Chapter 74
By Cliff
Beta and Clean up: Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop
15 Dec 3051
Marantha system
Continent Jublilee
City of Lancaster
Robert had just finished a tour with the Alliance Aerospace Group head of sales. Her job was focused on supporting the off world buyers for their products that were not major government groups. That tended to be two groups, multiple battalion sized mercenary groups and merchants that supplied them as middlemen. Robert and a team were just another group that this tour had been set up to try to sell some of the local production. They were showing off the three production lines for fighters that the AAG currently had in operation with a lot of hints being dropped about future growth.
The AAG's saleswoman was advertising that they were adding new lines as fast as they could, and soon they would be making nine different designs of combat craft for the open markets. Some hints were dropped that this was only what was going to be sold on the open market. They only had three different base set ups and they were off of the core aerospace fighter designs historically made by AAG. But that let them have at least three different versions for each core designs ready to go into production for very little investment on their part.
Until the finding and then the spreading out of the data from the Helm's Library Core. Adding any new production lines or even modifying them to make a new model was something that was unthinkable even for House Lords. Back then modified designs for mechs, tanks, and aerospace fighters would come out of very high end chop shops and mech bays. But there were very few "factory made" modifications that could be found across the Inner Sphere for mass production. What they were being shown was impressive, but Robert did not feel that any of the products were worth the effort to make a large purchase at this time.
Just as he was leaving the facility, Robert had decided to "buy" some data examples to take back home with him. He was thinking that the people in white coats would take each of the software bundles apart, and they would see what made them tick in very short order. These data packs were the same type of detailed data that you would load into the most top of the line combat simulators for mech combat training. The data was not cheap at around 500k per software bundle, and each of the three main mods of core airframe design each needed its own data bundle.
It was not like Robert was short money, and the purchase would also add some good will from many of the key leaders in this part of space. Besides the longer he thought about it, the Thunderbird airframe might be nice. That is if the SLiE could update them with weapons and heat management systems made back on New Circe. And if Admiral Xi, SLIC, or the Lord Protector wanted to buy more of those spaceframes? Robert was sure that they could place an order for them on Canopus and then they could ship them out to Split with any of the recovered Families. Having a base in that system was making life both easier and harder for Copeland to manage this mission, just like he had thought. If the Lyssa had not been in Split? He would have rolled the dice and picked up a pair of those airframes, if only to give his Stukas a break.
When Robert got back to the main drop port for this planet? He ran into Jess entering the base at the same time and using the same entrances. She had been "overseeing" the cargo that they had been chartered to drop off to the Magistracy Aerospace Academy that also resided on this planet. Those new built small craft hulls were going to support the training of the Academy's new small craft syllabus.
The Magistracy Aerospace Academy already had expanded the aerospace fighter classes and dropship crew classes over the last few years. Adding the new small craft classes was just the latest expansion for the MoC to launch. This also was not expected to be the last expansion of this one facility, but that would take more money and a lot of very hard to find equipment to complete. Robert was betting that this planet or Cate's Hold would be the new home for the Warship training program in the next few years. It was just too bad that there was not anywhere for him to place that bet and reap the possible rewards.
Jess was happy to explain to Robert that they were going to be getting a nice little bonus, all for cutting a full month off of the expected delivery date on those small craft to the locals. The MoC paid a set price to have the craft made by a set time, and a set cost for shipping that was rated in per day amounts. If any area had banked time on the issued contract? The group that had been able to "bank time" would get a reward of most of the saved money. It was understood that time was money by the procurement departments of the MoC. It was something that was all in the fine print of the contracts that were written by them. It was just too bad that you could not get all of the savings, after all the MoC did not want to pay more than they had to for anything.
Jess and Robert were looking forward to lifting off of this planet in four more days. The pickings had been on the thin side, and the thin cargos had also been on the expensive side for everything that was of an interest to Robert or his cargo masters. That did not mean that they were not lifting off of this planet empty handed, but they were not able to get anything that was earth shattering to load into the Hercules.
About the only thing that had been added of any note was the amount of information on this part of the Inner Sphere. A lot of data also was coming in from the data tap placed on the ComStar network and from the rumors that were being picked up at the local shopping and drinking areas. Oh, and the huge amount of data that was coming in about the restart of the Clan invasion from all over the place that you best not look to deeply at. Jess and Robert thought that most of that was just rumors made by people who wanted to feel important by being connected "In the Know" about a major event shaking the whole Inner Sphere. People were funny that way.
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Robert and Jess were reviewing some of the data that they had gotten from the locals. One of the ideas that Robert had been kicking around had gotten its start by thinking about those Bandit and Badger tanks. The asking price for those tanks had been extremely high, but from what Robert had been able to find out, this price was not out of the ballpark. He idly wonders about what he could sell some of those Proioxis class tanks for. The first thing that popped into his mind was that someone from the Hell Horses would sell their souls to have a few of them.
As his mind worked the idea out of habit, but Robert knows that the LR PPCs would have to come out of those tanks. Then again, the hull was partially based on some Colonial tech and being made out of recycled Cylon Alloys. Alloys that would raise a few eyebrows if anyone got a very good look at them with the right types of equipment. Still the Proioxis could outrun any Inner Sphere or Clan tanks that it can't outgun, not to mention that it would typically outrange anyone not packing artillery. Then again Proioxis was a Greek goddess of onrush and pursuit, and by all reports she had been living up to her given name. Yea, it was just too bad that the SLDF was so short of those hulls while this war was still going on.
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Every few minutes Robert would look over the top of his work screen when Jess would make a dejected sound without knowing that she was doing so. After about the tenth time of the dejected sounds coming from her, Robert had enough. He made a few notes about checking on the possibility of selling "pursuit" tanks on future runs. Even on devices that would not leave this dropship, he was careful about what he wrote down, just in case.
Robert drops the little device in his hands to be flat on to his desk, and he gives the young woman a level look. "Okay, Jess. What's wrong?"
Jess knew that she was in trouble, but at this point she was wondering if there was much else for them to do before launch. "Sir, I'm just so board. Do you think it will cause too many issues, if we just light off our dropship's engines and head to the jump point? Do we really need to wait for our posted launch date?"
Robert made a face like he had bitten into a lemon, and he raised both of his eyebrows up in an exaggerated move. "Jess! You know that you should never tempt General Murphy like that." The tone and statement were only half in jest.
Jess just made a very sad face like someone had kicked her cat, which was not all acting. "I know, but we are done looking at anything that is remotely worth our time. I'm tired of just waiting here and reading reports about stuff that does not have an impact on our mission. I just wish something would happen!"
Before Robert could say more, the speaker over their heads activated at a volume that was just short of making your ears bleed in pain. "All crews man battle stations! All Crews man your battle stations! This is not a drill! All crews to battle stations! The drop port is under attack by ground forces. Commodore to the bridge! Commodore, please come to the bridge!" The message started to repeat and thankfully the volume went to a more manageable level.
Robert was already moving, but Jess was still seated looking up at the ceiling with wide eyes. He didn't even look over his shoulder at the other woman. "I told you that you should be careful, that sometimes what you say goes from your lips right to god's ear. You are going to owe me a case of the good stuff when this is over. Or I will tell the cargo master what you were asking about before this alert."
Robert was not even half joking, and he knew what the crew would do to Jess if they found out about her tempting murphy like she had. Best case would be that for the rest of the mission, her underclothes would be starched enough to stand on their own in a corner of her quarters. It went downhill very quickly from there.
Robert didn't wait to hear what his head of Intel had to say about what he had just said. Robert was already heading from the small office that had been part of the top cargo bay of this modified Lion Class Dropship. He would not wait for the small lift; it was only two decks up to reach the bridge from this deck. He could cover that distance very quickly and he did so. The lifts were for those that had a need to get somewhere fast to defend this ship.
