Chapter 57
12 July 3050 Mission Three
The Dunianshire system
Three days after landing.
James "Tubby" Crayson was looking out the cockpit of his massive 70ton ARC-2R, or as most people called it an Archer class battlemech. The running joke was that his girth was as large as his battlemech's. More than one bar fight had been started when someone would make a comment on how some mechs looked like their owners or vis versa. Or when he had been asked when the last time, he had his mech's leg assemblies tested to make sure they could handle the current load. The bad part was that one part of his mind knew this true because he was finding it harder and harder every month to get into the tight cockpit of his mech.
He and his crew of three other mech jocks had been in dozens of different mercenary or house units over the last two decades. Somehow, he had always been on the losing end of the deal, no matter who was paying the bills at the time. Every time he had been interviewed for a new unit, after being thrown out of his last one. He had pointed out that it was not his fault, when something bad had happened to his old unit. It was always someone in higher commands fault, that somehow that had caused the catastrophic issues he had been blamed for. They would just pin it on him to cover their expensive tails, and so he would be the one that got canned after the mission was over and before the rebuilding and repairs were finished. It just was not fare!
Finally, he had enough, and he had left his last employer with two others that had seen some of the things from the same point of view. They all had taken their mechs with them, even if they had not been "owned" by the pilots at the time they left the unit. They had been joined by two others, before they had left the planet that they had been hiding on while waiting for a ride off of that mud ball. By now all of them had a price on their heads or were just a few steps ahead of the local law enforcement officers for one reason or another. They had made their way through to the edge of human known space over the next few years, making a little money each time they touched down. It very much was a hand to mouth living arrangement.
Tubby had been selling his "command's services" to whoever had enough C-bills in hand, and most of the time he did not care who paid them for a given job. The pay would be in C-Bills or other forms of high value trade items, for the burning down of a hospital or other forms of blood that the paymaster wanted to be done but didn't want to be on their hands. His "Company" never got bigger than seven mechs, ever. Now it was down to just four mechs, but it was a nice strong medium almost heavy weight lance.
Out in this part of space, that should have been enough to tilt the balance in any fight they found themselves supporting. For some reason that was not the way things worked in the MC. He did not have access to any techs on a regular basis, much less a dropship for supporting him over the last few years. And that was how he had ended up out here on this edge of civilized space. He had taken a security job, which not surprisingly, had not panned out the way he had expected it to. Now without a job or enough money to get off this mud ball? He was desperate, again.
He had heard stories for over a year now, about a cargo dropship that was selling all kinds of recovered Star League grade weapons. He had never believed them; it was just another Lost Tech story that went around the bars faster than a jumpship moving between two stars. Still this one had grown with each telling and each time Tubby had heard it, but he still didn't believe it any more than the first time he had heard it. That is until the other day, when while eating a cheap meal at a fast-food grease pit. A new story had come out about this Mammoth dropship sitting on a drop port landing pit, which was filled with late Star League weapons being sold to MMM and some other lucky buyers.
James had caught the next taxi outside of the food joint to check on what was being sold on the tarmac, near the ship that they were all talking about. There laid out under the sky was something too good to be true, real Star League Ultra class cannons. He had tried to buy one, after shoving one of the locals out of the way like he was a peasant. The two displayed anti-missile systems did not interest him in the least. Neither weapons would fit on his current machine, but he knew people. And those people would pay a nice little bit of C-bills to get their hands on one of those double rate firing cannons. Some were even smart enough not to ask too many questions, but not all of them.
The deal had fallen apart when the space grease ball would not come down off the price that they had started out with. Who would have thought they should cost so much? And who would not take slaves as payment? After about two hours he had left the drop port with it feeling like steam was coming out of his ears. He had spent the next two days watching the dropships and planning on what would be his next steps. If he could not buy one or more of those weapons? Then he would just take them. He had done and planned missions like this before, and on a dozen different worlds around the edge of house space. What was one more?
Most of the machines under his command had "Hands" just for reasons like this one. It was called a smash and grab job for a reason. All he needed to do was to wait for the right time to launch his little acquisition raid. He knew that the merchants had one mech, and it was a very rare Hoplite. But that 55ton design was not known for its speed or firepower. The Mammoth was just a cargo ship, and the other cargo ship was a modified Union. He had seen more than a few of those on the edge of "civilized" space. He knew that one dropship could be an issue, the Union class ship can have some heavy weapons.
Then again? These were just some merchants and not pirates. And it was well known that merchants normally sold off most of those guns not long after selling off the mech bays for more operational capital. They probably could not hit the broad side of a warehouse with whatever they had left for defensive weapons. At least that was what his experience was telling him about how it should go when the firing started. With these "known" facts he set about making his "grand plan."
He didn't think much about that modified ship for his planning. If they took out the mech and fighter bays for more cargo space? Then they must have taken out most of the weapons to increase cargo space even more. That was the common pattern in the parts of space that they had been working in for the last few years. Besides MMM even advertised that they could make those same modifications on the Tri-vid for any Union commander that wanted it.
He had been listening to other groups that had made deals with these merchants at the noon meal at a nearby food joint for any useful information. He knew that tonight, was the night to launch his plan. A shipment of eight of those expensive cannons were going to their new home, but the new owners had to make a last-minute change for someone to pick them up. For his plan to work. He was expecting for each one of his lance mates to carry at least one of those weapons, when they pulled back to this warehouse after the attack.
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Tubby had the magnification on the visual camera his mech carried set to its maximum setting as soon as he reached his hidden mech. He was watching the weapons being pulled out of the smaller of the two dropships by a work mech that had seen a lot better days. The last mech patrol had already cleared the area half an hour ago. It should be on the other side of the drop port when he was ready to get his five-finger discount. All he had to do was wait for the right time.
His timing was a bit off. He was mesmerized by the Power Loader bringing crate after weapons filled crate, out of one of the massive bay doors on the largest class of dropships that could land on a planet to match those already outside of the cargo Union. His mind was thinking about that growing pile of gold or C-Bills just waiting for him to go out and collect what was due to him. It was only after Zo, in his rust-stained Crab, had beeped him that he came out of the trance of dancing C-bill signs in front of his eyes.
Tubby didn't know it, but he was being what was called old school by most larger militaries around the Inner Sphere. Only it was not intentional. He simply didn't use radios to direct his lance to attack out of habit of not everyone in his command having a working radio. He was just using arm signals made by his machines massive metal arms to give out commands. All he had to do was make sure that each mech was in line of sight of him, and always paying attention to what he wanted them to do. It was just something they had grown into, to say it was good training would have been a stretch in that they had done it on purpose.
It was only when all four machines had broken cover, by exiting the building at the walk. That cover had been provided by the massive metal warehouse near the dropships landing areas. It was only then that the crews of the dropships started to be alerted to the trouble coming their way. The crew's working around the dropship had no way of knowing if this group was part of the local militia, or not. So, the attackers were able to get closer than they should have been able to.
Mike was in the Hoplite that was operating off the White Rabbit 2. He saw the patrol coming his way and just like they had done before. He moved his mech towards the thick yellow painted "fire line" that marked the edge of Copeland's control, and were the control of the defenders should take control on any given day. The range was dropping steadily, and Mike was starting to get concerned as they moved closer to each other. His gut was screaming in his ears like an aerospace fighter at low level on overthrust. He could feel that something was wrong.
This new patrol looked different even in the low light, and they were not contacting him on the radio after he knew that they could see him. When his machine was just at the outer edge of range for the Long-Range Missile system mounted on the lead mech, an Archer. Mike's console started to scream at him. It was telling him, that he had someone's targeting systems hitting him at full power. That was a sure sign that someone was not friendly. It was just instinct that he jerked to the right, even before his mind told him about the second alarm. This movement happened, just as a fire curtain of missiles rose from the shoulders of the 70ton machine. The LRMs left their tubes in flames, sparkles, and smoke before they pitched over to guide on to the Hoplite.
Tubby was tracking the 55ton mech as it closed on his advancing mech lance at the slow walk before coming to a stop at the danger zone marker. When it crossed the computer-generated line, which marked the outer range limit of his twin Doombuds 20 rack. He fired both of the huge missile packs with a single pull of his main trigger. Then he started screaming, as the targeted mech suddenly side slipped to one side and most of his missiles missed the lighter machine. It should have been an easy target for him to blow its limbs off. It was not moving, and he had the element of surprise in his attack. What more can a mech jock ask for?
