Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

by cliff.west

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

47. Chapter 47 1 June 3049

Chapter 47

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

1 June 3049

Gamma 1551 AW system.

High orbit Planet of Barbados

The SLS Styx and her two escorts popped into space 40,000km above the targeted planet. The only reason that this fleet had been able to accomplish this amazing feet of navigation, was thanks to the scouting of this system done by a pair of specially outfitted jump fighters many hours ago. This was a system that was well known to their enemies, even if they had not been knowingly been here in some time. Commodore Copeland was not going to risk his ship, much less was he going to risk his valuable cargo to that kind of threat. He had read the reports about how the Clan Council had removed this star system from all of their navigation records, but he was not going to risk his people on those reports. He had ordered his ship to stay in the deep dark of the space between the stars, while the system was being scouted for any threat by the smaller but more heavily armored assault fighters.

Jules and Robert had taken in each report from the scouting fighters and closely compared it to the filed information on this system. Things looked to have not changed that much, compared to the reports from the last Pilgrimage. What was noted, was that there was no one waiting for the return of the Star League in Exile or Clan Wolverine. The SLiE were a solid four days early for any meeting, thanks to the use of the Colonial made jump drive. The plan was for them to spend 60 days for the Pilgrimage to this planet before it would be called mission complete.

Robert took a few steps towards the jumpship's Captain. He did not want to step on his toes, and so he was sticking to a preplanned script. He delayed only long enough to take one more look at the life-giving world out the armored window. "Captain, I think it is time to let the liners go." Robert did a slight chin lift at the window, as he finished speaking to his longtime friend.

Jules had to fight a sigh. When he had been told what his next mission was going to be? He had been a little apprehensive, about "volunteering". There was a lot of brass going on this Pilgrimage, and that was going to cause a lot of stress for him and his crew. He was still not 100% over missing his chance to command a multi ship combat fleet to Nike's World, and that didn't help with his stress levels. A command like that, had been one of his long term goals in his life. He hoped that another chance would come up. While recovering, he had made a mental promise to not break anymore bones while on leave.

Jules and Robert had been told at least three times about the rules they were to travel under. That had lasted maybe a week, before the first breach of those rules had been made by some of those passengers. After that it had been a slow-moving land slide, which had not been fun for Robert or Jules to have to deal with. They had fewer problems with the ex Cylon Bondspeople and Colonials mixing, than they had with their fellow Clan members. The last day had been the worse. It was when someone of rank or the spouses of someone with rank, had demanded to know why they were waiting to make the final jump. That had happened about every quarter hour that they were in the space between stars. It only stopped when Robert asked that a guard be posted on the bridge hatch with orders to stun the next person not on the bridge duty list that tried to enter.

Jules pushed those thoughts to the side, and he did a half turn to an enlisted man a few computer consoles away from the pair of officers. "Let the liners know that they are free to launch, after notification has been sent to the bridge for the collar clamps needing to be retracted from their hulls."

The message was passed along to the two liners, and within ten minutes both 11,000ton passenger liners were on their way to the planet's surface. There was a completely different chain of command, which would cover ground operations and the contact with any visitors. It was assessed that those missions needed specially trained personnel. Besides Robert and Jules had their own missions to manage while the ground units did theirs. When it was time to leave this system for the run back to New Circe? The two liners would fall back under his command, and when they were re attached. The three ships of the fleet would leave this system for the now much shorter trip home.

The Styx could not start those new independent missions, for the rest of the day. She would need to stay close to the planet for a set period of time. They were to support the ground camps, which would be set up in a few key locations around the planet. But after that first full day of dedicated support for those ground-based operations. Then the Styx and the Hard Hat would start their own missions. The two carriers would stay close to the planet for a few days more, then they would join the larger ship on her secondary mission.

The Pilgrimage would start for those passengers carried on the Liner as soon as the ground around the landing area was declared cool. Knowledge of what they did on the ground was limited to those that were on the ground with them. Anyone on the other ships that wanted to walk on the planet's surface would have a chance over the next two months. There would be more than a few notes or reports made over the next two months for all of the missions being undertaken. Each person was also provided a special personal journal for the Pilgrimage.

The only major issue had been when the ground reported that they had picked up data that someone had landed on the planet and had visited the arch. This alert had caused Robert to send some of the small craft to the over dozen little surprises that had been left in this system over the years by the SLiE. They SLiE might have been told that this location had been wiped from all Clan systems, but they were not going to count on it with their lives. Starting on the second or third run back to this system, they had left a way to keep an eye on things while the SLDF was somewhere else. They were handmade by SLIC, and that was one group that knew down to the marrow of their bones that knowledge was power.

Each of the 18 holes in space had been filled with a 200ton modified Conestoga payload Satellite. The base model might have been known by the old SLDF Navy, but now it was fitted with 10 more tons of armor. And at its core, it had a powerful self-destruction mechanism. Then it had the most powerful that Clan Wolverine could make hyperspectral cameras, 6 different look-down radars, infrared Imagers, High-Rez image cameras, and Communications equipment that was designed to listen in on anyone talking. It also has a 250kg fusion reactor and 15 tons of non-reflective solar panels for long term power generation. The modified Conestoga had more or less over 100tons of the highest-tech spy equipment Clan Wolverine could give it. It also had a huge amount of data storage space for those systems to use. All of that data would be vacuumed out of those craft before the Pilgrims left this system for the long run back to New Circe. That timeline had been pushed forward with the report that someone had been on the planet. Ones that had not been smart enough to keep their presents very low keyed.

When the data was looked at from some of those assets. It was found that at the end of May of 3041, a Magellan class jumpship showed up at the Zenith jump point. The massive spysats had tracked a single dropship leaving what was known to be a jumpship only used by the ComStar Explorer Corps. The spheroid dropship had only been on the planet for 5 days, before it lifted off again and it made its way back to the jumpship that had launched it. There was no way to know what happened from the spysats, about what happened on the ground. But the ground based teams knew every step, which every person had made during those five days. They even knew who the ground mission commander was, thanks to some radio intercepts. Robert had no idea who Precentor Barton Bixby was, but Robert would work on finding that out the next time he made it to the Inner Sphere.

The spysats had provided some good news as well as some bad news. The good news was that as they went back in time of the recorded data. It was very clear that no one from ComStar had even try to look for anything that might be hidden in this star system, so the caches were safe. And the same was true for the intervening years from the last visit by SLiE. The bad news was that it was just lucky that the ComStar team did not stumble onto anyone already in this system. The spysats reported that the ComStar ship had missed a stop by from one of the small splinter groups from the core of one of the JarnFolk families. That might have caused some major issues, for all parties if they had bumped into each other. All Robert could do was pass along to their contacts in this part of space what they knew about ComStar. And then he would have to report back to New Circe, about the Explorer Corps getting close to clan space.

