AN: Inserted part dividers. They did not survive the transfer from Word.

Mechwarrior belongs to whomever owns that particular hot potato of a license at the time you are reading this and Mass Effect is property of Bioware.

Enjoy!

MechEffect

26MAR3070 – ?Clinton?

The Ibn Battuta reverted to real space in a small flash of light above the elliptical plane of the star system.

"Report" ordered Captain Carson.

"Engineering is go."

"DropShip collars no damage."

"Internal integrity maintained."

"Navigation reports successful Jump emergence."

"Uh… comms reporting. That can't be right."

"What is it comms?"

"We aren't picking up any of the traffic we would expect from Clinton, and many transmissions none of us recognize."

"Could it be Blakists?" asked the Captain, not liking the way the situation was developing.

"Unlikely, doesn't sound like jamming. It's coherent; I just can't make any sense of it."

"Tell the Hector to undock and take up a defensive stance until we figure this out." Ordered Carson, referring to the Achilles class assault DropShip attached to the transport squadron for space defense.

"Hector has detached and is scanning for threats."

"Get me Spectre on the line."

"Aye Aye Captain."

"So we have no idea what's going wrong here?"

"That's correct Spectre."

"OK Carson, I'll get my two corsairs out there to help the Hector on its patrol"

"That would be appreciated Spectre. Look on the bright side, If something happens there could be a bonus in it for you."

"Yeah, well I'd rather the something happened on the ground. Doesn't feel right not to be on the front line."

"I hear you there Spectre. Make sure the corporate types stay calm back there for me alright."

"Got it Carson, but I expect hazard pay for that duty." Spectre laughed then hung up the phone.


"Captain, sensors report a large artificial construct at the outer edge of the elliptical plane."

"Put it on my screen. What's their initial analysis?"

"To put it bluntly sir we have no idea. It's not on any of the charts for the Clinton system, and the star charts all match up, we are in Clinton."

"Is it the source of the transmissions we're picking up?"

"Unsure, we're getting the transmission from multiple vectors, like its being broadcast from several relay satellites at the same time. We haven't been able to pinpoint a single transmission point, but we are working with the comm team on the Hector to triangulate a position." The crewman hesitated before continuing. "Captain, we observed the planet with our telescope array when we were confirming our position. There is no visible settlement. Certainly nothing on the scale there should be. We are in the Clinton System, but it's like Clinton disappeared."

"And it keeps getting better" sighed Carson. "Get me Spectre again, we need flybys on the planet and the space station."

Daniel was surprised at himself and with the suit; they were actually having a pretty good time in the temporary boardroom on the Mule. While he was expecting a corporate bigwig type, Mark 'call me agent' Smith had been promoted from within. He was actually a floor manager in the Hesperus II plant when Daniel and the other Marauders saved it from destruction by Davion forces in the War. There's no satisfied customer like the one whose life you had saved and Mark was pretty good guy. He understood that they were stuck in system for at least a week anyway to recharge the KF Drive and with the Blakists who knows where it was prudent to play it safe. If word got out that a factory was moving along this route, things could get ugly fairly quickly. Part of the reason the transport flotilla was so small was to avoid notice of those who should be kept out of the loop. Daniel and Mark traded stories about their respective careers and came to the conclusion that mercenary work and corporate work held many comparisons. Neither was sure whether that was more a positive reflection on mercenaries or a negative one on corporate types, but both agreed that he would much rather have his own job than that of the other. Just then they were interrupted by one of the Mule's crewmen.

"I have a call for Spectre from Captain Carson, Its urgent."

"Sorry Mark, gotta take this."

"No no, go ahead, the mighty Spectre rushing off to another adventure."

"I only rush if the pay is good enough otherwise I amble off to adventure" Daniel joked as he took the phone receiver from the crewman.

"This is Spectre, go ahead."

"Nice to hear you survived your Impromptu board meeting Spectre."

"It's actually pretty good back here. Turns out Mark and I go way back."

"Nice to hear you aren't down there pissing off our employer, but I'm going to have to pull you out of your meeting. Sensors have picked up an unidentified space station on the edge of the system. We need a flyby to get more information."

"That doesn't sound good."

"It gets worse. We haven't been able to detect any kind of settlement on Clinton's surface. We need you to take the Overlord and do a recon in force over there. See what's going on."

