BT/Clancyverse Round Robin Story Thread.

Dates to be determined.

Townhouse, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA.

The cab pulled to a stop, and he made his way slowly up the walk to the townhouse, bone tired. Anyone who claimed that being the public face of a (supposedly) charitable group was enjoyable were nothing but damned fools. It was rubber chicken dinners, rude lobbyists and hidebound governmental functionaries. He paused.

There was something off. He paused, and brushed his sports jacket as if to flick off some dust. That the same motion also loosened the High Standard derringer in his pocket - currently disguised as a leather wallet - wouldn't be noticeable to most people.

There were no scratches on the lockplate of the door. A professional job, then. Though that wasn't saying much for the area around DC - you couldn't toss a pebble across the sidewalk without hitting a dozen covert agents from as many different agencies. The best way to deal with an ambush was to spring it on your own terms. With that firmly in mind, he threw the door open as if he were totally oblivious, and headed for his den.

"Before I drag you in, would you like to tell me why Erik Prince, his two bodyguards and his driver were all admitted to Bethesda with severe chemical burns to the face and shoulders?"

"And a very good evening to you too, General Clark."

"Would you like to answer the question before or after I drag your ass in."

"I'll take 'before' for $500, Alex."

"This isn't Jeopardy, boy."

Ed sank slowly into a nearby chair. "I just got back from dropping those idiots off at the ER. As for why? If someone threatened your family and stuck a gun in your face, what would YOU do, Clark?"

Clark's grim expression grew darker. "You expect me to believe that the CEO of a major international corporation threatened you?"

"Expect, no. Tell, yes. Look a little closer, and you'll find that the NA are making some dollars in the right places, General. The Buron Cav already made Prince look like a fool, and on top of that, he's hungry. He had the audacity to ORDER me to carry a message to the NA, to tell them that he was their new boss, and he'd be dropping by to audit the books, collect some 'donated' money, and examine the stockpile of weapons the NA were going to supply to Blackwater, gratis."

John Clark stared at the younger man, trying to see the truth. "And how, exactly, did he and his men end up with chemical burns? Care to explain that?"

Ed raised his hands as if in surrender, and nodded towards the heavy watch on one wrist. "Ever had dinner with a bhut jolokia pepper, General?"

Clark winced. He'd made the mistake of biting into one of those while in India. "Pepper spray?"

"Calling this stuff a pepper spray is like calling a Davey Crockett a cigarette lighter."

John sighed, and made his way to a seat across from Ed. "Care to give me the full story before I have Jack jumping down my throat for not delivering your head on a silver platter?"

Ed carefully lowered his arms, watching Clark warily. When no reaction was forthcoming, he rested his hands on his thighs.

"The ass showed up, had his bodyguards wave a bug detector around, and once his mooks assured him there were no bugs that might record anything embarrassing, Prince opened up with his 'here's an offer you can't refuse' speech. When I told him to take his offer and stuff it, he began to hint that family and friends could get hurt if I didn't convince the NA to make him their new leader, and one of his thugs tried to look menacing by touching his holster. That's when I let them have it with my watch."

Clark eyed it professionally. "Nice. But it doesn't look like there's enough of a charge in there to take out the three of them."

"No, but it hurt, and gave me the moment I needed to reach for the paintball pistol in the desk. Tiberius T-8 with a vertical feed magazine and loaded with pepperballs. Bhut jolokia, all of them. They each got a pepper ball to the face, and a second when they kept trying."

Clark grimaced slightly with involuntary sympathy. The bhut jolokia pepper was rated at one million Scovill units, roughly 400 times hotter than a bottle of Tabasco sauce. "I'm surprised you let them live."

"I'm trying to cut down on the dead bodies," Ed said sardonically. "Burying them in the garden is a strain on the back, and I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Funny. Not. And the driver?"

The younger man gave a grimace of his own. "I called him in to help his boss and the thugs to a hospital. He went for his piece, instead. I had to drop him, too. Their pieces are in the trunk of the limo, which I left in the hospital parking lot, from which I just returned."

"And why'd you take them yourself?"

"I was trying to keep it out of the press.

"You failed."

"Y'think?" Ed noted dryly.

"Covering this shit up is going to be a stone cold bitch. Explain to me why Washington should do it."

That got Clark a snort as his reward.

"The idiots scanned for electronic bugs, old man. Ever read William Gibson? He said 'If they expect high tech, go low. If they expect low, go high.' That's what I did. They were expecting and looking for 21st century bugs, not 19th." Ed opened a cabinet, and Clark swore softly at the sight of a fifty year old Dictaphone.

"Mechanical recording? You think that'll be admissible in court?"

"No. But it's enough to turn over to you, and make those bastards sweat. Why will you even want to use it? Well, I have a few treats for you and Jack, courtesy of my friends in the NA." Ed slid a manilla folder across the cabinet. "Take a look and enjoy."

Clark flipped through the photos, and smiled approvingly. "Lovely. Walther Arms WA 2000. One of the best sniping rifles in the world. Pity so very few were made. In .300 Winchester magnum, I take it?"

Ed nodded. "It's back into production, thanks to certain 'investors' who are funding it directly. It'll be provided to GDI forces at less than half the production cost. The rest can be considered a 'donation' to the cause of Earth's continuing freedom."

"When you really want to reach out and touch someone," snarked the spook.

"When you care enough to send the very best," finished Ed. "Check out the next couple pages."

Clark did so, and raised an eyebrow. "Semmerlings?"

"Yup. In .45 Colt and a new version in 9mm Parabellum. Because they're as small as a .25 auto - even smaller than some. But still pack enough punch to get the attention of someone even if it's wearing Inner Sphere body armor. At close range, of course."

"And you'll subsidize these as well?"

"Pilots, tankers, 'mechwarriors and any GDI personnel whose MOS requires them to serve in tight spaces yet require some final emergency backup firepower that'll knock someone on their arse."

"Nice," Clark noted reluctantly. "Anything else?"

"My 'friends' have invested in American Derringer Incorporated, Springfield Armory, and a number of other specialty armories. As soon as they can bury the files deep enough, the FP-45 and the 9mm Deer gun are going back into mass production. That probably won't be for another five years, and they won't go off-planet until the CSN-"

"For which, read Jack Ryan," interjected Clark.

"Yeah, yeah. They won't go off-planet until Jack approves. Once he does, though..." Ed paused and gave Clark a level look. "The Combine's the biggest threat to Earth. And aside from the CSN, the second biggest thorn in the side of the Combine are the Free Azami. Not that I'm implying anything, of course."

"Of course," Clark echoed blandly.

"Finally - at least for now - a classic. I think you'll like it. Check out the last pic."

Clark flipped to the end of the folder, then hmmmed happily. "De Lisle carbines? They're rarer than hen's teeth. I know some friends who'd like to get their hands on one."

"Well, now they can. New production. Along with new manufacture Welrods. Mass production models, but still up to the high standards of yore. We're updating the metallurgy and the technology, but when a design survives for decades on its own merits, you don't abandon it lightly."

"Sweet. How soon can my 'friends' get a few?"

"How soon can you make the Blackwater idiots go away?"

"What Blackwater idiots?" The grin on Clark's face was cruel.

"Большое спасибо"

"bú yòng xiè. Still got any of that Jack Daniels? I think it's time to sit down, have a drink or two, and enjoy someone else's humiliation."

"Works for me."

A couple of shots and a little schadenfreude later, Clark frowned owlishly. "Why the Azami, kid? They'll just cause trouble with the Combine, trouble we don't need."

Ed grinned fiendishly. "Because we're going to ask them to sell the weapons instead of using them."

"Eh? Mind running that one by me again?"

"We want trouble as far away from us as possible, right?"

"Right."

"Like, for example, on the other side of the Combine?"

Clark blinked. "What's on the other-- ah!"

"That's right. The formerly free Principality of Rasalhague. Hard core bastards who want nothing more than to regain their freedom from the Combine. And if a crapload of weapons happened to just sort of accidentally fall into their hands out of a Free Azami dropship, hey, that's not our fault. And any trouble they start is on the other side of the Combine, nice and far away from us, pulling troops and resources in the opposite direction. Help the Rasalhauge to split from the Combine, and the Dracs will be so busy trying to get it back, the Free Azami will have more maneuvering room to attempt their own secession."

"That's twisted, evil, and sounds effective. I'll say it again, kid. You're a sick fuck, and I wish I'd recruited you twenty years ago."

"Nah. You'd probably ended up having to shoot me."

"Only in an arm or a leg. You can spare one."

"Says you."

They sat together in a companionable silence, sipping their drinks. Ed raised his glass, staring into the whiskey as if it held a deep secret.

"I'd like to ask for a favor, John."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What is it, and how much will it cost us?"

"Just a delivery, John." The younger man stood up carefully, and walked over to a cabinet set into the wall. Opening it, he removed a bottle with a card tied to its neck. Clark's eyes widened slightly.

"Mortlach 70?! Where the hell did you get that? That's not even supposed to be available any more!" John Clark knew he was in the presence of distilling history. The seventy year old bottle of Scotch whisky sitting on Ed's desk cost as much as a small car. Single bottles had sold for as much as $17,000.

"Don't ask. You don't want to know. Really. But I need to give this to someone. Trouble is, I don't know who. But you can find their name for me, Clark. That's all I ask. An address I can send this to, confident that the right person will receive it."

Clark didn't like the direction this was going. "So, how do you expect me to find someone when you don't even know their name?"

"I know what they did, John. And I want to thank them for doing it. May 23, 1989. The forest outside Celle, West Germany."

A fact clicked into place. "Jesus, kid! Don't you ever let go of a grudge?"

"No."

Clark sighed. "Look. I'll ask. That's all I'll do. Once. If I don't get an answer, I'm dropping it. And you're going to owe me big for this."

"Fair enough." Ed closed the cabinet, set his glass on the desk and nodded to his guest. "I'm almost drunk enough to get to sleep without remembering. The guest bedroom is up the stairs and to the right. Or you can call a cab. Either way, I'm going to turn in. Take care of yourself, old man. I gotta do another rubber chicken dinner this weekend, and then I'll have some more reports for you and Jack in two weeks." He turned and made his unsteady way out of the study and eventually to his bed.

The general sighed. Some people couldn't let go of the past. Pity. The kid could make a good operative, if he would just let go. He picked up the phone on the desk (bugged - he'd been the one to order it so) and called a cab. He had quite a bit to bend Ryan's ear with tomorrow. Jesus, finding a retired KGB case officer was going to be a royal pain in the ass...

~ * ~

Townhouse, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, USA.

One week later.

The lecture tour was murder. Ed couldn't understand how politicians managed it. He sincerely wanted to throttle the blue-haired cougar who'd tried to come on to him at one after-lecture dinner. Though he had to admit that, for someone in her sixties, she was still quite the looker.

"Pity the plastic surgeons couldn't install a functional brain," he muttered under his breath. He aimed a death glare at the pile of unopened mail waiting for him on the desk in his den.

"Junk, junk, more junk." Perhaps he could suggest that spammers and telemarketers be added to the "better off dead" list maintained by the NA? Then one envelope leaped out at him. No postmark. Hand delivered, and the address ink-jet printed. Anonymous. He eyed it carefully, and after several minutes of inspection, picked up an old East German bayonet that had been ground down into a letter opener and cautiously slit it up one side.

A single sheet of paper. He shook it out, donned latex gloves and unfolded it. It wasn't signed. It didn't need to be.

Anatoli Knyazev.
A promise made is a debt unpaid.

"Thank you, Clark."

__________________

Pirate Trials
Sweden
Earth
September 2007/3022



Etsuko regained her composure quickly and cursed herself for the loss of face. Despite being a mere clerk this was the most important assignment of her young life and she would not foul up the simple task of setting up an appointment.

“I’m sorry, did something alarm you?” asked her host.

“No. I- I was surprised for a moment by the photo on your desk, it is quite realistic.”

“Huh? Oh yes!” said her host beaming. “Yes, yes, we took it on vacation last year. Those are my two daughters and my husband. I’ve never seen them so happy, magnificent creatures.”

This made sense, every child in the IS had a period where mythical creatures ruled their fantasies. Apparently these Motherloaders indulged them with doctored photographs.

“That they were, I suppose you have images of them riding unicorns and grasping dragon’s teeth as well.”

“I’m not sure what you mean”

Trying desperately to remove herself from her folly Etsuko added quickly “The fantasy you portray for them, no child can ever have it of course but it must be wonderful to pretend.”

“Pretend? We did this on our trip just last year. Would you enjoy a chance to meet them? I’m sure something could be arranged during your stay.”

Startled, Etsuko sputtered “Bu- you mean that this is not a doctored photograph, that you hav- that there are still living-?” She could not bring herself to finish the sentence through the stop in her throat.

“Yes, not for much longer I daresay, but we’re hopeful we can turn things around. I’ll make the arrangements shall I? Now, I don’t mean to be rude but I have very pressing matters, I will meet with your attorneys first thing in the morning.”

Etsuko left in a daze. They couldn’t, could they? There are creatures burned deep into humanity’s collective memory, mythical beings of supreme beauty. That some had once been real only enhanced their mystique, and, for the denizens of the Combine, the crushing cultural shame at the role they had played in wiping them from the universe. Where young boys might battle Tyrannosaurs with their toy mechs, young girls would dream of the Iruka.

There were so few attempts, and they never took to other planets. We didn’t know the numbers had dropped so far until they were doomed… And then the Usurper and the destruction of the genetic archives…

But these motherloaders are a lost colony are they not? From how far back? Far enough that they might have brought some with them? Could they have flourished on this miracle planet? Could there still be a chance?

All concern for decorum lost she broke into a run. She could not contain herself; she had to tell the others, to share. She was going to live the dream of every little girl in the inner sphere.



I’m going to meet a Dolphin!

White Sands Missile Range,
Earth, Sol II System,
January 1, 2008/3023

Technicians and scientists swarmed over the device the facility was going to test today. An experienced Mech technician would recognize it as yet another Medium Laser, but there were some key differences. For one, it was a model that hadn't been produced in the Inner Sphere in several centuries. For another, the focusing lens was different from the original model.

The theory was simple. Upon examining numerous lasers salvaged and brought back from Antallos, numerous scientists, assisted by Star League engineers, noted that the lenses weren't as precisely cut as they might otherwise be. Speaking with the Star League engineers confirmed that the focusing lenses used for regular lasers often went to the lowest bidder, thereby 'excusing' the poor quality. The purpose of today's test would be to see what effect, if any, a better-cut lens would have on the range and power. An alarm began to sound, signaling everyone in the vicinity to crowd behind blast screens.

"Experimental Laser One, Shot One firing in three... two... one... Firing." A beam of super-concentrated light reached out and impacted the cubic-meter chunk of BT-grade armor, set at what would be considered long range for a standard Medium Laser.

"We have confirmed impact. Wait for results." A camera focused on the target, which was set on top of a weight scale, recorded everything.

"Data confirms. We have a clean burn, consistent with medium range for this type of laser. No noted increase in heat produced. Increasing distance to target. Let's see just how far our new flashlight can reach."

As they waited for the target block of armor to head to maximum ER Medium Laser range, one of the Earth-born scientists turned to his Star League compatriot. "Did the Star League ever do this kind of thing?" The Star League engineer shook his head.

"Not really. From what I recall, we usually just rebuilt the laser to accept more power. Roughly the same results we're seeing here, but it produced a lot more heat-per-shot." He rubbed his beard. "If a better lens can increase the shot range and power, then, assuming the two modifications don't interfere with each other, if we increased the power the laser could accept..." The Earth-born engineer nodded in understanding.

"Then we could be producing Extended Range lasers that outdo anything the Successor States could try, especially if they're not looking at the lens when trying to duplicate it."

"Experimental Laser One, Shot Two. The target is at what is considered maximum range for an Extended Range Medium Laser. Firing in three... two... one... Firing." Once again, the beam of super-concentrated light reached out and touched the target without apparent effort.

"Results are in. Shot is consistent with long range for Extended Range Medium Laser. Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, we're looking at the first Extended Range Medium Laser produced in the Inner Sphere for centuries. I know the Mech jockeys in GDI are going to be happy about this once we start producing them! What a way to ring in the new year!"

Cheers rang out.

"Don't rest on your laurels, though. Next week we're to start figuring out how to make combat-effective Pulse Lasers!"

Port Krin
Antallos
November 10th, 3022/2007

Erich Koslovski straightened his blue uniform of the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief, or THW for Technisches Hilfwerk, to calm himself down as he glared at the man in front of him, trying to keep his bearings. He wanted to go over the desk and shake some sense into the man, but that would cast a bad light on him, the THW and by extension to Germany.

Two months ago he had arrived on Antallos with his and several more THW Technical Units to help rebuilding the infrastructure.

And as a side project for his everyday employer, the Ruhrkohle AG, he was working to find a few mineral deposits. And he had done so. It had taken some time and the help of a friend, who happened to be geologist, but he had found a nice deposit of copper, aluminum and, more importantly, germanium. Sure they were about five hundred meters below the surface, but, being born in the Ruhr Area, that was not much of a problem for him. Especially as he was a mining engineer outside of his job with the THW.

But apparently it was a problem for the man behind the desk.

GDI might have fired the old bureaucracy, but apparently some members of the new Port Krin bureaucracy didn't learn. This was about as bad as dealing with people of the IRS. And all to get a Licence to mine the deposits

"Es ist schwer unterhalb von einhundert Metern zu fördern," the maybe 27 year old man of Lyran origin said again, speaking in German. (Its difficult to mine below 100 meters.)

Erich breathed in deep and looked around for a moment. Willy was standing a little distant to him, trying not to get involved, while a Japanese looking man observed them with interest.

"Getz hömma zu, Freundchen," Erich said and his glare intensified. "Versuch nich' mir zu erklä'n wat geht und wat geht nich'. Mein Urgrossvatter wa' Kumpel, mein Grossvatta wa' Kumpel, mein Vatta wa' Kumpel. Ich bin Kumpel. Mein Sohn is Kumpel. Ich und mein Sohn haben auf Prosper-Haniel unter achthundert Meter gearbeitet. Und du wills' mir erkälr'n dat ich dat nich' gemacht hab?" (Listen, boy. Don't try to tell me what works and what doesn't. My great-grandfather was collier, my grandfather was collier, my father was collier. I am collier. My son is collier. My son and I have worked on Prosper-Haniel below 800 Meters. And you want to tell me that I didn't?)

The man stammered something, looking straight at Erich and tried to come up with a response.

"Vielleicht," he tried. "Aber völlig unrentabel." (Maybe, but totally unprofitable.)

Erich had to give him that through. The last few mines needed some subventions from the state, considering the cheaper coal from other countries. But still, he kept on glaring.

"Wir ham mehr als 5 Millionen Tonnen Kohle pro Jahr gefördert," he said. "Und einige Zechen fördern mehr." (We have dug up more than 5 million tons of coal per year. And some mines dug up more.)

The man paled and muttered something under his breath. Erich just kept on glaring. This boy was trying to stand up to someone from Bottrop? No chance.

"Wat is getz mit der Lizenz? Brauch's du ne' Einladung?" (What about the licence? Do you need an invitation?)

Behind him the Japanese man raised an eyebrow and decided to talk to Erich later on.

Preston Daniels' Bad Trip

Port Krin, Antallos
March 17, 2007/3022
Mid-Morning

Sunlight radiated off the dry road surface. The crowd moved along at a snails pace, parting from time to time when a car or truck pushed through the middle of the street. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and strange food. Preston Daniels pushed his way through the crowd, enjoying his day off as best he could. He had heard there was a place south of town where people bet on how long a guy could get hit with a stick before losing consciousness. That was at least something different.

Preston Daniels was not happy. He couldn't quite remember what prompted him to ask his uncle to find him a job with the CSN. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, he couldn't decide if he was more bored or depressed. He had watched his DVDs a dozen times now. He'd had his fill of Curb. And the local Holoprogramming? Unwatchable. The future was here, and it was entertained by bad 80s TV.

His job was not working out well at all. Administration was a word that could many things. In his case, it was double checking paperwork filled out by aggrieved Port Krin 'small business owners'. Thugs and pimps, more accurately. They treated the CSN legal system as entertainment more than anything. He had yet to hear of any actual financial judgments, they couldn't be expecting any profit.

Moving past an alleyway, a voice called out to him. “Hey Molo. Molo. Come here.” Preston rolled his eyes and started to move on, but something caught his eye. He hated the term Molo, short for Motherloader. It was one of the less amusing nicknames the locals had for the CSN forces. He had expected a homeless guy, or grade Q hooker, but it was 3 Asian-looking men sitting in folding chairs calling out to him. The guy on the right was tall, while the guy on the far left looked half asleep.

“What's up? No hookers please.” He was already trying to call up his training on the best way to turn down a hooker. He had his CSN “Dealing with Locals” infocard in his wallet, but didn't want to pull that out this close to the crowd. The middle guy coughed and held up a plate with some kind of food on it.

“No hookers, man, no hookers. We're cooks. Testing out some new recipes. Molos got a lot of cash man, we want to make something to draw in the GDI.” The middle guy had a pleading tone, Preston could make it out even over his weird space-english accent. “Want to try it out, the last guy said it tasted like something called 'hot wings'.”

Preston was intrigued. This was new, which to him qualified as near miraculous. He wandered deeper into the alley, and took the multicolored little bead off the plate. “This is safe, right? Not poison?”

The guys looked at each other in confusion. “No, no, it's just food. Safe.” The guy on the left ate a little one from the edge, while the one on the right shot him a disapproving look.

Popping the bead into his mouth, Preston tasted something like a sweet hot sauce. It was good, and the bead dissolved after just a few seconds. “This is really good! What do you guys make it out of? If it's bugs or something, don't tell me that, I don't want to know.”

The middle guy laughed. “My name is Ichiro. Come on back, we'll show you the kitchen.”

Ichiro got up, and moved back into the alley, down towards a local delivery truck. Preston thought it looked like most of the Inner Sphere civilian vehicles he had seen, it looked 3 times too big, and appeared to be heavily armored. He hated this planet.

“Is it in the van?” Preston peered in. The inside of the van appeared to be empty besides some boxes. “Oh, I can't take a ride with you guys.” Turning around, he started to shrug, and the half asleep guy shot him with a dart gun. “Wow. Those are real huh.” Suddenly the lip of the van's floor shot up and hit him in the side of the face. No wait. He was face down in the back of the van, the rear half of his body dangling out the back. The three men picked him and tossed him in the back, and shut the doors.


Port Krin, Antallos
March 17, 2007/3022
Late Afternoon

The van pulled up to the customs pullthrough at the Port Krin spaceport. A GDI soldier waved them into a slot, and motioned for the driver to get out. Ichiro got out of the van, and the taller man followed him. They both waved at the soldier. “Carl, hey man, how are you?”

Carl Johnson rolled his eyes. He didn't like these guys, and they didn't like him. “Fine. Pop the doors, guys.” The two men smiled and walked back to the van's rear doors. Opening them from the inside, the tired looking man stepped outside, leaving the inside of the van empty except for some boxes. Stepping inside, Carl sighed. “Open your compartment.”

Ichiro and his two companions had been this way many times before. They always had a few crates of condoms, picked up from the WHO in the green zone. The WHO was just giving them away. The first few times, Carl opened them up, and poked around, but lately he just gave them a glance over, passing a sensor wand over them. Of course, a few weeks back they had substituted an emission shielded crate for a regular one. He hadn't noticed so far, and no reason he'd notice today. Still, they held their breath.

Carl knew they had a smuggler's compartment. It was usually filled with some kind of local drug or homemade folk art bought off of a GDI soldier. They paid him off with a wad of D, K, or C bills, and he looked the other way. The art must fetch a high price in the Inner Sphere, being unique. The other boxes over the compartment were the legitimate cargo, always filled with condoms. These guys apparently made a killing selling them offworld, the idea of factory made prophylactic not having survived to the 31st century. “Today, guys.”

Looking around themselves, Ichiro and his two companions saw dozens of armed GDI soldiers working at the customs office. Steeling himself, Ichiro stepped into the van, and opened the hidden door with a magnetic unlocking key. Looking inside, Carl saw a couple of baggies of some local drug, and a cola can robot, maybe a Warhammer or something. He wondered how it got here, and what these guys were going to make out of brands like Pepsi or Mountain Dew. But not for long.

“Ok. Looks clear to me.” Carl gave the other boxes a cursory glance, before looking back and Ichiro. He grinned, and waited for the payoff. Ichiro sighed and handed over the cash. “Good doing business with you fellows. See you next time.”

Carl got out of the van, and filled out the customs paperwork. It read what usually read, “Boxes of Condoms, assorted. Checked and approved”. He handed a pink copy of the report to Ichiro, and waved the van forward. He would file the rest of the paperwork later.

Inside the van, Ichiro started breathing easier. He wondered if the guard would have searched more thoroughly if he knew they would be taking off later today, but put it out of his mind. The CSN would file a missing persons report when this guy didn't show back up in the green zone by sundown. The CSN were downright terrifying in spycraft, and Ichiro hadn't wanted to take the risk of faking a body. They had to lift off and be gone by sundown.

They had followed this molo clown around for a month or more. He had the right mixture of unimportance and regular activity. He always stayed out, almost missing curfew, and went far out into the city seeking some entertainment. They had him pegged, and it was cakewalk setting up a trap in that alley. He was literally the most credulous, least careful person he had ever seen. It terrified him thinking the guy might be a honeypot or something, but at least in that shielded box he couldn't be emitting any signals.

He drove the van far down the spaceport surface, hoping that the loading process was done, and they could get done with this. He hoped this guy was worth it. He was planning on creating a career from this operation, a real legend. Of course, it was only legendary if anyone back home would believe him about how good these periphery barbs truly were.

The dropship door was open, and appeared as if they were ready for him. He drove the van up the ramp. His two companions laughed softly from the back of the van. They had begun to break open the crate holding their captive. He was hogtied and gagged, and he really hoped the guy hadn't suffocated. That happened sometimes, for no good reason. The guy had peed himself though. That usually happened.

Inside the ship, a large nordic-looking guy was pacing back and forth. As soon as the van stopped, he shouted “Are we clear?”. Ichiro nodded, and the guy took off towards an elevator bank. Techs waited for a sign, and Ichiro waited for the guys in the back to finish. He got an all clear wave, and got out of the van, moving back to open the van cargo doors. His two friends got out, holding their guest between them.

“Go. If the captain needs us, we'll be in our quarters.” The techs rolled their eyes, and swarmed the van, tying it down, and pulling out the cargo, legit and contraband. The large dropship doors were pulling closed, and the whole vessel was entering transit condition. With luck, they'd get clearance and be well on their way to a jump point by planet sundown.

Port Krin
Antallos
CSN
31st October 3022/2007

Carmela lowered the letter from her Aunt and gazed out of her apartment window that from the fifteenth floor had a nice view overlooking the city and then the expansive lake reflecting the harsh sun.

Temporary Ambassador?

It seemed that it might be a lot more than ‘temporary’ if Elizabeth Centrella, Cousin to Magestrix Kyalla Centrella, couldn’t be convinced to remain in the diplomatic service. The woman was in her late fifties after all, and had twenty five years of ambassadorship to the Fedsuns under her belt. She would’ve been looking forward to a three month journey through space back to Canopus and retirement from active government service to spend with her family. Carmela was tempted to write a letter back to her Aunt telling her not to bother getting a replacement so soon and that she would be glad to accept her new role as a diplomat.

But that would not go over well. That she was being accorded this honor at all by order of the Magestrix was enough. It would be another prick in the egos of the Froness, at least. She wished she could see the look on those noble snobs faces when this circulated around the court. The Mcfarland family had long been part of the Girin – the newest class of nobility in the Magistracy. They were those who had, in the past or present, performed exceptional services to the state in both civil and military spheres. It had all started with her grandfather, who had as a Command Sergeant in the First Canopian Brigade, became a double Ace as a Mechwarrior fighting off a Taurian incursion. With the family’s entry into the Girin Nobility, Carmela’s father became a diplomat, who would eventually be chosen as a mate by her mother, who was herself in the Durachi or Merchant Nobility.

Carmela gazed at the letter again and seated herself on the couch in the small living room of her apartment, picking up a very nice mechanical pencil from the low coffee table. She then opened up a manila envelope and pulled out the special one-time encryption pad that had been issued specifically for her. Referencing the number ‘425’, she began to decode the hidden message within the letter itself. It was slow work, but ten minutes later she was done.

She sighed. “No rest for me it seems.” She turned her attention to the dossier of the physician that was being sent her way. “Doctor Edwin Gale Richard,” she read. “Forty-two years old, born on Luxen graduated 4th in his class from Canopus Medical Academy, eight years practicing medicine on Lindenmarie and Fanadir, then assigned to the Fedsuns on New Avalon before moving on to the Outworlds Alliance.” He seemed to be quite competent and experienced on paper, and this would be something to bring to the CSN.

She wondered how long it would take Ambassador Smith to get in contact with her. Even so it would probably be a good idea to get the old uniform out and see if there was somewhere she could get her Ensign’s diamonds altered to reflect her increase in rank.

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Port Krin
Antallos
CSN
7th November 3022/2007

Captain Bradley Talley nervously patted down his GDI dress uniform as he stood in front the ordinary-looking door to room 1512 and prepared himself mentally to not react in any way to what he would see potentially see beyond. He was a veteran GDI tank commander, after all, had seen action in the Battle of Port Krin, and most recently at Kronkite, where his own MBT had accounted for scrapping 3 enemy Mechs, before his tank had taken an AC round to the glacis plate. Thankfully it had done its job very nicely and kept his crew alive, allowing them to retreat from the battle whilst sending a main gun round directly at the cockpit of the scum who had done it. It hadn’t killed the bastard, but it had weakened the armor around that section, allowing a GDI mech to finish him off.

So if he had done all that, why was his stomach feeling as if it was suddenly his first day at basic? Now that his tank was under repair, he had been assigned the relatively light temporary duty to escort the new Canopian Ambassador to the GDI Compound for a meeting with Ambassador Smith. The reason for the butterflies doing cartwheels inside him was the account of what had happened to the Lieutenant who had been sent to personally deliver the formal invitation to arrange this very meeting.

It had all begun when the new Canopian Ambassador had answered the door. The mid morning arrival of the Lieutenant had obviously been somewhat unexpected, and when the apartment door had opened…

Oh, how Talley wished he could’ve been there. He was probably correct that every red-blooded male who’d heard the scuttlebutt shared that wish. The Lieutenant in question was reticent to give too much detail, but suffice it say, that the Ambassador was ‘stacked’ and the young man had a dazed dreamy look in his eyes whenever he told the story.

He took a deep breath and knocked three times. Then he kicked himself, the Ambassador was deaf, so she wouldn’t be able to hear it. He pulled out his pen and a small piece of paper he had brought along to slip under the door. He was halfway through writing the note, when to his surprise, the door opened.

“Good afternoon, Captain.”

It took him a moment to respond. “Ambassador Mcfarland. I’m Captain Bradley Talley. I’m here to escort you to Ambassador Smith.”

He came to attention and saluted. Talley didn’t know whether to be disappointed or impressed. She was wearing a dress uniform that consisted of tight-fitting dark blue tunic and trousers, with a contrasting light blue collar and cuffs. Gold piping adorned the trouser legs and cuffs, whilst an insignia pin of three running horses against the backdrop of a starfield was fixed on her chest, and two gold edged hollow diamonds were attached to her collar. It was a uniform that flattered the female figure, and was specifically designed for it.

She briskly returned the salute and gestured behind her, where there were two rather large cases of baggage. He had been briefed as much as possible on Canopian society, so he wasn’t surprised at the rather imperious attitude she was giving him. But in any case, even on Earth, you helped a lady carry her luggage. It was a bit of a struggle to manage both considering their weight, and he thanked God that the building had a working elevator. He immediately handed the luggage off to one of the two PFCs waiting by the armored Hummer. This allowed him to open the rear door for the Ambassador who sent him a smile in thanks.

“Let’s go, Sergeant.” He said immediately to the driver, after he had gotten in the rear right seat. The Hummer was in gear and sped off abruptly.

Talley wished he and the Ambassador were surrounded by the protective armor of a MBT, but that was far too conspicuous. And while he doubted that the insurgents had any specific intel on Mcfarland, they had to assume that they did and plan for the worst, which was why two more armored Hummers joined them once they had turned a corner; both were heavily armed as well, with roof mounted M307 Autogrenade launchers that were remotely operated by a gunner sitting in the forward passenger seat.

Mcfarland’s voice modulated oddly, so he couldn’t tell if she was nervous or not. Her body language didn’t show nervousness either. “Are we expecting trouble?”

“No, Ambassador. Just being cautious.”

“Hmmm, the enemy city state remnants. Their insurgent tactics are effective yet terribly frustrating.”

“That they are,” admitted Talley, he knew better than to talk about his thoughts frankly to a foreign dignitary. Personally, he felt there weren’t enough invectives in the English language to describe how he felt. In his mind, before the ISOT event, he had imagined that space would’ve been a place where shit like this was left behind on Earth. He had been quickly disabused of that after the Pirate Invasions. But now the bombings targeting GDI patrols and the attacks on infrastructure had left a permanent bad taste in the mouths of every Earther working to better the lives of the people in the Port, and Talley wanted to scream in frustration.

It took some twenty thankfully uneventful minutes for the motorcade to arrive at the main gates of the GDI Compound. Every man in the Hummer was on the alert kept their eyes scanning from right to left. He was pleased to see the MPs looking on-the-ball as well. They were let through the rising bollards, spike strips and blast deflectors after the MP had visually checked his ID card and swiped it through a portable scanner for verification.

“Thank you, Sir.” The MP saluted and the motorcade proceeded on towards the large administration building that had once served as Vorax’s headquarters. Ambassador Smith stood waiting at the base of the expansive stairs leading up to GDI Headquarters. The traditional red carpet was laid out on it, and an honor guard of GDI Infantry in their dress uniform was perfectly arranged on the other side of the driveway. The brass band started to play the Canopian anthem the instant Mcfarland emerged from the Hummer, after Smith himself opened the door for her.

Mcfarland couldn’t hear it of course, so Talley really didn’t know why the band had bothered. Ambassador Smith seemingly didn’t brook diplomatic protocol for anything when it could be really helped. She did look somewhat sadly at the GDI brass band as she passed them and Smith did tell her what they were playing. Her look of surprise was brief and quickly replaced with appreciation.

The instant both Ambassadors were out of sight and in the building the Sergeants in charge of the honor guard and brass band began barking out orders and in perfect formation they marched away back to the barracks. Talley watched them go and leaned against the Hummer, wishing the damn thing had an air-conditioner so he could at least keep somewhat cool whilst they waited for Mcfarland to return.

Sergeant Banks opened the armored door of the Hummer to let some cool air in, and stared up at Talley from the drivers’ seat. “So ya think it actually happened, Sir?”

The Captain didn’t have to guess what the man meant. “It depends on what version you’ve heard, Sergeant. Lieutenant Weiss is barely twenty three, and not exactly a grizzled gunny. There’s bound to be some exaggeration in his story to start with, then when it was retold over and over…” Talley sighed. “Her answering the door in the buff; that I can believe. That she promptly pulled him in after reading the letter to have her wicked way with him…bull. That’s a stereotype of Canopians, I’m sure. They’re not the kingdom of the nymphomaniacs, Sergeant.”

“How d’ya figure that, Captain?”

Talley sighed. “If they were, then the entire Inner Sphere would be busting their door down.”

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Conference Room
GDI Headquarters
Antallos
CSN
7th November 3022/2007

Carmela sat down on a very impressive high backed leather chair that seemed to mold itself to her back; the feeling of comfort was so great that she closed her eyes for a brief moment and just basked in it. She opened her eyes and regarded a room that seemed like it could’ve come from the heyday of the Star League; it was the other side of the coin of that awful conference room in Hermantown. The floors were soft pristine carpet, comfortable lighting and a wooden table that she could see her own reflection in. Directly across from her sat Ambassador Smith with a large file folder open in front of him, and he seemed rather bemused at her enjoyment of the chair.

“If this is what you sit on within your office, Ambassador Smith, it’s a wonder that you get any work done.”

Smith’s mouth twitched. “Yes, well, I must admit my chair isn’t quite as good as these. This is the VIP Conference room. Speaking of which, can I offer you some coffee before we begin?” He gestured to a silver plated tray with delicate looking cups and a carafe on it. She nodded eagerly. Motherlode coffee was a boon in Port Krin, and the stuff sold out so fast that there were long queues outside the supply stores when a Dropship from Motherlode had landed the day before. She had managed to buy a tin of a brand called ‘Jacobs’, and had savored every cup that came from it.

The smell of the hot coffee that wafted from the now open carafe was already delectable. When she had her cup and added sugar, declined the milk and just took a sip…

“Oh goodness,” she moaned. “You spoil me, Ambassador. What type of coffee is this?”

“We call it Jamaican Blue Mountain; it’s the most expensive and sought after in the CSN. “

Carmela sighed after taking another sip. “I can taste why.” She had to force her thoughts to get down to business. “I want to take this opportunity to congratulate your government on its recent success in capturing all four hostile city states.”

“Thank you,” nodded Smith.

“And speaking on behalf of a government that despises slavery and guarantees personal freedoms for the individual, it is good to see another nation in the Periphery that espouses such beliefs and actively promotes them.”

“The CSN is committed to seeing democracy and liberty spread, though we appreciate the difficulty in maintaining such a system in a star nation spanning hundreds of light years and with the limitations on interstellar communication that exist today.”

Carmela carefully sorted through that statement in her head and took another sip from her cup. “My government wishes to pursue a relationship with yours that would see an exchange of knowledge take place and in time even full trade relations.”

“What form of knowledge?” Smith asked politely. Carmela could see he knew full well already, but they were just going through the motions of politics.

“Sometime in December, a Magistracy physician will arrive on Antallos, he will take up residence in the new Embassy but will open a clinic in Port Krin, and perhaps even seek to do work in the hospital you are in the final stages of building. Our physicians have practical medical experience and knowledge that dates back to the Star League. Most of them travel with small libraries of books and holo-disks with that medical knowledge. A lot of it, though, assumes the availability of medical technology that no longer exists in the Inner Sphere, and that which still exists, is only on Canopus IV. The ability to produce more such machines has also been lost, except where we managed to save the production lines, but we have lost the technical skill to run these factories.

“What the Magistracy is proposing is that in exchange for this medical knowledge, that the CSN sends technicians to Canopus to aid in rebuilding or in some cases restarting these production lines. There are also Mech and ASF factories on Canopus IV and Duncanshire that would benefit from a refit, repair or merely more knowledgeable hands working with them. It would do wonders for Canopian security to be able to field more national military assets per year, and rely less on greedy mercenaries to hold the line against pirates and slavers.”

“We certainly appreciate that need,” Smith mused. “And I personally understand what a massive godsend this medical knowledge would be to the CSN. We have historical records of what your ancestors were capable of…genetic science to the point where they actually engineered a healthy viable mermaid for instance! Implants that could achieve all a manner of things, artificial organs that work efficiently with near no complications. It boggles the mind. ”

“The mermaid is an extreme example and was only done once,” Carmela explained. “We don’t know what happened to her. Lots of Canopian children are told bedtime stories where someone heroic spirited her away in a tank and released her into an ocean of Eluesis before House Marik took that world from us. It’s more likely she was simply killed in the attack on the planet.”

Smith nodded sadly. “To get back to my point, the CSN is concerned that if we enable you to increase your military production that it would be provocative to your immediate neighbors.”

Carmela had to fight against the urge to snap back in a most undiplomatic fashion. If there was one thing that her father had advised in his letters was to never, ever, ever get angry in a diplomatic meeting. If you were angry and the meeting was going in a direction contrary to your principles, politely say goodbye and simply walk out.

“Let the Magistracy worry about that.”

Smith titled his head in a motion that said, ‘Understood’ and she also saw approval in his eyes. “Very well, but we are also concerned for the safety of our technicians.”

“They would be accorded the utmost consideration and protection the Magistracy can provide. We could even see about hiring a protection force to accompany them on the journey there.”

Smith shook his head. “That would draw too much attention. Secrecy must be maintained I’m afraid.”

“You think that word could leak out and someone may try to snatch them?”

Smith said nothing, but Carmela saw in his face an answer that he was clearly showing. ‘Yes’

“Which House?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“Why do you assume we’re worried about a Successor State?”

“Surely any of them would love to get their hands on one of your technicians and wring out your technological secrets?”

“Oh I’m sure they have such plans,” Smith declared grimly. “But we keep a close eye on our people here on Antallos. If they tried it, we would be alerted in short order, and there are plans in place to deal with such an eventuality.”

“So assuming we can ensure secrecy…”

“That would only protect them on the journey, it’s once they’re on Canopus IV and Duncanshire, that I’m afraid we have a problem.”

Carmela blinked at what he was implying. “You believe someone is going to try and stop them from completing their task.” Smith’s silence was answer enough. “What do you base this belief on?”

“There are a number of reasons, madam Ambassador. One is that we’re concerned that your neighbors have eyes and ears on or even, in those factories. And that they might take exception to our engineers repairing them, enough to take very regrettable actions. That is why we are hesitant to send our engineers to work openly.”

“I see,” Carmela sighed. She wouldn’t put it past the Maskirovka or SAFE to have such sleeper agents. “The CSN engineers would have to work in secret when the factories are closed every night, we’d have to train them to act as Canopians and then infiltrate them into Canopus IV. Oh, and it would make things a lot easier if they could mostly be female. In the meantime, if there are sleepers in our factories, MIM will sniff them out.”

“I hope they are up to it.”

“MIM has a long operational history; it has been our eyes and dagger in the shadows since before the Reunification War. We fought the SLDF, we fought House Marik, Liao, and the Taurians, and our nation is still standing.”

Smith raised his hands disarmingly. “Just checking. Now let us get to more mundane things. There are a number of buildings within the outer GDI compound that is available for selection as the Canopian Embassy.” He pulled out a map and showed a green highlighted street filled with wide variety of buildings, some had red lines drawn through them, showing they were unsafe or under repair. She saw one multistory building colored in red with a stylized green dragon over it, on the opposite end of the street was a another building covered in yellow with the symbol of a blazing sun and sword. “Typical of them,” she muttered.

She then saw a nice looking three floor building, almost a very large house. It wasn’t too big and not too small, its outer styling and façade needed some definite improvement and its interior would definitely need a lot of work to make it into something worthy of Canopus.

“Oh, before I forget, I have a personal request.”

Smith considered that. “If it is within reason and in my power to grant, I shall.”

“In my inquiries to my initial GDI liaison, I asked how your society deals with the deaf, and if there was perhaps any remedies you have for my specific condition. She mentioned that you have something called a Cochlear Implant.”

Smith smiled warmly. “Consider it done. I will have a GDI Doctor visit you for a preliminary examination tomorrow in your temporary quarters on the Compound.”

Carmela returned the smile, trying mightily to stop her eyes from tearing up. “Thank you.”

Smith stood and shook hands with her. “You’re welcome, Ambassador.”

88888888888888888888888


Multi-purpose Hall, GDI Compound
Port Krin
Antallos
CSN
10th November 3022/2007

“So do you think it will be accepted?”

“There’s no question about it, Ambassador Smith. The benefits to both our people are clear, but as the extreme delay in my arrival as Ambassador to you indicates,” Matoskah replied with a rueful grin on his swarthy features, “the Alliance is not a body that reacts swiftly on a diplomatic level. Expect also to be inundated with last minute amendments.” The Ambassador of the Outworlds Alliance to the CSN took a bite out of his small plate filled with snacks, and washed it down with water from a champagne glass. Smith took a sip from his own champagne as he considered that statement while looking at the mingling diplomatic staffers from both their respective governments. The Fedsun contingent was keeping somewhat to themselves, while the Combine representatives were rather conspicuous in their absence.

Smith hadn’t really expected to be able to get them to stay for long in the same room with the Federated Suns, he had allowed himself some hope…in retrospect it had been a fool’s hope. The party was a rather impromptu affair; officially it was to welcome the Canopus Ambassador to Antallos. In actuality it was just a bit of revelry and celebration in the wake of the defeat of the four hostile city states. It also handily doubled as relaxation before the hard work of bringing the people of those cities to the table of representation began.

“We’ll be sure to plan for any contingency that falls within the realm of imagination.”

“It’s usually that which is outside our imagination that ends up causing the most problems,” Matoskah stated sagely. “Speaking of which, is the Canopian Ambassador going to merely remain a figment of our imagination?”

Smith didn’t bother to scan the hall for Mcfarland. “We have an expression on our world, ‘fashionably late’. I wonder if she’s heard of it or perhaps it’s a trait of Canopian matriarchal nobility.”

Matoskah was puzzled. “Being late is a fashion?”

“It’s to tell people that you are so busy with other engagements that you can only arrive late, or its simply a way to make an ‘entrance’. I suspect it’s both in her case.”

Matoskah shook his head. “I don’t envy her, being responsible for organizing the building up of an Embassy all by herself.”

The herald that had been stationed outside the main doors to the hall entered at that moment. The man was a GDI Senior Warrant Officer resplendent in his party dress uniform. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Ambassador of the Magistracy of Canopus, Lady of the Girin, Carmela Mcfarland.” He stood aside and allowed the guest of honor to walk in.

Smith felt his mouth promptly dry on the spot and all thought vanish like mist before the sun, as his mind was too busy contemplating the vision that had walked into the hall. He had thought that her formal military uniform had wonderfully complimented her figure; the ensemble she was wearing now made that seem like a grain sack.

The dress seemed like it was painted onto her, it was made of a silvery glittery material, which actually seemed somewhat transparent, except for key areas. It started with a knot at the back of her neck, then two strips of material snaked down over her breasts, leaving the valley between and slightly more exposed. It continued down to meet just beyond her navel, where it blossomed to surround her and into a standard skirt, but with a slit on the side that exposed her hip and a very long and toned left leg with every second step. Her exposed skin was nicely tanned with no pale areas whatsoever, there was the occasional freckle though, allowing Smith see her as a living woman and not a work of art.

He shook himself out of his funk and as a host and gentleman should, walked forward to escort her into the party proper.

He grinned mildly. “It’s a distinct pleasure to see you again, madam Ambassador.”

“And you, Ambassador Smith,” she nodded, surveying the hall. It was rather impressively decorated with traditional Canopian colors and buntings.

“Allow me to introduce to you the Ambassador of the Outworlds Alliance, Matoskah.”

The man in question bowed his head to her. “It’s wonderful to make your acquaintance, madam Ambassador.”

“Thank you,” she frowned slightly in thought. “Your name…is it perhaps ancient Native North American?”

Matoskah’s dark eyebrows raised in surprise, “Yes indeed, Ambassador Mcfarland. My ancestors left Terra as a whole tribe during the days of the Terran Alliance. The Hopi tribe had to uproot itself twice since then, first to escape Mckenna’s reunification campaigns and then to what is now the Outworlds Alliance after the First Succession War. The Hopi are now contently settled on Rushaven.”

“Fascinating,” she smiled. “Do your people live traditionally as it were?”

“Most of us, yes. My grandfather, however, felt his spirit guide calling him to the city and to make a very long story short, I was eventually elected as Rushaven’s parliamentary representative. I had finished my final term, but President Avellar presented me with the Ambassadorship to the CSN. My own spirit guide advised me to accept.”

Smith coughed as his champagne went down the wrong pipe. “Matoskah, you wouldn’t happen to know if there are any other tribes still on Terra or out there in the Sphere?”

The Alliance Ambassador frowned. “Why do you wish to know?”

“Ah, just curiosity,” Smith shrugged. “We have a few Native American tribes on Motherlode.”

Matoskah nearly spit out his water all over Ambassador Mcfarland at hearing that. He managed to stop himself, “Are you serious?”

“Certainly,” Smith replied in a nonplussed fashion. “I’d have to do a bit of research, but off the top of my head I know there are Apache, Navajo, Sioux and a number of others.”

Carmela laughed at the expression on Matoskah’s face. “I think you just broke him, Ambassador Smith.”

Matoskah shook himself out of his astonishment. “I must think about this, I hope you will be amenable in the future to speak to me on this matter.”

Smith smiled genially. “I will do the necessary research.”

Matoskah looked thoughtful now. “To get back to your question, as far as we know, there is definitely a Seneca Tribe somewhere in the Federated Suns, as well as Abenaki, Blackfoot and Comanche. There might be others on so called ‘Lost Worlds’ as a result of the chaos during the Succession Wars. But…” He winced and took a deep breath, steeling himself. “There were a number of Tribes that refused to leave mother Earth. They lived and grew with the times, but when the Amaris Coup occurred…the Usurper’s troops began ‘cleansing’ Terra of those he deemed ‘not worthy’.”

The normally taciturn Smith winced visibly, “My God.”

“There are a number of tribes that were made completely extinct and the survivors were too small in number and they were lost to time completely.”

“If you hadn’t already asked, I would insist that you come to see me about this,” Smith declared with conviction. He took a deep cleansing breath but continued to look visibly troubled. “Let’s talk about something more pleasant…ah, how did your visit with the Doctor go dear?”

Carmela smiled brilliantly, banishing the dour mood from both men. “Doctor Horton told me I was a good potential candidate for a cochlear implant. He advised me though that I should wait, that researchers on your world were working with neurohelmet technology to potentially solve some inherent problems with the implant.”

“Interesting,” Smith mused. “I suppose you could also get your own Magistracy Doctor to work on this as well. Get his input.”

Matoskah reached for another snack. “What is this Cochlear Implant?”

Smith gestured elegantly to Carmela. “She’ll know a lot more than me now.”

“It’s a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is ‘profoundly deaf’,” she explained.

Matoskah looked clearly impressed and with satisfaction said, “Ha, so much for that little preconception about the Periphery, if that is the medical technology the CSN is capable of. I must say, Ambassador Smith your people are really doing wonders in redressing some of the perceptions that the Inner Sphere holds about the Periphery.”

“We are merely promoting that which is self-evident,” Smith declared firmly. “Freedom, liberty, equality. We extend our hand in friendship to those who wish it, and our firm fist to those who want to take our dream away from us.” Matoskah and Carmela traded sidelong looks at that.

“I can only say, on behalf of the Alliance, that we wish to be friends, Ambassador.”

“Friends,” Carmela echoed with a brilliant smile. “Now…since this is actually a party for me, what is there to eat?”

Looking at Pictures

Deep below Hiltonhead
Terra
12 October 3022

One would think that security would relax this deep underneath the public front Comstar presented to the galaxy. But that was not the case, ROM’s all seeing eyes were particularly vigilant down here. Even her Precentor robes, had she worn them, would not have gotten her past the checkpoints without a thorough check to confirm her identity. She did not particularly like coming down here but there was a very special asset down here that she needed to consult. Precentor Patricia Copperfield walked down a silent poorly lit corridor to a door decorated with a poster of a fire whip wielding demon cloaked in shadows and the rather blasphemous text “Not even Blake’s light can save you in here”. She knocked on the door but got no response; she tried harder but still got no reaction. Sighing deeply she pulled out an override keycard.

“Blake’s mercy. I do hope he is wearing pants today” she whispered to herself, the memories of her last visit still, unfortunately, quite clear.

The door opened and the smell of old food, piles of unwashed clothing and questionable personal hygiene washed over her. The skinny pale fellow sitting in the darkness was lit only by a dozen displays and holo projections and didn’t notice her entering. Judging from the sound leaking from the headset he would hardly notice a full scale orbital bombardment.

“Martin… MARTIN!!!!” she shouted to draw his attention from the screens.

“YOW!” he jumped out of the chair as if poked by a cattle prod. “Don’t do that! Oh… Pat, eh… I mean Precentor.”

Martin had hardly joined the order out of any conviction of the righteousness of its holy mission or out of any interest in the salvation of the Inner Sphere from its current masters. Rather it was simply that Comstar had the best toys for him to play with. Indeed the main reason for him residing down here, other than the fact that he really wasn’t the social type, was simply that the mainframe for the entire complex was located on the other side of the display covered wall. You had access to more computer power in this room than anywhere else in the entire complex.

“Have you had time to look at the problem I gave you?” Patricia asked as she cleared a chair of what appeared to be yesterday’s lunch.

“Eh… Yes! Sure Pat… eh Precentor. I have it right here.” He sat back down and called up a holo image of a familiar but somehow different planet. “Earth, but not as we know it…” his voice seemed a bit distant. “Yes it was a very interesting problem, but I think I have solved it. Even with what little data you provided” he said slightly reproachfully.

“I gave you everything we had Martin. ROM have had problems getting intel on this subject” she protested and ignored the faint shudder running through him at the mention of ROM. Adept Martin had had issues with ROM ever since, in a distracted moment, he accidentally said Toyama was an ancient car brand. Patricia had managed to protect him from the full wrath of the Fundamental Branch and their allies in ROM but even a faint brush of ROM’s displeasure was enough to leave Martin a bit twitchy whenever it was mentioned.

“Yes, well given the stuff I got this is my analysis Pa… Precentor” he handed her a small holodisk.

“Could you give me a short summary?” She asked as she pocketed the disk. “And you can call me Pat in here. I got promoted not deified!”

“Uhhh… Yeah, sure… Pat” he replied “Let’s start at the beginning. This is the image of the supposed Motherlode home world that was used to trick Vorax pirate coalition into attacking and walk right into a trap.”

“Yes…?”

“You don’t see the obvious problems with this?” he asked.

“Well, no.” she admitted.

“Why use this image? This world! The one world, apart from your own home world and perhaps the major worlds of your home nation, that any person in the Inner Sphere is most likely to recognize?”

“Well it is obviously some sort of fake…” she started.

“NO!” he interrupted “I have had the computers analyze every pixel on every image including the low level shots from the dropship. I have double checked the performance of the camera gear that our records claims are mounted on the ships that supposedly took these images and do you know how many signs of image manipulation I found?”

“Ehhh…”

“That is right! None! No repeating patterns. No missed villages or jumping ships from one planetary rotation to the next. Now what does that tell us?” he pushed on without waiting for a reply “It tells us that this is an extremely good forgery, since we know it can’t actually be real. It would take even us with the most sophisticated computers in the galaxy a long time to make a forgery good enough to pass as thorough an inspection as I have put it through.”

“Well so what? We all agree it was a fake, the Primus thought it quite funny and even sent a message to Vorax asking when his invaders would show up.” She said with a smile.

“You are missing the point! Think Pat!” he had forgotten completely that he was lecturing his superior “This is not something you slap together from scratch in an evening!” he said with a wave towards the slowly spinning holographic planet. “The intel from Antallos is fairly firm on this point, the original raid came as a complete surprise to the Motherloders and the anger of the GDI staff towards pirates and piracy seems to be genuine. Combine that with the last known location of the jumpship Elephant and its return to Antallos.” Martin brought up a two dimensional map of the periphery with two blinking dates. “We know Motherlode is about eight jumps from Antallos. Now what does that tell you?”

“That they had little time to bait the trap” Patricia replied and looked more intently at the map “that they had to start with something?” She shifted her gaze to the innocently spinning holographic planet.

“Yes! But why use Terra and not some other world far less likely to be recognized for what it was? Indeed why not just use old imagery of Terra?”

‘Why indeed’ Patricia thought. The more one thought about it the crazier it seemed.

Martin waited for a moment before continuing “Because Terra was the only developed world they had detailed enough images of to make a quick forgery and they spiced it up with enough easy loot to draw a massive response. Using one of the new worlds from back when man first reached for the stars would still mean they would have had to superimpose a developed world’s entire infrastructure and activity on an essentially untouched planet to make a fake tempting enough to draw in Vorax. It would be a far greater and much more time consuming effort.” He paused briefly. “If anyone was asked to verify the authenticity of these images on Antallos their main effort would likely be looking for image manipulation rather than ancient historical references. It was one hell of a gamble; I would not like to play online poker with these guys.”

“You think Motherlode is a colony from the Terran Alliance era?” she asked, that was way earlier than most other thought. The main line of thought among the ROM analysts seemed to be late Hegemony era. “That makes no sense! They have Lostech from the Star League era” she protested.

“People are far too fixated on what small Lostech trinkets the Motherloders might have to notice what Motherlode don’t have. They don’t have any of the standard military technology that has been spread around the Inner Sphere for centuries. They don’t have any spacecraft capable of interstellar travel that have not been identified as an Inner Sphere prize.” Martin called up several images of various jumpships and dropships on the screens. “Particularly the Motherloders lack of jump technology greatly helps to explain why they decided on such a reckless and dangerous gambit to set up Vorax. They don’t have any battlemechs that aren’t salvage or kitbashes. They don’t have any aerospace assets at all, the fighters they brought into Port Krin are all turbine engined. They have no modern armor plating” he switched to an image of a GDI tank with a deep laser burn slashed straight through the massive front armor plate. “They have no infantry lasers, except what appears to be a light weight target designator.” An image of an infantry man in action with an assault rifle popped up on a side screen. “They have none of this! Indeed they probably never had access to any of that technology to begin with.”

“They could have just lost the technology.” She protested. “Many world regress to steam and even below before they are rediscovered.”

“Yesss… But in that case why this?” he switched the holographic display back to the fake Terra “If they do originate from a more recent era why not use something more discreet than this?” He nodded at the planet.” I ran an analysis of this image with our historic records back all the way to the earliest days of space travel. It seems the image originated at some time in the early years of the last millennium and the main modifications seems to be spreading the developed areas into China and India as well as removing the war scars in Russia, which makes some sense if you are baiting pirates.”

“No. Something is still wrong…” She just couldn’t pin down exactly what. Martin was watching her with a big smile on his face. “Why not use actual images of their own world? Given the size and technology of the GDI the Motherloders world would seem to be advanced enough to draw a response.”

“That is an interesting question Pat. Indeed it is the principal enigma in this problem” Martin said with a grin as he leaned back in his chair. “It is something of a paradox isn’t it? Why not use photos and video of Motherlode itself to bait the trap? All Vorax’s thugs would need to do is catch a brief glimpse of the actual Motherlode once they jump in and they would know something was very wrong.”