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A good part of the III legion of the Marian Hegemony came pouring out of a Mule class dropship on the other side of the city from where Robert had landed his two cargo ships. At first the Leopard class CV was keeping an eye on the Styx sitting at the jump point. This was a major raid that was using over a battalion's worth of combat forces being committed from the almost pirate kingdom on this side of the MoC. They were mainly light and medium mechs, but they also had a few of the heavier classes of battle machines and mixed in with them for some extra spice were a few assaults class battlemechs. They also were supported with what looked like a flood of very fast hover heavy APCs flying around the local area.
What could not be seen from the location of Copeland's dropships, was that there was a second dropship supporting this raid. The core group that currently made up the now government of the Marian Hegemony had made it a habit of raiding the Magistracy since some time after the fall of the Star League. The number of attacks that they had launched had been going up sharply starting in the early 3040's thinking that the MoC was weak. Why pick on even a paper lion when there were so many sheep still around.
Just before the announcement of the coming of The Clans, they had at first increased the number of attacks they were launching across the local space as they sensed blood in the water. This was done knowing that the great powers of the Inner Sphere had seemed to be looking somewhere else, and while the cat is away the mice will play. As a rule, the great houses didn't generally care what happened within the Periphery. But if you caused enough noise, they would notice. And if they did notice you out this way? That might end very badly, for the group making that noise that drew the attention of a House Lord.
These increasing attacks had been rewarding for the Hegemony and with very low cost..to them, for very high pay outs….and again for them. The Leaders of the Hegemony thought that this was the best way to get repair parts for the slowly growing power of the Marian Hegemony that The Caesar was running. What could go wrong with that plan? And God Laughed at what Caesar planned.
But something changed towards the end of the 40's and more and more of their "tax collection" lances or even reinforced lances of attackers were being thrown back. Or they just had never reported back to their commanders in Hegemony space when the attack….er tax collection was planned to have been over. It was a known and accepted hazard of this type of game, by those that were paying the bills.
Not wanting the MoC or any other would-be snoopers to know whoever was behind the attacks…er the tax collections. So even the jumpships crews and captains had not known what flag the attackers were really fighting under. The last thing that Caesar wanted was for the FWL to think that it was time to launch a punitive mission of large enough size against him. So, if the ground forces ran into any issues while on these types of missions? The jumpship's and dropship's crewmembers had no idea who they should report this disastrous information to. It was risky planning. But it was less risky than someone launching a payback raid into the Hegemony in the form of a few mech regiments. And units like that also normally came with heavy aerospace fighter support or even the odd assault dropship to help them along.
By the end of 3050, only raids that were packing support of a full company or more of firepower were needed for these missions. But even then, they needed that firepower along with support with some fast cargo converted APC hover units and only those missions were the ones that were coming back home on a regular basis with cargos. Those APCs had been filled with the right kinds of people to take what they could find and take what was the best of the junk that might be in the local area. They also were even able to pull some salvage from the downed defenders on those planets. But when they got back home, they found that very rarely was anything that was recovered was fitted with any updated technology. Still this tactic had shifted the advantage back into the Hegemony's court.
That type of advanced weapons technology that was slowly making its way around the rest of the Inner Sphere was missing in Caesar's military. The Marian Hegemony could buy some of this new weapon's technology on the open market within the FWL, but Caesar's agents were having to bid against the Great Houses to get any of it. And the Hegemony did not have that kind of deep pockets to do this kind of thing too often. So that had left the force of arms or "other means" to get these new weapons to outfit the Hegemony with. Without new weapons tech, Caesar knew that his days were numbered coming from threats inside, outside, or in his worst nightmare, a combination of both threats. The Caesar didn't care because the end state would be his head, on a spike, outside of the building that he currently called home.
Then the information made it to Caesar that somehow MMM had started making their own updated weapons. They also were making those new types of weapons in numbers that should have rivaled what the vaulted Star League was reported to have been able to do. With proof that the MoC was now starting to rebuild their military, and still somehow, they also were supplying refit kits to a major part of the Inner Sphere. The rebuilding had been why his tax collection missions had started to fail in ever growing numbers. That left Caesar as one of the few groups that could not get access to anything besides a thin trickle of the high-tech weapons being made in this area much less being made in the rest of the Inner Sphere. This now mostly confirmed news had almost caused Caesar to lose his…..head, despite his counter planning. If things didn't change? Caesar was not long for this life, and he Okayed a very risky mission.
This raid was not going after the MoC Academy or even the core buildings of the Alliance Aerospace Group and the aero fighters that they produced. It was not that Caesar didn't want more aerospace fighters to be added to his list of combat forces. It was only that he didn't have the crews for them, and any captured ones were hard to move in this part of the black market. There was such a thing, as something being too hot to move in the pirate business. Thunderbird aerospace frames were near the top of that short list.
Now don't get me wrong. Caesar could move them, but then he would have to cover all of the bribes and transportation cost in getting them to the capital of the FWL that would entail. By orders of Caesar, they were to avoid those locations for more than the last two years. Now thanks to the spies that were paid by the Hegemony, there had been a specific timing of this specific attack that had just proven to Jess that she should be careful of what she wished for. You just might get it. This attack was going after a shipment of those upgrade kits and any extra high-tech weapons and supplies that they could find in a given but very limited timeline on this drop port.
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Mike was almost asleep in his mech, and he was having a sort of dream and a sort of a memory at the same time kind of light sleep. Mike was reliving when he had finally tested out as a full fledge Mechwarrior for the Star League Defense Force. That had been something that he had wanted to do for his whole life, but he had botched the job on the first try when the rest of his age mates had taken that test. And the SLDF normally didn't give second chances. At least not when they had more people that wanted to be mech pilots than they had new mechs or slots in the current units for them to fill. Only the best, luckiest, or those that were unflappable enough at a young age could get those few slots for Mech pilots that were open each year. The rest of the others would just have to make do in other jobs for their terms of service.
Mike had delayed in getting a retest scheduled when he had found out that they had opened up retesting for those that had failed on the first try to be a mech jock. Mike had not wanted to risk losing his position on the supply runs. Those slots were even more limited than the number of new mech slots opening within the SLDF. There were very few people on the planet that had passed the tests for a resupply mission and were mentally flexible, to do what was needed in the stress of first time combat. Still, he had wanted to be a mech commander for as long as he could remember.
Mike had a private meeting with Commodore Copeland before the end of one of those supply runs and after a short talk, Mike was willing to risk testing again. He had been surprised when he had finished the testing to become mech qualified for the Star League Defense Force, it was a lot easier than he had remembered the first time that he had taken that test. Still, they had given him his badge that said he could pilot a battlemech for the SLiE, and he would still be able to remain on the list for the resupply runs that Commodore Copeland was in charge of.
Mike had talked to a few older friends, and some new ones, about the mech qualification test he had just finished. He had concerns about how easy it had seemed to be able to pass this time around. They had all looked at him like he had a golden horn growing out of his forehead before he had finished talking. When Mike had stated that he had thought, that they might have lowered the standards for being qualified to be a Mech jock to replace combat losses sustained in this war. He was looking at faces to see if he was off base.
Mike had been told that there had been some talk in Parliament to do what he had said, but only as a war time emergency action. But that idea had been stopped cold by the Lord Protector, and she had been backed up by the public outrage that those rumors had caused in the general population. The tests were the same set of tests, which they had been using for the last hundred years. A new set of training and tests were scheduled to start sometime in the near future, but those were more focused as using Clan mechs as the enemy and what was known as the latest clan weapons technology fitted on to them. After those talks, Mike was more satisfied with his testing and ranking than he had after the glow of passing the tests had passed and his mind had started to reflect on the tests.
No matter what happened, from now on until Mike died, he was a mech jock for the SLDF. He had even "legally" tested out as a heavy class mech driver for the SLDF. Mike knew that he might not make it into a first line unit, but he would have a place in any second line or garrison units without any issues. That information would make his new wife a very happy woman. She was in a Category B rated unit as a lance commander.