"Sounds like this will take a while. I'll give Mark a heads up."

"Alright. I'll send one of my crew to the Mule to act as a liaison and keep the Defiance guys informed."

"OK. I'll send my Stukas over to the satellite and leave the Corsairs with you and the Hector. I should be out of your hair in about an hour."

"Sounds good. Call if you find anything."

"Will do." Spectre moved back to the meeting room that contained Mr. Smith and his staff.

"Well Agent. Smith, as delightful as this conversation has been, the Captain requires my services elsewhere. And with the amount you Defiance people are paying for this contract I'm definitely in a running kind of mood."

"Just get back to us in one piece Spectre. I'd hate to have to find someone else to save my life."

Daniel launched himself towards the docking collar. The sooner he got back to the Marauder the sooner they could get to the bottom of this.


28MAR3070 - ?Clinton? Outer System

Stuka pilot Andrew Grossmann turned the page of his National Astrographic magazine. He liked to keep a good stack of reading material for these kinds of long term recon missions. That was one of the best parts of signing on for Spectre's Marauders. As long as you got the job done, they didn't are too much about the personal quirks of their men and women. The Lyran Alliance took issue with his reading in the cockpit, but if you are just coasting along in a straight line for two days, there's only so much to keep yourself occupied. You can talk to your lancemate and people in the mothership, but as the distance increases between the Aerospace Fighters and the launch platform the communication delay increases, and there is only so much you can talk to your wingman about before conversation gets stale, so Andrew liked to broaden his horizons on long boring flights like these. He kept a locker full of National Astrographic, The Economist, Popular Mechanics, and the like to keep himself occupied. Just turn on the proximity warning tone and check the instruments every 15 minutes or so and everything was ok.

This time though he was looking for something specific. After being briefed on the unusual circumstances surrounding this jump he recalled an issue he had read about a year ago that discussed theories behind misjumps. One particular description of a possible scenario stood out in his mind. The JumpShip might go to the right place, but reenter into a different dimension or reality that it exited from. At the time he thought that it was insane, but now with the massive space station he was moving to investigate, the missing settlements on Clinton and the unusual radio transmissions the Ibn Battuta and the Hector were trying to track down, the idea was not so crazy. He was brought out of his musing by an increase in the amount of static coming from his radio. It would normally be of no concern, but with everything else going on it was worrying.

"Hey Bob, you getting any radio interference?" he asked his wingman Robert Olds.

"Yeah, I can still hear you fine when you transmit but there is a lot more background noise than normal. You think it's the station?"

"Maybe. Let's keep our eyes open."

"Roger that. Hey look, the ring is moving!"

Andrew looked up. Sure enough the ring in the rounded end of the station was starting to spin.

"Ok Bob, let's start decel, don't want to get any closer until we know what's going on."

"Got it, turning over for decel burn."

Both Stukas flipped end over end 180° and fired their engines at maximum thrust to begin to slow down. It would take them several hours to reach 0 velocity relative to the station after the massive amount of speed they had accumulated on the way over, making it prudent to start decelerating now, before something truly bad happened.

Andrew switched his radio over to long range and informed the Battuta and Marauder of their action. With the distance between them and their Jump and DropShips They would have to wait a little less than an hour for a response.

"Copy that Red Lance, proceed with caution. Marauder control out."

Now Andrew was confused as hell. How had the Marauder heard his transmission already and responded to it no less.

"Marauder, please authenticate. What is Spectre's favorite sport and why?"

"Red Lance, Spectre's favorite sport is Solaris Lights, because any merc with a flea, a few machine guns and some spirit can join."

"Marauder be advised, communication is instantaneous, any possible explanation from your end."

"Red Lance, best guess at this time is the radio relays we picked up are some kind of FTL comm. System that we've piggybacked off of on this frequency. Will know more if we can capture one of the buoys."

"Roger that. Continuing decel burn will update when situation changes. Red Lance signing off."

As Grossmann and Olds continued to decelerate the ring on the space station started to move faster and faster. Then a flash came from the station and a ship appeared.

"Marauder, this is Red Lance. Contact, ship entered from FTL near station. Approximately 200 meters long, aerodyne. Confirm receipt of contact report."