Robert did not take a day off while they were in this star system, he was always covering for others who needed or wanted to go dirt side for whatever reason. He was reviewing some of the key finds, which had been found on the side scouting missions on the way for the Pilgrimage. Sometimes it had only been that they had confirmed the location of something that was known to the SLDF/SLiE and Clan wolverine.

That had been the case for the Volga class vessel Saratoga, and her brood of four old dropships. That sad old ship had her drive fail again after missing the battle in this system, and this time it was a lot more complex to try to make repairs. Instead of waiting and not leaving any ship behind. They had taken off her ship's crewmembers and passengers, and they spread them across the rest of the fleet of Wolverine ships. Then they had left the ship floating in the system that her drive had failed in, only three jumps from the Barbados system. They had also found the Carrack class ship Rawhide, a Cameron class Munich, and of all the surprises that had greeted them. They had found a Potemkin called Maverick. They also had found over a dozen different jumpships that were lost from the first Exodus fleet and from the different smaller Wolverine fleeing fleets. All of the data was checked, and old files updated, or in cases like most of the jumpships and Maverick. They had new ones made for the people back home to deal with.

Each location had been marked and in a few cases a Raptor had been dispatched to do quick inspections of the "targets". Some of the ships still head bodies of their crews within their hulls, and others were empty and were like ghost ships of the worst spoken legends. In the case of the Rawhide? There was not a body to be found on it, or in any of the dropships still attached to her battered outer hull. The newly found Maverick did not have a full load of dropships, and that was a little odd for a ship like her. What was the most distressing about that particular find? It was that the Wolverine ship was carrying not one Wolverine flagged dropship on her hull. There seemed to have been a dropship from every member of the remaining clan groups strapped onto the Potemkin. That was very odd, and it drew some attention of the rechecking scouting Raptor.

Robert had no idea what would be done with those ships. He was betting that someone, and he hoped that it was not him or people under his command, which would be sent out to recover them. He knew that each one of them were too valuable, to be left out here all alone. It would be extremely worthwhile to keep anyone of them out of the hands of the Clan or any of the Inner Sphere's major powers. The key was that any assets that the SLiE could keep out of the hands of the rest of the clans, the better for his people. If all else failed? Those ships could provide a nice source of spare parts for the rest of the active SLDF fleet.

That did not count what had been collected in this system. The powerful radar and other support systems were already getting detailed readings of the area well past the Zenith Jump point. Centered in the cluster of ice rocks were some artifacts. One was the old Widowmaker flagged Potemkin class Egg Sac, and she was not alone in that area of space.

She had been crippled in combat with the smaller Wolverine fleet in this system, when the rest of the clan had caught up to this one group of fleeing Wolverines. Past missions had recovered all of the easily repaired dropships. Each of the earlier Pilgrimages would bring back as many as they could, but rarely was there room for more than two or three dropships. There were a dozen wrecked dropships still attached to the pot marked hide of the old warship. Not far from this one warship was the Hunter's Pride, a Congress class ship. From what the SLDF had found out, many years after the battle. It was that the Smoke Jaguars had a new Congress built and given that name. Members within the SLDF Navy and SLIC were at odds on why the Smoke Jaguars had gone that route.

Also, on the outer edge of the star system were the hulks of the Mustang. She was another Congress class warship, and what remained of another clan Wolf's warship was nearby. She had been a Whirlwind class destroyer, that had suffered a drive failure do to what should have been only light combat damage. It was a small fleet all on their own, even if they had been even partially functional warships. That was why there was a powerful tug still in one of the other three collars of the Styx. High command was not going to waste this mission.

When the time was up, and the Styx had not been called to assist in the ground base operation. The ship jumped well past the Zenith point and released her tug. The experts in that ship had a full list of tasks to complete while the ground teams were doing their thing. While Robert and Jules were working in this system? The jump fighters would scout each of the nearby star systems. Before each mission, they were briefed that stealth was especially important to the continued existence of their people. On those orders over half of the total number of jump fighters were launched to look around the local interstellar area. This was a new type of mission that had never been done in this part of space by any members of Clan Wolverine in over a century.

15 June 3049

Cate's Hold

Colonel Mann was bone tired. They had to lift off the Cargo King again, to off load her now full cargo bays into the Colonial made Zephyr. This time, she had been filled to her maximum lift capability and maybe just a little more than was strictly legal. The port castle was massive, and they had been finding tons and tons of recoverable materials in what seemed like every hour of searching. They had even found a dozen external weapons turrets in some places, which on hindsight, seemed very logical locations for those turrets to be.

They had not been able to hide finding so many of these weapons turrets, and after hearing "rumors" passed to them by one of the local trade factors dropping off a load of fresh food. Mann had decided to not try to hide the "finds" of those turrets. She even traded most of the weapons found on those turrets. They were mainly LRMs, SRMs, Autocannons, and recovered armor plate. They were going to the local militia and to some of the mercenary units that were also using this planet for R&R and to do some "safe" training. Those two groups had paid the published or book going rate for the weapons and armor plate.

Mann knew that they were not that impressive as only age of war tech weapons, and she had made sure to not over sell the items to anyone looking at them. It was too bad that all of the ammunition was….not useable. It still was fraking dangerous to handle, as her people working on stripping out the turrets they had found could attest to. There had been more than one not small explosion while dealing with that old ammunition. It was impossible to hide these not so little and very loud surprises, when they happened on lots controlled by the Colonel. The additional funds of those weapon sells had been used to buy supplies and other items that also were going to the jump point. They were going along with the items that they were finding. As far as anyone knew on the planet? That was all that was going off planet, along with some very carefully camouflaged "found" weapons that Mann wanted some of the locals to know about. The real camouflaged had been tested on the second launch by some of the local "customs inspectors". You would be surprised how hard it was to make a combat tank, not look like a combat tank.

When the first few issues had happened, while dealing with that old ammunition. Right until then she had hoped that they would not be notice, but they had been noticed. Even after they started trading some of those weapons to the locals. They were getting over very high, like orbital, over flights every day. And the number of people trying to see what was going on within the 16 areas they had been granted access to, was climbing at an alarming rate. The Colonel was worried that they were on a massively shorter timeline. Her line of thinking was interrupted by people coming into the room that she had claimed as her office. It was time for the morning meeting. She was about to ruin everyone's day. The lucky part was that she had put it in motion a few days before, without letting most people know about it.