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Mike might have failed his first try at becoming a member of the SLDF Mech Force. Now? He had more time at the controls of a Mech, and almost as importantly. He had a lot more confidence in how to use those controls to do the primary job of that war-machine. He hadn't tried to get granted a retrial and assignment after the first run, but he now knew in his soul that he would have pass one if he needed to. He had not pushed, when it was pointed out, that this might lead to him being pulled from the mission and moved to a combat unit. He was not averse to going into a combat unit, but he knew that he was one of the few on the mission that could do this job as well as he could.
All of those months of constant use, and the Star League required training was paying off. Mike was surprised at someone firing 40 long ranged missiles at him, but he quickly brought up his weapons and sighted in on to the walking war-machine that had just tried to kill him. Without his brain getting in the way, he pulled the primary trigger.
Crayson jerked his controls to keep his target lined up, as his target dodged most of the missile fire. But all it did was line up his mech perfectly for Mike to fire at. A hyper sonic solid nickel-ferrous slug slammed into the Archer's Right leg. It was quickly followed by three hits from a LRM pack this Hoplite was packing. All of the hits were spread out on the lower part of the massive 70ton machine. It was very good shooting at this range and for that Mike being surprised by his attackers.
Crayson looked at the red outline on the right leg of his mech. He had lost almost half of the armor in that location from a single hit. That was a hard hit and at this range! Crayson activated his radio for the first time in a few days. That was not good, and he knew it. A hit like that and at this range said that it was a hit from a gauss cannon. His computer might not understand what his mech had been hit with, but he did. Unlike many out here on the edge of what most people called civilized space. He kept a very close eye on weapons development in the rest of the Inner Sphere, even if more than half of it was never ever going to see the battlefield in the next 200 years.
"All units! Make for the weapons, there's only one mech out here. I will take care of it." To put action into words, Crayson fired his twin missile launchers again. This time he scored hits with at least half of the weapons on the old Hoplite. An evil smile crossed his lips as he saw the explosions cover the enemy mech. It looked to him like malignant red and orange boils were popping up all over the enemy machine. The smile was him thinking about that time that he ripped a PPC off of a warhammer, and then he had sold it to another group a few months later. This lighter mech was going to lose that arm mounted weapon, and he was going to take it when this battle was over.
Mike was moving in a complex pattern to try to make it harder to be hit again, as he waited for his weapons to reload. "Command! I'm taking fire from a mech lance in sector four! I could use some help out here." The voice sounded like a strangers to his own ears. There was no way he sounded that calm, not after being shot at.
Mike fired within a second of the larger Archer firing a second time at him. Mike knew that he didn't have to "kill" this mech or his buddies. He only needed to delay them long enough to give time for the weapons crews to get to their station on the dropships. Mike aimed low and pulled the primary trigger on his weapons stick, in the excitement he had forgotten to change from firing both weapons at once. After all it was not every day that you had to fight off a mech that out massed you by this much, and that mech was not alone.
Then another solid hyper sonic round flew true and hit the same damaged leg on the attacking Archer. The five flame and smoke trailing long ranged missiles that left his machine, did not. They all flew over and around the Archer like five smoky and flame trailing fingers, which exploded when they ran out of fuel a few kilometers away from this battle. Luckily, they did not cause any more damage to the drop port.
Mike was a very good gunner and mech pilot. He would have been rated as a high level Veteran, compared to the other Mech warriors in the rest of the Inner Sphere. This high level of skills now came into play. He did not have time to think about what was going on after pulling the trigger a second time. The Archer's twin flight of missiles started falling on and around him in waves of explosions that temporarily blinded him.
The damage from that wave of missiles was spread out with hits on both arms, chest, and even his left leg was taking some damage. Mike was very lucky, that only eighteen of the forty missiles found their mark on him, and that was thanks to his sudden movements all over the confined battlespace. The rest of the LRM's had fallen very close to his rapidly shifting mech. Mike was not happy with the results of the battle, and for a third time he did use the high-tech capability of his machine in public. A silver streak connected the two machines together for just a blink of the eyes. He was putting on a light show for anyone who might be looking in his general direction, but it could not be helped. Mike had to buy time, and this mech would not have been modified if there was not a chance that those modifications might become necessary.
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Crayson was stunned both by the hit and by how the smaller machine was able to get a second hit on him so quickly. The shock of the second hit sent shockwaves up his machine as more of the armor was blasted off the same leg of his mech, and this time. Something sensitive under the hard armor shell fell to the damage of the shock of the hard hit to his mech.
Crayson's mech lost both the hip and foot actuators, and some of the hard skeleton was ripped apart by the physical damage and the shock of the pair of hits. It didn't help that the mech's skeleton was over two hundred years old. When those two items were damaged, and in mid step? Crayson's training told him to just relax and let his neurohelmet do its job to keep the 70ton machine on its feet. It was touch and go for a while, as the tall machine fought gravity with the help of the inner ear of the pilot and the amazingly complex gyro meshed into one.
While he relaxed and let the technology that he didn't understand do its job, Crayson's mind planned out the next few steps in this battle. Crayson knew he only had six reloads left for each of his 20 tube missile launchers, and his heat was climbing to a dangerous level. When his feet were under him one more time. He only fired his right shoulder tubes at the very lucky smaller machine. That would keep his heat just low enough to keep him alive, and not risk the heat setting off his remaining ammunition load. If he could get close enough his 5cm lasers and battle fist would take care of this little pest if he ran out of LRM ammunition.
The flight of long ranged missiles was poorly aimed. That was caused by a mix of a rapidly moving launch platform in 3 dimensions, old fire control systems, an oddly moving target, and it was still rated as being long range for that very old weapons system. Only eight light warheads hit the lighter machine of the 20 that had taken flight from the Archer. For the first time, Mike was going to score more damage on the enemy machine, than he was going to take. Mike had been keeping that right leg of the enemy mech dead in his sites, and when his weapons board when green again. He fired his weapons, not worried about the heat with his updated cooling systems and lower heat of his gauss rifle. The only thing he was worried about, was that he would run out of the large solid non-explosive rounds before he could take down the Archer.
Mike's next or third round from his rifle hit higher up, almost at the waist level on the Archer, and missed the leg for a rib hit. Still the super hard round hit the armor and it shattered like a glass tabletop being hit by a 12-pound sledgehammer. This time all five of the light warheads from the small long-range missile launcher hit the called shot of the right leg. Now with all of the armor plate gone, most of the softer components were damaged along with half of the softer internal structure support. Those five small warheads did enough damage to the right leg to get the job done.
Crayson knew that he was not that great of a pilot, and he was not even as good, as he thought he was. With this amount of damage done to his machine in so short of an amount of time. He could not keep his mech on its feet anymore, not even with the help of the multi ton gyro and his high-tech helmet. His Archer fell on its broad back, damaging the thin armor that covers that area in the process. The friction of the machine falling on to his back shot shards of sharp armor plate backwards, away from the machine. It was like a rain of lethal metal drops moving about as fast as a real hard wind driven rain if not a little slower.
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The other three machines did not care that their "commander" had fallen in battle to night. They were going to grab what they could and meet up later, just as it had been planned for them to do. If the Commander didn't make it to the rally point in time? Well, that just made for a three-way split from the sale of the booty instead of a four-way split. That was just how this type of mission and the people who took them thought. So, they were not even watching what was happening to him after they were told that he would take care of the lone mech guard. That might have been a bad idea for the rest of the lance to do in this situation.
While they were on the ground, Robert had kept one mech out, after things got testy about the price or numbers of weapons for sale. But he made sure that the other one was always manned and out of line of sight behind a closed bay door. They had plenty of mech jocks to keep both of the alert mechs at a very high state of readiness for this short length of time. Not all of them were at the same skill level, but they had enough warm bodies to do the job.
Jessica was on duty when Mike had reported in about being attacked by the patrol lance of mechs. Where Mike had failed the final test to be a mech jock on his first run at the ripe old age of 18, Jessica had not. She was naturally a very good pilot and an even better gunner thanks to years of training. It was just that she wanted a family more than being just another pilot of a walking tank for the rest of her naturally and artificially long life. What remained of Clan Wolverine needed a lot of people to settle the planet, and she was more than willing to do her part in providing those numbers of strong backs. Then she helped in raising other kids from people that liked spending a large amount of time training.