"Red Lance, this is Marauder. Contact report received. Go dark and quiet. Observe unknown and report significant movement."

"Red Lance going dark."

Both Stukas ceased their deceleration burn and drifted without power, trying their best to imitate a patch of empty space. The Unknown ship accelerated towards the inner system, then there was another flash and the ship disappeared into FTL.

"Marauder, Red Lance. Unknown contact has reentered FTL, not KF Drive. Possible intra-system FTL capability, be advised."

"Acknowledged Red Lance. Unknown just appeared in geostationary orbit above Clinton Prime. New orders, RTB to Ibn Battuta at best speed and support ASF and Hector defenders."

"Affirmative Marauder. Red Lance is RTB."

The two stukas of Red Lance accelerated at their full 6Gs of acceleration all while Andrew wondered what the hell kind of an alternate universe they had found themselves in.


On the Overlord class DropShip Marauder alarm Klaxons blared.

"All hands general quarters. Green Lance to your fighters, prepare for launch. All points battle armor combat ready. MechWarriors to your briefing room."

The announcement repeated itself over the intercom twice more. Even though the ship was a Mercenary vessel, all the crew and ground troops quickly moved to their battle stations. In the main briefing room, Daniel picked up the microphone for the ship wide PA system to inform the ship of their situation. He had found through experience that the worst thing for a crew was to have no idea of what was going on.

"This is the Commander. An unknown vessel has just exited FTL in geosynchronous orbit above us. It is far more mobile than we are and holds a gravitational advantage. The best way for us to fight should the Unknown prove to be hostile is on the ground where our strengths as a battalion are. As I speak, Captain Park is bringing us in for a landing on defensible ground on Clinton Prime. We'll be leaving the Sparrowhawks in orbit to disable the Unknown if it comes to it, then we'll show them why you don't get between the Marauders and our salvage. Am I right?!"

A loud "Yes Sir!" resounded through the hull of the ship.

"That's what I thought, now get ready and do yourselves proud."


The two Sparrowhawks of Green Lance waited in orbit as the Unknown reached a position directly above the Marauder. The DropShip had landed on a narrow plateau, such that any attacking force would be funneled into a single kill zone. A single Awesome would be able to hold the pass indefinitely against almost any force, let alone the battalion of BattleMechs backed up by a star of battle armor the ship contained. Green Lance had waited for the Unknown vessel to enter an orbit below their own before easing their way behind its engines using their maneuvering rockets. The fighters were in a perfect position to slag the unknown's engines with their small and medium pulse lasers from an undetected position should it make any offensive moves against the Marauder. The pilots of Green Lance had gotten the best look at the unknown so far. It appeared to be built around a spinal ballistic weapon, whether it was an autocannon or a gauss weapon remained to be seen, with several small lasers arrayed in turrets across the ship. And the most disturbing thing about the ship was that it was far too small to contain a KF Drive that any Human had designed.

As the unknown ship orbited the planet, Green Lance in tow, it transmitted a radio message down to a wooded area with a large clearing, a clearing that at second glance could be a landing zone. On the next orbit, the unknown received a reply from the same area. Ed Greene, Green Leader marked the area for later review. As the unknown vessel reached a position directly above the Marauder, it rotated so that its main armament pointed towards the DropShip and activated a station keeping drive just before charging its main armament, now revealed to be closer to a gauss weapon than an autocannon. That was all the indication of hostile intent Green Lance needed to classify the unknown as hostile. Both Sparrowhawks fired their full armament at the outside bases of the engine nozzles, knowing that the insides were likely shielded from the intense heat their lasers caused. The 8 pulse lasers together completely severed the gimbaled main thrusters from the unknown craft. The sudden change in the weight distribution of the ship combined with the thrust caused by the ablation of materials from the rear of the craft threw the gauss round several kilometers off target. The sparrowhawks, seeing their mission complete, broke off to avoid the laser turrets on the enemy ship.

Without its main drive system and far from the base area it communicated with earlier the hostile ship was forced to make a landing 50 kilometers North of the Marauder's landing zone. Within 45 minutes, a star of light 'Mechs and two points of battle armor were at the far side of the crash site, with a star of mediums and another point of battle armor at the near side. They had the ship surrounded and were ready to strike.