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.

87. Chapter 87 Late 3046 and Early 3047

Chapter 87

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

Clan space

Late 3046 and Early 3047.

Star Admiral Kei Drummond of the Blood House Drummond, one of the founding houses of the Nova Cats, was sitting almost as still as death while in a modified Lotus position on the floor. He was in a deep trance, but strangely for a trance, he was speaking softly in the room that held only a small night light mounted low near the back wall of the room for illumination. The Star Admiral had been troubled by very odd dreams for the last few months, and that was not as odd as was that they were repeating. Kei Drummond was not even an unofficial member of the Seekers, and he was known not to have put that much value on visions like the rest of his Nova Cat brethren did. He had not kept his opinion about those visions all to himself over the last few decades, at least not outside of those from his own blood house. That is until the second time that he had the same dream when he closed his eyes again. All of those required vision classes during and after graduating from the Sibko came back to him in an unwanted flood of information.

Now he was sitting in a dark room with the third most powerful person of his clan and with half a dozen of his most "gifted" subordinates sitting quietly around him. Thanks to some very specialized training and the use of not just a few different drugs that most civilized groups even within the Clan would be listed as poisons. This little group was working on understanding what was going on inside the Star Admiral's head without resorting to a Craniotomy of some kind.

When the images finished going through his mind, Kei was in a black space that time had no meaning for anyone involved in this "meeting". After what seemed like forever and at the same time it felt like no time at all had passed in that null space, Kei felt a light touch on his right shoulder. And just like that, the Star Admiral was back in the mostly dark room with these few people spread out around him.

The Admiral blinked a few times to get some moisture back into his eyes, and after a few seconds he spoke in a hoarse but very low voice. "So, Loremaster. What does it all mean?" This was the whole reason that he had come here in the first place, and more than a small part of him was scared to know what this dream might mean.

The Loremaster sat back on the thick pillow placed under his back side, and he didn't say anything for many long seconds. He also didn't look over to his support staff of the Loremaster sitting quietly off to the sides of the target of this meeting. This was something that the Loremaster had some experience answering. "Star Admiral, visions are hard to decipher…... as you well know. That is even true for those of us who have talent in this skill and even after all of these years and the training people like me have undertaken over the last two centuries. I am sure that you have had a vision, that is something that I can say without a doubt for my official records."

The Loremaster let concern show on his face. "But to have the same vision over and over again for many weeks? Now that is something very odd. I will have to check my notes, but I think that there are only a handful of times this has happened in all of the Clan's recorded history."

The Loremaster took a few very deep breaths while looking up at the ceiling working to gather his thoughts into some kind of order. After a few seconds of quiet he looked back to the Star Admiral with at least something to say that would sound right. "Star Admiral, I would like you to go into the next room and get some rest while we consult, quineg. There is going to be a glass on the nightstand, and I want you to drink the whole contents. When you wake? We will talk in more detail and try to work out the meaning of these images. Quiaff."

The Loremaster got a positive head nod from the military officer but not a word. Using words for something like this would be a waste of effort or air. And the Clans didn't like to waste anything. At least that was what everyone was told in the Sibkos. The reality of this was a totally different matter…. most of the time.

The room started to empty not long after the Loremaster had spoken, and even before the Admiral had started getting up from the padded floor. The third highest ranked person in the Nova Cats Black Navy went into one room as he had been directed. That was where he would have a drug induced sleep finally free of dreams, for the first time in months. While he slept, the Nova Cat's Loremaster and his now larger supporting staff went into another room not far away to discuss what they had heard and "felt" in the Star Admiral's vision. This was where they would meditate and hope for their own visions to be granted to them about what the Star Admiral had been experiencing for months. This had not been the first time that this type of meeting had been done by a Loremaster of the Nova Cats and he already had three this month….. Only they were not nearly as intense as what the Star Admiral was experiencing.

######

When the sun had risen fully into the sky a dozen hours later, a very refreshed Admiral entered the office of a visibly tired Loremaster of the Nova Cats. Kei noticed that one of the assistants to the Loremaster that had shown him the door also looked very tired. It was like neither of them had gotten any sleep all night. This was odd enough for him to notice the changes in these two and make mental notes of this data point. The one thing that a spacer had to do was to be aware of what was going on around them at all times. So, the Star Admiral noted the looks and dark circles under two sets of eyes, but he had no plans to act on this information at this time.

The Admiral took a high backed office chair, and he took a seat at an angle to the desk that the older man had pointed to when Kei had first entered the office. When the older man was ready to start this meeting, and it was something that the Loremaster did at his own time no matter the rank of the visitor. It might have been a power play or another type of game, but the Admiral was not thinking so. After maybe a half a minute, the Loremaster looked through his bloodshot eyes at the multi spaceships commander. Really the long night was not that much of a mental issue for the Loremaster to have to deal with. He had already endured many of them, and he would do so again if the need arose. The blood shot eyes were just one of the things that vision seekers expected to see to give the impression that hard work had been done for them. Only one part of the Loremaster's brain brought up that it had grown to be less of an act over the last few years.

With a voice that sounded like the Loremaster had been gargling gravel all night he addressed the younger man. "Star Admiral, do you know Star Colonel Santin West? quineg." He raised an eyebrow at the younger man when he finished speaking. The sound of his own voice had concerned the Loremaster to the point that he was thinking that the long night might have caught up to him after all.

The Admiral was a little taken aback by the question that seemed to have come way out of left field from what he had been expecting about "his" vision. He reacted as fast as you would expect from someone who was trained in aerospace combat almost from the time of his berth. "Neg, not that I can remember but the name is known to me. Elementals are hard to miss, especially when they have reached such a high rank and have done it so fast in our clan….. quiaff. But I do not think that I have met the Star Colonel officially or even socially….. at least not that I can remember. I might have carried his dropships from time to time, but I would have to check my logbook to be sure. I take it from your tone that this might be important, Quiaff."

The Loremaster sat all the way back in his own high backed chair. He was so far back into the chair that his feet came off the thick and dark carpet, but this was hidden by his concealing large office desk supplied to him by the Merchant caste. The Loremaster had known the answer that he was going to get from the Star Admiral before he had even asked, and clan members were not known to lie. He was just hoping that some of the reports were wrong or at least being misinterpreted by the younger members of his staff. After all it was not like something like that had not happened in the past, it was rare, but it had happened before. It would make his life that much easier and not the nightmare that it currently looked to becoming for him and his people. It was just too bad that it looked to not have been the case after all.

"I see." Was a simple statement and the Loremaster had to fight to keep any tells from coming through his tone and body language.

Kei could tell that this was not the reply that the Loremaster was hoping to get from him, and this was more than a little concerning for the Star Admiral. Again, the Star Admiral made a mental note of this information that the Loremaster had just given him. He was starting to get a feeling about this, and he was sure that it was not in a good way. Well, he was starting to feel worse about what had been haunting him for way too many nights than he wanted to count.

After a few long seconds of silence, the Loremaster started talking again to the younger man. "I cannot discuss visions from other members of our clan, but he had one similar to yours and at the same time it was very different. Your description of a two-toned Cameron Star in black and red with the longest point going to the right and a long but shorter point going north match with what the Star Colonel has reported. As does the image of a Nova Cat with its main not displayed over the top of the Star. He had thought, at first, that it was a Smoke Jaguar and not a great Nova Cat, when he first reported this vision to my office. After some study, he and his guide now think that it was a Nova Cat instead of one of the lower forms of large cats. That is all I will say about that vision….. for now." the Loremaster put the note in this voice that said to drop any further questions.

The Loremaster stopped talking again and it looked like his eyes wanted to close when he started talking again. "In your trance, you said that the star was itself overlaying four cloth ripped lines in background fabric. You are confident that the cuts were in a X formation for some reason. Then you had the images of battle after bloody battle that seemed to span the surfaces of many different worlds. You are not a ground base commander, and from your records you never fought in an air support roll after your second year on the warrior's rolls. So, you do not know that much about ground mechs and what it would look like to have ground battles on the scale that your visions have shown you. Most low visions need input from a person's subconscious to frame the vision."

When the Loremaster didn't get a reply to his question he moved along. "I checked your scores going all the way back to your time within the Sibko, and you did very poorly in your identification of different types of ground combat machines used by the Clans. That might explain not recognizing the ground combat units in your rerunning visions. I would say that it was smart to draw examples of them out when you noticed these repeating visions. I also check through all of our combat databases, and there is not a single report of a battle armor design, battlemech, or OmniMech that has a set of blades that fold out for use or down into the arms so that it clears machine guns to fire from that arm. The review of even the Dragoon supplied war books of the traitor lord's equipment was done just before you arrived, and it is the same there."

The Loremaster let a snort slip out. "They even looked at the data from that dezgra world of Solaris where they play "those" games. I have ordered a deeper dive with some of our weaponology teams that are well versed in the weapons used in the Golden Age and the after-action reports from Operation Klondike and against the Dark Caste. It might take them a few days to get back to me, but I have a feeling that they will give the same reply the others have."