If Mike wanted to make it out of the enlisted ranks to join her, then he would need to get a lance to command of his own. That command slot was something that Mike had thought that he would not get while on those supply runs, but the extra money was nice to support his now growing family. And besides he liked the modified Bl-6b KNT that he had been given as a promotion out of the much older and less powerful Hoplite. Then when he had volunteered for the next resupply run knowing that he would have to leave the newish mech behind. Mike had been told that they would be packing a full mech company, and that there were more than enough open pilot jobs. Mike was also told that his current mech would be a nice fit with the ground security unit for this next supply run.
The old ER PPC on the right arm of the Black Knight had been replaced a long time ago by an improved ER PPC, and that weapon had now been replaced with a down rated LR PPC. By now even his two old first generation 8cm Pulse lasers had been replaced with a pair of second-generation extended range 8cm bore lasers. To handle the heat that these new generation weapons generated when used? He had lost the mediums and small classes of lasers, and they had been replaced with four more second generation high efficiency heatsinks. It would have surprised most people that those last four Clan grade heatsinks had been made by a small factory over in the Colonial City State. The mech was not a top of the line or even a second line machine at this setting, but it was better than any mech he was going to fight this side of the Clans in his weight class.
Even with the software downgrades on the beast, his machine was the battlemech equivalent of a sniper. It was just what you would need, if you were fighting against an enemy that was going to outnumber you on and off the "normal" battlefields of the Inner Sphere or if you were fighting the Cylon Empire. Oh, and with all of those energy weapons? He didn't have to worry about running out of ammunition like with the gauss rifle packing Hoplite and Sentinel class battlemechs. Something that happened thankfully only once to him.
Mike's mind was running through the capabilities of his machine as he daydreamed/cat napped, and he was startled when the alarm sounded threw out the ship. Yes, Mech jocks are a strange group of humans even by "normal" standards of those born within the Inner Sphere. And if there was not a mech cult among the civilians living on New Circe or the rest of the Inner Sphere, very few of them would naturally have been able to pass their genes to the next generation.
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Mike's hands were flying before his brain was fully aware of what was going on around him, and then he was fully awake. His 75ton machine's massive fusion engine was quickly going from "Standby mode" to "working load" as fast as the controlling computer could get the job done. By the time that his mind caught up to what was going on around him, his mech's engine was up to making enough power generation to not be a sitting target.
Mike started to talk into the mic built into his helmet. "This is Knight 4, I am ready to exit. What's going on?"
Only now did Mike realized that he had been dozing while wearing his lightweight clan grade mech helmet and his Star League cooling suit. The cooling suits were only cleared for the public of the Inner Sphere to see when Robert had been able to return with an image of a Com Guard connected Mech jocks sporting one in many different publications. He had reported that the image had not started riots or even seemed to have been noticed by the press outside of specialized subject magazines that catered to mech jocks.
The Captain of the Bad Kitty had a sly smile on his face. He was thinking that Mike had turned out to be an inspired addition to this command all of those years ago. He hit the radio button to talk to the first of his mech force to report into the bridge of the Bad Kitty that they were ready to fight. "Knight 4, this is Cat Actual. There is some kind of attack going on by actors unknown. You are cleared to take your mech to the marked safety blast line. You may fire on anyone who crosses that line or fires on you first. Be aware the software limits are in place at this time."
Mike made a sour face as he started walking his mech towards the mech sized exit hatch on the mech carrier. Those all were rules that they had been used to working under for the last few years now, but that didn't mean that Mike liked fighting with one arm tied behind his back. He started to talk, and his Vox microphone picked up is words. "Copy. Go to the fire line, but only engage if someone crosses or I take fire from them. Are those my only ROE?"
Mike already had his machine moving out of the open hatch and stopped mid step as he spoke. While he waited almost outside of the dropship at the hatch threshold, Mike was working out what he could do when someone crossed that yellow painted line. He had an idea of what the reply to his question was going to be, but he still wanted to wait to find out before he committed.
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Robert walked onto the bridge of the combat dropship while this was taking place. Robert had a thin look on his face, and he hit the comms button before the Dropship commander could respond. "Those are your complete rules of engagement, at this time. We do not have that deep of a relationship with these locals. Make sure you know who you are shooting at and more importantly, you better know what you are hitting." Robert released the button to close the line going to the mech.
Robert almost made a slip and asked Query Affirmative to Mike, but he was able to stop himself just before those words slipped off of his lips. His team of techs supporting the mechs on this mission had been doing a great job. But they had not been trained or had any experience maintaining much less repairing most of the mechs classes that made up what his forces had on hand. This iteration of the SLDF didn't have any of this type of Wolfhounds, or any Sentinels, Axmen, Challengers, or Awesomes on New Circe for their order of battle. They still had the odd Hoplite hulls in one of the oldest cache sites, along with Crabs, Black Nights, and Wolverine II. But these were very old machines and needed more care than was "normal" for a mechs in those weight classes. This was mainly due to their age and other issues with their original manufacture.
When they had started this mission, Robert had hoped that they would be able to update some of the mechs that he had first bought in the Inner Sphere. And then he had dropped them off into SLICs hands for a few years of study. When they had bumped his ground forces to a full company? It had been at so short of a notice that this updating work had not been done on New Circe. Robert had some of the old Star League tech weapons to do the work on updating the lowest tech mechs in his cargo holds. But his people just didn't have the time to do most of the work that he had planned. Robert kicked himself one more time for not asking for more techs support, and then he got refocused on the reports coming in from the locals about the attack.
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Mike didn't say anything more, not with the old man currently standing on the bridge of the Bad Kitty. Mike had quickly finished exiting out of the hatch warning area. He quickly took up a position to cover that side of the Mammoth class ship as well as his side of the Lion class dropship at his back. He was going to be alone for the time being. The next people to come on alert would be the dropship's weapons turrets, and then the infantry in their light battle armor. If things worked out the way that they had in the battle drills? He would be alone for seven and a half minutes.
Then he would have a second mech to work with, and then one new mech should show up every minute after that first almost eight minutes of waiting. If the alert lasted long enough? A full company of mechs would be deployed out of two of the dropships and spread out between the three dropships to cover any blind spots in the dropship's weapons coverage. After some work with the locals, Robert's carrier was allowed to land at the drop port. Now it formed the base of the triangle of dropships under Robert's command.
The Leopard would not be allowed to launch any of her fighters. Not unless the approval had been given by the head of the local defenders that was in an office off of the drop port's grounds and then the note was passed through the traffic control office. They had been told that if the Hobgoblin did launch any support craft, without that word being given threw the traffic control of the drop port? They would be shot down, and the whole convoy would be charged as pirates under MoC Law. The rules of the MoC were a lot different when you had a military academy in the local area, and the locals didn't know you very well. It was just something that Robert and his people had learned to deal with. It was just another day that ended in Y while you were in the Inner Sphere.
Mike stopped his war machine where they had war gamed out that should give him an advantage against any attackers, and he looked around the drop port from his new outpost. If things went sideways on Mike? He had a huge metal structure that was emplaced to help refuel and cool down dropships of this size, that could provide some cover and better concealment. Mike's systems were picking up movement all over the place. He also could tell there was weapons fire taking place as far as his systems could reach, but so far away that nothing was coming his way. Mike mentally reviewed an old notice posted in the restroom of his mech training school. It had said that incoming fire always had the right of way.
As he waited, the seconds were dragging out like hours, and still Mike waited some more. He had a feeling that things were about to change, but he didn't know why. But Mike checked his weapon's readouts one more time, and then he moved a little to his left so that more of his mech was covered by the metal of the gantry system. He didn't want to give anyone a free shot at his mech, if he didn't have to. That skill of finding good cover and concealment had proven very effective when he had gone under his retesting.
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Amulius was smiling, but he was not letting it show on his face for others in this room to see as they were working around him. The idea for this raid had been all his, no matter what that butt wipe of a commander sitting over in the Victor class battlemech might think. All of the copies of the orders had his name on them and not the unit commander. And Amulius had made sure that copies were being delivered to someone close to Caesar, it would happen when word was sent to a close friend about the success of this mission.