Martin looked a bit smug as he prepared to drop what he obviously thought was a bomb. Patricia would not be disappointed.

“The only explanation I have” Martin proclaimed dramatically “is that once Vorax’s boys jumped in they were not expected to jump out again. The trap was sprung the moment the fleet jumped in system.”

“But that would mean…” Patricia started a bit stunned at this latest revelation.

“Yes, the GDI would need a fairly large space combat capacity, particularly considering their generally inferior technology. They would need at least enough to cover the main jump points as well as any pirate points. That hints at a fairly solid presence in space, many orbital facilities and such, which might make fresh imagery of Motherlode hard to edit.” Martin continued. “Also by keeping their home world cloaked in secrecy with the Terran gambit they have not given away any vital intelligence in case Vorax don’t take the bait. They conceal themselves from more serious threats behind an obvious bluff. If the information ended up in the hands of any of the great houses who have more resources to check out the data than a periphery pirate chief it would immediately be dismissed as an obvious hoax.”

“Just how much of a military space force do they have?” Patricia demanded.

“I don’t know.” Martin said with a shrug. “I don’t have enough information to determine that.”

“Speculate!” She ordered. No one had fought any major space engagements in centuries. That the GDI would set up a large scale jump point ambush was alarming. Apart from the Order’s hidden caches at Ross and Lutyen, which she herself was only made aware of after she was promoted to head the FWL desk, the art and tools of true space warfare was long lost. Those ships were the Order’s ultimate equalizer in case any of the successor states ever turned truly belligerent.

Martin didn’t reply immediately.

“This is not in the report and only my personal opinion Pat.” He finally said and as she nodded he continued. ”Their capacity in this area is hard to pinpoint since we only have indirect indications of it even existing, but extrapolating the observed lack of fusion power and energy weaponry in the GDI the most likely form of space based military would be some form of primitive missile ships, perhaps with ion engines for longer operations.” He hesitated before continuing “Yes. I don’t think we have seen anything from the GDI that would indicate more sophistication than that...”

Patricia sighed slightly in relief. She really didn’t want to have to side with the interventionists on the CSN issue. Patricia was a firm believer in Blake’s vision that Comstar should help humanity survive the follies of its insane leadership by preserving the blessings of the past golden age of the Star League. But as the Third Succession war ground on into a new millennium she found herself wondering just how long is this was going to be allowed to continue. The great houses obviously loved their war even more than they hated each other since they had halted their savage destruction just short of rendering each other incapable of continuing the fighting. The emergence of the CSN and the destruction of the pirate nest at Antallos was the first positive thing to have happened to that suffering region in decades, perhaps centuries, and some openly wanted to destroy it over a few suspected lostech trinkets. Some members of the order were still far too occupied with tearing down rather than building up.

“…their military hardware, what we have managed to observe of it, is almost a perfect match for what the Terran Alliance fielded a thousand years ago. Naturally with a few improvements made over the centuries.” He waved to a cluttered work bench where various components lay scattered about but still connected by a snake pit of wiring. “They never developed the modern computer so they continued to refine the old binary technology to exceptional levels.”

“You trashed the Motherlode computer! Do you realize how much our agents paid for that thing?” she exclaimed.

“Uhh… I wouldn’t say thrashed, it still works it is just a bit… larger. More distributed.” Martin replied hesitantly. “I needed to see what makes it tick.”

She laughed. “Oh don’t worry Martin you can keep it, we have a couple more of them. So an ancient Terran Alliance colony is the answer to the CSN puzzle in your opinion?” She looked him in the eyes “It is thin.”

“Yes, but somewhat denser than the other theories that are floating around. Most of those are damn near invisible.” Martin sat silent for a few moments. “I even think I have identified the exact colony fleet involved.”

“What? You know the specific fleet involved? You still have not entirely convinced me that Motherlode originates from the Alliance era.”

“I know that, we can’t exclude the possibility that Motherlode could be of more recent origin until we get more data. But that is unlikely to happen until the location of their world becomes general knowledge, and given the manner of their reintroduction to human society I can certainly understand their reluctance to reveal themselves, even to us.”

“So who do you think they are?” Martin’s speculation could on occasion be interesting.

“Have you heard of Commodore Mary Celeste and the Charon fleet?”

Patricia barked out a short laugh.

“The Charon fleet? It is a spacer myth, Martin!”

“Yes, but like most myths there is a bit of truth in it.” Martin replied defensively “Charon wasn’t the flagship, just a transport among many in the convoy. Mary Celeste wasn’t the convoy commander but the colony supervisor and her real name was Marika Seles. The Charon convoy was one of the most ambitious colonizing projects that the Alliance had attempted thus far. It was an effort to calm the opposition from the poorer member nations of the Alliance to the colonization program by inviting them onboard. For the first time substantial participation from China, India and Africa was included in a major colony mission. Naturally they sent their best and their brightest to take advantage of the rare opportunity that had presented itself, so when the fleet misjumped the entire operation boomeranged so badly on the Alliance government that it had to face a no-confidence vote.”

Martin waved toward the slowly rotating holographic planet.

“That is almost exactly the Terra they left a millennium ago. They arrive at Motherlode, probably with their jumpdrives burnt out and dropshuttles damaged but they are fortunate and manage to make planetfall on a hospitable planet. A friendly environment with plentiful food sources would allow them to maintain most of their technological base; interstellar space travel and fusion power seems to be their main losses. They follow the original colony plan for the fleet calling for five independent settlements on the planet. As a result they keep the ethnic and linguistic divides that have been observed in the units serving on Antallos, probably the political divides as well. The Charon fleet was sub-divided according to nationalities and that mirrors nicely what we have seen of them on Antallos.”

“You think the CSN is divided internally? Even after all this time?” That could present interesting opportunities. The internal divisions in the Free Worlds League had provided the Order with many options, for good and bad, to further Blake’s vision over the years. The low water mark in recent times being Kristofur’s disgraceful involvement in Anton Marik’s disastrous rebellion.

“Yes I do. Coalition of Sovereign Nations, why emphasize that the nations are sovereign unless it is to reassure themselves? Global Defense Initiative, why would any unified planetary government need to emphasize that it’s military is indeed global? But most of that is nothing but my guesses, what I think I can say with reasonable certainty, based on the limited information available, is that an early Terran Alliance lost colony is the most obvious suspect regarding the origin of Motherlode in my opinion. Given the time span involved what seems to some to be Lostech from the Star League could simply be local developments and refinement on their Terran Alliance tech base over time.”

As Patricia left Martin’s smelly dungeon and walked along the barren grey corridors of Hiltonhead’s lowest levels she pondered his analysis. It was way off from what most of the division's ROM analysts were saying and what the Precentor Atreus and the rest of the First Circuit chose to believe. But then Martin was brilliant at finding needles in haystacks, she had recognized that long ago when she recruited him, and there was a ring of truth in his work. It explained far more of the odd facts and strange events than any other theory she had seen so far.

By the time Patricia Copperfield reached her office she had reached a conclusion. The First Circuit were wrong! The Primus thought of CSN as little more than a small glorified Star League cache to be herded into the fold. Precentor Dieron considered it to be nothing more than a belligerent Successor state – one small enough for her to vent her frustrations on. But if Martin was right there was a golden opportunity here. A world untouched by the corruption of the Inner Sphere, an industrialized world perhaps capable of lifting the surrounding region out of stagnation and decline. The CSN certainly seemed to have such ambitions judging by the reports coming in from the Outworlds Alliance and Antallos itself.

“Blake’s will…” she whispered to herself.

The risk was great, but the reward might be even greater. Give the peoples of the Inner Sphere a ‘shining city on the hill’, an example of what might have been and let them contrast that vision to the corruption and incompetence of their current masters. Then they would be ready. Then Comstar could finally realize Blake’s vision, for what one world on the edge of known space could do for Antallos and the Outworlds Alliance Comstar and Terra could certainly do a thousand fold for the Inner Sphere.

Amir's Café, Center of Port Krin
March 3rd, 3023

Special Agent Jim Gant left the busy streets of Port Krin and escaped the merciless sun. Entering Amir's, he took a look at the surroundings and was pleasantly suprised. The arabian-style café was, if at all, looking even more decent from the inside than the facade outside suggested. The air was noticeably cooler than outside and the scent of fresh coffee lingered in the air. A waitress welcomed him and asked wether he wanted a table, but Gant told her that he was already meeting somebody.

It was just after noon and Amir's was almost deserted, which allowed Gant to quickly spot Captain Révész sitting at a table in the far corner from the entrance. He walked over and sat down, greeting the fellow police officer.

"That's quite the nice place you invited me in. I'll have to remember the adress."

"Sure. Amir's is a bit of an insider tip when it comes to finding a good café here in town. You absolutely have to try the coffee."

"I'll remember it, Jenci. Now, I guess there's another reason you called me here."

"We might finally have a lead on the PKLF."

"Oh? Has there been anything new from the site of that latest attack?"

Reévész smiled. "No, there hasn't. And my superiors are by now chomping at the bit. More than a dozen attacks and we still have nothing. But today, I found a little message in my mail, with a request for a meeting here concerning the PKLF. Signed by nobody else but Danilo Cremonesi."

Gant just raised his eyebrows. "So, who's that exactly?"

"Ah, sorry. I forgot. Cremonesi is,-" Révész stopped in mid-sentence as the waitress had reached their table and ordered two cups of black coffee for him and Gant "-well, since you came in and kicked out Vorax and his allies he's the perhaps biggest kingpin still in town."

"A crime boss? Why are we going to talk to him? And why isn't he behind bars?"

"Simple, Jim. For one, Cremonesi didn't do anything when GDI marched in here. He and Vorax hated each others guts and the only thing keeping Vorax from starting an outright war and dismantle Cremonesi's operation was that it'd weaken Vorax enough to make him vulnerable. That, and Cremonesi is just about the least worst of the surviving bosses, which makes him somewhat low-priority compared to the others. Jim, I know that man. Remember, I was part of the organised crime department, or what passed as one, before GDI turned up and believe me, he gave us a good deal of work. He wouldn't ask us for a personal meeting if he didn't have something."

"So, what can we expect? Do you have any information on this guy?"

Révész simply laid down the information. "Short version: Danilo Cremonesi, 51 years old, has a wife, 49, two natural and one adopted kid, all in their late teens or early twenties. Parents unknown, but died when he was young. He joined up with a gang on the South Side at age 13. Much of the following years are unclear, but with 30 years he was the boss of his own little organisation and one of the up-and-coming stars in the local crime scene, though he never showed any real ambitions to become the top dog. Lives in an estate a few klicks out of town. The place lasted through the invasion rather well, mostly because Cremonesi remained strictly neutral at the time."

"He runs a number of legal businesses, mainly construction and logistics, and uses them as front companies. On the shadowy side, he's got protection rackets in a few parts of town and a major stake in illegal gambling and prostitution. On top of that, he's the perhaps biggest information broker on this planet. Some small scale smuggling and weapons trafficking, too. He absolutely despises drug dealers and slavers, though, for unknown reasons. When he took over the South Side he gave all dealers and slavers two weeks to get out. Those that didn't comply ended up with unfriendly people applying hammers and chisels to their kneecaps."

"Yikes, that's heavy-handed." Révész' answer was interrupted by the waitress bringing the two cups of coffee to the table. Gant took a sip and immediately resolved to visit this place again.

Révész shoock his head. Things like these reminded him that Gant hadn't grown up in this city. "Actually, that was rather tame given the kind of stuff other gang bosses pulled at the time. Cremonesi has always been more of a businessman than a warlord. He's got a few platoons of professional infantrymen, mostly ex-mercenaries. About two overstrenght companies. But the few times he went into actual turf wars, he relied more on bribery, assassinations and hiring outside help than sheer brute force. The only exception was six years ago." He shuddered. "The October Massacre is what the media dubbed it. It also pretty much marked Cremonesis rise to one of the first tier players in the city, the first time he really showed just how many strings he could pull."

"The Ristovska Cartel, one of the big players at the time, tried moving their businesses in drugs and slavery into his territory. After a bit of scraping between sides because he didn't let them in, they lost their patience and decided to try and coerce him. They broke into the house of Cremonesis second-in command and... well, as far as we could put the pieces together they first forced the poor guy to watch as they killed his wife and older daughter before cutting him up and letting him bleed out. And then his younger daughter came back home and found her entire family brutally murdered."

Révész was looking very ill. "I was part of the taskforce given that case. Man, I wish I could forget the picture when we arrived at the place. Anyways, we never got much together, mostly because Vorax had no real interest in us succeeding. Cremonesi adopted the poor girl. I actually met him back then, at the funeral. When I asked him wether he knew anything about it, he simply told me to keep out of this in a very friendly and polite manner."

"I'm not exactly a coward, but his tone and the look in his eyes... good lord, I had never seen the man like that before. The same expressionless facade he normally keeps up, but behind that... not even anger or anything, just an utterly brutal and cold determination. It gave me the shivers. I knew then and there that something bad was about to happen and that I definitely wanted to be far away when it happened."

"For a week after the murders, things were quiet, save for the Cartel continuing to infringe on his territoy and getting even more bold. And when it happened, it happened so fast, nobody had any time to even react properly. October 1st, 3017 at about 8 o`clock local time, Cremonesi hit back. First target was the barracks of their combat troops, including the lance of medium Mechs they loved toting around to scare off smaller competitors. Cremonesis men drove a tanker truck full of a mix of fuel, explosives and inferno gel straight through the walls of their compound Downtown and blew the barracks into smithereens before an infantry contingent went over the rubble and shot all survivors before bagging the Mechs and getting away."

"Over the next four hours, smaller groups of infantry attacked Cartel holdings all over the city, systematically storming their hideouts and killing every member they could get. And then, Cremonesi pulled two light Mechs out of his pocket, which together with about a full company of footsloggers went directly for the headquarters of the Cartel. They forced the defenders to retreat inside and... well, one of the Mechs was a Firestarter. They burned the thing to the ground, with the people still inside. All in all, the Ristovska Cartel lost about 250 or so people that you could have described as full-scale members in their organisation, as well as quite a few minor dealers and thugs. They were finished."

Gant couldn't fully believe this. 'Jesus, that makes the Valentine Massacre look like a joke.' "What happened then?"

"The next few days after that, most of the Cartel members that got away were killed off one by one. A few escaped, but Cremonesi put a price on each one of them high enough that they're pretty much dead the moment they set foot in this city again. And the rest of the big crimelords in town, including Vorax, went completely crazy. Nobody had expected anything like this from the old bastard. He always had had a bit of a reputation as being laid back and averse to really get his hands dirty. And then he suddenly comes out and massacres a major player here in town in an utterly one-sided slaughter. Pretty much everyone got caught flat-footed by that and it shook up things somewhat fierce."

Gant grimaced. "And the Mechs and men?"

"Unknown, both the two lights and that lance of mediums. Nobody ever saw them again. Rumor is that the old bastard still has them hidden in reserve in case of anyone trying to start a full-scale gang war with him. The men were a mix of short-term hired mercenaries and his own guys. That said, Cremonesi was always one of the most peaceful bosses here in town. The man is content with making profit and generally tries to not piss off anyone. He seems to regard violence as a costly and largely unnecessary last resort. He also runs a very good insurance fund for the families of his people and knows how to not create enough evidence. Vorax repeatedly tried to get us to dig up good evidence on him in the past, but the man knows how to cover his tracks just good enough that you can't prove his involvement. Hell, the October Massacre? He has literally hundreds of witnesses testifying that he was at the other end of town, shopping and going into an expensive restaurant together with his family and bodyguards. It's the same as always. Everybody knows that he's behind it, but nobody ever manages to get real evidence on it. And his people don't talk. Period."

"He's adapting rather well, too. His legal businesses are booming and his smuggling and arms trafficking stopped completely as far as we can tell. It looks like he genuinely aims at going legit. Add all those factors and you can see why the guys from organised crime put him at low priority."

"I... see." Gant wasn't exactly comfortable with this, but in the last few months he had learned a few things about Port Krin and could see why even the new organised crime department was acting like this. The town was still having an almost overwhelming problem with the surviving mobsters and with what Jenci had told him right now, it made genuine sense to put this particular guy on the backburner and concentrate on the more brutal and less intelligent criminals first. "So, when is he coming?"

"Any minute now, he tends to be a bit early. Once he's coming, try to let me handle the talk. Ahh, there he is." Révész answered, gesturing at the entrance to the café. Gant watched as an old, gray-haried, but apparrently still rather healthy man with a noticeable tan in a business suit, followed by two people that just screamed 'bodyguard', entered the café. The man walked over in their direction without any apparrent hurry while the two gorillas took positions guarding the niche their table was situated in.

Cremonesi shook their hands and sat down. "Hello, Lieutenant, no, it's Captain now, isn't it? Captain Révész. It is as always a pleasure to meet you. How's your daughter doing? I heard she's entering one of the schools our new management opened up. Oh, and I believe I didn't meet your companion before, Mr. -?"

Révész answered. "Gant. Special Agent Jim Gant. He's from, as you describe it, our new management and here to help building up our police force. And the pleasure is all mine Mr. Cremonesi. My daughter is doing fine, thank you. I hope your family is doing well, too?"

"Thank you, Captain. And yes, my family is doing well. My youngest son just finished his private education and he actually plans to visit one of the colleges the CSN are building. He has always been a smart boy. But enough of the small talk. I invited you to this meeting and time is money."

"So, why did you invite us, Mr. Cremonesi?"

"The Port Krin Liberation Front."

"Go on."

"I think I have a few informations on them that you could find very useful, Captain. You see, one of my foremen in a construction company lately saw one of his workers in the aftermath of the latest attack, very close to that office building that got bombed. The next day, when he, careful to not show his intentions of course, talked with this man, he received some rather creative lies for an answer. At that moment, I decided to investigate a bit more and the results were rather interesting. Somebody is operating out of an old ruin at the edge of town. I thought of them as simple smugglers at first, but with these new details coming in, I had to realise that I stumbled over something entirely differrent."

"Interesting. You don't happen to be able to give me a name and an adress, Mr. Cremonesi? Or some actual hard information?"

"Oh, I can send you another message containing all this, Captain. In fact, consider it done."

At this, Gant couldn't but interrupt. "And what, Mr. Cremonesi, is your profit in this?"

"That is easy, Special Agent. Stability. I am happy with the status quo. As things stand, you undoubtedly know the direction my... business is taking at the moment. Now, this Port Krin Liberation Front, they're trying to upset the status quo. And not only that, but they're doing so without any regard to the existing structures here in the city. I am not exactly the only... influential person that'd prefer it if they met an early end. Given that, it is only natural for me to help you along with ending this unfortunate affair, don't you think?"

"Is that so?" Gant asked sceptically.

"You don't have any reason to believe otherwise, do you, Agent? But, if that's not enough to make you think that this is to my benefit, let's just say that you owe me one, gentlemen. The information will be sent to you via mail and arrive in an hour or two, Captain Révész." Cremosi took a look at his wristwatch. "Oh, this late already? You will have to excuse me, gentlemen, I have a few more appointments today. It was a pleasure to meet you."

And with that, the man stood up, shook their hands and left the café, his bodyguards in tow.

Gant was the first one to speak. "Well, that was interesting. I'd never want to play Poker with this guy, he barely moved a single muscle on his face."

"You saw that slight smile by the end, Jim? For Cremonesi on a business meeting, that's almost an outburst of emotion. The way you jousted him right now earned some respect, I guess. But yeah, he's got one hell of a poker face. Might not be the worst thing if the rumors are true."

"Rumors?"

"Rumors have it that he plans to go into politics, perhaps candidating for mayor. Now that'd be funny, wouldn't it? Well, let's see what he gives us and hope that it's worth something."

Gant, still trying to wrap his head around the first part of the statement, decided to just answer the second. "Your word to God's ear, Jenci."

Port Krin Police Headquarters,
March 11th, 3023

"That info from Cremosi was worth gold. I think we have them. That Kitakawa guy, and we indentified seven others, although we have no names yet. Seems like we hit the jackpot, so do we observe them a bit longer or shall we move in?"

"I don't know, Jim. Their attacks ceased for some reason, so I'd like to watch them a bit longer. But if they plan something big..."

"Just my thoughts. It's the old problem. If we wait, we run the danger of them pulling a big one or noticing something and going into cover. If we don't wait, we risk missing some of them. We haven't seen anyone new in the last days, though, so I guess we have them all. I'd say we should just bust the place. Perhaps try and spy on them from closer in for a few days, but doing that with them holed up in the basement of that old ruin in the outskirts would be pretty hard to-"

Gant was rudely interrupted by the ringing of Révesz' phone. Révész took up the receiver and started speaking.

"Captain Révész here..."

The FBI agent hated listening to phone conversations in this one-sided way. It always confused him to no end and he was never able to deduct much of anything, so he decided to take a look at the photos made during the last days. Then he realised that Révész' voice was growing more alarmed by the second.

"...understood... Oh damnit, we're on the way!"

He put the phone away, put a note on the table and hurriedly stood up, going for the hat stand in the corner of the office. "We have to go. Now."

While standing up, too, Gant asked apprehensively: "Another attack?"

"No, worse."

"Then what?"

"A construction company just reported the theft of over half a ton of high explosives and the way that stuff got stolen is almost identical to the stolen chemicals the PKLF used in that attack on the market two weeks ago."

"Oh shit."

"Just my thoughts. My superiors are just short of going berserk. Call up your Rainbow buddies, we're raiding that place, NOW. Our SWAT detail isn't nearly ready by the training reports your people have written, so we'll request you to send in Rainbow instead. Seems like the PKLF just made the decision for us."

Outskirts of Port Krin,
March 11th, 3023

Like any soldier, Domingo 'Ding' Chavez hated waiting. He hated it almost as much as having to watch his fellow soldiers walking into danger while he had to stay back, bound by his rank. At such times, he regreted having accepted the promotion to become Rainbow Six. And as such, all he could do now was to watch Rainbow teams 1 and 2 moving in on the hideout of the Port Krin Liberation Front.

He still worried. Had he missed anything? All 8 identified tangos were confirmed to be present in the building at the edge of Port Krin. The local police had spent the last week getting as much information as possible on this abandoned derelict and it had been confirmed that the PKLF cell was only using the ground floor and the basement. The single stairwell access to the upper floors of the old apartment building had collapsed years ago, rendering the upper floors almost inaccessible. This left a fire escape tunnel from the basement and two entrances on the ground floor as entry points. After much planning, they had decided to split off 4 men from Team 1 to infiltrate through the tunnel while the remaining 3 4-man fireteams would simultaneously storm the place through the entrances on the ground floor, with the snipers of both teams covering all ways out of the building, while a single 2-man team would act as a reserve. An entry through a window had been ruled out. The windows on the ground floor were all boarded up and both he and his teamleaders had come to the conclusion that trying to break through them would be too loud and too slow and hence cost them the element of suprise.

Until now, the plan had gone of without a hitch. All teams were just short of being in position, the snipers were ready and there had been no indication of any guards in place. Only two things were nagging Chavez: The tunnel team was lagging behind after Sergeant Connolly, the explosives expert of Team 1, had stopped the fireteam to disarm two booby traps. And, more importantly, the heavy duty construction of the outer walls of the building was interfering with the heartbeat sensors, turning them all but useless until his men could move into the building.

Once more, Chavez cursed the habit of the old Star League to build things to last. According to the city records, the old ruin had once been part of an SL administration compound and like with seemingly everything they did, the Star League engineers hadn't known the meaning of the term 'overkill' when they constructed the place. No wonder that it was still standing after literally centuries of abandonment! And now it was endangering his plan and all he could do was watch from the safety of their transport van, with a local police captain and an FBI special agent looking over his shoulder, as his men had to storm and secure the building with less intelligence than they hoped for, the goal of capturing as many live tangos as possible (and Port Krin's police chief had made that very clear; they wanted to interrogate these guys, lest there were more cells of the PKLF that they didn't know about) and a large pile of explosives somewhere inside that they had to secure ASAP. Oh, and to round things up, half of his men had never been into a mission with Rainbow after he had to split up the original teams when the organisation was radically expanded with the formation of the CSN.

He shook his head, again regretting his decision to let himself get bumped up.
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Like any soldier, 'Fumihiro Kitakawa' hated waiting. He had long since accepted the fact that much of his work was to simply sit around doing nothing, but he still hated it. Luckily, he thought, it wouldn't be long now. The entire strike team was assembled and One -- as a precaution, he never learnt even the cover names of his associates, just like they never learnt his -- was holding the final briefing. The preparations were complete. Transport had been arranged in an abandoned garage a few blocks away, everyone knew the plan for the attack on the GDI barracks in the city center down to the last detail and their cover-up had already been set and activated. In two hours, just after midnight, they would move out, split into two teams and get into position to hit the target just two hours before dawn. The plan called for a silent infiltration of the GDI compound followed by causing as much damage as possible with the explosives every team member was equipped with. One team for the officer quarters, one team for the motor pool. After that, the Loki agents would disperse, get into deep cover and leave the planet over the span of the next few months. And even if things went wrong for some reason there were Nine and Ten, who had not been in direct contact with the cell since their first meeting on this planet and had laid low ever since. They would still be able to monitor the situation and report back to HQ eventually, just as an insurance.

A few minutes after their attack, their erstwhile hideout would be collapsed by the charges they had set shortly after their arrival. The countdown had already been triggered. Six had proven himself to be a true artist in that regard and he had set up the charges in such a way that any cleanup of the site would reveal just enough to make it look like a botched attempt at wiping out evidence. Evidence that would point in the direction of the Draconis Combine when it came to the inevitable question of who was responsible for the terror campaign in Port Krin that culminated in an attack on vital GDI assets.

He wondered wether he should try and get a nap after the briefing. One had rejected the idea of posting guards outside anyway. The suprises they had in place at the back door and the alarms installed on the two ground level doors would draw less suspicion towards the seemingly abandoned building, he had reasoned, especially as the few rooms they actually used made sure that no light would escape outside, leaving the building looking like just another abandoned ruin like the dozens upon dozens that still dominated the outskirts of the city.

The next moment, his thoughts were rudely interrupted.
_________________________________________________________________

Sergeant Paddy Connolly was probing a closed door in the fire escape tunnel. After having already disarmed three booby traps, he had given up on keeping with the planned schedule. The fireteam was late already anyway and though whoever set those traps appeared to be only a mildly educated amateur with primitive tools, Connolly was not going to take any chances. He slipped a tiny camera under the door to check for more surprises. Not finding anything suspicious, he signalled the rest of the fireteam that he would open it. Sergeant Mike Pierce, the other 'oldtimer' in the fireteam signalled his acknowledgement a split second before the two newcomers, Sergeant Gang Ts'ao of the People's Liberation Army Special Operations Forces and Wachtmeester (Sergeant) Mart Wieringa of the Royal Netherlands Army. Seeing that everyone was ready, he slowly pushed open the door.

The small motion sensor was one of the finest products of draconian worksmanship. Hidden as it was in a small crack of the tunnel walls, it was hardly visible at all, even at a second glance. As Sergeant Connolly slowly opened the door, the sensor registered this motion and triggered a delayed fuse on the few grams of explosives hidden in the walled off and nigh-perfectly hidden compartment below it. A full two seconds afterwards, just as the sergeant took his first step through the doorframe, the charge went off with a deafening bang that was only reinforced by the cramped quarters of the tunnel. It turned it's own casing and the thin wall of it's compartment into a hail of shrapnel that hit the completely unprepared man.

The new 'IS-issue' body armor the Rainbow teams had been equipped with was, compared to the now outdated kevlar armor of older days, a veritable miracle and able to cope easily with this kind of attack. It did not, however, achieve full-body coverage. A single piece of shrapnel hit Sergeant Connolly directly below his helmet and pierced his skull. The veteran was dead before his body had hit the ground.

Former Delta Force Sergeant Mike Pierce was not so lucky. While the body of his brother-in-arms had shielded him from the blast and shrapnel of the explosive charge, it did nothing to stop the second part of the trap. Stored in the compartment together with the small charge had been several 40mm grenades which now detonated sympathetically and explosively spread their contents. The last thing Mike Pierce saw was a veritable wall of flames rushing at him as the inferno gel ignited, followed by a sense of nothing but pain.

Sergeants Ts'ao and Wieringa, standing a few meters behind the lead pair, jumped back just in time to evade the worst of the blaze, with only Ts'ao having part of his uniform catch fire. Instictively, he dropped to the ground and tried putting out the flames. Wieringa, standing the farthest away from the fire only momentarily dropped, more out of instict than anything else. Even before he could fully comprehend the situation, his training kicked in. He grabbed Ts'ao and began dragging him away from the flames while franctically shouting into his radio.

"MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!"
_________________________________________________________________

For perhaps half a second, Fumihiro Kitakawa and his associates were frozen in place upon the sound of what was clearly one of the booby traps at the basement entry going off. Then the entire room exploded into action. Most of them had already armed themselves and the remainder immediately picked up the submachineguns and grenades. A moment later, they could hear the unmistakable sound of both doors to the ground floor being kicked in.

"Case Blue." The two words, spoken by One, immediately set them into motion. The floor plan of the building was in their favour, funneling any enemy coming through the ground floor entrances into a single axis of advance. The Loki team had further reinforced this advantage by walling off several corridors. Case Blue called for a staggered retreat towards the basement until they could fully assess the situation and their preparations had made sure that the room they were in constituted the only access to the corridor leading to the stairwell into said basement.

Almost instinctively, they formed up into two-man teams. Seven and Eight covered the door that the attackers would have to come through while everyone else stormed into the stairwell access. Just as Kitakawa left the room, the door at its other end exploded inwards.
_________________________________________________________________

Staff Sergeant George Tomlinson swore under his breath as he and Steve Lincoln threw their flashbangs through the blown door. The booby trap at the basement entrance had already demolished the plan. They now had to move fast or they would fully lose the element of surprise. The flashbangs went off and Lincoln immediately filed through the door.

Tomlinson went after him, weapon raised. Their senses were assaulted by muzzle flashes and the sound of gunfire. Lincoln spotted a man in civilian clothes holding, no, firing a weapon at the other end of the room and dropped the tango with a burst to the head. His view swept throughout the room and spotted an open door and, more importantly, a second target aiming squarely at him. Before he could shift his weapon, the man went down, blood splattering on the wall behind him as the rest of the fireteam stormed into the room behind him, the other two teams on their heels.

He could see that Tomlinson was down and was about to announce it when the former Delta operative began standing up and signalled him that he was okay. The other two members of the fireteam, Sergeants Loiselle and Fallaci, quickly moved across the room towards the other door as the second fireteam entered. Just as they were about to reach the door, both jumped back. "Grenade!"
_________________________________________________________________

Sergeant First Class Homer Johnston, situated on a small hill in sight of the target building, was aiming his rifle down at a series of windows on the ground floor. He had just seen movement behind those. And the radio transmissions made it clear that no Rainbow member had entered that corridor yet. Additionally, it sounded like things were going decidedly not according to plan. Johnston saw another figure moving through a gap in the boards nailed over the windows and, in a split-second decision, took the shot. And then he swore as another target passed along the window while he was chambering the next round.
_________________________________________________________________

Kitakawa could hear one of the enemy soldiers shout a warning just before his fragmentation grenade exploded. He didn't stop and hurried down the corridor directly behind One. They were almost to the stairwell as it happened. A shot pierced through the boarding over one of the windows and hit his superior straight into the hip, sending the man down to the ground. Kitakawa ducked but kept going forward. Even if One was still alive, he was out of the fight and there was no way to help him now. He made it to the stairwell, passing Two and Six, both having taken position in two alcoves along the corridor when the flashbangs went off behind him.
_________________________________________________________________

Louis Loiselle jumped through the doorway into the corridor. He immediately spotted another tango holed up in an alcove at the other end of the corridor through his sights and pulled the trigger before realising the motion his target had just carried out. 'Oh shit, not again!' some detached part of his mind screamed. "Grenade!", he yelled while jumping into a similar alcove just across the corridor, Fallaci behind him quickly jumping back into the room they had just cleared. As if to underline the wisdom of that decision, a burst of gunfire flew up the corridor just before the grenade went off.

He swung back into the corridor and saw another tango peeking out of the stairwell access to the basement, aiming down the sights of a submachinegun. He pulled the trigger and his target went down. As he called out the confirmation, he saw movement at the edge of his vision as the second fireteam entered the corridor and- 'Merde....' "Man down!" Sergeant Ecole Fallaci was lying on the ground, bleeding out of three neat holes in his forehead.
_________________________________________________________________

Sergeant Geoff Bates led the second fireteam down the corridor, just pausing for a split-second as he saw another downed tango at the side of the corridor. 'Must be the one Homer got.' He closed in on the man, aiming his weapon at the head of the target. His target was still breathing, but clearly not in any shape to fight, judging by the slowly gathering pool of blood on the ground. He went closer to check on the tango when the man groaned. Fixated on the sound, Bates almost missed the slight movement farther below. Looking down, the blood in his veins ran cold. He was just about to shout the warning as the grenade the injured man had hidden went off, killing Bates and the wounded tango in a hail shrapnel.
_________________________________________________________________

Everything was going to hell.

Kitakawa entered the large storeroom that made up most of the basement, Four and Five already securing the entrance. From up the stairs, he could hear more gunfire and grenades going off. It was over. Whoever these attackers were, they were professionals, heavily equipped and had brought enough manpower to push their attack through. Between the three of them, he and his men stood no chance to stop them. He knew what he had to do.

"I'm enacting Case Red." The words were spoken calmly and without any apparent emotion from him, but he saw the realisation in their eyes. His words could as well have been a death sentence. No, he corrected himself, they were a death sentence. Theirs, and his own. Both of them just nodded and kept watching the entrance. As he ran towards the control unit situated on a crate at the center of the room, part of him wondered if there was any way out of this, but he discarded the thought. The orders were clear. The mission came first, always. And capture was not an option. He owed his entire life to the Commonwealth and if he had to sacrifice it on this god-forsaken rock at the other end of the Inner Sphere to salvage his mission, then there was no question to be asked.

Picking up the remote control unit for the charges they had set to demolish the building, he reset the countdown to 3 minutes while taking cover behind the crate. With some luck, they would resist long enough to draw more of the enemy in before the charges went off. Finished, he calmly dropped the device to the floor and put a burst from his submachinegun into it. Now all the fuses on the charges in the basement would continue to count down independently, with no practical way to stop them in time.

In that moment, a flashbang went off at the entrance and the gunfire started. Half blind, Kitakawa could still see one of the figures entering the room go down. He calmly aimed at another intruder and squeezed off a burst, sending his target down. Another man came through the door and the last thing the Loki agent saw was the muzzle of an unfamiliar type of submachinegun lighting up.
_________________________________________________________________

"Clear. Shit, we need a medic! We have men down here."

Chief Micheal Thorp, the new explosives expert of Rainbow Team 2, surveyed the room. The last three tangos were down, but so were Sergeants Houston and Fisher. Fisher began standing up. "I think I'm okay. Vest took it." He grimaced. "Shit, it hurts like hell." Feldwebel Weisz, the last member of the third fireteam, was giving first aid to Houston, who was definitely not in such a good shape, judging by the blood Thorp could see. "He took one to the throat. Give me a second to stabilise him. we need to get him to a hospital, fast."

Thorp ordered Fisher to help Weisz before continuing to take a look at the room and the downed tangos. He noticed the markings on the crates in the room. Some bore unintelligible, japanese-looking markings, but on two others, the markings were unmistakable. 'Oh hell, these guys were no amateurs and that's enough equipment down here to fight a small war! What the hell did we get into?' He felt the adrenaline slowly going back after what had perhaps been the longest minute or so in his life. Stepping over the body at the rough center of the room, he recognised Fumihiro Kitakawa from the briefings. "So, who the hell have you been, sport?", he muttered to himself. Then, his gaze fell on a shot-up device on the ground next to the body. It began to dawn to him when he looked at one of the columns lining the room, spotting something out of place. Or rather, perfectly in place.

"HOLY SHIT!" He started running, his adrenaline kicking back in with a vengeance. "GET OUT! They rigged the place! I say again, they rigged the place!" Thorp stormed over to help the others with Houston as the radio channels exploded with shouting. With all due care and a lot more haste, they carried Houston up the stairs and to the exit, being the last of the teams to clear the building. They were barely 50 meters away as the charges started going off in a rather anticlimatic series of almost harmless sounding bangs. Everybody went down and watched in horror as the old apartment building slowly collapsed into itself, its structural supports pulverised by more than a dozen small demolition charges.

Apartment building, 2 miles away

Nine watched with disgust as the hideout of his team collapsed. The charges going off this early could only mean that something had gone horribly wrong and that most of the team was dead.

He shook his head. Orders were clear. He and Ten would go into deep cover immediately, try to find out whatever they could about what had happened without taking any risks and then leave the planet for good at the next opportunity. He cursed. It was not the first time he was part of a botched operation, but he still despised losses. Almost as much as botched operations.

Outskirts of Port Krin,
90 minutes later

To say that Domingo Chavez was pissed would have been the understatement of the day. 'What landmine did we just step on?' It was clear that whatever the Port Krin Liberation Front had been, it wasn't a bunch of self-designated weekend freedom fighters. They had stumbled upon a black operation in the worst way possible. And four of his men had paid the ultimate price for this discovery.

Even more, he thought, they had been lucky. Sam Houston was being operated on, the bullet having just barely missed his jugular and spine. George Tomlinson and Joshua Fisher were only alive thanks to the new vests. Louiselle had had to dig enough shrapnel out of his body armor to shock even the old veteran to the bone after he hadn't even felt the impacts during the fight. Ts'ao and Wieringa had both gotten themselves a nice tan and barely escaped the tunnel as the inferno gel consumed the limited amount of oxygen in the cramped quarters and set off all the ammunition and grenades Connolly and Pierce had on them. And if Thorp hadn't seen those charges... Chavez shuddered at the thought. Whoever these guys had been, they had been frightingly competent and fanatical.

At least they had been able to get everyone out before the place went down, including the bodies of Fallaci and Bates. Connolly and Pierce, however... After the pirate invasion, someone had described inferno gel as the bastard offspring of napalm and thermite to Ding. At the time he'd been skeptical, but after today's events he didn't doubt it anymore. After the gel in the tunnel had burnt out, the only remains they had found of their fallen comrades had been the molten remains of their body armour and weapons, surrounded by a pile of ash.

Stepping out of the deserted command van with a cup of coffee in his hands, his sight fell on the pile of rubble that had been a five-story building just an hour ago. Now, the place was cordoned off by GDI infantry and Port Krin police and Ding could see the first heavy equipment arriving. Whatever evidence was left after this disaster, digging it out would take its time.

GDI Headquarters, Port Krin
March 14th, 3023

Domingo Chavez knocked at the door of the conference room. "It's open" a voice shouted from inside. As he opened the door, Chavez could see Group Captain Samantha Swift rise from her seat to greet him, even as several other spooks continued sifting through the mess of documents on the large table dominating the center of the room, paying hardly any attention to him.

"Major Chavez", Swift and the Rainbow CO saluted each other.

"Ma'am. I've been told you have some results?"

"Yes, major, we do." She gestured at one of the seats." Please, take a seat. We're by now through most of the stuff the excavation teams were able to dig out, and General Shao is going up the walls of his office from the implications."

"I gathered as much, ma'am." 'And not only him', Chavez added in his thoughts.

Swift simply spoke one word. "Miro."

On command, one of the analysts spoke up. "We're agreeing with your assessment that the Port Krin Liberation Front was not a mere homegrown terrorist organisation."

This annoyed Chavez, though he kept his thoughts to himself. 'No shit, Sherlock?'

The analyst continued. "Besides the eight bodies, the excavation found several crates containing small arms including silenced weapons, light body armour, night vision equipment, high-quality personal radios, mil-grade explosives and incendiaries that somehow survived the demolition. But the real shocker was a number of documents that were salvaged mostly intact and detailed their plans. Much of it were plans for the bombings they carried out in the last weeks, but they also included photographs and maps of this very base, including copies of several construction blueprints of the refurbished Star League era buildings forming the core of the installation."

"What? How did they get those blueprints? And what about the explosives stolen from that construction company? Were they found?"

"The police department was able to trace the stolen explosives to a bunch of smugglers. Had nothing to do with our case, just a stupid coincidence. We looked into it, but there's no visible connection at all. Regarding the blueprints, one of the dead suspects has been a new worker in the archives of the city administration. Our best guess at this date is that he managed to access and copy the blueprints there, but we're still looking into it. Now, to continue, we also salvaged a whole set of plans with it. "

"And they frankly scared the crap out of everyone, especially base security." Swift interjected. "Your attack came just in time, Major. From what we could decipher, they planned their big show to take place that very night."

"How big are we talking here?" Chavez asked apprehensively.

"Really, really big. From what we gathered, they planned on infiltrating the base for one big sabotage tour, planting explosives and incendiaries. Targets were the motor pool, main ammo dump, barracks and officer quarters." Swift shuddered. "Security gave me an estimated 80% chance of them pulling it off without a hitch and the consequences would have been disastrous. Dozens to hundreds of casualties if their plan to firebomb the barracks had panned out, the attack on the officer quarters could have very well decapitated us, and the attacks aimed at the motor pool and the loss of the ammo dump would have destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies. Plus burning ordnance raining down on a sizeable part of the city."

"Madre de Dios!" Chavez muttered.

"You can say that loud, major."

"So, who the hell were these guys?"

Again one of the analysts spoke up. "We don't know for sure, sir. Our evidence in that direction is far more spotty than we'd like it to be, but some evidence is there. All eight identified PKLF members have arrived on Antallos during the last four months. What we right now have in terms of traces on them end on Periphery worlds to our galactic north for three of them, with the other five ending in the Tabayama Prefecture of the Draconis Combine, and the marking of the equipment crates identify them as coming from several Combine manufacturing centers."

"Are you telling me that these guys have been Draconis Combine spec-ops?"

"That's the most logical scenario given the current evidence, sir. DEST or ISF commandos, most likely. The only other explanation we came up with is that another Successor State is pulling a false flag against the Combine, but we're right now rating that as unlikely."

"Why?"

"The radios. They've been definitely identified as Combine-manufacture and damn rare ones, too."

"I don't understand. From what I've read up, personal radios aren't that rare in the Inner Sphere proper."

"Yes, sir, but the same cannot be said about ones with in-built high-end encryption protocols. While we have confirmation that all the Successor States use similar designs on a small scale, the ones we salvaged have been definitely identified and we're rating the chance of someone else getting a load of personal radios reserved for Combine special forces and high-end elite units to be rather low. Our tech specialists have gotten quite the shock, too. These things were definitely not what they expected in the face of the rather primitive comm protocols we encountered so far."

"What? Could you explain that to me? Or is it classified?"

"Not really classified, sir. It's a rather clunky solution they employ to compensate for their low computational power, but the thought of them using it on a larger scale is driving SigInt nuts. These high-end comms are using a randomly-determined, pre-recorded encryption pattern and then distribute it via small data storage modules. Unless you have the right module, decoding their transmission is as good as impossible, though we expect to still be able to jam them to a degree. The drawback for that is that their personal radios are bulky as hell compared to ours and each of those encryption modules has a lifetime of just a few days of use maximum, making any use of them on a large scale a logistical challenge. Not to mention that it increases the danger of someone else getting their hands on the encryption module, enabling him to just listen in at his own leisure."

"Ah, okay. So, that's it, then? We stumbled over a Combine strike team?"

Captain Swift answered the question. "As far as we can tell, yes, but it's not 100% certain and we're frankly not expecting to ever be. From what we have on the identities and backgrounds of these men, they're all looking more and more like being complete fabrications. We were able to confirm that they were working as a closed group without any outside help once they and their equipment arrived on-planet. Pretty much every IS spook we identified in the city is trying to find out who did it, too, and personally, I can just guess what kind of shitstorm we'd be kicking loose if we presented this stuff to the Combine embassy."

Chavez just shook his head. "Great."

Office of the President of the Parliament
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance, Periphery
May 16, 2007/3022

Looking out of the massive window overlooking the meticulously cared for courtyard of the Presidential Palace and Parliamentary building, one would think that President Neil Avellar was admiring the blooms, flowers and scattered trees dotting the courtyard. Yet one would be wrong. If asked, he wouldn't even be able to tell you if there were people out there, down in the courtyard. His thoughts were preoccupied by an event that pretty much had taken every nation in the Inner Sphere and Periphery by surprise when it had sprung up over eight months ago. An event, that seemingly also had a component that impacted the Alliance, albeit indirectly.

The sound of his office doors opening, followed by rapid footsteps beating a staccato on the marble floor, shook him from his thoughts.

"Your excellency", greeted the well dressed man as he stopped in front of president Avellar's desk, coming to attention, even though he'd not worn his uniform for the occasion. Then again, his position and personality was such that he eschewed the uniform, as did most of the people in his employ.

"Stephen", president Avellar greeted his guest with a smile as he turned around, motioning for him to sit down in one of the leather chairs in front of the desk.

Stephen Rios-Rivera, head of the Alliance's small intelligence agency sat down stiffly in the chair, suppressing his nervousness as usual when confronted by his nation's leader. At times like these, the notion that he, a poor kid from Cerberus Province could rise up to become one of the president's senior advisors, seemed like nothing more then a feverish fantasy, or one of those games of 'what if' he and his buddies used to play.

"Stephen, relax. Sitting at attention like you do, makes ME uncomfortable. Reminds me of my teachers, when I was a kid", Avellar joked as he leaned back in his chair.

Rios-Rivera gave a small smile before forcing himself to relax slightly, leaning against the back of the chair. Opening up the file folder in his lap, Stephen began his summary.

"Mister President, before I begin, I have to caution you. Due to our limited capabilities, most of the information I'm about to convey is garnered from public sources. Where possible we've tried to confirm it through our own sources, but until we can obtain more information, any conclusions would be speculation at best."

Nodding his understanding, Avellar motioned Stephen to continue.

"In the beginning of August 3021 a new, heretofore unknown, Periphery nation literally burst onto the scene by invading and taking over Port Krin on the planet of Antallos. They subsequently defended it against attacks from both the pirate Red Jack Ryan and the combined forces of a coalition of other city states, annihilating them. Comstar broadcast extended coverage by a New Avalon Press reporter, a Lois Lane, all across the Sphere and Periphery. They call themselves the Global Defense Initiative or GDI, representing the CSN. The main planet being Earth."

"Earth, Stephen? Not terribly imaginative, I'd say", Avellar stated, smiling slightly.

"I'd have to agree, Mister President. In any event, I've had my people comb through every record we could find, but so far, we've found nothing that even hints at the Alliance ever knowing or having had dealings with a state in the direction these 'Motherloaders' supposedly come from, or of any organizations with those names. Their usage of what appears to be lostech, also points in the direction of a state that has been unaffected by the Succession Wars", Stephen continued. "What is more important, however, is the the reason for their appearance. Port Krin's previous administrator assembled a mixed force of pirates and mercenaries to attack a world he called 'Motherload', because of its vast riches. Not only did they stop the invasion, they seem to have managed to acquire the services of some of the mercenaries that were part of the invasion fleet. Again, I must stress, all of this is hear-say we acquired from a few Alliance citizens working in Port Krin. According to the report I have, at least two of the mercenary units employed by the GDI, were ones that Port Krin's administrator hired for his raid earlier."

"That would indicate that these people have deep pockets, to sway a mercenary to change allegiances", Avellar remarked, narrowing his eyes.

"That is our assessment too, Mister President", Stephen replied as he carefully went through the file. "However, I'd like to add that at least one of the mercenary companies, the Buron Cavalry, has always been an honorable outfit. Not one that would resort to piracy unless circumstances were dire. My people are still trying to find out if they were truly part of the initial invasion force and if so, when and why they then changed allegiances again."

"Stephen, we both know that most mercenaries that come to the Periphery are in dire straits, hoping to find something to stave off total disintegration", Avellar stated, leaning forward on his desk.

Rios-Rivera nodded at that. Very few worlds and nations in the Periphery were financially healthy. The Outworlds Alliance itself was by no means a prosperous nation. Over the years, shortages in transportation capacity as well as a multitude of other problems had seen the once huge nation shrink to a shadow of its former self. How many worlds had they abandoned because of this? How many people had been left to fend for themselves because the Alliance had no way to support them.

"Mister President, following the capture of Port Krin, GDI has done several things that, quite frankly, my analysts have no idea how to deal with", Rios-Rivera continued.

"Such as", the president questioned, intrigued.

"Declaring slavery illegal and grounds for severe penalties", Stephen replied. "Nobody can keep, trade, import or export slaves. All freed slaves are to be paid wages. Rule of Law and enforcement of said laws. Setting up medical facilities where citizens can get free health care. Urban Renewal projects aimed at repairing and expanding the infrastructure of the city itself. There is even a concerted effort established regarding education."

President Avellar sat up in his chair, shock written all over his face, "Are you certain of this?"

"As certain as we can be, Mister President", Stephen nodded. "This information was supplied to us by several Alliance citizens, independent from each other, at different times, with emphasis on different parts of their observations. Until we have an agent on the ground, though, to confirm this information, we're treating it as being unconfirmed."

"Yes, of course, but still, if it is true....", Avellar stated softly.

"Then it would be a major shift in established policy for the region, Mister President", Stephen agreed. "The slave trade is a major source of income on Antallos. Even in the Draconis Combine, while publicly outlawed, it's still a lively trade. Having a new power in the region making it illegal is a signal to all others who're involved in it."

"Especially when the power that does is in control of the only spaceport on world. The slave traders will have to find another place to do business", Avellar noted.

"One of my analysts called it a 'Hearts and Mind' campaign, if true", Stephen went on. "Show the masses that you're different to their usual rulers. Help them, even a little and they'll be yours. So far, it seems that they're holding to it, rigorously."

Neil Avellar turned his chair around, his eyes looking through the window at his left, gazing at the clouds as they drifted past, his mind churning with this news. Stephen waited patiently for a sign to continue his briefing, again wishing he had the resources to do a more thorough job of investigating. Most of his people were tasked with keeping an eye on the Combine, which, truly, was a joke. It'd be easier to check how many people were NOT actually ISF agents, he morosely thought. Combined with their limited funding, as part of the Alliance Service Arm, they'd be lucky to mount any kind of effective operation, even on their own soil. On foreign soil? Apart from an operative in the few Alliance embassies in the inner sphere, that was nothing more than a fantasy. Whatever information they managed to gather from outside their borders was due to the goodwill of their own citizens sending the information to them.

"What else", Neil Avellar asked as he turned back around, arms folded across his desk, his gaze squarely on his head of intelligence.

"Mister President, it seems that the invasion of Port Krin is only part of their agenda", Stephen said, as he went through the briefing materials.

"In June, a dropship entered orbit over the world of Rudolpho, claiming to be representatives of a company called John Deere", he continued.

"Claiming? Did they attack and if so, why was I not informed", Avellar asked, eyes narrowed.

"Mister President, there was no attack", Stephen stated. "According to governor Islington, the representative and his people showed off farming equipment, manufactured by the facilities onboard the dropship", Stephen handed over a brochure, the colors and yellow and bright green prominently displayed, "with participation of some of the farmers themselves. The governor reports that enthusiasm among the farmers was great enough that he placed an initial order for several of these vehicles called tractors, with attachments, to be delivered immediately. A further, much larger order was placed, to be fulfilled once their factory is fully up and running. Several other Alliance worlds were visited, where again, they received orders for immediate delivery as well as follow-on orders. Governor Islington received word recently that the second order is being shipped, from their manufacturing facility in the Free Worlds League. Payment is to be made upon delivery. I have the payment and corporate details here", Stephen said, handing the president a sheet of paper.

Avellar took it, frowning as he read through the information in front of him.

John Deere & Company, Agromech & Tractor Division
For product demonstrations, sales and after-sales service and warranty information, please contact our Sales Department in Port Krin, Antallos.

"You think this was a reconnaissance mission, using the guise of traders", Avellar asked.

"Yes, Mister President. The timing is too coincidental to be a coincidence", Rios-Rivera affirmed.

"Could this be the precursor to an invasion of the Alliance", the president asked, a slight worry settling around him.

"Uncertain at this point, Mister President", Rios-Rivera noted. "They used multiple jump- and attendant dropships to take Port Krin. Again, according to our sources, these were the same vessels the previous Administrator employed to sent his task force", Stephen explained, disdain coloring his voice, "to invade this CSN. That would suggest that they not only defeated the pirates but also captured all of their jump- and dropships. Using their own vessels could have given the Administrator of Port Krin warning. This way, they've got the tactical advantage."

"It could also imply that they don't have their own jumpships, or at least have very few of them", Avellar noted.

"Maybe, but without further information, we can't say for certain. Best to err on the side of caution, Mister President."

Avellar sat back in his chair, his eyes traveling back to the piece of paper with the company's information on it.

"Recommendations, Director", Avellar asked.

"Diplomatic contact", Stephen said without hesitation.

"Why", Avellar wanted to know.

"They are interested in us, judging from their sending a covert mission into our territory BEFORE their invasion of Port Krin", Rios-Rivera noted. "They sold us equipment we didn't know we needed. The Combine and Federated Suns seem to be courting them, yet they are already trading with us. Why, Mister President? We need answers to those questions. The Agency does not have the capability to investigate this. Not without serious backing."

"And the best way to do that, would be to have a diplomatic envoy stationed in Port Krin, with their staff", Avellar questioned.

"Yes, Mister President", Rios-Rivera agreed. "I could maybe assign one or two agents to any diplomatic staff you deem fit to send."

"What about analysis, Stephen? Like you said, the agency is under-staffed and under-funded", President Avellar noted.

"For now, we can handle it, Mister President. Most of the information is nothing more then rumor or supposition. In time, I'll have to limit the number of people we have following up on the Combine's activities within our borders, though."

"Very subtle, Stephen", Avellar said laughingly. "I'll see if I can shake some extra funding loose for the agency, provided you can find the right people. In the meantime, thank you, Stephen."

The director got up at his dismissal, standing at attention for a moment, before turning and walking out the door.

*********

Chambers of the Parliament
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance, Periphery
May 20, 2007/3022

"Representatives, you've all read the report presented by Director Rios-Rivera. You've read my proposal to send a delegation to Antallos with the hopes of opening up diplomatic relations with this new entity. What say you", President Neil Avellar asked of the four people sitting around the large table in Parliament House.

"Highly irregular, is my first thought", Andrea Stavrou stated. Stavrou was the oldest person in the room, having served his world as a member of parliament for the last twelve years, been governor of his world for half that time and sitting at this table for the last two. He had served the Alliance in one way or another almost his entire life, starting out in the militia's armor regiment, serving for more then a decade before returning to civilian life and the family's myriad business holdings, only to somehow become embroiled into an election for representative and winning.

"Instead of sending an official request to the Foreign Ministry to establish relations, this CSN apparently uses a commercial enterprise as cover to gain intelligence on our nation", Stavrou stated.

"If they truly are on an intelligence gathering mission, wouldn't they be keeping to Alliance Space? The worlds they've been to, apart from their mainly agricultural significance, aren't really that vital to military security. The same can be said for the few Free Worlds' planets they visited", Colin Mallory stated.

"Maybe, but coming back to deliver the purchased equipment does give them access to more of our space. Before long, they'll be a known sight across Alliance territory. People talk", Stavrou replied.

"This CSN seems powerful, as evidenced by their military arm. They come out of nowhere. They have technology that seems to come straight from legend. Coupled with this report, I'd be a fool not to think they want something from us. It may be trade, it may be something else, but without further information...", Merrick Suleiman trailed off.

"Reports from Antallos so far, are positive. They've abolished slavery, are cracking down on crime, even if perpetrated by their own. Medical help, education, construction and reconstruction are highly prioritized, using mainly locals. They seem genuine in their help. They are also on friendly terms with both the Dragon and the Suns", Suleiman continued.

"And that is what bothers you", Stavrou stated.

"Yes, Andrea. They sound too good to be true", Suleiman replied.

"We don't really have a choice, do we", Jorgen Ferreira asked rhetorically. "The CSN wants something from the Alliance, be it political or trade. I doubt it is to sell these ... these 'tractors and related equipment', no matter how useful they will be to our farmers IF the promised numbers are delivered. We need to know what that is, but just as important, we need to establish contact with them because we are neighbors."

Everybody in the room understood what was not being said by Ferreira. The Combine as a neighbor, while bringing in much needed revenue, could at any time decide that the Alliance would be better off under their control, the moment it believed that the Alliance had violated its neutrality.

A new neighbor, one friendly towards the Alliance, willing to trade and on good terms with both the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine and with an enviable reputation in combat against overwhelming odds? That was something the Alliance needed to bolster itself against the Kuritans.

President Neil Avellar sat quietly, watching the four people representing the whole of the Alliance go back and forth. There was never any question that the Alliance wouldn't try and contact this new player. It was a gamble, pure and simple, but here, today, it was all they had left. The Alliance was on its last legs, getting by by the skin of its teeth. Production of goods kept going down, no matter what they did. Transport capacity was limited, education even with help from the Federated Suns was not nearly universal enough.

The Alliance was a shadow of it's former self and the people blamed his family for it all. It didn't matter that the myriad wars were responsible for most of it, or that the dearth of knowledge, replacement parts and equipment had a significant impact. No, the Avellar family had lead them here, to this dreary existence. Win or lose, this was probably the last chance to pull his people up or destroy them with his good intentions.

"Representatives, we shall put this to a vote. All those in favor of sending an official delegation to Antallos to meet with the designated representatives of the CSN and request formal diplomatic relations...."