Now the Loremaster was not surprised that the Star Admiral was quiet, it was a very large mech that had just been dropped on to his head from low orbit without jump jets. When he felt it was the right time, the Loremaster continued. "The feeling that these visions give is that you are leading a group on a long journey to a hidden spot in space. That is not a surprise….. with someone of your life experience and training. I can now say with some confidence, that you are only the eighth individual with visions on record with a repeating vision like this within our clan. There are a few more historic stories going back to the founding of the Star League that are known but not fully interpreted." The Loremaster was not going to talk that much about those, and that Jonathan Cameron was not alone in that famous and now dead bloodline for his dreams.

The Star Admiral nodded his head in understanding, he had already reviewed the story of the Cameron that had dreams and had started the SDS system. That was to have been a defense network to protect the Star League from foreign flags from flying on Terra's surface. It was just too bad that it was the same SDS system that had bled the old SLDF so badly getting rid of the Usurper. Kei took that story as the cautionary tale about visions, just as the Sibko leaders had meant it to be taken so many years in the past.

When the Loremaster saw that the young officer was keeping up with the older man with ease, he kept right on rolling with his line of thought. "The starfish shaped warships are also not known in all of our data files. They also do not match any type of space station that we can find in the war books dating from now to the time of the founder."

The Loremaster changed a little of his line of thinking. "You then talked about the SLDF flag being carried into battle against these…. foes of your visions. We can look deeper into that now, if you want or we can have another meeting." The Loremaster knew that some people having a vision can only take so much reviewing at one sitting before their brains just shut down.

Now the Loremaster got a positive head nod from the younger man that was taken as that the young admiral wanted to continue with this meeting. "Now your vision ends with a red samurai in full armor stabbing an old Nova Cat from behind with his short sword. We have noted that the killing is done after the Nova Cat had been defending the red samurai from large animals. This is what I find the most disturbing so far of all of your visions that we understand. We all agree that this is the Combine killing our Clan sometime in the future."

The Admiral was now more confused, and he started at the top of the list of his confusion. "So, what do I do? Every night it is the same dream. Can you stop them quiaff?" He stops talking for a few seconds as the frantic sound of his own voice reaches his own ears. "But more to the point, how can I get it to stop. It can be stopped quiaff?" He had raised his left eyebrow towards the end of his statement.

The Loremaster folded his hands under his chin as he stayed sitting forward in his office chair, and it looked like he was in deep thought for a few seconds. "Maybe you are stuck in an endless loop, and the vision cannot finish unfolding in your mind until you let it know that you understand the part of what was being shown to you currently. What I want you to do, is to start planning a way to find this place with the X behind the Great Father's star. I will put out a note on the chatter web under my office name to see if anyone else has "seen" these things like you have. If anyone comes forward, or I get a report from one of my vision guides, we will talk about this again. I understand that you are taking three full stars of our Clan's warships that are mixed in with ships just recovered out of the cache for Operation Revival. You were to take those warships and their crews around for testing as you patrol our clan's assets." This was a statement and not a question, so the clan quineg or aff was not used.

The Admiral had to fight to keep his face still at this last comment from the Loremaster. The training patrol and its mission was supposed to be kept quiet from anyone but the two highest leaders within his clan and his own command staff. The naval officer was to make his rounds around the Pentagon Worlds and challenge some of the other clans while his command worked out the kinks commonly found in the green crews and newish warships. He was hoping to be able to take a few "new" warships or other types of space assets as isorla for his clan to use. He was of the opinion that you could never have enough warships to be used during the coming invasion of the Inner Sphere. Most Clans were focused on the ground attack, but Kei knew that you had to get to the planet's surface first and the Scavenger Lords had no idea of Safecon.

There were assets hidden in cache sites spread around the Pentagon Worlds, both on the planets and out in deep space. The one's that the Star Admiral had been more focused on before he had been given this show the flag mission were the larger ticket items found in the deep space caches of the clans. But those caches were filled with the oldest ships and many of the hulks would need a lot of work to get them back to a functional state to support current Clan operations and doctrine. Then these large items would need a whole lot of updating of those vessels to at least deal with a newer generation of weapons or tactics. There was another source of major space assets out there. Well, some of the other clans had a few new designs of warships like the Night Lord and dropships coming into production around the home systems. There should be even more out there with the rest of the Clans doing the same as the Nova Cats, at least now that war had been cleared to be waged with the Bandit houses of the Inner Sphere.

The Star Admiral thought about not saying more to the Loremaster, but after all maybe his Khans had decided to bring in the Number three leader of the whole Nova Cats into planning of his little training mission. "AFF, I will be taking out three stars of our clan's warships with attached supporting jumpships and dropships in about three weeks. We are going out for a training run and to test some of our neighbors. We are planning on going out to see the Ravens, Bears, Falcons, and maybe a few others while we are shaking down the crews and ships. I want to see how sharp our teeth have become and how dull the wits of the other Toumans are with operations in the deep black. I think that some of our more ground focused Clans might have forgotten a few things."

The Loremaster had to quickly hide a small smile that threatened to come out. But he was a very skilled Loremaster, and this job required someone to acquire skills that most others within the Clans would publicly think was distasteful and not part of the clan way. Those were people that were either playing the game or were too dumb to make it very high in the ranks of the leadership of any clan. When you played at this level in the political games of the Clan? You needed to have a very good poker face and the Admiral did not have one nearly as good as the one that this Loremaster possessed.

The Loremaster let his face go to stone. "I wish you luck, and please feel free to come see me again whenever you feel the need. In fact, I would like that you keep my office appraised of your visions in updated numbers on a regular schedule. Now if anything changes, or you notice something please report it as soon as possible. I also would like you to work on drawing any images of the equipment you are seeing, to see if something new shows up. I will also have a special program sent to you that might be helpful in logging your visions in detail. I hope this works its way out of your head, but I fear that this will not be the case. I am sorry to say that you are going to be undergoing a type of stress that you are not used to. If you fall into despair? Please talk to one of my vision guides. Aff."

A few months later

Still in clan space.

The Khan and SaKhan of clan Nova Cat sat in a meeting room and they were waiting for the Clan's Loremaster to show up. The older man had called for this meeting, but in a very cryptic way that was only a little out of character for the Loremaster for the last few years. Neither of the two leaders of this clan knew why they were called there, and the Loremaster's staff would not even hint as to why they had been "asked" to be here at this time. When the Loremaster finally arrived at this office? He had not said a word or returned the normal greetings with the other two leaders of the Nova Cats, and the two people that should have been seen as his next two commanders over him. The Loremaster only walked over to "his" chair and made eye contact with the other two leaders of his clan and gave them a slight chin nod. This last action was very much out of the Loremaster's normal routine, and it should have drawn a rebuke from the Khans if it was not so far out of character of the Loremaster.

After that one head nod the Loremaster just sat in his high backed chair and waited until the time of the meeting was displayed on the wall mounted chronometer. To say that the two Khans were surprised that one of their most senior warship commanders entered the meeting room next was a gross understatement of the year. This man rendered the clan salute before moving to stand off to one side of the room, but he had not said a word more than required.

When the Star Admiral came to a stop while standing to the side, the Loremaster stood and addressed his fellow leaders of Clan Nova Cat after the naval officer stopped moving. "My Khan and SaKhan. I have grave news to report to both of you today. Our great Star Admiral has been having visions that have been assessed as being of a grave nature. It has taken us many months, but I think that we now understand what the visions might mean." The Loremaster stopped talking and pointed to the admiral to start his prepared briefing.

The Star Admiral only needed a few seconds to get his mental feet back under him, but then again, he was a Star Admiral in his Clan. "My Khans, as the Loremaster has stated. I have been having reoccurring visions for many months now. Not long after I had talked to our Loremaster and his staff about them, they changed, and it would seem that I was not alone to be having this type of vision among our clan." Kei spent the next half hour going over the visions that he had been enduring, just as he had been briefed to do by his clan's Loremaster after enduring a high speed run from the edge of the Pentagon Worlds.

The Admiral was about to wrap up his briefing when he passed over a pair of data pads for the two leaders of his clan to read. "These are the list of key people that I know who have had the same type of vision as I. I need to warn both of you. These are only the ones that I have found or that have come forward to talk about what they have been seeing when they sleep to a vision guide."

The Khan and his second in command of the clan looked over the list of names on the digital device that he had been just given. Right below the Admiral's name were a list of others with their ranks, commands or position noted off to one side of the screen. "Two Stars of warship captains have had this same vision!?" His tone was disbelieving.

The top leader of this clan slowly turned away from the Star Admiral to look at the Loremaster. "What else? You would not have brought just this to us, not unless you had at least one plan mostly worked out already and half a dozen others in a base out line form quiaff?"

The Loremaster didn't smile at the Khan, he had been hoping that he would get a little more milage about keeping the other leaders on their back feet. "Please look at page nine."

The SaKhan was a little more understanding of what they were being told and the room was quiet for a whole dozen seconds. It was the SaKhan that was the first to react to this new information. "I would not call this a little operation. But I also would not call five Carracks class ship's commanders a warship star, but the two Aegis class cruiser commanders, two Lola III captains, and one of our best Fredasa/Hunter scout commanders. All of that is not a small amount of firepower and skills the clan could use for other tasks. Then there is the rest of this list that I have not been able to finish looking at that closely. I note that I did not see any of the large scale ground military related members, besides the warship, dropships, and the fighters."