Amulius might not be able to pilot a mech, at least not anymore due to a PPC hit to his half empty ammunition bay many years ago. It had been when he had still been a training cadet, but that didn't mean that his brain was weak. A successful raid of this size would be enough to put him above those Battlemech Princes that everybody bent over backwards to kiss their…..rings. If this raiding mission failed in a bad enough way? Well, the Legion commander was the senior officer, and he would take the fall for any failures that might happen. Amulius felt that he was covered from all points from any splash back when the raiding forces left the cover of the dropships.
But so far, this raid was working just as Amulius had thought it would. After all of these many months of planning, it really was working as he had dreamed it. The first loads of loot should be on their way back to one of the two dropships under the armor of those 20ton APCs modified to carry cargo. Then his eyes fell on three dropships sitting off to one side of the drop port. Amulius had been watching two of those three dots ever since they had landed from the command center of the Mule that he had been hiding in.
Amulius had read file after file while he had waited, and most of them had side notes about the reported owners of those three dropships. Those side notes had said that those three dropships were supposed to be filled with the most high-tech weapons known to man, at least before the coming of the clans up ended that apple cart. The Clans had thrown a few wrinkles into those stories, but sometimes it made them even grander. The hard part for anyone, was to know what the lies were and what the truth was. One law of piracy was that even Lies were based in truth.
Amulius looked over to the expanded communication center that had been outfitted into the old Mule at a huge expense of both money and political points. A quick look was all that he needed to note that there didn't seem to be any issues that currently needed his attention. This seemed to indicate to Amulius that everything was going according to the detailed plans that he had invented out of whole cloth.
Amulius walked over to one side to his head com tech working on the expensive hardware. "When alpha combat team comes back in, have them crack those eggs and see what they might have been hiding inside."
Soon the word would be given, and as soon as part of the reinforcement company was back onto this part of the drop port. Then it would start making its way toward a new set of targets. That was not part of the original plan, but these forces were not as hidebound to the plan as not to accept orders to take more booty off of the hands of the locals.
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Kelly was enjoying this mission, and she could not help but smile even larger as she fired off her Sunglow type 2 laser again. She was not really aiming at anything with this energy weapons fire with this shot. She just wanted to keep the local's heads down, and a few waves of heavy laser fire from a mech worked very well at doing just that. She was shepherding the first loaded modified APCs back to the modified Mule class dropship when she was given new orders from the command center for this mission. Command now felt that the APC's were close enough, and that she was needed elsewhere on this raid. Her little team of raiders were to check out a group of dropships and maybe see what they had to offer Caesar.
She had and evil smile on her face as she thought what her cut of that booty might be. "Okay children. We have a slight change of mission. Everyone head over to square 45b, and for those of you that can't read a map. It's over on the other side of the drop port. We have some sheep still sitting in their eggs, which need to be sheared." She could hear the replies over her intercom.
The old T-Bolt started to jog over towards the grid that she had called out to the rest of her team. Right behind her was a Wolverine, and a pair of Shadow Hawk class battlemechs. She was very proud of her command, even if her Thunderbolt was the heaviest machine in her "lance". She thought that she could roll over anything in her path that the defenders on this planet might offer. After all, that was what had happened in the past when her "lance" made contact with local defenders in this part of the Inner Sphere.
Kelly was looking down at her navigation screen as she worked out what was the best way to open the huge civilian dropship to her not so tender mercies. She had no idea that those three dropships were under the command of the same person. That information should have made her change her plans. But you can only plan for what you know and what you think might be about to happen. She made one more turn around some of the huge supporting equipment of the drop port. She was not worried about anything or threats from the dropships, they were still out of range of heavy weapons.
Kelly was betting that the largest of the three dropships would be the easiest to be "recovered" for Caesar. She was thinking that a good show of force would get them to open one or two of the cargo hatches. She was thinking about that right up to the second that a pair of laser blasts went to the left and right of her mech's cockpit, and almost a full ton of armor was blasted off of her center chest. It was one hell of a way to find out that someone was not happy with you.
##########
Mike was getting updates from both his command center and from what he had been picking up from the locals over an open communications channel. His updated sensors were giving him a good idea of what was going on, but it was nice to have a couple of different sets of eyes to confirm it for you. He had been tracking the lance of mechs coming his way as soon as they broke away as the escorts for some hover APCs. Mike felt his heartrate pick up when the locals came over the radio that said they were taking fire from this lance of mechs. Someone in the Traffic Control panicked and made a general broadcast clearing the dropships to fire on any mech they saw on the drop port. Mike had his weapons pointed in the right direction when the first mech stepped into view.
It was a very long ranged shot, when Mike pulled the primary trigger on his control sticks. He was a little let down with his marksmanship after the speed of light weapons started to cycle to recharge after their release. He only hit the enemy mech with one of his three heavy weapons that he had fired, but he knew that it must have shaken the enemy pilot a little to be both be fired on and hit at that kind of range. Mike was just glad that he had been cleared to engage anything that was within his line of sight. It would seem, that all of the locals were caught flat footed by this attack, and they were taking longer to react than he thought was normal.
#######
Kelly had almost two decades of sitting in a mech's cockpit, and she had launched or survived so many raids that she had lost count over the years. That did not mean that her reflexes were off due to her "advanced" age, as some within The Clans might think. While her mech was still reacting to the impact of that hit on the dead center of her almost assault class mech. She was pulling her machine behind something to block the line of sight from her attacker, even as the other part of her mind was reviewing the damage that had just been inflicted on her well-loved machine.
Kelly's mind worked out the math on how much damage that one shot had caused to her armored covered mech's hide. Quickly she came up with only one thought. "That was some godsdamn clan tech!"
She had seen all of the reports on the weapons the invaders were using. ComStar had put out a free book on the subject not so long ago about them. Not many noticed that it was only after the same type of books had come out of the FedCom and Combine. But there was a big difference between reading about something that "might" be, and then walking right into it with your scarred face. Then again being from the MH? They were used to taking on units that were higher tech or more often other advantage. They were just better maintained and better armed than the MH were on average. So, they had some idea on how to handle them. It had taken a few seconds for her old computer to work out that it was a Bear Slayer class PPC that had hit her, and not one of those clan tech weapons. A weapon hit that would have made a mech jock put a load in their short, short mech shorts.
"Shield unit… Picador on my location. Be careful, he has a long shooter that packs one hell of a punch." Kelly took her own words and she started to move around some of the pieces of heavy equipment needed to run a drop port.
It only took about a minute for her team to come to her location from all points of the compass. Kelly knew that the best way to lead a pig around, was to punch it in the nose as hard as you could. In her book? An enemy mech jock was not that much different than your average pig. Now that she had some fire support, they could put the "normal" plan into motion. One of her team would expose themselves and take a quick shot at the mostly hidden enemy mech. Then her Shield would fall back under cover of something handy. The enemy mech should have followed one of the attacking mechs of her unit. This would have left the "target" open for attack from the rest of the group as it was exiting its cover and coming under their guns.
That would have worked, but for the little fact that the MH had not been fighting against some of the almost mythical none weapons of the old Star League. Like the active probe this Black Night was outfitted with. It was great to help the pilot know what the enemy was up to without an enemy knowing they were being spied on. This little device let Mike know from where the next attacker was coming from, and it allowed him to take advantage of their movements while still staying out of site. The shots were long, and Mike had to watch his heat, but he would only advance as far as the "hot fire" line painted on the ground. Mike didn't know when he knew, but he knew, that these pirates were trying to pull him away from the dropships.
The massive Mammoth class dropship was not unarmed, but it was not a real combat dropship. Between Mike and the dropship gunners they kept the heavy units of the MH focused on them and not stripping the planet. The invasion commander had soon diverted more and more units to that area of the drop port that Kelly had been sent to. One part of Amulius's brain told him that the math was in his favor. Little did he know that he was not correct in that line of thinking.