***********

Moscow, Russia
Earth, Sol III
Coalition of Sovereign Nations
Grantville Cluster
9th January 2008/3023

Timofey, bundled in his winter clothing, turned his five year old BMW into the familiar underground car park. It was almost full but he managed to find a spot thanks to the security man sitting there, wearing a mountain of clothing warding off the cold, watching the monitors, and politely pointing out where the parking spaces were. After parking he took out the supplies from the boot, set the car alarm and walked towards the lifts. Now surrounded by chrome, mirrors, and heated air, Timofey removed his thick wool hat, scarf, and gloves, and rode up to the twelfth floor. He honestly didn’t understand why Grandfather didn’t get the Penthouse. He honestly deserved it, but it had taken Timofey’s father and all his Aunt’s powers of persuasion to convince Grandpa just to move into one of the new modern apartment complexes on the banks of the River Moscow. Timofey well remembered the previous Khrushchev-style block Dedushka had lived in and shuddered at memories of the shriveled courtyards, ill-maintained facilities and non-functional lifts.

The lift stopped and he emerged on his destination floor into a large hall extending all the way down to his destination. Timofey wished that the other owners of these apartments would’ve had the foresight to properly budget when they had bought them, for the other two apartments on the floor’s doors were missing, and beyond them you could see the darkened interiors of unfinished living spaces. He headed to the only proper door; this one was thick, hardened polished oak. Timofey fumbled with the keys and entered the hundred and fifty square meters of space that belonged to a Hero of the Russian Federation.

Timofey was at once intercepted by an excited, yet demanding bundle of energy, wrapped in warm, colorful clothes. “Uncle Timmy!” One of his youngest cousins promptly had her arms wrapped around his waist and was giving him one of those damnable cute expressions. He sighed, wondering if there was ever a time that he had possessed that much youthful energy, and reached into the bag of supplies. Little Nadia eagerly accepted the candy and the die-cast toys, before promptly vanishing into the bowels of the apartment.

He pulled off his jacket, hanging it up, and walked through the main hallway, passing framed family photos and various others. Distinctive by the fact that they were grainy black and white, mostly featuring a T34 tank, with its crew perched on top in various locations, the last of which was near Brody. His eyes always found the commander of the tank and were somewhat amazed at how similar he looked to that young sergeant of the 24th Tank Regiment.

Timofey stopped outside a door at the end of the hallway, this one all the family knew never to enter unless Granddad said it was okay or he was with them. Timofey knocked. “Dedushka?”

“Come in, Timo.”

He opened the door and entered his Grandfather’s study and workspace. It was usually an orderly space, with polished parquet floors, patterned rugs, portraits on the wall, a bookcase dominating one whole side of the room, and a polished desk in the centre, with a large drawing and technical planning board on the other side. It also had a beautiful view over the River, especially at night, through a large window behind the desk. Now though, heavy emerald curtains covered the windows, all the portraits had been taken down, replaced with all sorts of schematics of various oddly shaped components stuck to the walls with cello tape, the floor was littered with crumpled paper and an overflowing waste basket, the desk was crowded with open books and a laptop perched dangerously on the edge of it. Timofey rushed forward and rescued it from potential disaster.

“Timo, have a look at that blasted thing, will you? I pressed a wrong button and it threw me out,” Granddad grumbled from his perch at the drawing board, moving the large integrated ruler and carefully drawing a long line on the large A1 design sheet with a pencil that was nearing the end of its useful life.

Timofey held up the shopping bags. “I brought you more pencils, drawing supplies and…your favorite brand of vodka.”

“Ah, thanks a lot, Timo. Just put it down next to the desk.” He did as the old General bid and picked up the laptop, pulling another chair closer and sat down next to him. Timofey tapped a key on the laptop; the screensaver vanished and asked for his twelve digit password. He entered it and now it asked for his GDI ID and authorization code. The final step it asked for was to place his thumb on the fingerprint scanner. It flashed ‘Authorization Accepted. Captain Timofey Alexandrey Kalashnikov. GDI Army.’

The helpful interface automatically went back to the last screen it had displayed, a long list of various alloys, their compositions, various stress characteristics and performance figures at various temperatures, a link at each alloy allowed you to go to another screen and get detailed ‘how to make’ instructions. Timofey looked up at what Granddad was working on now and frowned in frustration, wishing he had the level of technical acumen to simply look at a diagram an know instantly what it was and what it did. The General did say it would come with more time and experience under his belt, and that he should try to do things without a CAD program more often.

He watched the age old process of design with pencil, rule and paper for a while before his eyes ranged down to the laptop and he opened a new window and began browsing the Snowflake database for the tank designs once used by the Star League.

The current Cosmos was a bare one for the Tanker and that instrument of warfare had suffered throughout the various Succession Wars. During the Star League both Mech and Tank had stood side by side, especially within the Terran Hegemony Combined Arms philosophy. After the fall of the League and the cataclysm that followed, the factories producing parts were bombed and even nuked out of existence. The logistically more intensive and less flexible Tank had to be discarded. Commanders ordered them stripped of their weaponry and armor, to be placed on damaged Mechs which could move over any hostile terrain with much more ease than any tracked or wheeled vehicle.

In this new reality of war, the Mech surged to prominence and as the generations passed the Tank fell into disuse. Men began to identify with the Battlemech, even anthropomorphize it. It became their livelihood: it became part of their culture. It was survival. Then, when even the Mech factories started to burn in the fires of war, they became even more valuable. The days of entire companies and regiments of the Mech fighting each other were a thing of the past. The fates of entire worlds were now in the hands of mere Lances of Mechwarriors. The mystique of one-on-one personal combat between men only added to the allure of the Battlemech.

The Tank refused to die though. Timo knew that now the Tank was experiencing a resurgence of minor sorts in the Lyran Commonwealth as Mechs became scarcer and they were reaching the point where the still existing manufacturers couldn’t keep up with the widespread demand. The Tank was much more mechanically simple and easier to make than a bipedal mech, after all. But this practical simplicity was fighting an uphill battle against the prejudice and bias of men, who when told of an incoming enemy first asked ‘Where’s our Mechs?’

He inwardly laughed again as he remembered his Granddad’s derision of the Mech, especially at the news that the GDI had started its own homegrown Mech programs.

“Well, at least we’re selling most of them off to the Inner Sphere, that’ll keep those feuding fools stuck in their endless jousts while we get on with the real business.” The General also grumbled a bit when he saw the specifications of the Commonwealth’s Rommel Tank. “Very nice, but they could’ve chosen a better name for the thing.”

Timofey looked up and was startled to see that the General had almost finished his design. Had he been in the Snowflake program for so long? Or was it just that his Granddad could draw quickly?

“Almost done, I think,” muttered the General, staring at the design with a critical eye. Timofey looked at it, absorbing the details, and watched as his Granddad nodded at it and wrote ‘Avtomat Kalashnikova-08’ on the bottom corner. It was a an automatic gas-operated, short-stroke piston design rifle chambering a new 6.5mmx54mm Armor Piercing round, but modified to be rimless, with thirty of them housed in a sturdy magazine. He stared at the bullet diagram and noticed that it featured a Nickel-Iron penetrator core.

“Why Ni-Fe, Granddad?”

“Cheapest and easiest penetrator to make in bulk, and will go through even the toughest body armor that House Armies wear, given their performance characteristics.”

“Earthbound Nickel stocks will quickly run dry…though with the asteroid mining currently happening that’s not a long-term problem.” Timofey continued his scrutiny; noting the twenty round curved magazine. That alone would require a paradigm shift by both soldiers and quartermasters. The previous thinking on Earth, given body armor performance, had made the 5.56 caliber ideal; allowing a large number of rounds to be carried that had increased a soldier’s combat endurance, and was able to penetrate most forms of body armors of the time. Now with the sudden jump in body armor performance of Earth’s potential enemies out in the cosmos, a soldier had to be given a round that could go through that armor and kill reliably. This meant a bigger round and conversely a soldier carrying heavier ammunition and less of it than before, in other words, combat endurance would have to take a reduction, unless the GDI military exoskeleton project in Texas was successful. That would allow a soldier to carry even more ammunition than he could have with the 5.56 rounds.

Timofey noted the alloys and the number of similarities to the AK action, such as the large dust cover, iron sights and lever safety selector, but also the upper and underside rails running the length of the weapon for easy attachment of various scopes, and under-slung grenade launchers, shotgun, or other pieces of equipment. The he noticed something else. “You’re not venting propellant gas into the receiver.”

“Yes, my friends at HK have determined that doing so deposits carbon fouling onto the bolt mechanism over time.”

“It’s…an excellent design, Granddad, though it’s not exactly…” Timofey cut himself off abruptly.

“What? High tech?” the General harrumphed. “You think we’re at the point where we can make a man-portable and reliable Rail gun or Gauss Rifle? Let alone that Star League Mauser 960 Laser rifle? Those are ten, maybe twenty years down the line…things I will not live to see, Grandson. This weapon is something that can go into production NOW, and will give the troops defending the motherland…sorry, the motherworld something to fight with, should that thrice cursed Draconis Combine come calling.”

“We’re aiming to stay on their good side, Dedushka.”

“So did Stalin try to do the same with Hitler, and we saw how well that went. No, my grandson, it’s only a matter of time…they’re practically a bunch of interstellar Shogunates, united only by force, fear, and ideals of Bushido that they ignore when it’s convenient. The amount of control that Coordinator of theirs has over their military is too flimsy for my liking as well. We should not be so rosy about the Federated Suns either. Davion is a monarch when all is said and done, he can decide on a mere whim that he would prefer us under his ‘protection’. And let’s not forget the Periphery nations…they’re fair weather allies at best.” Granddad promptly lifted the design paper up and let it settle behind the design board. Timofey was surprised to see another half-finished theoretical design. He had clearly been busy while he been to the shops. “This should satisfy you more.”

Timofey grinned at it with excitement. “A practical caseless rifle?”

“Based on the TK Assault that the Buron Cavalry has, I’m still working on getting the reliability issues sorted out. I want you to be able to bury this thing like the AK47 or the AK8 for that matter, and still allow it to work after a good cleaning.”

The he noticed another significant detail of the provisionally named ‘AK09’. “Polygonal rifling?”

“Yes, I’ve told HK that they must get their researchers working on this again. It produces superior speed and accuracy, though its cost was the previous stumbling block that stopped it. I think with the projected economics of the future that will be overcome.”

That sheet was also turned over and now Timofey saw his Grandfather had gotten to the good stuff. It was provisionally called the ‘HK312’ and was a theoretical design for a man portable Gauss Rifle. This design hadn’t been done by the General, but was a printed one sent over from H&K. They had asked for his insight into the mechanical aspect and to put his unique touch onto the design. There were still a lot of blanks to fill in, a small, sufficient, reliable power supply, and switching speed of the internal coils, but the basic mechanical design was there. There was also another version that used Rail Gun principles. Already there were numerous scribbles and arrows on it made by the General’s pencil.

“The recoil on these will be frightful,” he pointed out the calculations on the page.

“Which is why only Powered Armor and Battle Armor troops will be able to safely use them.”

“If that’s the case, then it also solves the power problem, since you can run the weapon off the PAs supply.”

Grandpa nodded in agreement with the idea, “I’ll send that suggestion to them. If both armor and weapon can be made to run off the same power supply and keep the combat endurance roughly the same, it’ll save on weight in the weapon.”

“Dedushka, you know that some people are going to object to the caliber you’re using in the AK eight.”

“Of course they are,” the General agreed readily. “The soldiers will moan about the extra weight right until the AK eight keeps reliably penetrating the myriad of body armors out there. The Quartermasters will curse at the increased complexity in keeping their stores stocked with another ammo type. The accountants will complain at the cost. Bah, a gun is a gun, and we need one that can do the job out there. Remember," Lieutenant General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalasknikov poked his fingers pointedly into his grandson's shoulder, "Anything that is useful is simple.”

"Yes, Dedushka."

Office of Extraterrestrial Surveys and Assays
Washington DC, Earth, Grantville Cluster
17 Feb 2007

The building that housed the OESA was an annex donated to the National Geographic Society by the United States Government to act as a centralized headquarters and clearing house for the data and samples brought back to Earth by the three active extrasolar survey teams. Students from the nearby George Washington University volunteered their time (for the ample reward of practical job experience and credits) to help sort out and index the mountains of information that came every few weeks as the Emerald City made its route from Sol to the three active survey worlds.

Officially, the OESA was operated by the Coalition, who supplied the Jumpship and Dropships used by the Office. However, the unofficial handshake deal was that as long as the OESA didn't do anything criminal or stupid, they would be allowed to set their own goals and timetables. So far it had worked out pretty well for all involved.

Two men were sitting in a cramped office on the third floor of the building, one barely larger than a broom closet. They were going over the latest transmitted reports from the Emerald which was currently in-system to transfer supplies to and from the Survey Groups.

Doctor Fungai Ochieng was from South Africa, doing work for the NGS when the call came out for people to staff the new organization. He had replied and somehow fallen into being head of the Xenobiology department when, on his first day in D.C., he had simply taken charge of the chaos he was assigned to. The next day, he had come in again to find his name on a nameplate and a larger paycheck than he was expecting. "I would have really thought that Oz would be the first settled, given that it's better for settlement than... Úfric... was it? Now all the plans have been shelved for five to ten years."

"Úlfur actually. It's Icelandic." Dr. Lief Johansson came from Iceland and was head of the Xenogeology department, making these two pretty much in charge of the entirety of the scientific depositions of the Office. Although they did joke that one of the benefits of being in charge was that the paperwork could be delegated. Except in cases like this. "I do agree that Oz will be an excellent breadbasket world, or at least a decent colony. But with data like this coming back from Úlfur...." He let his voice train off. "It's information not in the Snowflake," He referred to the Star League Data core recovered from Columbus by the code-name of the mission that recovered it, "and there are plenty of people nervous about that."

"Bah. At least Oz and Wonderland match the Snowflake to within reasonable parameters." Fungai slipped the initial survey reports from those two words back to the top of his current pile. Oz, also known to astronomers as Tau Ceti IV, matched up with New Earth in the Inner Sphere, site of the first interstellar colony world. The Star League maps matched the curves of the continents, and information on local flora and fauna had matched up with a good accuracy.

Wonderland was the name given to the moon of the second planet of the Alpha Centauri system, more scientifically known as Rigel Kentaurus II-a. The planet around which the moon orbited was named 'Rabbithole' by the German head of the expedition to that world. Two potentially inhabitable celestial bodies in that system meant that there was a request for a second expedition, or even just an expansion to the established presence. However, the Coalition and the OESA were having some problems scrounging up the needed resources, having spent much on the first three. The star Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris) gave rise to the world of Úlfur, which was considered a lucky find in the small habitable band around the star, despite the presence of the Procyon B. “Thankfully those systems have justified our position and existence to the Coalition. Although China and India are both petitioning for colonization rights already.”

“What? Already? Gods above, do they not know that we simply don't have the capacity to move colonists at any proper rate, right? That all our available FTL ships are currently in use going to and from Antallos?” Ochieng grumbled at the not-unexpected realization that both of Earth's most heavily populated nations were pressing for new frontiers to relieve their population pressures upon. But there simply wasn't any way to move the millions upon millions required each year – and wouldn't be for at least a decade.

“Oh, I'm sure the politicians know. But they aren't playing to the Coalition with these demands, but rather to their own native populace that sees emigration to the stars as a viable choice for a better life; and they want it now, not later.” Johansson didn't see the need to tell his compatriot about the far more reasonable plans being put together by the Scandanavian governments for the colonization of Úlfur – a far more long-term plan that didn't involve the construction of massive Dropships to move massive amounts of people to other stars.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid sheep.”

“Hey, not everyone is as smart as the people in charge. Well, for the most part, anyway. I'm sure we can name a few dumb politicians. At least the general survey data for those two is consistent with the Snowflake.” Both men had heard the rumors that the Star League Data Core that the Coalition had gotten their hands on was from the Deep Periphery world of Columbus, but the people in charge of the Core refused to say out of concern for operational security.

The CSN had told the Office to work blind to the contents of the Snowflake so that there would be no presumptions about what they should or should not find in the process of surveying the other worlds. So far, it was working out for the best. Once the first reports from Oz, Úlfur and Wonderland were returned to Earth, they were compared to the relevant data from the Core by a third party to ensure a limit to any intellectual contamination. What made Úlfur special enought that bumped it up to the forefront of these three worlds – over the other far more colonizable two was that the initial landing zone for the survey teams had pretty much hit the motherlode of valuable minerals.

“What about the specifics?” The Coalition was eager for sources of easily exploitable resources to fuel the exploding economy. More long term projects using space-based industries in the Sol system were sure to get what was needed, but they would take time to start up and become viable. In the mean time, the Coalition would take what they could get.

“There is a limit to the details, sorry to say. We know what the general exports were from these worlds, but where the resources were located are not recorded. We have to have men on the ground for that. Except for Úlfur, where they practically tripped over it within minutes.”

“Well, that screws over some companies time-tables. I think that there are several mining consortiums hoping that they could start operations without the need for time consuming surveys. Or Environmental Impact Statements.” Ochieng snorted. “I suppose we all expected the Snowflake to give us the answers we want, and while it does, in a way, it doesn't tell us the important bits. I keep hearing from the engineers about how it tells you how to build things like Jumpships, but doesn't tell you why they work like that, or the basic math or physical principles behind their operation.” He wished for a drink to stiffen himself, but held fast against the desire. “You know, I'm beginning to suspect that the Terran Hegemony didn't really trust anyone with the basic knowledge or the ability to create their own tools that were not from their mold.”

“The free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”

Ochieng stared slack-jawed at the Icelandic Geologist. “Who the hell said that?” His awe at the depth of the quote quite clear.

“Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. A computer game. Quite appropriate, don’t you think?”


Office of Precentor Long
Port Krin, Antallos
06 March 3022

The Precentor of Antallos looked again at the official letter delivered to his office by Ambassador Smith personally. It was from Lord Jack Ryan himself – although the leader of the CSN apparently felt that holding the title of 'President' was less ostentatious and more appropriate to keeping himself in power. Well, it was not the place of Long to make such judgment calls.

He flipped through the handwritten pages, with a more official transcript attached but ignored. It was, in Long's opinion, a brilliant piece of political double-speak, on par with any of the House Lord communications that passed across his table. Jack Ryan was no stranger to the political process and the Precentor felt that some appreciation was in order. Motherlode would be well served by a leader who would be capable of navigating the political arena of the Inner Sphere.

Although the presence of the letter itself would mean that Long had to do something that he hadn't done in many years. He had gone through the massive hardbound copy of the official policies and procedures issued to all HPG stations. The origin of this tome could be traced back to the Blessed Blake himself as a means to assure that all the HPG stations were held to the same laws and rules. Normally communications sent to ComStar itself were made at an HPG station and transmitted to Terra (for the minimum price of course). Having a physical letter delivered to the local Precentor was not without precedent, but over the past couple of centuries, the modern method had been settled into stone.

The most relevant information in the tome came from around the time of the First Succession War, when the Blessed Blake himself was still forming ComStar. Officially, a letter such as this had to be physically transported to the addressee – in this case the Primus himself at Hilton Head on Terra. Unofficially, Long could transcribe the letter and send that via HPG to the Primus while the letter itself took the slow route and wound up in the archives of ComStar, unopened.

But all that was academic in the end. No, it was the actual contents of the letter itself that would cause the biggest stir inside the halls of Hilton Head. Even here on the edge of the Periphery, he could sense the building tension inside the hallowed order about how to best deal with this Star League remnant state.

What the letter in his hand boiled down to was that the CSN graciously and politely declined ComStar's offer to operate their HPG stations. They did not deny having them, but rather gave various and vague reasons for their decision, preferring instead to continue official communications between the two governments by HPG from Terra to Antallos and then via Command Circuit from Antallos to Motherlode (which they, the CSN, still identified as Earth in official documents).

Long knew he didn't have the mindset of ROM, but even he could see that this letter would only exacerbate the growing strain in ComStar. Between those who felt that this CSN was the long promised return of Kerensky (just hiding their true allegiance until the time was right) and those who quietly argued that no matter their origin, the CSN needed the guiding hand and leadership of ComStar and the blessed word of Blake to help protect them from the evils of the Inner Sphere.

The Precentor Antallos put down the letter in question. It would not do to act in haste, no matter what happened, or could happen. As the darkness grew, the lights of Port Krin shone ever brighter, a result of the CSN and their works. Precentor Long thought long and hard about which side he would support, should it ever come down to that.


Office of the Precentor, HPG Station
Port Krin, Antallos
12 April, 3022

“Ah! Welcome to Port Krin!” Precentor Long greeted ROM Precentor Style with a warm gesture that pushed the bounds of what was considered proper in that sort of situation. “I trust your trip from Terra was uneventful?”

Style froze slightly in the face of such a forward embrace. “It was quiet, Precentor Long. Thank you for your concern.” He was released and instantly recomposed himself. Style attributed this unusual display of affection to his presence, a validation of the hard work that Long had performed here on Antallos without hope of expectation or reward. “Although I am afraid that I must cut these pleasantries short in the favor of the reason for my official business.”

Long stepped back and nodded somberly. “Please do, Precentor.”

Style reached into a pocket and withdrew a letter from the travel pouch. “I bring a message to you from the Primus and the First Circuit, honoring your works in the recent months as well as promoting you from Precentor VIII to Precentor XII.” He passed the handwritten letter to Long who opened it with shaking hands to confirm the contents and the four-step raise in grade. Style let Long take his time as he examined the office in more detail.

He saw the large window that faced out over a large portion of Port Krin, including the Mech factory under construction in the distance. The traditional painted map of Terra adorned one wall, while the Blessed Blake gazed with infinite wisdom from his portrait on the other wall, flanked by large rows of books that contained a wide variety of subjects.

Long read the letter twice before putting it down. The elder Precentor returned to his desk and sat down, inviting Style to do the same. His face was an unreadable mask, even to the experienced ROM agent. “Thank you” he said without trace of emotion. Style felt that Long was simply in shock and that he would take a little time to work his way into the joy he truly felt. “How long will the upgrades last, if I may ask?”

Style already had a timetable available to him. “About a month, barring unexpected delays. The local GDI contingent has been offering to help, but in all honesty, there is not much they can offer.” Style noted that he could see a bit of the spaceport to one side of the window behind Long. A GDI marked Dropship was taking off for destinations unknown to him at this time.

“That may be, but they are very smart, Precentor Style. Please do not underestimate them.” Long warned as he noticed Style's moment of inattention to himself.

Style corrected that without being aware of the problem that Long saw. “Oh, we won't. In fact, we already have leads on a few of their spies already in the Inner Sphere.” Style was proud of his fellows in ROM in already getting a handle on this upstart State. And soon they would be brought to heel as everyone should be before ComStar.

“Ah.” Long changed the subject as he stood up. “Well then, perhaps I should give you a tour? You can pick which office you want. As long as it’s not mine.” Long cracked a small smile at his joke, which Style mirrored.


Office of the Precentor, HPG station
Port Krin, Antallos
29 April, 3022

“Again?!?” The Adept responsible for the security upgrades for the Precentor’s office nearly threw the mobile terminal to the floor in frustration. “It has to be an internal error. A TAG alert on the Precentor’s window?”

The other adept simply shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, sir. Only TAG gear I’ve seen was back on Terra.” She looked out the window. “And I don’t see any ComGuard Mechs out there pointed our way. Nor any GDI ones.”

“Well, if we don’t get this fixed by the end of the day, I’ll have to disable the warning, flagging it as a hardware error due to improper storage. That’s the only explanation.”


ROM Analysis Room, HPG Station
Port Krin, Antallos
01 May 3022

Mulligan Fox walked through the double-soundproofed doorways into the inner sanctum of the ROM contingent here on Antallos. He had his head down, reading the latest in intercepted transmissions from the GDI. Apparently, their lostech ability to hide radio signals didn’t extend to the handheld units carried by their infantry. Often their transmissions were made in the open, but using codewords mixed in with normal English.

There was a dedicated group of three people cracking the codewords based on context, and they were doing well enough to be proud of their work, at least, in their own minds. Even if they couldn’t yet listen in on the military communications, hearing the reports from their civilian contractors and other people they brought in from Motherlode with non-lostech equipment was revealing. For all this though, it was still their civilian gear that Comstar could listen in on. Their military encryptions were all but noise in the background as far as his people could figure out.

For example, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or ‘Mounties’ for short. They were a civilian police force, that much was public knowledge. Canada was a nation-state on Terra before the days of the Terran Alliance and such an organization did exist. But why the call-back to an organization centuries dead? The current theory was that this organization was part of Kerensky’s Fleet that was from Canada and that they took the name as their own when they settled on Motherlode. Of course, given the causal name of the ‘Mounties’, ROM wondered what they were mounted on. Their predecessor organization used horses for controlling the wide stretches of wilderness, so they believed that they used some sort of APC or ‘Mech for such work now.

There had been a small inquiry made into what kinds of Mechs would be ideally suited for such work, and the first response back was Firestarter, used for crowd control. Fox read that person the riot act for not taking this seriously - military forces would use the lethal force of mech-scale flamers, not police. The offending researcher had countered that it wasn’t the use, but the threat implied with the Flamers that would make for good anti-riot work. In addition, the Machine Guns could be adapted to fire non-lethal rounds while another person spoke up about some experiments in adapting flamers to fire a gooey substance to hinder infantry.

Mulligan had recanted his accusations of incompetency and replaced it with a reprimand for supplying incomplete information in a report.

And was that laughter? The Adept raised his head and looked around, seeking the source of the sound. He found it behind a closed partition which he quietly slid open. Peeking his head in, he saw that there were about a dozen members of his group lounging around, laughing and making jokes while writing on a whiteboard that took up most of one wall. He saw a long list of names that all had one thing in common - they could all represent the acronym of C. S. N.

Two were circled, obviously the most reasonable guesses. The first was the Commonwealth Star Nation (with the word Cameron written underneath with a question mark attached to it) while the second was for the Cameron Star Navy. The rest were obvious jokes and puns that gave Adept Fox pause to compose himself before he opened the door with a bit more force than normal. “While I don’t mind some of those jokes on the board, I really hope you don’t expect me to tell them to the First Circuit in my next report.” His stern voice carried well into the room.

His sudden presence caused a huge stir in the room. Were they real field agents, they would have known he was coming and would certainly have not allowed him to see the indecent suggestions. After a minute of amazingly constructive panic, the whiteboard had been almost totally cleaned while many excess analysts had quietly filed out past him. “Now, can someone explain those two, and why?” Fox pointed at the two circled suggestions.

Fear, he mused, was a wonderful motivator, especially when it wasn’t implied, just assumed.

“Ah, you see...” the man by the whiteboard said, not introducing himself while Mulligan couldn’t remember his name, “...you see we only had two proper suggestions. The first is the Commonwealth Star Nation. Now, this is based on the idea that Motherlode was a Terran Hegemony Deep Periphery colony. One of our men remembered that when the Terran Alliance became the Terran Hegemony, various other names were bandied about. That included calling the new nation the Terran Commonwealth. It is possible that the Motherlode colonists used that name in remembrance of their predecessor nation. There is some possible justification in when the House Steiner named their State the Lyran Commonwealth. Similar reasons, different sides of the Sphere.”

Fox nodded. “And the other one?”

“The Cameron Star Navy reflects the current majority theory that the CSN is the remnant of the Kerensky’s forces. Naturally even if they couldn’t be obvious about their allegiance to the fallen Star League, they could not simply abandon it. Hence the use of the acronym, rather than the full name in all available intercepted documentation.”

“Oh?” Mulligan tilted his head. He could see that was a lame justification and let it show. “What about the Global Defense Initiative then? How does that fit?”

“Global is another word for Sphere. Inner Sphere.” The man countered. He was completely certain of that and the head of the CSN branch of ROM didn’t object immediately. “Probably a force reorganization put the Jump and Warships of Kerensky’s fleet ahead of the mechwarriors. We have already compiled a list of all known and probable ships that left with him after the Coup. Including upwards of a dozen McKenna class WarShips.”


GDI Salvage Expedition
Somewhere in the Desert, Antallos
01 May, 3022

Remus walked the Industrial Mech back to its berth, where the GDI training cadre were waiting for him. They had plenty of recruits, so they convinced Bob to let them hire out Remus and his 'mech to train their new engineers. The wads of cash made for a persuasive argument now that Bob's mistress was expecting a child in the next couple months.

With smooth efficiency, Remus spun the mech around and gently backed into the temporary berth where the magnetic clamps snapped into place, holding his mech still as he shut down the ICE. Popping the canopy, he took the hand of one of the mechs, seeing again the CSN flag over the GDI's Eagle.

"Hey, dumb question, but this has really been annoying me." Remus spoke as he looked into the eyes of the man who helped him out of the mech. "I was told what GDI means, but what does CSN mean, anyways?"

"Oh? That? We're the Coalition of Sovereign Nations. Why?"

"The Coalition, huh? Interesting. Just wanted to know. Thanks." Remus didn’t voice the immediate question. Nations? Plural? What was really going on here?

"You're welcome." Unaware of the total nature of what was just said, the GDI tech jumped into the cockpit to do tests on the systems installed, leaving the Wolfnet agent to begin the internal debate about how best to proceed with this new information.


120km outside Freeport
Helm, Free Worlds League
02 June 3022

"How's the door coming along?" Alexander, the XO of Tomb Raider leaned up against the edifice in question. The door was well camoflauged from external surveilence, even from orbit. So much history lay hidden behind them, that it felt almost sacreligeous to break and enter. Even so, Alexander reminded himself that the Grey Death Legion was due to form and arrive here within a few years to open it up and distribute the knowledge across the Inner Sphere.

They were just speeding things up a little. That's all. After Earth got first crack at the secrets that lay within of course. And the physical technology. Having access to Star League era technology alone would give them a foot up over the rest of the Inner Sphere without revealing just how far ahead they really were. Or weren't.

As he mulled over that, he recognized that there were huge problems with that scenario; details on politics that escaped him. With a sigh, he returned his attention to the Canadian currently hacking the door with a laptop. Jason was cracking his knuckles as he considered his repsonse, apparently not noticing the slight distraction that came from his superior.

"Ah, well, there's supposed to be some sort of 'Key' that is in the hands of the Lord of Helm, but that person isn't on world. So right now, I'm just setting up a basic crack. The hardware connections are in place, " he indicated where some wires went from the back of his computer to a keypad that had its cover removed, "now I'm just getting the two systems to talk to eachother. That's where the hard part is. The programming code used in military Star League computers is different from the stuff used in civilian code.” The Canadian swung around in his chair to face the running computer screen. “And its taking a while. Biggest issue is that we’ve moved to object oriented programming for our computers while the Star League never really seemed to move past procedural programming. It’s like it was written in the bastard child of BASIC and C! I think it has something to do with the hardware. This Neural Net computer technology can better handle the RAM requirements of that style of language that our technology can't.”

Alexander nodded. "We're in no rush. The Samurai wants the factory to be well established before we even think about beginning to smuggle technology off Helm. You want some coffee?"

Jason shook his head. "Nah, I'm a tea person myself." He looked around at the tent the two men were currently in, watching the walls flap in the wind. "I hear from the other guys that the factory is going to be in a backlog for a couple months as they bring production up. Too much to do before we get an off-site backup installed there."

Alexander nodded. "We aren't going to be installing any servers or wireless until we get a handle on what's inside this place. No need to jump ahead of ourselves."

The Canadian agreed. "Yea. I can see that. Sorry, just getting a little excited about all this, you know? I mean, sure, the Grey Death Legion would eventually do this anyways, but it'll be under a massive firefight." He shook his head sadly. "But then again, our itinerary doesn't involve being here when that happens, hopefully."

"Not to mention the Grey Death's haven't been formed yet. They're still Carlyle's Commandos. And on the Lyran – Combine border."

"Hey wait. I remember reading that. Wasn't that the general area that Redjack Ryan came from? He did kinda tear across the Combine to attack Antallos, so that leaves a huge hole in the region."

The Tomb Raider XO thought about that. "I can where you're coming from. However, I have to remind you that the destruction of the Commandoes was politically motivated, not in combat with pirates. There is no reason to assume that our presence will cause any changes there."

"We've already caused changes a plently, sir. The Butterfly has to make itself known somewhere and somehow. We can't depend on the source material forever. It's suicide."


120km Outside Freeport
Helm, Free Worlds League
03 June 3022

"It wasn't?" The Samurai's tone of voice did not betray his annoyance at discovering the entrance they thought led to the Star League Cache was not. Instead, it led to an empty storage facility that had all the hallmarks of a glorified cabin in the woods. No one was happy with this development as they were all back at square one.

There were no excuses. Just acceptance that they had erred. The question had led to a long discussion about where they had gone wrong with their methods and techniques. It ended with the resolution to keep looking as the Cache was too important to let a fasle start or three get in the way.

John Deere Agromech and Tractor Factory
Helm, Free Worlds League
01 July 3022

Daniel crinked his neck as he continnued to shuffle paperwork around on his desk. While normally today would be tax day, for some reason the local Landholder's Representative, Haarlan Elin, was forced by his Lord on Stewart to collect taxes semi-annually rather than on a more sane annual basis. Elin and Daniel had struck up a nice casual working relationship as the Helm native helped the Tomb Raider executive navigate the complexities of local laws.

But due to their recent startup, it was decided by the Office of the Landholder to give them a pass until the next tax time. Of course, that just meant an extra six months of paperwork to acrue first. It had been a hectic few weeks as he and the Tomb Raiders that were tasked to help him while the people doing the searching for the Star League cache ran into a couple dead ends.

They had covertly inserted a sattelite into orbit with a ground-penetrating radar array. It was slowly surveying the world, looking for the regularities of human construction where maps indicated there were none – a secured room in the factory that was being used for comparison purposes was known as the Assays Room, the cover being a search for local resources to feed the machines that made the agricultural equipment.

It was slow going, with both found locations being dead-ends. One was an empty storehouse that was mistaken for an elevator shaft, while the other turned out to be, as he was told by an exasperated Intel agent, the equivalent of a cabin out in the woods

Normally, Daniel would been kept out of the loop. He was still a civilian on a Intel Op, whose job was to maintain the cover for the people who were doing the job, but the long trip out to Helm had seen a high degree of socialization between everyone, and sometimes it seemed like he had beep promoted from Civilian to 'Specialist New Meat'.

At least he wasn't the one getting drinks for everyone.

He had kept the previous administrations secretary around as she had displayed a remarkable competency. And could brew a mean cup of tea which she had no problems doing for someone who let her keep her job without demanding any extras. When the Tomb Raider people had found out about that particular facet of the personality of the previous owner, about half of them called in sick that day and came back to work the next all feeling quite well.

Daniel didn't ask. Didn't want to. Didn't need to either. Different planet, different era, same scum.

At least business was booming. Shipments around the world helped pay for the shipments off world as well. Apparently their Jumpship was going to go back to New Dallas and report on the (lack of) progress in finding the Cache, and for the ND team to not wait on them. And to deliver a shipment of his produce to the locals to help build bridges and trust with them. It was a long travel loop that included Terra itself.

When the order from ComStar had come in for a wide sampling of products, the leaders of the team had gone into panic mode looking for any possible leaks or errors in thier operation, ready to pull out if it got that bad. The idea of ROM coming for them so far from support was enough justification to plan for an emergency trip to Solaris VII where they would try to vanish into the population of the open planet.

As it turned out, according to Elin, that ComStar usually places small orders from new companies, especially ones that don't produce BattleMechs as a means of putting C-Bills back into circulation and to provide some startup funds for straining economies. Which, apparently, Helm and the Factory qualified for.

After some heated discussion, it was decided that it would simply be better to act like nothing was out of the ordinary, and send the requested delivery by a different Jumpship than the one Tomb Raider was using.


Non-Standard Jumpoint
New Dallas System
14 August 3022

With an electromagnetic snap, the CSN dropship appeared far from the forgotten star. A Radio message was sent inwards, expected to arrive at New Dallas proper in a few hours while a single dropship undocked and the Jumpship unfurled its sail, secure in the knowledge that this location was still secret from the Inner Sphere.


Star League Facility
New Dallas, New Dallas System
21 August 3022

Wayne and Alexander walked side by side through a few of the seemingly endless and empty corridors inside the Star League facility. The Colonel based on New Dallas and the Tomb Raider Captain weren't just doing this for the exercise, but also to seek some privacy for some discussions best left unheard, and to patrol these outer reaches for casual looters.

The looting was a small problem they couldn't really get rid of, nor oddly enough, did they want too. In order to help refurbish the facility to working order, the GDI contingent had hired a great many of the locals – and they just couldn't help themselves to a souvenir or two for their efforts. Most of it was small or innocuous, like the man who tried to sneak out a full set of cutlery marked with the Star of Cameron for his family to use. Rarely though, someone would try to get something valuable, or dangerous. Like the young man who thought that a Laser Rifle would make a good weapon to kill rodents on his father's farm.

“Well, the Legion is due to find it in five, six years in the first place, if the Source Material is to be beleived. And they had. Will have a map. We just can't expect to just walk right up to it, or else it would have been found by now.” Wayne spoke up as they turned a corner, noting the dust off their path was undisturbed. “Although were were expecting you guys sooner.”

"Had to take a circular route. Deliveries to make, additional passengers we picked up along the route. Usual security issues. And had to wait to make sure it was just us when we jumped into the system. Didn't want the Spheroids to get any ideas about dead systems just yet." Alexander shrugged in apology.

Wayne nodded in understanding. “Makes a bit of sense. Hell, I got some locals raring to sign up and see the Sphere for themselves. Got any room?”

The question was asked in jest, but the response was serious. “Actually, I can see the need for some more people to help out at Helm. We really need people on the ground checking things out.”

The Colonel blinked to try and clear his head of the thoughts. “I was joking! Can you imagine the security risks that would run?"

Alexander nodded. "Oh, easilly. But I'm sure you've noticed some people who are trustworthy, and know when to keep their mouths shut, right? Maybe a few of them would like to get off world."

Wayne sighed. "You know, that's something I can't really commit to at this point. Have to think it over, and discuss it with people."


163km outside
Helm, Free Worlds League
31 October 3022

"So, what's this? Eight? Or Nine?" Jason glared at the door in front of them. Over the past few months, they had located several old facilities in various states of damage an disrepair. A couple of them even had signs of being nuked during the time frame of the First Sucession War, and eventually the old maps were simply thrown out as being useless outside the well-traveled roads.

"Eight." Avi was the only Isreali in Tomb Raider, a Mossad Agent who met the requirements of the mission and actively played Battletech before the Auckland Raid. He had spent the journey from Earth teaching everyone else the rules, and looking at the entertainment of the Inner Sphere for similar games.

"Lovely. And it's Haloween too. Well, let's see what we have here. Now placing bets on it being another cabin in the mountain." The Canadian tapped some commands on his laptop, feeling out the command codes for this particular door. He had plenty of experience in hacking Star League technological infrastructure gained over the past few months, and for the most part, it was routine. "So, there's not a lot of change happeneing now that the FedCom is official."

"No bets." Avi replied. "And as for the Commonwealth, you forget that such treaties and alliances are not unheard of. The other States simply don't know how serious this is in the long run." He frowned. "I wonder if whoever is in charge of the CSN at the time will get invited to the wedding?"

"I don't know. What sort of present do you give to the newly wedded couple who has pretty much everything already? Oh, and door's open." The two men waited while the old hatch slowly swung open before waving their flashlights into the darkness beyond.

"Uh, better get on the horn. This one looks deep. Might need the sappers for this."


Interior, Star League Cache
Helm, Free Worlds League
17 November 3022

They had found it, and the jubulation at lucky number Eight was only now beginning to die down. Only now they realized the sheer scope of the Cache. Twenty people were simply not enough to do a good job of catalouging eveything and extracting what was wanted in any reasonable length of time.

For now, the Tomb Raider personnel had settled into the officer's quarters of the Cache while debating their next course of action. While they obviously wanted to smuggle out the Core and Mechs, they first had to reactivate the fusion engine powering the base without alerting anyone – ComStar being the primary source of concern in that regard. They all admitted that the likelyhood of spontaneous detection was low, but it was better for them to take it slow.

For now, an auxillary generator had been hooked up to the the computer systems and they were copying the core to a more mobile format for shipping out the next time their Jumpship arrived to make more deliveries for the Factory.

The engineers were busy activating one of the Star League Mechs – a Black Knight that seemed to be a Royal version of that chassis -- as a test-run for what they would do later. That, and they just wanted something productive to do while others were comparing the inventory found in the computers with what was actually in storage.

But in all, they would take their time, and be sublte as best they could. The idea of getting people from New Dallas to help was tempting, but they could not rationalize keeping them locked up in the Cache as a security measure. That was a level they weren't going to stoop too.

Office of the Precentor ROM
HPG Station, Port Krin, Antallos
06 May 3023

Precentor Style looked up from his paperwork. Adept Fox had requested permission to personally brief him on the latest information on the GDI/CSN, and given the young man's enthusiasm, he'd decided to grant it. Sometimes, it was the little things that brought out the best performance in one's subordinates.

"Enter."

He waved Fox to the seat in front of his desk. "What do you have for me?"

"A collection of verified facts, and the secondary conclusions the profiling team has drawn from them, sir. Along with the latest reports from Terra."

"Yes, I'd read Precentor Copperfield's report on the captured imagery, along with the conclusions Adept Martin drew from the captured computing gear." Style was less than happy with that report. If accurate, that machine, while far more frail than anything in the Inner Sphere, was far more powerful than any portable computing device regularly available outside of Terra and the core worlds of Successor States. If Martin's conclusions about the mass-production of the devices was correct, actions would have to be taken. "Continue."

"First, there are Precentor Copperfield's notes about the Charon fleet. Additionally, ComStar archives have turned up a few - very few - references that were saved from destruction during the chaos following the Amaris coup, sir. Salvaged Hegemony Intelligence files indicate that there was a project, Codename: Masada. The few references imply that it was a Brian Castle on a planetary scale."

"Masada. That sounds like someone had a fine sense of historical irony while naming it."

"Yes, sir. The files indicate that the project was intended to begin in 2700 CE, during the reign of Jonathan Cameron. However, that is all the salvaged files contained. The intended date to begin construction, and that ultimately, there would be at least one Brian World 'behind the lines' of each member state of the Star League."

"Fallback positions."

Fox nodded. "Slightly more than that, sir. The one thing the Castles Brian did not - and could not - provide was loyal manpower. This Brian World concept was intended to provide a source of troops loyal to the League and only to the League, and huge numbers of them. A full division every month."

"They'd need a population in the hundreds of millions. But we already suspect that. Where would they have obtained the seed population?"

"The recovered files hint at hiding the numbers in military casualties, sir. People who volunteered would be listed as dead in 'training accidents', border skirmishes, and anti-piracy raids. That would also explain why the build-up was begun so early and intended to take so long. You can hide almost anything if you spread it out over a century or more."

"And then compound interest takes effect. Nicely done. Lord Jonathan might have been paranoid and delusional towards the end, but that didn't preclude him from being quite cunning. While Lady Jocasta would have been right at home with us in ComStar." Style took a moment to scan the documents Fox handed him. "These appear to break off before any action was taken."

"The remainder of the files were destroyed just prior to the taking of THI headquarters by the Usurper's troops, sir. These copies appear to have avoided destruction because they were mis-filed as non-sensitive documents. Were the file clerk responsible for that still alive, he or she probably would be shot at dawn for criminal incompetence."

Style chuckled dryly. "Indeed. Continue."

"The profiling team has taken the overheard casual comments and tried to determine additional information from them. The most important are the following." Fox cleared his throat. "One person was overheard saying that they were 'glad we're finally getting some decent fusion reactors. Maybe now we can retire those lead-cooled hunks of junk.', while a second was heard to say that once they retired, they intended to invest in "a nice salt-water cargo ship." That one took us some time to reference. We believe they were referring to a nuclear salt water rocket - essentially an engine using a continuous low-grade nuclear fission explosion."

Style's eyebrows tried to crawl up his forehead to the back of his scalp. "You're certain of this?"

"That was the profiler's first reaction as well, sir. What sort of lunatics would use fission propulsion like that when fusion is available? But taken in context with the rest of the overheard conversations, it's the only meaning that makes sense. What if they don't have fusion?

"Then there are the reports that capital missiles were used on the pirate dropships, with either fission or fusion warheads of multi-kiloton yield. That's been confirmed from several sources, including leaks from the Kuritans. Who aren't very happy with the idea."

"No sane man would be, Fox. Continue."

"There were references to pirates who were not part of the attack that incited the invasion of Antallos, Precentor. There were at least three comments about the destruction of pirates two centuries ago, and the total astonishment at the assault by Vorax's men. Several overheard conversations implied that prior to the attack, the CSN believed themselves to be alone in the universe."

Style snorted. "If they'd received word of the fall of the Hegemony and of the horrors of the First Succession War, that's an entirely understandable error on their part."

"Yes, sir," nodded Fox. "Several of the profiling team noted that. And the perceived danger of the House Lords, along with what appears to be the widespread use of fission power on their world explains the nuclear attacks." Mulligan looked through his notes. "There was one comment that caught the attention of a profiler who'd previously worked with ROM in the Tauran Concordat, a comment about a steep rise in the price of the element thorium. The Taurans regularly use thorium-fueled breeder reactors to mass-produce Uranium-233, a fissile material that can be used quite readily in a simple gun-type nuclear bomb design." The Adept grimaced. "Gun-style weapons similar to the first nuclear weapon ever fired in anger are mechanically simple when compared to implosion devices, and are extremely easy to build, despite being highly toxic to the people doing the building. Something that appeals to the Taurans, as Lord Ian discovered during the Reunification War."

"Logical. If you're already using fission reactors, and fear an invasion, then make a virtue of your vice. Produce massive amounts of cheap and dirty bomb fuel, and blow your enemies back to hell with nuclear fireballs." Style chuckled grimly. "When word of what happened to Vorax's scum reaches the Concordat, Lord Calderon will probably send his personal congratulations to the Motherloaders, then order a celebration to be held in their honor."

Style could see the young Adept trying to repress an out-of-place (though entirely understandable) smile. "With respect, Precentor, such a celebration would not be... altogether unwarranted."

"It would be somewhat inappropriate, however. What other conclusions have your team come to?"

"The number of intercepted communications increases, but only from civilian sources. We are still unable to intercept their military communications. We know they are using radios, but..." Fox shook his head, frustrated. "Even when they are clearly transmitting in front of us, we receive nothing but static.

"Further intercepts are attached to the file, but to sum the report, the people of Motherload appear to use fission on a scale seen nowhere inside the Inner Sphere, or even in the Concordat. They speak of hundreds of fission reactors that they hope to replace with fusion engines. Their world appears to be defended in depth with capital missiles armed with high-yield fission warheads, possibly even fusion warheads. Interpreting from various side comments, their population would appear to be at least one billion or greater, and hasn't been attacked by external forces for nearly two centuries.

"Furthermore, they appear to have been expecting such an attack for some time, according to some statements. Their computer technology, while far less durable and less resistant to wear than what we are familiar with, is far more compact and lends itself well to the manufacture of smart projectiles, neatly explaining their lack of energy-based weapons. They use several languages, which may imply that they have more than one colony as part of their state, which may offer ComStar a point of leverage. And they are adamant concerning any possible take-over of their interstellar communications network by ComStar, with at least one person being overheard commenting that ComStar was no more trustworthy than Kerensky."

Style looked at him sharply. "Repeat that."

"The person overheard stated that ComStar was no more trustworthy than General Kerensky, Precentor."

"Implying that they may have had contact with Kerensky's forces after they vanished."

"Yes, sir. One of my profilers suggests this may be the reason for their current lack of jump ships and fusion engines. General Kerensky stripped every base he could before exiting the Inner Sphere. The General was Regent for the League before Lord Richard's ascension to the throne. It is only logical to assume that as Regent, he would have been fully briefed on the Masada operation."

"As well as on its location, and therefore could have done the same to Motherload, stripping them of everything useful that wasn't absolutely immobile. At gunpoint. Which would elegantly explain their attitude towards both pirates and Kerensky himself. Perhaps too elegantly."

"I admit to some suspicion there myself, sir, but until we gain further hard data about these people, it's the best theory at the moment. However, we're aware of the dangers of falling in love with a pet theory, and are trying our best to avoid that pitfall."

The Precentor hid a smile. The young man was maturing well, clearly aware of his own faults and already moving to correct them. He would make a fine asset for the Word of Blake eventually.

Hilton Head
Terra
23 February 3023

Patricia Copperfield, Precentor in charge of the Free Worlds desk at Hilton Head, was enjoying a moment of peace and tranquility in one of the Hilton Head complex’s many lovely gardens. The warmth of the spring sun washed over her face and made her feel warm despite the rather chilly air. Unfortunately it seemed as if the moment wouldn’t last much longer as she heard approaching footsteps in the gravel.

“May I join you?” The intruder asked.

Patricia raised her hand to shield her eyes from the brightness of the spring sun as she looked up at the intruder.

“Primus!” Patricia said startled at the sudden appearance of the leader of Comstar in her quiet little garden moment. She started to rise from the bench but Tiepolo motioned for her to remain seated.

“Oh, don’t get up Precentor Copperfield” the Primus said as he took the seat besides her. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes and turned his face towards the sun. “It’s a Lovely day today. I prefer the North garden but it is a bit chilly there this time of year.”

“Yes Primus.” Patricia agreed.

“I read your report and recommendations on Motherlode.” The Primus shifted the conversation around without changing the tone of his voice. “It was very… umm, different. The opinions of other departments differ greatly from yours, particularly those from the Combine desk.” He paused for a moment. “Departments who’s actual job it is to conduct analysis of information from the Periphery beyond the Draconis Combine.”

Tiepolo was looking at her with an amused smile.

“Primus, I…” Patricia started to apologize but the primus interrupted her.

“Oh I don’t mind Precentor, and it was a very interesting point of view of the problem. I’m not saying I agree with all aspects of it, but it was certainly a novel and interesting approach to the Motherlode mystery.” Tiepolo said as he closed his eyes and faced the sun again with a smile.

So if it wasn’t her trespassing on the turf of other branches that had caused this ‘chance’ meeting then it had to be the brief recommendations she had attached to the report. The air suddenly seemed colder than a moment ago. The silence stretched until Tiepolo broke it.

“It is your suggestion that the order, ah how did you put it. ‘Match the planned education efforts of the Coalition of Sovereign Nations at Antallos by improving the order’s own education efforts in the Outworlds Alliance to include hard sciences and engineering in Comstar run school curriculums.’ That has caused a few raised eyebrows.” Tiepolo said. “You do realize that such a change would represent a major shift in our blessed order’s policy?”

Copperfield had served long enough in Comstar to recognize the danger of being branded a heretic, particularly when it was the Primus himself, the voice of Blake, who dangled the hook so obviously in front of her.

“I am worried, Primus.” Patricia replied. “I fear that we have failed in the task the Blessed Blake entrusted to us.”

“Why would you think that, Precentor?” Tiepolo asked, it obviously not being the answer he had expected.

“It is over two centuries ago that the Blessed Blake stood in the doorway and watched the great storm of the Succession wars break over mankind, two centuries ago that the order closed the door to the rest of the galaxy. Two centuries of war, hate and suffering – and there is no ending in sight.” Patricia stared into the far distance as she tried to frame her thoughts in a non-heretical manner. “For the last century there have been little, if any, change in the status quo.”

“And you would have us change that by giving the blessing of technology to those who’s ability to handle such responsibility has to be doubted?” Tiepolo wondered.

“No.” Patricia replied. Any other answer to that question would have been heretical. “I would rather hand loaded assault rifles to six year olds than advanced technology to the Successor Lords, it would probably do much less damage.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Tiepolo asked.

“As I said, I fear we might have missed our opportunity to fulfill Blake’s vision. The Successor States obviously are not going to hammer themselves any further down into barbarism than they managed to do after the first century of war. If they intended to go further down that path they could easy have destroyed their remaining yards and factories long ago. I fear our order’s moment was a century ago.”

“You exaggerate Precentor.” Tiepolo said shaking his head sadly. “The decline continues, the PPC is practically Lostech in the League as you should know. The Inner Sphere is not yet ready for the restoration of the Star League, I wish it was different but…” His voice trailed off.

“I fear the Successor states and the so called ‘Great Houses’ will never be ready for the restoration, nor will the houses ever allow themselves to sink into total barbarism since that would destroy them just as surely as the restoration of the Star League by our Order will. We may have waited for the wrong people to do what we expected and in doing so we might have missed our moment.” She turned to the Primus. “Just how would the people react if they have just stood helplessly by and watched their house burn to the ground, and only then do their neighbor pull out his fire hose from the garage and put out the rubble?”

“The people of Antallos seem to have reacted favorably to the appearance of the Coalition.” Tiepolo pointed out. “Our order is generally viewed favorably by those unfortunates who inhabit marginal worlds.”

“This Coalition of Sovereign Nations is a new player, but our Order has existed since the wars began. We don’t have their luxury of starting with a clean sheet. After all, the people of the Inner Sphere have no reason to trust our Order or the wisdom of the Blessed Blake. For the better part of a century we have given them little reason to put their faith in us despite our PR campaigns. We have failed to give them a concrete example of how things could be better.” Patricia continued. “How long would the average Inner Sphere citizen’s trust in us last once they realize that the improvements we might eventually make could have been done a century ago? That is my concern, Primus.”

“I doubt things are quite as bleak as you seem to think Precentor. You judge our predecessors a bit harshly.” Tiepolo said after a moment’s thought. “You know any technology we give to the Inner Sphere will just cause the Scavenger Lords to upgrade their military capacity and heat up the war again. Real progress isn’t possible as long as the Successor States and their rulers remain in control of mankind’s destiny.”

“Yes I know.” Patricia said hesitatingly. “But if we are the ones providing the people with the means to improve their lives in the Inner Sphere and the Successor Lords are the ones who take those gifts and use them to smash and ruin each other, including their own peoples, how would the populations come to view that behavior? That is why the Outworlds Alliance is a perfect test case for us. It is poor, peaceful and humble before the dangers and blessings of technology; it is an ideal chance to finally provide the peoples of the Inner Sphere with an alternative to their House Lords.”

Tiepolo didn’t answer directly.

“It has been an interesting discussion but I shouldn’t keep you from your duties any longer.” The primus said after a long wait.

Patricia was about to protest that she had been here first but thought better of it and quickly left the Primus enjoying the sun in her favorite spot in the garden.

“You heard?” Tiepolo asked.

“Yeah” an old man said as he was rising laboriously from behind some nearby bushes. “Oh, I’m getting to old for all this cloak and dagger crap Julian.”

“Rubbish! You couldn’t wait to get out of that stuffy office the Fundamental branch has stuck you in. Once ROM, always ROM.” Tiepolo said with a light laugh. “So what do you think of our Precentor?”

“It could go either way. Certainly there is enough heresy to convict, if that is what you need. It isn’t the greater heresy of objective but only a matter of means, which can be serious enough. Miss Copperfield’s heart seems to be in the right place though.” The old man replied.

Tiepolo thought about that response for a while. “What about her opinions on our means?” He asked.

“It is not at all uncommon among the lower ranks. Many join the Order out of a desire to help humanity so when we place restraints on them it is naturally very frustrating, although most understand and accept the restrictions. Even so unauthorized leaks of minor technical information and charity work by the Order’s techs have been on the rise recently, her suggestions for dealing with the Coalition and the Outworlds Alliance will resonate well inside the rank and file of the order.” The old man regarded Tiepolo closely. “She does have a point, with the Coalition’s efforts on Antallos many within the Order will ask ‘why not us’ and many without the Order will ask ‘why not sooner’ if we were to start up such programs, it is a delicate situation. Particularly since the more, ah, energetic elements of our Order are so eager to unveil the Sword of Blake and settle things in the manner of the Great Houses.”

“You have been listening to Waterly then.” Tiepolo said.

“It is hard not to considering the loud volume of her shrill unpleasant voice and the frequency with which she uses it. Many do listen eagerly however, particularly the younger members of my former branch and my current branch. I know she is your protégé Julian but, Precentor Dieron? You have elevated her to a position where her opinions will carry real weight. High enough for certain elements to concentrate around her.” The old man fell silent and he and the Primus sat in silence for many minutes enjoying the warm spring sun.

“So…” the Primus broke the silence “Perhaps we could use a counterbalance to our energetic activists.”

EDIT: Made a few edits suggested by Visitor

Von Straub Testing Facility, Hesperus II
March 20th, 3023

"Long Tom Assault Gun prototype final test phase 1 starting."

Hermann Steiner, standing in the safety of one of the observation shelters of the facility, sceptically watched through the armored glass as the ungainly vehicle rolling into the range, a pair of binoculars in hand just like the rest of the small crowd. 'What an ugly crate did they turn my Rommel into?' The vehicle he observed did indeed share only scant similiarities to the heavy tank the design team in this remote artillery testing facility had been given just six weeks ago. True, he could still readily indentify the base chassis, with the broad tracks, flat sides and steep upwards angle on the thick frontal armour. But above this, instead of the turret, the chassis extended into what could only be described as a rectangular armored box with angled sides and front covering everything in front of the flat engine deck at the rear. And out of the front of this box stuck a truly enourmous gun. The same small laser that the original tank carried, now in a ball mount in the frontal hull next to it, seemed more like an afterthought compared to that.

He shook his head. No turret, but only slightly lower profile than a Rommel? Sure, they had explained it to him as the gun taking that much space, but still. As he watched, he gained at least a somewhat positive impression as the vehicle navigated the obstacle course just as well as the Patton and Rommel prototypes had. Not that it surprised him. The engineers hadn't toyed around with the powerpack or the suspension of the original design and the changed center of gravity wasn't nearly enough to overcome the redundancies built into these components.

"Test phase 2 now commencing."

Having navigated the obstacle course, the prototype rolled over a slight hill, coming to face with two large buildings. They were empty eight-storey contructions made from steel-reinforced concrete specifically for this test and turned into a mock defensive position with a series of simulated targets, including a failed light Mech prototype that had been stripped of anything valuable long since, destined to spend its remaining days as a test target.