As with most Clans, a clan's "real" strength was measured in the number of omnimechs that it could land on a planet's surface at any given time along with the number of Omnimechs that filled the front line Galaxies. The Nova Cats and the Snow Ravens were some of the rare clans that put equal weight in the black navy branch as the ground pounders. But that didn't mean that those two clans could afford to dismiss how the other clans counted strength.

The Loremaster held up his hand and spoke. "My Khans, it is more than that."

The Loremaster punched a button on his side of the desk and a second person walked into the meeting room within a few seconds. The Clan Nova Cats leaders could not tell who it was, but the formal head covering was that of the Loremaster of the Goliath Scorpions. It was not uncommon to see one of the other top leaders of the clans in formal gear, but it was still not that common outside of formal occasions or within the grand council chambers. It was a great way for one of them to show that they are speaking with the full weight of their clan behind their words. It was not something that was done as a jest or as an off the cuff idea, and it was not done without a lot of deep thinking put behind those words that were said by the person under the mask.

The voice that had come through the mask sounded as tired as the Loremaster of the Nova Cats looked to the eyes of the two other leaders of the Nova Cats. "Thank you for taking the time to see me on such short notice. I know that you both were not aware that I was on the planet, and that was something that I felt was important to keep it that way at the time. That need was assessed by myself and my Khans, but that changed after the first few meetings with your Loremaster."

The Scorpion Loremaster could see that the group leaders understood what they had been saying. "You might know that we use a drug called Necrosia to help our seekers in their roll to find what has been lost to the clans." Both of the Loremasters and leaders of the Nova Cats were aware of how most of the other clans thought about this use of drugs. Even the Ghost Bears had been known to make the odd disparaging remark about both of these clans for the visions and other issues that comes with listening much less using those visions for operations.

The two Nova Cat leaders didn't address this statement one way or the other, and after a few seconds the mask spoke again. "Lately we of the Goliath Scorpions have been seeing something strange in our visions. For the first warning was that "we" have reports of many people having the same type of vision at least in the outline. That was why I wanted to talk to your Nova Cat Loremaster."

That idea was very out of the box thinking for the Goliath Scorpion's Loremaster. Anyone claiming to have visions without "the drug" was thought to have need of a few lengthy visits with some of the mind benders of the Scientist Caste. Now the Loremaster was going to risk their position when they made it back to brief the Scorpion Khans.

Now two sets of eyes from the Nova Cat's Khans turned to look at their own Loremaster. The Loremaster at first was a little uncomfortable under those gazes. After only a few seconds the Nova Cat Loremaster addressed the elephant in the room. "My Khans, this was a private meeting between the pair of us that had been set up for a few months now. It was not until we had been talking for a while that I connected some of the dots with some issues I and my vision guides have been dealing with over the last many months, but not all of them. It was after that meeting that I asked that the Star Admiral make a high speed run back from his patrol and training mission to be available for this meeting. But first I think that the Scorpion Loremaster should give their own take on the visions that their people have been experiencing."

The other Loremaster had not taken a seat or even removed the headdress mask that would have shown a very scarred woman's face underneath. "When our Seekers started taking Necrosia recently, the given visions had been of death and war."

The Scorpion Loremaster saw the backs of the two Khans get straighter and their faces fall before they went still. "One of the visions is about the Pentagon planets, and we see a great reaving coming to all of the clans that are on those worlds. They all report to have seen death like has never been seen before… excepting in reports that the Dragoons sent back about the Traitor Lord's first great war."

The Scorpion tilted her head a little upwards before the bomb was dropped into this room. "The time for most clans living within these worlds is coming to an end. The invading clans will be thrown out of the Great Father's worlds and the ones that remain will be hip deep in everyone's blood that remains behind. It is time for those that want to live to prepare to leave what the Great Father founded, to find greener fields."

The SaKhan was the first of the pair of Nova Cat's leaders to speak. "Loremaster of the great Goliath Scorpions would you please take a seat by our Star Admiral. I think we have a lot to talk about, and I don't need a vision to know that it is going to be a very taxing meeting."

When the Loremaster from the Scorpions removes the mask, the two Nova Cat Khans are surprised not to recognize the woman still in the under layers of the formal costume. After the movement of the head piece had stopped the Khan of the Nova Cats spoke. "That is an ominous vision you have relayed to us, Quineg. But you said that it was one vision, so that leads me to ask a question. What are the other visions that have the leadership of the Scorpions so upset."

The Scorpion's Loremaster let a sour look come to her now exposed face, but she sneaks a look over to the other Loremaster before speaking. "There have been many reports that the SLDF is fighting an evil that has a single red eye, and they use WMDs like they were just so many firecrackers." She stopped talking for a second and then she passes over a hand drawn image to the two Khans. It is of an image with an animal face superimposed over a Camron star.

The Nova Cat's Loremaster smiled as his two Khans looked at the hand drawn image that should not exist. When the image is moved to the side of the desk, the Loremaster of the Nova Cats speaks. "That is why I thought that we all needed to have this meeting. I would say that we were meant to work together. Quiaff."

The SaKhan asked. "So, I take it that the Scorpions are thinking about picking up stakes and moving out of the home worlds in the near future. Whereas the Nova Cats are a backup clan for Operation Revival, Clan Goliath Scorpions did not do even that well in the tests of the ilKhan. What do you think that the Grand Council will say when they see that your clan is doing…. odd things Quiaff. I would bet that it would not take much for some of them to start thinking that they can prey on you? Quiaff."

The young woman gave a slight smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We will be doing all of the planning needed to leave these worlds, and we plan on using the buildup for the liberation of the Inner Sphere to pull more ships out of the cache sites. This will be so that when we need the additional lift capability, it will be there when the time comes. As the Old Father says… If you do not plan to succeed? Then you are planning to fail. That also is the reason that I was sent to talk with your Loremaster and hopefully the Khans of the Nova Cats. The Great Father only brought so many Potemkin Class troop cruisers in his great exodus, so any more added to the fleets of a clan will be looked at very closely by hungry eyes. We thought about asking the Snow Ravens to help build something that might not be noticed, but they seemed to be…. prickly after the results of the trials for Operation Revival. Now that I have been told about the visions that your clan members have been dealing with, I think that we can work together more closely than first thought. Maybe more importantly, we can work together without letting to many others know about our plans."

This statement got both of the Nova Cat Khans attention, and the younger woman struck while the iron was hot so to speak. "The original draft of Operation Revival was made back in 3005, and it had provisions for the setting up of a convoy system that all of the invading members would use for material support. That system would be augmented by a number of escorts provided by all of the Clans with "extra" warships that were not needed to their own clan security. These convoys could be used by anyone for a given amount of cargo, and a central group would keep track of those cargos and who was getting them at any one time so that a balance could be achieved. We could not find any rules that say that a Clan could not have their own escorts and ships to run supplies to their forces fighting the Traitor Lords. Only that this system would be the backbone of the supply line. If the visions are true for both of our clans? Then we know that the Nova Cats would be called into Revival, and then we will be able to be seen as working together on those secondary convoys."

The Khan of the Nova Cats rocks back into his chair. "That sounds too good for us and nothing for the Scorpions. How do you win on this deal, Quineg?"

The Scorpion Loremaster smiles, and it was the type of smile that made a person hold their wallets a little closer to the chest. "While we are escorting your "extra" supply jumpships, we will be scouting the local area for our own use. We have already found a lot of data about what is between our worlds and the Inner Sphere that our Seekers have compiled over the years. We are going through their reports in more detail now, and we already have a few ideas where we might find what we are looking for. But we want to make sure of all of the facts, before we make our final jump and fully commit ourselves to any given path."

She was not going to talk about the backward political group that covered many star systems in the area that the Scorpions were looking at as the primary area that the Goliath Scorpions were going to put under their control. It was planned that the Scorpions would land on Nueva Castile and the Umayyad Caliphate to put them under proper Clan law. But with all of the unknowns in a mission like this one, the leadership of the Goliath Scorpions were not going to put all of their eggs in one basket based on outdated information. At least they were not going to do that this early in the game. You never know what other diamonds might be out there just waiting for the new owners to show up at the jump point and put them in their vest pocket so to speak.

The Khan of the Nova Cats didn't say anything as he worked out as many angles as he thought that he could see at this time. One note was that he was going to have a very long and one way talk with "his" Loremaster. It was not acceptable to be caught flatfooted like this and then to find out that it had been planned out by a senior member of your own clan. The three of them should be working as a close-nit team without surprises of this magnitude dropped on them out of the blue.

After only a few seconds the Khan spoke. "So, your clan "is" looking to leave this part of space. Quiaff. But what about this Star League that you have visions of? Are you going to go looking for them before or after your clan's migration?"

The young woman's back went straight in her chair like she had touched a live power wire. "We are Wardens, and we think that a rebuilt Star League can be done. But it must be built by looking at what worked and what did not work in our past. What might be done off the edge of the map is not the Goliath Scorpion's concern at this time. Currently, we think that we need to look after our clan in the short and near term, and not so much the Pentagon Worlds or other worlds that are not in our clan's navigation database. Some among my Clan think that maybe the great experiment in this part of space is over, or at least it soon will be. After we protect our clan and its people, then we can spend more time Seeking when we are not worried about being wiped out by other clans that the founder set up in this part of space."