So, after she had completed her two years of required service in the SLiE military? She had gone into the Reserves, and that was where she had picked up her primary job. It was at the drop port loading and unloading drop ships and small craft. This flexible job also let her be closer to her growing family, now with six kids of her own via natural berth. She didn't regret her life choices even after all of these years, even if she did crave combat like any other member of Clan Wolverine. A craving that only grew with the war against the Cylons.
By now she was ready and even okay with being gone for a while from that growing family. Besides the money was great! She had taken the time to pass all of the tests and signed on for the special mission on the last run. She had signed on as a cargo handler for the resupply mission. Somehow her active and reserve mech training data was lost in a paperwork shuffle. She knew about the issue, but she did not "want" to pilot just any trash can of a mech. A woman had to have her standards after all. Now if it was a real mech, like even a third line machine? She would have done more than try to have fixed the issue. She was not going to take the time or effort just to get in the cockpit of some old pirate mech or rusty pulled out of a muddy field.
This was her second trip into the Inner Sphere, and it was the first one that she had been earmarked to pilot a war walker and not as her secondary job. When she heard the first explosions, she had remote activated the bay doors to command them to open. Something like a cargo bay door did not open quickly, but as soon as it was opened enough. She could see the three mechs running right towards her at a good clip. The Bay door was not even locked into the fully open position, when she fired her massive Gauss Cannon at the attackers for the first time.
Jessica was a great shot, and with having a stable nonmoving mech to fire from? She took all the time that she needed, and she put the nickel-iron slug right into the cockpit of a downgraded Crab battlemech running towards her. The three attacking mechs did not even know that they were under attack, until the ex SLDF Mech was leaving a furrow of concrete with its pointed nose into the tarmac with its face. They had not known about the second mech, and very few people had seen or even talked about it from the day before. It was an intel gap, that was coming back to bight them on the ass with very sharp teeth.
Jessica started walking down the cargo access ramp while she started looking around the area in her growing field of view. She was just in time to see the Archer finish falling on its back. In her mind she knew that they were now at even odds in numbers, but they were still out massed by the attackers. It would get worse if that heavy mech got to its feet again and could fight.
As soon as her mechs feet hit the ground, off the loading ramp. She brought her machine up to full speed as fast as it could accelerate. Her 40ton machine was a long-ranged shooter, and only covered with a very thin layer of very high-tech armor. What she faced right now was a close in fighter with a 200 mm cannon, and a second mech that had a weapon that almost had the same range as her gauss cannon. Stick and move was going to be the word of the night, if she was going to live to see her grandkids again.
Jessica picked the Centurion CN-9, even if it out massed her 40ton Sentinel. She might have had better odds against the other 50toner, it was a Hunchback. Its massive Big Bore 200mm cannon would take her machine down in one shot, but it was a very close ranged weapon. It would have to be up to the White Rabbit to handle it, when the ship's crews got to their turrets. She just hoped that those gun crews would be quick enough. At least all of the ground and dropship crew had been able to make it undercover.
Jessica slowed down to just about half of her rated top speed. Her quick slowdown was rewarded with the CN-9 firing its Luxor D cannon at her. The heavy shots missed, and it went skipping out into the darkness of the drop port. The round kept going until it lost energy and buried itself into a thick-walled warehouse a few kilometers away. The Gauss Rifle shot she gave in reply did not miss. It landed right on a hatch cover on one of the Luxor 3r missile's tubes mounted on the machine's broad armored chest.
The weapon must have been taken out with that hit she had just given it, because the mech jock started dumping the LRM ammunition out the under-armpit dump shoot. That way any reloads should not be detonated by accident or enemy action. Jessica smiled as she now speeds back up to her maximum speed. Now she started trying to get around the larger and slower machine she was facing. That same machine that had just lost half of its long-ranged firepower, and it now took her up on her unspoken challenge of one-on-one combat.
The CN-9 jock was not a rock with lips that just had the ability to get a mech helmet to work. He just was a person of low moral standings compared to your average hyena. He knew that all he had to do was hit the lighter machine only one time with his main weapon. It would not matter what location he hit with his heavy Luxor D Series autocannon. It would strip the armor totally from the barely medium weight machine. The CN-9 pilot however had never fought against a gauss rifle before. He was thinking that most of the damage done to its chest, was done by the ready missiles in the tube not reacting well to an autocannon strike caused by the class 5 autocannon the old Sentinel was known to mount in that arm. He didn't even think that it might be a double rate cannon, like the ones they were selling. He just was not wired to think that way. Okay so he was not the sharpest tool in the tool shed after all, he just spent too much time looking down a bottle and too little time studying enemy threat equipment.
That would change when the second round made contact with his machine, so he was not that dumb. This one hit was dead center of its chest, and over a ton of armor plate was blasted into sand grain sized fragments in less than a blink of an eye. That shock did not mean that the Pilot was too distracted or hungover to not get a good shot off in reply. The CN-9s return shot took all of the armor off Jessica's left-side torso in its own shower of shattered armor plate. He was not a bad pilot or gunner, after all he had lived this long in an area that killed his kind by the bucket load every year. He did frown when the enemy machine did not go down or try to disengage from him with its faster speed. Even after a hard hit like that, it seemed to still want to fight out of its weight class to night.
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While Jessica and the Centurion were dancing around at the edge of the area, the Hunchback came forward to use its two small arms to pick up two of the metal cases that should hold the mech scale weapons that they had come for. The HBK-4G pilot was so fixated on getting ahold of two of those long cases, that it didn't notice danger coming up behind her. She had an evil smirk on her face as her machine bent over and its metal fingers reached for the pair of prizes and closed them around the brightly painted lift points on the end of the crates.
Mike had circled back around behind the attackers after he had dropped the Archer onto it's back. When he was sure of his aim? He fired, with one strong pull of the primary trigger. It was a risky shot. If he missed a little to his left, he would hit the dropship that was his home. But the risk was greater if he didn't try to take the shot at all. Mike went with the one big hit of his powerful weapon, but he also used more of his remaining long-range missiles. This was going to be a shot taken at what his systems said was going to be in the green or the short range bracket for his weapons. After he pulled the primary trigger, all he could do was wait to see what was going to happen.
Three of the long-ranged missiles hit the back of the head of the close assault mech. This was followed in less than an eye blink later by the delayed fired solid slug hitting the machine dead center of the chest Mike was aiming at. That hit was in the dead center of the chest, from behind. The armor in that location was thin and not even closed to being designed to withstand an attack like he had just delivered. The remaining LRM's went off to one side of the grounded dropship and hit a few metal containers waiting to be loaded onto one of the pair of cargo ships. That was not going to make the ground team very happy with one mech jock named Mike.
The Gauss weapon hit very hard, and only about half of the mass of the hard projectile was spent breaching the thin armor covering the back of the Hunchback. The rest of the shot shattered and, in the progress, went further into the enemy war machine. Two bits of the New Circe made metal went off to one side of the main flight path. They hit the shielding surrounding the massive fusion engine, while it was still moving at several times the speed of sound. This damage caused a massive heat spike that went through the mech working its way upwards towards the cockpit and down towards the hips of the mech at an equal rate. It was a matter of physics.
Two other metal shards that had come off of the solid core, were pulled by gravity and they started angling down from the "normal" path of flight. They soon hit the massive, but very fragile gyro, which was used to help the machine stand and move without too much of an issue. Between the three small hits to the cockpit, the hard hit in the back, damage to the engine, and the twin gyro hits. It was too much, and the machine went forward to strike the hard ground. No one would know if it was the fall or something else that killed the mech pilot. It did not matter. Her machine was not moving, and she was dead. Anything after that was just academic.
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Jessica and Mike now were able to double team the damaged CN-9. This time the enemy mech was able to see when its second partner had been hit and had fallen to the tarmac. He started to pull back, but with only one long ranged weapon and with limited ammunition for it this limited his options. The pilot knew that he was going to lose, if he did not get out of there very quickly. The two SLDF in hiding mechs chased the lone mech all the way to the edge of the drop port, for the next half an hour. The pilot was not that great, but he had some skills on how to use terrain to stay alive. Kind of just like a hyena does to avoid the pack of lions it has….. agitated. That was where it finally succumbed to the pinpoint hits that Jessica was giving it. She had taken over when Mike had run out of ammunition with very little to show for it. When Mike had pulled back when his ammo bins showed that they were depleted, Jessica had taken point in the chase.