The vehicle turned slightly, angled it's gun and opened fire with a roar. All Hermann Steiner and the assembled crowd could see was a large explosion suddenly erupting in front of the first building, a gigantic cloud of dust obscuring their sight. Half a minute later, the dust settled and Steiner was able to see the devastation. The front half of the target building had collapsed into a pile of rubble. The trenches and two earthen bunkers in front of it had been replaced by a large crater. As he watched on, the remainder of the target building started collapsing.

Seemingly not satisfied, the prototype fired another shot, this time at the light Mech. Unlike with the first shot, the damage done was readily apparrent. The 30-ton mockup, or rather a mangled chunk of metal Steiner thought to be it's torso and head, was thrown backwards by the blast and only came to a rest more than a dozen meters from its original position. Now firing at maximum rate, the prototype put another two shells into the remaining target building, likewise reducing it to a pile of rubble.

Steiner took a glance at his wristwatch. The entire test phase had taken not even two minutes. He would make sure to venture out to the range and take a closer look, but he had to confess to himself that that had impressed him. He glanced at the young man beside him and smiled. Florian Pabst was visibly doing his best (and failing spectacularily) to hide his nervosity and not look at the very uncle of the Archon standing next to him.

"Mr. Pabst."

The youngster almost jumped. "Sir!"

'Well, he remembered that I like that more than being called excellency at least.' "At ease, young man. No need to be nervous. I'll take a look at the range later, but what I saw here doesn't look bad at all. Not at all. That's an awful lot of firepower this little project of yours throws around. Still, I heard you have some problems to iron out?"

Pabst took a deep breath and answered. "It's not so much ironing out, sir, as trying to find a way around them. The sad fact is that the autoloader system of the Long Tom Cannon simply can't handle our armor-piercing shells. They're too top-heavy. And there's similarily not enough space left to put in more than the 20 shells of ammunition the vehicle already carries. Though, I think we have found a somewhat satisfactory workaround."

"Oh"

"Our plan is to install a small munitions crane on the rear of the vehicle. The ammo hatch is still at the rear of the compartment, though we took your suggestion and redesigned it to be just as thick as the remaining armor. The crane should allow rapid restocking in the field despite the fact that we are talking about 200 kilogram projectiles here. It also allows to load one shell directly from the hatch into the gun, bypassing the autoloader; unlike the autoloader, the gun itself has no problems handling AP. Though I personally cannot see anything short of a military DropShip or a Castle Brian that would warrant AP over a high explosive shell."

Steiner nodded. He had known about these issues before, but he appreciated the honesty. His opinion of the young project leader rose again.

"Cost?"

"Rather steep now, sir, but that's mostly due to the experimental nature of the short-barrel cannons. If we start manufacturing them in bulk, the vehicle would likely be less expensive than the Rommel or Patton. We managed to simplify a lot by getting rid of the turret and on a proper assembly line, the vehicle will be easier and cheaper to construct and maintain than it's parents."

"Impressive. Given what it has shown here, I'll have to give this project of yours my blessing. Yes, that machine would make a great direct fire support asset for other armor and infantry units." Steiner could see the man's face brighten up. "That still leaves one question, though. Does it have a name?"

Pabst was caught on the wrong foot. "Sir?"

"A name, young man. Long Tom Assault Gun might be enough for a development prototype, but for a full-scale fighting vehicle?"

"Um, no, Sir, I fear we haven't thought about that."

"Oh well. Hmmm, to think about it... I think I have an idea."

"Yes, sir?"

"We named the tanks from Project Desert Knights after famous tank generals from the Second World War on pre-diaspora Terra."

"Um, yes, sir." That the former tank officer telling him this, known as an avid scholar of military history, had played a major part in that name choice was all but common knowledge for anyone knowing about Desert Knights at all.

"Well, in the years before that very same war, the Germans started creating the first assault guns in history. Actually, some of those even looked rather similar to your creation here. And one certain Colonel that would later be one of their best generals played a key role in creating them. How does Von Manstein sound as a designation?"
_________________________________________________________________________________

Training area, 30 klicks outside Port Krin
April 4th, 3023

"FIRE!"

"On the way."

The cannon of the Merkava roared as it sent a shell out towards the target. The training shell, little more than a fin-stabilised spike made of mere soft steel, bridged the gap to its intended target in less than a second, only to fly above the shoulder of the Valkyrie as it began its descent upon deactivating it's Jump Jets. Another projectile had more luck and hit Mech into the side torso. Unable to do any meaningful damage, the projectile simply bounced off, but not before the computers on board of the Mech would recognise the hit and apply the simulated damage of a to its armor. And then, the Mech vanished behind a dune.

To say that Captain Jakob Nordin, CO of 2nd company, 3rd battalion, was an unhappy man would have been an understatement. Having arrived only the week before from Earth, this was the first live exercise for him and his men, and it was not going as he wished it to. At first, his task had appeared simple, just an advance through the sector against an enemy blocking force allegedly consisting of Mechs and armor, but a good deal below the strenght of his company. He had heard a few second-hand comments about these mercs, the Buron Cavalry, and had been eager to train with them.

That, of course, had been before the current situation had started. A lance of light Mechs were utilising their jump jets and the broken ground dominating the western of the training area to stall his advance to a crawl. Nordin had seen aerial photographs of that area in the briefing and knew that to try and follow his assailants into it would be folly. The entire place was a virtual mess of wadis, creeks, steep dunes and broken ground of the type that no sane tanker would ever want to have to drive over even under the best of circumstances. With a lance of jump-capable, hostile Mechs at large, driving in there would be nigh-suicidal. And yet, the very same area offerred them the perfect opportunity to pester his advancing company by repeatedly jumping just high enough to crest the dunes, firing a salvo and droping back into cover, presenting a minimal target.

As on cue, the Valkyries answer, a flight of five LRM, hit the lead tank of third platoon. "Gunfighter 3-1, damage report, over", Nordin spoke into his radio.

"Minor armor damage only, over."

Almost inaudibly, Nordin sighed. The tank of his XO had been knocked out almost immediately as this stupid skirmish had begun. An LRM flight had hit the tracks of the Merkava and once the tank was immobilised, the two Jenners and the Javelin compromising the remainder of the light lance had concentrated their fire on such an easy target. 'I've had enough of this stupid game of whack-a-Mech. We're wasting time for no real reason', the captain thought as one of the Jenners did another hit-and-run before diving below the crest of the dunes. He made his decision and spoke into the radio once more. "Gunfighter Six to all Gunfighter elements. Form up and advance towards Phase Line Bravo." He had had enough. Time to concentrate on the objective. Phase Line Bravo was due north of his current position and dominated by good, open ground. If those damn Mech-jocks wanted a piece of him, they were welcome to try and follow his company into the open ground and get themselves shot up. And then he could concentrate on the advance on his real objective on Phase Li-

"INCOMING!" Shaken up by the sudden call, the GDI captain couldn't do anything but watch in horror as what appeared to be a large salvo of missiles rained down on 3rd platoon. No, he corrected himself, not on 3rd platoon, but only their command tank. Recovering almost immediately, Nordin tried to contact the stricken tank, but a second missile salvo already landed on it. "3-1 is down. I repeat, 3-1 is down" it shouted from the radio. And to make matters worse, those damnable light Mechs started another attack, sending a fussilage of LRM, SRM and laser fire into 2nd platoon, simultaneous to more missile fire from seemingly nowhere raining down on his tanks. Nordins training kicked into gear and he immediately ordered his company out of the beaten zone. Nobody had told him about goddamn rocket artillery, but that wasn't an excuse to get his company trashed. Already reports came in. No tanks beyond 3-1 had been lost so far, but 2nd platoon had two more immobilised and with more indirect fire coming in, he gave them a short lifespan indeed.

He just started ordering the company to increase distance from the broken ground when he saw them. A quartet of squat, ugly shapes crested the dunes, and for a second, Nordin thought that his eyes were playing a trick on him. A notion that was debunked rather messily as a salvo of PPC fire ripped into one of the Merkavas of 2nd platoon. Dutifully, the training systems recorded the hits of the low-powered shots, assessed the damage they would have done in a real battle and shut down the "destroyed" tank. "Contact, enemy armor, 10 o'clock!" Nordin still could hardly believe it. Those madmen had to have driven their tanks right through that absolute clusterfuck of terrain to outflank his force! And his bewilderment only grew as the lance of tanks accellerated down the loose side of the dune, towards his company. Everything he had ever learnt screamed at them to stop this reckless bullshit. There was no way to pull that stunt without throwing the tracks! And yet, all four of those damn tanks were already closing on the bottom of the dune and still going.

Return fire from the Merkavas began hammering the incoming tanks, but their armor seemingly held and another GDI tank was knocked out by a salvo of PPC fire. And then the attacking lance fired a salvo of SRM, apparrently spread out over the whole company. Nordin didn't fully register the intent before the missiles exploded around his tanks, blanketing his company under clouds of thick, black smoke. Knowing full well that he had to get the situation back under control, and fast, he started giving orders...

45 minutes later, command post outside the training area

Nordin entered the CPs briefing room full of apprehension, expecting an epic dressing down. Upon entering the small room and taking in the sights of several rows of seat facing a projector wall, with a coffee machine tucked into a corner, he was greeted by Captain Nicholas Cawthorn, the CO of 1st company and an old friend of his. Both saluted each other before Cawthorn took the initiative. "Take a seat over there. I'm gonna fetch us some coffee. Nice job out there, Jakob. Major Heller is going to be here in ten minutes so we can start the de-brief."

"Yeah, thanks, Nick. I'm so looking forward to the major tearing me apart for letting those mercenaries hand me my ass on a platter. Two killed light Mechs, a killed Manticore and another one immobilised, plus some damage to the rest in exchange for my entire company? The major is going to rip my head off."

"Nah, don't be so harsh on yourself."

"Harsh? I got my entire company wiped out by a bunch of mercs at a ludicrous casualty rate!"

"You, Jakob, and just about every other tank company CO we have on-planet. We've been systematically putting every newly arrived company through this scenario and nobody up until now managed to beat Captain Tavrel and his men on the first try. You and your men are just the newest entry on quite a list."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, Jakob, seriously. The scenario might have been in your favour on the first glance, but the mercs know exactly how to play newcomers. Now, guess what the problems are. Tell me, what went wrong?"

"Well, I guess it started to go wrong when that damn rocket artillery came raining down on us. Made a real mess of coordination and they timed their attack just perfectly to keep the confusion going. I fucked up and lost control and unit cohesion just went poof. But how the hell did they manage to get their tanks through that bloody mess of terrain on the western part of the training area?"

"Good call, better than most. But no. Okay, for one, that 'rocket artillery' were their tanks firing those LRM racks indirectly, over the dune. The light Mechs harrassing you also acted as spotters. Not as good as laser-designators, but they can guide it in well enough if the target doesn't move too much. And no, Jakob. Your first mistake was a more simple one and one all of us trained under the old paradigm are prone to make. You allowed a bunch of pissant light Mechs to slow your company to a crawl and provoke you into a game of skeet-shooting with tanks."

"What else should I have done? Just ignore them and let them rip apart my company from behind while we drive by?"

"Exactly, Jakob. You see, that's what I mean. We were trained under a paradigm where light force can quickly cripple or kill even a heavy tank if given that kind of opportunity. It's just that we now have armor that can take a few hits and keep going. Under old circumstances, you'd have been right. But now, simply driving on, taking a few hits and continuing the advance has become a viable option. And had you done so, they would have had to either give up or follow your company out in the open, where you'd have torn them to shreds."

"Well, and beside that, your call at the end. Yeah, closing in with and destroying the enemy is our primary task and your aggressiveness is commendable, but charging through the smoke they threw up on you, directly into close-range combat, was the worst thing you could have done, short of just sitting there doing nothing. As nice as the upgraded Merkavas are, they're still originally built under differrent limitations and it shows. Those Manticores simply have a lot more durability and firepower. Our advantages are accuracy at long range and better coordination. A messy, chaotic short-range slugfest is just about the worst situation you can get into against them. Doesn't help that they're arguably better at coordinating in that extreme situation, though that's more a trait of those mercenaries specifically."

Cawthorn paused, handing a cup of coffee to Nordin before taking a seat next to him.

"What do you mean with the Merkavas being built differrently?" Nor din asked after taking a sip.

"What I mean is that they're pretty much obsolete now, as are any other tanks we've produced. Sure, we can up-armor them with IS Standard to a certain degree and the new guns allow us to hurt that kind of armor, but it's a slapdash solution. They're still a good deal more vulnerable than something built completely taking advantage of the material science advances the IS has made. We can only put so much new armor on them and the tanks are still more vulnerable to soft-kills and catastrophic damage upon penetration than any IS tank in their weight class."

Cawthorn took a sip of coffee before continuing. "And then there's the whole mobility thing. Yeah, IS tanks like the Manticore generally don't go faster than ours, but that's for a similar reason as us: They'd risk breaking more delicate parts of the drivetrain or throw tracks if they go too fast, so they artificially limit their top speed. Those Manticores? They're powered by a bona-fide fusion engine, Jakob. Sure, they have quite a few efficiency problems compared to our engines, but they couldn't care less. Those fusion reactors produce so much raw power that they can easily compensate by brute force and they'll never have to worry about not having enough torque. Those things can accellerate up a steep slope just as good as they accellerate on flat ground. And their tracks and drivetrain are overall built a good deal tougher than ours, so they can go and pull maneuvers over difficult terrain that boggle the mind. That's how they managed to flank you through all those wadis and rocky ground. Well, and then there's inferno gel. That's how that Javelin killed three of your tanks at the end. If that stuff gets into the air intakes, it just makes a mockery out of our firefighting systems and melts down the engine. I heard that little reveal caused tank designers back on Earth to get more than one aneurysm. Forced them to majorly re-design their current prototypes, especially after they heard just how much everyone in the Inner Sphere seems to love using the stuff."

"Okay, that's spiffy. Still, I've never seen someone accel a tank down a dune slope like those guys did."

"Yeah, I know Jakob. That's the other thing. That tank lance under Captain Tavrel, they are freakishly good and they work together as a team to a a degree of almost being able to read each others thoughts. They remind me about a few stories from my grandfather. Back in WWII, during the Battle of the Bulge, he witnessed some german veteran tankers pulling stuff he had never thought to be possible with a tank. It's kinda like that."

"What? You mean-"

"Yeah. Those guys, they've had already seen battle when we were still in basic. Hell, before that. And I had the opportunity to talk with Tavrel a few times. Going by what he told me, you'd be hard-pressed to find any tanker back on Earth with the kind of combat experience that he and his men have unless you go straight to searching for WWII veterans. And even amongst them, you'd probably have to search hard. So take it easy, Jakob. You got your ass handed to you on a platter by a bunch of guys that have done this kind of thing on real battlefields for longer than you've been a soldier."

Nordin just shook his head. "Those guys sound crazy."

"Heh, you don't even know half of it. Wait until you meet Tavrel in person. You could almost call him schizophrenic. For all his seriousness once business starts, he's a walking violation of regulations outside. I can't imagine that eccentric working anywhere but in a merc company that is willing to tolerate his antics as long as he's providing the skills. He's a friendly and laid back guy to the point where you'd think he's an old hippie. Still a bitstrange, though. But then, they all are."

"Who's strange?"

"Those mercs. Well, at least the ones they didn't hire on Earth to replace their losses. Culture shock is perhaps the best way to describe it. I guess most of it is their entire attitude. They have no qualms to fight for the highest bidder or outright being sent into combat against the same people that paid them just a few weeks ago. They really see war as nothing but business. But at the same time, they still have a moral code and a code of honor and they hold themselves to it. They're perfectly fine with the idea that they could get killed and from what I've seen, they wouldn't even really hold a grudge against someone trying it. But at the same time, you have that almost tribal system of loyality to their unit and their families and they're crazy protective of their non-combatants."

"Can best be explained with what Tavrel told me a few weeks ago. I met him in a bar in town during leave and after a few drinks, he started reminiscing. To paraphrase: 'Someone tries killing me in a warzone, it's just business. I'll try my level best to stay alive and all, but there won't be any hard feelings afterwards. I'm doing my job, they're doing theirs, no problem in that. But someone going after our dependents, our families, that's personal. That's damn personal and we're going to kill the bastard and all his friends. No prisoners, no mercy. If someone threatens our families, we make an example of him. And that's why the Combine wants our heads. They weren't exactly happy about how we ripped apart their Mech battalion on Thestria after they gunned for our dependents. And even less about how we afterwards demolished every last bit of useable equipment we couldn't take with us. Served the bastards right.'" Cawthorn just shoock his head. "Strange guys. I wonder what a shrink would think of them."

"Um, wow. I guess I'll have to meet the guy in person."

"You will Jakob, he's going to come for the de-brief, too. Now, why are they taking so long?"

____________________________________________________________

Royal Palace, Tharkad City
Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth
May 2nd, 3023

A weary Simon Johnson rubbed his eyes, laying down the latest report someone had deemed necessary to be brought to his attention. A casual glance at the remaining pile on his desk didn't lift his stressed mood, either. And could anyone not have sympathy with me?, the head of Lyran intelligence wondered in his thoughts. It's what? 2:30 in the morning already and I'm still sitting here going through all these reports with the damned blizzard outside as the only atmosphere. He yawned. At times like these, he almost considered the somewhat remote and quiet office he had chosen for himself as a liability.

One more and he would call it a night, he promised to himself. He picked up the next file and started reading the header. Antallos, with a priority mark? It took him a second to recognize, a fact he blamed on the late hour. That damn unsanctioned Loki op, right! Taking a look at the source, he identified it as the drop-off point for the eventual mission report by the Loki team. Calling the details into memory, the team itself was supposed to spend another two to three months masking their tracks before returning. Johnson almost cursed. A mission report that early meant that the Heimdall agents he had sent after the operatives must have come too late. Forgetting his weariness and the blizzard still raging outside the window, Johnson began reading the report. Partial success? He dreaded at the meaning of that. Reading further, the feeling became more profound. They had really done it. Started a fake terrorist campaign, carried out bombings, the whole damn thing. And then he came to the climax of it.

Simon Johnson was not a man known for swearing. "Oh fucking hell." So, GDI or the Port Krin police had identified the team and tried storming their hideout just as the team had gathered for their big coup de gras. And apparently GDI had thought that they were dealing with a bunch of local yokels. Loki agents being what they were, the team hadn't gone quietly. He just stared at the paper in disbelief. 80% of the team, the entire operational part of it, dead. And they had taken several unidentified GDI elite troops with them before executing their suicide-contingency. Well, he reasoned, perhaps better than what the original OP plan had been.

Going over the aftermath provided scant relief. Four days after the destruction of the team, several anonymous tips and a nice batch of evidence, some faked, some pretty genuine, had been sent to both local and CSN-native reporters in Port Krin. The reaction afterwards confirmed earlier reports about the independence CSN media apparently enjoyed. And the series of public reports about the Draconis Combine being the prime suspects in a series of terrorist incidents that had killed 17 GDI soldiers (not counting the losses of their strike team) and 52 civilians had had interesting effects, to say the least. Official GDI sources had further fueled the conflagration by denying any comment at first. Johnson read of riots in the streets, even the Combine embassy being attacked by angry mobs for a short time before police intervened. The main objective, the report stated, was not fully achieved, but relations between the CSN and the Combine had taken at the least a temporary hit.

As cold as it sounded, Johnson couldn't but be relieved. After all the horror-scenarios this trigger-happy Loki idiot could have gotten them into when he started his little private operation, it had worked out well enough in the end. A cruel smile appeared on his face. Not well enough for the man responsible, though. For all their tendency to go over the top, Loki had a rather strong distaste for loose cannons. Especially if their operations resulted in Loki agents being killed. And Johnson, after a discussion with the Archon, had given them the job of cleaning up their own mess. The surviving agents would be luckier. They had had no reason to doubt the orders they were given, so no blame would fall on them.

The remainder of the report was nothing but another study of general information on the CSN. The team had been tasked with data collection as a secondary objective, but Johnson couldn't find anything the LIC office on Antallos hadn't reported earlier. With a diplomatic mission aimed to secure an embassy planned in a few months, they still had a frustratingly low amount of real data on this new minor power. The huge report they had snatched from MIIO had helped a lot, but half his analysts flat-out refused to believe much of it and the small task force founded for anything regarding the CSN was awash with all kinds of theories, assessments, possible explanations and so on. Well, at least that poor sod on Antallos wouldn't have to work on a shoestring anymore after the mission arrived.

Johnson took a glance at the clock adorning one of the walls. Almost 3:00 AM. He sighed. Alright, just one more report and he'd go get sleeping. Tomorrow, he'd have to present this to Archon Katrina and he already expected her to get riled up one last time over this entire debacle.

Giant merger rocks PMC business
New York - Sat May 3rd 2008/3023 - 11:30am EST

(Reuters) - Blackwater International has completed its merger with eleven other security firms, including former PMC heavyweights DynCorp International and Aegis Defense Services, creating the largest private military corporation currently existing on Earth.

In a statement on Saturday, Blackwater CEO and founder Eric Prince said that the final transactions closed the previous day. With the largest merger ever recorded in the private security sector finished, he announced the companies intent to rename itself into Artemis Interstellar Security.

The merger came together under hopes of creating a company with the means necessary to compete in the large-scale mercenary market of the Inner Sphere and Mr. Prince announced that Artemis Security has already begun preparations for the creation of a full-scale combat unit and logistical support units of as yet undetermined size.

To procure the manpower and equipment necessary, Artemis announced a strategic partnership with Textron Marine & Land Systems as well as its intent to open a branch office on Antallos in hopes of accessing the Inner Sphere weapons market within the next 3 months. Textron announced the production of a new light tank design and an armored personnel carrier utilizing Inner Sphere technology within one year.

(Reporting by Yinka Levine and Eric Adegoke; Editing by Dan Collins)

Tramp-class Jumpship Minerva May, Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 1
System S3-19570410 (Sol-II/"Motherload"), Grantville Cluster
February 18, 2007/3022

The old Jumpship Minerva May re-entered Sol space right on time, its newly automated systems transmitting the clearance code to nearby missiles. Captain Azonia Murrough stared slightly nervous at the 'Motherload' made display, before a warning message switched from yellow to green before flashing off. The small crew around her seemed to relax almost at once.

“All clamps good, evacuation complete, power shunts confirmed off, and station keeping engine warming up. Ready for separation.” Kim Barnirov called out from her station as she read the displays as the increasingly automated systems did their jobs without her having to lay a finger on a key.

A small orangish haired girl, Shammie Pollone, nodded before speaking a loud into a headset, “Drop ships Eternal Hope and Zen you are cleared for separation.”

Confirmation from those two ships rolled back before Shammie tapped on their docking icons on the touch screen. Faint clanks sounded off to those who knew what to listen for. Shammie looked over at Banessa Laird as she watched for a few moments as the Dropships accelerated away, before nodding back at Shammie.

Shammie turned back to her screen, “Prometheus, are you go for separation?”

A voice floated over the airwaves, “Yes, Shammie, lets get going before our 'employers' get annoyed with us by lazing around.”

Shammie glanced back at Azonia with a worried look before replying, “Ok, Claudia, undocking you now.”

A final set of clanks sounded out though the old ship as one of its old companions left it. Virtually gutted of its normal supplies, its cargo bay filled with salvage from Port Krin. Even the Mech Stalls had been left on Antallos, for the remaining mech forces use. The Prometheus and it's cobbled together engine and patched hull started a painfully slow burn back to Earth orbit.

Azonia shook her head as she watched the battered Dropship limp painfully away from her ship. “Zak, bring us about into our normal parking area.”

A bead of sweat slipped down Azonia's head as the helms man nodded absently as he started the ship moving away from its entry point, being careful of the recent construction around the area. Not to mention keeping his eyes away from any of the captain.

Banessa shifted in her seat as her sweat built up, pausing for a moment to make sure her bikini was still in place, meant for a gravity environment, not a zero G environment, before working on remapping local space. On the main monitor the local map came up with a set of unidentified icons, as the ship slowly moved out of the jump point. Passing her fingers over the board as the rest of the crew watched. Slowly more points popped up onto the screen as the radar reached out further and received more information.

More monitoring and weapons platforms began to dot the area, but the biggest point of interest was something slowly coming together just outside the jump point. At the current time it was just a crude frame work, but to those who had seen dozens of them, the outline of a Star League (SL) recharging station was clearly visible. Large tanks of reaction mass were already attached to the frame work. Although, as the command line Jumpship a distance away from the station showed, it wasn't yet operational. With the Jumpship's sail wide open and the engine burning.

As the ship moved out of the jump point area a rather large satellite noticed a new ship coming into its location with the correct IFF signature. A small, low powered laser played over the ship quickly before finding and initializing a connection link. Moments later the local storage buffer was dumping new data into the C-Earth build data systems of the Minerva May as it slowly moved into its final position. While data from the jump ship was downloaded back to GDI command center. All of this went on unnoticed by the command crew. Granted, most of their attention was on the new structures in space that the upload contained, which the ships systems correlated with its data.

A squeak of delight from Kim caught the rest of the bridge crews' attention. Except for Zak, who kept his eyes firmly on his station. Azonia simply raised her eye brows at the woman, “Well, what? You found a new boyfriend though that 'Motherload' dating service?”

Blushing at the question, “Hey, just because... Oh, look, the 'Motherloaders' have a shipyard in orbit!” Kim pointed out before she let her mouth cause her to do a round or two of cleaning the hallway with a toothbrush. Shammie was still on the captain's black list for her last response on that issue two weeks ago. Granted, that had been after she had been found encouraging a Japanese Army man from the ship's ten man detachment from the 1st Airborne Brigade. Nor was that soldier's commander happy on his end.

Mostly ignoring Kim's almost comment, except for a flat look, Azonia watched as Kim busied herself opening a small window on the main monitor to show her screen. As she ignored the captain's flat look at her back.

The large flat screen showed a grainy image of a small shipyard in high orbit of the planet. As she stared at it, a thousand thoughts went though her mind, slowly focusing on getting some repair time somehow. From Shammie's squeal of delight, that was likely her thinking too, the Minerva May had way to many patches for knocked out heat sinks. Which made it hell during jumps, to the fact that most of the crew owned well worn beach wear to cope with the heat.

“Captain,” Banessa called out, “incoming signal, it looks like mail time.”

Blinking away from the image, Azonia looked at her screen besides her chair as the computers churned though the mess of data. Almost immediately one message popped up for her on her chair's monitor, from Miriya unsurprisingly. Tapping on it, the icon opened up to show her what she feared. One picture showed a beach as Miriya ran past holding some clothing, next picture showed a bared Rick running past missing his swim trunks, another showed a topless Lisa glaring at the camera. Azonia just rubbed the bridge of her nose.

She was friends with those two, nothing more! Would Miriya stop trying to set her up with them. Sure, Rick was Miriya's childhood friend, maybe a bit more than that, but could she stop trying to pimp him and his wife out to her. She needed a love life, she got it, please stop it.

The rest of the crew focused harder on their mail as Azonia seemed to growl from her seat. Her rant on the subject was well known, going something like. That she liked men, but was it her fault that most of them didn't know how to handle a girl with a strong attitude? Roy could handle it quite well, granted, his 'girlfriend' had him on a short leash most of the time. Or his virtually adopted brother, he could handle it well.

Although, Azonia silently hoping that Claudia wouldn't do anything too rash, Roy had been killed, then her Dropship repaired, shot down, repaired slightly, and then reduced to a space going hull. No, the past year hadn't been too kind to her.

It took the ship another hour to get in position, and another hour to get the sail and the patches for the heat sinks deployed. Leaving a crew of sweating individuals in soaked though cloths.

Tramp-class Jumpship Minerva May
20,000 km away from Earth-Moon L1 Point
Earth Space
Three hours later

“Captain,” Banessa quietly called out, “incoming message for you.”

Azonia nodded absently as she accepted the message on her monitor. Lisa's face popped up on screen, “Azonia, is Claudia...” Lisa's face on screen twisted slightly, “'Ok,' for lack of a better term.”

“No worse than she was. Granted, she was getting better, but you know how she gets near any of her 'distant relations'--DAMN IT!!” Azonia started cursing violently at something that Lisa couldn't see, but could guess.

“GDI fleet against Clan?” Lisa guessed, Azonia's was the GDI's best SL fleet tactics expert, which the Clans had likely evolved from. Modified to fit expected Clan weapon ranges, armor, and personalities. Granted, Azonia herself admitted, she had at best a book learning, but that was better than vast majority of even some of the best House experts, who usually ranked along the lines of learned amateur.

“No, to far from Earth, doing a local sim, Clan against SL, and I 'was' the SL fleet. Unfortunately, my flagship died at long range so my fleet is getting torn though like wet paper with that range advantage.” Azonia flinched as a cruiser spewed plasma from a simulated near hit on the reactor.

“So,” turning away from the main screen as her simulated fleet was torn apart by its AI counter part. “What do you want?”

“You're being pulled from the Antallos run. Our employers are wanting you to pull out of the L1 area and put a burn in for that area the small shipyard you should see in orbit.” Lisa bit her bottom lip for a moment before continuing.

“Expect to be not doing any moving for a month or two. I'll have a load of techs will be waiting for you. R&R as been approved by the way, so I'll talk to you more about this when you are down.” Azonia stared at the image of Lisa for a moment.

“I won't say much on the subject as I expect you brought those issues up already. I expect there is a very good reason for this.” Lisa let out a breath she had been holding, “I'll get moving as soon as the system's lock back down. Azonia out.”

Cutting the link, she turned to the pilot who was watching the simulate rout on the main screen. “Zak!”

The single male on the bridge automatically turned to look at her, and just as quickly look away. Azonia's jump outfit, which the crew still hadn't changed out of, left her assets in full view, except for the patches of material lightly glued over her breasts. The GDI still hadn't supplied a outfit that fit her yet, not to mention the problems with getting a swimsuit that fit her, being a G-cup was a large pain for clothing.

“Begin, lock down,” she ignored the groans from the people around her, “and begin a burn to put us by that shipyard.”

The crew picked up at the last bit of information as they moved to ready the ship for inner system travel.


Tramp-class Jumpship Minerva May
One jump away from Earth
CSN Controlled Space
Two months later

Azonia stared at a still unfamiliar ceiling for a few moment blankly before a light sucking feeling on one of her breasts caused her to look down, Lisa had her head on Azonia's chest while sucking on one of her breasts. Azonia stared for a moment unmindful at the sight before looking around the rest of the bed. One side had her hand clenched around had a pair of underwear, Rick on that side of the bed was looking around the pile of cloths looking for a replacement. Turning to the other side was a brown leg, hitched on the top of the bed, with the rest of its owner below her sight.

Max and Miriya were likely out on the couch, or such. The first time this had happened, she had been sure this was Miriya's work. Patting her hip ensured her that while her pants were gone, she did have on her panties, thankfully the room didn't smell of sex. Although, it did smell of faintly of liquor, given the rebuilt filtering systems that meant they had a lot last night. She idly wondered where her cloths were. Any thoughts of being horrified at the situation didn't really enter into her mind.

No, horrified only entered into the equation up until the second or third time. Now she simply wondered who was going to cook breakfast, or if the ship had already served breakfast at the mess. Granted, normally at this point just walking was a slight challenge. Wincing at the slight pain that thought caused as it rolled around her head, Azonia carefully rolled over, removing the weight from her chest, taking note of the hickey on the spot Lisa had sucked on and the thin film of red lipstick. Wincing at the slight pain in her head at the movement.

Crawling out of her new bed with nicely rounded corners that she didn't have to worry about in this state. Carefully guided herself over to the new dresser, only to stare at it in bewilderment. The thing looked like something out of a 'Motherload' show. 'Star... something', wincing at the pain that though caused she moved onto a safer bet.

Azonia stumbling into her closest, ruffling though the cloths before pulling out one of Lisa's new silk bathrobes, pausing a moment she wondered just how that got in there before giving up on her memory of that as she shrugged it on. It barely covered her, but it was better than nothing. Leaving the bedroom, even as Lisa groaned as she started to wake up, Azonia went to the kitchen. Passing a stack of limbs that was Miriya and Max on the couch. Miriya sprawled out over her husband, both dead to the world, and the fact that they seemed to have been mid-way though trying to get naked when they fell asleep didn't phase her a bit.

Trying to focus, she nicely stopped herself from running into a new wall, as her body tried to automatically go to where her old kitchen used to be. Her rebuilt quarters were much larger than they used to be, which was proving to be a pain her her current state. Entering the kitchen she found her top from last night, stained and ripped, in front of the open fridge Rick crouched in only his newly acquired underwear. Pulling up behind him, she reached down and pulled the quart of juice from his hands has he sat it down. Chugging the contents straight from the jug before putting it back in the fridge. Leaving Rick at the fridge, his mind trying to wrap around the idea of breakfast with his hangover and a splitting headache. Her, well she had her sites set on a nice long shower.

Few had her resilience to hangover, at times like this she was very happy for that, a benefit of her Belter heritage and her grandfather's foresight in making sure she used her ancestry to ensure she had the full Belter package during one of the more profitable years. The party last night had been to celebrate Claudia's Dropship docking and to the start of their new contract. It also was a bit that Azonia was once again in control of her ship. Granted a lot more needed to be done to it, but it was mechanically, structurally, and electronically light years beyond what it had been.

Walking past the sleeping mass on the couch, Azonia raised an eyebrow at the scrawl of permanent marker across Miriya's left butt check. Raising her estimation of the amount of liquor from last night, it still although didn't take the crown from the nigh Lisa had attempted to write her name on Rick's butt with her lipstick, close but not yet.

Slapping her close friend's ass strong enough to produce a sharp smacking sound, failed to wake her, or her husband. Neither even moved, even as Azonia's hand print showed up brightly on Miriya's cheeks. Her mind increased the amount and potency of last night's drinks as she stared slightly surprised.

Shaking off her surprise, she continued into the... “What the hell?”

The rather flimsy looking paper door stared back at her, reaching out she gently pushed on it only for it to resist her solidly. Granted that helped her peace of mind, even her current living area was a bit big for her piece of mind. Fewer safeties against the vacuum of space in larger areas.

Still, that left her outside of the bath area. Her mind finally took note of a cheerfully lite panel besides the door. Carefully pushing it caused the door to pop open as it slide into a slot in the door frame. She was starting to remember a argument about this, something about new fiddly bits?

Shaking her head she looked at a rather deep pool of steaming water just infront of the door. Ignoring that sight for now she looked around and spotted a shower unit. Sliding inside it even had a smooth panel instead of normal water controls, but one of the buttons was cheerfully labeled. “Wake Up.”

Her scream though the open door cut into Rick's pained haze, causing his head to shoot up and into the third shelf in the fridge, leaving him clutching his throbbing skull. Lisa rolled off the bed and onto a newly awakened Claudia. As for Miriya and Max, dead to the world was a kind way of putting it.

A soaking wet and shivering Captain stumbled out of the shower, cussing at the new 'crap' they installed on her ship. She was still cussing as Claudia slammed into her, desperately on her way to the toilet. Tossing the woman into the hip deep steaming pool of water, before Claudia got sick on the new tiled bathroom floor.

Hearing the retching of Claudia as she resurfaced a single thought went though the back of her mind. 'Gee, this bods well.'

----------------------------------------

The dull thumping of her feet hitting the hall's floor way, passing still unfinished sections of quarters that the few fitters from Motherload were working on. Despite the amount of work done on the ship, a lot of finishing details were still left. The second and third public bathrooms needed a lot of tile work done on them, but the third toilet room didn't even have the toilets installed.

Passing the quarters that held the Skulls ground troops, and the GDI Marines on the other side of the hall. You could hear the activity in next room that took up the entire 30 meter width of the grav-deck. The huge open room had over a hundred men, and dozens of women doing combat exercises. The biggest open area on the deck had virtually been taken over by the two groups, the 30x30 meter room made her cringe when they had suggested it; it still didn't make her happy. Even if both doors that let allowed the hallway to run though the room had airlocks on them, or the dozens of sliding 'blast doors' that ran up and down the hallway.

Exiting the room she kept up her run past the two dozen scientists with her on this trip. Some were monitoring how the new equipment worked; a few working on that new turret, although their testing had apparently been restricted due to the increasing traffic in Earth-orbit; and finally a dozen more astronomers were playing with the newly-installed telescope, apparently very happy about the Captain's refusal to use the theoretical quick-charging, Single Day Charging, method GDI was so certain about since the extra time spent recharging the drive gave them enough time to do a local survey for each system they visited (not to mention the work they could get done while along the fairly well-surveyed route between 'Motherload' and Antallos).

Most of the scientists for the GM project were being shipped into Port Krin separate from the equipment to cut down on the time they were away from the designing boards. Running down the hallway further had the new crew quarters right next to her quarters.

Well, to say it was her quarters was a overstatement, considering it had room for eight people to live comfortably. It had provisions for fake walls to section off areas into bedrooms. Its own full, if small kitchen. A bath meant for eight, and a dozen other little things. Full Jumpship read outs, a holo-projector that had as its 'screen saver': a real-time read out of the local space/solar systerm.

At least the others moved into her room, making it seem slightly less empty. Lisa, Rick, and Claudia seemed to have claimed her bed, which had moved up from a Full to a King size. The bay personal weren't doing so well finding those other beds for her room although. It was a big enough pain to share a Full size bed with a pregnant woman, which she had reluctantly done so with both Lisa and Miriya in the past, if she still had her old bed she might just live on the bridge in her chair. By the end of this year long mission, she expected one of those two to be pregnant again, at least she had space so she wouldn't have to share again once that happened.

Pregnancy didn't react to well to long term zero-g, and normal beds on the ship weren't made to two in the beginning. At least Lisa didn't leave bruises like Miriya did. Granted, Miriya was one of her closest friends, but she was damn grabby when pregnant and sleeping.

Stopping at her door, Azonia tried to think of anything else to stop her stomach from rebelling from the light jog, she had only done three laps this morning. Granted it was with a slight hang-over, but still...

Giving up for the moment on her morning work out, she stumbled into her apartment. Hearing reaching sounds from the bathroom she knew were everyone likely was. Mentally clamping down on her stomach at it made a sympathetic lurch to those sounds, Azonia followed the pitiful sounds to their source.

Rick the least pale was being a good husband and friend respectively to Lisa and Miriya, holding each of their hairs up as they held onto a porcelain god. Although, his comments about breakfast wasn't earning him any brownie points. In the shower Claudia was attempting to make a go at cleaning herself up, but Max wasn't to be seen. Looking back at the couch, and then under the coffee table showed him still sleeping.



Later that day

Parsing though the report on the recharge, it seemed like the automation, even with the manual overrides were speeding up the recharge significantly. Four to five days at the outside for a full and safe recharge, this was going to annoy the astronomers, but she could live with that. What made her worry was that the new 'upgrades' might be ruining her KF-drive. Lang and Ex (the ship's engineer) were starting to give her annoyed stares when ever she call them to check on the drive. Damn it! She wasn't paranoid! She was simply par- correctly concerned about the new additions.

The next item was a almost demand by Miriya to practice their new LAMs in a zero-g combat exercise. Putting that to the side, in the state she was in Miriya wasn't in any position, or ability, to object like she usually did. Even if Azonia herself accidentally got hung-over with Miriya, it did have a positive note, Miriya couldn't protest as excitedly as she normally did. At this point it was just better to ignore it until tomorrow and let the Small Craft personal sometime to get over their own hang-overs.

Pausing for a moment, Azonia looked down at her breasts and stretched as she grumbled at the stiff new custom bra. She had two dozen fresh from the 'Motherload' before they left, but last night had already started to cut into their numbers.

Returning to the report showed that Ben had finally shown back up it seemed, escaping Banessa's clutches long enough to grab lunch. Azonia had to chuckle at that, the girl had taken so long to go after him, but when she did. It was almost worthy of Miriya's attempts at Max during their pre-dating period.

'Poor man, may his soul rest in peace.' Azonia mirthfully though to herself. At least with Miriya she didn't let up until it was done, Ben didn't have that 'luxury'. Banessa was a bit too much restrained for that, and it was dragging out their 'courtship' much longer.




Tramp-class Jumpship Minerva May, Antallos-Sun Lagrange Point 1
Antallos System, The Outer Sphere (Periphery)
June 1, 2007/3022

Azonia watched as the Dropships prepared to detach, with the Prometheus and the other set to head down to Port Krin. Her Jumpship would be mostly empty, so Azonia had eased up a bit. Feeling more at home than usual mostly because she wasn't wearing a bra under her new Macross based uniform, she had lost more than a dozen bras already on this voyage. Her time without bras vastly outnumbered the time she had bras in her wardrobe, just what god had she offend to get this curse.

Mentally shrugging she brought up the information on the current state of her investments. She had started out with a 100,000 Cbills in the ship's Comstar account. Converting that Motherload's currency after the invasion had allowed her to double that amount fairly easily by stuffing any spare space with luxuries to sell at Port Krin. After a couple round trips, she had started to run out of space for the luxuries. So she had simply attempted to find areas to invest in, and space mining was a natural choice considering her background.

In total she had about 5 million dollars stuffed into that area, and another couple thousand in chocolates, coffee, and other such 'disposable' goods. The taxes for it were a pain, but her prices were cheap compared to some. Some chocolate vendors in Port Krin were five times the cost on Motherload, while her price was between three to four depending on the market. The price for it on the nearest Combine world she had heard was as high as 20 to 30 times.

The news was showing that the space mining research group was down sizing, and the individual mining corporations where expanding. The news sighted three companies that had orders for parts to construct mining facilities, and two other companies trying to pull together the resources to put orders in for their facilities. The methods themselves went against the normal mining methods for space, but after reading their materials she could see their reasoning.

A brown set of hands grabbed her shoulders-

Five minutes later

“Damn it! Let go!” Azonia steamed in her head lock, this wasn't how you were supposed to treat a ship's captain, and her crew... traitors all of them!

“Nope!” Claudia was inordinately pleased with herself. “If I have to go down there, you do too.”

Miriya holding her friend's feet just grinned as the three women passed Rick, her new armored flightsuit protecting her against Azonia's attempts to kick her way free. Lisa right besides him just smirked at the woman. “The banquet for the show was for all of us, no getting out of it, this time.”

Leopard-class Dropship, Prometheus, Low Orbit
En Route To Port Krin
June 2, 2007/3022

When he had first seen a movie that showed in inside of a Leopard-class Dropship, Rick had wanted to laugh. Some native people would wonder why the Dropship had ladders along the hallways; that under thrust the floor would become a wall was something they didn't think of. Looking at all the chairs set to the floor, along with everything else solidly following that orientation for good or bad. At least Japan had put the hardsuits' stations on circular racks to allow them to be upright if on world or under thrust.

The bathroom had been a particular horror story before the refit of the ship, the old SL gimbals that kept that room at the correct orientation had frozen solid, and getting parts for it had been a serious problem. What tied these two thoughts together was the issue of going to the bathroom in the new hardsuit. That despite its usefulness in battle for a g-suit, a set of armor, and a spacesuit. It lacked the ability to deal solid wastes that would build up after a couple days, although it could deal with liquids easily enough. Solids, although required you to completely take off the suit and go normally.

Rick finished zipping up the softsuit, the sensor studded and skin tight outfit felt more like a second piece of skin. Snapping on the hardsuit was a fairly easy affair, grabbing a box besides him that supplied power to the suit when unattached to his LAM or the Dropship. Despite all their abilities, making SL era batteries was still giving the Coalition's battery manufacturers fits. The precious metals needed for the superconductors in the capacitors made them horrifically expensive for the time being. The space mining was still at least a year out from producing significant amounts. Rick just had to shake his head at that area when ever it came up.

Climbing over to the Dropship's ready room, Rick made sure the new pilots were in good condition before heading up to the command room for the Prometheus. In the room, Ben tried to teach one of the new pilots how to play Go, she wasn't taking his attempts at coaching her too well, while Max sat back and looked on in amusement. Ben and the girl's VFs were attached to the top of the Dropship, after being launched from the small bays of the Minerva, to catch a ride to the planet. Miriya was stuck on the Daedalus, and likely annoying Azonia with her 'mad skills' at Guitar Hero, while the new male pilot tried to stay as far away from his superior, least she grab him for the drummer position in the game.

Walking into the command room, Claudia looked back at him from her chair in her Macross uniform. His lightly armored, virtual space suit, was a far cry from his old flight suit that had so many patches there was barely an original piece on it. As for it being air-tight, it would be lucky to have all its patches installed correctly. By the same token, her uniform actually fit her and was made from high quality materials, despite it not being vacuum-rated, it was still a step above most top House uniforms. In spite of all the changes, Claudia could still make him feel horribly out of place. Rather like his wife sometimes; he remembered a mental note not to question her intake of chocolate again. Her discovery of Swiss Chocolates had been an event to behold.

“Still annoyed about having to be at the display banquet?” He took a well formed guess, her firm glare was his answer.

“At least we arrive last, after Lisa and Azonia on the Daedalus land. Anyway, you should be launching in another thirty minutes for our re-entry display if nothing else happens to delay the unloading.” Claudia said in reference to the overloading that was common on CSN Dropships, the weight limits on Dropships usually referring to the limits for flight than complete cargo capacity. Both Leopards had twice their limits in them before they had set out for Antallos. The Mule with them was carrying a mind numbing amount for that class, nearly 20,000 tons of cargo. If any of the three landed, or more precisely, tried to land. They would end up as a crater on the planet, thus their extra was offloaded in space, a time consuming and frustrating process that the local Antallos Dropships were getting rather good at as Earth had more to ship out than its on paper limits would allow.

“Remind Miriya we are only doing this display for half an hour. Then we've got to land and I have to figure out a way to wire my mouth shut for the banquet.” Claudia replied as she rolled her eyes.

Rick snorted at that, “Right, and how do I do that again? My bribery material disappeared in mid-shipment.”

Claudia smirked with a twinkle in her eye, “You should know that off Earth, Chocolates have a limited life span before they mysteriously vanish.”

“Vanish...” Rick eyed her skeptically as he stressed his words, “During the girls' movie night. Right. I believe you.”

Antallos
20th January 2008/3023

It had been two hours. Two hours since contact was made with the enemy. As a former Clansman, Mechwarrior Brox was literally born to be in the cockpit of a Mech, but this was beyond frustrating. He wanted to smash his fist into something. No, someone. Preferably the commander in charge of the enemy. The Command Lance of the 1st Mech Battalion was moving as the tip of a spearhead through enemy territory, which just happened to be a mountainous region, beyond which was the city, which they had to capture as their primary objective. The enemy didn’t want that, of course, so they had traps and mines aplenty on all the passes that could accommodate Heavy Mechs, and a dense concentration of AA and ASF which prevented Dropship landings closer to the objective. Now the Lance had to wait for the Combat Engineers and escorting Infantry to do their jobs and clear the way.

Any normal Clanner would balk at this cowardly way of battle, and forge ahead, scorching the earth to destroy any traps. Brox knew better than to do that, of course, but it still was ‘another straw on the camel’s back’ of his frustration. The primary source of his frustration though was the enemy Mechs themselves, the heaviest he’d seen and done battle with was a Shadow Hawk, which had been leading a Lance of five Wasps. The damn things were living up to their name, fire and maneuver, fire and maneuver, and they were running circles around the Command Lance.

“It’s like getting pecked to death,” Natalie complained, triggering her BattleMaster’s Lasers as another Wasp had appeared. It got off one Medium Laser shot that nailed her Mech’s left torso, before retreating out of view again with superior speed and jumpjets.

Brox spotted movement and with split second reactions sent two Laser shots that blasted apart yet another Wasp before it could even think of retreat.

“Nice one, Nameless,” complemented Friedrich ‘Rocketman’ Von Braun from his Awesome, which was positioned in the rear of their formation, mostly due to the fact that they didn’t want his PPCs used in this area, where a missed PPC bolt could easily cause a rockslide.

Brox didn’t respond. He was keeping a sharp lookout for that damn Shadow Hawk. The Mech in question popped into view to the right from a ridge, but four Wasps joined it and they all blasted their Medium Lasers and a SRM salvo into Janckowski’s BattleMaster, which promptly lost its right leg with the cumulative damage it had sustained. The eighty five ton machine fell forward with a thunderous crash, and, just like that, the entire Lance was stalled… again.

The Command Lance retaliated as one, but they had to be sure of their targets, allowing the enemy to escape again with minimal damage and only one mission-kill on a Wasp that had lost its entire right arm, reducing its armament to only its SRM launcher. Brox cursed at the sight of the downed BattleMaster, it had fallen right where the valley was narrowest and there was no room for any of the Mechs to walk to either side.

The Clan response to this situation was rather simple: blast the impeding Mech into oblivion to let the rest of the Lance step through the wreckage, never mind the poor bastard inside. GDI, on other hand, had the philosophy that personnel were irreplaceable. More of the same machine could be made, but the skill and experience of the pilot was lost forever. So they would at least wait for the guy to get out or be cut out of the Mech before blasting it apart. It was a rather curious reversal of standard Inner Sphere thinking, where Mechs were rare and irreplaceable while the pilot inside was nothing more than cannon fodder. Brox had read an interesting article by a Motherlode scientist that had posited that Mech design as it existed today was intentionally made as such to ensure that a Mechwarrior was killed long before the Mech itself attained irreparable damage; why else would a cockpit be practically unarmored (according to Motherlode sensibilities at least) and mounted on top of the Mech chassis, or placed center mass in the torso, whereas the more logical thing to do would be to practically bury the pilot in the center of the Mech behind the thickest armor plates and use cameras, sensors and neurohelmet for vision. It had been quite a transition for Brox when the Legion’s Mechs had been refitted with that philosophy in mind; no longer was there the expansive view through the transparent steel, only the flatpanel screens of MFD displays and dim red lights illuminated his darkened cockpit.

Brox watched as the Infantry helped Jankowski out of his Mech and indeed the Lance was soon after given the order to blast the fallen BattleMaster to scrap, this was achieved in short order with the PPCs of the Awesome focused on the rear armor. The enemy chose that moment to appear again and Brox was speared with the coherent light from three Wasps and the missiles of the Shadow Hawk. He didn’t take the punishment lying down though. As soon as he recovered from the hits he utterly destroyed another Wasp by giving it the combined attention of his torso mounted Medium Lasers whilst loosing an SRM6 salvo against the Shadow Hawk. Oh, how he loved these multi-acquisition targeting systems.

His missles only scored two hits on the retreating Shadow Hawk before it was once again out of sight, with its two surviving compatriots

“Damn, now that is a nimble pilot!” Von Braun exclaimed with a hint of admiration. Brox could only grudgingly agree. The Lance formed up again and began moving, only for the enemy to throw what would be ‘the final spanner in the works’.

Huge detonations shot towers of dirt and rock into the sky. Brox could feel the shockwaves reverberating through his Mech and he had barely the time to see the first groundcar-sized rock flying straight towards him when all his visual feeds blanked out into static and was replaced with the dreaded words, made of stylized blood, which he wanted to shove down the sim programmer’s throat every time he saw it.

‘Critical Mission Failure’

He wished he could snarl and curse as freely as he could when he had had a natural voice box. He triggered the sim pod to open before he lost the battle to the driving urge to send his fist crashing through the MFD displays. His eyes quickly adjusted to the low-level light of the bay which housed the pods and he was gratified to note that the rest of the command lance was just as unhappy as he was.

“What the hell was that, Major?!” Lieutenant Natalie demanded of Tony ‘Hulk’ Dansel, who looked very amused at the hours of frustration he’d just put his Command Lance through.

“It should be pretty obvious what that was, Lieutenant,” Tony replied totally unfazed. “Prepared demo charges to create a man-made avalanche. Everything will be discussed in the debriefing, dismissed.”

Brox watched the rest of the Lance go, then his eyes fixed on the sim pod that was still closed.

“Coming Brox?”

“The Shadow Hawk wasn’t a computer opponent,” he stated in the deep electronic tones of his artificial voice box.

“Nope,” Dansel grinned. “Don’t worry, you’ll have the pleasure of meeting the pilot at the debriefing.”




Debriefing Room, GDI Compound
Port Krin, Antallos

The air was filled with a low din as the forty-one members of 1st Mech Battalion, GDI Foreign Legion sat in their assigned seats in the gently tiered room. The air conditioning was somewhat strained to keep up with the combined body heat added to the perpetually hot conditions of Port Krin, and the air was slowly growing stale. Brox was not one to complain about such trivialities, he just wanted to get this AAR over with. (What was it with Loders and their acronyms? The damn things were as infectious as the flu.) He wanted nothing more than to get back into a sim, preferably with the mysterious Shadow Hawk pilot as his opponent, this time on nice flat terrain. He hated losing and was starting to seriously consider that only fighting the scum and pirates of Antallos was making him go soft. The defenders of the City State of Kronkite had been inventive and he had had a few nice battles with a Mech or two, but the GDI Combined Arms approach had robbed him of decent lengthy battles. His personal sim sessions were the only thing that was letting him keep his edge, but they were no substitute for the real thing, though they were damn fun.

He idly wondered if the Loders were actually working on the Photon Cannons he had faced in his latest sim, though he doubted that they could ever get a Mech to Jump itself on a planetary surface directly into combat. It was ludicrous, yet he could see the advantage that would give to any force with that capability, perhaps in the forty first century that would be possible. Brox took a pencil from his jumpsuit pocket and scribbled onto his notepad an idea he had for facing such a foe, before doing the same with his personal tablet computer. He never failed to be marveled at the versatility damn thing, though he tended to play Texas Hold ‘Em most of the time with it. The touch screen interface was too cumbersome to play Mechwarrior 4 on it, which was the only negative thing about it in his opinion.

Finally, the side door opened and Dansel walked in with his customary aplomb, a clipboard and his own tablet computer tucked under his left arm.

“Atten-tion!”

The Battalion was on their feet in an instant at the call of Master Sergeant Lindsay Graham. Dansel walked to the podium and grinned at them. “As you were.”

Brox and the rest of the battalion took their seats again.

“All right, folks,” Dansel put the tablet and clipboard on the podium, “before we begin the AAR on the latest disaster I exposed you to. I’m bringing you official word from the brass that we’re not gonna leave it at just the four closest City-States.” Brox had to stop himself from grinning and he could feel the call of battle sing through his veins anew. “While none of the other cities on this planet have so far attacked GDI holdings, due to their distance or the fact that they don’t have the proper combat assets to do so, it doesn’t change that we can’t afford to have these potentially hostile City-States at our backs. Especially in the face of possible future invasion from any of our friendly neighborhood Houses.” There were a couple of grim murmurs around the room. “So get your heads in gear for that. Our exercises in the future are going to focus on Dropship deployments with hot LZs and fighting these cities are also gonna mean that your supply line ends at your Dropship. Therefore your life and ability to fight is resting on you keeping your assigned ship in one piece.

Now, back to the sim, what you experienced was the point of view of Taurian sponsored merc unit that was looking to raid a city on a nice planet known as Duncanshire. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, it’s located in the Magistracy of Canopus.”

Brox narrowed his eyes in thought.

Von Braun raised a hand before asking, “Our opponents were a simulated Magistracy Lance?”

“Correct,” Dansel nodded. “The Magistracy Armed Forces have limited traditional Mech forces to field. So they either pay Mercs to fill the gaps in their defenses or they fight dirty, with a whole bag of tricks that I’d love to get a look into.” The toothy excited grin he gave the room was infectious. “So AAR, what did you do wrong?”

“We should’ve had our mediums and lights in close escort and chased the OPFOR down.” Lieutenant Blake, in charge of Second Lance, stated decisively.

“Then you would have been dead, in short order.” The voice was odd, but it was clearly female, and it came from the rear of the room. Everyone craned their necks to see the owner leaning against the rear wall, arms folded, wearing a figure flattering uniform that was clearly not GDI issue, and what a figure it was. Brox blinked as he connected the dots and inwardly groaned. “You would’ve caught up to us, but you had limited intel on the terrain, and I had another two Lances waiting for you in ambush positions.”

“Ambassador… sorry, Commander McFarland, thank you for joining us. For your information, yes, she was the pilot of the ShadowHawk. She’d asked for an opportunity to keep her skills up to snuff and I saw this as the perfect opportunity to expose us to some unorthodox fighting methodology that isn’t just ye’ olde giant robots facing off across a straightforward battlefield.”

In spite of himself, Brox found his eyes rather glued to the woman as she walked, no, that was the wrong word… glided through the rows of seats towards the side of the podium. He shook himself and saw that almost all of the men in the room had done the same. Rumors being what they were amongst armed forces and men in particular, there was not a soldier, pilot, engineer or mechanic on base who hadn’t heard of Lieutenant Weiss’ experience in delivering the Ambassadorial invitation to her apartment in Port Krin.

Looking at her figure and especially her face, it made Brox wonder if the Canopians hadn’t dabbled in a bit of secret genengineering during the late Star League era or perhaps during the chaos of the First Succession War, when the SLDF wasn’t breathing down their necks anymore, and they still had access to their advanced med-tech. Oh, it wouldn’t be as extensive engineering to call it a specific phenotype of humanity, catered to be a Mechwarrior or Aerospace pilot, such as it was among the Clans, but enough to produce a woman that basically radiated allure to a man’s eyes and was probably ‘enhanced for the bedroom’ as well. Her clear skill in a Mech and her physicality as she walked showed that genes weren’t everything. One thing he had learned as part of the Dark Caste and then living in the Sphere was that superior ability didn’t guarantee success. It was a lesson that he longed to teach those damn arrogant Jade Falcons one day, painfully.

Brox then noticed that she had some sort of silvery and plastic device that was snaking out of her right ear, which further curled around her earlobe.

Dansel coughed with a slight smirk to bring the attention to back to himself. “What should’ve happened in that situation, Lieutenant Blake, was that the Heavy Lance should’ve slowed their approach through the mountains more, and give the Sappers more time to do their job whilst your Light and Medium Lances protected them. The lead Lance wouldn’t have walked into the trap blast zones at all, since there wouldn’t have been traps in the first place. Then for all the damage Commander McFarland’s forces were inflicting, she was taking too much damage in return and would’ve had to call on her reserve Lances.”