Her tone was as cold as ice as she continued speaking. "To do combat for political gains that should have been outgrown by those that the Great Father led out here is a disgrace. If the Nova Cats also want to move away from these worlds, we will help. It is thought that we could do more by working together and acting to cover each other's move than either could do alone."

#######

The Khan had some ideas of what the Scorpions might be up to, even though they were not wanting to talk about it. This was only the first meeting and there would have to be a dozen more…at least. The meeting went until the noon meal when the longest break of the day was taken. During that long break, the Khan of the Nova Cats had the SaKhan entertain the Loremaster of the Goliath Scorpions. This gave some time for the Khan to have a little talk with "his" Loremaster in a side briefing room. When he was done with that little talk, he only had a few minutes to get some food and drink shoveled down his throat before the meeting restricted to the members of the Nova Cats started. That meeting would be held in a special briefing room in this command building well away from the one that the Goliath Scorpion Loremaster had been shown this morning.

When the four powerful leaders of the Nova Cats had returned to the briefing room, the Khan noticed that the Loremaster had that eating a lemon look after the little talk he had given to the older man. He was just going to have to wait and see if that was enough of a "talk" to fix the issue or if an official circle of equals was going to need to be called. "Well, that little meeting tells me what the Scorpions clan is going to do. Or at least it is an outline of about what they think that they are going to be able to do. Now that just leaves what to do with the Star Admiral before we think about our own game."

Now the Nova Cat Khan looks down at the device in his hands and opens a file that said "Plan". After the Plan filed open, the Khan worked out that the Star Admiral wanted to find these SLDF troopers that were fighting these strange AIs somewhere off the far edge of the map. The Khan looked deeper into the data pad, and he made sure that he kept his work face set like in stone. "Star Admiral, were do you think you are going?"

The Admiral hit a button on his own digital devices and the holo projector fix mounted into the conference table activated. After a few seconds of warming up, it showed a map of the Pentagon worlds and then a line heading to the Clan invasion zones that soon would be the Inner Sphere. "It was after my first set of meetings with the Loremaster and the second meeting with one of his acolytes that I worked out where we might need to go. One thing about spacers that is not common knowledge for those less space inclined, it is that more than a few of them know the stars just by looking at them. Some say that we underwent this training as a just in case that the nav computers on our different spaceships completely packs it in, or there is a miss jump that they somehow have lived through. After talking to a few of the others that have had this vision or very similar visions, we started working on seeing if we could see if the stars in our visions might be "real". We understood that it was a long shot, but it did not take long to find out a few things."

The Star Admiral kept talking as even his eyes were drawn to the display hovering over the center of the desk that separated them. "As we all know in the Operation Revival data packets. It is a little over 10-month straight line travel to get us back to the edge of the Inner Sphere, from the center of the Pentagon Worlds. From there, any jumpships would have another 10 to 14 months to make it to around this location."

With a second button click a floating blue line and arrow was shown leaving the Pentagon worlds going towards the Inner Sphere, and then a red line breaking off the blue showed the route going around the Inner Sphere until it stopped at a red dwarf class star not very far from a Blue Giant binary star system.

The two leaders could only look at the line and the star system it stopped at. It was not Terra, but it was still as shocking to see that the targeted star was on the other side of the Taurian Concordat from the Pentagon Worlds. That was almost as shocking that this proved that these visions would have this much real information loaded into them.

The Admiral saw the looks from the two leaders, and he had a good idea on why he was getting them. "I do not know if we will stay there, or if we will be given another clue after arriving in that location. This one data point only showed up after we started thinking about this vision, so that is where I think "we" need to go as the next step of these visions."

The Loremaster of the Nova Cats turned towards the Star Admiral, he knew that it was time for the adults to talk about this mission without the kids overhearing it. "Star Admiral, would you please adjourn to the chapel. We have much to talk about, and we have had a long day already. I will meet you there when we are done. Quiaff"

#######

After the door to the main briefing room was closed, the Loremaster looked over to the two other leaders of the Nova Cats. "I know what Star Colonel West saw, and I also agree with our move to support this 2nd Star League that the House Lords will be coming up with after Operation Revival is defeated. But I was reminded by my most gifted acolyte when we were reviewing all of the data from these visions that has been correlated. She brought up that the older and or the wisest female Nova Cats will make at least two birthing dens, when she is expecting to bring new life into this universe. Both of the dens will be filled with bedding and birthing material, as well as some of her favorite fruits or herbs. She will only use one den, but she will make more than one in case the other is found by anyone that might risk her cubs. I think that might be something that our clans need to emulate from our four legged brethren."

The SaKhan made a sour face at hearing the Loremaster recount a story that had become commonly told within the Sibkos not long after the founding of the Nova Cats. "I do not like it…. and I do not like the subtle hint that this is somehow connected to the No Named Clan."

That subject had not been talked about, but you didn't become one of the three top leaders of a Clan if you were in any way dumb. Well, more to the point, they didn't stay in those leadership positions for long if they were found wanting by anyone within the clan. Now that is not saying that the odd Khan didn't make a dumb move from time to time… like Khan Osis was later looked to be doing while getting ready for actions against the House Lords.

The Khan and Loremaster looked at the other leader of the Nova Cats, but it was the older Khan that spoke to the younger man. "That may be true, but we have known for some time about what had really happened to the No Named, Quiaff. We also know that most of it did not happen the way that we were told in the Sibko after the fact. But did you look that closely at the names on the list that have admitted to having this vision? Near as I can tell, they are very or even extreme rated as being Warden in their political leanings. And to a person, they are noted as asking too many questions about our past, outside of what was noted in the Nova Cat or other clan's published Remembrance. Some of them have been noted as pushing to go to the Scorpions or more likely they wanted to join up with their Seekers. I would have bet that more than a few of them wish that we still had contact with the Dragoons so that they could join them in the Inner Sphere. Quiaff".

That statement was not the end of the meeting, it was only the kick starter of many hours and many data pulls to prove some points that the SaKhan had chosen to forget over the years.

######

When the Loremaster walked into the Chapel down the hall from the Khan's briefing room, the sun was just starting to set in the western sky. The meeting had gone on for a long time between the three top leaders of the Nova Cats. It was of little surprise that the officer was sitting with his eyes close when the Loremaster entered the room. But like any true Nova Cat, those eyes opened when it was felt that someone had entered the room.

The Loremaster took a seat at the end of the bench that the admiral had been using. "Star Admiral, your mission outline has been approved…. but with some modifications. One is that you will need to leave as soon as Operation Revival is launched, and not before both of the Khans give one last review and approval of this mission to launch. My people will help find any more of those who want to go and will cause the least number of issues with what we fear you might find at the end of your long journey. The Khan has already approved supplies to be spent for up to ten major ships of the Nova Cats fleet to be put under your direct command. It will be up to us four to find those ships that will not draw unwanted attention to this mission."

The Loremaster sagged deeply into the bench, and he looked older than his years for the first time in the Star Admiral's lifetime. "I fear that you will need to find a new den for at least some of our people. The number might be small now, but it could turn out to be a last bolt hole for our clan. If you find out that you need more lift in the form of jumpships, dropships, or any ground forces? Then you are to come directly to my office. QuiAff. You are not to trust anyone that is not part of your group with key parts of this mission. I do not think I need to tell you what will happen if the wrong ears hear of this. QuiNeg."

The Star Admiral was both happy and worried at this news. "Aff, Loremaster. I will start setting up my staff."

######

It was some weeks later that the two Khans of the Nova Cats looked over to the other side of the conference table, that was where the two Goliath Scorpions Khans were seated. Pointed towards those four bodies were a set of Holo cameras that would feed data to the nearest HPG station on this planet. Unlike within the Inner Sphere, the use of HPGs for live conferences spanning many light years was not that unheard off. Still setting up one between three different planets was a very rare event and would be noticed by many that this group wanted to avoid being noticed by at this time. Besides the Cats and Scorpions had used the time needed to set up this HPG meeting to let them work out some more details that they would leverage against the other clans.

When the light turned red mounted on the top of the 3d holo camera the holo deck powered up and two faces that this quartet knew well could be seen a heartbeat later. Not surprising, it was the Khan of the Ghost Bears that spoke first in this meeting. It was not uncommon for the leaders of clans to pick up quarks of the animals their clan was named for. "What do the Khans of the Nova Cats and the Goliath Scorpions want to talk to the Great Ghost Bears about? This is the first time that a meeting of our three clans has been done outside of a Grand Council, Quiaff." The tone was clipped and harsh… like a bear awakened from its den.

The Khan of the Nova Cats fought down a snappy reply, but it made the leader wonder what had gone wrong if the Clans had become so arrogant after the death of the Great Founder and the sons of the Great Father. "Khans of the Ghost Bears, just because it has not happened does not mean that it should not have happened in the past Quineg. But like the great bear, we also do not like taking time talking about the weather on Strana Mechty. Our two clans are interested in working with the Ghost Bears on a worthwhile project. What we need to know, is if the Ghost Bears are wise enough to work with others Quiaff."