The running Centurion was not firing back that often, he was just worrying about dodging around anything that might block him from being viewed by the enemy that was trying very hard to kill him. It was when Jessica was about to fire again, when the CN-9's pilot shot into the cold dark air on his ejection seat. It was only a few heart beats later before the 50ton machines fusion engine shut down due to damage the pair of visiting mechs had caused to the old machine.
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Tubby was still seeing stars while he tried to get his 70ton machine back onto its foot pads. He had no idea how long he had been knocked out. All he knew was that the guard mech was not working on him anymore. He was not going to look at that gift horse to closely in the mouth. He knew that if it was not near him, then it was going after what remained of his "Company". He would not shed a single tear for them, not as long as his own life was still at risk. If he thought about them at all after tonight it would be a change for him of the earth-shattering kind.
The pair of Robert's mechs had been delayed in the pursuit of the lone pulling back enemy machine long enough, until the White Rabbits weapons could start coming online. The first weapons turret to come online was the gauss rifle and a long ranged PPC turret on that side of the ship. After the pair of guard mechs was gone looking for the Centurion. The weapons turret kept an eye on the only threat it could view. This meant that it was easier for this turret to start firing on the Archer, which was still trying to rise to its feet again after playing dead for the last half hour.
It had not moved for some time after Mike had put it down. Mike had thought that the driver was stunned or dead and not a threat to his dropship. He didn't care and had gone to support his wing man to take out the last enemy mech. Tubby had been knocked out by either the fall or the shock of the battle damage or a mix of both actions. He had not cared or notice what had happened to the rest of his lance. He might have had a slight concussion, or something. But the end state was that his mind was not tracking all that well.
The first time the twin turret on the dropship fired both of its weapons, they missed the Archer by a fair margin. But it did get the attention of the Archer, who replied with both of his Doombud launchers out of muscle memory. Shooting at a grounded multi thousands ton dropship was the definition, of an easy target. He hit the grounded dropship with 38 of his 40 long ranged missiles. This heavy attack turned out to be a very bad thing for Tubby. This slight rocking of the dropship caused by that damage was all that the rest of the weapons turret crews needed, to get them to move just a little faster.
Now a second turret had come online, and the crews were not happy getting their bell rung by the dropship getting hit so hard. As soon as their own pair of 20 missile tubes were loaded, and the yellow lights turned to green. They fired them off within a few seconds of the recharge and reloading of the first heavy weapons turret. The damaged and barely moving machine took 36 Artemis IV guided missiles all along the top and exposed missile launchers on its shoulders. This firepower had been joined by the first turret, and the pair of hits from the LR PPC and Gauss Rifle that hit the flame covered machine in the chest area like the hammer of a god.
That much damage, in so short a time, was too much for Tubby to have to deal with even without the border line concussion. The 70ton Archer face planted again when he lost control of the war machine. The machine had not even stopped moving when the rest of the missile ammunition in the ancient war machine went off all at once. James "Tubby" Crayson and very little fragments of his 70ton ARC-2R Archer were blasted over an area of about 500 meters of the drop port. All of it was in very small pieces of metal, non-organic parts, organic parts and things you really didn't want to think about before dinner.
The ejection seat of the Centurion was just coming to rest along with the larger pieces of the Archer, when the Drop port security mechs made it to this part of the drop port. The responding lance split into teams and isolated the two mechs of Robert's defense force. They came running from around a nearby warehouse, and they could not have known who was on who's side. They only knew that there had been a lot of weapons fire and many frantic radio calls from a half dozen different people over the last minutes that seemed to last for hours.
##########
The Drop port's security force demanded the two mechs stand down until they could find out what had happened. They even locked up the two Star League in hiding mechs with their fire control systems. That had almost caused a second round of combat to break out on the drop port. Robert told his two mech jocks to stand fast, but to not let their guard down around these new machines. He had no idea who the attackers might have been working with, and he was not going to take any chances that he didn't have to.
With the battle now seemingly over, Robert contacted the most senior person at MMM that he could think of. It was a short, but interesting call, which Robert would bet was going to be played back a few hundred times in the coming months. In less than an hour later, it was all worked out. It had cost Robert some political capital or cards the next time he worked with MMM. But that was something he could live with.
Robert was able to get his two damaged mechs onto his dropships, after the guard lance pulled back from the dropships. With the warfighting machines that belonged to an unknown power out of the way, or at least out of sight of the security force. A mixed group of lighter armed support personnel from under Robert's command and the locals could walk the area of the small battle. Robert had copies of all of his mech's combat ROMs, but he did not offer them up for others to view. He was not asked to supply them to the locals, and he was waiting to use that leaded bat on someone and anyone would due in his current mood. He did not know it right then, but a security point and a few dozen other cameras had recorded the whole event in decent enough detail for the locals to work out what happened. They even were able to work out every step and counter step both forces had used.
The local security unit was very embarrassed, and they just wanted the whole thing to go away like it had never happened. That was soooo not going to happen, when the head of the largest company on the planet calls your battalion commander….. personally. Oh, and that same officer had been enjoying a date night with her husband when that call was made to her. The lance commander and anyone of any rank in the duty security company was going to have to explain to some of the most powerful people on the planet, why they should keep their jobs after the actions tonight. Many of them would come up short on that explanation.
All of the attacking mech hulks were to be given over to the merchant captain by order of the head of the planet's government. This was not on a direct order by the head of MMM, but it was strongly hinted at by the senior officer of that huge company. The clean-up cost for the post battle was going to come out of the security battalion's budget or the commander of that unit's own pocket. They also would-be giving Captain Copeland access to the units mech bays and other repair support, for his two damaged machines. Copeland supply, salvage, and resale would have to buy all the spare parts, and his own people would do any and all the needed work. The locals would just supply a secure place with the right major supporting equipment for Robert's people to work with.
This support was "okay" for Robert and it would have drawn attention, if it became public knowledge that he had turned down such an offer to use those mech bays. He had most of the repair parts on hand, but not having a mech bay would extend the time that each repair would require. It should only take a few days to repair the damage done to his mechs, if he had access to those bays. That was going to be about the same amount of time needed for repairing the damage done to the armor on the outside of the White Rabbit.
##########
When the sun rose the next day? The two mechs and a group of techs were on their way to the nearest set of mech bays to this part of the drop port. By noon that day? The hulk of the Centurion and Hunchback were sold off to someone local, which had enough money on hand to pay for them. The headless Crab was packed down in a cargo bay on the White Rabbit, waiting to go to its new home that was a very long way away. It was a very busy day for almost all of the crew that called the three dropship's home.
The last thing Robert did was cover the cost of the clean-up from when the Archer went the way of the four winds or underwent a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Robert knew that you did not want the local security force to be mad at you, if you could help it at all. Because the next time something like this happened? They might not come over until the attack force has disappeared into the night, taking whatever it was that the attackers had wanted. It was a fine line to walk between being a mark, being nice, and being too hard of a hard ass.
By the end of the fifth day almost all of the selling was done that Robert wanted to do. It was a mix of running out of stock, and anyone who could afford to buy his stocks, having spent what they could. MMM picked up twenty-five more Ultras on top of the two jumpships, but they also got a lot of money back with what Copeland had bought on planet.
Lora was able to work her magic and got the Leopard fusion/plasma engines that Robert had requested at a discount price. Lora and Robert had been outside when the three huge engines were being delivered, along with the much larger 700ton Star League V250 inter system engine for a Union class dropship. It was an impressive sight as the crates were dropped off and waited to be loaded on to the cargo class dropships.
Robert was not watching the four massive engines being loaded into the Trish and White Rabbit that closely. The smaller of the two cargo ships only got one of the engines. Lora had been very distracted on something that Robert could not put his finger on. About all he could tell was that something was wrong. When he saw the transports carrying the cars in their stackable crates that Lora had collected, he decided to go fishing.
"So, Lora. You have done well for us on this trip. But you look like someone killed your pet last night… or something?" Robert had turned snake quick to see if her face would give anything away as he went fishing.
Lora did not look over at Robert, only kept watching the approaching huge transports full of cargo. After a long few seconds, she made quick eye contact, then her eyes went back to the moving cargo transports. "I was just thinking that with this invasion. Maybe it would be nice to go with you all when you leave again." She was not going to say the word home, not where a parabolic mic might pick up that word.
"So that is it", thought Robert. It was not uncommon, that something like this was brought up as a passing thought among the families that had come to the Inner Sphere. He felt like she had put a lot of time into this idea, and it was not just a passing thought. She was a lot different than any of the other family members he had dealt with over the decades.