“Which I wouldn’t have done, since I had to husband my assets for later fighting in the city,” McFarland explained. “There is as much danger in moving too fast, as there is in moving too slowly. I also fought the battle on a psychological level. Put someone in an Assault Mech, and he or she will develop a certain entitlement or arrogance on the battlefield. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about an elite House Mechwarrior, a merc or a pirate, though the condition is worse in the latter two. They will think they are powerful, strong, or nigh invulnerable.” Her manner turned arrogant, looking down her nose at the room. “What possibly can these puny Mechs hope to accomplish against me? ”

“So she irritated you, ganged up on single mechs, poked and prodded,” Dansel continued. “You couldn’t pursue or couldn’t unleash your full firepower in those mountains. You just wanted to get out of there and face them on open ground. She roped you right into a prepared kill zone. Boom. Just like that an entire Heavy Lance obliterated and the attack on the city blunted.”

Brox tuned out the rest of the AAR as it winded down to specifics of individual performances. His mind rather occupied with the battle. He had long considered the merits of battling the way the Loders did it. For them, if it ever got to the point where a shot was fired, it was war to the knife with no rules, no formalities or bids.

He had read the two major works which they based their martial philosophy on; it was ancient even by Earth standards. The wisdom in it awed had him and made him finally understand why the Motherloders scoffed and even ridiculed what War had become in the Sphere and the Clans. The first book, written by an ancient Chinese General that predated the Clans by millennia made them look like children merely playing at war.

Yet, here was a Periphery power who had, by necessity, rediscovered one of the tenants of martial wisdom. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush them. Brox had the book in electronic format on his Tablet and read it every night. It felt like it would take a lifetime to properly understand.

“All right everyone that is all, if there are no further questions? Dismissed.”

The Battalion surged to their feet and started filling out of the Briefing Room. Brox remained behind and walked up to front where Dansel was speaking to the Commander. He stood at attention a polite distance away, waiting.

“Your Atlas would be really helpful for the Legion, Commander especially in a live OPFOR… sorry, Opposing Force exercise. We’ve never really fought against the true Assault Heavies as they’re properly used.”

“It would be my pleasure, Major Dansel, though I can’t really bring the full potential of the Atlas to bear. Honestly, I trained and am more at home in a Medium, your GMs are a fine example. I would negotiate a purchase order for the Magistracy, but we are more interested in acquiring Heavies these days.”

“There are a lot of companies on Motherlode that are looking to break into the Sphere market, Commander. They’re gonna be looking for customers with Antallos as a point of sale. You could commission a design from them eventually.”

“Then I will keep my new ear on the ground so to speak,” she smiled dazzlingly, tapping what had to be some sort of sophisticated hearing aid. Now that Brox was closer he could see that it also snaked up into her hair and what had looked like a band to keep her hairdo in place was actually part of the hearing aid.

“Brox,” Dansel acted as if he expected the burly Clanner to stay behind all along, “how good are you with a hundred tonner?”

He thought back to a different time, a much happier and ignorant time. He had taken the controls of a Kodiak during his upbringing in Clan Ghost Bear, as they had to test each model available to see which would fit him best. As it had turned out he found his ‘destiny’ in the lighter Timber Wolf, but he could well recall the handling of the Kodiak and the firepower it could bring to bear. An Inner Sphere standard Atlas couldn’t hold a candle to that, but the principles were the same. You were the eye of the storm, and the Father help anyone caught in it.

“Adequate,” his voice box droned. Commander Mcfarland raised an eyebrow at him with a brief flash of surprise in her eyes at hearing the metallic tones of his voice.

“Excellent,” Dansel clapped his hands together with a smirk on his face. “The OPFOR exercise is in three weeks. You’ve got that long to get yourself used to the Commander’s Atlas.”

Brox blinked at that order then reconsidered giving voice to his own request for a one-on-one battle against the Commander. Perhaps it would be better to wait on that and study her strategies and technique more, even see how well she did in some of his favorite sims.

“Do you have the time, Commander?” he droned.

“The Embassy is nearly done to spec, my only company now is a Magistracy Doctor who is too busy in the hospital and a local secretary I hired. My diplomatic duties are few and far between. Suffice it to say, I’ve a lot of free time all of a sudden. I have your contact information, and will send a message for when we can meet.” She only nodded at him before exchanging polite salutes with Dansel and walked out.

Brox watched her leave and Dansel was particularly unabashed as he enjoyed the view. He stood next to the Clanner and nudged him conspiratorially with an elbow, “Have fun, Brox. Oh and please don’t cause a diplomatic incident. She is an accredited Ambassador.”



Canopian Embassy, GDI Green Zone
Port Krin, Antallos
22nd January 2008/3023

He put his finger on the portable scanner the GDI military police officer offered him. There were four he could see in plain sight, looking extremely professional in their formal uniforms. Their faces were completely expressionless and dispassionate dark eyes surveyed Brox as if they were scanners themselves. His Foreign Legion ID card was examined again and briefly held against the scanner as well. The guard was satisfied at that point.

“You are expected,” the guard’s Chinese accented English was rather thick, but understandable. “Remember, that stepping through this gate you are on Canopian territory. Their laws apply on it, not the Coalition’s.”

“Understood.”

The gate automatically opened itself at this point, he stepped over the threshold and into a little slice of paradise well hidden behind the fence and tall trees. The grass stretched like a carpet on the grounds around the building, which was stippled with smaller trees providing shade here and there, whilst banks of flowers stretched along the stone walkways. The embassy itself was a three floor affair that had clearly been refurbished and restored to look like it had during the Star League, with Canopian flavor. Said flavor involved statues and relief sculptures clinging to the facades of the building of distinct feminine figures of various types; angels, cupids, valkyries, circus performers and even entwined snakes around a staff. Some of them were enough to no doubt rather embarrass or perhaps even offend more inhibited visitors. The only ‘ordinary’ thing on the building was the Canopian seal.

He stopped at the main doors and pressed the prominent button to the side. There was a buzzing sound above him, an electromagnetic lock no doubt, and he twisted on the handle to enter an entrance hall. It was an area he imagined any visitor would be received in, soft couches lined the walls on one side, whilst a low table was set in front of it. To his left was a reception office with view of the hall, screened behind glass. A young woman was seated behind a desk with a computer. She was dressed in a knee length tight skirt and a blouse with a matching suit and square rimmed glasses over her blue eyes.

“Ah, you are Brox?” she asked unnecessarily in the local Antallos accent of English. He nodded anyway. The secretary emerged from her office and began to escort him through the embassy interior. It was still rather unfinished in certain areas, lacking the artwork and properly painted walls that were common in the majority of the embassy. Every door opened unlocked itself at the approach of the secretary. Not to mention it was damn confusing trying to keep track. It seemed the place was designed like a maze to disorient anyone unfamiliar with its layout, like an infiltrator or robber.

Finally the secretary paused outside another double door. “She is through here. You can go in.” She left without a further word.

Brox shrugged and walked in.

It was a large room, with glass doors and windows looking out over the back garden which was spilling a lot of sunlight into the room. It looked like a place where the embassy could hold a large function for guests. There were no tables though making the room feel empty, and the artwork here were photo portraits of past Magestrixes. Ambassador McFarland was here, as was someone else.

Brox felt his mouth dry somewhat at what his eyes were seeing. She was lying face down on a cushioned table without a stitch of clothing or covering. Standing over her was a very muscular man wearing a shiny very tight piece of… underwear? And he was clearly giving the Ambassador a massage.

“Oh dear,” she sighed in disappointment. “It seems we’ve over-run in our session, Carlos. Thank you, and please speak to Noreen for your payment.”

Carlos the masseur only nodded before dressing himself in sweatpants and shirt from a nearby bag, and walking out the room via the glass doors. McFarland sighed again and propped herself up slightly on her elbows. Brox’s traitorous eyes focused on the tantalizing view which was partly obstructed by her arms. “Do me a favor and hand me the dressing gown, please.”

Brox had to tear his eyes away from her to see a wooden stand near to the padded table that held a long silky gown. He wondered why his legs didn’t work quite right as he walked towards it. By the time he had it in his hands she had stood but kept her back towards him. She had no hint of shame at all in her posture. She took the gown from him and tied it around herself before turning to face him properly.

“I apologize, Brox. I lose track of time when I get a massage from Carlos. He’s very good.”

Finally getting some coherency back in his mind and body, “I am ready to head to the Mech bay whenever you are.”

“Business first indeed,” she smiled at him mischievously. “Wait here, I’ll be back.”

She did her gliding walk again only this time adding a dash of hip sway.

Was she trying to seduce him? At Sibko, Clanners are taught about ‘those’ facts of life, and Brox had bedded his first during his late Sibko days, then a few women over the years during his time in the Dark Caste. But he had never found it to his liking here on Antallos or during his time as a merc prior to joining the Legion, always being too busy and focusing on always getting better at the skill and art of being a mechwarrior for that inevitable day when the Clans would return. Oh it was certainly a very pleasurable activity, but not a priority for him. Though he had to admit he couldn’t deny that so far… he was interested in changing that.

Mcfarland returned, now wearing mid-thigh shorts and a white tank top that clung to her like a damn second skin and rugged boots adorned her feet while a belt held a holster for a TK auto pistol hung on her hips. She grinned, “Shall we?”




Mech Berth 239
Port Krin, Antallos

Given that she was an Ambassador, it surprised Brox that her Mech was kept within the civilian bay facilities in the city. The two Scavenger Lords’ contingents for ‘protecting’ their embassies were housed within GDI secured areas, McFarland apparently either didn’t want that or there was some other reason. The Atlas was in secure lockdown, kept within the gigantic gantries which framed it and allowed techs to work on it. There were none at present and the Mech itself was in good shape. He couldn’t even see the typical scars that developed on Mechs over the decades from armor repairs of battle scars, it was either damn good repair work or the thing hadn’t seen many battles. The Mech also had a nice desert camouflage paint job that looked to be brand new.

He saw immediately the first after-market modification that she had made. A normal Atlas had two rear facing Medium Lasers, to protect from speedier Mechs managing to get behind it. These had been removed and replaced onto the arms, giving it a total of four forward facing Lasers. Combined with the Deathgiver Autocannon, and it made for alpha strike damage potential at close range that he would think twice of facing in an Omnimech.

She went up the ladder first, putting Brox in a bit of a conundrum. Wait for her to finish climbing then go, or climb immediately and enjoy what would no doubt be a very nice view. He huffed in frustration at his indecision. ‘As Dansel would say, ‘Screw it.’’ He put his hands to the rungs and followed.

McFarland gave him a knowing smile as they stood on the gantry, now level with the Atlas’ infamous head.

Brox coughed uncomfortably, “Any other modifications besides the Lasers?”

“I stripped out the Ground to Orbit Com Gear to make more room in the cockpit, since it had to be my home away from home while I was prospecting. Kept the dish obviously, linked that to the standard com gear. Other than that, it’s a standard.”

She pulled open an armored panel next to the entry hatch, exposing a small keypad. A moment later the hatch opened and she climbed in. Brox followed and saw what she meant. It was rather roomy, still had a small stove on one side, and empty shelves and storage compartments. She took the pilot’s seat and her hands began to push in access codes before putting on the neurohelmet. The fusion engine beneath them rumbled into life.

She held out her hand, “You have your profile?” Brox handed the small data cube over. It was another two minutes before she handed over the neurohelmet and vacated the chair. “Okay, you’re an authorized pilot, but you don’t have full weapon privileges yet.”

He nodded in understanding. It wasn’t as if they were going to use them for real in this session. He had to shift the chair back for comfort as the HUD flashed into being and he started the full power up sequence. His hands grasped the unfamiliar control sticks. McFarland awkwardly put a radio headset over her hearing aid. “Bay control, this is Mech four niner delta, requesting release and opening of bay doors.”

“Verify,” the bored voice crackled over the radio.

She leaned over, forcing Brox to shift back into the chair, so she could access the radio control board and type in another key combination and word passphrase.

“Received, and verified. Disengaging gantries, bay doors opening. No weapons are to be powered up within Port Krin city limits.”

She rolled her eyes, “Understood, Bay control.”

Brox concentrated and pushed on the controls. The Atlas took one step forwards, then another. He did a three sixty turn on the spot, then a step backwards and forwards. The Mech responded smoothly in basic movement at least. Soon enough the Atlas emerged from the Mech bays and into the hot Antallos sun.

“Okay, so far so good, Brox. You know the routes out of the city from here?”

“Yes,” he sped up to full walking pace. He also saw that they were drawing some attention from the civilian population. They saw Mechs walking every day on these routes, but the Atlas’ fearsome visage was a sight that was not at all common on Antallos.

“So how did you pick that injury up?” Brox couldn’t exactly tell her that he had lost his voice during his failed Trial of Position in Clan Ghost Bear. The Coalition was understandably keeping the knowledge of Kerensky’s Descendants very close to the chest. She grimaced and looked away, “Sorry, if it’s too painful to talk about…” Brox had to give her credit; she was good at reading body language. He had thought he was controlling his reaction well.

“It was an injury in an important Mech battle. I lost and because of that… I lost something precious.”

Her eyes had a near frightening look of understanding in them. “Not just your normal life.”

“Yes,” he looked at her directly, “and yours?”

“A common enough story for anyone in the Periphery, pirate attack. I almost wish I lost my hearing for something more significant than a few pieces of lostech.”

“But now you’ve got it back.”

“Yes, though I doubt just because you’ve got your voice back, that all’s forgiven and forgotten.”

Brox nodded in agreement with the sentiment and decided to push the speed up to forty. He’d forgotten just how much of a slowpoke an Assault Mech could be. “You fight well.”

“And your reaction times are impressive,” she countered with a smile. “You made me really work to apply the língchí.”

“Lingchi?”

“Capellan term, death by a thousand cuts,” she explained. “It’s a way of equalizing opponents of disparate strength. Very difficult to do normally, but made easier if you have favorable terrain, and would be even easier if we could just resurrect extended range laser tech one day. In any event, we Canopians have had to learn to do this very well.”

Brox had always wondered how a Periphery state like the Magistracy had survived the hell of the Succession Wars. He finally had an answer if McFarland was any indication of the warriors that came out of their armed forces, though it also helped that the fractious Free Worlds League was their primary antagonist, which was both a blessing and a curse.

When they had finally cleared Port Krin outskirts and semi-arid terrain stretched before them, he finally stretched the Atlas into a max speed run. She leaned over him again and a few button taps later, “You can practice with the weapons now, but they’re in training mode.”

Brox grinned in anticipation, “Then let’s see what this thing can really do.”




Reconnaissance Office
GDI Compound
27th January 2008/3023

He wearily rubbed his eyes and regarded the large room filled with light tables and stacks upon stacks of A1 sized satellite imagery of Antallos. Jonathan Joyce cursed his luck that he had drawn the short straw in the graveyard shift manual review of the latest recon run done of the various city-states on the planet. He really wished that the IT gurus back home could get a move on with cracking some sort of BT neural net architecture module that they could use for this.

As much as visual recognition analysis programming had advanced by leaps and bounds in scanning satellite photographs for ‘suspicious things and activity’ it still missed things that only a human could recognize. Therefore they were still reliant on good old human brain for image interpretation, and they were still forced to review anything the computer flagged as sometimes the things could still misinterpret.

He put on his glasses with a sigh and pulled the next image from the pile. He noted the time, date and coordinate location it was taken before starting from the top right, moving his eyes slowly to the left, before repeating. Using his eyes much like printer would move across a page. He was so intent on going through the motions of his job, that his eyes slid right over it, before his brain slammed on the brakes.

“Hello there,” his eyes narrowed on the spot. He took a magnifying glass to it, took off his glasses and put his eyes right against it. “Interesting.” Jonathan stood and took the next photo in the time series, with his mind knowing what to look for, he found it much easier this time. He pushed the magnifier to it. “Fuck.”

He pulled the next photo, “Bloody hell.”

The photo after that finally caused him to reach for the telephone.




2820 Km South East of Hermantown
Antallos, Coalition of Sovereign Nations
29th January 2008/3023

The GDI Dropship Gray Area appeared out of the clear blue sky overlooking the rough semi-arid terrain. The pillar of her fusion engine burn echoed a deep rumble throughout the area as the egg shaped vessel throttled against gravity to achieve her optimum landing velocity. A large patch of flat sand was promptly glassed as the Gray Area descended the last few hundred meters of altitude and extended its landing struts. The thrust pushed outward now and caused a small sandstorm that partially obscured the vessel as it thumped on its struts.

Inside his BattleMaster, Brox felt the familiar lurch of landing and the bay doors started to open immediately. The early morning sun pierced into the bay and the Mech debarkation ramp extended.

Jankowski was the first to pilot his BattleMaster out after which Brox took his own turn, and not five minutes later the entire Command Lance was in formation around the Gray Area. Radar and Drone recon pretty much confirmed that there were no surprises out here for them, but it was good practice and besides which Brox wouldn’t believe there was no enemy until his own eyes and Mech sensors told him so.

Major Dansel’s voice crackled over the radio, “Hulk to Gray Area Actual, we are clear out here. No hostiles confirmed.”

“Understood, package being released.”

Brox saw new friendly contacts appear on his screens from the Dropship. Two eight-wheeled APCs roared onto the desert and like a perfectly coordinated group dance the Command Lance fell into escort formation with it as they headed further south at a sustained fifty kph.

“Are we sure this is what it seems to be?” Natalie questioned.

“This is no invasion force, Ladybug.”

“I get that, but while we could eat their five escort Mechs for breakfast, there’s no telling what they have in that convoy. I could stuff a lot of explosive in those twelve vehicles that’s coming up the road.”

“Intelligence rates that possibility as very low,” Dansel pointed out, “but keep your fingers near your triggers.”

“If it happens, it happens,” Brox grumbled.

“Drone overflights puts our guests at fifteen minutes ETI. So… Nameless, I hear you’ve got a date.”

Brox could practically hear the Major’s suggestive winking through the radio. “Yeah. So what? And where did you hear that from?” Lady Carmela had been rather circumspect in asking him to dinner, doing so just after another training session in her Atlas.

“Well, as your Commanding officer, she felt obliged to inform me that you might not be in barracks on the evening in question.”

Brox groaned as all a manner of jeering and wolf whistles suddenly assaulted him over the radio.

“Make sure you pick up the tab, Nameless,” advised Jankowski.

Dansel laughed, “Given the restaurants she’ll frequent Wonderboy, I think they’d have to go Dutch.”

Von Braun said seriously, “Bring condoms just in case. I have spares…”

Brox made a personal note to absolutely thrash his comrades in the next one-on-one combat sim tourney. The Division usually had a pool of money riding on the winner – they’d burn and pay for any possible future dates he might have in the process.

“Ignore them, Nameless,” Lady Natalie advised earnestly. “I think you two would make a cute couple.”

“Can the chatter, boys and girls,” Dansel ordered seriously. “Contacts.”

Brox noticed them too, just entering extreme detection range of his BattleMaster’s sensors. The DI computer had them currently colored in yellow, reflecting their neutral status and no IFF signal and just like Intel had indicated, a dozen strong convoy of large vehicles with two Mechs riding on the flanks, two on point duty and a tail-end Charlie. The MFD changed to display probable data on what kind of Mechs they were facing; the heaviest seemed to be an Ostroc, while the rest were a hodgepodge of various Mediums. The wheeled vehicles had no obvious weapons but long range enhanced imagery indicated they were almost all refit ICE, with armor plates rather crudely welded on and gun slits on some of the trucks.

“Safety all weapons! They’re flying a flag of truce.”

Brox startled at that sudden order from the Major and focused his imagery, sure enough on the top of each vehicle was a fluttering white flag, even the Mechs had them rather comically poking up from the top of their heads.

He slammed his fist into the armrest of his seat in frustration, “By the Father, what does it take to get a decent battle around here!”





Ambassador Smith’s Office,
Port Krin, Antallos,
Coalition of Sovereign Nations
31st January 2008/3023

“You’re serious?”

“Yes,” General Hui Guo, Commander GDI on Antallos declared shortly. “The convoy consists of delegations representing Hottown, SouthSea City, Port James, Digger’s Stop and Malice Fist.”

Smith leaned back into his chair and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. “So they saw the writing on the wall.”

Hui nodded, “There’s also the matter that any trade these cities had with those that recently fell to us had been severed. The iron mines of Kronkite were especially responsible in causing this.”

Smith picked up his tablet and opened up his main Antallos file, he slid his fingers repeatedly on it to browse to the relevant section. This file was essentially a compilation of both sourcebook knowledge and what conventional Intelligence had gathered on the rest of the planet.

Hottown was aptly named; it was within sight of an active Volcano and apparently had a spectacular view of the mountain ranges down there. It was home to a Star League era geothermal plant that provided power to the fifty thousand residents there, with water provided by snow runoff and a small aluminum mine.

The most contrary city in the list was Malice Fist. The name let you imagine that the worst depredations occurred there, and this was certainly true during the chaos of the First Succession War, but it had cleaned up its act slightly over the centuries and especially recently with a change to a new leadership, though it was still a hotbed of all sorts of slavery. Its primary export was lumber and rubber from the massive equatorial forests. Both Port James and SouthSea City were essentially fish producers, who worked the South Eastern Sea for their catch, while Digger’s Stop held another mining community that worked a very unproductive and shallow gold mine.

Smith’s eyes were appreciative, “If we can bring these people into the fold and secure domestic trade, it’d certainly help in getting us more self-sufficient. Not to mention alleviate the food supply problems in Hermantown.”

“It’ll also certainly free up tonnage on the Command Circuit for more military assets to be transported. The new build tanks we need are only trickling in at the moment.”

“When will the delegations arrive?”

“Not for another four days.”

“Why so long?”

Hui frowned with irritation, “They rather bluntly refused our offer of a Dropship ride.”

“Probably trying to make a statement,” Smith sighed wearily. “Showing independence and that while they’re coming to us bearing gifts, it’s actually a shrewd move for their current leaderships to stay in place.”

“Which will only last until their people regain their rightful power,” Hui sneered. Smith only nodded stoically at that statement. General Hui was certainly a more forceful character than Davis had ever been. The cleanups of the four hostile city-states had proceeded more swiftly and when the worst slavers and murderers had been convicted, there had been no objections from the General when the people of those cities had demanded the convicts face firing squads.

“Well, we better get our ducks in order. Thank you for the brief, General.”




Outskirts of Port Krin, Antallos,
Coalition of Sovereign Nations
3rd February 2008/3023

“We’ve done three drone over flights, at high and low altitude, General. LADAR and Terahertz shows all clear so far for biological and chemical, three of the vehicles are fusion powered, but no other radiological sources. So unless they cleaned up really well – which I doubt - and without doing a physical search, they’re provisionally pose no threat.”

“Thank you Lieutenant, dismissed,” Hui took off his cap and threaded his fingers through his short black hair as the young American technician retreated. He flicked the gathered sweat off his fingers and onto the hot sand. ‘You’ve gone soft,’ Guo berated himself. There had been a time when such conditions and heat would’ve hardly fazed him at all. The good old days of being a Captain where he could’ve marched for dozens of kilometers, eating very little, and having no more worries than what his infantry company was up to were long gone.

No longer did he walk the corridors of politics that was the upper-echelons of the PLA, and for that he was part grateful and part resentful. His assignment to head GDI ANTCOM had come in the wake of the long put off reshuffling of China’s military – following the disastrous Siberian War. No longer did the military sit next to ministers in politburo meetings. Now there was just one top representative of the PLA that sat in the State Council, while the Generals now only met in the Central Military Commission. In the end, it turned out that things were just a bit too top-heavy in Beijing, and Hui had found himself getting orders to take provisional command of the Shenyang Military Region.

And then as if fate had been waiting, the week after he had settled in his new post, the first Pirate Invasion occurred. The fantastic, ludicrous, yet true news arrived that the entire world, plus fifty odd light years of space had been transported into the Universe of some old Western boardgame that he had never even heard of. Then the frenetic preparation to ready the world for the Second Invasion – he had held his breath that day as he watched the enemy Dropships ride the nuclear gauntlet that had been prepared for them, and saw how a Dropship had been angling directly for his district. It had landed in Japan instead, but it was a close thing. He had been disappointed initially, capturing such a prize would’ve been a boon for China, but then the images of destruction that the pirates caused all over the world and the casualties they had inflicted on military forces had dispelled that feeling quickly.

The establishment of the GDI followed and soon Hui found himself called to President Zhang Han Sen’s office in Beijing. He faced a small inquisition on his defense plans for the Shenyang District – where unlike the majority of his colleagues in district command - he had actually done research on the ‘Battletech sourcebooks’ and adjusted his plans accordingly. A month later he was on a plane to the United States to become one of the first senior Chinese officers in the GDI.

He brought himself back to the present and narrowed his eyes at the slowly approaching worm of dust in the far distance, crawling its way up the southern road. The escorting City-State BattleMechs were as big as his thumb if he aimed it at them and were slowly growing. He put his hand on the solid bulk of the MBT next to him and the rest of its squadron arrayed beyond, with a company of GDI Mechs behind them. It was all meant to impress, but he also wanted to show the ‘leaders’ a little taste of what could be kicking down their doors quite soon if they didn’t ‘play nice’.

The MBT popped its hatch and its commander looked down, “Sir, it’s time.”

Hui nodded and walked towards his ride. He climbed into the rear hatch of the M1130CVB Stryker and surveyed the six operators at their various stations before taking an empty seat. His eyes focused on the one large screen which could display real-time feeds from any unit, field camera or sensor linked into the Battlenet.

“What’s their distance?”

“Nine clicks and closing, General.”

“Artillery?”

“We’re ready to turn them all into shrapnel at your order, Sir.”

“Tell the Major he’s clear to proceed.”

Twelve armored Humvees roared onto the southern road and drove to meet the approaching City States delegation. They were also flying flags of truce and largely ignored the road, with only two of their number driving on it, whilst the rest were arrayed along their flanks in a v formation. Due to their higher speed they arrived at the rendezvous point first. It was another nine minutes before the guests arrived within spitting distance of the Humvees.

“Give me their feed,” Hui ordered.

The screen changed to show lead Humvee’s feed, and just in time to see Major Silberman come into view. The doors of the city-state vehicles opened and eight people stepped out of them and approached. Hui could not imagine a weirder assemblage of humanity.

“Some of ‘em look like they could’ve walked off the set of Mad Max,” one of the techs muttered incredulously.

Hui coughed pointedly and the Sergeant quickly shut up, though he didn’t particularly blame him for the reaction. Six men and two women; they mostly wore dusty clothes of leathers, with crudely put together body armor sewn onto the parts of the body which needed no flexibility.

“I don’t think they dress like this normally,” another tech pointed out. “The journey here is long and those nomadic marauder bands are a clear threat to travelers, especially on this road – hence the body armor.”

Soon enough, Hui saw the Major gesturing to the Humvees and the City-State delegation entered the vehicles, “So far so good.” The delegation had agreed that they would at least enter Port Krin using GDI vehicles, but they hadn’t been enthusiastic about the idea. Hui on the other hand had insisted on it during the negotiations over the radio, and the City-States were not in a position to really refuse.




Iggy’s Bar, Port Krin, Antallos,
Coalition of Sovereign Nations
6th February 2008/3023


‘In breaking news. After three straight days of negotiation on the part of Coalition Ambassador Smith, a preliminary agreement has been reached which will see trade not only resuming with the ‘Southern Cities Group’ - as they are calling themselves – but actually increased to surpass pre-liberation levels. The SCG has agreed to enact reforms which will see slavery abolished, new civil services introduced and the right to political discourse and self-determination for their people. GDI will also have basing rights out of these cities…’

Brox turned away from the large flatpanel display in the corner of the bar and stared into his beer. At least it looked like Lexicon and Blueston of the western City-States were stupidly spoiling for a fight, given the sudden rhetoric and threats they were sending via radio into Coalition territory. Hopefully they would have something in the hardware department to back their bold words. The four remaining western cities were all curiously silent and while his personal preference would be to eventually go to each and ‘bash in some skulls and take names’, it would probably not turn out that way.

Master Sergeant Lindsay Graham sat down next to him with his own beer, “Brox you really shouldn’t be drinking yet, don’t want to get sloshed before your date even begins.”

“I will be fine,” Brox dismissed the concern, tugging his collar. The clothes he was wearing had been delivered to his quarters, courtesy of the Lady Carmela herself. It was most decidedly a new experience dressing like he was some rich noble. The shirt hardly felt like it was there, so soft was the material and the suit, pants and shoes were nearly void black and clearly new.

“Got everything?”

Brox sighed explosively and resisted the urge to do some form of bodily harm to the next member of the Division who offered him ‘help’, “Money, condoms, phone, and no I will not bring any handcuffs or other ‘equipment’.”

“You never know Brox,” Graham declared sagely, “she might be into that sort of thing. Better be prepared, just in case.” Brox did not dignify that with a response. “So where are you two going?”

“I don’t know, she just said that she would meet me here.”

“Well, Iggy’s is near the food district, so…”

“Tell the Hulk that he dare not follow me or I will be… displeased.”

“Uh, what makes you think…”

Brox just gave Graham a flat look in response.

“Righty ‘O, I think I’ll be going.”

Brox could swear that the Sergeant had left a trail of dust so fast had he left, even leaving his beer behind. “Thanks,” he grabbed the large glass mug of ale to join his own and glanced at the clock.

Lady Carmela arrived fifteen minutes later, and stunned the bar into silence. Brox didn’t have much thought beside the fact that this vision of a woman had chosen his rough self to spend an evening with. Her red dress was a tasteful yet incredibly sultry, its length was all the way down to her ankles, but was slitted to expose her left leg to just above mid-thigh, and was completely backless.

She threaded her arm through his with a smile and they left the bar – outside was a waiting Humvee, with a two GDI guards he recognized from the Embassy.

“Shall we?”

Brox couldn’t help but stare and drink in the sight of her in the evening, “Let’s go.”

GDI Foreign Legion Lounge
Port Krin, Antallos
01 May 3022

Dansel stormed into the room, throwing off the more formal parts of his uniform as he crashed into a couch. "I'm doomed" he pronounced with all the dramatic flair of any Herald of the Apocalypse.

Hale and Al Azim were going over some of Tony's paperwork while getting lunch and watched with some amusement at Major Dansel's arrival and proclamation. They knew he had been summoned to the General's office, but didn't know why. “What are you talking about this time, Tony? Brox catch you cheating? Again?” Hale offered a reply to Tony in an off-hand manner.

“Oh! If only it were that simple! No, I just got out of that meeting with Davis. He was updating me on the status of the garrison, and certain orders for specific people.” He rose from his prone position, still sitting on the couch, now surveying the room to see who was present. “About three quarters of the garrison is being rotated back to Earth for training and what-not. The Legion is staying with the other quarter in order to act as a core to get the new people up to speed on how war is fought in the Inner Sphere.”

“That doesn't sound like the end of the world. Unless you have an ex in the new arrivals?” Alladin offered his own reply while pondering the effect this would have on the Legion, who would suddenly become very senior in the local pecking order. While most of his people would not abuse their positions, there would always be some bad apples.

“Oh, hardy har har.” Dansel shook his head. “Nope. Colonel Kurita is being assigned to the Embassy being sent to the Combine, and Davis is being rotated back to do whatever the hell it is they do when they aren't in the field. Politics maybe. And golf. Can't forget the golf. I was told to tell you guys that we're getting a General Hui Go and a Major Enis İbrahim to replace them. Never heard of them though, so their files will be on your desks by the end of the day.”

At that, the two people who really ran the Foreign Legion putdown the papers they had in front of them. “That is news, my friend” Aladdin said as he ran the names over in his head. İbrahim was a very Muslim name, and the Free Azami would be sure to take it as a sign of favor from the Motherloders.

Hale's thoughts went on a different route. With those two going back to Earth, that meant the two most experienced officers in the GDI would be him and Al Azim. That would be... an interesting balancing act to say the least. But he's had to break in higher ranked officers before, so he wasn't completely out of the loop. “They keeping Ambassador Smith on Antallos?”

Dansel nodded. “Yep. But that's not the worst of it. No, there are things I was told that made my blood run cold. Horrors from beyond the farthest stars.” His voice dropped down to echo his fears made manifest.

“Oh, come on Tony. What's so bad?” Al Azim shook his head, once again disapproving of the theatrics of the legendary Motherloder.

“Oh! You're being sent back home too! Apparently something about the Hajj, or that Arabian Princess who sends you letters every couple weeks.” Tony poked humorously at the running politically arranged courtship between the Colonel and a certain highly placed daughter back on Earth. It hadn't progressed beyond casual letters as far as casual snooping had found, and a respectful request prevented the majority of the prying into Aladdin's private affairs.

At least Al Azim had the grace to look aghast at the comment. “Major Dansel, when you are engaged in an intellectually and culturally stimulating discourse, you may then have the wherewithal to criticize. Until then...” He let his voice trail off.

“But you get off lucky! No, it's about me! It's horrible! Terrible! I didn't sign on for this!” Tony flailed his hands above his hands in a show about how much he disliked what he wasn't talking about. By this time, other Legion members had stopped what they were doing to listen in with various degrees of subtlety.

Hale harrumphed. “And what could possibly be so horrible?”

“What will my family think? My Mother? She'll disown me for sure!” Tony took a breath to calm himself, then glared with severe intensity at Hale. “No... They got to you already. They would have had to...” He jumped up and pointed an accusatory finger at Hale with all the drama of an Oscar Winner. “No! I don't want to go to Officer School! SOMEONE SAVE ME!”


Classified Location, Earth
Sol System, Grantville Cluster
03 May 3022

The people who had been meeting in this room for the past couple months had gotten to know each other fairly well – for professional spooks. Three of them came from Russia, Israel and Switzerland. They were the ones who had worked hard at designing the general design of the new breed of CSN embassy to be used in other interstellar nations.

Of course, they also knew that their work would never be publicly recognized, but such was the life in their chosen profession.

The fourth person was different. He was from the British Isles, and was one of those rare people with a unity of skills, interests and high enough security clearance to flesh out the team. While the other three were professionals in the realm of electronics, hidden observation, counter-surveillance and a host of other special technical skills, this last man had none of that. He was an architect, and his job was to make everything look good.

They were standing around the final scale model of the proposed embassy. They had been given sundry details like the footprint of the land they were being granted on Luthien, as well as utility hook-ups and the outlines of adjacent embassies for comparison and had built their own design with these factors in mind.

Sure, the politicians and diplomats could give some input, but at the end of it all, it was these four people that made the decisions that all would have to live with. And they were rightly proud of their work.

The Luthien Embassy was a five story building, plus two basement levels. The bottommost was storage and utilities, the one above it a small parking garage with a toolshop in the back. Diplomatic cars were being provided by Mercedes-Benz, four electric vehicles built to the same defensive standards as the Popemobile and other heads of state. The first floor held an open lobby with room for a museum of Motherlode history. Although for now that particular exhibit would be closed off from the public. There would also be some offices for use by lesser functionaries.

Second and third floors were residential, including a two story cafeteria with bay windows made of custom cut ferroglass - normally used in Mech cockpits - looking out the front of the building. The structural weakness was accepted for the morale of the people in the building, and the interior walls would be reinforced and armored in case of breaches. The cafeteria could also be converted into a formal dining area should such events ever come about. And the four people were told that they would happen.

The fourth floor was for more storage, and the working offices of the Intel division; secure and safe rooms given at least five layers of security. The top floor held the more official diplomatic offices, including rooms more suitable to the hosting of top foreign officials.

The roof was given over to two major functions. The front two thirds was designed to be a garden, small bushes, shrubs and flowers in addition to a nice Italian fountain. Meetings could be held up there, where the wind through the flora and the water flowing would form a decent white-noise generator. In addition, some fruits and vegtibles were slated to have their own section, providing for some fresh food to spice up the local cuisine. The other third included a large array of solar panels as well as equipment better served being on the roof rather than in the basement.

The outside was done in a combination of European and Japanese sensibilities reminiscent of the Anglo-Japanese style in England during the late 1800's. It was hoped that the aesthetic would impress upon their hosts that they were respectful of the Combine while at the same time letting them know that the CSN was still a separate political entity.

Now all they had to do was get all the vital pieces built on Earth so they could be shipped to Luthien. Not after the Cold War was any Earth nation going to trust someone else to build their embassy.


Meeting Room, Draconis Combine Embassy
Port Krin, Antallos
17 May 3022

Colonel Chou Kurita walked his fingers through the decently sized folder he had been given by Ambassador Taro, who was sitting across from him, doing her own paperwork. In his hands was a highly detailed and intricate extract from the policies of the Combine on how one was to act when interacting with the Coordinator. It was one of the necessary evils of politics, but one that everyone on both sides of the diplomatic table on Antallos knew was something they couldn't afford to screw up.

There were listings for proper etiquette, dress code, whom he should defer to and who would defer to him. It was a lot for the Naval Officer to take in, despite growing up in a similar culture. Well, not to similar, Chou reminded himself. His home nation of Japan and the Draconis Combine held as much in common as the Meiji period and modern Japan. It was sad, in a way, to see how far they had fallen due to the ravages of war and time. Of course, the thought went both ways, he was sure. The Combine probably felt that the lost Motherloders had little in the way of conventional civilization.

Ambassador Smith had received word that the CSN had finished putting together a Dropship with the embassy prefabricated to the needs of the duty as well as a staff set up for a 6 to 12 month rotation. Similar efforts were being put together for the other adjacent nations, but the lack of lift capacity and the invitation by Takashi Kurita himself meant that the Combine got the first Embassy. They would be leaving at the end of the month.

Chou was being sent for his interview with the Coordinator, then he would return back to Earth for training and a new assignment. Smith had also assured Chou that Emperor Akihito had arranged for a proper present for Coordinator Kurita. It had been decided at higher levels that the existence of a proper ruler on the Chrysanthemum Throne would not be a good idea to reveal at this time, and Chou wasn't about to argue with the diplomats on that decision.

He turned his thoughts back to the preparation in front of him, hoping that Taro hadn't seen the momentary distraction. A quick glance confirmed that wasn't the case.


Spaceport, Port Krin
Antallos
31 May 3022

There were two separate comings and goings this day. The first was the first proper rotation of forces between Motherlode and Antallos for the GDI. Men and Women who had spent far to long away from home making their sad farewells to those staying behind until the next command circuit in two weeks, while greeting officially and unofficially their replacements. General Davis and General Hui Go exchanged the official relieving of position formalities before the armed forces and press, while Colonel Kurita met with his own replacement for a quick briefing, informing him of some of the immediate issues that needed resolving in addition to some facts that didn't appear in official reports.

Off in the background, Tony marched onto a waiting Dropship hoping to avoid the worst of it all.

Once all that was done, Chou met with Ambassador Smith and the staff of the Luthien Embassy. They held their meeting on the diplomatic Union after the Combine legal team had disembarked along with many repatriated citizens whom had escaped piracy charges back on Earth and the entire ship had been swept for any leftover bugs.

“No Mechs?” Chou asked as they sat around the conference table near the top of the Dropship.

“No.” Ambassador Miguel Carlos de Borbon was a son of Mexican and Spanish football players, and had spent most of his childhood moving from nation to nation. At seven languages and a good deal of charisma, he had applied for the Luthien position and was granted it. Some detractors felt that the CSN was pandering to Latin America with that choice, but could only keep to rumors at this point. “Heavy armed forces were considered, but dismissed due to logistical concerns. We're keeping with special forces and light vehicles for the most part, even if only to keep up the pretense that we're a backwater neo-barbarian state with delusions of lostech greatness.”

Chou raised an eyebrow at that. “Am I supposed to keep that line myself?”

“If it comes up? No. Do try and present us in the best light. We'll let the Combine make their own assumption without us helping them along too much, thank you.”

Chou nodded at that, beginning to develop some sense for diplomatic double-speak. “I heard that Chandy is coming with us from Tai-sa Ulysses. Is that true?”

The captain of the Dropship nodded. “Yes. He and some of his people are offering the use of their Jumpships on the trip, in exchange for berths on our ship. There were no objections from the higher-ups, and we were given instructions to play nice with the Kurita given his future potential as an ally against ComStar and the Word of Blake.”

Chou was vaguely surprised at that. He had met the Combine businessman a couple times while dealing with the factory, and held a very neutral impression of the man. “So we're playing host to an important Kurita to score favor with him and the Combine.”

“Pretty much.” The captain looked at the clock. “I have to get going, check on things. We'll be lifting off tomorrow morning to meet up with the Jumpship that will start our trip to Luthien, and I want everything shipshape and stowed before then.”

Colonel Kurita knew that morning would come far too soon.


Nadir Jumppoint
Luthien, Capital of the Draconis Combine
18 August, 3022

It was one of Chandy's Jumpships that made the last leg of the two-and-a-half month journey of the Coalition diplomats. The journey was made in relative peace, the worse being a false report of a pirate raid a jump away.

At the point, the Jumpship began to pull in closer to Luthien's primary, and the Coalition Dropship detached, and with flightplan filed with the local space control. On the bridge of the Dropship, Chou waited to one side with Ambassador de Borbon. “We should be taking notes.” Chou whispered as he watched the captain and navigator negotiate a path through the mass of ships coming and going. “This is one of the major worlds, and they've had plenty of time to streamline the process of controlling the comings and goings of Jump- and Dropships.”

de Borbon's response was cut short when the navigator started yelling in his native Maori mixed with English. Something about 'idiot drivers'. “Maybe not”, Chou changed his opinion slightly. Ten days of travel, and it looked like there were still occasional traffic jams.


Imperial City Spaceport
Luthien, Draconis Combine
28 August, 3022

Monroe Salvadore-Kurita was a middle aged man who was seriously contemplating finding a nice monastary to retire too. This entire scenario was just preposterous. Him, playing nice with some deep perhiphery Neo-Barb nation that happened to have some lostech trinkets and some small skill at killing pirates? And they were granted such honors as this?

He we quite certain that this 'Kurita' from Motherlode was nothing more than a name chosen to invoke the favor of the glorious Dragon. He spat on the ground, careful to aim away from the man standing beside him.

Jerry Akuma, adjunct to Warlord Samsanov of the Galedon District, stood beside the ambassador, sharing in his misery. He was one of those who supported his master's bid to conquer Antallos, and, from there, Motherlode for its treasures. But the will of the Coordinator was clear and absolute in this regard. This did not stop him from helping to plan out certain 'contingencies', but Akuma was sent to this duty by Samsanov for his own inscrutable purposes.

Monroe didn't care for that. He just wanted to get back inside and get some nice tea. And a young boy to serve him. Yes, both would do nicely. At least the neo-barbs had enough sense to admit to the might of the Combine when the message had come along that they were not bringing any BattleMechs with them, only a nominal infantry security force and a couple of armored vehicles.

His own aide, whose name escaped him, put down a radio set and reported that the Coalition Dropship was on its final approach to the spaceport, and gently pointed out the direction from which it was coming from, handing the Ambassador and Akuma a pair of binoculars.

The Dropship was obviously a Union, but it looked brand new for the most part. Monroe frowned as he found that he couldn't find a defect with the ship as it throttled back its fusion engines to a safe landing speed. The Bronze Eagle that was the symbol of their military was small and subservient to the symbol of the Coalition, an unsubtle reminder that the military was ruled by the politicians, rather than having a proper say in the affairs of their two-world state.

He had received the reports from Chandrasekhar Kurita that he had made along the return trip from Antallos as was due his station. The improper Kurita had words of praise for the industry of the Motherloders, and approved wholeheartedly of the plan to bring the Coalition into the Combine through diplomatic and economic means. A piece of trash that Monroe would expect from a Kurita who couldn't pilot a BattleMech.

But one thing overrode his personal desire to drive these barbarians away from the beautiful and powerful Luthien. With his appointment, he had seen the ideal end goal of all this diplomatic kowtowing to these upstarts. A new District for the Combine that held the northern border of the Outworlds Alliance, one that bordered the Galedon District, and would serve to be the first major expansion of the Combine in over a century. A coup that would ensure that the glorious Coordinator would be remembered as a paragon of the position.

And Monroe wanted to be part of that. So he swallowed his bile as the diplomatic Union finally settled down into its designated position and waited patiently for it to be safe for him to approach.

He didn't have to wait long, as the ever-efficient workers of the spaceport quickly hosed down the landing platform, sending a small cloud of steam into the air. Monroe and Jerry, along with their people, quickly approached the Union in their groundcars, as walking the distance would take too long, and neither of them felt like it.

The landing bay doors to the Dropship opened up on the side facing the approaching Combine diplomats, revealing a crowded cargo bay filled to the brim with equipment and cargo pallets. Aligned at the entrance, and now descending to meet the Combine ambassadors as was proper, were several men and women, led by two that Monroe recognized as Tai-Sa Chou Kurita and Ambassador de Borbon. Chandrasekhar was visible, but to the back to allow for the proper greetings.

de Borbon approached Salvadore-Kurita and provided him with the proper greetings as well as a rolled up scroll that was signed by Tai-sa Ulysses Kurita and made the entire thing a very official and very formal declaration that, yes, this was an official embassy, there to make communications easier with the Glorious Dragon. It was all right and proper, and Monroe was glad that even a failure like Chandrasekhar could teach these neo-barbs a thing or two about how to treat their betters.

To the side of the civilian diplomats, Chou and Jerry saluted each other, and offered their own less ornate, but still very formal greetings. “Colonel Chou Kurita, Global Defense Initiative of the Coalition.”

“Sho-sa Jerry Akuma, DCMS, adjunct to Warlord Grieg Samsanov of the Galedon District.”

Chou suppressed his surprise. Jerry Akuma was mentioned in the source material as a loyal aide to Samsanov during the attempted destruction of the Wolf's Dragoons and died during that conflict. To see him here was unusual, but given the rampant butterflies that the presence of Earth had created, things like this were bound to happen.

Still, meeting someone that he could easily believe was one of the more vile men in the Combine set off some warning bells in his head. At de Borbon's direction, he greeted the actual Combine Ambassador, presenting the invitation from Coordinator Kurita. Salvadore-Kurita examined the paper with a critical eye, before finally returning it to Chou, accepting it as real.

Both Chou and Miguel felt that if Monroe could have torn up the paper and spit in their face, he would have. But diplomacy was the rule of the meeting, not warfare, so Monroe coldly welcomed them to Luthien, and bid they enjoy the hospitality of the greatest world in the Inner Sphere bar none.


Diplomatic Stateroom
CSN Union-Class Dropship Olympus
Same Day

Jerry didn't like being shown up. He knew that the Motherloders held secrets of Lostech computer technology, technology that rightly belonged to his master, Grieg Samsanov by inevitable right of conquest.,

That they were flouting it with their displays was insulting on top of that. In lieu of an actual aquarium (which would have been an acceptable display of culture), the Coalition Dropship flaunted their impossibly thin and high resolution 2D displays to fake both an outside view of Luthien (supplied by a dedicated camera, he was informed) as well as the fake view into water on the other end.

And this Ambassador (an insult to the honourable title!) de Borbon had the audacity to apologize for the lack of a 3D holographic projector over the meeting table to properly display things! It was like they actually expected to be able to match the Star League, or even exceed it! The nerve!

He excused himself, noting that the talk of diplomats was not something he could really contribute to. As he was escorted out, he walked with the last of the repatriated citizens of the Dragon, and took some time to properly welcome them back to Luthien. His escort gave them plenty of time to properly disembark, where Jerry found himself back with the groundcars that were idle. There, he began to reflect on what he had seen and heard, planning out how to best exploit the weaknesses in culture and military that the Coalition were so proud of.

He would make sure to do a good job of them for his formal report to the Warlord.


Diplomatic Stateroom
CSN Union-Class Dropship Olympus
08 September 3022

“So, the next part of the meeting. How goes the construction of our Embassy?” de Borbon passed the table to the Architect, who nodded before reciting his report from memory.

“Construction proceeds apace. As said four days ago, we had to reinforce the foundation due to insufficient knowledge about local soil composition. This was within expected parameters, and the reinforcement was completed last last night. This pushes back our completion date by two days, but as no one outside this room knows what that date is, I don't feel it's a vital complication.”

He paused, as though processing his next remarks. “While I'm sure our head of Intel will add his own thoughts to this, but I would also like to add that the attempt by the ISF last night to intrude their agents into the construction site was countered, and no damage to the facility was incurred. I will let my colleague present the facts in more detail during his report. We expect no delays in construction as long as the local Intelligence Community maintains the same level of professional restraint.” He coughed. “I believe Colonel Kurita is next?”

Chou rose as the Architect sat down. “Thank you. Mine will be quite short. I, and Ambassador de Borbon presented ourselves to the next level of Imperial Bureaucracy in the Unity Palace. Thankfully, having an invitation signed by the Coordinator personally is expediting the process, so as this rate, I should have my audience in early October. Chandrasekhar is being supportive, and helping to grease certain wheels we were not aware of. And yes, he is expecting a return on his investment. That is not a discussion for here and now, but will have to be done in the future.” The Colonel sat down, sipping a bit of water, gesturing for the next person to speak.


ISF Annex, Intelligence Gathering and Analysis Division
Luthien, Draconis Combine
10 September 3022

“Nothing?” The man who was called Chou (a coincidence, or perhaps a joke by his superiors) sighed as he looked at the other two people in his observation cell. They were given the inglorious, but still vital task of observing the developing Coalition Embassy, something which was equally a job that novices could perform and at the same time, something to cause the greatest of agents to develop a lethal hernia.

On the one hand, there was no obvious counter-intelligence past a couple men who advertised their positions and responsibilities. They were the ones who checked the workers hired locally to help construct the Embassy, which these people had softly inserted themselves into with no difficulty. The All Seeing Eyes had floorplans in hand, handed out to aid in the construction effort, something which caused the observation cell to think that these Neo-Barbs were going to be an easy assignment.

Then all their observation equipment went dead.

At first, it was just the bugs they had planted in the construction site, hoping to catch secret words. This was to be expected, of course. It was normal.

What was insulting was the electronic voice on one of their recorders speaking his name, and giving them credit for a job well done, and then asking them to please wait until the Embassy was finished.

A lesser agent might have have rallied against the insult, but Chou was not a lesser man. He recognized the actions of the Great Game and the opening moves of the new players who knew and played the game well.

He knew that these men, these people from the Coalition of Sovereign Nations, that they were grandmasters in the realm of shadows. And from that, the O5P, not the ISF, would take them seriously.


Coalition of Sovereign Nations Emabssy, Embassy Row
Unity City, Luthien, Draconis Combine
31 September 3022

The Embassy was finished, for certain definitions of the word. It was complete, but there were those thousand little details that always needed fixing and dealing with. However, the new Coalition Embassy was in a state to host their first party. de Borbon had naturally invited Ambassador Salvadore-Kurita, as well as the only other Ambassador in residence along the street, the one from the Outworlds Alliance.

It was a sad state of affairs, on Embassy Row. The only two serious Embassies were from Periphary nations, the Coalition and the Alliance. The Taurians had an 'official representative', but the sheer distance involved meant that relations between the two nations was limited at best to an “Enemy of my Enemy” basis.

Given that there was, technically, a war between the Combine and the Dragon's neighbors in the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth, the diplomatic posting from the Steiner's was considered a dead-end, a punishment for those who were still too valuable to release from the service of their house. The traditional malice between the Kurita's and Davion's meant that there was no proper Embassy on Luthien or Avalon for the other.

The Free Worlds League and the Capellan Confederation both were in the process of reactivating their own embassies, small parties of trusted men in the process of refurbishing the buildings in question. For those not in the know, the situation was the same as with the Taurians. For those who were more aware of such things, then it was in preparation for the revelation of the Concord of Kapteyn to the rest of the Inner Sphere in two weeks time.

de Borbon had invited those people as well, a gesture of good will that would go far in Diplomatic circles. Added to the guest list was the ComStar Precentor – while he wasn't on the First Circuit, de Borbon did insinuate in his invitation that he was looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship with the local HPG station, as was due their station.

Oddly enough, everyone accepted the invitations, if only for the chance for free food and to feel out the initial diplomatic offerings of this newest minor power.

It was a huge security headache for the GDI troopers, Rainbow Six, and the Intelligence agents, but they pulled through. There was some help from the support staff of the invited, but as hosts, the final onus of hospitality was on them.

As the evening progressed, the Taurian representative approached de Borbon with a request from his superiors about the possibility of sharing technical details about the nuclear weapons used in the defense of Motherlode. He made it clear that the deal was reciprocal, as the two active nuclear powers should compare notes and make improvements based on the designs of the others. de Borbon pointed out that such a decision would have to be made above his head, but of course he would send the request with the next group of messages back to Antallos.

The representative of the Steiner family shared a sampling of the fruit plates with the Liao Ambassador, discussing the empty nothings of people with nothing to say. But they did watch everything around them like hawks, hoping to notice or overhear some important detail that they could offer to their masters to get them out of this hellhole position.

And along one back wall, a Coalition diplomatic adjunct offered a Combine diplomatic adjunct a perfunctory non-alcoholic drink. “We do want to apologize for that thing last week,” he said as the drink was accepted. “We had no idea they would try to tap into our internal music system.” A gesture to the soothing classical music from before spaceflight that just wouldn't go away added emphasis.

“Such things happen. The ISF was quite annoyed when their wiretap went awry. What is it that they got anyways? I've heard it and it's quite... catching, in an insidious manner.”

“Carmelladansen, SpeedyMix. According to our records, that's what we were using to test the system when they made their intrusion.”

“Ah. I must say that such a tune would not see much success in the civilized nations of the Inner Sphere. And the higher-ups in the ISF are getting impatient – angry even – looking for success against your defenses.”

“Oh? That almost sounds like a threat.”

“Not from me, my friend.”

“Ah. That's good to hear. Enjoying the drink? I can get a refill if you want.”

“No thank you. Moderation in all things, you understand. I do have a question for you though.”

“Yes? Can't promise an answer though.”

“What is the name of your organization? The ISF nor the O5P have been able to divine that yet. Rumors of 'Nod' keep appearing, but your true name is like smoke.”

“Well, I can tell you that NOD is not it. We rejected it on cultural grounds. And there was something dry about being called the 'Nonstandard Operations Division.”

“Pity. Nod has such a fore behind it when you say it. Nod. NOD. Simple. Threatening even.”

“Thanks, but sorry to disappoint. I'll tell you though, that the people who wanted that name even had a logo put together and everything. A crimson scorpion tail on a truncated black triangle background. A sort of thematic opposite to the Bronze Eagle.”

“Ah, yes, I can see that. One is a bright and proud predator, glorious in movement and action. The other a hidden and dangerous creature, full of poison and death. A shame. We may have to steal that for ourselves.”

“Be our guests. Actually, I do have a quick question for you. ISF or O5P?”

“I'm insulted that you'd have to ask! Now, back to the important business. Such unprofessional behavior is a bother, and we cannot protect you from more... overt expressions of their annoyance.”

“Well, I suppose we could let them get some files we have about the other intelligence agencies. Let them know where we stand and all that.”

“Oh, all of them?”

“Of course. Well, just our primers on them. O5P, ISF, DMI, Heimdall, Loki, ROM, MIIO, SAFE, Maskirova. Just to let them have a taste of where we stand.”

“I'm sorry. ROM? Are they the replacement Outworlds agency?”

“ROM? No! They're ComStar. Helps keep the Houses out of their internal business.”

“Ah, yes, Indeed. Such a minor player slipped my mind.”


Coalition of Sovereign Nations Emabssy, Embassy Row
Unity City, Luthien, Draconis Combine
17 October 3022

The Combine businessman left the Sovereign Nations Embassy, escorted to his waiting groundcar by a mixed guard of his own loyal people and the Embassy guards. There were no negative feelings between him and the people and he left behind. There was some disappointment in his body language though.

In the groundcar, and a few minutes later, he picked the satellite phone out of it's guarded case, a precious piece of lostech his family hoarded with extreme care.

“The negotiations were a failure, Father.” He said after dialing a number and waiting for the third ring. “While there is much the Combine can gain from the Coalition, the impression I got was that the CSN is truly self-sufficient across all their core worlds, and has no need of material imports on the national level.”

“I was told that there were, however, two possible avenues for the betterment of our more personal and corporate relations. But such transactions would have to go through Antallos, rather than Luthien.” He paused, letting the man on the other end process this information.

“...”

“Yes, father. They were quite respectful of our position and strength. I believe that Third Earth has organizations similar to ours, which is why they were receptive to personal interactions. It may be an avenue worth investigating.”

“...”

“I agree completely. I must also add that they were actively encouraging what they described as 'investment opportunities' on Antallos. It seems to me that their internal policy is to make every world under their purview to be self-sufficient, and the unplanned addition of Antallos to their nation was an unexpected drain on their economy. The involvement of... interested parties would be most appreciated.”

“...”

“Yes, Father. I agree completely. I will go to the HPG station and compose a missive to our people on Antallos to begin the process of opening up this new market right away.”


Imperial Gardens, Imperial Palace, Imperial City
Luthien, Draconis Combine
12 November 3022

It was a chip and crisp early evening as the mightiest man in the Draconis Combine, Takashi Kurita, and his personal guest, Chou Kurita, strolled down the garden paths, lights flickering on around them as the twilight darkness began to descend upon them.

“I must thank you once again for the dinner, Lord Coordinator.” Chou offered sincere thanks as they walked in the silence of the garden. He noted that although it was October on Earth and Terran by the calender, Luthien's orbit was bringing it into mid-spring, with all the weather that entailed. It was a dichotomy that the Earth-born officer did not think he would ever get used to.

“Think not of it, dear cousin. After those unseemly delays, it was the least I could do. Eating alone certainly has it's place, but sometimes good company is a reward as well.” Takashi paused to let part of his current rotation of security check the next section of garden. Over the many years of his reign, the many assassination attempts on his life had given him a proper paranoia as to his safety.

As the two of them waited in the center of a pool of light, he thought over the gift that the Tai-sa (no, Colonel, he reminded himself. Same rank, different name) Chou had gifted him at their introduction on behalf of his nation as a suitable tribute to the Dragon.