The four could see the eyes on both of the Ghost Bear's leaders get a little narrower at this statement from the Khan of the Nova Cats. Now it was the Bear SaKhan that spoke. "Right now, the Bears are focused on getting ready for Operation Revival. As a first line clan, we will be in the vanguard, and we must be prepared to do that job for the Great Father."

Now the SaKhan from the Scorpions smiled, and she was thankful the masks had been set aside for this meeting. "Really, and how has the Snow Raven's recent reactions affected the Bears in their plans? Has it caused any issues, Quiaff?"

The Khan of the Ghost Bears let a sour look come to his face. "I see that the Goliath Scorpion's Watch performs better than their warriors in their assigned tasks."

The Khan of the Cats spoke next at this planned for counter statement. "While the Nova Cats are not in the Vanguard like the Ghost Bears, we are to be on call to support this great venture when things go wrong. So, we are also getting ready for that glorious mission. The issue that has come up that we have noticed, is that some of the other vanguard clans are not taking the invasion as serious as the Ghost Bears seem to be." It was never wise to anger the Bears, they were slow to anger but would steamroll any in their path when that anger was raised.

The Khan of the Ghost Bears could not hide the confusion on his face. "Oh, and what would some of the other clans might be overlooking in their preparations for re-founding the Star League under the clans?"

The Khan of the Nova Cats smiled. "Supply, or more to the point mass moving of those supplies for the clans to use in this coming war. Oh, and that it will take a truly massive amount of supplies of all types to achieve the stated goals outline in the current operational plan. And that is the issue that we wanted to talk to the Ghost Bears about."

The SaKhan of the Bears took up the flag…just as the Cats and Scorpions wanted him to do. And the look on his face was pure confusion. "The Nova Cats have access to the Cache yards, just like anyone else. Quineg. What does this have to do with us bears?"

The SaKhan of the Nova Cats didn't smile as he went down his own script. "Those are old ships that have not been well maintained in those caches. When you have old jump cores mixed with old transit drives? It is only a matter of time before you have major issues with those complex vessels. Besides each of those vessels has to be worked with to be fitted with new weapons or at least changing out all the corridor hatches so that our Elementals do not get brain damage while moving in their hulls. That takes a lot of effort that might not turn out to be worth it, if it ends up that the engines on those ships break down halfway to the Inner Sphere. We also will have to defend those recovered assets against any predation from other clans, or even the iLKhan if we get anything working that is major. After all, it is the clan way that the strong take from those not worthy to hold something another clan might need or want."

Now both of the Ghost Bears leaders rocked back into their chairs like they had been physically hit with these words. "So, you are wanting to find someone to build new jumpships for your Touman to be used both with Revival and around the rest of Clan space. Quiaff."

The Khan of the Goliath Scorpions made a sneer that was not just for show in this meeting. "It is that or maybe you were able to find the lost designs for the Behemoth class dropships that the Dragoons reported to be in production with the Traitor Lords. Quineg."

There had been many references to the data about the Behemoth class dropships in those Dragoons reports, but so far no one had been able to find the data files that were supposed to have been sent back so that the clans might be able to "properly evaluate" the design. Kind of like what had been done with the Jenner class Battlemech to make the Jenner IIC that filled some roles within some clan Toumans.

The Khan of the Nova Cats put his hand on top of the other man's that was sitting on top of the massive desk, just as they had planned. It was to show that the Nova Cat Khan was working with another leader that might have pushed a little too far in a meeting. Then the Khan of the Nova Cats addressed the camera. "That is not what we are looking for. Our Watch departments have found that the Wolves, Falcons, and Diamond Sharks are on the lookout for any Volga class Transport or Potemkin class troop cruiser that might be pulled out of any cache site. We also have received reports, that I think that you have seen, that say even the Snow Ravens are wanting to acquire more major assets from any of the other Clans that they might be able to win a trial for. This might be for their use or just to keep other clans from being able to use them in the coming operation." The last was not "the clan way" but it would be very hard to prove this behavior at the Grand Council.

The Nova Cat Khan received a head nod in agreement from the bear leader many light years away. After giving his own head nod in understanding the Nova Cat spoke clearly. "Our Watch reports that the reason that the Snow Ravens have pulled out of your Leviathan class battleship program might have been so that you will waste time and resources on finishing that hull and thus will slow down your progress on getting ready for operations against the Scavenger Lords. Understand Ghost Bear Khans, we do not need a battleship. We need something that can act like a Potemkin but only to those that know it can act so. Otherwise, it will look to be a capital warship."

The SaKhan of the Bears leaned forward while the Khan of the same clan leaned back. "I think I know what you are talking about, and that almost crosses the line of what most would say was honorable. But why are the Scorpions present in this meeting. They are not supporting this operation, and they are not even back up forces for liberation of the Inner Sphere. Quineg."

The Khan of the Goliath Scorpion smiled at this statement, he was impressed that the Nova Cat's leadership had been able to say almost word for word what the Bear Khans had just done. "We are not as rich as the Nova Cats and Ghost Bears, but we would like to join in this operation for our own reasons. But it is well known that our Seekers like to move along with other clans and around those areas not normally used by the rest of the clans. Quineg."

The Khan of the Nova Cats smiled a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He waves his hands to point at the other three in this meeting room. "We will help the Ghost Bears finish the Leviathan class Battleship, but we were looking at a Transport version based on that massive space frame that is still taking up space in one of your major dock yards."

######

That was like dropping a bomb on the Ghost Bear leadership and it stunned both of them into silence for many long seconds. Now that some of the cards were on the table, the real heart of the meeting could begin. When the meeting was over and the holo desk in the middle of the room was cooling down. The Scorpions would get one of the transport versions of the Leviathan with the Nova Cats getting at least two of this class of vessel. It would turn out that the Ghost Bears would get one "real" battleship, but they could see the truth of the words of the Nova Cats and Scorpions before the first ship had started work again.

The Ghost Bears also would pick up some of the heavily armed transport versions of that same hull. One of the keys of this class would be that it would be "easy" to convert the transport version back into the battleship version of the design…. if still a little heavy in the cargo areas for what the clans if not the old SLDF thought was needed. The Ghost Bears would get the first, third, and sixth of the massive ships coming off of the production lines, with the Nova Cats getting the second and fifth ship, and the Scorpions getting the fourth hull to be made.

Thanks to the "long" production run of this hull type, the Ghost Bears were able to quickly turn out the later vessels and for a cheaper overall cost than what the Ghost Bears and Snow Ravens had first planned on. When things looked to be going sideways in the Clan home worlds, the Ghost Bears made a third version of the Leviathan class vessel called the Muffin Top. It was the same space frame of the "normal" class of battleship and transport, but with only the outer skin of armor instead of all three layers of armored that was "normal" for that hull. It had the jump core, transit drive, life support, and a single grav deck fitted to the space frame. It was not even fitted with escape pods or fighter bays found on either of the parent designs. That was what the attached dropships were going to be for, and the Ghost Bears were in a rush to get as many assets out of the Pentagon Worlds as they could in the shortest amount of time.

The Gigantic and Titanic from the Muffin Top program made it safely to the Inner Sphere filled almost to bursting with assets that the Ghost Bears dearly needed from the Pentagon worlds. The Cyclopean was captured by the Snow Ravens before it could make the trip to safety within the Ghost Bear part of the Inner Sphere. It would make the trip many years later, but only when the Snow Raven survivors made it to the Outer Worlds Alliance. That left three other unnamed and unfinished hulls sitting back in the Pentagon worlds that were not ready to be loaded much less try to make the long trip to the Inner Sphere. It was expected that all three of those hulks would be the center of more than a little fighting between the remaining clans of the home worlds in their Reaving Wars.

8 months later.

Clan Space end of 3048

Star Admiral Kei Drummond looked around at his staff as they moved around him, and he longed to go back into space or at least get off of this damn planet. The black of deep space was calling to him ever stronger as the time between zero g time got longer and longer. The ship's commanders of the first ten ships known to the Loremaster and the two Khans of the Nova Cats had been set aside as the core of this mission, not that many knew this. From those officers very quickly, the Admiral had drawn up his support staff.

They were using the working up for Operation Revival to cover this mission of finding and fighting these AIs from being noticed by any of the Watch teams from the other clans. It was just by luck that they were able to get warships that matched those officer skills, even if it took some time to find them and then hide the true mission. On the books those two stars just looked like a training unit and not unlike other units that had been set up by other clans for Operation Revival.

The five Carracks class warships made up the core of the twin warship stars under the Star Admiral's command. Those five ships were old SLDF types and not the downgraded Merchant modification of the old Carracks class that were starting to flood both the Diamond Sharks and Nova Cats naval support stars. But you could only know this if you walked through some of the more restricted corridors on those ships or saw them in the training that required the use of capital grade weapons.

The Nova Cats had been the first to "down grade" Carracks from the Transport mod to the Merchant modification to keep warriors and other classes better separated. More than a few of them were being refitted with LF batteries and larger hatches so that the elementals would not bash their heads if they used those passages while under thrust. But other than that? Only maintenance was done to those old ships that were filling both the Revival and Kei's mission.

