs of the colonists.

As "equipment" was mentioned before, it is now a good time to tell what some of them were. The precursors of BattleMechs - WorkMechs. WorkMechs are essential when something that is extremely heavy is needed to be put to its place. Even if they cannot fully replace immobile cranes as some buildings are simply just too high for them, they are still of great value when building projects are being started in making the foundations if nothing else, not to mention the fact that they can go where many vehicles cannot.

The renovations themselves were proceeding somewhat quicker than expected. Only a month or so into the project and the streets had been re-done, reinforced so that even the heaviest of 'Mechs could walk upon them without damaging them. The next part of the project was to connect the three cities with similar roads, which would take quite some time. There always were technicians with them, too, slowing down the process, as they wanted the street lamps to be put into a working order. Obviously, they would have to start assembling the lamp-types they brought with them to light the roads that would connect the cities.

The buildings were about half-done in all cities as was the power grid that was supposed to give electricity to the buildings themselves. The actual reparations into the collective power grid of the three cities had slowed down because they had begun the arduous undertaking of connecting the other two cities to the power plant as well. And as they saw it, it was pointless to repair the grid any faster since the buildings were being repaired much slower than the power grid anyway.

The situation with getting fresh water flow to the other cities was similarily slowing down the progress of making the individual systems in the cities, but they were still well ahead schedule, and their progress was somewhere in the same range with the power grid and the building renovation project. Soon enough people in all of the cities would not have to rely on the water supply that was brought from Arc Royal with all the other equipment. That would also grant the colony a degree of independence.

There was one other thing taking place close to the third city, the one that did not have any of those fancy plants, a project that would even further the colony's level of independence. Large domes, greenhouses, if you will, had been built - and were being built - to its vicinity to ensure the fact that the colonists can cultivate food all year long instead of being forced to always wait for shipments from the homeworld. Once initial colony would be ready and much more people would flow into it, it was obvious that they would consume more than could be efficiently brought from Arc Royal. This was one of the things that required the cities be connected to each other. Even this project was well under way, as half of the domes had already been assembled and put into place.

All in all, the colony was coming along quite nicely, and the Clansmen were content with its progress. Soon enough it would be ready. Soon enough.

Day after day after day after day... Three months had passed since the project had started. The cities were connected to each other with roads. A project to create a railway system of sorts to connect them even further had been started right after that. Fresh water was now available in every single city, as was electricity. The sewage system worked once more. Food production had begun. And last but not least, about all of the buildings in those three cities had been renovated for use all around the year. The cities would be able to withstand populations far greater than they ever did in their so called former lives - the merchantile buildings, as they called them, were turned into living quarters, as were many of the old governmental - as well as abandoned embassadorial - buildings. All they would need is one or two buildings for the colonial government in the "central" city, which is the second one. Many warehouses and such were turned into places to store the defensive vehicles in. Defensive city walls had been erected around the cities with turrets attached to them. The Clansmen had no idea if their neighbors would be malign or benign, so building the walls was common sense to them.

It was calculated that with all the buildings in the cities capable of keeping people in them, there would be enough space for about half a hundred million people. More space would need to be used to build more housing, but this was seen as a good start. There was much to be satisfied about: Not only were the three primary cities now ready, but more abandoned cities, not quite of their size though, were being taken over. If some of them could be renovated before winter, it would mean that even more people could be brought to Terra. If not, then they would have to wait until the next spring and continue the project then.

One of the Star Lords in Terra's orbit had left back to Arc Royal to tell that practically everything was ready now for people to move there. People who wanted to go there had been given the opportunity to volunteer for the colonization project. The Khan had expected that mostly disgruntled merchants would be willing to go there, and that merchants should be the caste given a priority, anyway. The less of them there is on Arc Royal and the busier they are with their profession, the better.

But he had not quite expected what happened. The sheer amount of those ready to go to Terra was outstanding. Hundreds of millions of people from different castes wanted to go there, but there was only space for about fifty million at the moment. And even with that many they would have to ship in food and water, as the colony itself could only muster enough electricity for all of the city. Luckily, there were projects for other water purification plants under way in a few lakes, but it would take months until those would all be ready for use and connected to the main system.