Right now, his head Gardener was checking the authenticity of the cutting of the Sakura Tree that was the gift. The results of those tests would shape much of the future relations between The Dragon and the Coalition, at least on the personal level.

A subtle gesture was made by Takashi's majordomo, and the two men began to stroll again, Chou a half-step behind the Coordinator, as was proper. “I trust you find my world to your liking?”

Chou knew that this question was the political equivalent of asking 'what do you think of the weather?', and that it wasn't a loaded question. Still, he was careful in choosing the words to his reply. “It is different from my homeworld, Lord Coordinator. I must confess that the differences are refreshing and I find them to be a wonder to experience.”

Takashi nodded at the acceptable answer. There were some subjects of discussion that he wished to breach with this lost cousin of his, and he felt that holding such a discussion amidst the splendor of the Imperial Gardens would put Chou at ease. He had held such discussions here before, and would likely do so again. “Tell me, cousin of mine, what was it that you did before the counter-invasion of Antallos?”

Chou spoke the truth instantly. “I commanded a ship tasked with anti-piracy work away from my home, Lord Coordinator. After the attack by the Drakon, my crew and I were recalled to the defense of our homeworld. After we defeated the invasion force sent by the Pirate Vorax, I was assigned to the captured Jumpship fleet as the naval commander, second only to the leader of the expedition, General Davis.”

The Dragon pondered this. The Coalition had a pirate problem even before the Drakon? Must have been more local issues than the possibility of pirates from within the Inner Sphere. “It must be hard for you then, to be so far away from your family. Have you received messages from them yet, from your wife and sons?”

Chou did not go with his first response, instead telling the Coordinator “I have no immediate family, Lord. My father died of old age some years ago, and my mother followed him shorty thereafter. My duties have, I must confess, denied me those joys.”

Takashi glowered. “A man of your rank and station should not be alone in his life.” He considered adding more, but refrained. The personal shame of his son having no wife yet, let alone producing an legitimate successor (he had no doubts there were illegitimate grandchildren of his, although he could not recognize them) meant that to interfere with the life of another Kurita in such a manner, without his own house in order... He simply could not do it with any propriety.

Chou decided that since Takashi had introduced the subject, he could respond with a question of his own. “What of yours, my Lord? I know you have a son, Theodore Kurita, and I have heard tales of the beauty of your wife, but I did not see either of them today and I wished to pay my respects.”

“My wife had other duties, cousin. She has her own place, but could not make it. I assure you, no slight was intended.” Chou nodded his acceptance as Takashi sought the right words for the other half of the question. “My son...” He paused. “My son has his own duties in the service of the Dragon, and is away from Luthien.”

“Ah, such misfortune. I had hoped to meet them, and give them their proper greetings.” Chou wasn't lying there. One of the directives from the Coalition leadership was to make a good impression with Theodore, in the hopes that his reforms would help secure the safety of the Coalition in the future. “I take it you are unhappy with the distance between father and son?”

The Dragon knew he could respond to that question in either way that it could have been asked, and chose to keep the conversation polite. The Son of the Dragon was no ordinary child. “Indeed. Not having a loyal son at ones side is an absence felt sorely.”

Chou nodded, waiting in the light as Takashi stopped again, waiting for the next area to be scoured and secured. As they rested, a rustle of cloth came from behind, and both Kurita's turned as one. There, the Head Gardener stood at the edge of the light, a flush look on his face as though he had run from wherever he had been before. There was a quick glance at Chou, then he fixed his gaze onto a piece of ground a half-pace in front of his Lord. “My Lord Coordinator, Great Dragon, forgive the intrusion upon your private moments, but I have the results.”

Chou relaxed a bit. He knew that the gift was real. The Heavenly Emperor had selected it himself from his gardens for just this purpose. Beside him, Takashi stepped forward to address his subordinate. “Please. Enlighten me.”

Once again, the Gardener glanced at Chou, this time with a sense of wonder in it. “My Lord, Glorious Dragon...” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “A comparison of the gift and our own samples is conclusive in all forms.” Chou wanted the man to get to the point, but recognized that the Combine had their own way of doing things, especially where The Dragon was concerned. “It is the same. No, more than that. The gift shows it being grown in soil taken from Terra. It is real. More than real. I have checked with ComStar. The gardens on Terra are dead, but Motherlode has preserved the Chrysanthemum Throne's garden in this. It is... Aiieee! I cannot say!”

“Say it!” Takashi snapped his command with a tone that nearly caused Chou to come to attention.

“My Lord Dragon! The gift from Motherlode, Third Earth... It is closer to the Imperial Gardens of Nippon than our own garden. I HAVE FAILED YOU!” Chou's mouth dropped open a little as the wailing gardener prostrated himself before the two Kuritas. “My life's work! My Lord Dragon! Please! I beg of you! Give me leave to travel to this world that has preserved the past perfectly! Let me...”

“Calm yourself!” Takashi said, his voice more gentle now.

“I did not expect that.” Chou commented quietly. This was a bit excessive, even by the standards of the Combine, if the Coordinator's reaction was any indication.

“A moment, Cousin. I must deal with this matter.” Chou bowed slightly and moved to the edge of the light, allowing the two men to converse in relative privacy. As he did so, he became aware of the presence of the majordomo beside him.

“Lord Chou, I must offer my apologies. I had thought your world uncultured, but I have seen what assails my fellow so. We had thought your world another Neo-Barbarian culture, but this... You have honoured this House immensely by giving them a solid link to the ancestors on Terra so long lost.” The majordomo spoke softly as to not disturb the interplay between Takashi and his Gardener.

Chou whispered in reply. “It was the only thing we could do. Those men who are loyal servants of the Dragon show it every day, with every breath. We could only show our friendship not through gems or Mechs or Technology. We had only one chance to show that we are more than what you thought us, and I am glad to see it so.”

“Cousin! Return!” Takashi's voice carried to them, and Chou found himself alone as he returned to the presence of the Dragon. There was a deep change in the man, he noticed. Now there was a swelling pride, and a hint of a smile on the Coordinator's face. Chou saw all this, and knew that things would go well.

“I take it you are satisfied with our gift, Lord Coordinator?” Chou asked with the proper degree of formality.

“Cousin! May I call you Chou? You may address me as Takashi. And yes, your gift was of such undeniable beauty that I may have lost my trusted Gardener. He has declared his life's ambition to be to travel to your world, to partake of your gardens, to die happy.”

Chou was taken aback. This! This he really didn't expect. “Of course, Lord Takashi.” He added the Lord for now to keep his formality intact. “I cannot say when my superiors will allow for such a thing, but I know they are open to cultural exchanges as they give clear benefits to all involved.”

“I can ask for no more at this time Chou. But now, on to more serious matters.”

Chou didn't like that one bit. “Of course, Lord Takashi. What do you wish to discuss?”

“It has come to my attention that the honourless Davions have offered to sell your fragile nation small fusion engines for those aircraft you so favor with your lack of a proper military force of Battlemechs.”

Chou did not hide his surprise. “I was not informed of such a thing, Lord Takashi. But I cannot say that I find the idea impossible.”

“Of course. You would please pass along a message to your Lord Ryan for me? Tell him that the Dragon holds their friendships dear to their heart, and it would break that heart for me to see my friends stray to untrustworthy strangers with darkness in their souls.”

Chou had to admire the threat and its wording. Play with the Combine, or else. “Of course, Lord Takashi. We know who our friends are. And who they are not. To act against the former and for the latter is the realm of pirates and barbarians, whom we are not, I can assure you.”

Takashi nodded. “Such is truth.” He pondered how to bring up the next subject. He had already issued a threat, and to launch into another one so soon would be too much. He needed a more gentle piece of news to buffer the two. Ah! He could do that instead! “Chou, you may not be aware, but the Draconis Combine has finalized negotiations with the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League for more open borders and exchanges of technology with those nations that we have no quarrel with, all done with our magnanimity for our lesser equals in the Inner Sphere.”

Chou raised an eyebrow in surprise. Takashi was talking about the Kapteyn Accords? With him? “Oh? I know we are not the equals of the Great Houses...” His voice trailed off.

Takashi nodded in agreement. “Indeed, but our cooperation with the factory on Antallos – from which we have received the first pair of Mechs in excellent order – showed those nations that the Combine is honorable and trustworthy. For that, you have our thanks as it made the negotiations smoother and better for all parties.” He knew it was an exaggeration, but it would serve his purposes here. And in all honestly, the fact that the Combine was capable of reaching out to be magnanimous rather than patronizing was a huge leap forward in how those nations viewed The Dragon. It was not an unpleasant sensation, to have trusted allies. He knew that there were factions inside the Combine that could not accept this price to have a stronger Combine, but he would deal with them in good time.

That was another honest surprise for the Coalition Officer. And one that he would have to report back on. During his briefings, it was noted that the Accords was a very strained organization, a treaty forced by ComStar onto the signatory nations to create a powerbloc to oppose the Davion-Steiner merger. If it had a better start, who knows what changes would result? “We are glad to be of such a small service, Lord Takashi.”

“Of course, such things are not without their price, you understand.”

And here was the other shoe, Chou sighed inside.

“The Dragon is quite disturbed, Cousin Kurita, that the Coalition defended their world with vile weapons, banned by all civilized nations. We understand the need, but understand that the use of such weapons in the future, for any but the most extreme of scenarios, will be met with the full displeasure of The Dragon.”


Undisclosed Time, Undisclosed Location
Luthien, Draconis Combine

Two members of the Black Dragons sat in the well lit and well ventilated room, enjoying the fruits of their labours and the rewards of their positions. Neither was into excess as other certain members of their society were, but they did not let that get in the way of doing what was right for the Combine.

Between them was the transcript of the total conversation held between the Dragon, Lord Kurita and the false-Kurita, Chou. It was accurate in all details as they would have punished quite severely anyone who tampered with the evidence they now pondered.

“This is a perplexing line of events.” The elder of the two spoke. “On one hand, we must find fault with the false humility that the Coordinator displays to this backward cousin of his. Yet, on the other hand, we must applaud the actions he has taken as they have served to build further the armed forces of the Combine. The Antallos Factory is, by the latest report, producing a new Jenner chassis every 64 days, down 6 from the previous owners. All of which have gone to the Galedon District, where the local forces have equipped them with proper engines and weapons.”

“I must concur.” The younger added, giving the senior the proper deference. “It would seem like the gamble of Subhadar and the Coordinator has given rise to a boon, not a bane. And yet, it is still not right, for we are dependent on a foreign power – even if it is for a small fraction of our proper might.”

“Oh, I must agree. Yet because of the boon, we cannot act against it directly. However, Once again, the thoughts of the Coordinator and of us are in some alignment. I have it that Lord Kurita has sent a Writ of Command to Warlord Samsanov. In it, he tells the Warlord that if there is an immediate military threat to the Antallos Factory, he is to secure it with all haste.”

“Surely the wording of the letter was not that vague?” The younger rolled in her mind the consequences of such an open-ended command.

“Of course. There are still some limits and details. Such that the Warlord cannot move to a 'perceived' threat, but to a legitimate provable one.” The elder sipped some more tea. “But with this in hand, the good Warlord can move to protect the Combine in a hour of need.”

“That is good news. But the Warlord is not one of us. A shame.”

“No, but there is another whom we are already scouting out to join our ranks who can prove to be an asset to our cause.”

“Oh?” The younger hid her surprise behind a veil of indifference. “And whom would that be?”

“One Jerry Akuma. Given these recent events, it has been decided to make his track to joining our organization a faster one. He has the ear of Warlord Samsanov, and thus, would be a useful tool to our plans.” The elder paused to let the younger digest this information.

Eventually, she spoke. “And what is to be my place in this plan, honored Elder? I do not see how I may be of assistance to the Society.”

The elder smiled a gentle smile. “You will be tasked with aiding Jerry Akuma in what he needs. A Warrior of your skill, a Woman of your beauty, will be able to sway him, even when the needs of the Combine cannot.”

The younger woman considered this, and accepted her duty.


Imperial Gardens, Imperial Palace, Imperial City
Luthien, Draconis Combine
13 November 3022

Florimel Kurita, Keeper of the House Honor, sat at tea with her chosen successor, and aide – Constance Kurita. The two women had examined the demanded genealogical records of one Chou Kurita, to determine how his family, and that of the Coordinator related.

It was good news. The Motherlode branch of the Kurita Family that Chou represented was indeed related to the primary family, but as was expected, the last connection was from before the fall of the Star League. That meant that there was no threat from that branch of the family in terms of political power. Not to mention their loyalty to the neo-Barb nation.

It was a conundrum to the two women, but they were both thankful that Lord Takashi had chosen the path of peace in dealing with this lost branch of his family, rather than trying to prune it for some vague and undefined reason. Perhaps, the two of them thought, Theodore's own glory seeking ways could be tempered into something better for the Combine of the future.


Coalition of Sovereign Nations Embassy, Embassy Row, Imperial City
Luthien, Draconis Combine
14 November, 3022

“It's official then.” de Borbon read over the document in front of him, comparing with the one from the Source Material. They were functionally similar, the difference being that one was written by professional lawyers and politicians, and the other by a game company trying to rebalance a game at the strategic level.

Across from him, Chou nodded. “ComStar should deliver this news to Antallos in a couple of days due to their public transmission speed. Then another couple of weeks for an official response from Earth.”

de Borbon put down the two documents, no longer needing them. “Have you heard anything on your end? I've already had to assure my counterpart that the CSN will have to re-evaluate our position in relation to the Federated Commonwealth, as such a merger changes the power dynamic of the entire Sphere. I implied that the Combine was seen as the safer choice, without actually saying anything.”

“I'll leave that in your hands then. Chandrasekhar has already offered me a ride back to Antallos as he wants to return there as soon as possible to try and get the Factory there to produce faster. Apparently a 30 ton Mech every eight weeks isn't good enough for him. I'm not sure I should accept at this time.”

“I don't see why not. You'd have to take a body guard back with you of course. There's a couple men who aren't fitting in according to the reports that cross my desk. Rotating them back to Antallos or Earth would be a good thing.”

“I'm just not sure I should leave so soon after my talk with the Coordinator.”

“Oh, well, I can send out feelers to see if he wants you to remain, or if he wouldn't mind if you return to your duties back home.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

Praxton Fusion Products Head Office
Praxton, Outworlds Alliance
The Periphery
August 6, 2007/3022

These Motherloders might be wealthy, but they didn't dress like nobility. That wasn't looking good for Tori Wilbury's hopes they would live up to their reputation as gullible little freshfaces with too much money. Her visitor wore a crisp black suit, which while cut to fit was too plain and were more like what servants would wear. No gems or precious metals anywhere. He was wearing sensible shoes, while the wealthy in the Inner Sphere chose boots whenever possible. Not only did such require more leather than mere shoes, wearing well-made boots tended to give one an unconscious swagger.

Tori Wilbury resisted the urge to glance down at herself. She was wearing a sleek brown suit with emerald inlays upon the buttons, white gloves, her glasses were horn-rimmed, a short cape as an accessory to emphasize her command and military background, and of course tall black leather boots. The billowy pant legs for her riding pants were tucked in. Hers was an outfit designed to intimidate those who didn't realize what power there was in being the owner of company that produces Fusion Engines; those beating hearts of the famed war machines, the BattleMechs, which ruled over destinies in the Inner Sphere. Praxton Fusion Products was critical to the Outworlds Alliance- without it; the whole OWA would be crippled in both its economy and the ability to defend itself.

George Winston smiled warmly and shook her hand as she bid welcome to her office. The old man didn't pull any attempts to charm, like kissing her hand, which was a refreshing change. He had no noble airs. This was a man who lived for the making of money. That was reassuring, in its own way.

After the customary pleasantries were over (tea and biscuits were the fare for negotiation, to the old man's surprise) Winston brought up his briefcase. "Before we begin, let me establish our bonafides." he said gently. "I represent the Antallos and Near Periphery Trading and Acquisitions Company, or ANP-TASC, and I've been authorized by my government to make whatever purchases and investments necessary to secure a steady supply of Fusion Engines of the class one hundred, hundred twenty-five, hundred sixty, and two hundred."

He took out a bank draft. "To help trade between our governments, our funds are guaranteed by Comstar. This isn't a draft for C-bills, but securities based on gold bullion redeemable into C-bills." That draft was for one hundred thousand C-bills. Winston only really carried one, since that reduced the risk of theft and large-scale transactions didn't involve any direct exchange but banks talking to each other. The OWA's populace may not trust banks, but the companies that needed to deal with massive amounts of cash could not do without.

Tori smiled slightly. That was more like it. "I see. So how many Engines do you want to buy?"

"All that you have in stock, plus whatever you can produce in the next year."

The CEO of Praxton Fusion Products couldn't help but to laugh. That would be millions of C-bills, ten at least, and ridiculous. That was enough to buy a company of 'Mech or Air Lances to defend a world. These people must be desperate. She pitied how these innocent newcomers had no idea of just how much scarcity locked the prices of important components. Even the entire Alliance Aerospace Arm could only increase their forces by at most five new ASF per year, and most of that being rebuilt from other sources.

She paused and stared at his placid expression. "You're serious?"

"If you have it, we'll pay for it. What's the problem?"

"No, we exactly don't keep any 'stock' of Fusion Engines." Tori explained as the pleasantries passed and negotiations went into full swing. She put one leg over the other and leaned back casually. "It takes a lot of time and effort to make Engines." She absently rubbed the bottom of her lip with the side of her index finger in a thoughtful gesture that was all-too-deliberate. "I mean, yes, we do have some Engines on reserve, but they're held in case of increased demand from our primary customers."

"Alliance Defenders?"

"Among others. We produce a lot of the essential components on-site; we only need some of the rarer metals from mining interests around the Periphery. We only have two production lines, and it takes time to switch things over from producing a Nissan One-Twenty to a One-Sixty and a One-Eighty to a Two-Hundred. All contracts are set ahead of other factories' own production schedules."

Winston nodded. "So the scarcity of resources isn't your bottleneck." He let out a relieved sigh. "We'll be talking to Alliance Mining anyway." He chuckled and looked out the window of the office. "Don't worry about finishing the production runs for your present contracts, they're going to be picking up demand, yes." he said while nodding absently. "We're buying their products too."

Tori frowned. Fusion Engines were one thing, but BattleMechs and AeroSpace Fighters more than doubled or tripled the price. Maybe these Motherloders were hoping to undercut the sale price, but in this case there was no middleman. The defence industries of the Alliance, all of them save Mountain Wolf BattleMechs, bought their Engines directly from her company. There were no procurement mark-ups to shave down. Amused, she asked "What, all of them?"

Winston nodded, an indulgent grandfatherly smile on his face.

Tori's cheek twitched. Impossible. How rich were these bastards?

"That's enough. You've had your fun." Tori added flatly. "We can accommodate a short production run of one Engine Class starting three months from now. Contracts are to be paid half in advance. We can work out how much we can both afford to produce without having to reactivate a production line."

"Why can't you just reactivate a production line?" The way she said it, the act sounded prohibitively expensive. That interested George Winston more than just the merchandise. "Miss Wilbury, I am truly authorized by ANP-TASC, and the interests of the Coalition of Sovereign Nations. We're more than willing to invest further in making sure you can produce the Engines we require."

That was incredibly suspicious. Tori licked her lips and tried not to show any hint of her building terror. Anyone who would sink so far as to improve an outside business interest would surely also prefer to own said business outright. "It's not a matter of funding..." she replied hesitantly. "It's a matter of manpower. The old factories are very complex, very finicky. Our engineers are already doing the best they can to maintain the existing lines. Activating more increases the likelihood something would break beyond repair."

"Ah." That was more a matter for Henry Calmer, the mission's DOORWAY asset. The man was a Star League engineer. Too bad he was over on Alpheratz, negotiating with Mountain Wolf BattleMechs. "Look, I'm not kidding when I say all the contracts you're going to get the rest of the year will either be through me or in some way motivated by other purchases we're making in the OWA. We need -all- the Fusion Engines we can get, no matter what size or rating."

"If you don't mind me asking, what the hell are you going to use that many Engines for?"

"We have lots of Fission Reactors we'd like to replace, Miss Wilbury." Winston said with an amused chuckle. It was the exact literal truth, after all. "Forgive an old man's enthusiasm. Any and all Fusion Engines you can provide, we can probably find a use for them somehow. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll both benefit from repeat business."

"I... see." That made sense. Replacing hideously obsolete and dangerous Fission Engines with Fusion ones was a worthwhile investment. But was it the truth? These Motherloders were no Periphery barbarians, but their rumored lostech clashed with how primitive they admitted their other systems were. Of course, just because a war machine might be powered by Fission rather than Fusion did not make it any less a tool of murder.

Looking at the old man, she realized she didn't care. She'd be a fool to turn away a business opportunity like this. Her factory only ran for half a year, holding Engines back for when her customers could actually raise their own contracts to pay her for them. She just made Engines, she knew she shouldn't give a damn what others used them for, what wars the Houses fought, unless it would harm the Outworlds Alliance. "Tell me straight, then. The Engine Ratings do you want most, and I'll tell you how many of them we can make, from scratch, in a year."

Tori Wilbury's office was large and impressively furnished with dark wood furniture and large picture windows inlaid with white marble. On the walls hung paintings of the BattleMechs and combat vehicles that could use the Fusion Engines that her company provided. Though the Engines themselves were known as Nissan Fusion Engines, it had been centuries since that trademark meant anything. The license came with the factory, and her family had clung with bloody determination to hold it intact through the fall of the Star League. Praxton Fusion Products Limited formed the bedrock of the Outworld Alliance's ability to defend itself.

The Nissan 120 for the Wasp and Stinger Light BattleMechs, the two 'Mechs were depicted standing back to back on the large painting furthest to her left. The Nissan 160 was for the Locust, and that spindly-legged machine was shown in mid-jump over a hill, one leg out in a dynamic sprinting pose. The painting next to it showed it a Hunter tank with the Nissan 175 firing into the distance with a white smoky tail of LRMs. The last painting showed the brick-like Seydlitz and the needle-like Lightning ASFs, using the Nissan 180 and 200 Engines respectively.

The paintings were arranged in alternating heights. George Winston noted that there was still space enough to hang several more frames. "We'll take the one-sixty and the two-hundred, as many as you can make."

Tori sniffed. The biggest, most expensive pair she could produce: Most profitable too, but those were definitely BattleMech ratings. Any chassis that could accommodate a 160 could get a flat 25% boost in performance by replacing it with a 200 Engine. "I can get you twelve one-sixties or eight two-hundreds. Or six of each."

George Winston winced. "In a year?" The Class 160 would go to the laser tanks and Light AeroSpace fighters while the Class 200 would go into the GM-I and SF-I 'Swan' ASFs. He'd been expecting to secure -at least- twenty-four new combat platforms per year. "That's all?"

"By January, yes." Tori laced her fingers together and leaned on her elbows. "The price is five million C-bills, half in advance. This is not negotiable. We're going to have to reset our production lines for them." Her factory could only handle the production of one Engine rating at a time.

George Winston stared outside thoughtfully. Tori's office overlooked a sculpted garden. Beyond were rolling green hills. Praxton was a world that was at risk only because of the Fusion Engine factory on its surface. By that same token, only the value of the plant ensured that unlike most other worlds it had adequate forces for self-protection against raiders. It might not be wise to depend so much on outside production, but then Coalition and GDI its fighting arm had no choice. Even the best estimate for when Earth could begin Fusion Engine production was in the order of at least five years away.

After a long while he turned and asked "If I gave you five million -now-, in gold or C-bills, could you do better than that? We're still interested in the lighter Engines, if you can add some to the primary production run."

Tori's bowels clenched. Very slowly, very primly, she put down the cup that was halfway to her lips. The bone china tinkled as the cup was laid onto its dish by her faintly shaking fingers.

"I said, enough joking around." she hissed.

Winston smiled, like a shark smelling blood in the water. "If you insist. No more kidding around, Miss Wilbury. Ten million."

"That's all?" Tori scoffed lightly. Her eyes glittered with suspicion. "Tell me what you really want from us."

Her visitor could be lying about his company's ability to buy that many Engines, it might be an overly ambitious scam. If not... only the Great Houses could afford to be so flippant, and they wouldn't have anything but conniving designs behind being so 'generous'. A Periphery power had no business trying to put on airs like that. If it was true... then it was too good to be true! There had to be a catch. She would NOT hand over control of her family's factory!

Nobody puts down ten millions C-bills without blinking. Even Alliance Defenders Limited, the Outworlds Alliance's largest military defence industry, could only afford to split orders into quarterly instalments. Why go to her, instead of a larger House-owned Engine manufacturer? How close the OWA was to Antallos was both a benefit and a clear danger.

Winston shrugged. "Honestly? For the Successor Lords to choke in their own vomit when they realize someone's not interested in playing their games their way."

Mad, Tori decided. These Motherloders had an inflated sense of their own power. Were they grubbing for more? Wealth was not enough, she knew this from experience. What was gold but soft metal against the might of a greedy House Lord's army? Whether it was ego or ambition, she had a feeling that her part of the Periphery would not be ignored by the warmongers through their unimportance or isolation for much longer.

The licked her lips and forced a smile on her face. "I see. It's a pleasure doing business with you, Mister Winston." Five million five hundred C-bills was still a windfall she'd be a fool to ignore. Let them pay in advance. She'd sink it immediately into improving the security of her factory.



Mountain Wolf BattleMechs
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance
The Periphery
August 18, 2007/3022

Henry Calmer was not much impressed by Alpheratz' capital city. Famindas looked all but unchanged from when he'd last seen it almost four centuries ago. For that matter, he hadn't been impressed by Earth's cities either. To him they were crowded, artless metropolitan grids, despite that the cities with the same names that he knew were from a world with nearly double the population. Already, overburdened Earth looked to be some years away from the Resource Wars he remembered from Terra's own history.

Given a choice between the toaster-worshipping cult of Comstar or the CSN's naively infantile ambitions, the Star League engineer felt he was better off seeking the shadow of the Star League from the planet in the Periphery. He'd grown up in an atmosphere of optimism, and the bleak reality of the Succession Wars made him feel so unclean.

As the group was shown around the Mountain Wolf BattleMech factory, Calmer couldn't help but to be impressed. Not because the factory was stirring example of industry - he'd seen many larger factories churning out BattleMech for the Star League - but because it was functioning at all. Compared to the production line used by Alliance Defenders Limited, the Mountain Wolf factory produced 'Mech chassis from start to finish uninterrupted by the need to manufacture certain components by hand.

Brandon O'Leary was the owner of Mountain Wolf, and was not a man who shirked from taking risks. He's spent most of his family's fortune rebuilding the Outworlds Mountain Wolf Mech factory. He'd presented the Merlin battlemech, hailed as the first totally new design in a hundred years and quite the serviceable war machine.

Since beginning production at 3010, however, he couldn't quite say that his gamble had paid off big. The factory itself was offline. The demand for a brand-new Heavy Mech was never all that high, especially considering the transport overhead hauling from the Periphery. But for such a poor state as the Outworlds Alliance, they never realized just how were blessed they were by this perfectly-intact Mech Factory.

Calmer was impressed, but mostly because of Brandon O'Leary's work in preserving the factory despite the OWA's consistent refusal to utilize such a resource. Mountain Wolf originally used the OWA branch to produce the Night Hawk battlemech, a Light 'Mech, and O'Leary had successfully retooled it to produce a Heavy.

Konrad Rohr, the heavyset representative of Advanced Research and CApital Investments, Europe, Reserved (ARCAER) sidled up next to him and asked "So, can we use this?"

"The factory doesn't seem to be broken anywhere." Henry Calmer replied. "I can't be sure while it's shut down like this, but just by retooling it to produce a Heavy, and a new design at that, O'Leary's proven he know what he's doing."

"So it can be retooled again to produce our own designs?'

"Difficult, costly, but yes." Calmer looked ahead again to see O'Leary and Masahiko Seta laughing forcefully at some anecdote. The old man from HINODE was being far too cheerful, matching with O'Leary's gregarious enthusiasm. "What a waste. This man was born in the wrong century." That sort of single-minded technical devotion was a hallmark of the Star League.

"Or perhaps the exact right time where he's most needed." Rohr murmured speculatively.

Mountain Wolf BattleMechs was situated in a defensible valley with a river running through it, wide enough for barges to bring supplies and finished Mech's down to the port. The tour ended back at Brandon O'Leary's office, which had a clear view of the blue river out a marble balcony. The distinctive feature of his office was not an ostentatious CEO's desk, but a large conference table suitable for unrolling blueprints. On one wall, where one might normally hang a painting, was a framed blueprint of the Merlin.

"So, that's it. What do you think?" O'Leary asked. He sat, not behind his working desk, but at the head of the large conference table. Beside him to the left was Timothy Lee, his Chief Engineer.

"We are most impressed." said Seta. "We're confident that you can handle our orders." The old man's face showed mournful sadness. "Unfortunately we do not have much need for the Merlin at this time."

The smile was fixed on O'Leary's face. "That's fine. It's still nice to be appreciated."

"We will still be purchasing the Merlins you have in stock." Seta added with a bow. "In gold or C-bills."

O'Leary blinked owlishly. Usually it would a little more than a little show-and-tell before people could get down to business. He had to cajole and entertain buyers a little more to secure a contract, it was expected. Power belonged to the buyer, as Mountain Wolf was a minor operator compared even to major House salvage yards refurbishing fallen 'Mechs back to combat form. Why go to the Periphery for a Heavy when you can buy two Mediums or a lance of Lights, fast and cheap if second-hand, from a major vendor?

"I have two Merlins ready for delivery." he said, trying to keep a relieved wheeze from his voice.

A Merlin had a market price of nearly five million C-bills. He couldn't bring the order price below four million seven hundred due to lacking control over parts. Still, even with the bare minimum profit from nine million C-bills, that would allow him to reserve production for three more. Better a selective buyer now than waiting for a more demanding buyer later... whose orders he wouldn't be able to fulfil anyway without asking for a humiliating advance.

"That's fine." said Seta. The old man turned to his companions. "Is it?"

Rohr nodded. Both would go to Europe, as HINODE was interested in only humanoid-frame 'Mechs in the Medium weight class while the US already had their avian frame Wild Cat. No one commented on the four Merlins and two vintage Night Hawks they saw standing guard by the factory. O'Leary was properly paranoid over protecting his property.

"I apologize if we do not require you to provide any more." Seta then bowed and gestured over to Henry Calmer. "My colleague has something to say. Please let us discuss the details of our exchange later."

"Huh. Right." He put aside thoughts of asking for ten percent down, so he could put down an advance bid on Praxton's next run of Engines before the ADL could pre-empt his needs again. He had no way of knowing that any further supply requirements had already been arranged, at seemingly inconvenient cost, well in advance.

He considered this other man. He certainly had the bearing of an engineer, even up to carrying a blue plastic roll tube on his back. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Calmer nodded and took out the schematics he'd been entrusted with. "There's something else that we require. It's amazing how you retooled this factory completely. What would it cost for you to do it again?"

"I'm not sure what you mean?" O'Leary asked with a narrowed gaze.

"We'd like you to build for us our BattleMechs. We already have the designs ready for production. What we need is a factory that can produce them reliably."

"That's a very complicated thing you're asking." Timothy Lee put in. "This facility's designed for the Night Hawk. That's why the Merlin still looks like a big version of it. It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be cheap."

"You want us to make your 'Mechs...?" O'Leary's look and voice seemed far away. That was an option for Mountain Wolf's survival that he'd never considered. He'd gone deep into debt just covering research and development for the Merlin. If someone already did most of that... it would still be challenge, but with much of the hassle taken out of it! He sprang back into awareness. "Lee... can we do it?'

"I don't know. I can't say anything until we understand what it would take to build this 'Mech." The wiry engineer looked warily towards the trade group. Mech design was a secretive and sometimes even a literal cut-throat business. "If you don't mind showing us?"

"Oh, no problem at all." Henry Calmer unrolled the schematics onto the table and pushed it forward. The blueprints were not enough to build the 'Mech, but were detailed enough in the frame specifications that one could make a convincing knock-off. That is, if one were stupid enough to try and piece together a Shadow Hawk body and Hunchback legs rather than rebuilding and selling both for double the profit.

O'Leary and his Chief Engineer began to look over the designs, eventually communicating in half-formed conversations born of long collaboration over a drafting table.

"...a Large Laser and three Mediums? That's all?"

"...two Small Lasers. Maybe a flamer here."

"...Shadow Hawk arm?"

"...could hold an AC/5 okay."

"... oo slow for the warload. Needs more long-range firepower."

"The Hawk's deadly because it can do that while light and fast. Not good enough."

"...too many heatsinks. Why not a PPC?"

"Get them from the same place we get own PPCs?"

"Wait, what's this estimate?"

"That... is stupidly cheap. Stupidly optimistic."

"... would have to be a total moron to mess up with this..."

As they examined the design, O'Leary's expressions shifted from curiosity, to contempt, to surprise, to curiosity again, to excitement, then finally forlorn depression. "I can't build this." he finally said, his shoulders sagging. "You could ask Alliance Defenders... they can probably build it a little cheaper than your estimate."

Calmer frowned. "We are not interested in offering this to Alliance Defenders Limited. Cost is not an issue- reliable and speedy production is." ADE was a government-owned company and produced cheap Light mechs. He, and by extension ANP-TASC, didn't trust them to not put their own internal production orders ahead of what GDI needed or even to seize 'Mech runs outright. The people of the OWA still considered 'Mechs as 'Inner Sphere tools of hate' after all. "Do you really mean you can't build it... or you won't build it?"

"I'm not going to be allowed to." O'Leary replied with a wan grin. "The Merlin... it's a Heavy. It can't conflict with ADE's market share. Do you know, I have to get all components for it from outside the OWA? Lushann won't even sell me Medium Lasers. ADE has first pick of all military manufacturing inside the Alliance. It might as well be Alliance Defenders UNLIMITED - can't expand the Alliance military without giving it a kickback somewhere."

He began to chuckle. "Three million C-bills for this? You do realize this looks like it's been deliberately designed to undercut my Merlin for someone looking for a tough defensive 'Mech?"

"We were aware something like it was happening, but we had no idea it was that severe.' said Masahiko Seta. He looked towards Rohr. "There is another option for us, isn't there?"

"Yes. Mister O'Leary- how would you like to become co-owner of a GM-I 'Mech factory on Antallos?" HINODE had already opened itself out to outside investors, the pressure of Mech manufacture could no longer be sustained internally. Rheinmetall was looking into foamed metal Structural Material and Endo Steel production too. "We can provide the site, the capital, the manpower, you provide the expertise."

"You're going to MAKE a Factory?" Lee crowed. "That's... even more stupidly expensive and complicated."

"Unlike this Factory, it will have to be chopped up into different assembly lines for the parts, so it would very much be helpful to have this one online and producing GM frames as an example. Its own independent run would be faster and more reliable."

The recovered Memory Core data that they had didn't actually go into the specifics of what actually went on inside a factory. The process, yes. But what exactly were these parts to make the parts and how were they machined and put together? Even Henry Calmer had no idea, in the same manner a metallurgist could not be expected to put together a steel plant, piping and all, just from his own knowledge. "We have a piece by piece examination of a Jenner plant, but to make a Medium 'Mech factory, we need a working example."

"Wait... what..." O'Leary tugged confusedly at his moustache. "How can you fellahs know how to make 'Medium Mechs... but not know how to MAKE Medium 'Mechs?"

"We can make them well enough." Seta replied. "We can provide a GM for your examination later. There are still certain problems in the design we'd like your help in correcting..." Such as getting the GM to run past 65 kph without faceplanting onto the tarmac, for one "But unlike you, O-Leri-san, we can't forge and assemble them with just one uninterrupted line."

"Speed, huh?" O'Leary was getting a sinking feeling. "You sound like you're preparing for war."

"For self-defense only." Calmer added quickly. "The Periphery is not a safe place. You should know how often pirates attack. But...it's not just pirates that are attracted to wealth and resources,"

O'Leary thought it over. Strange. Why weren't they extending offers to invest into his company, controlling it from within, but rather on the outside to further diversify his assets? Unless they thought they could seize both quickly? The less cynical part of him asked if, maybe, they trusted his ability to deliver what they needed - more than what they'd gain just from trying to take over. He'd rather burn his own factory to the ground rather than have it be stolen from his family again.

"That's an interesting offer. I'll have to think this over." He stood turned around to look at the painting of his great-grandfather, the last Lyran owner of Mountain Wolf, flanked by a black Night Hawk silhouetted against a red sunset. It took three hundred years, but he'd done his family justice.

"That's not all we're offering to help you with," Calmer said softly. He tapped the table with his fist. "Vendrell."

Brandon O'Leary turned around sharply, anger blazing in his gray eyes. "Get out."

"We are not and don't intend to be the Alliance's enemies. But work with us and we will do everything in our power to give you back the Mountain Wolf plant at Vendrell."

O'Leary laughed, loud and mocking. "Saying something like that, it just makes me trust you even less. I'm a businessman, and I'll get what I want by my own terms, my own strength. Take your poisoned charity elsewhere."

"You misunderstand, please listen, O-Leri-san." Seta said soothingly, his face placid like a Buddha statue. "We require many, many GMs. You will be wealthy. You will reach for your dreams legitimately. It will be hard, unceasing work and may even be dangerous. There will be those who will envy and hate your success.

A storm is coming, O-Leri-san, and if you must know why we are in such a hurry? We fear The Dragon that brings the rain."

O'Leary stood there in silence, his hand over his face and his thoughts whirling. He'd been but eighteen when he brought life back into Mountain Wolf, and how a decade and half later he was a few steps closer to reaching his dream. He'd given his life over to this bitter ambition to avenge his family's honor, and his days to smiling in the face of all the spite and all the disdain that his Alliance, for all his loyalty, spat in his face.

He looked up and smirked. "There's just one thing I don't understand..."

"Yes?" asked Calmer.

"Why haven't General Motors sued the pants off you bastards yet?" O'Leary asked with a grin. "You just know if I do make this thing, and it gets even a little popular, they'll be all over it for a lark."

Calmer winced. "It is... a mystery."

Seta actually looked mulish. "The Robotic Mobile Guardian Machine, RM-GM, is not assailable by copyright." His lawyers were actually looking forward to seeing GM try. Since there were similar companies that shared trademarks on Earth and the Inner Sphere, that inevitable lawsuit was one they were counting on to help define how the CSN might penetrate into the Inner Sphere markets.



Famindas City
Alpheratz, Outworlds Alliance
The Periphery
August 24, 2007/3022


Neil Avellar was tall, wiry, and wore his long dark hair long in a loose ponytail. He took a deep calming breath before entering the conference room in his own home, and stepped in. The room was somewhat dim, sunlight leaking through drawn cream curtains showed that those waiting took no pleasure from his arrival. The stood up in respect however, and he waved for them to sit. "Gentlemen and ladies, thank you for coming. I apologize for having you travel this far, and I'm grateful you obliged.'

"Cut the chit-chat, cousin." said Hadisen Avellar, overall chairman of the board of United Outworlders Corporation, the OWA's ASF producer. He grinned, and puffed at his pipe. "We all know what this is about."

"That's still no excuse for rudeness, cousin." barked Maurice Avellar, commander of the Avellar Guards. He remained standing in parade rest, behind and slightly off the side, while the President sat at the head of the table.

"It's all right. No point in wasting time." said Neil Avellar. He looked at each of his visitors. Five of them, each representing the major military industries present within Alliance space. From left to right: Praxton Fusion Products, Lushann Industrials, United Outworlders, and Mountain Wolf. The only one missing was Alliance Industries Diversified, but Adam Smith Pallas was still expected to arrive from Sevon. Alliance Defenders was under direct governmet control, and thus technically under his direction.

He nodded towards the woman among them, blonde-haired Tori Wilbury. "Miss Wilbury, from what I've heard, our new friends from... This ANP-TASC from 'Motherlode'... has spoken to you about purchasing Fusion Engines? How many did they want?"

"All of them." Tori responded crisply.

"Mister Chatham? Lushann's Lasers have never been under any contract restrictions."

"They decided to double our production." the portly man replied. "Yes, yes, they wanted all of our lasers."

The President then pointed to Hadisen Avellar. "And United Outworlders?"

The smirking CEO tilted his head to the side and blew out smoke out the side of his mouth. "Whatever Seydlitz and Lightnings that hasn't been paid for in advance by the Aerospace Arm."

The President then pointed to Brandon O'Leary. "And Mister O'Leary?"

"Need you even ask?" O'Leary replied with a wide grin. "All of them!"

"So. Do you see the problem here?" Neil Avellar asked freely.

"They're buying up our ability to expand our defense forces?" Maurice Avellar replied with a scowl.

Hadisen shook his head and pointed with his pipe. "No, something more basic. If your negotiations were anything like mine, these Motherloaders offered to pay in C-bills or gold, yes? The question therefore arises: adding together all of the purchase orders they've been making in Alliance space, can they really afford any of it?"

Maxwell Chatham of Lushann Industrials nodded. "It's so much so soon, are we sure this isn't a scam of some sort?"

President Avellar laced his fingers together and said flatly "ANP-TASC deposited ten tons of gold into Alpheratz Planetary Bank. They also deposited five tons with ComStar for liquidity."

Tori choked. Brandon whistled. "Daaamn..." he whispered. "That's... pretty strong hand."

Chatham did some quick mental calculations. The Alliance escudo was backed by gold and silver, but the gold itself was matched against the C-bill, which was fixed currency throughout the Inner Sphere. "About three hundred C-bills an ounce...?" he murmured. Thirty two thousand ounces of gold per ton. Ten tons was almost a hundred million C-bills! His face eyes twisted into a grimace, eyes bulging out. The escudo was worth at best twenty percent of a c-bill.

Almost four hundred million escudo in the bank! At a time when even the most skilled worker could be considered very well-paid at four hundred escudo a month. "I could take out a business loan." he said idly, blinking with the realization. "A lot of people can make business loans."

In one gesture, the Motherloaders turned the OWA economy from a quicksand into something arguably solid.

Tori hugged herself and whispered. "This is insane."

"And I'm given to assume that they still have a few more tons of gold held in reserve in that dropship of theirs." Neil Avellar finished in the same dead tone of voice. His fingernails were digging into the back of his palms. If the bank issued loans, and the Motherloaders decided for some reason to pull out their funds, the result would be disastrous.

"I don't like this." said Maurice Avellar. "That much wealth... and they came here armed only with a single 'Mech lance and a squadron of fighters?" He paused to reconsider. "One standard 'Mech lance, a LAM lance, and two fighter lances. The sheer arrogance of it! "

Hadisen Avellar frowned and puffed on his pipe. "For secrecy? That's stupid."

"I agree! That's far too little to guard this much wealth! They could have hired whole regiments for half of what they brought with them, no need to... this whole crazy business!" Lorenzo yelled, slamming his pudgy palms onto the table for emphasis. "And once word gets out, we've just become the biggest target for Pirates in the Inner Sphere since..."

"Since Motherload itself, you mean?" Brandon O'Leary replied casually.

"Who -are- these people?" Tori hissed.

"We don't know." President Avellar answered. He sighed. "Do we really need to know? Only further contact with them would tell us that. I'd rather we do business than discover just how dangerous they are at the point of a gun. Do you think the Alliance can afford to reject such overtures?"

Hadisen Avellar sighed. "No. Of course not. We should at least treat these Motherloders as we would the Davions or the Kurita."

"And neither the Davion or the Kurita dare to pay in advance." Brandon O'Leary added again.

"We've played the Davions and Kurita against each other for centuries. We've never been invaded because we don't have anything worth the losses they'd be taking if someone does invade. Our worlds would be stretching out their borders and thinning their defenses, neither the Combine or the Federated Sun can use Alliance space to sneak in an attack into each other's unprotected flank." said Avellar. "Can we handle a third player in this game?"

"Who would send out a Regiment's worth of gold if they didn't care about being able to recoup their losses? We need to treat this as the threat it is!"

"This is why we're talking here before we break it open to the Parliament. The Military Review Board can't prevent you from selling outside the Alliance, and from how it stands we're more at risk from refusing sales compared to how much you'd be expanding our military with those. But I'm given to understand that all of you here were offered business opportunities on Antallos?"

"I don't have a problem with building their 'Mechs for them." said Brandon O'Leary. He didn't share the commitment to pacifism that the most of the Outworlders professed. "Building an entirely new Mech factory, twenty-five percent net profit to me, what, is the Parliament going to block investments outside of the Alliance now?'

The President shook his head. No, that's not a problem."

"It may be legal." Hadisen Avellar mused. "But asking us to make their weapons... is it immoral? Don't they know -anything- about the Alliance?
Even if it's true that they've known of the Inner Sphere for just these past couple of years, this ignorance is insulting!"

"We could use all the money they're offering." Lorenzo Llewellyn added. "But I'm not sure if we really need it. It's too much. They -must- have something else in mind."

Neil Avellar nodded. "I called you here so we can bring together what they've been asking to get a clue on what these people really want."

They began to compare notes and impressions of their visitors. The Motherloders didn't act like anyone from the Inner Sphere, steeped in tradition and the wealth of their own inherited industries. Yet for a Periphery realm to have access to such resources was inexplicable. Why not pour that into their own defense industries instead of holding up a potential rival? A strong demand for Fusion Engines from Praxton was understandable. The Inner Sphere had an insatiable appetite for new Engines. What was more mysterious was why they were offering war machines to the OWA. The 50-ton GM BattleMech, the 40-ton Swan fighter/trainer ASF, the 40-ton Lanzenreiter laser tank, the Stinger LAM. Maurice Avellar gnawed on his thumbnail speculatively then wrote onto a pad.

160 - Swan, Lanzer
200 - GM, Stinger LAM

"Of course these are the Engines they're asking from Praxton. But it's not just that, is it? Everything here seems to be designed for components we can easily produce inside the Alliance." He glanced briefly up at the CEOs. "Engines from Praxton, metals and armor from Sevon, Lasers from Lushann, electronics and chassis here in Alpheratz... everything's just a jump or two away. If we build them, we're going to be in control of the entire production chain."

"Or under obligation." Hadisen noted.

"It's too neat." the Ground Defense Arm commander added. "It's too convenient. Can't you see it? Producing all these simple, cheap machines here, it's like they expect us to eventually reserve some for our own use."

"And would that be a bad thing?" asked O'Leary.

"I... I don't know."

Neil Avellar rubbed at his forehead. "Expanding our defense industries would create jobs. If we do this, we're going to be dependent on finding buyers for these products."

Becoming warmongers too. It stuck in his craw, but while the agrarian nature of life in the Alliance had a veneer of idyllic simplicity, it was also one that suffered from the pain of hard labor and lack of medical facilities and infrastructure. Once the issue broke open into the Parliament, the citizens of the OWA would then have to face knowing their government was betraying the very foundations of their society just to give them more comfortable lives.

And yet, while he dreaded the inevitable backlash, that it would be inescapable meant he felt it would be worth it. Refusal would puff up pride at sticking to one's moral scruples, but that wouldn't bring comfort to families with children dead from easily-treated diseases or left orphaned by pirate raids. Almost ten years since he took power, the honeymoon period was over; almost a decade of disillusion and futility. He just didn't have the resources to support any lasting changes.

Until now.

He was a reticent, nervous man who was known for not taking action without talking it over with his advisors. But before coming into that meeting he'd spoken with the person he trusted above all others... his mother. And she told him to do what was right to improve the lives of all the people in the Alliance, no matter their disapproval. It was his responsibility and burden, to be liked was a luxury that he couldn't afford anymore.

Hadisen puffed on his pipe some more. "Cousin, you're thinking of raising taxes, aren't you?"

Lorenzo looked up, frowning. "What? Why?! When for once you're not going to operating at a deficit?"

"Trade with Motherlode... it needs to show some clear benefit. It needs to be worth the danger that comes with accumulating material wealth."

"Some sort of 'Sin Tax', you mean?" Hadisen Avellar commented idly. "Looks like you're learning what it means to be greedy easy enough."

President Avellar sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "If the Motherloders are secure enough to throw around wealth like this, then I'd hate to see us dragged into what they'd consider problems. We'd be better off getting rid of all this fool’s gold quickly, for something that's useful." The soul of the Outworlds Alliance was steeped in hard work and practicality, it would not be bought or cast aside so easily.

Rheinmetall Unterlüss Proving Ground
Germany, Earth, The Periphery
September 19, 2007/3022


The Lanzenreiter LZN-R1A rumbled through the 50 square-kilometer rough dirt clearing, its turret tracking a variety of targets. Mock-ups of buildings and hills served as cover, while shapes plated over with Standard Armor stood for enemy vehicles.

In many strange ways, the construction of a Fusion tank was actually simpler and easier than having to design a conventional MBT. Armor Achievements Europe, Ltd. (ARMAEUR) was the newly-founded company to produce a common 'universal' medium tank for use by GDI. Unlike previous tanks, which were single-hulled vehicles, the new Fusion tank was built on a 'skeleton' of BT foamed metal Internal Structure with armor layered over it. It was far lighter and roomier than a single-hull design and the box-hull meant that components could easily be switched out to have one chassis serve different duties. Even the turret could be hot-swapped for swift repair and refit.

Jullien Beauvais, one of the combat engineers just returned from Antallos, looked past the tank undergoing combat trials to its parked sibling, the Lanzer W, also known as the Lanzenwagen. It differed outwardly only in having a smaller turret, with pair of Medium Lasers. With capacitors and mountings for the Large Laser removed, it could now carry twelve troops in full gear along with a variety of support weapons and even a small medical bay.

The vehicle had treads, but a taller than he'd like for a tank, but this Lanzenreiter... Laser Panzer... was no Main Battle Tank. It was little more than a long, angled box, a hull-frame that could serve both direct combat or for infantry support. Even the Lanzer A out on the range, with a Large Laser on its turret and sixteen tons of armor for defense, had enough stowage space at the rear for eight infantry or assorted supplies.

There was a quick flash. The observers all wore tinted goggles, as the visible light Large Laser lanced out against a target simulating an enemy tank coming out of cover. The effect happened too quickly to notice, what they beheld was actually the lingering glow of ionized air after the attack had already hit.

"So, the Lushann Large Laser..." asked Beauvais. "Does it live up to expectations?"

"The Lushann Redbeam is bulkier and heavier than the Diverse Optics Large Laser intended for BattleMechs. It is a vehicle weapon." said Dr. Heinrich Volger. "It still ablates away half a ton of Standard Armor for each hit. It could be smaller so we can shrink the turret some more, but it is not a pressing issue. It is already much more resistant to damage than more compact BattleMech lasers."

Beauvais still doubted the utility of the Large Laser as main gun. Objectively, he knew that the laser could effortlessly slice through a conventional all-metal hull MBT and five more behind them, but the cooldown of several seconds before a Large Laser could fire again was such an agonizing delay. The front-hull Medium Laser may have better rate of fire and utility against lighter vehicles, but it had a limited firing angle. GDI demanded a cheap, multi-purpose medium tank with little logistics footprint however. The French proposal, the VAC/5 and SRM-4 carrying Surin, was passed over for the slightly slower energy-weapon-only German Lanzenreiter.

Or almost, he surmised. The Lanzer still had a coaxial 20mm autocannon for anti-infantry work after all. The Laser Panzer could not hold true to its name until the return of Small Pulse Lasers.

"The Large Laser is devastating to us, but to the battlefields of the Inner Sphere, it is nothing special." continued Dr. Volger. "While the Lanzer has more than enough armor, it would be foolish for us to have it behave like a Main Battle Tank. It is an Infantry Fighting Vehicle."

"Then why not use something stronger? Can this laser not be made more powerful?"

"A Heavy Laser, you mean? We can attempt to make better lenses to improve its range slightly, but even the Inner Sphere have reached the limits of materials technology when it comes to beam intensity. The PPC is a possibility, but it is expensive to acquire and difficult to maintain. We cannot add a second Large Laser without compromising on size, speed or armor protection."

Beauvais nodded reluctantly. The Lanzer won the bid by considering readily available technologies and offworld production instead of waiting for Earth's research and industries to catch up. Lushann Industrials would need to make a new version of their Redbeam Large Laser, or buy a license to produce a different Laser suitable for hotswapping with the Swan ASF, the Lanzer tank, and the GM 'Mechs, but it was just one more in the spread of investments ANP-TASC was making in the OWA. In time, GDI high command hoped for clear parts commonality. The new GDI MBT (tentatively known as the Marshall heavy tank by the Americans) used quality over quantity to be able to fight 'Mechs straight on, but an IFV support/transport was the bedrock of all peacekeeping operations.

"We can now reliably produce Standard Structure and Armor, though still not in quantities we can call 'sufficient'. Just bring us the One Sixty-rated Engines and the Lasers and we will do the rest." Dr. Volger rubbed at his the underside of his lip as a contemplative reflex.

Fourteen tons of armor was even quite ridiculous for a 40-ton tank. With such paltry firepower, they'd designed the Lanzer A to survive long enough to blast away in unison. They could probably reduce the armor to just eleven tons, pack a dual purpose machingun AMS turrret, without losing much in practical protection... but that would reduce in internal infantry capacity from eight to just six due to having to carry the radar and FCS equipment internally.

"That's not good enough. We need these tanks to secure Antallos." replied the GDI inspector.

GDI for its new-found reputation as a young but determined military actually did not have much direct presence on Antallos. The bulk of their mobile attack power remained in the 'Mechs of the Foreign Legion and without the aid of the Azami, would not have managed the recent victories against the other city-states of Antallos. Peace on a planet-wide level required the ability to make deeper, stronger patrols.

"Conventional Internal Combustion or Fuel Cell Engines are but a stopgap measure, the deep deserts of Antallos have more in common with wide ocean than land operations." Beauvais added with a sigh. "We have to think of oasis as more like islands, and resupply bases like ports of call. All those other independent city-states in Antallos still hate each other nearly as much as they hate us.

Only continued presence can deter them. While the threat of having quick-response DropShips touch down to deliver battalions to bust head is may keep them from obvious misbehaving, that does not provide us with real, ground-side awareness. Even with ARMAEUR and Alliance Defenders, only a factory on Antallos can make sure that there's nonstop production, and full readiness against whatever may happen."

Dr. Volger nodded. The Lanzer was nearly pointless on Earth for defense anyway. Antallos was the gateway, the honey trap that ensured Earth's safety. Alone, the Lanzer was not much of a threat. But at least eight of them, equivalent to a single 'Mech lance, moving and firing in concert should tell a different story.

"Many, many Lanzers. The simplicity of the design is geared for that, yes. It is out of our hands. It is uncomfortable to be so dependent on someone else for survival. I hope the Trade Mission communicated well the urgency of this."

More tanks, more fighters, more weapons, more, more, more! If the books were right, they had eight years before the next Succession War. If not, it didn't matter... the Inner Sphere was a savage sphere, and no peace could ever be trusted. Out there, somewhere, was the juggernaught known as the Clans. The Coalition needed friends in the Periphery if they hoped to survive the inevitable shitstorm.

Beauvais reached into his vest pocket and took out a cigarette. "Ah, let's hope they didn't make us sound too desperate. Our dignity may be a small price to pay, but that doesn't mean I want to smile as I'm forced to beg."

Coalition Space Administration Center
Florida, Earth
Grantville Cluster, The Periphery
June 10th, 2007/3022

It had many names: Skywatch, Sol Guard, Cleansweep, Inter Planetary Police Initiative. It had as many as competing political agendas as, well, any other agency in the newly minted CSN. For Joshua Wilder, Skywatch's Chief Executive, it could have been worse... he could have been under the direct administration of the new Earth Space Agency, even if his own little domain had had nearly as many suggested names as that menagerie and that would have meant working under Nicholas Iversonn, with whom he had been feuding for years.

Of course, funding had been sparse anyway, as had been manpower, especially after the Columbus op returned. After all, they had for real pros now, and even if they weren't, well, Earth needed a space industry, yesterday – there was no time to do it cautiously. And, much like all the great undertakings, it would be paid for in blood if needed.

So maybe he was still a bit bitter about the last appropriations hearing. Truth was they were overstretched, there were a large number of bottlenecks and no easy way to solve them in the short term. But they moved onwards just hoping nothing would go wrong and, if it did, that they'd be able to limp back into shape.

And then, like clockwork, disaster hit. It was relatively minor; a miracle in disguise some would say. One of the Boeing Spheroid testbeds had some sort of malfunction and tore itself to pieces; full crew loss. What was more terrifying was the high-velocity debris passed very near Scaffold One, barely missing the structure by mere minutes.

It could have ended in a much larger catastrophe; worse, it could have cost them a chunk of precious space-based infrastructure. So the powers that be looked at whoever could step in, and the members of Skywatch were once again 'the Garbage Guys'. Stupid nicknames.

Collecting space garbage was their chief responsibility, at least for now - especially the stupidly-tough BT-grade junk that could easily survive re-entry and then hit the ground with the force of an airstrike. Hitting a populated area or a fragile-as-butterfly wings space platform was not so much a nightmare as it was a statistical inevitability. One that had sent half a dozen, and counting, safe recovery proposals back to the drawing board, as well as causing a nervous breakdown or two.

At least they had skirted the blame game, more or less. However, that had left Joshua Wilder in a tight spot, needing to not only produce something to stop any further fast-moving space hazards, but something more or less sellable to the committee. Yesterday, if not before that.

No pressure.

“Boss, you ok? Thought you had left an hour ago.” Thomas Carr, Skywatch Senior Deputy asked with concern on his face.

“Still alive. Naw, was busy with some last minute research.” He paused and held up a thumb. “I think I’ve found us our own Columbus expert.”

“After your speech before Appropriations?”

“I insist on what I said; Star League Methods and Doctrines are likely to be either applied in a minimal fashion or not at all!” the Skywatch chief said in an overly exaggerated tone. "I don't think General Space Command liked being told their promises to fix their safety protocols are worth so much cow manure."