Oh, and the shipyard crews were replacing any broken equipment that was found on those hulls. That equipment would be replaced with the newest clan tech items that the clan Nova Cat could call on. That was done because of the simple fact that those items were in the supply chain of the Nova Cats, or it could be traded for quickly from other clans than it was to make copies of the older and in many cases bulkier equipment. It was also something that was common practice with other clans and added a layer of cover for the Star Admiral. Because if you were acting like the other clans then you were not hiding something from them.

Soon every building slip that was capable was turning out newly built Merchant Carracks and every repair slip that could was working on turning out refitted Transport Carracks to fill the expected transport needs of Operation Revival. These were going mainly into the Nova Cats merchant caste, but many also were traded to other clans for things like Omnimechs and fighters and the like. By the time that the fourth new built Merchant Carracks was slipping its moorings for its first jump before being taken into Nova Cat's services, the Goliath Scorpions, Ghost Bears, and Snow Ravens had seen the advantages of this move and joined in with new production of Merchant Carracks and Monolith class jumpships of their own.

Those five old SLDF made Transport Carracks warships were going to make up the core of the supply movers for this odd mission that had fallen into the Star Admiral's lap. That support star could have carried more cargo, if they had been stripped of the heavy capital weapons and LF batteries, but this was going to be a long mission off the deep edge of space. The need for strategic speed and defensive fire power was deemed more important than having more cargo space within a warship, that was why the clans still used cargo dropships like the Mammoth in day-to-day operations. If there was more trade going on between the different clans? Then maybe, they would have invested the effort into making the larger and more efficient cargo movers like the huge Behemoth class dropships that the Dragoons had told them about so many years ago in numbers that had shocked many within the Clan leadership.

That left the heavy fighting component for the deep black warship star assigned to this mission. The Fredasa was a great scout vessel, but some thought that adding a Hunter class jumpship instead would be a better idea. The Hunters were always equipped with lithium-fusion battery systems to help with the mission of speed the planners were supporting. The Hunters had one major downside that only those that had used this class of vessel before knew about. It was that it didn't have a Grav Deck to help with crew's health while they were on long missions. The Hunters also were known to be only good for being gone for between five to six months before it had to return to a major warship base for support. Having access to a support base was not a given, and that was something that this mission was going to be severely lacking in any plans the staff had made.

That also was one of the reasons that there would not be any merchant caste crewed cargo jumpships that were also common within the Inner Sphere and Clans assigned to this mission. Star Admiral Kei Drummond had been pre-cleared to claim a pair of LF Tramp class Jumpships on orders of the Loremaster for months now. Kei was hoping that he would not need that pair of vessels, but it was nice to know that they were in his back pocket if they were needed at the last minute. Filling the nineteen dropship collars on the ships already assigned to this mission had turned out to be the hardest part for the Admiral and his staff to have to deal with.

As a dropship was pulled from one of the cache sites that the Star Admiral felt was a better fit to support his "special mission", he would work on shifting it to his command to make use of it. Currently he had nineteen open drop collars that needed filling, and he intended to fill every one of them before he left to fulfill his visions. Even before this assignment, Star Admiral Kei Drummond had "known" that most people didn't know what was in the different cache sites spread around the Pentagon Worlds. Still, it had been a shock for him to find out how badly misleading the files on the Nova Cat's space caches sites had been.

And as had been planned for, all of the other clans would stage trials for anything that turned up that they thought was useful for them as soon as their Watches had reported on it to their clan leadership. Even clans that were not directly involved in Operation Revival would undertake those….. Trials. Not surprisingly, clans like the Smoke Jaguars were focused on getting Battleships or Battle Cruisers from any of the other Clans that seem to have taken the effort to find them in the first place as well as getting them ready for action.

It had taken Star Admiral Drummond and his staff only a few months to notice that this was not the case for some of the first line invading clans, but it was true of most of the clans. The odd clans out from this type of actions were ones like the Ghost Bears, Wolves, Goliath Scorpions, and Diamond Sharks. It seemed that they were more interested in getting cargo lifting ships and the others were looking for major combat units of all kinds. The key had been when a nasty three-way fight between the Wolves, Scorpions, and the Blood Spirits broke out over a Volga class warship that was not even updated to clan standard by the Wolves before it was mothballed. The most notable odd thing was that neither group had seemed to be interested in the Snow Raven Liberator pulled from that same cache a few months later.

That kind of thinking had made the staff of the Star Admiral even more careful in what others might see coming out of the cache sites that the Nova Cats had access to. And thanks to a nice find of a massive and very rare Behemoth class dropship that had been last seen reported back when the Great Father was still alive on the SLS Prinz Eugen. This had let two of the five already mission ready Mammoths class dropships to be turned back over to the merchants of the Nova Cats.

The outer hull of that massive cargo dropship was kept looking like it had taken a man-sized rock at high speed into its hull before being pulled out of storage. The internal damage had already been fixed without needing to use a repair slip or bay. It would only take a quick patch of the outer hull and pumping in atmosphere before the damaged area was ready to launch on any mission. That area was "only" a cargo bay vented to space, and even it could be filled with space safe containers "for long term storage" as they showed up to support the Star Admiral.

The Star Admiral's staff also had "traded" a nicely updated Titan class carrier to one of the second line combat galaxies of the Diamond Sharks for an older SLDF rated Titan and a smaller Carrier class dropship that was handled through the merchant caste. That old dropship still had needed some yard time to get it fully ready for this particular mission, but the smaller Carrier class dropship had just needed for food and fuel to be loaded to be useful to the Star Admiral. It was a great trade made by all with each side thinking they got the better part of the deal.

There would not be any of the "great" dropships of the Clan Touman like the Overlord Cs, assault dropships, or even any Sassanids class dropships that could be called on by the staff of the Star Admiral. The largest combat ground movers assigned were an old Lion and a single Union C class dropship. The rest of those types of dropships were needed to support the core of Operation Revival. Then there was an old SLDF Union that had been captured during Operation Klondike by the then new Clan Nova Cats, and later used to carry cargo that was taken in hand to make it suited again for combat. This was seen by many Watch staffs of other clans as a sign of how desperate clan Nova Cat was to get military dropships for their Touman. Why use an old Union when a newer and better Union C could be fought for from any number of other clans.

########

This planning necessitated that a lot of work, enough that it would have made the more combat oriented among the clans overly distress to be useful. The original plan had been for Star Admiral Drummond to follow along with the main waves of the invasion force when Operation Revival was launched. That had changed when the numbers and power of the Dark Caste attacks picked up along the route, and then the number of trials coming from the other clans that had not been able to score even a spot as a backup support clan had ramped up to levels not seen since Operation Klondike. All of this was seen as a distraction by the Invading Clans, but there was very little that they could do about it, even with the ilKhan's support. The Clans were going to do what the Clans do, no matter if it might rase issues down the line.

As the HPG messages were sent back from the Inner Sphere invasion routes, using the unmanned string of remote faster than light message stations first used by the SLDF Navy, came flooding back. It was found that this war was using way more supplies than had been first planned for… even by groups like the Nova Cats. This news from the Inner Sphere had another major impact on the Star Admirals forces and when he could launch his own mission. Very quickly only Bloodnamed warriors that had remained in the Pentagon Worlds would have any type of Omnimech for the Star Admiral to call on.

The first major weapons to be pulled out of his order of battle were the "extra" omnifighters from the carriers and warships of his two stars. These open slots in his order of battle for both ground and air were soon filled with weapons from the Golden Age, some of the best Royal designs pulled out of other cache sites, or salvage from fighting the Dark Caste over the last many months. The reassignment (of real combat machines for trueborns) didn't go over well with some of the people assigned to this mission. This was an issue that was mirrored with some of the other Invading Clans, that caused more issues in the home worlds for them both eternally and externally.

The next delay in the launching of the Star Admiral's mission had come with when word had been sent back that the ilKhan had been killed within the Inner Sphere. Then all of the bloodnames warriors were needed to be called back to the Pentagon Worlds to elect not only a New iLKhan, but many of the invading clans had to elect a whole new set of key leadership due to combat deaths or perceived mismanagement of their surviving members. Then there had been the attacks launched by the left behind clans on those that had been on the front line of combat in the Inner Sphere but failing to take the goal of Terra. These attacks thinned the Blood houses down even further as well as taking down some of the most promising freeborn.

This alone started another round of trials around the Pentagon Worlds, but at least this time it was mostly focused on the Smoke Jaguars and the Wolves. Now what had been labeled the Home Clans started making focused attacks on the clans that were connected to the invasion, even if they were just back up or support clans in the first wave. That had not ended well for most of them, but it did cause the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars to become even more violent in any confrontation with other clans seeking glory at their expense.

When a new iLKhan was elected, this time from the more Warden leaning Clan Wolf more shakeups were expected. The first thing that Ulric Kerensky did was going into action to control the issue of these challengers, at least and stay under existing Clan law. When those small combats were back to a more manageable level to allow some rebuilding. The now ex-Wolf clan Khan started making changes with the plans for Operation Revival, and this idea also didn't go over that well with most of the other Clans. Only the higher ups within the leadership of Nova Cats and the Scorpions were not surprised by the support clans being activated for front line participation in the invasion against the House Lords.