It was now late afternoon. On a ridge overlooking the edge of the property line, which had just been remarked by the local government a few days ago. The marked line was there for a very good reason. The local law enforcement had been called out after one group got over 300 meters into the occupied land on the other side of that line. It was just bad luck that some of the local leadership had been visiting the dig site when the intrusion was detected. This time they were not just going to have a look at what was going on. It did not take that much skill to notice, that the group under observation were getting ready to leave. They were going to leave, and they were taking a lot of stuff, which should be his.

The man made a sour face for the rest of the group to see. They were supposed to be on the ground for at least another month. The group they were watching was not a "real" military unit, but that didn't mean they did not have combat power. There were very few units or companies that did not have at least a company of heavy infantry, tanks or a few mechs to call on for defense. This local "team" was just a group that had started to be gathered at the local watering holes, and it had been centered on Jacob Monoth. The group had been meeting in a local pub for weeks, and it had slowly grown in number. At one time it was as large as forty people in one drinking establishment. They had been "angry" about the new group poking around looking for "their" treasure.

Jacob had been saying all along that this group needed to share what they were finding with all of the other diggers. More to the point, they should be sharing with them. They must have found something, and when the first ammunition dump explosion had happened, it had added fire to his speeches in those meetings. Most of the group were the down and out types, having spent all of their money into looking for any Star League trinket. They had no idea that they were acting not unlike the claim jumpers, going all the way back to the numerous gold or silver rushes in Earths dark history. The group had almost doubled in size over the last week for any number of reasons, after rumor of more explosions had spread around to the right ears

What no one knew? It was that "Jacob Monoth" was not from Cate's Hold at all, and that his name was not Jacob Monoth. He was Adept Rod Diels, and he worked for ROM as part of ComStar. He was a member of what was code named "Green Ghost" project. The project was keeping an eye on any group that might be looking for major or minor old Star League sites in and around the whole Inner Sphere. If one of the digging groups looked to have found something, that would upset the ideas of "Holy Shroud"? Then it and most times they, would be "removed" from whatever area they might be working on.

It was Adept Diels's job to get some of the locals worked up and to attack the location of this dig site. That had not worked as well as he had wanted. He had been having some success in getting two nearby small mercenary units, and even some of the key members of the planet's militia were starting to come over to his pushing to attack this group of new diggers. Then his target had changed the rules on him, without any warning.

They had started to sell and trade some of the low-tech weapons that they had found on defensive turrets "everyone" knew about. They even had not charged a "Star League fee" for those found weapons. On top of that? They had even helped the buyers clean and fix any issues those weapons might have, all free of charge. This act of magnanimous "support" had cut the support base, that he had been counting on to raid these targets off at the knees. He had wanted to have at least a full mech company plus other ground support in the form of tanks, trucks, and combat infantry. This group of diggers might only have two mechs, but they did have military dropships.

"Jacob" made a face like he had just found half a worm in his apple. Now he only had a lance of mechs, and two of those were "his men". He also had 4 trucks and about 30 armed legs to round out his "unit" of locals. That was not much, to do this kind of work and guaranty any level of success. He had "requested" to have some support sent out, but that support would not get here for another month and maybe two at the outside. He had been hoping that his target would not notice what was going on, but he could not keep "his group" under control for much longer. On their own some of the most hotheaded inclined of his group had headed across the property line. As it turned out, this had been both good and bad.

The bad part was that now they knew that the "heavy" mech detected walking around was a Black Knight. "Jacob" had read the reports about how the First Circuit had traded "hundreds" of downgraded mechs to the DC before what was called the 3039 War, and now there were reports that the Lyrans had been making some downgraded ones of the same type. Local rumor had it, that the FedCom had recovered a few of those "downgraded" combat machines in that last war between house lords. This group also had a Wolverine class machine, but it was hard to tell what model it might be, from the long list of versions made over the centuries. That was a good machine, but they had some known issues. Ones that he was confident they could exploit.

The good part? That was no matter how many times or what time this heavy support unit had responded to in incursion. It had only been those same two combat machines. They even had the same damage visible on both of them. All of the reports he could find had said, that they were only two defenders. His plan was to take out the two defenders and then wreck the camp site. He even thought they might take out what he thought was a modified Mule class dropship. The Lions and the Elephant were out of his league, with the limited forces he currently had on hand. He still should be able to surprise them and cause enough damage to get them to never come back.

After this group was gone? He was working on a few ways to make sure no one else would come back to this location on the planet. Or that they were going to be delayed long enough, that a team from ComStar could find out whatever was buried in the local area. As he was watching the "line". He was mentally leaning towards using an anthrax type of event or maybe a "leak" of a modified smallpox. It would need to be something like that so that it would keep the locals away for months, if not years. There was nothing like a small pandemic to keep any unwanted eyes and ears out of a certain area of a planet for an extended length of time. After all he had used those two types of bugs before, just not for this same reason.

These musings kept the Adept's mind occupied, as the sun slowly slipped below the horizon behind him. Jacob was startled back into the world by a slight tap on his boot sole. The Adept in hiding half rolled over, and he made eye contact with the other set of cold eyes. It was time. The Adept smiled an evil smile, and he pulled himself up from the dirt.

The other man quickly walked away. The four mechs had been brought out here under the disguise as being mining machines at night, a few days ago. The two heaviest hitters were coming from his hidden ComStar support. One was an 80ton Awesome 8Q with a well-documented FWL heritage going back a couple of hundred years. Next was a heavy Cataphract 1X that had come from the CC, but they didn't know that it was gone from their on-call order of battle.

The two locals had brought out a Vindicator that had been born within the CC, but it had been "sold" to a third-party decades ago. It also had a paper trail a light year long, and it had never been close to ComStar. The other pilot had a local MMM made Shadowhawk 2H, that had seen a lot better days or years. That should be enough firepower to take out two battlefield salvaged mechs without proper support.

That was when things started to go wrong for the ComStar supported mission. The two ComStar supplied machines were perfectly maintained. Even the Vindicator was a little above average shape compared to the rest of the machines that could be found in private hands on this planet. The Shadowhawk had been supported by a different maintenance regiment, one not supplied by her mostly drunk pilot. As soon as the power core came online, the energy surge spread out to the limbs of the old mech. Then a hidden militia IFF beacon activated in the old hawk's right ankle just above the foot actuator interface.

The command center on the current duty Lion would have only needed one of those two events to have happened, to alert them that something was a foot. It didn't take long before the two guard mechs were moving on a route to maybe intercept the nearby machine. At the same time the crews and passengers were running to defense points within the four dropships. Most of the heavy weapons were in positions and turrets fully operational before the attack lance came walking over the "fence" line.