“...and yet we are getting our own ice cube to play with?” Thomas Carr answered in a dubious monotone.

“I said 'Methods and Doctrines' and meant that. Having the perspective of somebody with hands on experience? That's a whole different thing.”

“Still, I thought Iversonn had gobbled up all the ‘Oh Gee’ specialists.”

“Well, he did, more or less.”

“He sharing?” Carr asked, almost hopeful.

“Not at this time,” Joshua Wilder said with a slight frown. “According to him, they are still a critical component of the Exoplanetary Training Program.”

“Figures, and if the workers die without Star League safety procedures…”

“…We have extras,” Thomas finished with a wince.

“Callous and brutal.” Such was life.


****


There were three main ways that you could classify the Columbus Survivors: there were those that had jumped back into the saddle and were active helping the nascent CSN learn the how to survive in this strange new future; those who, having had enough, had taken their money and chosen to disappear; and, finally, there were those that had wanted to help, but for one reason or another had been unable to do so.

Monica Sundengard was one of the latter.

“I was quite surprised by your request, Mr. Wilder,” she said, looking quite prim with her hair tied back in an unflattering but practical bun. It was a spacer's habit.

“Call me Joshua, I'm not that old, even by our standards.”

“Very well, Joshua, Call me Monica then.” She paused and considered her next words carefully. “But I'm not sure what I can do to help, I was just a glorified cargo monkey…”

“It is a matter of perspective, you were a 'cargo monkey', and a Zero-G one that got to be Cargo Master, yes?”

“Well, yes, but…” she paused a moment, “look, if not for Amaris, I’d never been more than a regular Jump Monkey, I…”

“Doesn’t really matter. We want your perspective and I do know you want to help. You did request to join the crews at Scaffold One,” he said using the informal name of the hodgepodge that at one time had been the ISS, which was now being expanded to serve as Earth's low orbital cargo transfer station. “Multiple times, even.”

“And I've been refused every time.” she sighed.

“Too Valuable,” they said in unison.

“You are a living legend, Monica” he said barely suppressing a smile, “Let me put it this way: have you been able to look at the current safety measures?”

She sniffed.“They're a joke.”

“Yeah, they are, and while we have the Star League era regulations, well, they are largely useless to us. They presuppose too many things we simply don’t have and some we can't even begin to guess the rationale behind them.” Of all the Star League data recovered, the information on their regulations and procedures had been the most disappointing.

“Assuming there was one, which most of the time was dubious at best.” She paused "For instance, look at the subsection C of the hazmat handling guide, it required us to have a published expert on the hazardous chemicals. Not just a HazMat expert or an expert on the specific goop; no, he had to be published!”

“I had thought some of the regulations weren’t as streamlined as they could be and some were outright ridiculous...”

“More of the latter than of the former if you ask me.”

“True enough, Monica. Still, this is why we need you; you know the stuff. Perhaps not academically, but you've lived though most of it and can help us avoid the worst of mistakes.”

The former space worker shyly looked down. “Now I know you are buttering me up.”

“Maybe a bit, but you can point at the obvious pitfall and we can pretend we had already seen it. That good enough for you?”

“I, well…”

“Come on, you want to help, this can be your chance.”

She barely fought the smile this time.


****


The arrival of the Drakon changed the way the world saw itself, and provided a clear and present danger to quietly bury the hatchet between the different power blocs. Unsurprisingly, one of the most common fruits of this newfound spirit of cooperation was arms research. This was not only because there was the aforementioned real and present danger to the continued ways of life of all Earthlings, but because the technologies provided initially by Dana Zumross allowed them to propel a lot of theoretical and borderline-failure design concepts to somewhat successful completion.

The Tactical High Energy Laser, or THEL, was one of them.

Room-temperature superconductors and fusion technology had permitted the system to be miniaturized considerably. Gone were the trailers full of generators and other heavy equipment, now replaced with massive heat sink arrays. For all the improvements and its relatively low hitting power, THEL remained a considerable heat hog. Currently, the system was being earmarked as a battalion and headquarters defensive unit. There was also a strong inclination to use it for artillery defense, but that remained in limbo until the generals involved could decide on the exact mission parameters. Some wanted increased output, so it could reliably threaten aerospace fighters. Others leaned towards improving the refire and target reacquisition rate to deal with the missile swarms common to the Inner Sphere. There was a few who pushed for a weapon capable of challenging artillery shells, missiles, and ASF, but those were allegedly being treated by Dr. Chin.

To Joshua Wilder those were details. Significant ones, but ultimately, ones that affected him very little. THEL and its associated technologies were, hopefully, part of the package they wanted to use to answer the 'Damocles' he had been tasked to solve.

“So, how does it look, Phil?” he asked the reedy man facing him. Phil Langsdale was the high energy physicist attached to his own team and had been in charge of their THEL experiments.

“Well, it ablates BT-grade debris enough, at least most compounds, but...” and there it was, the everpresent but.

“Don't like 'buts' Phil,” Wilder murmured, having had enough of being stonewalled out of solutions. He didn't need any of that from his friends.

“Neither do I Josh, but I'm just not sure. We can use it to park the refuse in preset orbits, but-” and again, he empathized the last word, causing the Skywatch Chief to jerk back in reflex.

“Success rate?” Joshua Wilder said contemplatively, scratching his chin.

“That is the issue. With the ablative nature of most armor compounds, it's difficult to get a reliable estimate of how much we can do in any timeframe.”

“I wouldn't worry about the armor. The flakes should burn up completely if they're caught by gravity and fall down the sky. Its the structural components that are the issue,” Monica Sundengard interjected. She was still adapting to the nature of the office and the work and was still so amazed at how... well, normal the people were, at least from her 28th century point of view. Sure, she should have seen it before, but back then she had been too busy moping about her ill luck.

“How big a flake?” Joseph asked with frown, a small one.

“Actually, I don't know.”

“Then why are you so sure?” Phil asked her, genuinely curious.

Monica shrugged. "It has to do with the ablation pattern. You see, it expands, exposing more layers behind it, and then they all flake off all at once to shed heat away from the underlying material. That's how armor protects the insides from transferring the heat from lasers and PPCs. Get them them to separate into small enough pieces, and the layers disintegrate all on their own even if there's no material to protect anymore."

“Hmmmm... that might mean...” Phil begun. "There's still the diamond underweave, but..."

“Phil, you're mumbling," Joshua reminded him with a poke. "Speak up man, we need that brain of yours."

“Sorry Josh, but, yeah, she's right. I think I can give you an idea of the burn up threshold, but that doesn't change some of the issues of the laser sweeper,” he said using the their designation for the THEL.

“Oh?”

“Well, with the way it ablates, that makes the orbit adjustment problematic. We might send them toward work orbits by error, or even start a Kessler cascade ourselves,” he said referring to perhaps the worst case scenario. Between BT-grade materials and the push to build fast and dirty, the possibility of something like it happening was getting serious. This was compounded by their less than stellar attempts at synthesizing BT-grade materials, particularly armors. They would ablate, but parts would ablate faster than others, or far more explosively than expected. In space, that meant giving the fragments thrust; likely a different one than intended. So instead of a parking orbit or a re-entry orbit, the fragments could end up anywhere else and, the longer it passed before said miss-orbits could be corrected, the bigger the odds it would hit something else, be it other space junk or infrastructure still in use.

Joshua raised his hand. “That's an on-duty astronomic awareness issue, Phil, not a technical limitation. Look, give me the how small a fragment can re-enter and I'll see about running some tests. And what about the structurals, Monica?”

“Well, they are treated to be somewhat heat resistant. Nowhere near armor grade, but are far denser, so possibly better survival chance of re-entry.” She paused. “Heat sink component might be the biggest danger, I think.”

It was a consequence of how fast and far the Terran Alliance had developed fusion technology; neither their own heat sink technology nor that of their successors had never been able to catch up. They ended up with more power than they'd ever need, or want, as far as vacuum operations were concerned. That translated to a desperate need to shed heat in the void, where their heat sinks worked at only one-tenth efficiency compared to normal ground-side operations, and an overabundance of heat sinks were required just to keep heat levels manageable.

“And do you have any idea how the League dealt with it?”

“Ideally from not fighting in low orbit, and the New Earth Conventions,” Monica said as if it explained everything, and it did.

It had been a surprising revelation, the Conventions had been a follow up of the Ares own during the League's time, but had been repealed by the House Lords after the dissolution of the League and had, instead, adopted an unofficial variant of the Ares Accords with DropShips often engaged far from the planet or after re-entry. This reduced the danger of unpredictable crashes and re-entry of fragments.

“But assuming you did?” Joshua asked.

“There were automated system in place, Rumor said it was the predecessor of the Caspar systems, but that's so over my paygrade it isn't even funny. I do know it was meant to deal with accidents mostly”

“An intercept system?” This time it was Phil's curiosity that sparked the question. “That is a possibility, use armored drones, ram the big pieces or even retrieve them...” the scientist paused for a second before he began, optimistically, “Hey Josh...”

“Natsuki at Boeing was working on that for us, she was somewhat optimistic, but we will have to see how much of an retrieval ends up being.” he said

“I think it is the best of our current options,” interrupted Thomas Carr. The Deputy had been quiet most of the meeting, having been going over his notes and, in part, waiting for the present moment. “Now, listen to me,” he said raising his hands. “We need a platform for the sweeper. We lack the budget for massed drones, and even then that is just to push them to parking orbits.”

“Tom, if you think we lack the budget for drones...” Joshua started. “why do you think we will get it for enough ships and crews?”

“I know, I know, but think the big picture” Thomas was now getting exited. “Look, drones are by and large disposable. you can't make them cost effective and armor them. We simply can't make this drones anywhere near cheap. And you know how much appropriations likes that, even if it is a very good option. So we need something that will last, will perform the job and that, if needed, will pull other jobs.”

“A modular Small Craft, like the one Natsuki is working, in other words, the manned one, that is.”

“Exactly. Plus an on site crew could evaluate what to do,” Phil spoke, “and could take measures in case of anomalous ablation” he added excitedly, considering what Natsuki said of the prototype Small Craft Fusion Engine that Boeing was prototyping. “Even small manned utility craft that can only deal with what's in front. The power of a fusion reactor would be useful. The laser could slice up some of the debris, the intercept vehicle could push or scoop up the pieces, and do it quicker than any conventional rocket-powered craft. And it should be tough enough to take any accidental impact from a debris field.”

“Hmm... an on-site crew, meaning rotating shifts on one spacecraft. So, 24 hours operation? How many of these vessels and how many crew would you need?” asked Monica.

“Why?” Phil asked in return.

“Well, any large intercept vehicle could work as a general purpose transport too, right? If you can net debris, you can haul cargo boxes. I mean, you are all worried by the lack of training facilities and crew slots, this gets you the chance to get some practical experience in.”

“Hmmm... ok, you guys have a point,” the Space Safety Chief Executive said. “Intercept would also let us recover the old sats, specially the once built under the new ISO specifications” he said referring to the new 7P or 'Seven Plagues' specifications. It was sometimes surprising how things that started off as a joke, in this case a downgrade of what was seen as the Inner Sphere seemingly proofing their equipment against Ragnarök itself, ended up turned into a brand new set of ISO certificates. “Draft me a proposal and I'll see about setting up a meeting with appropriations. ”

Actually, the idea of the intercept had been somewhat attractive to Wilder . It was mostly dismissed before the Drakon, given that interception with chemical rockets was expensive and difficult, in the now, with a fusion torch drive? Not so much. Actually, none at all, if you factored how efficient those engines could get. Of course, that assumed Natsuki's prototype did its work as advertised.

But between the 'Cargo Tug' angle Monica had suggested, and the possibility of turning those craft into customs or police cutters latter on, yeah, he felt he had something that could pass by the committee.

Well, assuming there were enough Primitive Reactors to go around, but they were supposedly in the clear for those.

There was just one last thing-

“Oh, Phil, before I forget.”

“Yeah boss.”

“Don't call it Toy Box, OK?”

The Badlands, Antallos
The Periphery
4 January, 3024/2008

The skies broke over Antallos.

The crack of a sonic boom lingered across the cloudless expanse, and three contrails rose high. Higher and higher, until the air itself began to thin and the blueness of the sky began to fade off into purple. The first to veer off was the aircraft to the left; the VF-01 LAM's Hybrid Engine was best suited for atmospheric operations. Its thrusters were airbreathers, and in space it only had enough fuel to perform an orbital insertion. It turned back to land back on Port Krin's airbase.

Its twin on the left continued to match speed with the lead fighter, breaking through the blue life-giving envelope into the harsh void. There, the two remaining AeroSpace Fighters pushed their engines to their maximum recommended thrust. They were two flaming arrows; one stubby and matte black, the other slightly more slender and flat white. Slowly, the SWN-01 Swan began to fall behind, its thrusters stoked by a Nissan 120 fusion engine to a limit of 4 Gs of maximum acceleration. The other was GDI's main attack fighter, the BearCat, ten tons lighter but was powered by the same type of 120-rated Fusion engine. It edged forward with a half-G advantage, a gap that grew long as the broke free of the pull of gravity.

"Platform Silent Cradle, this is GDI ASF BearCat Zero, authorization Alpha Alpha Alpha, requesting clearance for docking." the pilot wheezed through his radio.

In the distance was an odd assembly of cylinders and tubes, with a large broad disc at the middle. Thicker towards its center, tapering off to only ten meters thick at the rim, the grav-deck supported fifty 1G sleeping rooms. The station's rotation was countered by solid counter-rotating rings at its rim. "This is Orbital Platform Silent Cradle, we are ready to receive you in docking strip A."

On either side of the habitat assembly were little more than long hollow metal boxes. These were refurbished and lengthened Small Craft Bays salvaged from old JumpShips. The BearCat flipped over to point its engines in the direction it was heading, burning off its velocity. Slowly, precisely, it entered the orbital cradle.

The small station held geosynchronous orbit above Port Krin. The engineers who designed it had termed it an 'aerospace cradle'. According to traditional definitions, mobile airstrips were carriers and fixed installations were bases; the cradle was not quite either. Although it lacked even a station-keeping drive, and was thus unable to move under its own power, it could easily be towed from one orbital position to another as necessary.

Everyone who worked within knew it would be targeted first and likely lost in a serious attack against the planet. Nevertheless, the cradle was secure in a way no ground-based airfield could match, and its flight wing could respond much faster than any fighter that had to first fight gravity before entering the combat zone. There was also that the fighters held within were entirely home-built, finally freeing GDI from its reliance on the eclectic collection of fighters they had bought for themselves off of the Inner Sphere open market, or the assistance of their tenuous Azami allies.

***

Down below, a small group of infantry fighting vehicles entered the Badlands, the wild scraggly desert near the equator. What it gave in slighter better distribution of oases, it more than made up for in toxic WMD-blasted former farmland, deformed and demented Zone Gangers, and fearless predator animals. They guarded a convoy of salvage specialists towards what might be have been a Star League base. As the location was vague at best, Port Krin's dedicated planetary deployment DropShip put them down near a group of sand-buried installations.

"It's chewin' on the lidar mount!" said Sgt. Puddle from inside one of the LZN-01 Lanzer tanks. "Someone get up there and blast the beastie."

"Crickey." said Cpl. Tage, and grabbed a shotgun. He opened up the top hatch and instantly the hole was savaged by a veritable storm of beaks and claws. He laughed and began to shoot up through the gap. "Come on, ya dire budgies, have a cracker!"

***

While Antallos was not yet completely secure, GDI did believe they had some peace of mind. It was just 2008, four more years until the Fourth Succession War. With the Inner Sphere afire with war again, the Succession Lords would be far too busy against each other again to divert any serious force to threaten their little portion of the Periphery. There were only a few time-critical tasks left to do, and these were mostly to take advantage of certain opportunities in the timeline.

-----

Vatican City
Terra
March 15, 3025

The Roman Catholic Church and the New Avalon Catholic Church long debated hotly on the issue of papal succession. While on occasion the conflict on which Pope held final earthly authority would turn hostile, for the most part relations between the more scholarly priesthood was cordial. Their theological studies were identical, after all. Correspondence was regular between Terra and New Avalon, brought over at standard HPG rates. Only a few of these were encrypted, mostly articles that were to be published in each others' periodicals.

On this day a perfectly normal letter was sent, from Fr. Rolando Silvio to Fr. Jack Greenberg on New Avalon. It was a continuation of their friendly debate regarding relics of faith. Around the middle of the message was a perfectly innocuous passage, to wit:

Whether or not the fabled Shroud of Turin was a medieval fabrication, it is no longer possible for us to determine. However, though the object was lost it was never more than just a symbol of Christian belief. It is Christ that brings us power and knowledge, it is not the relics themselves that possess any special qualities. Whether or not the Shroud of Turin was an extraordinary claim, that Christ died and lived again is the bedrock of our faith, and such a Holy Shroud must have existed. Relics are not meant to be proof, they are reminders. It is Christ that brings to the faithful the strength to act on their beliefs, to know right from wrong, and correct injustice.

[* italics do not appear in the message itself]

-----

Galatea
Lyran Commonwealth
April 07, 3025

ComStar HPG Standard Message [encyrption level A]

To: Mitch DeChevilier
CO 12th Star Guards
From: Henry Calmer
GDI External Affairs

Greetings and good health.

The Coalition of Sovereign Nations has been made aware of the expiration of your contract with the Federated Sun. We do not seek to interfere with your plans, if to sign back with Davion or move on to other pastures, perhaps the Commonwealth; but please consider our proposal. If you are willing to split your regiments, we would be most grateful to have a unit of such renown and expertise training our military forces currently standing ready on Antallos.

We offer full Assault pay for a Cadre contract, paid half in advance. We require at least one full regiment for two years for such exercises, but if you would rather not split your forces, then we are prepared to employ all four of your regiments (at the same rate) for instruction, merchant protection, and clearing the Periphery of all its pirate scum. There is also plenty of work in Antallos for your famed engineering detachments. We have confidence you will find it a low-risk but very interesting and very rewarding assignment.

We offer you this contract because your mercenary unit is reportedly formed from the Regular Army of the Star League Defense Forces. We are very much interested in the Star League's methods and traditions that may survive within you. We offer more than generous pay and support, perhaps even access to lostech, for nothing less than the most intensive, unrelenting, and authentic training regimen that the Inner Sphere can offer.

Unity Palace, Imperial City, Luthien
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine
16 December, 3025/2009


Takashi Kurita entered the Black Room of House Kurita, a place of ultimate secrecy. He had no doubt every other Lord had something like it, deep within their palaces. His own was layered behind a maze of corridors, false walls and holograms, and it was specially formulated black paint made to foil microwave transmissions that gave the room its name. Within waited his war council - the director of the Internal Security force, the ineffable Subhash Indrahar, and the five Warlords of the Draconis Combine's five Military Districts.

This was not a meeting that could be made lightly, for though Luthien was the heart of the Draconis Combine it was also many Jumps away from the district capitals where each Warlord carried out his own responsibilities. Calling them to attend this meeting imposed on them several months wasted just in transit time. Inwardly, Takashi smiled. His time was all the more valuable, and his Warlords could reflect on their proper place on the way back. It would do them good to get back in touch with patience and humility, and more importantly the time spent away from their regions would force them to reschedule whatever plots they had going on.

He took his place at the head of the table, and greeted each warlord in turn by order of seniority. He heard their reports and waited as they bickered over each others' performance and pontificated on matters of interest to the Combine... which coincidentally seemed to align with what was most beneficial to their respective districts.

Indrahar rose from his seat to take the floor. After polishing the archaic spectacles he affected, he favored the assembly with a brief smile.
“The correlated data secured from the raids on Davion BattleMech facilities on Quentin and Hoff have proven beyond a doubt that a technology transfer is occurring between the Federated Suns of House Davion and the Lyran Commonwealth of the Steiners. Captured documents of recent date contain data from the Lyran facilities on Hesperus II, Coventry, and Alarion. These documents were found at both raid sites. One Steiner technical file even carries a citation by Doctor Robert Willis, a Davion scientist last reported to be working in the Federated Suns' top-secret BattleMech development program.

This document refers to a new Davion heavy battlemech, named the Rakshasa. It is a seventy-five-ton 'Mad Cat' derivative with firepower approaching that of an Assault 'Mech. It appears to have been designed for use within the Draconis March."

Takashi raised his right eyebrow. It was pointless to ask if it was true, since his old friend wouldn't have dared to speak out without some intensive cross-checking. "You are correct, that is some... interesting information."

"One might even say it reeks of conspiracy from the Periphery."

It was no secret that Samsonov, Warlord of Galedon, was dissatisfied with the Combine's current policies on mercenaries and little Periphery states - both were traditionally to be exploited and claimed without hesitation. He'd kept his grumbling down to the level before outright criticizing Takashi's decisions, however. He presented himself as the voice of caution. Subhash Indrahar looked faintly annoyed for a moment.

"NAIS has never been known to resist stealing a good idea from wherever they may find it." the ISF Director replied. "I find it unlikely that New Avalon would require help from a Periphery nation just to produce a new 'Mech. From the reports, it is not a 'FrankenMech' but an entirely new design." He turned to look at Takashi. "While for now a new 'Mech is unlikely to offer any advantages on the strategic level, sharing technology between Steiner and Davion can prove to be disastrous in the long run. These point to a deeper and stronger bond between the two Houses we've seen. It's possible that Prince Hanse Davion has agreed to more than just the cease-fire proposal of 3020, though there are no formal signs yet of such an agreement. Steiner and Davion have little to gain from military adventure against each other but so far all of the benefits seem to favor the Lyran Commonwealth. Surely the Davion fox has a deeper plan."

Takashi nodded. The strongest economy in the Inner Sphere working with the military and intellectual might of the Federated Suns would be a potent combination indeed. Newer, more effective 'Mechs from the NAIS brain trust might even begin to counteract some of House Steiner's rampant incompetence in the field. House Kurita's borders were up again Steiner and Davion, and so far it was the lackluster performance of the Commonwealth that allowed Takashi to station better troops towards the Davions' Draconis March.

He waited for his Warlords to quiet down and waved for Indrahar to continue.

“In the matter of the campaign on Galtor- all media coverage has been satisfactorily contained by the Voice of the Dragon. We may have lost the Star League cache, but it has cost Davion." He purposely gave Samsonov no opening to lay blame on anyone else. While it might have normally been a relief not to be called out on being part of a disastrous campaign, Indrahar knew just how much the Coordinator's council loved to hear their own voices. "The people believe we have won a resounding victory, and no one can tell them otherwise."

"The campaign on Galtor has not ended to our benefit, but House Davion too is weakened by this misadaventure. We will allow them no rest, and for this I assign the Fifth Sword of Light to Dieron." Takashi glowered at Vasily Cherenkoff. "They are to raid throughout the corridor that Davion maintains to Terra. If a weakness is found, exploit it. Our friends in the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League will be encouraged to attempt similar probes. If we can cut off Davion and Steiner from one another, it will nullify the threat of any alliance between them.”

"Hai." the corpulent Warlord tried to bow.

None of them there expected much from the Free Worlds League, whose internal issues born out of constant political infighting crippled most of its ability to wage war. The Capellan Confederation might have greater desire to hurt the Davions, but Liao's military power was as proportionate to the smallest power among the Great Houses of the Inner Spheres. In unity, in perfect movement at the direction of the Chrysanthemum Throne, that was the strength of the Draconis Combine. Takashi had no doubt that in the end the fate of the Inner Sphere would rest upon Kurita's actions. It was he alone that could contain the threat of the Steiner-Davion alliance.
Takashi made perfunctory remarks and rebukes throught the rest of the rote proceedings. Finally it looked as it Samsonov would break from having the elephant in the room remain undiscussed.

Wolf's Dragoons.

From all accounts, Wolf's Dragoons' service in the Lyran Commonwealth was profitable if unexciting. Not even the combat prowess of the Dragoons could overcome the infirmities of Steiner command. He looked towards Samsonov and inwardly smiled. He remembered meeting Colonel Wolf, and was impressed at such a warrior. Wolf would certainly have put Samsonov in his place. The Warlord's sense of self-importance was far too high for someone who had not served on the front lines for quite some time. His exploits on Galtor did not show much inspiration.

"Tono, there is one more matter that I believe merits your attention— Wolf's Dragoons.” Samsonov dared to speak at last.

In his heart, Takashi even envied Jaime Wolf, who was free to fight and earn his own glory as a warrior. The mercenary might not have the honor and power due to the Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, a ruler worthy of becoming the new First Lord of the whole Inner Sphere, but neither did he have to deal with the tangle of political intrigue and his officers constantly bickering like children, constantly attempting to reinterpret his orders to only benefit themselves.

"Warlord Samsonov, your attempt last year to place them under your control was uncalled for. I am satisfied with their combat record." said Takashi. "Their raids along the Davion border to your district have stalled the Federated Suns in that region. They dig themselves deep into foxholes, wary for any attack." And don't you think I don't know the Dragoons are forced to raid for the supplies you had denied them - a cold fury in Takashi's eyes communicated. "Do you wish to raise the issue of their intractability again?"

"Ie, Tono! I would not dream of refusing to hear and obey your wisdom." Samsonov quickly replied, the thinning of his lips belying his words. "I am speaking only of concern - for their loyalty. Have it been brought to your attention that they have sent out an officer to Galatea - the so-called 'Mercenary's Star'?"

Takashi nodded. "This has been brought to my attention." Surprisingly, from both Subhash Indrahar and through correspondence from his distant cousin in the Periphery.

Eventually it was raised in their conversation, speaking 'hypothetically', that an organization as large and possessing of its own culture as the Wolf's Dragoons cannot be brought to heel in a hurry. Hurrying or using force would perhaps just destroy the strength that one was seeking to control. A lifetime's work would create strong bonds, debts of honor that link generations, rather than just mundane debt from lack of supplies. A man may flee his creditors, but not his conscience.

Takashi laughed inside. As if his cousin could not be any more ovious. 'Was he really speaking of the Wolf's Dragoons... or himself? House Ryan's grip on their little polity might not hold for much longer.'

"I understand that there are two more years before their contract expires, and they are looking for new employers. It is indeed a risk that they may be turned against us, and that losing them would weaken our border with the Davions. I have considered this." The DCMS lacked the sort of fast-attack and tactical adaptability displayed by the Dragoons. "While they are still under contract, we shall employ them as teachers. We shall create a new unit that will fight as Wolf's Dragoons do, and so add Dragoon capabilities to the Arm of the Dragon. ”

Takashi very slowly and deliberately laid his palm flat on the table. "Their Liaison Officer shall command it. As he already has some experience in observing Wolf's methods, he has a head start." He nodded briefly to Samsonov. "I shall entrust their care to you, General Samsonov. While you may use them as you see fit along the Galedon district, they must be allowed to operate in the manner that the Dragoons do, so that we may observe where we may further... improve upon... the effects of their discipline."

The Coordinator leaned back slightly. 'Careful now', he reminded himself. 'Wound Samsonov's pride too terribly and he is likely to do something foolish to recover his standing.' He put folded his hands behind his voluminous sleeves. "General Samsonov, I expect you can find a suitable officer to fill the new liaison position.”

The Galedon Warlord's face lightened.

Takashi did not know what devious plan had just entered Samsonov's mind, but it was clear that inspiration had struck.

“I have just the man for the job,” Samsonov said.

"Then we are all in agreement. If there is no further business to discuss, then-"

"On that note, Coordinator, I too have something I would like to propose."

Takashi looked faintly surprised at Subhash Indrahar. As the Director of the ISF, Indrahar normally concerned himself with behind-the-scenes security. To speak in the open he had to have some reason above currying the Coordinator's favor. "Speak, then."

"Your policies regarding soft absorption are benefiting the combined greatly, Coordinator. The supply of Jenner frames and both Lightning and Seydlitz AeroSpace Fighters from the Periphery have increased by fifty percent over the past year. Metals and grain are coming in from fresh investments in the Outworlds Alliance, and there is still room for further expansion. House Davion's attempts to counter your deals are suffering from friction with their own corporate interests from within Davion space."

Samsonov grit his teeth, while the other Warlords merely looked curious at what Subhash Indrahar hoped to gain from this flattery. Was he being ironic? No, not even he would dare.

"It is written in the Dictum Honorium that those are not aligned with the Dragon are opposed to the Dragon." continued Indrahar. "There is another offering from the Periphery shows that seek to further align themselves with us."

"This is an insult." hissed Samsonov.

"This is a proposal by Chandrasekhar Kurita." Indrahar reminded Samsonov. Even the Warlord of Galedon had to beware of criticizing the Coordinator's own cousin, who was steadily gaining wealth and influence even he dallied out in the Periphery. "We are in a position to conduct a little technology sharing of our own, with only benefits on our end. As Chandrasekhar Kurita wrote; 'they are as unto children seeking approval from their parents.' I too ask our Coordinator to tolerate such ignorance to bring them further under the light of our guidance."

Takashi nodded.

"We have already purchased and put to test several of their GM Medium BattleMechs. Now, GDI would like to offer a lance of their new Wild Cat Heavy BattleMechs and two lances of their second-generation GMs, for field testing. As Chandrasekhar Kurita has already arranged for access to the LAM factory on Irece, a lance of VF-1 LAMs will also be provided for assault recon. These 'Mechs will be completely under our control, but for one condition."

"What is this condition?" asked Takashi.

"As befits field testing, they ask that the 'Mechs be placed against a variety of situations but the data must survive. Training against the Dragoons fulfills this requirement. Piloting and deployment are under the command of the Combine, all they ask is that their technicians be the ones to oversee the machines."

Everyone knew that the Coordinator looked upon Antallos and the Coalition very favorably, like watching over an overenthusiastic puppy chasing its own tail. It amused Takashi greatly to see the upstart Periphery nation try to know everything about the Inner Sphere. Perhaps, in his private moments, he relished the thought of them panicking at seeing the great strength and scale of warfare among the Houses. They would come to realize that survival could only come from bowing their heads to his decrees.

Takashi smiled thinly. "A single company of no consequence. I have not been much impressed with their previous design, but it has proven its usefulness among less experienced units. I admit to being curious as to what recovered lostech they want to show off this time." Like little children showing off, hoping for attention from their elder sibling. Takashi was in an indulgent mood.

"I must ask however, why do you bother this council with such trifles?" asked Kester Hsiun Chi, the Warlord of the Pesht District. "I have received some of their machines, and I am... not displeased... with their performance thus far. This remains a small administrative matter, not something for review at this level."

The old man often interested in what was happening outside of his district, but without showing any signs of wanting more. Throughout the meeting Takashi was getting hints of deeper devious intellect from the old man, and wondered if he was being wasted on such a peaceful prefecture.

"Chandrasekhar has hinted that GDI is a great desire to test themselves against the Dragoons, some of the most adaptable warriors in the Inner Sphere. The Dragoons are also highly secretive, to the point that not even the Fox..." nor the ISF, his tone grudgingly implied "has managed to insert an agent into their midst. That our 'friends' from the Periphery are willing to go so far as to surrender to us their own machines and technicians, to be picked apart at our leisure... whose military do they really want to observe? The Dragoons, or the Dragon?"

Vasily Cherenkoff, Warlord of Dieron, scoffed. "As the Coordinator has said, a single company is insignificant, so would it not be prudent to refuse?"

"We have no need for their pathetic little trinkets." Samsonov added forcefully.

"Pathetic? I would rather have such tribute than none at all." Kester Chi raised an eyebrow and leaned back, lacing his fingers together under his nose. It hid the smirk that was obvious to all.

The Pesht Military District, though it contained Luthien, capital of the Draconis Combine, was a region far from the wars that the Dragon waged. It was the one to benefit most from the second-line 'Mechs being delivered from the Periphery, to relieve more capable machines and MechWarriors to fight at the front lines. The amount of Jenners the combine received each year had tripled, the LAMs that Irece produced had doubled. The GM BattleMechs were proving their worth as garrison 'Mechs. The Anti-Missile Systems and CASE technology, were they not useful? His forces, though green, were the ones to benefit most of new machines and new technologies that made 'Mechs that much harder to kill.

Seeing a sore point, Cherenkoff continued "But perhaps it will do no harm to prod the Dragoons at someone else's expense."

Samsonov clenched his jaw, and seeing the Coordinator's sharp calculating gaze forced himself to calm down. How dare these Periphery upstarts once again undeservedly force themselves into the business of House Kurita!

They were trash, not worth any attention. With his failure to seize control of the Dragoons, then with the Coordinator's new unit, plus this intrusion from the Periphery - it was as if they all wanted to dilute his control over the Galedon district.

"Better the enemy that you know, than the enemy you do not know." said Takashi Kurita.

And what does he mean by that? Samsonov pondered grimly.

“Even though I wish to see a Combine unit with the capabilities of Wolf's Dragoons, I do not want to lose the service of those mercenaries,” Takashi announced. He hoped that his statement would keep Samsonov from any excesses. He turned to Indrahar.

“Director Indrahar, see what can be done to persuade the Dragoons to stay. Encourage them to see that their future lies with the Draconis Combine. If they cannot be persuaded, we should have some sort of insurance in case the Dragoons decide to enter an enemy's service.” Takashi spoke as he rose from his seat. This time, no one offered an interruption.

Takashi watched as his councilors left the room. The Warlords' squabbling
was a necessary evil. While they were busy watching each other, they were not planning revolution. He found it a disheartening, but necessary strategy. If only he could trust them to have no ambitions for the Coordinator's seat. If they would unite together behind him, no power in the Inner Sphere could stand against the Dragon.

An idle wish, he mused. If they did not show ambition commensurate with their ability, they would not have been chosen for their posts. A ruler that sits uneasy on his throne cannot afford to be unwary. Such foolish trust had doomed the Star League; that stupid Cameron boy and his councilor Amaris.

College of Engineering, New Avalon Institute of Science
New Avalon, Federated Commonwealth
13 November 3022

Quentin Watson and his co-professor Robyn Leewood circled the incomplete prototype frame for the Sun Cat, a checklist on their shared clipboard as they examined the skeletal internal structure and myomer muscles that gave the impression of a skinless, naked body without the weapons and armor to gird it. On the back of the Mech was an empty void where the fusion engine would go. In its place was a mass of power cables that hung from the ceiling to provide energy, and enough dead weight to simulate the mass of the engine for motive tests.

Off to one side, the failed Moon Cat project was in a far greater state of decomposition, parts of the Mech being salvaged for use by the more successful design. The combined efforts of the now reunified teams had bounded the Sun Cat ahead by several months. Right now, the two senior engineers were going down their list to make sure that everything was safe and in place.

It was lunch, so the student body was off socializing, eating and catching up on their studies, leaving the two of them alone. The floor of the construction foundry was a mess, a result of the need to pretty much hand-build this new machine from the ground up. The NAIS foundries had been tapped to provide materials, but in the end, it was up to the thirty-odd students that made up this particular class to do all the actual construction. And even if none of them passed this course, they would still be Mech engineers and repair men of an elite stature.

Quentin flipped through the checklist to the list of proposed revisions to the current design at the bottom. He huffed at one, glancing up at the 'chin' of the Mech, where the connective tags for a Small Laser were hanging out like some vague beard. At Robyn's questioning look, he showed her the sheet. “Strip a half-ton of armor off an replace that laser with a flamer? What's.... Oh.” She grinned a little bit at the quickly drawn image of a finished Rakshasa/i] breathing fire over Capellan Infantry. “All right, I can see that. Like some sort of dragon.”

“Better not tell the Kuritas. They might throw a fit and get a heart attack that we're taking over their symbol. On second thought, let's!” Quentin laughed at his joke, the sound failing to echo in the sound-proofed room.

“Oh, what should I tell Takashi Kurita, next I taunt him?” Quentin and Robyn froze in terror at the surprise voice. A voice that did not belong to any student of theirs or one of their fellow teachers. Instead, they recognized it as the voice of the most powerful man in the Inner Sphere.

Both teachers leaped to a standing position, ramrod straight in the presence of their Lord, Hanse Davion. Lord Davion waved for them to return to their former positions, saying “Sit, sit you two. I'm not here to do anything negative or rash. Just here to check up on your project. And no!” he raised his hands defensively, preemptively shorting out any possible unwanted connotations to his previous statement. “I'm not here to judge anything. I just want to see how things are going, and if there is anything I can do to help it along.”

Robyn and Quentin shared a nervous glance before awkwardly sitting back down in a very informal meeting with Lord Davion, who in turn took a seat on a box containing a Class-10 Autocannon that had been slated for the failed Mech. “Well sir, Highness, My Lord. Ah, what did you want to know? To talk about?” Robyn broke into the conversation hesitantly, still in shock over Davion's presence. She glanced about, looking for all the security guards that were supposed to swarm around the House Lord, but couldn't see any of them.

Hanse, for his part, gestured at the Sun Cat while leaning back in a friendly manner. “Just that, really. I mean, I will admit that I was surprised when the approved proposal for this came across my desk. I have every confidence that NAIS can out do a Periphery nation, that seems like a given. So I had some free time come up so I decided to spend it here at the Institute and catch up on some things. And how is it?”

Quentin remembered that the initial proposal had been made months ago, so Lord Davion showing up now did seem like a reasonable surprise. Just that no one told him. Or Robyn, by the way her mouth was silently working and facial expressions. So for the moment he decided to work with this as it appeared to be – one of the higher-ups at NAIS wanted an informal briefing on an active project that they had oversight on. And that was something that he could so. As long as he didn't think too hard about just who he was talking to.

“Well, Your Highness, the Sun Cat is in late Alpha construction and testing. We are working on optimal Myomer placement to best balance the entire Mech as well as making sure that the bird-joined legs are working properly. This class doesn't have a lot of experience with the Marauder class of Mechs, so I've deliberately limited their access to that information to that they can be encouraged to work out the problems they encounter from first concepts.” Hanse seemed to be paying attention, actual real attention to what was being said, rather than the bland expression of a man who wasn't interested in what was being talked about.

“The layout of the basic internal structure was very easy, but one of our subgroups is experimenting with an improved foot to allow for better grip on non-flat surfaces.” He indicated the portion of the Mech in question, and was surprised with Davion got up and asked to be shown it. And when a House Lord 'asks', things got done. So Quentin and Robyn got up and quickly attached a winch to the appendage, raising it up to show Hanse.

He bent to examine the actuators and irregularly shaped base plating, asking how it was supposed to work. Robyn explained that the new design didn't fix the foot hard to the leg, but a series of small gimbals allowed the foot and toes to flex around irregular ground that couldn't be simply crushed under the 70t weight of the Sun Cat, and allow it a small degree of better stability on rough terrain.

Hanse nodded his approval at this development. “Every little thing helps” he said, then turned to look at the Mech proper. “How about her weapons? And Armor? I heard you talking about replacing a Small Laser with a Flamer. Why?”

Robyn found her steady voice. “Well sir, the default configuration we were working on, the SCT-01X, involves thirteen-point-five tones of armor, a pair of 10-shot LRM launchers in the shoulders and Large Lasers in the arms. There's a proposal from one of the students to change the anti-infantry weapon, and well, see for yourself.” In a bold move, she showed Hanse the fire-breathing cartoon, which caused the House Lord to smile.

“I do like that. But so much armor on the design? I don't think you can put any more on, and what about the Heat sinks. You're not running a coll design here.”

“Yes, my Lord Davion. It was decided early on to maximize the protection on the Sun Cat in accordance with the newly developing Assault-Heavy paradigm style Mech. Maximize armor with the heaviest weapons we can fit onto it. And she runs heat-neutral through an Alpha Strike, except at a full run.”

“What do you have in mind for alternate weapon loadouts?” Hanse found a ladder propped up against the side of the Mech, and carefully ascended, looking down into the empty arms. “Your current setup is extremely focused on long-range combat.”

Robyn nodded while holding the ladder steady. “The students chose this, your Highness. But your concerns have already been raised in class discussion. There is a tentative alternate design based around a more close-range weapon's design, maintaining the armor for protection. Three six-packs of SRMs, sharing two tones of ammo and a half-dozen Lasers. At close range, that design would tear any assault Mech apart.” She seemed pleased with her declaration.

“That is good to hear. Ah, but that reminds me. There was another reason why I wanted to come talk with you about making your project go faster.” Hanse descended, taking Robyn's hand to steady himself as he hit the floor. “You see, there was a report that crossed my desk about one of our skirmishes with the Capellans that included a BattleROM that identified a Capellan MadCat in their forces. Although this one apparently mounted an Orion arm, and had less missiles than the GDI one.”

Robyn and Quintus shared a gaze of dread. Now the damned Liao's were doing better than them, even if it was a FrankenMech, and not a proper BattleMech?

“So, you can understand my concerns, as well as those of the Archon. We cannot allow the Federated Commonwealth to fall behind. So, what do you need?” Lord Davion's voice was hard and sharp, the desire to win quite palpable.

* * *

Behind him, Hanse left the two engineers debating the merits of adding various arms or legs to other Mechs, trying to find the 'sweet spot' of what worked well together. He walked away from the hanger, rubbing his hands after cleaning some last streaks of grease off them. It was an interesting conversation he had once the two teachers had loosened up a bit. So far, the Sun Cat was ahead of the projected development schedule, which due to the inevitable complications, would push it back towards the initial design end-date. There were some trusted members of industry looking forward to adapting the prototype to mass production. Perhaps a new lance every year by the more optimal projections.

Well, it was a graduating project, so they would be done one way or another.

He didn't feel bad with exaggerating the existence of a second Mad Cat. It had been in a partial state of assembly when his people had found it, and the reports of a 'new' Mech in development had been expedited to his desk, by which time people in Intelligence had made the connection with the Coalition Mech. That they were desperate enough to even try was, he was undecided, either a sign of a very intelligent commander who knew a good theory when he saw one and wanted to experiment, or that of a dumb Liao (a redundant statement if there ever was one) who simply wanted the same toys as someone else did.

No, what actually concerned him was the presence of Free Worlds and Combine technology, a possible sign that the Concord was a bit more stable than his and the Archon's people had thought. Perhaps the threat of the united Federated Commonwealth was in their minds bigger than it actually was. Not a good sign, that.

However, on a more positive note, he already knew that NAIS had accepted the new alliance with a gusto, greatly desiring access to the heavy industry the Steiner family held. Well, he did too, but for slightly different reasons. Maybe he should invite young Melissa to attend NAIS. Assuming that the Archon would approve, of course.

Confident in his people, Lord Davion left NAIS, other things on his mind.


College of Military Science, New Avalon Institute of Science
New Avalon, Federated Commonwealth
27 April 3023

The Sun Cat emerged from the Gauntlet, armor scorched and broken off, one of the LRM launchers with a vicious slash across it from an Autocannon hit. But it emerged under its own power, having bested all comers in the testing grounds. Celebrations from the Engineering class, and from the fellow cadets of the MechWarrior who piloted the prototype Mech on its first live-fire exercise. So far, it was all a success.

Achernar BattleMechs Headquarters, Ith
New Avalon, Federated Suns
14 December 2023

Countess Rodina Achernar, head of the business that gave her her name, reviewed one last time the production proposal for the new Rakshasa class BattleMech. Their primary competitor for this bid was Corean Enterprises, who sought to expand their production lines past the Valkyrie. But their inability to produce anything heavier inside the Federated Suns was proving to be an obstacle that they would not be able to overcome.

Their other major competitors were from General Motors, and their own BattleMech production lines. But even the most helpful of projections assured the Countess that the GM would be unwilling to sacrifice their production of the tested Marauder to meet the new design. And given that both designs were the same tonnage, there was already a betting pool for how the first Marauder v Rakshasa battle would turn out. Given that one was produced by her company, she had placed her unofficial bet on the Rakshasa, trusting in ComStar to pay out her future winnings in a timely manner.

Achernar already had experience in the basic design schema of the arms, as well as incorporating the over-the-shoulder missile launchers with their historical and current designs of the Battleaxe, Hammerhands, and Warhammer. With that lineage, in addition to the troubles the other companies would have, she was sure that Lord Davion would approve of her and her company.

Hah! Let Defiance and Irian try all they want, she knew her company could produce the new Mech far better than they could, as well as doing so wholly within the borders of the FedCom.

In fact, her people had promised delivery of a Lance in the next 14 months. Of course, in order to make sure her people knew what they were doing, they would have to conduct some... tests to make sure that the new design had all the kinks worked out of it. It was only good business, of course.

Irian BattleMechs Unlimited Manufacturing Center
Shiro III, Free Worlds League
17 January 3024

In the aftermath of the burning of Irian's “research” facility, several things were presented to the Board of Directors.

First was that despite circumstantial evidence, there was no certain proof that Achernar had anything to do with the sabotage. Yes, there was some evidence from recorded images, but it wasn't a proper match.

Second was that the FWL was quite annoyed with the loss. Many millions of C-Bills had been sunk into the 'development' of their answer to the FedSun's Rakshasa, and now it was all up in smoke. Literally. At this point, the leadership of the nation were pondering aborting any further funding, and simply going with the old standbys.

Thirdly: Don't store certain volatiles used in Mech development so close to actual construction facilities. Fortunately the people responsible for that mistake had the good sense to get immolated on site.

titleofspaceport, New Avalon
Federated Suns
date tbd, 3025

“Sortek!” Ardan, head of the personal Battlemech guard for Hanse Davion, or rather he soon would not be, turned from where he was overseeing the loading of the 1st Davion Guard onto the Dropships that would take them to the waiting front against the Capellan incursion into his beloved nation.

Behind him was a man he didn't like. The idea of spies like him just irritated the Mechwarrior, and yet Quintus Allard stood there, one hand clasped behind him, another holding onto a small case. Ardan politely smiled, wondering what the head of Intelligence was doing here, now. The smile was returned. “What can I do for you, Allard?”

“I was hoping to catch you before you left, and I am glad to see you.” Quintus offered his free hand and Ardan shook it. “I was wondering if I could get a couple minutes of your time before you left?”

Ardan expressed his confusion. “What is it? You aren't the kind of man to come all the way out here to talk to people. And I know you don't approve of me. I'm quite sure you were delighted at my decision to transfer.”

Quintus nodded. “That is true. However, my duties to Hanse require that I set aside my personal feelings for a while to ask a favor of you.”

“Me?” Ardan switched from confusion to surprise. “Surely you have a thousand people you command...”

“Ah yes, but none of them strike that careful balance of people that are going to Stein's Foley and whose judgment that both Hanse and I trust in certain things.” Allard gestured with his free hand to emphasize the point.

“Then make yourself quick, I've got a Dropship to catch.” Ardan glanced back at the field where his Victor was being loaded carefully onto the ship in question. He wished he was down there right now, but had higher priorities at the moment.

“Very well. I have come into possession of intelligence regarding the attack on Stein's Foley.” this caught Ardan's attention as he knew full well that knowing what the enemy wanted meant the ability to counter those plans, to lay ambushes and destroy their supplies. “However, the … source of this information is not someone that I yet trust.” He held the case in his hand in front of him, offering it to the Mechwarrior. “In here is some of the information I've received that I feel would be of use to a military man such as yourself.”

Ardan took the case, noting that it wasn't too heavy. Probably had papers in it. “What do you want me to do?”

“I trust you to do what you would normally do. However, after you land, start opening the envelopes and compare what is in them to what has actually happened. I would like for you to note what is accurate and what is not, and then once it is safe for you to do so, simply tell me how good my source is.”

“Why not get one of your spies to do this?”

“As I said, it's a matter of trust, MechWarrior. And, yes, I will tell you that there are others with different cases. This is just the one I'm giving to you. You can say no. I'll accept that, but if this source is correct, then there is much more where it came from that spells dire news for Hanse and the entirely of our nation.” Quintus shrugged as he spoke. “I don't have any expectations, but honestly, I'm hoping that you'll look at this information and it will make you laugh at the wrongness of it all.”

Ardan's curiosity was peaked. He looked at the case in his hands, then back at Hanse's spymaster. “Fine, I'll take it. Open it after we land, right?”

Quintus nodded, and then left, leaving the MechWarrior to his thoughts and curiosity.

Wilderness, Stein's Foley
Federated Suns
date tbd, 3025

Ardan leaned back in his Victor's cockpit, breathing deeply to try and control his breathing. It had been an extraordinarily stressful descent. The Duke was screaming as the modified plan unfolded around him, the defending areospace fighters moving to try and catch the Dropships when they moved away from their initial flight plan, the fight thereafter which he could not participate in due to being in his Mech at the time.

The final straw was the jump from the Dropship. His jumpjets pushing their limits to make sure he didn't wind up as a flat... He had seen what happens when combat drops fail. He didn't want that at all.

With his mech shut down, and cooled to the local temperatures, he was all but invisible to any searchers. He unbuckled himself, and opened up his cooling vest, making his way around the cramped cockpit to the little storage space in the back.

Opening it, he held in his hands the case he had held onto for weeks, that mysterious case that had tugged at his mind all the while just as he tugged it around with him. The case was unlocked, and he did resist the temptation to open something early.

But now that he was on the ground, albeit not where he wanted to be, he could open the case with the intelligence in it. He really wanted to rub such an unpredictable event into the face of Quintus' supposed superiority.

With a click, the case opened, and he looked inside to find a half-dozen envelopes tied closed. The one on top was labeled Open after landing. Taking it, he returned to his comfortable control couch and opened the envelope, letting the papers slide out onto his lap. At least they weren't all loose, instead glued together in the upper corner.

Setting aside the now-empty envelope, he began to read the contents.

Reading a clinical description of how the flightplan was argued, and the reasons for the change send a hard twisted chill through the gut of the Mechwarrior. Worse than the time he faced an Atlas with only a half-ton of ammo left for his Autocannon.

This intel source was good enough to know about changing plans before they happened. Oh, sure, they got some of the details wrong. The Landing zone was different, but the reasons for the presented zone were logical, and he could see why it could be picked.

If someone could predict this... what was Allard doing, and who was he courting?

He looked down to the other unopened envelopes, dreading that they would be just as accurate.

* * *

“This is Gold Leader. Calling all points. Rally to my position.” Ardan looked over the Marsh that surrounded him. If his jumpjets hadn't worked properly, then he would have had to have made a hard landing there to avoid being pulverized instantly by the impact with the ground. A good thing too, because that marsh didn't look like it would agree with his Mech.

“Gold Leader to anyone. Please respond.” Damn. He was sure he had seen others come down near here. The Exeter was a good ship, and...

“Green Three to Gold Leader. Good to hear you voice sir. I think I got turned around.” The voice in the radio halted Ardan's introspection.

“Green Three, this is Gold Leader. Home in on my signal. Who are you with?”

“17th Avalon Hussar's sir. Company A, the Marauders. Not that kind though. I'm Donald Fitzgerald. And you, sir?” Ardan nodded, recognizing the deployment. They had gotten in a bit of a mixup before leaving their home deployment, and dropped with Mechs that were normally out of their normal deployment patterns. He hoped it wouldn't be a problem in the long run.

“Ardan Sortek. I'm with the....”

* * *

An unfamiliar shape emerged from the primordial trees that were encamped in the marsh. “That you in the Victor, Gold Leader?” Donald's voice came over the radio.

“That I am, Green Three. Is that a...?”

“Yep, it's one of those new Rakshasa's being build by Achernar. Ain't she a beauty? Still has the new paint smell as well.”

The older Mechwarrior gave the other Mech an appraising look, for this was the first time he had seen the production model. “75 tones, 90 meter Jumpjets, mid range lasers, an plenty of long range firepower.”

“Yes sir! Brand new, and a definite improvement over my old Crusader. And no, you can't have it.” There was a smile in the voice, and Ardan laughed in response.

“Come on then, MechWarrior Fitzgerald. We should be heading southeast. We'll pick up other stragglers along the way, and set up a good rally position.”

* * *

Along the way, the two Mechwarriors chatted over tight beam comms about how their respective Mechs handled. Fitzgerald had more to say about his new Mech, gushing over all the new features, and how he was going to personally destroy every last Capellan from here to Sian. Ardan liked his wingman's exuberance, remembering when he too had that same passion. Of course, he had to add in that his Victor's heavy Autocannon had a recently installed step-down mechanism, allowing the massive weapon to conserve ammo in a prolonged firefight.

Eventually, they began to pick up errant radio traffic, the call-signs of a battle being fought. Donald recognized the voices, and pushed his heavy Mech as fast as it could go, using the Jumpjets to cut across terrain he would normally bypass. Ardan hurried after him, the two Mechs topping out at the same speeds. Ripping out of the marsh, they charged over a ridge, all sembalence of stealth thrown away as they emerged into a killing field.

Apparently the Liao's had set up a camp here, to base their forces to try and bottle up the attacking Davions should they have landed on the Penninsula like the original plan had. Instead, the combat drop had placed a great deal of the attacking forces right on top of the Liao base, a fit of irony that Ardan would only consider after the battle.

Ardan heard Green Three fall into a flanking position behind him, slowing down to a walk while the Mechwarrior picked which target to best engage with his long-ranged weapons. With his shorter ranged guns, Ardan kept running, also trying to pick out a target when the decision was made for him.

A Thunderbolt emerged from a previously invisible dip in the ground, and Ardan reflexively shot his Victor out of the way of the Large Laser as the Capellan Warrior tried his best to line up the weapon and Adran's head. At this range, the over-gunned Mech would have to work quickly, or get lucky to take out Ardan before it suffered severe heat problems.

The Liao pilot responded to the dodge by firing off the missile racks on the right shoulder. 15 missiles raced towards the Victor just as Ardan toggled his Autocannon to the half-fire rate, tracing a line of damage that etched across the left arm of the Thunderbolt. Ardan pushed his mech faster, trying to get close to the enemy where his missiles would be less effective and his Autocannon would be telling.

Missiles exploded along legs of his own Mech, denting his own armor badly there just as a paired salvo of missiles rushed past him, matched by the telltale flashes of heavy Laser fire. The weapons struck true, and the forward armor across the Thunderbolt's torso was ripped to shreds, although noting internal was hit.

“I got him, Gold Leader, I got him!”

Ardan had forgotten about the Rakshasa behind him. The lumbering Mech had hung back a little, staying a bit higher to allow Fitzgerald to keep a good vantage point while Ardan occupied the enemy. The Thunderbolt seemed confused, trying to decide which was the bigger threat, taking evasive maneuvers that threw off Ardan's attempt to hit something critical with his own lasers and missiles. “Steady Donald! Hang back and keep raking him! I'll close!”

The Thunderbolt, more familiar with the local ground, dashed into another depression, Ardan loosing sight of it. His mental tally on his foe led him to believe that it was to give the Mech time to cool off, which he didn't want to give the Capellan.

Toggling his thermal imagery, Ardan barely had time to locate the heat plume some 50 meters away from where the enemy had vanished before the Mech, heat sinks apparently cycled, jumped back into the fray. Lasers lashed out, Donald missing at his range while Ardan and his enemy both scored true. A flash of heat across the cockpit, and damage reports indicated that his left torso had taken a solid hit, while his own lasers had ripped loose the Thunderbolt's right arm, leaving it's heavy laser useless. For a moment there, he thought he saw an ammo-bin in the right torso behind the armor, but it was gone in a flash.

“Behind you!” Donald's voice came as Ardan's radar reported that the Heavy Mech supporting him had fired its missiles at something behind him. It was barely enough warning as he triggered his jumpjets, but still, something hit him from behind.

Spinning the Victor on it's jets, he saw the Warhammer that had managed to sneak up on him. Only a few of the missiles had hit the machine, and for a moment, he thought that his friend Sep was at the controls. The hard jar of landing shook him from his looking for the personal emblem of his comrade, and his gaze now lingered on the double-PPCs that were cooling down after missing the jumping Assault Mech. A medium laser fired, missing him by scant centimeters, and Ardan put his Victor into motion to make it as hard as possible to hit him.

A full shot from his own Autocannon missed the Warhammer as he heard Donald split his fire. Lasers on the crippled Thunderbolt, which was trying to engage him with its own LRM pack, and missiles on the Warhammer.

It was a bloody free-for-all as the Warhammer swung around to fire it's PPCs at the Rakshasa, probably in some way trying to distract the 75 ton Mech from finishing off the smaller Thunderbolt. Ardan contributed by firing both of his lasers into the Warhammer, etching damage into armor. A lucky missile strike caused one of the PPCs to falter, and Ardan hoped that it was out of service.

Swiveling on its torso, Ardan was caught off guard when the Warhammer spewed liquid flame at him, a touch of cold fear telling him that this Mech was a -6L, not the -6R like he was expecting, a Liao configuration that was now causing his automated heat warnings to start up.

He jumped, not firing his lasers as he hoped that at such a close range, the Warhammer would expect him to back away from the infernal weapons. In his ear, he heard Donald announce that the Thunderbolt pilot had ejected, glad that one enemy was down. But like that fallen foe, the Rakshasa also had heat problems in a prolonged fight, and so the younger Mechwarrior held his fire to allow the overworked heatsinks to do their job.

It didn't matter to Ardan, who had barely gone straight up. The Warhammer had advanced, hoping to keep the Victor in its sights as the PPCs cycled, but Ardan's heart lept when he realized that the enemy was right under him. He kicked in the maneuvering thrusters once, let the massive machine ride against its shrieking gyros. The WarHammer turned, looking up, its PPC rising too late...

The impact was deafening. Metal shrieked, and the WarHammer's cockpit opened like a flower between the Victor's feet. In combat, the Victor was a constant surprise to Mech Warriors encountering it for the first time, for none expected a 'Mech of its size to be jump-capable, and Ardan's style of combat used the jump-jets heavily to exploit this preconception.

Smashed to the ground, the flamer's ammo ignited, causing the Victor heat warnings to shriek even louder. Ardan thumbed the cut-off switch, and backed away before any more surprises came out of his destroyed foe.

Seeing Donald and his Rakshasa descend towards him, Ardan began to help clean up the battlefield.

Private Office, Quintus Allard
New Avalon, Federated Suns
date tbd, 3025

He looked over the report sent in from Stein's Folly. The recapture was successful, and he barely glanced over the battle reports in favour of a single report from Ardan. It was 10 words, followed by a single sentence. Yes. Yes. no. No. Yes. No. Four. Yes. No. No. You scare me.