#########
Kelly slammed her fist into the console mounted on the side of her ejection seat. Picador 4s Shadow Hawk fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut by an invisible set of shears. She had even "seen" the laser hit, that had just eaten what had remained of the Shadow Hawk cockpit's armor and supporting structure. The armor had held just long enough for the auto ejection seat to fire the mech jock high into the air that was still being criss crossed with weapons fire. She knew that the younger pilot had been able to hit the enemy mech at least once, before having to punch out. And Kelly was sure that she also had gotten a hit on the unknown type of defending mechs. The information being fed to her had said that there had to be at least two mechs over there. That was the only way that so much firepower could be over there. It was either that, or an assault mech was over there, and one of those gods of the battlefield would not be hiding from the likes of her unit. But that was not the only issues that Kelly was having to deal with. The Wolverine had fallen to a rainfall of LRMs that had come from the cargo dropship.
Kelly leaned out and fired her Sunglow Type 2 and the Delta Dart 15 in her right torso from out of cover she was mostly behind. This firepower was heading toward where the energy weapons had just been fired from that had killed the Shadow Hawk. No sooner had she fired and then the enemy's return fire had cut her large laser clean off her mech's arm like it had been cut off by a surgeon with a mech sized powered scalpel. Her mech's systems had told her that it was again a hit from a Bear Slayer class of ER PPC.
##########
On the other side of the battlefield, the Black Knight hidden in the shadows moved to get ready for the next attack. Not for the first time, Mike wished that he could close in with what remained of this enemy mech lance. But orders were orders, until they changed. Until then he would take what shots he could and hope that he got lucky and drop one of the attackers.
While Mike in his Black Knight were holding off one enemy lance with the help of the dropship's weapons. Two lighter mechs took off out of the Lion and they went running off to one side of the grounded aerospace carrier without being noticed by the locals or the attackers. The updated systems on the dropships and some data provided by the local traffic control, the light mechs knew that more enemy mechs were on the way. On that part of the drop port, there were only a few very low buildings between the enemy mechs and the grounded dropships.
The Wolfhound and updated Sentinel started to exchange long ranged fire with an Assassin and a Hermes II. The two SLDF in hiding mechs fired a gauss round or an 8cm laser burst, and the enemy would fire AC 5 class shells and LRMs in reply to those attacks. The four bug mechs were darting back and forth between the larger mechs trying to get in close enough to fire off their shorter ranged lasers and SRMs at the off world defenders. The 40ton Sentinel was seemingly to be drawing more enemy fire than the smaller 35ton Wolfhound. The faster mechs made getting a hit a little harder, but it would only take one hit from a gauss round or a pair of solid hits from the 8cm laser to take down one of the enemy mechs.
A Wasp and a Stinger went down before one of the two heavier enemy mechs joined them on the ground in smoking heaps. The fast Hermes II and two of the Wasps were still on their feet when the modified SLDF Sentinel ran out of the large solid rounds for its main weapon to use. One of the Wasps thought that it was a safe bet to get closer to the 40ton Ex SLDF mech, that is until a 5cm laser and a pair of SRMs hit the light mech in the legs.
That had seemed like enough firepower still on hand, and the pirates tried to pull back. But that only opened the back of the Assassin class mech to the downgraded clan tech extended range 8cm laser mounted on the Wolfhound's right arm. The fast low end medium class pirate mech's arms flew out as the metal man fell face first and then it slides across the hard concrete that made up the lower traffic areas of the drop port. Before the 8cm laser could recharge, the last Wasp disappeared behind a building, and it went to full speed. Still, it would take some time for the fast scout mech to get out from under the powerful ECM jamming bubble that Robert's dropships were pumping out.
#########
Bernhard Rogge was at the seeing red level of mad as he read the last message one of "his people" had passed to him. This was his mission, and he was the commander that Caesar had appointed to pull this mission off. He had not known about what was going on at the rest of the drop port. He had been working with the rest of the unit keeping the local combat units pinned down while the looting was being started. When he had called back to Amulius sitting nice and safe in a dropship to divert some of the other mechs to him. The little pest had told him that they were on the other side of the drop port working over some dropships, and they had not returned any of his attempts to contact them. Rogge made a note to…..address this issue…in person with the little runt sitting in the command center of the dropship.
When Rogge had tried to contact them directly, all he had gotten in reply was static. He left orders for the rest of the unit to start pulling back to the exfiltration points. Because he was the mission leader, it was up to him to find out what was causing over a company of mechs and another dozen heavy hover APCs not to be reachable in the middle of a mission.
#########
Heather had a smile that any shark on Terra would have loved to have possessed. She was standing shock still as the battle raged around her like she was testing the air around her like an ambushing Viper. The mission commander had cleared her to move towards the main passenger terminal for this space port. Copeland had contacted the locals via a hard line made into the landing cradle after many attempts. That hard line was used in case of bad weather or if the one of the two groups wanted to talk about something that was not cleared for everyone and their brothers to know about.
They had Okayed that Copeland's company could send a Charger out to help stop some of the speeding hover craft that were the center of the massive amounts of stealing going on around the drop port. So, Heather had been sent out to do some of the stopping. Maybe the locals had not thought much of her mech when the class was identified to them by Commodore Copeland. Only her mech was a Charger class in the most general sense of that class even when Robert had first bought her. The assault mass scout mech now only had a cruising speed of about 54Km/h as long as there was not a strong headwind. That was because the old LVT 400 engine had been replaced with a more common place Pitban 240 model. That smaller engine had freed up a lot of mass, and four 8cm lasers had been added to go along with the 15.5 tons of armor plate that the mech now was packing.
After the SLiE had gotten their hands on her not much else had been changed to the old machine. The same could not be said when it was added to the list to support the resupply missions. While they had been moving towards the Inner Sphere, the support team had focused on her after all of the other required mission support was completed. The old Pitban engine had badly needed an overhaul and so that had been done, but the old heat management system had been replaced with one made in the Colonial city state before they updated the production to third generation heatsinks. Those parts were supposed to have supported some of the other mechs on this mission. Instead, they had found a new home in the huge scout mech.
With now 24 of those devices that were inside the armored hull along with four more 5cm lasers that had been added to round out the open mass. Those last lasers were ones that Robert had picked up on Canopus as they had come right out of the MMM factory. This Challenger now had an 8cm and 5cm laser in each arm and torso sections with the last 5cm laser mounted in the head of the much maligned mech. She also now had two full hands instead of just having a right side one and battering ram in the other. With all of the jamming going on, Heather could only contact "her" dropships on the radio for long ranged information. They were giving her some information, but her mech was very slow when compared to the hover raiders she was supposed to be hunting.
But that mission was why Kelly was here in the first place. The area she was standing in was an exit from this local area that the hover APCs were using to leave. She heard the APCs coming again from an external mic, and she took a few quick breaths before stepping out into the open. Kelly slammed her pair of metal hands down to the ground as hard as she could. Her aim with her right hand was perfect, and the metal hand landed on top of the speeding hover APC/truck. The strength and shear mass of the mech's hand forced the hover craft down. The force first blew out the lifting skirts, and then the lifting fans were deformed with the impact into the unforgiving ground. Then the top hull armor of the craft deformed down, and the metal protective cover killed the crew and any passengers that it might have been carrying.
Heather's left hand was a little off of the hoped-for mark. It hit the ground just in front of the racing modified heavy hover class APC. The driver of the hover tank might have seen the huge mech hands coming down and tried to avoid the crashing and falling tons of metal. But hover tanks moving at that kind of speed over flat concrete tend to have some drifting issues. When the cargo carrying hover APC started turning, she was moving so fast that the right side of the slab sided craft hits the mech's hands at just under 125 Kp/h. That driver had a bad day, but the crew in the back of the APC has a worse one…. but only as long as blood was still inside of them. The driver of the hover craft was able to exit the wreck just a few heartbeats before the craft was fully engulfed in flames to become a funeral pyre for the bodies still within.