"If you leave this world, thinking that you will get away from a war. You might quickly find yourself in another one, somewhere else." Robert was walking a thin line, but he wanted to make sure his gut was telling him the right things. He didn't think that she was fleeing a war that was a thousand light years away. She was thinking about leaving for another reason.
Lora's head snapped around and fire blazed in her eyes. She was Clan Wolverine, and the breeding was showing threw in those eyes. "I am not running from a war, Robert! My people here have been at war for my whole life, don't bother to deny it. I also have heard the others on the dropships talking about a war going on back home. Now, don't get mad at them. They are very careful not to say with whom, but it must be important for you to make so many supply runs in so short amount of time. I want to help, and I don't feel that I'm living up to my potential out here." She had let the word home slip out and she didn't care. Not after someone had accused her of cowardice.
Robert let his face freeze as the woman talked. He was going to have to be careful not to break the protocols. "Lora, there is a war going on back home. And you have been very helpful with what you have done here to support your birth family. I don't think you know how helpful you have been to our people. But you have been very helpful to me, and that has in turn been helpful to your people." He had not said one lie, in what he had just said.
Lora gave a sad smile and a little side to side head shake. "I know that I am being useful, but it seems so hollow. I'm not the only one who is asking or wanting to leave the "area". After all, why make everyone who came out memorized that ancient song as a recall code. At least, not if there was not a way or a plan to get them back home in the first place?"
Robert could not hold his face still for a few seconds, and he could tell that Lora had picked up on it the second after she had finished talking. She had just hit him in the guts like a Heavy weight prize fighter hitting a 6 year old.
"What recall code song?" Robert had no idea what she was talking about. He had thought that all of the Families that took part in this mission, knew that they were on a one-way trip.
Lora shoots a questioning look, at the merchant captain. Then she looked around the area to make sure there was not anyone close by. Robert and Lora talked about things that the families had to do and be tested on, before they came to the Inner Sphere. The two cargo masters and Jess saw the Convoy commander and the local Factor talking, and by the faces they did not want to be disturbed. If they needed to, they would run interference for the leadership and anyone that might intrude on the small meeting. Even this close they had no idea what the pair was talking about.
More and more cargos were loaded into the two massive bays of the well named Mammoth class cargo ship while the two talked in private. After about two hours of Lora retelling stories to Robert, that her mother had told her about what her grandmother told her as a young woman. They were about what they had to do before they made the great leap from New Circe to the Inner Sphere. It was a very enlightening story, that Robert had never heard before. Not even with all the contact that he and his family had with the other Families spread over the Inner Sphere over the past century. After about half an hour of Lora going into her story. Robert took shorthand notes and started working on several plans in his mind. The story was detailed in all of the right places, and he did not think that Lora or more to the point, her mother would have lied to her.
###########
When it was time to leave, the Trish Edion was over half full and packing a hundred each of Sherpas, Bulldogs and Pitbull type cargo trucks. It was almost every one of those classes of cargo trucks for sale on the whole planet. They were joined by three dozen 50ton Burro II super heavy cargo trucks, and two dozen workmechs of different types. There also were lots of other tools that New Circe could use, along with heavy transports and some nice passenger hover cars. They even picked up a few thousand tons of cargo from one of the local MMM departments. This was charter materials to be taken to the other MMM facilities on Canopus and who knew where it would go after that. It was one of the cards Copeland had to take to deal with the attack. At least the guard lance was happy with their side deal, with them buying a dozen freezers on the side.
It was a very productive six days for Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company. Robert was happy and so were numerous mercenary groups, militia units, and of course MMM going all the way down to some middle manager levels of that company. One of the advantages that the attack had done, was to increase the security level of the whole drop port, and if rumors were right. The same was true on most of the minor drop ports around the planet.
The White Rabbit 2's Star league grade equipment was able to pick up where the special reaction team of MMM was able to find and raid a smuggling operation on the other side of the main drop port. They had no idea if the leads had come for that mission had been from recovered data of the attack on Robert or not. It was something that Robert was not going to waste the political capital to find out. How they got the information was of little importance, only that they were doing the jobs that they were supposed to do.
Robert transmitted heartfelt thank you messages to Lora and McDonogh before the three dropships lifted off the drop port. Robert had told Lora that he would think about what she had said, but for her not to do anything drastic. He also told her that this was the first time, which he knew about a recall code of any kind. That had not gone over well, but she trusted Robert enough, that she did not think that he would lie to her for no reason. He did make sure to retell her again, that she was helping their people out in a major way with what she was doing in this part of space.
The run out to the jump point was covered by the four upgraded Ironsides fighters working two on and two off for the Combat Space Patrol for the entire run to the jump point. About the only major items on the list, that had not been picked up was another pair of upgraded mechs. Everything they had seen for sale, only had the updated Freezers class of heat sinks and the Armstrong Spitfire JU22. Both items that were based off of items that New Circe had access to or were based on items they had sold lately to MMM. The next major planet they were going to visit might have a better selection of mechs for sale on the open market.
While they had the many day's long trip back to the jump point, not everyone got some down time. Jess and Robert put as much data, as they could together, to brief not only Jules but the rest of the command staff and officers. They used the images and the databases that MMM had finally given them, as the core of their brief. The three dropships had just flipped to slow down to line up at the jump point, when Jules sent them a priority message. It was that he needed to have a full staff meeting, as soon as the three dropships attached themselves to the larger jumpship. The coded message did not give any hint on what this meeting might be about, just as it was supposed to do in a situation like this. This made Robert think very hard about what his friend had found out while the two groups had been separated by a few billion kilometers.
###########
The White Rabbit was the last of the three dropships to attach to the jumpship, and by the time that Robert, Jess, and the other Dropship's captains could make their way to the access point. All of the other senior staff members were in the meeting room waiting for them to walk in. By the time that they were able to walk into the room, news had already leaked out. Jules also had found out that the invasion was from The Clans. With the cat now truly out of the bag. Jess leads off with the briefing with everything they were able to find out about the invasion. It did not take long for the briefing to show that the general rumors Jules and his crews had found, were very thin on the ground with any real facts on the surface.
The entire staff and that included Jules were very uncomfortable, but now that the shock was over for the most part. They had more control of themselves now that their fears were being addressed by facts that had been found out. That is until Jules and the group from the HPG team started with the brief they had been working on in private. Hearts started beating fast and sweat started to poor off of faces around the room and it only got worse the longer that they talked.
Jules pointed to the screen that was behind him. "Everyone knows that we have been able to break more and more codes that ComStar uses in its day-to-day operations. It looks like they are using this star system as a communication hub for a lot larger area of space than we first thought. Not long after we arrived in the system, on this run. We have picked up some new coding groups, which we have not broken all of yet." Jules shot his long-time friend a look as he continued his brief. Some of what was found was only thinks to that time lost cutter.
"What codes that we have broken, have been a fountain of information so far. We found references to Clan Wolf, Clan Smoke Jaguar, ilKhan Leo Showers, Ghost Bears, and about a dozen names that we know to be Blood Houses for the clans. What we don't know is how ComStar is getting this information."
Jules flipped through a few more slides displayed on the screen behind him and then stopped. "This is a lot more information than what one of the top twenty weapons manufactures in the Inner Sphere has been able to come up with. We think that we have found out, that ComStar is giving the Clan forces information about Inner Sphere military units and other Geopolitical data on a broad scale. It has been concluded that ComStar or a large part of it, is helping the Clans in this invasion of the Inner Sphere. What we do not know, is why they seem to be helping them in the first place."
Robert looked over to Jess, but she was in deep thought going through the raw data the jumpship team had collected on her computer. He started shaking his head, as he worked through the whole briefing in his head. He was having a hard time believing that ComStar would be helping the clans, even with the briefing and notes that he had been given before taking this mission. Then again, the SLDF had help Blake set up the group in the first place. But he knew that the Clans were not the old SLDF. They had changed a lot since leaving the rest of the Inner Sphere. They had even undergone a lot of changes after Clan Wolverine had left that part of space.
"Those fools rule Earth! Don't they know what will happen, when the Clans reach the Birth World? They will put all of those robed crazies in one of the lower caste cleaning floors for the rest of their lives." The Captain of the White Rabbit was only saying what everyone in the room was thinking or would be thinking over the next few months.