Even before the New iLKhan announced that those clans would be moved into active combat, the smarter ones took advantage of the clans that had seen active combat against the Inner Sphere. The meeting between warriors of Clan Wolf and Nova Cats had let them trade many lessons learned. Not all of the Nova Cats warriors would listen, but many did at least on some points. Those were about the only two clans that traded knowledge about how to fight the house lords on their own turf. It would seem that the rest of the Clans had felt that there was nothing to learn from the clans that had failed to take Terra.

The Star Admiral noted in his private files that it seemed like the number of Crusader faction followers that he knew of seemed to have been over cut in half even before the first Nova Cat had landed on an Inner Sphere planet. If the Admiral was a betting man, he would bet that this number would be more deeply pruned when the invasion started up again in full force. There just was not a way that the Star Admiral could make those bets, after all he was one of the few within the Nova Cats that knew what was going on at the strategic level.

Thanks to his work and those visions from dozens of others, the Nova Cats would have more high speed jumpships like the Tramp and Merchant Carracks in their order of battle than Star Lords. The Star Lord was the most common interstellar transport in the other Clans Touman. Few other clans knew that this was mainly to be used to move the civilians' caste along with other items that the slowly moving clan would need. You know things like tools and other high end supplies that were more plentiful in the Pentagon Worlds then in the rest of the Inner Sphere. Those high speed transports were on top of the other lower visible fully merchant caste ships now under the Nova Cats flag, like the Monolith and clan common Star Lords. If the Nova Cats had the needed trained space crews on hand? They would have started pulling out the smaller Invader and Merchant class jumpships out of mothballs. Also going on in the background, the Goliath Scorpions had quietly been collecting any Hunter and Fredasa scouts that they could. Also, instead of adding so many Tramp class jumpship/warships to their order of battle. The Scorpions were instead putting those crews into smaller Scout class jumpships, at least for the short term.

When the clan fleets started moving out to restart the "liberation" of the Inner Sphere, it was not in one massive wave of vessels leaving the Pentagon Worlds. The iLKhan's office had a clearly worked out schedule that started with parts of clan Wolf and Smoke Jaguar leading the way. Around twice a day, each of the supporting clans Toumans would launch half a dozen jumpships and warships heading toward the Inner Sphere. Star Admiral Drummond and his two stars of jumpships left right on time, as the last listed ships of Clan Nova Cat, at least until the next wave of support that would use the convoy systems already set up to supply all of the invading clan forces. And that was the last time that those ten warships were seem within the Pentagon worlds ever again. It would not be for many years later that anyone from the Clans would see them again…outside of some of the strangest reports that some key leaders outside of the Nova Cats would have the misfortune to have to read.

Red Dwarf

End of 3053

Star Captain Attwater rubbed his chin hairs as he watched the data coming into his scout warship's powerful electronic systems. Letting facial hair of all kinds to grow longer than was what was called normal back in the Pentagon worlds had been slowly becoming more common with the need to stretch out supplies in this small fleet of Nova Cat warships. The searching fleet had fallen into a pattern after the first few months of traveling off of the Exodus Road. It was very close to the same pattern that had been developed in the early days of the first exoduses, not that anyone had taken the time to look up that information. What did that mean in English? It was that Captain Attwater had been the lead warship of these two stars every time that they jumped to a new star system.

His name had not been pulled from a hat to run this scout ship so far from the home worlds. Something like that was not done within the Clans, much less within the Inner Sphere. Attwater was a great scout commander, even if most of the Clans didn't think that "spying" was a proper way to run a battle much less good move career wise for a bloodnamed warrior. Attwater also had some of the clearest visions that had been studied by the Loremaster's vision guides. The Star Captain could remember the visions, even after the use of sleeping medications had been given out by some of the vision guides. That and having a hyper accurate memory had helped him and his staff get to this spot in space without losing a single ship.

It had been with some surprise that after arriving at this star system that they had found people living on a life supporting world. It had not taken long for the sensors on this ship to notice that this colony had majorly regressed. Back before the fall of the Star League, finding a regressed tech planet used to be something only seen coming out of an entertainment show. Now it was expected, and it was only a question of how far the planet's tech base would have fallen.

They had been here for a month already, and the Fredasa had slowly moved around the star system to finally be covered by a gas giant going around this red dwarf class star. The rest of this clan fleet was only a few light years away as the Star Admiral worked out if it was a better idea to land on the planet or to wait to see why they had been sent here. This had only been the latest leadership challenge that the Star Admiral had to deal with after leaving the Pentagon Worlds.

Star Captain Attwater had no idea what was going to be the best move to make, and he was just glad he didn't have to make it. His only input had been the report that said his crew could use some ground time on a planet and talk with someone not assigned to this little fleet. You find out that it was the little things that you miss on a mission that had already run for as long as this one had already. Attwater was pretty sure they had broken many long standing SLDF navy records, it was just too bad they couldn't tell anyone about them.

The only thing that kept this circus of warships moving forward, were the dreams that had been seen at least once a week by most of the support personnel of this mission. But those were the lucky ones within these vessels. People like him and some of the others had those visions almost every night, and that was almost enough to drive you over the bend, even if it was the reason that the Star Admiral had not had to deal with something like the Prinz Eugen while supporting this mission. He had been extremely grateful that the whole fleet had stopped not long after the scout ship had arrived at this star system.

What he and the other members on this mission didn't know? It was that the ones that had hidden their visions from the vision guides and had stayed closer to the home worlds and the Inner Sphere were not so lucky. Most of them would die in combat against units within the Inner Sphere or the predations of the other clans. They would make mistakes that the lack of sleep and too much stress caused them to not to be at the top of their game when their lives depended on it, and they died because of it.

######

Attwater had been distracted about thinking about his next shift on the ship's 65m grav deck and the ability to drink out of a "real" glass and not a plastic bulb. It took him a few seconds to notice that something had happened over the planet that he was supposed to be keeping under close observation for his commander. Then the whole bridge went quiet as something out of their dreams suddenly was sitting there in low orbit over the life-giving planet. What brought the crew out of the shock were the surface strikes of nuclear and capital weapons from the black many armed ships that the speed of light delay had given the attackers a free hand they needed to kill millions.

The Star Captain was eye locked on the main screen fitted onto the bridge of this warship and his voice was a little shaky. His voice still cut through the quiet shock filled room like a knife. "Send the following message to the Fleet Commander. The starfish are in orbit of the planet! Nuclear weapons have been used by the starfish. We are awaiting orders to do battle with the abominations." With a small nod of his head after speaking, that was all that was needed for the comms tech to know that the ship's master was done talking.

It took time for the message to go out and for anything to happen in reply to a code that very few really thought was needed even with the proof of the visions haunting their sleep. Now all that the scout ship could do under their commander's current orders was watch and only defend herself if they fell under attack that was assessed as being a threat to the small warship. Most of the time waiting for a reply to this message had been used to get the updated data on the planet put into the computers. As luck would have it, two of the starfish were very near and slowly getting closer to the L1 of the planet so many AU's from the scout ship. This astrographic data also was sent via HPG built into the scout ship back to the mission commander. After all a scout ship was supposed to gather information, and you never know what information might turn out to be useful.

#######

In a sudden wave of energy, two Aegis class heavy cruisers supported by two Lola III class destroyers arrived at what was called a pirate point near the planet. In only a few seconds the four clan warships were putting both capital autocannon shells and White Shark class Missiles into the dark of space thanks to the data that the scout ship had sent them every few hours. The four warships had arrived ready to do battle in the black ocean, and they had totally surprised the two enemy warships supporting the destruction of this planet's population. Something that was not normally used in the Clans play book, two of the massive White Shark class capital missiles fired were nuclear tipped. If the AIs wanted to use WMDs and on the planet's surface? Well then, the clan would match them…at least they would use them in space against those that had let the WMD genie out of her box without worrying about someone doing the same to them. All is fare when it comes to love and war.

Massive Armstrong II 35 series autocannon shells slammed into the starfish styled warships even as the first of twenty aerospace fighters were launched from two of the newly arrived warships. Just as quickly, the Carrier, Pentagon and the old SLDF Titan class of dropships were breaking dock on the clan warships to add their own attacks into the enemy of mankind. The dropships were not targeting the massive black starfish like warships, that mission fell to the four clan warships. The smaller dropships were killing the enemy light craft that were polluting this part of local space. It would have surprised the Clan warriors that these were the last 2 second generation Cylon Basestars known to be in the order of battle for the Cylon Empire. They were not exactly the same as the Basestars that had killed the Colonies of Kobal. About the only thing that was the same was the inner hull but with added armor and weapons added as the ships aged.

It was a turkey shoot, and it was on the Clan side that was collecting a massive number of kill markers to be painted onto the sides of their fighters and dropships. The heavy weapons of the Clan forces seemed to take out the enemy slab-sided fighter type ships with a single hit of a medium or larger class weapons that the Clan craft had been fitted with. Also, the return fire was way less effective than any human in space had expected for a space faring group.