Heather still had that odd smile on her face when she stood up and pulled her hands from the ground or metal hull. She would have to just wait to see if anyone else came this way over the next few minutes. Those two APCs were the fourth and fifth raiding APC she had taken out, but she wanted more kills to add to her logbook. She thought that there was another dozen of them still moving around this area of the drop port. She was not for sure if more would come her way, but it was not like her mech could go chasing them down around the drop port.
#############
Rogge picked up something on his Victor's systems that was new. He had no idea what it was, but something was happening off to his left. He looked up at the huge building between him and "something" over that way. Not for the first time he regretted not taking time for his ground teams to replace the battle damaged HildCo Model 12 jump jets before this mission. But that would have taken a lot of time and hard to find replacement parts to get the job done correctly. He had kicked around the idea of just replacing the four tons of jump jets with more armor and weapons. Now he could have used those working jump jets to make it quickly around these tall buildings to see what might be there for him to kill or collect.
Rogge gave a grin and leaned forward to get his assault class mech up to top speed. "Well, if you can't go over the hill?"
############
Heather was moving slowly and looking for her own next target. She had received a warning that an assault mech had been spotted in the area, and it was not a friendly, less than three minutes ago. She had been asked to "bring back some intel" when she had reported in that the APCs seemed to have been filled with cargo and not troopers. So, she had used her two hands to pick up one of the 20ton hover armored "trucks" she had taken out to bring it back to the dropships.
Adding 20 tons of mass to something that already had 80 tons of mass to deal with was not that big of a deal, if the mech pilot was good enough. IF they were not? Then you had better call a recovery vehicle to do the work before you wrecked an assault mech outside of battle. That would fall into a career killer event, for the unlucky pilot. Still Kelly had to make sure that she didn't drop it, lose the cargo, or damage the now much weaker outer shell any more than she had to. Oh, and look out for any enemy assault mechs that might just be in the same area you were walking through. That might have been why she didn't notice that she was in trouble until the Victor came crashing through the outer skin of the building she was using as cover.
########
Rogge dropped his mech's hands that he had been using to protect the cockpit of his mech as he ran through the building to find out what might be on the other side. The dust cloud had just thinned enough to let him see what was near him after exiting the building, and he was not impressed. "You have got to be kidding me….a Charger?"
The delay in action being taken by the enemy assault mech allowed Heather to get over the shock first, and she throws the wrecked hover APC at the other mech. This action also just happened to distract the other battlemech, and it also cleared her arm mounted 8cm and 5cm lasers to come into action.
Rogge was just bringing up his right arm mounted autocannon to fire at the insult to assault mechs across the Inner Sphere when the battle damaged hover APC came flying at him. He reacted without thinking, and the autocannon fired before it was lined up on the enemy assault massed scout at his front. Heather had not had time to bring her arm mounted weapons online, and in a normal Charger that would have been an issue. But for Heather's mech it was not a showstopper for her to have to deal with. Her left and right torso mounted 8cm and 5cm lasers fired a half a second before the 5cm laser mounted on the side of the cockpit of the modified mech added its own energy into her attack on the dust covered Victor.
This was a snapshot, and thanks to the other mech flinching away from 20 tons of flying battered metal. She "only" hit with one of the 8cm and a pair of 5cm lasers. Those energy blasts also spread their damage on the left arm and the left torso of the Victor. It was not much damage to a mech the size of a Victor, but it was a lot harder of a hit than a Charger should have been able to land on the other mech.
Rogge was again surprise by the enemy. "That an't no Charger! That's one of those Crappy made Challengers!"
He was mostly right at his guess, but not totally, and this was something that often would get a mech jock killed. While Rogge was talking, his right arm came back up and he fired his heavy autocannon again. This time the Pontiac was aligned just right, and the heavy shell flew right into the left leg of the slowly backing away empty handed Challenger.
Heather was backing up, but her mech was slow moving forward much less trying to take back steps without falling on her…can. When the autocannon round hit, she was quick on her own triggers, and she did a full alpha strike. In the space of a single heartbeat the air that should have come out of a volcano assaulted her body. If she had not been in one of the SLDF made next generation cooling suits? She might have been in a little trouble, at least until the updated heat management system could work on dumping the heat her weapons had just generated.
Still even with her being quick on the triggers, Heather hit the enemy Victor with three of her 8cm lasers and four of the smaller and less powerful 5cm laser weapons. The weapons fire washed over the enemy mech going from the hips up towards the shoulders. The Victor was a close in fighter and the Challenger was fitted with weapons with longer ranged, but it still could do the job at close range. You had to make sure that the fight stayed in your advantage range as long as you could.
Bernhard Rogge might have been a pirate working for what was little more than a pirate government on the edge of the Inner Sphere. But he knew how to fight a mech, otherwise he would not have been at the controls of something as rare as a Victor 9B. He could not allow the other mech to open the range on him, so he charged into closer combat ranges with the other assault weight mech. Now the Victor is not a speed demon, but it was faster than a Challenger was while it was walking backwards in the middle of a battle.
Rogge tried to bring up his powerful but short ranged heavy autocannon only for the hand on the left side of the Challenger to show the hand it should not have, and it blocked the Victor's moving heavy arm. The autocannon fired one more time, and the heavy shell went flying off into the drop port at supersonic speed. Then the Challenger's right hand reached out, and it took the left arm of the Victor. With the sounds of over stressed metal, the Victor's arms were pulled out of alinement with Heather's mech.
With both mech's arms and the weapons they held so far apart; this should have caused a pause in the fighting between the two machines. But the Victor was a close in fighter and the Holly 4 SRM mounted in the left torso fired, and it was Heather's turn to be surprised when "only" three of the four fat little missiles missed her. Without letting her higher brain kick in, she fired back at the other huge mech.
From the chest and head of the Challenger came five energy beams and at this range, the speed of light weapons could not and did not miss. The upper body of the Victor was a washed again in powerful energy beams. The hard outer covering of the massive 80ton mech started to soften, and then it started to run like hot water down the front, back, and sides of the old machine. Besides damage to the armor being done, the ammunition handling systems for both the Pontiac and the Holly were damaged, but it was not enough to cause a cook off of the ammunition. The Hildco Type V chassis was well made, and she held the huge mech together even when some of the Pitban 340 shielding was melted along with a small chunk of her 4ton gyro.
###########
Rogge jerked back when the heat flooded into his cockpit that felt like vaporized lava. He had no idea if the heat was from the engine damage, but he could now see out the side of his helm like cockpit mounted on the top of his machine. Rogge didn't need to look at the armor layout to know that he had just lost all of the armor between him and the other mech. That was a quick way to die, and he jerked back with all of his mech's remaining strength. That kind of movement should have gotten him out of the arm locks the other mech had him with its two appendages
It would have worked, but while they had been struggling. Heather had placed her mech's left foot a little behind and to one side of the Victor's right leg. When Rogge jerked back, he went the wrong way. His battered mech went back and then tripped over the many tons of metal that just connected to his mech right at the knee. It was all over but for the sound of a crashing assault mech on to the hard tarmac of the drop port.
Without the Challenger holding up the Victor by the arms, it went backwards. The huge machine had taken a lot of damage, and its computer brain had decided that it had enough of this particular pilot. As the machine was falling backwards the auto ejection system kicked in, and the ejection seat with a bag of meat strapped into it went flying high into the air of the warm day. That ejection rocket left a red smoke trail going high into the air and it seemed to act like a recall code to the rest of the attackers.
###########
When the attack was over, and the attackers pulled back to their dropships to flee this planet and this star system. Rogge was not among them. Between Mike's performance, the rest of the defenders under Copeland's command, and the dropships weapons acting as back up. There were over two companies of wreck combat power spread around the drop port and that was not counting the heavy hover APCs left around that one area of the drop port. That one area of the drop port held more than half of the wrecks that were left behind during the whole attack. One of the many after action reviews would fault the local commander for not doing a better job of defending the drop port than one cargo commander had been able to do.