Robert looked around the table at all of the people in the room. No one said anything about what had just been said. Jules finished his show and tell, and then he took his seat again. Robert took the opening and brought the rest of the staff up to speed on his plan. According to "The Protocols" all of the Captains had to agree on what to do next in this situation. Normally this would have been something with like fifty or more people voting, but this group was a lot smaller. With all of the cards on the table supplied by Robert, Jess, and Jules. They all voted and agreed to keep with the plan and make one more supply run. It would be up to high command to decide if they would come back or not for a fourth run. The one thing Robert did not tell them about, was the recall for the families that had been brought up by Lora.
Later that night when most of the ships were settling in for night shift. Robert walked the corridors of the long jumpship. He started to hum to himself without realizing he was doing it. It was an old song from his days in boot camp.
"Over there, over there
Send the word, Inner Sphere don't despair
'cause the Star League's coming!
The Star Leagues coming
The Three-Three-First will soon be there!"
The Styx left the system with a lot of extra cargo and on time early the next morning shift of the nearby station. She also was watched by many different agencies as the Tramp winked out of existence in this star system to appear somewhere else. Some were thinking about how this company could help them, and others were working on how to end them. The number that wanted to end this company, now outnumbered the ones that wanted to get help from them. That was a very dangerous transition for Robert and the ships under his command.
##########
15 July 3050
Outreach
Commanders Update Briefing.
Colonel Stanford Blake was the head of the intelligence arm for the Wolf's Dragoons. He hated larger meetings as a rule, and he also knew that Jamie hated meetings on this scale as well. The larger the meeting? The more both men hated having to deal with them. With the Clan forces invading the Inner Sphere, the number and size of the weekly and daily briefings had grown almost overnight and showed no signs of stopping that growth. That didn't mean that the amount of work done had grown with the size of the meetings. It seemed like it was quite the opposite in fact now that all of the units of the Dragoons were on one planet.
The meeting for today was called The Weekly Commander's Update, and it would last for at least 3 hours. Not only were Jamie and his key staff here for this update, but also each of the major commands were represented with their commanders and at least two subordinates attending. It did not matter if the unit was the Home Guards, Alpha Regiment or Zeta Battalion. Everyone was here to find out what was going on around them. After all it was not like they could just turn on the local news show and get a run down on what was happening. Well, they could, but the information would have been suspect at best and totally wrong at worse. Besides the Dragoons were not known for giving a lot of interviews to anyone who was not one of them.
Colonel Blake had to mentally shake himself to get back into the briefing. They were just wrapping up the list of planets that they knew had fallen to the Clans and the ones that would soon fall. The very young Wolf Net briefer was just finishing up. "So far we know that over fifty worlds have fallen to date. We also know that there are only four clans currently directly supporting this invasion. The Clan that has taken the most planets is, not surprising, Clan Wolf. We think that the rest of the clans are having or will be having support issues for combat operations, if they keep their current pace. Those other clans are not known for long term planning." The briefer waited for half a minute before taking her seat. The meeting at this level was not going to cover the list of planets that might next be on the chopping block the Clan military had brought along.
The head of supply and support for the whole Wolf's Dragoons was next to brief. "We are making as many clan weapons and combat end units as we can. We are now above the level of hand making each one, but we are not that far ahead of that level of production. Most of Zeta has Clan mechs or their machines have been completely refitted with clan level weapons and other systems. All of the rest of our front-line units have/are in the process of being refitted with recovered Late Star League weapons technology. I hope to have another new Kinslaughter H-Class ER PPC line in production by the end of next month. We hope that this will ease some of the supply issues we are facing with this wholesale upgrading we have been undergoing."
"I am sad to say, that currently Blackwell Heavy Industries is at their maximum production level of all end items. They are even selling all of the spare parts that they can make or had put back for our use, that we now no longer need due to this upgrade program. It is not just recovered tech that is flying off the shelves as fast as it can be made. It is anything that is remotely military related that is moving like hotcakes at a free breakfast. Without counting the output, we have been able to rebuild on Outreach. We have only been taking about 25 percent of the pre-invasion output from Blackwell going to others outside of our units. This is down from the early days of our first rebuilding when we had over 75 percent of Blackwell's production going to outside entities."
This information got a few of the Regimental leaders mumbling. Those sales were used as a way to fund the rebuilding of the Dragoon's after the 4SW. The Dragoons had taken to selling more of the industrial output after first helping that company grow from a small parts support company. Sometimes those sales had been at the expense of fielding new combat equipment to those rebuilding Dragoon units. It had not happened often, but it had happened. And every time it happened it was deeply ingrained into the memory of those unit leaders that had to wait longer to get replacement parts to get another mech, tank, or fighter back into operation.
The Home Guard Major kept talking, if maybe a little faster, to cut off any issues that the other leaders might use to try to highjack her part of the briefing. "The funds raised from those sales have been used to fund the H class line, the expansion of some clan weapons production, and other areas of R and D that we have been waiting to do. If things keep to our plan? I think we will be able to get up to 40 percent of our active units with some clan tech by the end of this year. If we can get more funds, or we get some salvage that does not cost us too much to acquire? Then that number will get higher, we just need time and a lot more funds." She kept talking for the next twenty minutes.
Major Michi Noketsuna from Wolf Net almost had to push the other briefer out of the way. It was a well-known fact, that she was a glory hound. And she often spoke about things that were outside of her job or even knowledge base. "I will cover some of the latest tech deployments and give our esteemed Home Guards commander a break. We know that the FedCom is pushing up the Black Box K-4 fielding. Most units that have the alternative HPG equipment are still using the K-3 or some of the older black box technology. We might be able to replace our K-3's with our own K-4s in the next few months. The plans for this new style of black box are on the way to us, as we speak. In short, the new devices message speeds are up to one hundred light-years per day, with a range limit of around six hundred light-years before the data degrades. If this rate of improvements keeps up? In the next few decades, the black box could be a replacement for strategic and even some tactical HPG missions across the FedCom."
The Black Box technology had been a surprise to the ex-Clanners, when they first found out about this type of device in the middle of the 3039 war. The Dragoons and the Clanners had only known about the HPG as a way to send messages across interstellar space. When they had found out the FedCom had not only found, and copied the device called a black box. It had come as a major shock to the leaders of the Dragoons. Then they had learned that the scientist of the FedCom had been steadily improving them, and this had come as another major shock to the onetime scouts for the clans.
Wolf Net had been able to get the designs specs and then put them into limited or hand-built production of the K-1a device. This breakthrough had been continuously and closely watched by Wolf Net. They would "acquire" any upgraded black box technology, and then they would build them for Wolf's people to use. It had not been cheap or easy to do this, but by now each unit commander knew how important it was to have a way to send messages. A way that ComStar could not intercept or modify was key to their continued existence.
Michi let the mumbling come to an end, before he continued. "Every major power is making as many recovered weapons as they possibly can. The problem is getting them into the field, and then having the right skills to use and maintain them effectively on the battlefield. This should not be a surprise to the people in this room. What has been a surprise, is where an unusual high percentage of the recovered weapons tech is coming from."
He could see all of the backs in the room get a little straighter as they understood what had just been said. "We have known since we worked with the FWL. That we had to keep our eyes on the political bodies that made up the cores edge, and in particular. The Magistracy of Canopus and the areas around it. The later has always seemed to have more mechs and fighters in operation, than their known manufactory capabilities could account for. Over the last few years, we have seen a massive increase in the amount of recovered weapons technology coming from that part of space. We have been tracking this for some time and we think ComStar has also notice this odd little fact."
If ComStar had taken notice of the goings on in the MC? Then that should mean that the Dragoon's were also interested in what was going on in the MC. The room was quiet as he looked around and tried to gage the room. "We know that over the last four years or so, that ComStar has dumped a lot of resources into this area of space for reasons unknown to us or our contacts in the FedCom. We know that they launched a major operation in late 49 in the MC controlled areas. They did it so fast that we didn't know about it until it was over."
Very few people knew about the second mission that had used warships. Warships that the Dragoons had no idea that ComStar had access to until after ComStar had lost three of them. Jamie had ordered that information held only for a very limited viewing. It would not be covered in today's meeting, or someone might lose more than their hide at the Wolf's hands.
"Now we know that it was against Majesty Metals and Manufacturing, and a group known as Copeland Supply and Resale. We have spent some time and coin into looking into this old company, and this Copeland group are a little odd. But we think that this Merchant captain seems to have found an old SLDF depot of some kind and recovered it. They have been sprinkling these Star League trinkets around the whole area for an unknown number of years. It seems that MMM used this information and started building their own copies of Star League weapons. So far they have been able to put many hundreds of H-class ER PPCs onto the marketplace."