Now that the command center knew that there were four mechs and seismic systems were picking up a second group approaching in some kind of trucks. The three military dropships dropped down a heavy ECM Field over the whole local area. The Richard III, the Cargo King also put out an ECM field, but it was less than half as powerful as the three other purely military ships. Still it was an invisible energy field that only the equipment provided by the SLDF military could ignore. With the falling of the ECM field, the ready mechs left the dropships. One Wolverine IIC left the Cargo King and a heavy Black Knight left one of the Lions. Those two mechs were the heavy hitters to block the onrushing force. It would take four minutes or less, for the rest of the lance made up of the three 75ton Black Knights, to leave the dropships.

Colonel Mann runs into the bridge and command center of the combined arms carrier. It took her only a few seconds to come up with a plan. "Send the heavy lance out as soon as they are ready and get the other two mech lances ready to deploy. Sound the recall to all ground teams. I do not think this is a group wanting to look around at what we are doing, and then be happy just leaving the area to have a few beers."

After the last meeting of the full staff, they had gone to only one but longer shift working in the newly found hidden SLDF base. Each night the slowest machine was pulled back into the two nearest ships. The loaders and hauler trucks were left close by each of the ships. They just happened to be near the thrust bells of the engines on those dropships. That hot plasma should have been able to obliterate any unwanted evidence those low-tech machines might still hold. Clan Wolverine did not like to waste anything, but they also valued security over a little waste of equipment.

The crews that ran those trucks and work mechs were still sleeping in the tents outside of the dropships. The weather was very nice, and the rooms in the dropship were very close quarters and they were a little on the Spartan side for long term living space. Some still had chosen to start packing up some of the camp sites less needed items. With the "recall" now given? Then everyone would grab their "go bags" and race for their assigned ship as fast as they could. With these orders given? All Colonel Mann could do was wait to see what was going to happen next.

Ernest Simon was a drunk, and he should not have been at the controls of a go cart much less a Shadowhawk class battlemech. Today he was an angry and hungover drunk. He had been an early joiner of Jacobs marry little band. He had been over the line half a dozen times. At first, he had wanted to "help". After all, this group had rented a large chunk of land, and there was no way they could look around all of it for old Star League gold. They had turned him away without even hearing his request or asking for much less looking at his file. In fact, on the third attempt at trying to contact the unit commander. They had called the local law on him. They had him removed like he was just another bag of trash. Now they were finding real Star League stuff, and they were not sharing it. That is unless you had pockets full of money. He wanted some of it, and he was not about to pay for it. He had been on this rock for almost 14 years. He felt like he was owed something, and now he was going to take it. If they wanted to get in his way? Well, that was okay with him.

Ernest pushed his abused machine to run as fast as it could when they all had crossed the line. When he had been ordered to get back in line with the heavier and slower mechs? He had turned off his radio and kept right on going as fast as his machine could run. That might have been why he didn't notice the ECM wall he ran through. Then again, he might have thought that buzzing coming over the speakers was just his hangover hitting a new level.

MechWarrior Mark Thompson had a thin little smile on his face. He had been under "cover" or in hiding in the cargo dropship when his systems told him about the approaching unit. He knew even before Command had told him that this was an attack, and he was weapons free. He had pushed his modified Wolverine IIC to its full speed, and he had quickly first caught up to the heavier Black Knight and then he passed him. While passing the larger machine, its active probe had passed updated and very detailed data to him on the threat. It showed the expected line of advance and the second group of ground vehicles crossing the marked No trespassing line. It only took Thompson half a second to see the icon of the old Shadowhawk moving away from the rest of the group of mechs.

"Spade 1, Claw 4. I will take the leaker. Do not let them draw you in." Thompson felt that he was in front so he could claim his target.

"Claw 4. I have been doing this longer than you have been alive. Get the leaker and try not to get blown out of your mech, again."

Thompson had to laugh, and it carried over the growing distance between the two machines of war. Thompson noticed that he was getting into a thin spot in the ECM field provided by the grounded dropships. With a flick of a switch, his system could see threw the clan spec ECM. About the only thing he knew, was that his target was in between 50 and 60 tons. The computer said it was a 55-ton Shadowhawk but the TT&S computer was not a 100 percent sure of this call. His target was as massive as his machine. His powerful scouting computers helps him find a place, that would block the current line of travel of the lead attacker.

Ernest was eye locked on the front of his cockpit glass. He was having visions of all of the valuables his 55ton machines two hands were going to be wrapping around, as soon as he scared the defenders back into their dropships. He had a slight smile on his face, right up to the point that a bright line of blue-purple balls of lightening from a PPC class weapon hit his machine. He didn't even notice the second line of blue-purple balls of lightening that had almost missed him. It was only because of Ernest high speed that he lived after the first strike.

Thompson let out a soft curse. He put his targeting reticle dead center of the charging 55ton machine. Then something happened to his target, and when he pulled the trigger interlock. The protective cover on the right arm Enhanced ERPPC opened, and the chest covering on the right concealing plate slides down and a third generation PPC was exposed for the first time. These weapons were a whole generation better than anything that the old Star League had ever made. The perfect shots had turned out not to be so perfect after all. One of the oddly colored balls of lightening hit dead center, but the second line of purple lightening hit low on the right leg of the running machine. The Streak SRM 6 did not lock up and so it saved its ammunition by not firing. Thompson started to sweat just a little as the heat load overloaded the clan grade heat sinks for just a few seconds.

The Wolverine IIC was a fully clan upgraded mech with a pair of the best PPCs that Clan Wolverine could make. This was not a supply run but a recovery mission of a Star League base. For something like this, the Protocols were not fully applied. In this case the factory installed LR PPCs had been downgraded to "only" Enhanced ERPPC. Normally they would have brought only mechs that were like what were seen in that local area, but with a second team packing the best weapons that SLiE could risk would be close by. Thanks to Robert's supplied information, a few surprises could be kept almost hidden in plain sight. Like the Wolverine IIC.

This IIC had come off the production line on New Circe in 3010. She was almost 40 years old, but she was still a nice fighting machine. This 55-ton Wolverine had more in common with the 70-ton Warhammer than it did with the Medium mech it was based off of. With the clan grade weapons it was packing, it was going to take a very good, very lucky, or a lot heavier mech to stand up to her. That is as long as the Wolverine pilot kept his or her head during the battle. The only rule that the pilots of these killing machines had to hold onto, was that they were not to "show off" the longer ranged abilities of these weapons. Again, thanks to Robert and the data he had brought back to New Circe. The range had been extended to what the old Royal Star League weapons could do.

The heavy hit done to the Shadowhawk caused Ernest to hit a secondary trigger and the five tubed launchers released a full spread of missiles. The five trails of sparkler like flames went arcing high into the air. Only god would know where they were going to land after they left the tube launcher. The five flares did alert the rest of the following attack lance that they were about to have company. Very few people would just launch 5 long ranged missiles, but Earnest did not know that. He was too busy trying to keep his "feet" under him at the twin impacts, and the shock of being fired at in the first place. He saw the dealer of his pain, but he did not fire again at it. He took his time, and he put some heavy trees between them as fast as he could.