Robert and his people had taken down all of the heaviest enemy mechs, but they could not get that many of the faster machines, at least once they had decided that they didn't want to play anymore. The only time Copeland's units could take out most of the faster attackers, was when they came to them, or they fell into a lucky ambush. It was just too bad that the attackers knew the areas around the drop port better than Copeland's people. Robert had made sure that the Victor was brought back to the Bad Kitty when the fighting seemed to be over. They could not get it inside, not until things had settled out with all of the locals. It was Robert's way of saying that this one was his, and not to even think about touching it.
#########
Robert was looking around at the data coming in from his ground forces, all of them were getting short of ammunition. Thankfully most of his mechs had a lot of energy weapons and the heatsinks to use them effectively in battle. Then there was the Axman, it didn't need ranged weapons to scare the crap out of anyone that got close to her. Robert had reinforced the order that the mech or other hatches on the dropships would not be opened until they all knew the fighting was over and the locals seemed to have calmed down.
The last thing he wanted was to have someone rush the dropship's hatches and try to take over one of them, be they locals or pirates. No one thought that they might. Not with the Weasels suits to stop them after they entered the dropships. Still, they could cause a lot of damage, maybe enough to stop one of Robert's ships from lifting off, at least not until a lot of work was done on them.
Robert's heads shot up from the reports coming in from his mechs still outside his dropships. It was when a voice was raised from across the room. "Dropship lifting off… a second one is also lighting its fires!"
Robert had to clear his throat to get the attention of the bridge crew currently on shift. "What have we got?"
The voice spoke up as the dropship's captain headed that way. "We have a Mule, and what they said was a cargo Union making a break for orbit." The bridge was quiet for a second, and then the voice of the dropship's master spoke up again. "I bet she's a Trojan or maybe a Danais, and not some stripped down Union."
Before he could say more, the comms station added her information to the group standing watch while at battle stations. "Traffic control is not happy with them. They have been ordered to cut power and land." She stopped talking for a few seconds and her tone got lighter. "Yea, they are not going to do that. They just told traffic control to go…..pound sand. I don't think that the local Traffic Control was happy with their choice of verbs."
Robert had a good idea of what really had been said between the pirates and the locals. "Contact Traffic Control. Let them know that we have a heavy squadron of fighters ready to leave their bays, if they want some back up."
##########
After the dropships of the attackers had lifted off of the planet's surface. Strangely the local defense command had not ordered any of her fighters to go after them. It was noted that Copeland had offered to send his whole heavy aero squadron to help deal with a few modified cargo haulers. The local commander had not even bothered to reply to the messages sent by Robert or even the ones that the Traffic Control officer of the day had sent her. Robert was passed a note in the form of a private digital message. It was a thank you from the local drop port security commander for the help in beating off a large and determined pirate attack.
While the cleanup was undertaken, Robert did "take" a half dozen of the left behind hulks of the pirates with only an eye wink from the commander of the security forces. Robert had just ordered the hulks stripped in the Lion's mech bays, and then had the parts sold right there on the flame scored landing field. Well, that happened to all of the battered hulks, but for the Victor. It was inspected by the security forces, but it was allowed to be loaded into the cargo dropship with a note of thanks from the drop port manager found with the handing over paperwork. Robert was looking forward to adding the Victor to his little force. Robert happened to know about an updated Victor that was supposed to have fought for the Wolverines, but the pilot had not lived long enough to flee Clan space. The mech was something of a bedtime story to the more mech pilot inclined children of his family.
#########
Much to the distress to Jess, all of the flights from the drop port were canceled until an investigation about the attack was concluded. They were going to be stuck on this planet for at least the next few days. Besides there was a lot of damage that needed to be surveyed and inventories done before "safe" operations could be allowed. The locals didn't want someone to have been able to sneak around while others were distracted and do some five finger discount shopping in the wrecked warehouses.
The other rumor on the street, was that some of the local power players were looking to make sure that they found anyone that might have helped the pirates make it in under the noses of the locals. Robert had tried to get around this ruling, but he had been roadblocked by a note from the local MiM office that had been dropped in his digital "In Box". All Robert and his team could do was try to make the best of it and wait until the dropship port was reopened like the rest of the dropships spread out over half of the planet.
Robert, Jess, and a two person escort were in a bar/restaurant called The Amazon. It was a high end place that Jess had been told about on the first night on this planet. It had very good food and small tables for the patrons to use. It would play the latest Solaris games around the room, but you could only hear what was going on with the game by the provided headsets at each table. That kept the background noise down to a manageable level. Robert and Jess were not that interested in the details of the games, but it was the actions on the screens that would draw the eyes.
Each of the tall tables would only hold two people, and the food was very good if a little on the expensive side. Those two things were what brought Jess and Robert to this place. The escorts were sitting in the next booth to the right of Robert and Jess, and they were both enjoying the meals provided out of Copeland's pocketbook. It was just a nice night to get off the dropships and see people that were not working for them. Oh, and the four large armed guards at the main door of the restaurant was also nice to have around, even before the pirate attack.
Robert looked up when a plate of food was dropped off at their table. The reason for the look was that all of their food was already there, and they had not ordered any refills. While his eyes were going up, they stopped when they crossed a large pistol covered from view by a dish towel and a serving platter in the other hand of the man standing at the edge of their booth.
As Robert watched, the pistol went from being aimed at him to being pointed at Jess with what had to be lethal intent. Now Robert looks at the face of the person threatening them with the blocky black weapon. He was a thin man with a pencil mustache, but the eyes were as cold as a shark. When the man spoke, and it was in a tone that was cold as his eyes.
"Mr. Copeland. Please don't make any sudden movements, and keep your hands where I can see them if you please. I don't think you want me to kill your little girlfriend. And before you think about warning your escorts I have them…covered. I don't think you want them to die also, if you try to do something rash."
For some reason Robert didn't doubt that this man had spoken truthfully, and he acted accordingly. "Okay? So, what is the plan?" Robert had an idea that the pair of them were going to be held for some kind of a ransom. "The HPG is down for the next week, so my funds are rather limited at the moment."
The voice that replied to Robert was soft but ice cold. "Oh, Mr. Copeland? We are not going to need that. I have a car waiting for us outside, which will be taking us on a short hop over to the drop port."
Jess was looking at the man and she put a little sing song tone in her voice. She had already noticed that the "waiter" was watching Robert more closely than her. Her hand was already under the table, out of habit of only having one arm on the table at any one time. That had been something that her father and mother had drilled into her head before the SLIC training had started. "So, why are we going back so soon?"
The man looked at her and a smile that only a mother would love showed on his face. "My you are a just a bed warmer, are you not."
Jess just let the air head look stay on her face, and she let her hidden hand slowly move to her color matching handbag. Robert wanted him to keep looking at him when he felt Jess's hand move under the tabletop. "So, you want the ship's safe. I have a feeling that you're going to be very disappointed with its contents."
The fake waiter let another fake laugh fall out of his mouth like viper's venom. "Oh, we will be getting that safe. But when we get to the drop port, you will let some friends of mine onto that Mammoth class dropship of yours."
Jess still had that fake light tone on display to seem younger and be more of an air head. This should not have worked with someone that had come from the MoC, so Jess knew that this person was not a local. "So, you want our ships. You are going to need more than a few friends to run the Styx." She wanted to see how much this guy was going to let slip to someone that seem to have the IQ of your average banana.
The head of the waiter now turned to look closely at the young woman. "Oh, Copeland's command jumpship would be a nice addition to the CCAF. But I will just have to settle on a large cargo dropship that is packed full of Star League weapons. Weapons that belong to the Celestial Wisdom and was stolen by you."
Robert had his work face on, and the right tone was set. "Just so I'm clear, and what will happen if I don't play along with your plan to take the Hercules?"
The smile had not moved more than a few millimeters. "Then your little bed warmer is going to have a closed casket funeral. And then your escorts are going to have some terminal burns to their foreheads. If that does not work for you, then you will die with your dinner tonight."