On the surface, this was not news to the people in this room. The whole Inner Sphere had been doing the same thing, just with help from the recovered Helm's core and a lot of money thrown into those projects. Some of those projects, like the FedSun's Freezer had been at the limited testing level even before the discovery on Helm.
The Wolf Net officer kept talking at his measured pace. "At first MMM and the MC were not that high on our watch list, except, for maybe as a possible sources of recovered star league tech weapons for our own units. Now it would seem, that both groups did have a few runs in with ComStar or groups that might have been hired or worked with ComStar. I should note, that in every run in between ComStar and their hirelings. Those groups have not fared that well against MMM or this odd little supply company. We think that this Copeland group have been getting a lot of help from MMM and the MC's Intel and government services to both survive and win against the might of ComStar. This all started with the sale of some small jumpships to MMM and it quickly grew from there."
"MMM has went from making about 30 mechs, the same number of tanks along with a few aerospace fighters, and one to three Leopards class dropships a year. Now those numbers have more than doubled across the Mech, tank, and Aerospace fighter lines. Now they are making at least six upgraded Leopards, Unions, Fortress, and now Lion class dropships a year. That does not count the number of jumpships that are now coming off a rebuilt line in Canopus. Besides offering updated machines in their historic lines, they have also started or have put in full production lines for King Crabs and Clints. They had also become "the Place to stop" for any jumpship and dropship repairs. We have reports that the CC and FWL boarder units are rotating any capital repairs threw the MC instead of going through their own governments.
"Even doing all of this? The MC has a higher upgrade rate than any of its other neighboring powers. They have even been selling a lot of weapons to the League, the Cappies, FedCom, Combine or Mercenaries that have deep enough pockets seemingly at will with a bottomless largess to tap. That has not stopped the MC from now fielding 80 percent upgraded machines in their whole Main line order of battle. Their militias are getting a lot of hammy down weapons and for the first time since we have been in the Inner Sphere, those units are at full strength. If they don't start making new units or expanding existing ones. The planetary militias might start selling off older units just to make room for fresher ones, if not updated tech ones."
"We knew that the FWL had a problem supplying enough PPCs for their needs that dates back over 100 years. Now this well-known supply issue seems to have been fixed without them building or repairing existing production lines. MMM and the MC have enough extra production, that they have filled the PPC needs for the whole FWL as well as their own." Information was still thin on what had been found on Cate's Hold. Wolf Net knew about the rumors, but it was so outlandish that it was not being taken as whole truth this far from the source just yet. The leaders of Wolf Net were not looking forward to briefing this large of a group if even part of those rumors turned out to be true.
This got the room to mumbling again. The Wolf's Dragoons had never worked with the MC in all of the years that they had been in the Inner Sphere. They were a little too small to be able to afford the Dragoon's price tag for their skills, much less paying for a unit the size of the Dragoons. Every other major power had the Dragoon's work for them at one time or the other. But none of the powers on the edge of what most thought of as the core of explored space had contracted their services. That didn't mean that Wolf Net did not keep an eye on some of those more minor powers. You never know when you might have to launch a mission against one of them for a long list of reasons. One of them might be in reference to finding an old Star League base, like what had been found in Cate's Hold or that might be in Out World Alliance space. Before the recall sent by the Clan council, over a third of Wolf Nets budget was spent on the edge of the Inner Sphere.
"We have ordered some major parts from them to keep our Lion class dropships in operation starting back in 49. I know that some thought has even been given to ordering new built dropships from MMM, and Wolf Net cannot come up with a valid reason to say no to that idea. We feel that adding a dropship production area would be better, but costly on Outreach. Now the main reason to bring this up to this body, is a new and improved extended ranged PPC. They are marketing them as the Bear Slayer class ER PPC."
Michi stopped talking as eyebrows went up around the room. It didn't take them much time to connect Bear Slayer with Clan Ghost Bear. A clan that the Wolf's Dragoons had known very well, before they had come to the Inner Sphere and not in what most people would call a good way. Clan Wolf and Clan Ghost Bear had been at each other's throats more times than could be easily counted. There were a huge number of inappropriate jokes that some of the older hands would break out after dragoon only parties, but only after they had too much to drink.
"Wolf Net does not think that MMM came up with this design all on their own, despite what they are saying in the trade papers to the contrary. Before anyone gets the idea in their heads. This is not just a reflagged ER PPC or even an H class weapon with a new wrapper for the public to look at and mech jocks to drool over. It is something different, totally different from any other weapon in use for the Inner Sphere if not beyond. We have been able to publicly order four of these weapons from MMM without any issues from the locals. They were not cheap, and we had to wait in line as well as pay for them in cash as soon as the weapons came off the production line."
"I will say that Blackwell might want to send someone out there to see how they are managing that feat without dealing with a lot more bruised egos. One is being tested at a black Wolf Net site while the rest are on the way to us here on Outreach on a MMM chartered dropship. They are coming along with more of their products that are going to other merc units on the planet."
He gave a head nod, and a Wolf Net sergeant went around to pass out a glossy sale sheet to the other members of this large meeting. As "luck" would have it, he was short by 4 sheets. It was an old game that Jamie like to play to show that a meeting had grown too large. The funny part was that sometimes it even worked.
"I have passed out an advert for the weapons that is public knowledge for those who buy or have access to certain trade reports. They are listing each of the Bear Slayer at a cost of almost a million C-bills per weapon, but that is not what they are willing to sell them for them even if they don't like you. On a side note, on who can buy the weapons. The MC and MMM are working and investing a lot of time and money on making sure that ComStar does not get their robed covered hands on one. The threat is that if they get one from a client, then that client will not be able to buy products from MMM anymore. MMM will sell anything else they make without this stipulation, but not the Bear Slayers. Our sources tell us, that MMM and others within the MC are only selling to ComStar at retail + pricing no matter what they might be buying." The Wolf Net briefer could not help but smile at thinking about someone else milking the ComStar cow and getting away with it.
"Now if you would look down to about the middle of the sheet. The Bear Slayer is advertised as massing the same as the H-class weapon. It also has the same bulk and the same range as that famous Late Star League weapon. But the kicker and one of the reasons why it is being brought up to this meeting? They say that it is a 20 percent harder hitting weapon compared to any other ER PPC that is currently or planned to be put on the open or grey markets."
The room blew up and people came out of their chairs like someone had put power into the thin office cushions. He had to talk over the group, but he first made eye contact with his boss and then to Colonel Wolf to make sure they were ready for this. Both men looked interested in the information, but they were not saying a word. "Yes, this was tested already by one of our people at our black site in the FWL. The weapon has the same range as the H-class, and it did have 20 percent greater damage at the same heat level as the H class weapons, we make and that MMM also makes and sells on the open market. We will find out more when the other 3 weapons of this type get to us."
The room still was in a full-blown uproar that would put any football stadium to shame when the home team scores the winning goal. "As of right now, I will say that someone has come up with an improved ER PPC." It was time to drop the bomb on the room. What he was about to say, was not known by anyone in this room. One of his researchers had found the clue, just before this meeting, about these new weapons. It was called the Commander's Update brief after all, and it was time to update "The Wolf".
"We have now found only one item, which was referenced to have something like this weapon. There was a mech piloted by Franklin Hallis, called the Pulverizer. It was reported to have been outfitted with something called an Enhanced ER PPC. They were made by "The No Named Clan" and as far as we have found out so far. It was not made by anyone else, not even among our old friends back in clan space. What if they found one of those old assault mechs? Clan records are not clear on how many were made or confirmed destroyed." Most people in this room had little to no idea about what weapons were used in what was referred to as the Golden Century. Most of what they knew was that it was the time of the first Omni mechs.
Now the room vibrated with the noise coming from the people in the room. It would take almost ten minutes to get the room back under control. Even then it took Colonel Wolf banging his fist on the desktop in the end along with a few sharp looks to get the room back under control. Jamie stood after the room was quiet again. The ball was in his court, but he was used to being the one that needed to take charge. He was known as "The Wolf" among a huge part of the Inner Sphere for a reason.
"I remember something about those types of PPCs. That Clan was going down a different path on the development of PPCs than the rest of the Clan was looking at. The rest of the clan went down a different route to come up with the ER PPCs that we are making. If I am right, then I think that we might be able to copy this weapon and make them on our older ER PPC lines."