Mark Thompson was mad at his lack of gunnery skills. He knew that he was a lot better shot than he had just shown the enemy mech. He had been hoping that he could have put down the old Shadowhawk in the first exchange. He noticed that the armor was almost halfway gone from that leg, and the center chest was now showing yellow after only one hit from his Enhanced ERPPC. He had no idea what the Hawk's war book had said, about what had just hit them. He was counting on them thinking, that anything that was this small. But was packing that much firepower, was going to be slow and thinly armored.

Ernest knew this area, and he thought that he might have "seen" were the "Wolverine" was going. He hit his jump jets and he flew over the trees on pillars of smoke and fire that was mostly hidden by the dark and the trees around his mech. He was looking in just the right area, and when Ernest saw his enemy. He fired his auto cannon and his short ranged but heavy warhead twin missile pod. He was rewarded with seeing the autocannon round and one of the heavy warheads strike the top of the mech near what he thought was the 6-pack missile launcher.

Mark was surprise by the ShadowHawk surviving the first attack, and before he could fire a second time, the 55ton machine ducked behind a thick stand of trees like it was a preplanned maneuver. He was willing to follow the other machine around the wood line. He knew that the longer he distracted the enemy mech, the more of his people were getting to their weapons. That was when Mark was surprised again.

He knew the capabilities of his machine, and he knew the capabilities of the Shadow Hawk 2H. If the shoe had been on the other foot? He would have avoided contact with his updated Wolverine. So, when the hawk came flying over the trees all while firing at him? It took him a half a second to respond to the surprise attack. He felt his machine rock under two attacks, but a quick check showed him that there was little damage done by the two strikes of enemy weapons fire.

Mark took his time as he watched the battlemech land, and just as the Hawk's "knees" flexed to absorb the last bit of energy after the jump jets shutdown he was ready. When the knees started to rebound and started to raise the machine again. Mark fired two Enhanced ERPPCs and the Streak SRM 6. The first powerful Enhanced ERPPC hit and tore the Autocannon completely off of the left torso of the enemy mech. The left arm then was hit with the second PPC removing most of the armor in that location. The light speed weapons were followed by the 6 fat short ranged missiles. All six missiles hit the target, thanks to the Streak guidance system, but they did not hit in one area. One hit the cockpit and the second one hit the damaged Center torso. The other 4 missiles worked their way down the Hawk from the center torso of the machine.

The heat in the Wolverine mech spiked and Mark shot a look to the heat gage out of second nature. The Alfa strike had pushed his heat high enough that he was going to lose some movement, and if he did not watch it his SRM reloads would cook off. That was dangerous, even with CASE built into this machine.

One of the SRM's hit, was the hit that had ended the battle. There were 47 reloads left for the twin tubed missile launcher on the ShadowHawk. Some of the blast energy from the Streak guided missile made it through the weakened chest armor plates and into the ammo bins of that weapon. The solid rocket fuel in one of the rockets did not react well to the heat of the blast energy of the enemy missile. This led to a chain reaction that caused the 94 warheads to detonate within a tenth of a second of each other. The whole chest area was shattered, and what was left of the old and once proud machine fell to the ground.

Earnest died so fast, that his brain didn't have time to tell the rest of the body it was done with this world. The flames that were leaking up from below, only charred a body that was already dead. Even if the auto eject system had not been broken? Earnest would have only been a dead body floating back to earth at the end of that short rocket ride.

Mark watched the machine for about half a minute, before checking his own systems again. It would take another half minute for the heatsinks to vent the massive heat load from the Alpha strike that he had just launched. While the heat was being dealt with, Mark wondered how his old Crab would have had handled this battle.

His old CRB 27b3 had started life as just another Royal Crab coming off the newly rebuilt factory on New Circe. It had flowed into the rebuilding military of the Star League in Exile by the company. Those early Crabs had been the easiest to make for those first three years of living in fear of being found by their enemies. Later they were joined by and increasing number of Mercury II, Hoplite 4Bb and the Clan Wolverine designed ST-24G Stag II. Later larger numbers of heavy designs rolled off the lines, and the older Crabs proved less useful.

The military did not just scrap all of those machines, both the ones they had built and the ones that had survived the run from Clan space. As new technology or factory capability was made available, the old Royal Crabs were updated as they had time and the resources to do the job. First the old engines were pulled out and a clan spec extra light engines and third generation heatsinks were added to the older frames. The old large bore lasers had not lasted in production past the mid part of the third year of landing on New Circe. The Wolverines had better PPC technology than the rest of the clans, when they left clan space. Those improved ER PPCs had replaced the gamma lasers on the later production mechs and refitted to the older machines. Later extended ranged medium lasers and better outer armor were added to those machines. This made this "new" Royal Crab a lot different of a beast, than what someone from the Old Star League would have known about.

Spade 1's systems had picked up the five flares and the pilot groaned. Her active probe had been able to tell her what she was facing. The three machines were still approaching her at a steady rate. They were anchored by the slower moving triple PPC armed Awesome class mech. Spade 1 had to find a way to delay the slower moving force. She didn't need to worry about the trucks that her active probe had picked up coming towards the camp. That data was sent to the command center, in real time. They would deal with them, or they would not. It was not her problem just now.

Spade 1 would have to deal with the attackers until the rest of Spade lance cleared the dropships. She was a speed bump, and she knew that she did not have to wait for the full lance of support to do her job. The backup ready team was made up of a set of Black Knights, and if she was a betting woman. They would be around soon. The last member of that lance would be rolling along with them. That would even the odds out quite nicely. She gave an evil grin. She was a speed bump, with an active probe in a heavy ECM battle. In a blink of an eye, her modified Royal Black Knight was moving at its rated top speed.

She came streaking in out of the ECM protection provided by the dropships at full speed, and she fired into the side of the oddly shaped Vindicator. She was not pushing her machine's heat levels, but the much-improved ER PPC and a clan grade extended range large bore laser reached out when the mech was at medium range. That would have been long range for "normal" inner sphere weapons of this type. The third ER Large laser blast was fired on the 70ton Cataphract on the other end of the line of enemy mechs. The attack had been so fast, that the enemy could not return fire on the attacker. She blew right through their skirmish lines like they were not even a threat. She had hit with all three weapons attacks.