Robert could tell by the tone, that the waiter was getting ready to do something dumb. Jess could tell the same thing as Robert, but she was in a position to do something about it. She was hoping that the gunman would talk more about his plans, but she needed to act very soon. There is a trick to shooting from under a table. The human eye will automatically align with the dominate hand's pointer finger. It's not perfect shooting doing something like this, but it would get you close, if the target you were shooting at was also close and not moving that much to the left or right. It was also something you needed to train to be able to do with any hope of getting the job done. And it was just the kind of training that Jess had gone through every year as part of SLIC.
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Jess had been able to pull out a Colonial pilot's pistol from her handbag under the table without the gunman noticing what she was doing. She makes sure that her pointer finger was running down the side of the upper barrel and slide of the small but very powerful weapon. She had to make a hard decision and it was not as easy as it might sound. It was only the matter of life and death for either her or for Robert Copeland.
This double-barreled weapon had many ways to fire, and she needed to work out what was the best way to end the threat standing before her. She could fire the smaller caliber upper barrel or the high explosive shell in the lower barrel first. This latest weapon had been pulled from the arms rooms on the newest of the pair of Colonial Battlestars to find New Circe. This model could fire both barrels with only one short trigger pull. There even was a little switch on the other side of the weapon from the weapon's physical safety switch. This would let the firer decide if they wanted the smaller, faster, and longer range upper barrel to fire first or to fire the slower 18mm explosive round first.
The problem Jess had was the table between her and the standing gunman. It looked to be wood, but was it really just a few planks of pine? But firing an explosive round at this range, and in a bar was a chancy call. She mentally decides to fire both barrels, with the smaller round at least weakening the table if it did not punch threw the wood for the heavier shell to go through to hit her target. That shell was going to be used as her back up shot. After all this weapon was designed to give a Colonial pilot or crew a small chance to kill a Centurion before they died. The downside was that this was the first time for her to use this weapon in a stressful situation. She flipped the right selector, pointed her finger at the gunman while it was still hidden under the table. And she pulled the single trigger that would fire both barrels in the order she wanted.
Only she made one slight mistake, and this was due to this being the first time using this modified weapon on a mission. Instead of the lighter and faster round being fired first, the heavy explosive filled shell fired and it hit the bottom of the table first. This turned out to be a very good thing. You see this table was made of a local wood that was about 10 times the strength of dried mesquite wood or about 100 times the strength of the more well-known hard woods called oak. The shell hit the bottom of the table, and it was hard enough to cause the fuse to fire on the explosive charge.
A huge cloud of wood splinters flew up into the face of the gunman. He might have only flinched, but the rest of the room dove for cover at the sound of the explosion. Then the lighter and faster projectile went through the hole opened by the shell, and it flew a little higher than Jess had aimed for. She had been pointing at the gunman's belly with her finger. The cloud of sharp and very hard wood hit the gunman in the face and going down to his belt line hard enough to punch threw his working clothes. The jerk caused the gunman to pull the trigger on his handgun, but his aim now was trashed, and he put a bullet into the booth between Jess and Robert with a loud crack that was lost in the triple discharge made by Jess's single firearm.
The colonial made projectile flew through the hole in the tabletop and hit the gunman. Between the less than perfect aim, and the heavy shell had added some unexpected recoil to the weapon. Where Jess had been aiming at the guts, the bullet went a little higher. Bullets tend to go where they are aimed, and not were the shooter wants them to go. In this case it turned out to have been better that she had thought she had aimed low. The bullet had flown up and hit the gunman in the base of the throat and not in the lower stomach. The hard projectile had hit at a steep upward angle, and it exited the gunman's body right at the base of his skull.
That much energy transfer left nothing in doubt, and the head of the gunman became a red, white, and grey mess that would need to be mopped up by some unfortunate soul that worked for the bar. The hard colonial made projectile ended up lodged in the ceiling on the other side of the room from Jess's seat. Due to the firing angle and aiming high, the metal slug didn't hit anyone else on the rest of its flight. Two rounds fired, and now one gunman was off the market. The sudden death of the ringleader ended this issue without anyone else getting hurt, well besides some upset stomachs at seeing what the head less gunman left all over the dining area.
Robert and his dropships were burning for the jump point less than forty-eight hours after the attack in the bar had been foiled. Robert made a note to pass along some pointed remarks to a few points of contact that he knew back on Canopus about these events. They had been held for hours after the attack in the bar by some of the local authorities. The questions had been far ranging, but Robert could tell that some of the local power players had thought that he might be connected with the pirate attack. And somehow that connection had led to the incident at the restaurant. He also made a note not to come back to this system, unless the rewards were a lot better than SLIC wanting some firsthand updated information. Some places just were not worth the fuel to visit the first time, much less having to do so for a second time.
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Meredith looked at the video play one more time. It was four sets of images playing on one screen to give her a better sense of what was going on from many different viewpoints at the same time. Each set of the playing images had come from a different camera mounted around the bar. They had not been setup to keep an eye on a gun fight, but for security of the bank and other money areas for the owner. The booths were not covered that well, because the owner had thought his well-paid guards would make something like that unnecessary. Still there had been enough of the cameras to see what had happened on that fateful day.
A shoot out at a bar or restaurant, even one as high end as this one was something that would have normally not drawn the attention of MiM. But it was not just any bar fight that had been between a known Confederation agent and someone that had friends high within the MoC's leadership. MiM had first stepped in when they found out that the locals were trying to frame up this small trader for the pirate attack. MiM had already been watching two of the key leaders of this planet, and now they had more data to pin the attack on the leader of the militia and the deputy governor than on some "unknown" trader.
This time the woman had to look away as the table exploded outward toward the face of the MASK agent. That he was a MASK agent was not in doubt, even before MiM had started looking at this…issue. A camera mounted on the main door had been able to get an image of a work van and the two front seated occupants. They had been able to track the hover transport to a battered warehouse near the now battered Drop port.
The attack had been quick and bloody on the warehouse an hour later with the hover work van still sitting inside. They had only been able to take one member of the group "living" in the warehouse alive, even with the heavy use of some of the best sleep gases that the MoC could make. They were still looking over the data that had been recovered from that location, and it looked pretty good at being used to hamper any future Cappy operations in this part of the MoC for the next few months.
So far, they all were thinking that the attack was ordered by someone high up in the Confederation. The warehouse and video data had backed up the recorded data that someone from Copeland's group had recorded what the "waiter" had said. They were going to take the dropship called Hercules and make for a jump point. They were to "highjack" a jumpship, but the jumpship's crew was already in on the deal. They were to play like this was a criminal action, but the jumpship M/V Wilhelmina was not just another civilian transport. A "customs" inspection had taken the ship, but again a lot of blood had been spilled on both sides in that action at the jump point.
With a grunt the MiM agent copied all of the data to be sent via courier jumpship up her chain of command. A report also would be sent via HPG to give her boss a quick update. She made sure that the last line of the assessment was worded just right to her long time supervisor. "I saw my first real Greedo. I advise not to surprise these people while they are sitting at a table. It was as messy as they said in training."
With a smile she signed the bottom of the report that would be sent via the ComStar run HPG. The working idea was that the Confederation had leaked the data to the MH. But how did the MASK know that Copeland was going to be on the planet? Meredith made a sour face and made a second note to see where that line of thinking might take her.
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Notes
Proioxis class hover tanks. See chapter 56.
Challenger (Heather) vs Victor (Bernhard Rogge). Charger speed to 54 km/h, which allows the use of a smaller engine (incidentally, the commonplace Pitban 240. The 'Mech is armored with 15.5 tons of armor and is armed with 4 Large Lasers 1 in each arm and side torso, and 5 Medium Lasers (in its head and matched to the LLs); 24 (DHS) and a full set of fully functional hands.
The Greedo: Yes, I was asked to try to write one up, and so here you go. I hope you all liked it.
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