The Head of Wolf Net had a sly smile on his face. Blake was not as surprised by this "new" information as his subordinates might have thought. "Jamie, that is what I think that MMM has done to get them into production so fast. It might have been with some help supplied by this Copeland or someone else that might be connected to him. We know that one month, they were slowly making ER PPCs that they called the Royal Flush. And then the next month they were making these Bear Slayers at a rate that was faster than the Royal Flush the previous month. I do not see that we could not do the same. We will have to check with Legal, to find out if we have any potholes we will need to fill with C-Bills to put them on the market. Or are you thinking about just putting them on our mechs in place of the H-class weapons, until we have enough clan grade weapons?" Jamie just smiled at the head of his Intel department.
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It would not go over very well with some of the older Dragoons, but the younger ones would accept the new weapons with open arms. Many of the more "classic thinking" old hands would have it pointed out about the Rampage and Zeus being so close alike and a few other issues. That mostly just made those old hands turn red and storm off mumbling under their breath about the younger generation.
By the end of August of 3050, the new weapons would be on the ground at Outreach. It would only take a few weeks more before the new Broadsword class Enhanced ER PPC could go into production on Outreach. It was made right alongside the H class and a slightly older designed ER PPCs being sold on the open market. New Valencia would not be up to producing these new weapons for almost a decade later. The Broadsword class IER PPC was one of many weapons that the Dragoons were not going to let out of there sight, in the short term.
On Outreach they would go into the field at a rate of twenty for every clan tech ER PPC, which were made and fitted to the Dragoon's war machines. It would be a tossup on who was more surprised by these weapons when they went into combat, the local house lords or the clans. Before those weapons were put into production on Outreach. Wolf Net put out a special and very private notice to their agents. It only said that they would like to set up a meeting between the Dragoon's and this Copeland's Supply, Salvage, and Resale.
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Franklin Hallis Air Base
– New Circe
By hotpoint.
Sharon Agathon nervously poked her head around the corner of the open hanger door to check if the coast was clear prior to approaching her Raptor. There were a few SLDF groundcrew servicing a handful of aerospace fighters, but the Chief was absent, so it looked like it was safe to enter free from the prospect of irate vocal molestation. Straightening up Sharon headed inside, making a beeline for her SLDF marked Raptor and returning a couple of salutes as she went.
"You!" an all too familiar voice exclaimed in English from behind, albeit with a strong Colonial accent. "I want a word with you" it continued as Sharon stopped and turned around, putting on a neutral expression.
"That should be 'I want a word with you Sir', Chief" Sharon corrected the non-commissioned officer, trying not to wince as she turned around. "Or Ma'am, or Captain would do" she added placidly.
Crew Chief Callandra Cale made a dismissive noise as she strode towards the pilot, her practical Colonial duty uniform differentiated from the rest of the groundcrew more by insignia and fabric colour than general design. "I could say it, but I wouldn't mean it and you know it" she stated firmly. "Sir" she added scornfully. "Do you have any idea how long it took my people to fix the landing gear on that crate?" she asked rhetorically, pointing at Sharon's Raptor. "Not to mention checking all the frakking wiring connections in case you knocked something loose when you ploughed into the ground."
"I didn't plough into the ground', Chief. I set her down as gently as I could" Sharon responded, knowing there was no chance of her version of events being believed. The physical evidence did not in any way support it, plus there were too many witnesses.
"Gentle landings don't result in knuckle-draggers having to beat steel back into shape with hammers, Sir" Cally spat back. "It was bad enough when you used to put dents in the flight deck on Galactica, but you actually cracked the frakking concrete landing pad outside."
Sharon sighed. "That was Boomer who used to…"
Cally switched languages from English to Caprican. "I know it was frakking Boomer, I shot Boomer, the problem is you fly exactly like her because you have her memories and for some reason, they didn't make you go to flight school to fix her crappy piloting skills" Cally interrupted. "Seriously did they make Eights fly that badly, so we'd never guess you were Toasters or something?" she suggested being far from being the first to do so.
The pilot forced herself to meet Cally's glare, which was intense enough that she suspected it could cut through Lamellar Ferro-Carbide. Despite the fact the Colonial NCO was the shortest person on the base, and petite with it, Cally was downright feisty, and scrappy to the point of outright intimidating many of the younger, less experienced SLDF pilots. More to the point the promotions which had accompanied her ongoing secondment to the SLDF, both training and supervising Wolverine engineers working on Colonial aerospace technology, made her a senior enough NCO that she could get away with getting up in the face of a junior officer, assuming she could get up on a convenient box to reach that high anyway.
Sharon was neither inexperienced, nor only a mere flying officer or lieutenant, but she had a lot of history with Cally, albeit much of it via the memories and actions of her 'sister' Boomer, and by choice she would have avoided this crap entirely. "Check my flight evaluation scores, I'm a good pilot" she protested half-heartedly, also switching to Caprican. "I've never actually written off an airframe…"
Cally rolled her eyes. "Good pilot my munchkin ass" she retorted. "You must have the depth perception of a waiter at a Pirate Petey's not to realize how close the ground is" she opined then paused. "They wear eye-patches" she explained just in case the Toaster turncoat didn't know that.
"I knew what you meant" Sharon told her, "Hera loves going to Pirate Petey's. Last time we went she got Karl to try on one of their stupid hats" she continued. "I guess you go there with Telegonus?" she asked, hoping to change the subject by mentioning Cally's son who wasn't much younger than Hera.
"Yeah, he loves it too, plus it's the only place where they serve spicy food in town" Cally responded, remembering her first visit to one of the small chain of restaurants and how good it had tasted after months of her mother-in-law's home cooking and meals at the base canteen. Fortunately, there was a Pirate Petey's not too far away from her new house in the suburbs. Geoff's own promotion to Captain a while back had made a decent sized place affordable, and if he made Major soon, they might even be able to get ahead of the mortgage payments. "Just do me a favor and don't go there for drive-through, you'll probably crash into the place" Cally added caustically.
"Hilarious" Sharon responded in a tone that indicated she thought it was anything but. "It's not my fault, if I concentrate my landings are perfect" she stated. "Literally calculating-machine perfect. It's just that pilots are supposed to fly by instinct and…"
"Are you trying to frakking say that your instincts are to come in too fast a pull up too late?" Cally asked incredulously.
"I guess it's another little part of Boomer lodged in the back of my mind" Sharon suggested. "I'm just glad I shook off her thing for Tyrol because that would have been weird."
Cally smirked. "Toaster incest you mean, what with you calling each other 'brother and sister' all the time" she joked. "I'm putting in a report and the next time my crew finds itself fixing the undercarriage on you Raptor. You'll find yourself waking up in a bathtub of goo on that Resurrection ship we captured. I'll even use the pistol I shot Boomer with for Old Time's sake."
"You can't around threatening to shoot officers Chief" Sharon chided. "Even as a joke."
"Joke my ass, it'll be mistaken identity. All those Eights look alike. She was acting funny, I thought she was an infiltrator. I'll apologize when I see her next" Cally replied, still smirking. "It's great being able to shoot first and ask questions later."
Sharon narrowed her eyes. "Just keep in mind that one day you might be a passenger of mine and if something goes catastrophically wrong and we somehow accidentally both go out the airlock you don't have the 'bathtub of goo' replay option. Munchkin"
"Just concentrate when you land and we'll never find out for sure if one of us is bluffing, Toaster."
############
Note:
Chapter length. Had to break this one into 2 parts due to length and time.
PPCs to the FWL. The MC knows how many ER and IER PPCs that they can make, so they are selling all they have in stock to make room for the better weapons. The FWL gets old weapons at retail prices that the MC does not want. Win/win for everyone but the MMM and the MC get a better deal than the larger FWL.
Wolf Net: They are on the other end of where the MC is at, and it will take time for information to get to them. Also, Wolf Net was not perfect and so they might get a few things wrong.
Recall code. It would be hard to find people who were willing to take a one-way mission without some chance of getting back home.
The song Robert was singing in the corridor.
Over there, over there
Send the word, Inner Sphere don't despair
'cause the Star League's coming!
The Star Leagues coming
The Three-Three-First will soon be there!
Clans beware
Say your prayers
Call it quits
''cause Sarah's Kits
Will meet you there!
Core-ward
We're jumping core-ward
And we won't jump back till it's over, over there!
By hotpoint
35