Her return attack had started on the Cataphract, instead of waiting to line up on the lighter Vindicator for some more love. The two energy weapons hit low on the odd looking frankenmech. She also was able to get a single strike onto the broad back panels of the center mech of the assaulting line, the Awesome. This time she was fired on, and even hit… once by the attackers. It was from the arm mounted Ceres Arms Smasher PPC mounted on the Vindicator. She lost almost a ton of armor off the left arm of her machine, before she was again covered by the steadily strengthening ECM field and the supporting night of the area around her.

She looked down at the damage display, and then saw the reaction of the short lance to her twin attacks. They had not slowed their steady advanced towards the grounded dropships and the tent city it was supporting. She looked around to her different screens around her cockpit. The data they held was helpful, before she planted one foot and spun on it. She was rewarded with an audible warning that she was stressing her mech's old bones. She was tempted to fire into the backs of the formation again, but that was a long shot even for clan tech weapons.

In the end. She waited to make sure that her presence was lost in the static of the ECM being put out by the Dropships. When she thought the time was right, she started running again, and this time she hit the MASC. She had to bend around and off to one side, and she came slashing in on the Vindicator one more time. This time she did get just a little closer before she pulled the trigger on her powerful weapons. Hitting a moving target while you were running at full speed was not an easy task, even for a Wolverine Trained Mech warrior. She still fired only two of her heaviest weapons onto the smaller machine. Again, she was not fired on by the enemy battle line, even after getting the second hit on the Cataphract as she finished her run. This time the odd looking mech was hit with a pair of extended range medium lasers at the end of her run.

That was when she noticed a pickup in the ECM jamming. She slowed and let the heat dissipate out of her clan designed heatsinks. Before she could say anything or even realized the danger that her people might be in. Her active probe showed her the distinctive shape of another Black Knight class Battlemech coming out from behind a thick clump of trees. It was moving at the full speed that only MASC could provide. It had just run right into the effective range of the heavy weapons of the enemy mechs. ECM worked best on long ranged targeting, but within visual range attacks they were not affected that much.

The updated Black Knight was heavily armored, just like all of the Mechs the SLiE used. But when someone shoots five heavy PPCs at you, and at that close of a range? Some were going to hit you; it was just the way that the math worked. Then you add that two of those enemy pilots were not "green" but very highly skilled veterans into the equation. Then that started to stack the odds against the target they were shooting at. Four PPCs and one class 10 auto cannon burst hit the rapidly moving mech like they were guided weapons from hell. The MechWarrior felt something catch in her throat as she watched the 75ton machine come crashing down onto the soil like an out of control ground car. The nonmoving machine drew another spate of weapons fire from the attacking mechs. They might have fired again at the prostrated mech, but they got distracted.

Spade 1 pushed her attack without part of her brain knowing she was going to do it. She closed in on the attackers and fired with her powerful weapons. Her target was the Vindicator and her powerful weapons sent the machine crashing into the ground. She received a double dish of damage from the assault mech and a PPC hit from the Cataphract. All of the rest of the enemy's weapons fire missed the racing mech. For that damage done to her Heavy mech? The Vindicator had both of its legs blown off at the hips to torso interface. While the odd-looking machine was on its way down to the dirt. The pilot rose out of the cockpit on a finger of a short-lived flame. The ejection seat would take the pilot out of most of the dangers on the battlefield to night. In the soft glow of the just set sun, the pilot would have an amazing view of the battle going on under her feet.

Spade 1 was now very overheated, and she had to clear the area to let her heatsinks work. On her screens, she could see that the heavy and assault mechs were in the same condition that she was in heat wise. If the other second Black Knight had not been put down? She might have been able to take advantage of the overheating enemy machines. She would have to wait, and in that waiting? This attack force was getting closer to the grounded dropships. She started looking around to her other screens.

"Where the Frak are you Mark?" The Wolverine IIC was the rest of her duty team, and it was nowhere to be seen.

MechWarrior Mark Thompson was not happy. He had been almost halfway back to help his partner, when he had been ordered to change course. It would seem, that the trucks were getting closer to one of the hidden doors to the old Star League base that was not that well-hidden. He had no idea what was going on behind him, but he had a good idea. All he could do was bite his lip and push his mech to its top speed and hang on.

He crossed a low ridge and looked down into the valley below. He could see the line of trucks that he had been told to stop. They were way out of range of even his clan tech weapons. He looked closer at the trucks below him. "Well? Maybe I do not have to hit them." A slight smile crosses his lips as a plan more or less formed out of the blue into his mind.

The protective shells opened up again and this time only the two long ranged energy weapons fired. The energy waves flew through the air on perfectly straight lines. The massive waves of energy flew and struck very close to where the MechWarrior had aimed them. That was the nice thing about speed of light weapons when you were firing from a stationary position to a target that was also not moving.

The first truck was traveling down a wash that held a nice sized stream during the rainy season. They could not go that fast down the dried stream bed, not without damaging the undercarriage or making the people in the back even madder at the drivers than they already were. Then the dark ground about 100 meters in front of the lead driver suddenly changed. The small trees and larger bushes burst into flames. Now that there was a larger source of light that had not been there a few seconds before. It was not that hard to see where it had come from. The flash burned lines into the driver's eyes, and he stomped on the breaks as hard as he could.

The front passenger was first thrown forward to kiss the wind screen and then he went back into the seat, as his lips felt the heat of the nearby energy burst. They had no idea that the energy output they had just seen, was not enough to have damaged a combat vehicle of any kind. That didn't mean that it was not an impressive display. The driver was almost flashed blind, so it was the passenger that was able to track back the lightening to where the weapons fire had come from.

He slowly reached up and pushed the radio button. He didn't make any rash movements, because his life depended on it. "Everyone! Do not move! There is a big damn mech off to your right."

Mark saw that the line of destruction had stopped the trucks at his little fireworks display. After about two minutes of no forward movement. The last of the trucks started to back up, and then it turns around in this century's ugliest U point turn. It was traveling faster than it had come down that little valley, and Mark was having to almost run to keep up with the line of trucks. It did not take long for all of the trucks to head back the way they had come. Mark turned his radio so it would breach the ECM field when he had fired his warning shot. Now he contacted higher command, and maybe he could get back in the fight.

"Box, this is Claw 4. They are pulling back. What is the vector to the rest of the intruders?" Mark was more than ready to go back into the battle. He was just hoping that he could get there before his duty partner had to punch out of her mech.

It was maybe half a minute later, that a truck tried to cut cross country and head back towards one of the older dig sites. Mark did not waste another warning shot. He put an Enhanced ERPPC shot into the side of the thinly armored cargo truck before he really thought about what he was doing. He only saw the movement on is screen, and then he pulled the trigger for his right arm weapon to fire purple lightening into the dark colored wheeled cargo truck.