Allard couldn't supress the shudder. 8/10 points of commonality on incidents that occured, the only two being very specific details. It was an impossiblelevel of accuracy, and that meant only one thing.

Hanse Davion was under attack by ComStar. And now he knew how.

New Dallas Militia HQ
Township of Al'Isard
04 July 3024

The fireworks marked an ancient celebration, one whose history had long been forgotten to the inhabitants of New Dallas. Their new neighbours from Motherlode, Third Earth, had told them that the date celebrated the birth of a powerful nation on the homeworld of Humanity. They had suggested that perhaps it was also a celebration of the founding of their colony as well.

Or perhaps, the Dallasites conferred privately, they didn't need a reason to celebrate at all. Celebration for celebrations sake.

On this particular day though, another shipment had arrived from Outside. Another couple BattleMechs to be put back into service, more agricultural equipment (which was far more useful), and the usual sundry items.

Some military equipment was tasked with joining the ever-growing defence force. Reports from the sons and daughters of New Dallas that went Outside showed the truth of what their neighbours had told them; it was wild out there. Sure, there was peace in places, but Outside was still dangerous in its own right, just like the wilds were at home.

On this day, the former SLDF headquarters was being officially repurposed to provide a central location to coordinate the militia forces under the command of the newly promoted General Jefferson, former Boss. A convention of Bosses from around continent had formed up last year to discuss their official policy when dealing with Outside, and their neighbours. Tycho Jefferson put up a good front about how he and his men already had a good deal going, and the rest of the Bosses agreed, and then took away his job to make him a military man.

Boss Nelson, a righteous bastard in Jefferson's opinion, had taken the reigns as President for the first year, a position and time frame that their neighbours had suggested as a way to keep power stable while they sorted things out. Of course, in becoming the Boss of New Dallas, he to had lost his job as Boss of Al'Pelleon, which was a good enough trade in Jefferson's mind.

Yep, today was a grand day, and Old Capital would be a grand place, once it got rebuilt.


Interim Spaceport, Old Capital
New Dallas
09 July 3024

Colonel Wayne looked over the dozen fresh-faced recruits. Behind them was the thirty or so volunteers from Earth, people who had agreed to take the two-year tour of duty on New Dallas and Helm to help rebuild one, and salvage the other.

But it was the locals that were the problem. They had passed what the local city-states had decided would do for the training of a planetary militia; the GDI officer felt that they might pass muster as an Eagle Scout troop in both age and capacity, never mind the requirements of a proper military outfit.

“Hello Men. And Lady.” He added the last as a nod to the freckled woman in the front row, a Dallasite with a grin far to big to fit on her face. “You've all asked to come Outside with us on our trip to Helm. On our way there, we're going to drop off some grain and farm equipment that some folks have ordered from our folks on Helm. It won't be a straight trip, we're going to spend about a month cooped up in this tin-can behind me and the JumpShip waiting upstairs. There won't be much to see though, because we'll be just dropping stuff off and leaving.

“But that'll also mean no messages to your ma or pa or sweetheart. Sad to say, but with your HPG broken in the Rain of Fire, the letters you write will have to wait a couple months for us to bring them back.” It was annoying, but the reasonable conclusion to that search. Before ComStar had their ability to enforce the sanctity of the HPG system and the Ares Conventions, New Dallas' own comm station had been blown away from orbit. At least twice if the debris was any indication.

Moving on with his speech, he turned on his heel to pace back down the line. “So, given that we touch off tomorrow, I'd strongly suggest that you all make your goodbyes, and be back here at 0600. Anyone who's already done those things can stay and help us with the loading. Dismissed!”

Only two stayed with the GDI DropShip, whom were both set to the task of first making sure their personal gear was stored, then helping to reload the deliveries the ship would have to make on their way back to Helm. The John Deere cover business was improving steadily as word of mouth showed that their products were dependable and cheap, which was a marked improvement over what was previously available. There was some talk of finding a factory closer to the Capellan / Davion border to purchase and refurbish, but that was something the civilians would deal with, not the agents.

But once on Helm, the dozen recruits would rotate with the dozen already there, who would help smuggle a piece of technology or two out of the Cache and back to New Dallas, awaiting the dedicated trip back to Antallos and Earth. So far they had made a single trip, delivering three Star League Royal Mechs, as well as a copy of the Helm Library Core. Another trip was due near the end of the year.

Slow and Steady, they would win this race.


Office of the Vice-President in charge of External Independent Relations, Irian Technologies
Irian, Free Worlds League
16 July 3024

Vice-President Mirelle Jakart read a report that barely registered before stamping her approval onto it, sending it on its way to its proper recipients. Her lavish corporate title was a corporate-speak description of her real title and duties for Irian Technologies. Officially, she was to introduce to smaller companies the benefits of working with or allowing investiture by Irian, a public relations position designed to enhance the corporate image and encourage these smaller, single-planet businesses to see the greater picture.

It was a simple job, really. Irian had a reputation that preceded it, and she had encountered not a few companies that existed for the sole purpose of being bought out by the larger megacorporation. It was only when someone really screwed up that bad things happened, the gears having long since been greased. Unless, of course, she was like her predecessor, who screwed up a major acquisition in the Capellan Confederation, and was given a 9mm retirement package for his trouble. But that was years ago, nothing off her nose for it.

The next folder in her inbox was a thin thing, and she flipped it open, expecting a quick decision before moving on to the next item. It was a report from Accounting on a recent company startup on the world of Helm, an AgroMech Factory that wasn't really producing AgroMechs, but specialized groudcars. The document showed projected profits for the company, and noted that it would be a good acquisition. What caught her eye, however, was the company's age. The factory was two years old, when normally Irian wouldn't consider anyone under the age of five. Historically, Irian had made acquisitions prematurely, and wound up footing the bill when they turned out to be duds. Age was an indicator of viability; that a company could operate independently and remain profitable made them worthy of Irian's attention.

Curious. Accounting had run the numbers on the factory, and, while it was making a tidy profit, the startup funds seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. No record of any loans, from ComStar or any local benefactor; nothing. Not even the current proprietor of the company and factory was listed in any prior records.

It was quite worrying, that. She made a quick call to Legal, and found that yes, they were conducting their own investigation at this time, thanks for her attention, and they would send the paperwork up when it was ready.

Turning back to the files at hand, she saw that there was a report from Research about their products. It was an interesting paradigm that this John Deere was using. They rejected ArgoMechs as much as possible, instead focusing almost exclusively on specialized groundcars. Research indicated that these products were incredibly fragile, and had a normal lifespan of no more than 50 years before literally falling apart. The only good thing was their internal combustion engines, which produced far more power than normal, at the cost of near-constant maintenance. It was a travesty of poor planning, they offered in their report; one that showed massive cost-cutting measures in order to gain short-term profits.

Mirelle wanted to pick up her phone, and give instructions regarding this upstart company, but held back. There was something here that she couldn't put her hand on, and decided instead to wait for Legal to submit their reports before committing to any action. At the very least though, this John Deere needed to be shown how business was done in the Free Worlds League, wholly owned subsidiary of Irian Technologies.


Robert Marsden Memorial Spaceport
Tharkad, Lyran Commonwealth
08 August 3024

Katrina Steiner, Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth, and most powerful woman in the Inner Sphere (given that all the other Successor State Lords were men), strode down the back hallway of the Spaceport annex with an expression of anger and annoyance.

Two guards flanked a nondescript door, straightening to inhuman stiffness as she spun on one foot and smashed through the door, ready to unleash the full fury of the Steiner family on the startled person sitting there.

“Mother!” Melissa Steiner mastered her expression, shifting it to one of pureness and honesty. A desperate measure to defuse her mother before she did something they would both regret. She was too big for a spanking. Right? “Are you here to see me off?”

“MELISSA STEINER!” As the door closed behind the older woman, the younger saw the two guards begin to move away from the door. They didn't need or want to hear this. “What the hell were you thinking?” The yell was reduced to an angry hiss, and Melissa wasn't sure which would be more effective in scaring her.

Instead she put on the best nonchalant expression. “I was thinking of going to Solaris, Mother.”

Katrina fumed. When did her daughter become so wilful? Was it the influence of her friends? No, they were checked, double checked and rechecked. Her teachers? Well, they could be changed. He father? No.... Not that. “And what, exactly, were you planning on doing there?”

“I was going to see the games, Mother.”

The Archon was flabbergasted. “And you... What?!?!” She had no clue who to punish for this. Melissa was an obvious target, but there had to be more than that.

“There's a difference between watching some HoloVid or BattleRom, and actually being there. And if I'm going to be Archon, wouldn't it be better for me to see BattleMechs in action before I go to the battlefield?” What went unsaid was Melissa's inability to pilot a BattleMech properly in any way shape or form.

“You want to gallivant all the way to Solaris, just to watch THE GAMES? You are Archon-Designate! You have responsibilities!”

“It's not like I'm going to be away for months, mother. Just a couple weeks there, a week or two enjoying myself, then a couple weeks back! And I can study in the meantime!”

The Archon glared. “No. If you truly want experience on the battlefield, I can arrange for you to be an observer on an anti-piracy patrol along the Rim.”

“NO! You can't, Mother. Anything you arrange,” the word was thrown out with disgust, “will be just like everything else. As safe, as boring, and as stupid as sitting in a SimPod all day. You learn nothing. I learn nothing.” Melissa stood up to try and stare at her mother, but her intense gaze was sabotaged by the fact that she was still shorter that her mother.

The Archon knew better than to dispose of all her emotions from the get-go, and summoned forth the indignation that came from a Mother Knowing Best. “You will not! There are safer places for you to be!”

“It's Solaris VII, Mother! I'm not stupid! It's not like I'm running off to New Avalon, or joining up with the Foreign Legion!”

“Yes, It's Solaris! Right next to the Free Worlds League! I can't risk having you there!”

“The 32nd RCT is there, Mother, and the 10th Skye Rangers! I checked! And it's not like anyone is going to attack Solaris of all places!”

Going to New Avalon was an option, Katrina mused, but doing so before she and Hanse had formalized their deals didn't feel right. There were still a lot of details to iron out, and the Concord of Kapteyn only put more pressure on them to do it right.

And the thought of her daughter sneaking across the Draconis Combine to join the GDI's 'Mech Legion was something that was laughable in its arrogance. Even if she could outrun an HPG message, her daughter wasn't a MechWarrior, and would be washed out of the training process.

“The 32nd is still rebuilding, you know that.” The Archon sighed. “You will come home, Melissa, and we will discuss this when we are both less emotional.”

She turned and left the small room, leaving the younger daughter to the silence.

Minutes passed, and the door opened again. In walked her primary bodyguard, Cheryl Schmitt. Melissa was certain it was an alias, but she had no problems with that. Cheryl tossed a package at her, which was caught and opened. “Plan A is still go?” She would have to thank her cousin Ryan for his help too.

Cheryl nodded. Melissa volunteered to act as a distraction while she went and did the actual work of getting the Archon-Select offworld. What Melissa wasn't told was that the entire plan had been vetted by the Archon's staff, and even the Archon herself, who had played her role to perfection. In some ways, moving Melissa from Tharkad to Solaris was being used as a test of internal security.

Melissa thought she was tricking her mother with the help of her people, but Katrina Steiner was Archon for a reason.


Irian Technology, Stewart HQ
Stewart, Duchy of Stewart, Free Worlds League
11 August 3024

Mirelle was worried. She had been summoned to a meeting of the Senior Partners back on Irian; even the Duke himself was in attendance. They had called her, not to task, but to grill her thoroughly on the existence of this John Deere start-up business. That such a small thing had come to their attention like this scared Jakart, and she was afraid she would be losing her job very shortly.

But they weren't going to do that. Legal had apparently filed their report over her head, with the Partners directly, and that had caused them to summon her to brief her directly.

The short of it was that John Deere didn't exist.

It had popped up out of nowhere on Helm, ripped the previous owner out of his seat with hardly any grace, and snatched up the factory for themselves. There was no history to the owner or the company, save scant mention of such a thing having been destroyed on Terra when it was scourged by Amaris. They had appeared practically in Irian's backyard with no whisper of a trace, and started doing something out of the ordinary.

And that scared the Senior Partners. Oh, they wouldn't admit to it, but she could tell. And what scared them, terrified her. They had ordered her to go to Helm and investigate personally. Finances were not a concern, and she could pick who she wanted on her team, within reason.

He job was to find out what these people were really after, and then report back. If this was just a huge overreaction, fine. They could handle being safe rather than sorry. But if this was the prelude to a threat to Irian, she would be given a carte blanche to wipe it out.

So she went to the Stewart Office first. They had sent a HPG message ahead, and had set things in order. Now she just had to wait a couple weeks for the rest of her team to arrive. The Senior Partners didn't care about her personal agenda or those of her team, she explained in the summons. They had been given a job, and they were going to do it.

While waiting for her team's arrival, she sent the standard corporate letter to John Deere, informing them of certain investment opportunities available through Irian. It was to test the waters, and to see how they would react to the veiled demand for a bribe to keep their business.


Office of the CEO, John Deere Agromech and Tractor Factory
Helm, Free Worlds League
12 August 3024

“What do you really want?” Daniel asked of no one in particular. He looked over the massive legal missive that had been delivered by a ComStar courier – a quick question revealed that it was a delivery option, but one that was quite expensive. Having twice read it over, he was preparing for a third read after sending a message to the Cache that he wanted to talk it over with The Samurai due to possible complications.

In one hand, he held a pen that he tapped nervously against a legal pad covered in notes and references. There were various responses available to him, from simply caving and paying up to trying to activate a full lance of those Mechs in the Cache to act as a defense force. Although that particular plan, if appealing to his inner Corporate Warlord, ran into the problem of lack of reliable, loyal and trained Mech pilots. Even the New Dallas recruits were more at home with the various vehicles than BattleMechs.

A buzzer sounded from the intercom panel set into his desk like it was straight out of the 1950's. He pressed the button to connect him to his secretary, one Ms Sheffield, who had kept her job through the change in ownership simply by being competent.

“Sir, Mr David is here to see you.” Daniel blinked in surprise. That was a quick response. Perhaps the man had been in town already instead of out at the Cache.

“Send him in please. And could you please inform my next appointment that something serious has come up and I may have to bump them back?”

“Of course, sir.” The comm closed off, and the Samurai casually let himself into the office, closing the door behind him. David hung his jacket and hat up as he passed the hatrack in a single smooth motion before taking a seat.

“So, what's the problem? It can't be too serious if you didn't use the emergency system.”

“Irian Technologies.” Daniel gathered his thoughts as he handed the notice to the leader of Tomb Raider to read. “They're a megacorporation, one of the larger ones – multiple planets. They're giving us an ultimatum.”

“Ultimatum? Those usually come at the end, after negotiations. Who are they, and what do they want, exactly?” David Morris took a seat and noted that the white-noise generator they had been supplied wasn't on. Given that he had drilled it's use into the civilian personally, he figured that it was a case of something that he didn't mind ComStar eavesdropping on, assuming they even got this close.

Daniel rolled his shoulders to try and get some stress out of it. “The Source Material we have says that they are based here in the League on a planet named Irian, and that they're a supplier to the local military. Not much beyond that, sorry to say. I've sent in a request with C-Star for more information, their public package and all that, and they promised to get back to me tomorrow.” He sighed as he saw that the GDI Intelligence agent's eyes had started to glaze over while trying to pierce the dense legalese. Daniel sympathized. “As for your other question, it looks to me like a simple shakedown. Apparently, they feel we've been stepping on their toes with reactivating the local factory and are asking for a cut due to whatever contract they had with the previous owners.”

“That doesn't sound too bad.” David lied through his teeth, the civilian giving him a look that said he didn't buy it either. “How much are they asking for?”

Daniel told him. “And honestly, I think we can pay it as well. Sure, it'll cut into the profit margins, but I'm sure you'll agree that's not why we're here. And once you get what you want, we can come up with a more long-term plan.”

The Samurai smirked. “A businessman who thinks beyond the pocket book. How rare.”

Daniel shrugged. “Oh, don't get me wrong. It's just that we're not exactly in a position to go challenging someone who probably has a budget for paint larger than the entire factory. I can't really see any means of fighting them that won't get us into deeper trouble.”

David nodded. “Keep us appraised, will you?”

“Of course. Now I just have to go add an 'Irian Blackmail' line to the annual budget.” A snort of humour accompanied that statement.


Temporary Office of the Vice-President in charge of External Independent Relations, Irian Technologies
Stewart, Free Worlds League
26 August 3024

Vice-President Jakart was surpised when her secretary had informed her that the John Deere Factory had sent her a package. It was probably some sort of legal counter-offer, the necessary small-talk before they folded. It had happened before, and would happen again. Of course, given the paranoia of the Senior Partners, she couldn't take any chances. So after clearing her desk, and directing a legal aide to take notes for her, she summoned the package.

A workman brought a box in, causing the Vice-President to furrow her brow in confusion. Dismissing the grunt worker, she cut open the box. If there was anything wrong with it, security would have caught it.

Inside was tightly-packed C-Bills; cold hard cash. And a note on top. Her hand shaking, realizing that her secretary signed for all this, acknowledging that she had officially received the package, she picked up the note that was signed with a vague scrawl and read it.

Dear Vice President Jakart;

On behalf of John Deere Corporation, I apologize for the unusual delivery. We do not yet have an automatic system to transfer funds between our two companies. Please find enclosed the requested amount, as well as a receipt for the payment. We look forward to doing business with you in the future, and think that we can give benefit to each other.


Office of the CEO, John Deere ArgoMech and Tractor Factory
Helm, Free Worlds League
30 August 3024

Daniel finished up his packing, looking about the office one more time. His trip to Solaris VII was on short notice, but the prospects of hawking his wares at a major interplanetary convention was too good to pass up. The Samurai had approved of his trip, or rather could not disapprove as this was purely business. He could, however, assign a couple his men to act as his guards and assistants.

Short notice, but he had already arranged for transportation with a grain shipment headed for the major world, as well as a selection of product. It was two jumps to Solaris, enough for the grain to not rot in transit. He felt apprehension at leaving his post, but it was something that a man in his position would do if they weren't sitting on the most important location in human space outside of NAIS or either Earth. He had to act the part.

And the part required that he go to the free planet of Solaris and try to gain profit.


Temporary Office of the Vice President
Stewart, Free Worlds League
04 September 3024

“They're gone?” Mirelle couldn't hold her surprise off her face. Her recruited legal assistant, Trey Miller, nodded, holding the missive sent via HPG. “The CEO has gone to Solaris to attend a conference and exposition about agricultural technology hosted by ComStar. We already have a presence there, so I've taken the liberty of asking them to keep an eye on John Deere.”

Mirelle nodded. Trey knew when to take initiative and when not to. That's why she trusted him as much as she could trust anyone immediately below her. “Good. Make the arrangements for us to pay a surprise visit to Helm. Without their CEO, I want to see how they react when they are faced with... oh, we'll call ourselves serious investors.”


Arrivals Terminal, Silesia Spaceport
Lyran Quarter, Solaris VII, Lyran Commonwealth
17 September 3024

James Stroud, head of the Skye Tigers stable, wondered once again why Lestrad was dragging him into these inane plots. How the hell had Lestrad gotten it into his head that Mellisa Steiner of all people was coming to Solaris? It was nearly inconceivable. The Archon–Designate wouldn't leave Tharkad outside of a Regiment of bodyguards.

Even Frederick Steiner disagreed with the idea, laughing it off, a disagreement between master and manipulated in the ongoing efforts to free Skye that had been quickly smoothed over.

Putting the discussions of politics out of his mind, he checked his watch and the arrivals board. A distant cousin of Ryan had wanted to come to Solaris to watch the games live, and was apparently doing this under the board. It was silly and childish and there was no way that James would miss the chance to advertise his Stable to any child of Skye.

Joanna Barker was her name. The name was obviously an alias, as he knew of no Barkers in his sponsor's extended family. Restless, he moved from his plastic seat to lean against the wall that would allow him a good view of the portal he expected this Joanna to enter from. He had been given a photograph to know her by, one recently taken if he was any judge of pictures.

It wasn't long before the DropShip that he was waiting for to settle down, and the passengers to disembark. She was easy enough to pick out, even if her awestruck gazing at the might of Solaris was the same as half the people around her. James levered himself off the wall, ready to introduce himself when he paused. Something was off....

She looked vaguely familiar, but had auburn hair and blue eyes. But that wasn't what was setting off his internal alarms. Joanna Barker had three body guards. At least. And he wasn't even an expert in picking them out. One was obvious, another auburn haired woman who looked the part of Joanna's older sister. Another was a burly man who at a casual glance looked like any other man who did heavy grunt work around the planet. The third was a businessman who looked nervous and ready to bolt to the front of the line to get it all over with.

The Skye loyalist wondered just what sort of quagmire he had blundered into. And how much he could he gain from this? It was obvious that this Joanna was more important than was let on, but how important was she to the future of Free Skye?

But first, to make a disarming mistake, and greet the bodyguard like she was Joanna.



Skye Tigers Stables, Silesia
Solaris VII, Lyran Commonwealth
19 September 3024

Melissa wanted to wail in pain as the mauled Locust was helped back into the stable's garage. The light 'Mech had been nearly ripped to shreds by the MCY-98 Mercury that it had faced, despite the equivalent weapons and armour deployed by the two 'Mechs in their duel.

She waited behind the technical crew, her 'sister' behind her. 'Joanna' had been invited to come behind the scenes by James, who had been nothing but a good host for her few days here on Solaris. He was quite the Skye loyalist, she had found, putting that region of the Lyran Commonwealth ahead of all the other sections. She had nodded and agreed with him, pressing for details of the glorious history of Skye as was proper for her cover identity, complaining that she didn't have the whole truth from her standard education.

Which wasn't a complete lie; it was just that her education as Archon-Select left the details out in favour of the bigger picture. She couldn't know the personal history of every last world amongst the hundreds she would one day rule, and now she found that she had been missing out on many rich histories, and entertaining stories from all over the place.

When she got home, she was quite certain she would be confined to the Triangle for a while, so she figured she might as well spend more time in the library reading than she had before. She might get out by the time she was thirty.

But it would be well worth it.

* * *

Later in the day, she sat with the stablehands as they took their lunch break. Her self-study in electronics, when compared to the practical experience of the men and women around her, showed firsthand how much she didn't really know. But they were all very supportive of her, and she said her farewells gladly when Cheryl called her over.

Outside of the break room, her bodyguard produced two tickets from a pocket. “These are a gift from Mister Stroud. He got them from some of his business partners, and with too many, he asked me to see if you were interested.”

She handed them over to Melissa, who looked them over. Her eyes raised, and she stuffed them into her own pocket. “Sure! That'll be fun!”


Jerome Blake Convention Hall
International Zone, Solaris VII
20 September 3024

Melissa and her bodyguard walked through the crowded hall, looking not completely out of place as the two women actually did ask intelligent questions, both of the machines themselves, and of the economics involved. The entire event was hosted by ComStar as an attempt to help the common people of the Sphere, and a great many companies were looking to make a positive impression on the controllers of Terra.

She stopped in front of a beautiful green groundcar that shimmered with a glossy paint job. The symbol of the company was a yellow stag inside a yellow square, which triggered an awareness that she should know this. The one groundcar was joined by a dozen others, ranging from ones small enough for a single man to ride openly to a monstrous vehicle as big as a small BattleMech.

John Deere... where had she heard that name before?

“Hello ladies, in the Agricultural industry?” Her introspection was shorted when a well trimmed man approached her, eyes and smile wide on his face. He had a jacket in the same colours as his merchandise, and the two ladies could see behind him that his fellows were doing some business.

“Not directly, but we're always on the lookout.” Cheryl replied, shaking the offered hand. “We're with Skye. I'm Cheryl, this is Joanna.” Melissa nodded at the introduction, letting her guard take the lead while she cast glances at the machines behind.

“And I'm David. Well, what would you like to know?”

“You said AgroMechs? I see a lot of groundcars here.”

David shook his head. “No, not 'Mechs directly. They're a fairly new addition to our lineup. We've focused on tractors and the like exclusively for a long while. Here, let me give you a tour before your sister here starts trying to take apart our display models.” He smiled and pointed at the Steiner, who was inching closer and closer. At the attention, she smiled innocently.

* * *

Behind the curtains, Daniel relaxed a little bit. This was a good idea, this business trip. It got him out of the factory for a while, and he could see the appeal of taking a vacation on a different planet. It was like going to Australia, only farther away.

Bored he flipped open his DS, thankful for the entertainment value, despite the fact he had beaten pretty much everything already. Some games had replay value. He kept one ear out, listening for anything that would require his attention. He heard the Samurai ply his charms on some ladies, and was very thankful that a man that glib was on the same side as him.

* * *

Melissa asked to see the inner workings of one of their machines. It was a natural question, really. Their internal combustion engine was something else entirely! Able to produce massive amounts of horsepower from such a small device! Their host had nodded, then guided the two of them back behind the curtain to meet the man who was actually in charge, and Melissa noted that Cheryl only tensed slightly.

She had been on edge for the past few minutes, but Melissa couldn't figure out why. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people from the Free Worlds League and the Lyran Commonwealth here, so maybe she saw someone she was worried about?

Never mind that. Something else had come up that was far more important than anything she could have gotten from an AgroCar factory.

The man she needed to ask permission from had the same game system she did.

“HEY!” Instantly all thoughts of politeness or stealth left her heads, a shout of attention grabbing that was only exaggerated by the completely unnecessary arm pointing. Cheryl's eyes bugged out while Daniel and David could only react in much the same manner.

Daniel, as the target of the accusation flipped his device shut and slid it into a pocket. “Yes? How can I help you?” The calm and level tone of voice was a contrast to the excited proclamation.

“YOU!” Melissa repeated, ignoring Cheryl's attempts to get her to reduce her voice to a level that wasn't attracting attention from the far side of the convention hall. “You!” She repeated as she strode up to the John Deere executive before pointing at his pocket. “Where did you get that?”

Confused, Daniel looked over to David who pantomimed flipping open the game system and playing with the stylus before giving his best 'This is just a guess' shrug. Daniel responded by putting in his best 'I'm in charge, and you just overstepped your bounds' face and stood up, straightening his suit to increase the effect. “And you, young lady, where are your manners?”

Instantly the accusations faded, and the two men watched the teenager transform from a young girl with more energy than sense into a person of power and charisma. It was a startling thing that took Cheryl by surprise, but training kicked in, and her bodyguard training went into high gear, instantly pegging the man behind them as a high-class threat.

“You have something that you shouldn't have, sir.” Melissa said calmly. “Those are very rare to come by, given that the only source has a self-imposed trade embargo on anything more advanced than pre-spaceflight equipment. That you have one means that either you have had contact with pirates, or other black market dealers, or you're from there.”

“And what would 'those' and 'there' be, exactly?” Daniel kept the focus on him while David pressed his panic button, alerting the other members of the security and intelligence detail that something was going down.

“The Nintendo! From Motherlode!” Melissa produced her battered copy of the machine and waved it in the air. “PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE NEW GAMES!”

* * *

'Joanna' held onto her seat as Cheryl delivered a blistering lecture to the 14 year old about proper etiquette and behaviour for one of her station. Daniel watched with bemused attention while David called the all-clear, explaining the situation in terms that would generate a good deal of humour over the coming weeks.

Off to one side, Jack watched with casual interest as a couple men came up, were briefed then left with amused expressions. As part of the security of the 10th Skye Rangers on loan to the Skye Tigers Stables, he had been tapped to provide an extra set of eyes on the child-noble. It seemed like a reasonable assignment. Short term, and it wasn't like a kid could get into too much trouble on Solaris.

Now, if she were older, there would be plenty of trouble she could find, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Instead she had come to this fair to look at the products offered by the companies that couldn't break into the full BattleMech industry. Sad, really. But he couldn't go behind the curtains to where he could catch glimpses of a crimson faced Baker being dressed down by her older sister.

A couple of the plain-clothes security personnel walked by him, and he heard their laughing comments about how it was the stupid things that got past the radar, not the real problems.

Now, that twigged him and his curiosity. The way they spoke, it wasn't about anything he could normally place. Something was off here, and he had to trust his instincts. These people had thought something far more serious than two nobles with the same device having a chance meeting had happened. His curiosity was urging him to tail them and find out more, but that wasn't his job. Instead, he'd pass it up to the officers, and let them investigate the matter more.

But it wouldn't hurt to conjecture. John Deere was from Helm, in the League. Nothing out of the ordinary there. They shipped AgroMechs and the like around, which given the location and event was completely normal. So what were they worried about? Industrial sabotage? Couldn't be. Who in their right mind would target something like that? Now, if they were part of a company that made real equipment like DropShips or BattleMechs, he could believe it.

And yet they acted like they had something to hide. But what?

* * *

Melissa repeated her apology as Cheryl glared at her. Say what people would about her mother, Melissa had new respect for – and fear of – her bodyguard. She heard David congratulate her on her tirade, to which Cheryl responded that she was used to dealing with younger children when they got out of line, a response which earned a barking laugh.

Melissa didn't like being laughed at. It hurt. Instead, she turned her head up to the man with the other DS, both devices sitting on the table. “So, I'll tell you how I got mine, if you do the same, Joanna.” Daniel made the peace offering simple for the young teenager.

She gestured at her copy. “My mother gave it to me. It was taken from Motherlode by the Pirate Raid those years ago, and she got it, thinking it was LosTech. When it wasn't, she gave it to me as a birthday present.”

Daniel nodded. “Makes sense. Mine has a similar tale. My company bought some of the... loot from that raid, it's where we got some of the ideas for the improved internal combustion engines. The surviving groundcars were given to the family of the president and this was my 'reward' for taking the job of expanding to Helm.” It was nearly a total fabrication, and one he made up on the spot. Most important was the idea he implanted that Joanna was not the only one who had benefited from the Drakon Raid. “Now, as for your proper question, I'm afraid I don't have any other games with me. I left them in my room. And besides even if I loaned them to you, there's no guarantee that you don't already have your copies, nor can I say how long it would be before we meet again.”

Melissa pouted. So close, yet so far! “Well, you're from Helm, right? I could always go there....” Her statement was cut off by a pained choke from Cheryl, who gave her a look of incredulity.

“You'll go there after the Lyrans conquer that world. Bad enough you sneaking this far away from home.” The older woman crossed her arms to indicate that she wouldn't go that far in the plans of the young Steiner. “Maybe, if you asked nicely, you could borrow them, then mail them back when you are done. I'm sure ComStar has rates for light things like that.”

Daniel pondered this. “Probably be more reliable than anything else. I don't suppose you know what games you have at the moment?”

Melissa recited the list from heart, causing the older man to take pause. “I'm beginning to think you should send an HPG message to Motherlode asking for the latest listing of available games. Although I think the shipping charges would be huge.” He pocketed the written list. There were a couple there that he didn't have himself.

“I can even loan you some of mine! Fair trade!” Melissa spoke as though she had read his mind. “We can meet back tomorrow! Deal?” She offered her hand, and Daniel shook it, bemused by the enthusiasm.

“Tomorrow then.”


Jerome Blake Convention Hall
International Zone, Solaris VII
21 September 3024

“You sure about this?”

“Why wouldn't I be?” Daniel undid his tie, tossing it behind the curtain to give off a more casual air to his sales pitches. “It's just a local noble whose parents have some black-market connections, or just really wanted to spend a lot of money on their little girl. We can use this, in our own way.”

David shook his head. “Like how?”

“Federation of Skye. After she came by, there were a few more enquiries from the local principality, and with Helm providing a good change of food for worlds less well off in the region, our presence can become synonymous with that world, bring both profiles higher. Meaning more profits, meaning less people asking who we are and why we're there.”

The Samurai rolled his eyes. “Cuts both ways. Higher profile means more doors are open, but that also means more scrutiny. Our best work is done when no one is watching.”

“Cuts both ways. Our best work can be done when everyone is watching.” The civilian threw back, sharing a grin with the espionage agent. “Maybe we can have our cake and eat it too?”

* * *

Jack was back, this time with a ledger and a chequebook. He had talked with this superiors and they had agreed that an investigation was in order. They had lost the last trail of the usual smuggling routes into and out of Solaris, and this possible lead was something they would support. Enough to give him a budget at least, to observe how the money and material moved. He had a couple other guys in support, including one person already on the move to Helm to get a more direct look at this potential criminal vector.

It felt good to be able to actively pursue criminals to their nests, rather than to wait for them to cross weapons with the 10th Rangers.

Oh, and here was the best distraction he'd get all day!

* * *

'Joanna' didn't feel comfortable in the dress she had been made to wear, but Cheryl was adamant that she needed to make a better impression this time than yesterday. Grumbling, Melissa agreed eventually, but did complain that it was tight in certain places. A quick look-over by her bodyguard revealed that yes, she was growing, and no, she couldn't ditch the clothes for something less formal.

She approached the pavilion in question, thankful that at least she got to carry a bag with her. And it was completely not a purse. A Bag. Not a Purse. And she would hit anyone over the head with it who thought otherwise.

A smile leaped onto her face as her newest best friend came out to greet her. It was all she could do not to demand to make the exchange here and now, but waited for the pleasantries to be finished with before getting to the deal at hand. That this was the same type of diplomacy her tutors had tried to teach her, just on a scale with something she had a vested interest in was a fact that went completely past her.

They made their way into the back, where they could chat in peace, her treasured gaming device safe in her bag, soon to be made better.

* * *

Jack watched Joanna distract the older gentleman in the ways that only an overly energetic teenager can. He may not be the best at this sort of thing, but even he recognized natural actions when they occurred, and muttered “Kids these days” in a tone of voice that the person across from him taking his money could only smirk and nod in agreement.

The best part about seeing a distraction? Being one too while someone else did the dirty work.


Helmsdown Spaceport
Helm, Free Worlds League
21 September 3024

Mirelle glared helplessly as the latest in a long line of grain shipments trundled past her groundcar. The railroads had been constantly packed since her arrival yesterday, and casual queries from her team indicated that this happened every harvest season. This year was slightly better than average, so there was a lot of raw foodstuffs to collects from all over the planet to this single Starport where dozens upon dozens of DropShips awaited their turn to collect their cargo and deliver them to the worlds which couldn't fully support themselves.

It was a vital and necessary part of the interconnected economy of the Inner Sphere, each gear and cog working together in harmony to make sure everyone had everything they needed. And it was Irian's goal to be one of those vital mechanisms to set the pace of the Inner Sphere, to control the flow and distribution of all forms of wealth.

Ooooh, she liked that analogy, each world the axle of a cog that turns in connection with each other world. Irian and Terra being big ones naturally.

Trey was reading over a missive forwarded to them from Stewart. The Solaris AgroMech Convention was going as expected, with Defiance being their only real competition. The requested observations of their current target though had come through without much unnecessary commentary from her people on site, what did make it through bothered her slightly.

Her assistant was going over it himself to gather up his own opinions. And the first one out of his mouth was disbelief. “They can fit their entire production line onto a single Union? Preposterous. A proper manufacturing facility runs into the kilotons, well above the capacity of any single DropShip in their possession. I can see them building the individual parts here on Helm, then doing final assembly on site, but what they claim is folly.”

Mirelle nodded. She too had noted that, but something about the R&D report from Irian told her that this was not an exaggeration. “They're not building proper 'Mechs, Mister Miller. We have to remember that. This company has expressed disdain for that whole branch of technology and engineering, instead focusing on cheap, expendable ground vehicles to do the work.”

Trey shook his head in opposition. “That may be, but there are certain requirements of any manufacturing facility that needs to be met. I agree that they can use the Union's fusion engine to provide the necessary power, but the storage of raw materials and the space requirements of a proper assembly line just don't fit. I still hold that their 'practical demonstration'” - a phrase he airquoted in the confines of the groundcar - “was a deception of some sort. The idea that they are encouraging local metalworkers, working in Iron of all things, to build their own replacement parts just goes against everything that centuries of modern economy has taught us.”

This, Mirelle found herself agreeing with. The idea that a company would willingly cut into their profit margins like that was corporate suicide in her opinion. Why would a company try to destroy themselves like that, and under Irian's nose no less? There was something here she was missing, and she mulled it over hard.

They would arrive at the AgroMech factory in an hour or so, maybe she would get more clues then and there.

* * *

Front Lobby, John Deere AgroMech and Tractor Factory

Trey walked in before Mirelle, both to hold open the door for her as was polite, but also to get a good look around the lobby. He had no notions of what to expect, so he was unsurprised by what greeted him. The room shone with natural light, the tinted bay windows making it hard to see inside from the out, also allowed light from the overhead sun to play across the two story atrium in a well designed measure of aesthetics. He approved of the implication that they were a professional company, all deep investigations to the contrary.

Jakart paused to adjust to the different lighting, before striding with purpose to the front desk, a curved fixture in the green that so dominated everything touched by John Deere. A pair of attractive secretaries were seated, headsets connected to jacks in the desk in front of them so they can direct incoming calls that reached their desk, or to pass messages along.

Mirelle knew how to handle people like them, and strode with purpose to the desk, pleased to note that the woman on the right raised her head to look at her come, meeting her gaze with a welcoming smile. “Hello!” she began, a chipper voice that overcame the apparent stress of the position, “welcome to the John Deere Factory! How may I help you?”

Trey produced their identification, recognized across the Inner Sphere by anyone of importance. Introducing himself and Jakart as representatives of Irian Technologies, and they were here to see the person currently in charge.

The secretary was far too cheerful as she made her reply. “Do you have an appointment?”

* * *

Mirelle hid her fuming well. Making appointments was for dealing with ones superiors, so as to not disturb them unduely when they could be dealing with something more important. The gall of these local hicks to have her wait while they checked her credentials made her want to leave this place, and call in a heavier duty response.

Although that would be a personal failing, and she couldn't have that. Instead, she forced herself to look at it from John Deere's perspective. A woman came up to them and demanded to see the person in charge (knowing full well the CEO was absent), introducing herself as belonging to the largest Megacorporation in the Inner Sphere (after some creative numbers against Defiance).

Of course they wouldn't believe her. If she was in their position, she would check as well. She would have to. It just annoyed her to no end that she was on the receiving end of it, and that it had totally ruined her dramatic advances. It was so much easier to get what you want when the other party was off their feet than when they were prepared for you.

“Hello, my name is Alexander. This is Miss Longbottom.” Mirelle cursed her self-reflection as she didn't notice the two representatives approach. Thankfully, Trey was on the ball, and used her inattention to tell them how put out that Irian was that their mutual investing was being treated.

Alexander introduced himself as the Chief Systems Officer, responsible for the technical upkeep of the Factory and subsidiaries, and Longbottom as the Company Secretary. Mirelle and her assistant gave the standard thanks for showing them around, essentially inviting themselves on a guided tour, which the locals had to accept.

It took less than 15 minutes from arrival to greeting, which was a mark in John Deere's favour, but showed that they were not put out at all by surprise visits by people as important as Jakart. In giving in to her request, they showed her around the general offices, making sure she didn't get a look at the actual paperwork being done before being escorted to the factory floor.

Given basic safety gear, Trey carefully took notes of the production process, and Mirelle was given the opportunity to test-drive a couple of their vehicles on the adjacent proving ground.

All it all it was certainly an interesting and educational tour, and the casual business discussions about product distribution (although she noted they were also into making sure the foodstuffs their products produced were also shipped with their resources – a nice start on a vertical monopoly) and resource acquisition intrigued her. They weren't interested at all in high-technology items, viewing the ArgoMechs with some disdain, if not outright as a necessary evil. Why they would do so when their own products, they freely admitted, were based in technology that predated spaceflight was beyond her.

However, with the information she had, she was willing to move to the next part of her investigation.


Precentor Theodore Bowden's Office, HPG Station
Helm, Free Worlds League

“So what? You waste my time with this?” Precentor Theodore Bowden glared anger at the ROM Adept that was properly cowed before him. “What business is it of ours if some Mega-Corporation is doing their own business as long as it does not go against the desires of Our Most Holy Order?”

The ROM Adept regretted taking this posting. She thought that it would be an easy assignment on a Agricultural World, under a Precentor who was simply too well connected to be considered a threat but rather to be used as a mentor and sponsor. “Precentor Bowden, it is the will of Precentor Waterly...”

“I DON'T CARE!” Bowden cut her off hard. “I've seen her exaggerations for what they are, the delusions of a mind breaking under the pressure. She was too young, I told them, but no. The Primus wanted his little toy mistress rewarded. No, the woman clearly deserves the punishments and restrictions placed upon her, and that includes dropping these stupefying accusations against innocent people under our umbrella! There is ABSOLUTELY NO reason why we should send a priority dispatch to Terra about this, it will go out with the monthly reports as usual. Am I understood?”


DropShip Invisible Hand
En Route to Helm, Free Worlds League

"Why the hell are we coming to this hole of a world? There's nothing here worth raiding!" Gregor Lionel, XO of the Pirate DropShip glared at his Captain, Soe Carlson. The threat was quite clear. Explain this decision, or be replaced.

"Yer'an idiot." Captain Carlson didn't bother to hide his annoyance. "You know what coming in without a flight plan or announcing ourselves means. What we're here fo' is to get ourselves some cover for later raids against more valuable targets."

Gregor sneered. "Oh yeah? What in Kali's name are you talking about?"

The Captain sighed, knowing that the smarter members of the bridge crew would pass his wisdom along to the hands, depriving his XO of support in case of future... troubles. "Well, howabout we land politely and buy a fair bit of bulk grain. You know, if you had been paying attention to the ComStar NewsFeeds, you would know that Helm has had a bumper crop this year, so we buy a nice solid contract to deliver somewhere. We make the run, see what's at the other spot worth raiding, using the delivery to reconnoiter. Then, we'll come back later and hit them where the good stuff is, rather than just taking our chances on a smash-and-grab. You savvy?"

The XO backed down, though the twitching face told that he didn't want to. “Sure, sure.” He didn't sound sincere, and the Captain decided that he would need a new XO sooner rather than later. Maybe an accident on the next raid?


Meeting Room, Star League Cache
Helm, Free Worlds League
22 September 3024

“So, Irian's not a threat?”

Alexander shook his head. “Not in the sense that we're worried about. They're looking for profits, not SLDF BattleMechs. So, until the Samurai gets back, I'm saying that we hold the fort and keep to the low profile that's been working good enough for us right now. If things change, we'll respond in kind. Dismissed.”


Hotel Hyatt, Helmsdown
Helm, Free Worlds League

Her guards had swept the room again before she entered into her personal meeting room. Trey was a couple steps behind her, arms full of paperwork, and a sour look on his face. With a relieved gasp, he dumped the pile onto the table, steadying it with one hand to prevent them from spilling all over the table.

Mirelle took a seat and swivelled to face the window. “What did you find?”

Trey took a moment to compose himself. “The Factory has paid all their taxes in full and on time. No attempts to create tax dodges, though if I may hazard a guess, it is most likely because they simply haven't had time to entrench themselves and gain favourable status.” Mirelle nodded in agreement, and gestured for him to continue. “They also have no overt security forces. It looks to our people that they are more concerned with intelligence and sabotage than pirates or corporate raids.”

“They would be fools not to, and JD are not fools.” Mirelle commented as she pondered her next move. There were possibilities still running through her head, but she needed to know just how far this mysterious company would go to defend themselves. They had a maddening way of just smiling and accepting what came their way, nothing seemed to get under their skin at all. “Who do we have in Steward?”

“In terms of BattleMech forces? We have...”


Starport, Helmsdown

Soe took a deep breath of local air, thankful that it didn't have anything rank in it. He still remembered being tricked into breathing deep on a volcanic world in his youth, and to this day, he can still smell sulphur everywhere he went. Behind him, his pirates were doing legit cargo business, checking storage, and preparing to on load whatever they picked up. That they weren't doing it while under fire from the local defence forces did wonders for their morale and relaxation.

Gregor was still on the DropShip, refusing to leave until he felt secure. The Captain had ordered the Chief Mechanic for his DropShip to not force him from there, but to also make sure he didn't do anything stupid. They weren't here to cause trouble.

Down the way, he saw a BattleMech with the local garrison wander around in an irregular patrol pattern. Squinting, he didn't recognize the boxy shape, and figured he could solve two problems with one request. Walking back into the bay, he hailed the bridge, getting his XO on the line. He explained about the 'Mech he didn't recognize, and ordered Gregor to find out what it was, what capacities it had, and then to do the same for the rest of the local garrison lance.

Soe had no goals with this request beyond keeping Gregor's mind occupied on something that wasn't trying to usurp his position, but also worded his request to make it seem like he was considering proper action against the locals.

A couple hours later, Captain Carlson was resting in a lounge at the Port while his crew went looking for tenders and other things. He had handed down the list of things he wouldn't bail his crew out of, and let them do their own thing.

He was only barely surprised when his Mechanic came up to his table, and Soe offered him a drink. Jackson had been with Soe since the beginning, and the two trusted each other implicitly. “Pleasure or Business?”

“Business, Captain.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

“There's this local bunch, some man named John Deere who owns the AgroMech factory out in the hills. You've seen their stuff, the green vehicles with yellow trim? Well, he's got himself some weird gig going on where his guys will train people in basic vehicle maintenance and the like.”

“Yes. So?”

“Well, I did some digging and it seems like as part of this deal, they'll give any DropShip whose crew takes their training course a free small industrial metalworking set, no more than two hundred tons in weight for support of their products. Seems they like the idea of any ole DropShip being able to act as a mobile repair point for all their gear, and from talking to some other people, it's a good side gig.” He slid some papers across the table to Soe, who looked them over. “Two week course. You can even call shore leave. And we can use the equipment once its in our bay to do some repairs on our ship, fix that shower in your cubby, sir.”

The promise of hot water was almost too much, but what sealed the deal was the capacity to give his crew shore leave, leaving Gregor to stew. And it would let him figure out who was more likely to support the XO than the Captain. “I'll give the orders. And if Mr. Deere shorts you, tell me and we'll make them see the error of their ways.”


Control Center, Helmsdown Starport
23 September 3025

“Sir?” The young aide approached his boss carefully. “I did those checks on the arrivals these past two weeks, and I think we have a pirate.”


Mule DropShip “Semper Fi”
En route to Helm, Freeworlds League
24 September 3025

Major Fi strode back and forth beside the tactical table. Her bald and scarred head spoke of many combat campaigns, and this one was just the wrong kind of stink for her liking. It was a simple demonstration raid for her company's employers, a show of force by landing, shooting up the target, then withdrawing.

It was promised to be an easy job . Too easy, and that was the problem.

They were on standby back at Stewart when the message came in two days previously. The raid was a go, and so they had jumped in, her heavily modified Mule more equipped to handle military resources than cargo now headed towards the target.

She looked over at her XO, a former direct employee with Irian who was allowed to 'retire' to her command after injuries defending Irian interests from Combine based competitors. Fi never regretted having him aboard. “Your plan?”

It was the way of the two of them. They would both examine a situation at the same time and come up with their own plans. Then they would compare notes and refine the plan from there. That they came from two different schools of combat only helped as they could see weaknesses in each others plans and fix them. It worked, and kept them in business.

“Our employers have stated that they have secured the non-participation of the local garrison, but we will need to remind our boys and girls who they can play with. Other than that, the hardest part will be getting out of the port itself. It's a mess with the increased traffic, and there's no place to land closer to the target than that that we can use. I'd recommend keeping the heavier 'Mechs back to cover us and intimidate the locals into inaction. Our recon Lance can make the run up to the target for the hit-and-run. Use one of our AeroSpace fighters for a recon run first.”

“I agree.” Li glared at the map tacked to the table. “The worst part is we don't know what the defences are like. There's no records of a raid made against this facility before, being an IndustrialMech facility without Fusion generators made it such a low value target...”

“Which means the defenders are untested as well. What do you think our forces will face?”

“If I were them, militia guards against infantry, plus some static defences. These hills here, here, here and here” she pointed to them on the map, “all give good coverage of the approaching road and area if they had LRMs on them. The clear-cutting to both sides would make for one hell of a kill box. Best give orders to avoid it entirely.”

Fi pondered the maps before adding some more. “In fact I hate this terrain entirely. Too many woods and not enough flat land for us to come down nearby and not involve the local garrison. Whoever built this factory made sure that it was well protected from conventional assault.”

“I agree. I think we should keep the vehicles along the approach in and out of town. The Garrison might do something to keep up appearances for the locals though, even though they have their orders not to.”

The conversation continued for long hours.


Freidman Manor House
Outside Helmsdown, Helm

Jacob Freidman was a middle aged man with two things of importance attached to him. First was that his family owned a large chunk of land that the city was built on, though not enough to make him the equal of the Landholder, and second was his Orion. The venerable BattleMech had been in his family since the fall of the Star League, and together the Mech and family had defended Helm from the occasional Lyran raid, or responding to attacks on nearby worlds.

As such, his official title was Head of Helm Militia, and it was in this capacity, not as the friendly neighbourhood landlord that he sat down in his office with a representative from the Spaceport. The nervous young man had explained about his checks and revelation about the identity of a certain DropShip that had arrived in the past week. Freidman carefully quizzed the youngster about the activities of the crew of the ship, and found that they were looking for shipping contracts, as well as taking some of the offered educational courses from the Factory.

“I think you have a point. But they haven't done anything wrong on this side of the border, so we can't just arrest them. I think, then, I'll arrange to do a couple patrols of the Spaceport myself, just to let them know to keep their noses clean. They start anything, we'll finish it. Thank you.”


Starport, Helmsdown

Jacob strolled causally through the warehouses adjacent to the primary landing fields. Well, as causally as a 75 ton BattleMech can. He was careful to let the small people pass safely around him, his sense of duty too much to force his way through. No, better that they see him as their rightful guardian, which he was.

The Orion carefully advanced into the small lot where various DropShips were parked, each given enough room to take off and land without risking damage to any other.

There. He twisted in about just a little bit to face the suspected Pirate DropShip. Oh, they hadn't done anything illegal (though he had reports of a couple bar brawls involving them, but nothing worth starting a battle over), but it never hurt to make ones presence known. As he walked by, he turned and waved at the bridge of the Union, then walked away at the same pace.

Inside the cockpit, he smiled. He had received a message from the Office of the Landholder, telling him that there was a mercenary company enroute to hit a “target of opportunity”, and Jacob, for one, would enjoy the fireworks when they came to smash those pirates.

It wasn't like there was anything else worth striking.


27 September 3025
DropShip Semper Fi
Starport, Helmsdown

The Mule landed softly, the heavily converted DropShip setting down in the provided space. While the ground around them cooled down, Major Fi sat in the cockpit of her Wolverine, delivering the last of the briefings.

As discussed earlier, the lance of Light Mechs would make for the target and damage it before withdrawing. Her lance - the Whitworth, Vindicator, and Centurion backing her up, would secure the landing zone and run interference.

She reminded them that the locals had been alerted to their arrival, so to check their weapons. They were not here for general mayhem, but for a specific target. She didn't want to have to pay fines to their employer for their screwups.

A chorus of affirmatives met her commands, and then silence reigned as the seconds began to count down to the start of the operation.

3 May 3025
Earth (Motherlode)
Yakima Firing Range (WA, USA)

___________________________________________________

"Okay, run this by me one more time, and please remember my thesis was in radiometry, not advanced laser physics."

Sitting back in her chair, Doctor Indrani Kaur had to physically restrain her impulse to rub the bridge of her nose. It really wasn't that hard to explain the problem, if you knew the technical terms. While Colonel Garris was still playing catch-up, likely a couple sentences behind where she'd stopped, he was at least doing better then the previous officer she'd had to talk to. Probably because there were quite a few areas of overlap in his area of study and the topic at hand.

"Let me rephrase this. We got overconfident with the results down at Los Alamos with the extended range laser tests. We can achieve a 'low heat' state model, matching up roughly in size and volume to the three standard Spheroid models. But those were under open laboratory conditions. Controlled, open laboratory conditions."

Those last four words made Garris wince. He, like many senior officers, was more then well aware of what 'controlled condition' testing could lead to when it came time for the 'semi-controlled chaos' that was real combat. He might have not been around for the AR-16/M-16 debacle, but he had been in uniform just long enough to have dealt with the tail end of the Bradley screw-up, and had been right in the middle of helping fix the errors with the Stryker. Considering just this project alone could potentially break Earth's burgeoning mil-laser industry, they needed to know whether to wait it out, or cut bait and run, and know now before billions were spent on a broken design.

"Now that I can understand. But, before you say anything more Doctor, you should know I wasn't exactly an adherent to how everyone was rushing towards 'up-teching' our military. For all that we consider their weapons to be hopelessly designed, they have worked for well on five hundred years, with active lifetimes nearly as long for a few we've discovered in salvage operations. So. Do we need to drop the project, trim it back to some degree, or do we keep it as is?"

"More of the latter two. It's just that when developing the low heat model, we incorporated a version of those cooling jacket systems we scavenged off SLDF units, directly into the laser itself. That and two more links to any coolant lines along with a dedicated pump for them while the laser is recharging. It was pretty much the only way we could get the heat levels down to standard levels. The problem is, that when we tested the lasers, we let them cool back to neutral before test firing again. Now if we can keep the temperatures neutral, they work just fine. That's the issue. 'Mechs and Aerospace Fighters don't run cool. Do just about anything with one, and it raises it's internal temperatures slightly, or even spiking them to levels normally seen only in your kitchen oven."

"You're still making it out like the first option Doctor Kaur, so could we get to the good news?"

"Yes well, the jacket for the laser starts breaking down if the temperatures within the unit it's mounted in exceed between a third and half of it's maximum safe levels. At low levels, the jacket starts to warp but if quickly cooled for a period of time, the materials naturally revert back to their original form. They're specifically designed to, as a kind of memory material. But if you keep the temperatures up for a long period, or outright spike them, it's almost certain to cause the jacket to buckle and 'reset' the material's memory to the warped shape.

Now if the jacket were a secondary material, like it was on the SLDF models, this wouldn't really be a big issue, beyond an escalating heat issue. But as I said, we had to integrate it directly into the laser itself. In fact, it forms part of the beam shaft that holds three of the focusing lenses. Once it starts to warp, you'll start to see the beam almost immediately lose focus, dropping it's damage and boosted range potential sharply, and accuracy will plummet even worse then that. If the jacket actually buckles, one or all of those lenses will shift completely off alignment. At that point, the whole laser is nothing but dead weight. You might be able to use it once or twice after that, but more then likely you'll scatter part of the beam while it's still inside the laser itself, and wreck the whole thing."

Rubbing the side of his hand just under his nose, Garris nodded a bit to himself as he ran things through in his head. Kaur let him, as she could almost visibly see the wheels turning in his head, beyond just the direct implications of the problem. Considering it was up on the, very, short list of high-tech trade items to the Outworlds Alliance, this went well beyond the Pentagon and into the public sector.

"Neat. In that I understood that. Not so neat in the problems that come with understanding it. Basically what we've got is, to use grunt terms, because that is how it'll be referred to in the field, is a laser that can 'jam' much like a mis-fired cartridge in a rifle. Use it too much, and risk either blowing the range, or blowing it up. It's a damn good thing we're trying to keep as many of our designs as low heat as possible, or that our ground units are specifically designed to stay heat neutral."

"My team can, tentatively, agree with you on that. Any in ground vehicles, or those mounted on the larger spacecraft in development shouldn't be an issue. Mostly in the latter case due to the sheer amount of coolant systems available would easily deal with the issue. But for 'Mechs or Fighters, which give up heat neutrality in order to grant a massive punch one moment and then a longer wait while cooling, it could be a real headache. The good thing is, is that even if it buckles, as long as it wasn't activated again, the lenses and barrel can be saved and realigned. We made sure to over design the lenses to handle high heat loads, and the materials could be 'soaked', in very low temperature liquids, and correctly reset their shape memory. It'd require a full maintenance facility, but it could be done in a few hours or so."

"Now that is good news. Not enough to avoid the headache I'm going to get when I tell the group over at Tac Planning they'll have to rewrite their manuals, again, but it's better then what I was hoping considering how this discussion started."

"Then let me offer a further bit of stress relief. We designed the emitter barrel to have a series of snap-on/snap-off points just in front of the lasing chamber. With that, you could pull off the entire barrel and swap it for a new one with little more then a socket wrench, two people, and a winch. If one comes in warped or buckles, you could swap in a new one in minutes, while the damaged one resets in the cooling bath. There is some flash leakage though from the beam itself into the micro-gap between the chamber and barrel, but that's more of a shelf life maintenance issue. Considering we went with a twenty year shelf life and five years active at best, it probably would drop to a four year active and a sixteen to seventeen shelf, design."

"So we're still stuck with short lifespan models?"

Doctor Kaur gently waved off that concern, after sinking back into her seat a bit. The lifespan problem was something that was forever going to be an issue for Earth. It's whole mindset was so radically different then the Spheroids, who were used to driving around the same vehicles or using the same equipment their great-grandparents had bought. In fact it was already causing problems with the trading to the Outworlds Alliance in some areas. Several key advantages, such as getting far more performance out of a given design, more then offset the drawbacks, and at least one of the OWA's major engineering firms had already grasped that. So at least there was some progress, even if others were dragging their heels.

"This is the best we could conceivably get for the next decade at the most optimistic. You could throw money at us, and we'd be happy to have it, but honestly, you won't be getting any noticeable improvements on that front for a long time to come. To be perfectly clear, we don't believe we could get a 'low heat' design with a shelf life even close to Spheroid standards, until likely sometime in the mid-to-late 3040s or even the early 3050s. By then, we all know there would be far more pressing problems about to drop on our heads due to a certain invasion scheduled to kick off."

"Okay, consider the shelf life issue tabled. But we can likely continue with the rest of the project given the info you just told me, although I'll of course look over the data on the thumb-drive and have some of our analysts crunch the numbers. Yes, I know you already did, but the brass above me live on redundant paperwork, and who knows, maybe today is the day the analysts will get lucky and actually find something different for once."