And the fifty million were chosen as the Khan had ordered, with merchants as the main focus. About three fifths going to Terra would be merchants, one fifth would be more technicians and the last fifth would be laborers. Transporting them to Terra was immidiately begun, although with the first batch they would also take a massive amount of equipment with them as well, not quite as much as there was in the very first group that went to Terra to ready the backbone of the colony. This time they would take something in the ten million range of people with them.

Darkness of the night had come upon the colony when the fleet came there once more, fourth time ever after the time the Clansmen had graced Terra with their presence. It was two months after the fleet had come there the last time, when it had brought millions of laborers and technicians and much needed equipment, materials and supplies to ease the process of making more abandoned settlements usable. Few million of the approximately ten million had been merchants, four or so. Some of them had, unlike the others who had their hands full making the housing usable before the winter would come, begun to search the area of the colony itself for anything usable they could possibly sell to someone.

But now the situation was different. Three plants for water purification were already in use. Another fusion power plant was ready, but it was not in use, it was there simply to act as a backup. More hydro plants had been created for food. With what they had now the colony could run rather independently food and water-wise. The railway system now connected the three cities and roads connected the cities to those smaller settlements, those towns they had begun to renovate after the cities were... "Complete". Some merchants had found odd, outdated and obsolete drilling machinery in the general area between the colony and the borders they had with their neighbors, realizing soon after that they were in fact for drilling oil, a fossil fuel they would not need, but possibly could be of some use for their neighbors, so they had asked permission - and had been given such - from the warriors if they could bring their own equipment suited for such operations and for storing what they find to Terra, and had been leeching the land of its oil ever since, placing it all in massive silos.

So, now it was night time. A very cloudy one at that. Cloudy and rainy, not exactly your best time to be landing onto a planet, but they were running on a rather tight schedule. It was always like that on Terra's side, there's no hurry when they were on Arc Royal. After locating the general location of the colony and confirming locations with the colonists, dropships began to descend to the ground once again, to bring more people and more cargo. This time less cargo, but even more people. Fifteen million people approximately, with half of them merchants, the rest technicians and laborers. The several thousand freeborn warriors were not even counted for, as the ones that had come before this batch had not been.

It was getting closer and closer to winter. The idea was to bring as many people to the colony before it hits, because they would not bring any new people there during wintertime, if just to make sure that none there die out of the cold. There were enough houses to accomodate many millions more than there were now, yes, but most people lacked the warm clothing they would need during winters. And they knew what that would mean: Needless deaths, even if just of freebirths. Cold is a bitter mistress, and a lethal one at that. Those that did not have warm clothing would be given that after the automated factory which parts would come to Terra with this batch would be assembled by the laborers, and given enough raw supplies to work on. They still had a some time left to accomplish this.

The winter came and went away, and it was springtime once more. Transportation of more people into the general area of the colony had been resumed, bringing the whole fleet back to the orbit of Terra for the fifth time ever. The last batch of essential cargo was there with them. With what they had and would get now, the colony was to become almost fully self-sufficient. Yes, almost. They lacked the capability to create more sophisticated systems. If anything important was to break down, or some part of the colony would be attacked, most parts to repair them would have to be brought in from Arc Royal. They couldn't simply give the colony much to storage. Who knows who would find Clan technology in their hands if they gave the colony such privileges.

Three fourths of the fifty million first assigned to the Terran colony had already reached their destination and had begun their new lives in the many fragmented, renovated settlements. The plan was to still to at least double that amount and then let people transfer to the colony if they wanted to do so, but through general official channels. That is something that would possibly force them to wait for years for even a response on their application. The leadership of the Clan, effectively the warrior caste, would have other, more pressing issues to tend to than the disgruntled voices of some people wanting to move out of the secluded planet of Arc Royal. Of course, whenever there would be enough space, they would simply ship people to the colony in massive groups.

Not only were there walls around the cities, but there also were walls around the smaller towns and village-type settlements. Walls were one of the few things they could construct even during winter, which was why they were a sort of priority during it. Those walls lacked turrets and the settlements had a much lesser amount of defensive units stationed in them proportionally when compared to the much larger ones. Those small garrisons were completely made of freeborn defenders who just had some rifles and vehicles at their disposal. They simply did not have the kind of resources to build the defenses of the colony to the level they had in their "homeworld".

Soon the colony would be complete enough. Soon it would be time to make contact with their neighbors. Unless they would be contacted first.