The voice that came back into Mark's helmet did not need to say who she was. Every one of the MechWarriors knew the sound of the boss's voice. "This is Box actual. Stay with those trucks. I do not want them trying to double back on us. The other two Mechs are closing on the Cargo King, just like I want them to."

Spade 1 was about to launch another attack on the half lance. She almost tripped over her 75tons mech's foot pads when a voice came through the built-in speakers, at a volume that should have made her ears blead. "This is Box 3 Charley. Do not attack! Hang back a little more Spade 1. The Boss wants them to see what the cargo hauler is packing. Just keep them from getting away after the show and tell is over. Spade 3 is holding at CP3."

She did as she was told. She had the idea that she was now the fence, and not the speed bump anymore. The Cataphract made a move, to make a pass by what were now empty tents and away from the dropships. She took up the challenge and exchange PPC and Autocannon fire from it. Only the Sarion MaxiCannon autocannon rounds hit her, but she got a hard hit with the Enhanced ERPPC and ER large laser on the enemy mech. Both of those hits were done to the Cataphract's left leg. She could tell that she had gotten something important as she pulled back out of range of even clan tech weapons. The machine now was not moving very well, as the impact and heat damaged armor fell away from the impact points. Now the mech lacked the fluid movements that it had just a few minutes ago. That didn't mean that it was out of the battle.

She pulled back and assessed her combat machine after the exchange of weapons fire. The last hit had taken out a pair of her heatsinks, but her machine was still at almost 80 percent combat effective. While she was looking at a side read out. The world explodes in sound and bright flashes of multi-colored light.

When the Cataphract had shifted over to get a better read on one of the two Lion class dropships near a line of tents. The Awesome had slowly made its way closer to the cargo ship sitting more towards the center of the camp. It had been called a Mule class dropship when they landed, and no one had been able to get close enough to learn differently or come away with proof that it was something else. When it had made the three trips to the jump point, it had avoided being scanned by any nearby aerospace fighters that the Adept knew about. That is until an 80ton assault mech crossed an invisible line, that was a lot different than the marked line he passed earlier this evening. Now 20 tube long ranged missiles systems fired, and it started raining down destruction around his ears. If that had been it? He might have had no issues, but then a bucket load of extended range large lasers was fired at him.

The ComStar piloted mech got to fire one set of three PPCs into the tough hide of the very well armored and armored Cargo King class ship called Richard III. The only thing that was left after the exchange of weapons fire between the two combatants, were the massive foot pads of the assault mech. Everything else was just so much over cooked metal and plastics, with a little over cooked biologic material thrown in for good measure. You would be surprised how little was left of a massive war machine when enough firepower was used against it, in a very short amount of time.

There was a solid thump as the Awesome came apart under the hammering the "cargo" dropship had given it. Her head came up so fast, that even the lightweight high-tech helmet almost hurt her neck. The other enemy mech also saw and maybe felt, the death of his teammate. It had quickly turned and seemed to have tried to run away from the battle site. It even made it a few dozen steps, before it fell flat on its face in a fountain of dust and dirt.

Acolyte VII Kevin Mason had been part of ROM for three years and in ComStar for longer, and this was not his first assignment outside of a ComStar compound. But this was his first mission, where it had gone so badly. He had felt the ground shake and he had seen the fireworks, that had come from the direction his wingman had left only a little while ago. The ECM field was so strong, that this captured Cataphract's third rate systems could not punch threw it. He at some level, knew that it was time to leave. His left leg was stripped of all of its armor and it was locked up from the hip down to the foot, and that was going to slow him down. Without thinking, he pushed his machine to the maximum speed it was rated for.

He felt is machine lunge to one side and then it started moving along in the right direction. When he thought everything was okay, and he had just let out a held breath that things were going the right direction. Then his dragging mech's foot caught on an outcropping of granite. It was too much for his piloting skill and he went down, face first onto the ground. The impact did not knock him out, but it did make him see stars for more than a few seconds. It took him a few seconds to know what had happened. He then started to try to raise again, but there was a hard knock on the cockpit. Somehow, he had been able to rotate his mech after the fall. He didn't remember doing this, so maybe he had been knocked out for a second or two after all.

Mason looked up to see an open barrel of a PPC on the other side of the cockpit's armored glass top. That barrel was connected to the right arm of a Black Knight standing over his prostrated mech. The weapons tap was an almost universal sign to shut down your engine and give up, or I'm going to remove your DNA from the universe.

If Mason was not a member of ROM, it might have worked to get him to give up. Instead he tried to raise or shift his positions so that his right torso was between him and the enemy's weapon. He could have tried to raise his right arm that held the PPC, but early model PPCs as a weapons type had a problem if you tried to use them at very short range. That was well known by ComStar to not be a problem with the Kinslaghter mounted in the right arm of the Black Knight type mech standing over him. His life ended in a flash of energy that melted all of the armor of his cockpit glass, and then it flashed incinerated his whole body in less than a blink of an eye. The PPC blast continued out the back side of the cockpit and it ended up going a few meters into the ground. With this last trigger pull, this battle was over.

"Box this is Spade 1. I have one machine down. I have no idea what it is, but the warbook was calling it a Cataphract. It would not give up, so I put a blast into the Frakers cockpit. Where do you need me now?"

Colonel Mann put both of her hands on the computer console. This battle was over, and she had not had to put all of her cards on the table. She still had the almost two full lances of Wolverines class mechs in hiding. She had not even needed to break out the LR PPC's to replace the older Enhanced ERPPC her mechs were currently packing.

"Okay, contact the local law enforcement department. Let them know what happened out here. If they want to come out? They can come out after dawn. If they try to come over tonight? Tell them that they might be shot. I want everything buttoned up as quick as we can. We are leaving as soon as we can, and not blow our cover." If they had to put out the full mech company or she had to break out the LR PPCs? Her orders told her to get off planet, quick. Now she could take her time and make sure that all of the needed jobs were done to her standard.

For the rest of the night, the camp was busy. They were packing up the tents and loading everything under light of the many vehicles that had been brought to support this mission. They had started with the wrecked Black Knight. It was replaced with another Black Knight for guard duty tonight. Spade 1 would be back on duty at dawn, with almost none of the damage repaired to her thick armored hide. Captain Fallstaff and Colonel Mann were going to let the locals see her… from just the right distance. Next all of the real access ways were covered and a few dozen fake ones were set up, just as they had planned to do. They had found a few dozen of the fake doors that this base had been fitted with. The diggers had only added a few more, that they had brought with them just in case they might prove useful.

When dawn came early the next day. There were a dozen visiting transports that were hover or otherwise off road capable in the camp. They were shown all of the wrecks and the damage caused by last night's attack. Colonel Mann was visibly angry at the local's for not stopping the attack before it had happened. She showed them the dozen turrets that they had found and had stripped to sell to the locals over the last few weeks. She had even had verbally blown up at them, when she was asked about the locals taking the attackers mechs "for evidence". That was when she dropped the bomb and told them they were leaving. If her people were not going to be safe here, she was going to take them someplace that they would be or where the locals had an understanding of how to handle issues like this. She asked for and got, a refund for their unused time for the 16 lots they had contracted with the local department. Colonel Mann was burning for the jump point by local night fall. They might have been light a few hundred tons of cargo, but they had pulled a lot out of the old SLDF base before they lifted off. And this time they were not taking the time to hide anything, it was all about getting the best use out of the cargo space they had available.

22 June 3049

Cate's Hold Jump Point

Felix was setting at one end of a long table, and Colonel Mann was sitting on the other end. The room was in the turning ring of the Colonial made spaceship. This was going to be the final meeting before they had a closing out meeting in their home system. Felix had been very surprised when he had been sent a message that all of the dropships would be on their way up, and that they were to leave the system when Felix gave the order. As the last person took a seat in the not small conference room, Felix looked over to the ground commander. He could not get a good read on this woman on what had been going on dirtside, outside of the official reports.

Felix then turned to look around the table, and he tried to hide his confusion from the rest of the room. "It might have been a short notice halt to the mission, but we are carrying about three quarters of the rated cargo load for a vessel like this. I was asked to pass along a message from my XO and cargo teams. It is to please do not have them transload another one of those Pollux ADA systems out of your dropships. It would seem, that they are harder to deal with than that Von Luckner that was handed over on the first run."

This caused a few rounds of chuckling from the dozen participants in this meeting. There had been a recording of the moving of a Royal Von Luckner tank from the Cargo King to the Colonial ship. It was funny, but only because no one had been hurt in the transfer between the Cargo King and the larger ship. There were more than a few people that were really hoping that the video would be "lost" before they made it home. Deep down, they all knew that this was not going to happen. Miss placed hope was what drove the universe.

While the laughter was ending, one of the head scientist teams took the opportunity to speak to the gathering of mission staff. "We have had a few days to look over the mech… the Cataphract from the attack. I know that the reports back home suggest that it is just a mass-produced FrankenMech. I can tell you now, that it is not a FrankenMech. It is a fully integrated combat mech. And something like that can only be done at a major facility or factory. When we get back, and "they" get their hands on that machine? They are going to have a member of the Rook family for dinner, with all of the trimmings." He was not going to say that he had been one of the minority, which had been in the other camps about the viability of this design. He was going to enjoy watching a few people eat crow, when he had the time to do some rubbing in.

Felix was still not sure, that this mission had been worth his time and the effort this mission had taken. He did know that he was more than a little weak, where it came to ground based operations. All of the time that his ship had been here, it had recovered items that he did not think would have any major uses to his people. Then again, he knew that information was important all by itself. "I know it is early. But does the mission seem successful?" This was his way of covering, that he had no idea about the details on what they had pulled out from the planet in this system.

Colonel Mann and Captain Fallstaff smiled at what the Colonial had just said. Both members of the SLDF knew the answer to this question, but it was one of the transplant Colonials to the SLDF who replied to the Colonial. "Yes! Now we know that the base we were working on was a port base. We also now know that Cate's Hold was a major repair and refit yard that was available to the Magistracy Navy. All of those tanks that we found and the special mechs, will make high command very happy alone. We also now have a very good idea were the ground support base for the MC space navy is located. Who knows what we will find in a base like that if we can? We covered our tracks, but someone still could find the central base before we do."

Felix had a surprise look on his face. He had seen one of the SLDF's ground support bases for their navy. If they found one that could be recovered of some key infrastructure? Now that would be worth keeping a whole battle fleet in this system until it was found. He was speaking before the rest of his brain caught up to his lips.

"Wow! I take it that you are going to recommend that we send another team back, to see what else that can be found in Jess's Toybox? Do you think that it will still be there, after this attack?" Felix was very interested in the answer he was going to get.

Colonel Mann did a shoulder shrug. This was just one of the differences between Clan Wolverine and the Colonials. "There are no guarantees in life. This toybox has been very good for us. If it turns out to be dry, when we come back? Then it will be dry. And maybe someone who needed it more than we do, was able to find it."

There was not much that Felix could say about the statement, and he just nodded his head in an agreement. The meeting went on for another hour. It was generally to make sure each ship was set for the run back home, and to approve the timeline for people to be moved back into their cabins on the Colonial ship. The showers were going to be in very high demand for the next week or so. The dropships had been a little on the overcrowded side on the 1g burn back to the jump point.

Notes

The upgraded Crabs. I like the mech, and I wrote this at first with the Crab class battlemech as a central combat member for the ground team. I had to make some changes to make it better fit with this AU. Besides I like the Wolverine also and it worked out better this way.

Wolverine IIC seen in the inner sphere. They are more are less the same Mechs seen on New Circe, only they have the LR PPC replaced with older tech IER PPCs or Enhanced ERPPC.

Type/Model: Wolverine IIC wolverine WVR-7H IIC

Mass: 55 tons

Equipment: Crits Mass

Int. Struct.: 91 pts Endo Steel 7 3.00

(Endo Steel Loc: 6 LT, 1 RT)

Engine: 275 XL Fusion 10 8.00

Walking MP: 5

Running MP: 8 [10]

Jumping MP: 5

Heat Sinks: 17 Double [34] 12 7.00

(Heat Sink Loc: 2 LA, 2 RA, 2 RT)

Gyro: 4 3.00

Cockpit, Life Supt., Sensors: 5 3.00

MASC: 2 2.00

Actuators: L: Sh+UA+LA+H R: Sh+UA+LA+H 16 .00

Armor Factor: 185 pts Ferro-Fibrous 7 10.00

(Armor Crit Loc: 1 HD, 3 LA, 1 RA, 1 LT, 1 CT)

Internal Armor

Structure Value

Head: 3 9

Center Torso: 18 27

Center Torso (Rear): 9

L/R Side Torso: 13 20/20

L/R Side Torso (Rear): 6/6

L/R Arm: 9 18/18

L/R Leg: 13 26/26

Weapons and Equipment Loc Heat Ammo Crits Mass

1 LR PPC* RA 18 3 6.00

1 LR PPC* RT 18 3 6.00

1 Streak SRM 6 LT 4 15 3 4.00

(Ammo Locations: 1 LT)

5 Standard Jump Jets: 5 2.50

(Jump Jet Loc: 1 CT, 2 LL, 2 RL)

TOTALS: 40 77 54.50

Crits & Tons Left: 1 .50

Calculated Factors:

Total Cost: 11,014,506 C-Bills

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