When you're fighting a new enemy? You tend to think that they will have weapons at least as powerful as your own or maybe they would be just a little better. The worst case would be that they were way more powerful than what you were packing, like what happened for the Inner Sphere when the clan military came knocking. That was also why the Khan of the Nova Cats had made sure that this little fleet had cans of instant sunshine packed along with their "normal" ammunition load out for the warships and aerospace fighters to use.

While the warships sitting in orbit were doing their level best to kill each other, and the two starfish were doing a less effective job than the humans at scoring any telling hits with capital weapons. Soon most of the arms mounted on the pair of enemy warships were cut from the main hulls of the Cylons warships. With the obvious target points now gone, the Cylon missiles waves started to slacken before they stopped when the massive enemy warships just came apart from the hits of the autocannon shells. The clans had found out that the Cylons were very good at finding a nuclear warhead in a missile swarm… but no one could do that every time. In a sudden flash of nuclear fire both massive alien looking warships were turned into so much scrap either burning up in the planet's abused atmosphere or flying out into deep space. This was war so very little thought was put into what would happen to those now potential navigation hazards.

#######

While the enemy small craft were rapidly being thinned out in space, the full load of aerospace fighters from the human Carrier class dropship entered the atmosphere at just under an unsafe speed. After the higher levels of airspace was clear of any threats that could be seen by the Clan craft, the omni fighters dropped into the thicker areas of this planet's atmosphere looking for something else to blast. After getting closer to the ground. The falling wave of human fighter craft were to use their remaining LRMs and SRM ammunition and energy weapons to start thinning out the half dozen areas holding the walking nightmares. The nightmares that mounted blades and shields and were trying to kill the locals in job lots.

After so many years of reliving what these same looking things had done to humans in their sleep? It was a release for these clan crews to unleash any handy weapons at what had come to their mines as being the purest form of evil. This combat was revenge for all of the heartburn, sleepless nights, and sweat stained sheets these Nova Cats had endured for the last few years.

Only after the two enemy capital warships were so much cooling wreckage and most of the covering small craft where destroyed. Only then could the mech carriers and battle armor transports land to do battle with the Cylon ground forces. The Nova Cats were just lucky that the ground forces of the Cylon Empire only had half a dozen "small" nuclear weapons left when the Clan forces had made land fall. Still, those "few" Cylon made WMD's had cost the Nova Cats many mechs and suits of battle armor. Those losses were less than they could have been, but it was more than any other Clan would have found acceptable, before Operation Revival.

The Nova Cat's visions had told them that this enemy had liked using cans of instant sunshine even if smaller weapons would have been more efficient at a given task. So, the Star Admiral and his staff had all of that travel time to plan to counter the use of these classes of weapons on any given battlefield. Then there were the hard sensor images provided by the Nova Cats own sensors that showed that both nuclear weapons and orbital fire support were popular with these enemies. That was more than enough proof that these counter tactics were needed to deal with those oh so special types of weapons.

#######

Mechwarrior Jasmine Carns and acting Star Captain was one of the oldest mechwarriors in this ad hoc combat unit the Nova Cat's leadership had sent off the far edge of the map. She was so old that many warriors in other clans would have been surprised that she had not been stripped of rank and her omnimech to be given a rifle and told to charge the nearest machine gun nest all for the betterment of her clan. In time she knew that she would lose her beloved battle machine, but she had still won the right to be a master of a walking war machine if just older.

She had been stripped of her front line omnimech long before the launching of Operation Revival, but she had kept her position as a mech jock in the Nova Cats from all challengers. And she had gained a long list of kills from both within the Nova Cats and anyone else that dared to say that she was not worthy to pilot a battlemech due to her advanced years or other perceived insults. Well, her friends had said that she had become shorter tempered after losing her omnimech due to failing a duel to prove her skill, but other than that she had not changed.

Carns also was one of the few bloodnamed warriors within the rank and file of the Nova Cats that not only never had a vision and also that had never even tried to have one before the preparation started before Operation Revival. There had been classes given by vision guides and others to help those that "wanted" to try a vision quest that had to be taken each year. Carns had even been able to stay away for most of those classes, and even in classes she could not avoid, her mind was on something else. Then one morning that had all changed, and she had been found painting a new symbol on the side of her old war machine.

The artwork she was applying was an image of a frilled less Nova Cat on a Star League star, and it got her a visit from the Loremasters staff after she had refused to remove the image. The Loremaster's staff had arrived in the mech bay only about ten minutes before she was scheduled to fight in a circle over the refusal to cover that image. That was how she found herself assigned to this part of Operation Revival, a part that neither of the last two clan iLKhans had known about.

#######

Jasmine Carns's dropship had started dropping her unit into contested airspace even before the dropship was fully in the planet's upper atmosphere. About all she knew about the coming battle, was that they were landing in an area that had shown were the locals had been undertaking a fighting retreat with their limited weapons against a splinter of the massive number of ground forces that these aliens had at their command. When her mech was released from the protective cocoon that had been sent out the drop shoots of the spacecraft? It still was more than a few Kilometers above the planet's surface and falling quickly near the cloud of debris made by the cocoon.

Finally, she could see the battlefield that she was aiming for now that she was out of that blinding cocoon. Carns tapped the jump jets on her Masauwu class battlemech (TRO Golden Century) and it slowed just a little and shifted to her right as her gyro took input from her inner ear. With that little adjustment, Jasmine now could better evaluate her surroundings outside of the narrow spot on the ground she was supposed to land on.

There were spots that Jasmine thought was where the locals had fought back against the invaders, but at this altitude at first it was hard to tell. As the pull of gravity helped her close the distance between her cockpit and the dirt below, some things became clearer at the shorter distance. There were spots of death around some towed guns, another grouping was near what looked like civilian trucks, and thanks to her cockpit zoom function she could see what looked like battered workmechs with enemy units destroyed around them. To take workmechs into combat with things that used WMDs was well over the line of crazy/brave and into stupid or supremely desperate category in her mental books on how battles were supposed to be fought.

There also were long lines of destruction cut into the ground and enemy battle suits and light mechs caused by the attacking clan aerospace fighters. The locals still seemed to be firing at some of the closest attackers with small arms that were too small for her to identify at this altitude. All she could see was just the tracers flying about. Carns only got a general bearing to the local defense point before she had to focus on using her jump jets to stop her fall. The bad thing about falling is not the fall, but the sudden stop at the end. There were few things outside of weapons fire that could kill a battlemech, but a fall from near orbit was one of the most spectacular ways to rapidly unscheduled disassemble your mech.

Mechwarrior Jasmine Carns took only long enough after landing on the battle-scarred landscape to check that her wingman was ready to get into the battle. The younger man had to wait for the disposable jump jets to release from his old 50ton Omni-Corvis class battlemech. It had taken about twice as long for the new one time use jump packs to disengage from the old war machine as was normal for the clan pilots to have to deal with. That was just something that you had to deal with when mixing items that were separated by over a hundred years in their manufacturing dates. It was another reason that Jasmine had gone with the heavier but non omni mech for her ride into battle.

When the second battlemech was free of the jump packs, they quickly went to max speed to close with the enemy. Soon the pair of warriors had started firing into the backs of the gunmetal painted enemy metal. She was surprised that her mech scale shot gun had the power to blast through a whole line of the enemy battle suits with one pull of her trigger. That was odd to her, Jasmine had been working with and against Elemental suits all of her life. All of her experience told her that battle armor should be a lot harder to kill than what her own eyes were telling her.

This mission was only filled with a few dozen of the top of the line Elemental suits, but they had many dozens of first generation water Elemental suits and even some recovered Rhino class suits. The last one had been found by someone on the Admiral's staff and it was best not to ask from where they might have been found. Well, you could ask, but as the old saying goes…. If you are afraid of the answer, then do not ask the damn question in the first place.

The radio activated in her ears. "Jasmine, is your ECM on? I just got hit with a pair of missiles that did a hard left dog leg to hit me."

Jasmine made a sour face and looked over to one of her MFD's that was rarely used by any clan trained warriors, and with a push on a button her powerful ECM went active. "Eric, it is now active. Keep me updated. QuiAff." Something about this information made the back of her mind itch. Jasmine had read something about this type of thing happening before, but she was currently drawing a blank on any more details.

Now Jasmine was keeping an eye on the area near her wingmen. She was able to see the enemy light mech fire at her wingmen this time. And this time it was four missiles that left one of the shoulders of the enemy battlemech in smoke pillars. The missiles again looked to be moving away from her wingman, but only to turn and head right towards her supporting wingman almost between eyeblinks even with the powerful ECM systems being active. It was like they were being guided by the hands of a higher power.

The radio became active from any of the other battlemechs that were within a dozen kilometers of this spot on the planet. "Those are some good missiles to still be seeking this deep in an ECM bubble." It would seem that her wingman was not the only one having to deal with these weapons on the battlefield today.

Things were quiet for just a few seconds as Jasmine watched the missiles flying through the air. Suddenly the right arm of the Omni-Corvis came up and the missiles visibly changed course once more, but this time they went up and started going higher. That could have been deadly but only for the 50ton mechs arm to make another slight adjustment and all four missiles hit the exposed and raised arm. And if that arm had not been there? It looked like the low-slung cockpit would have been hit with all four of those enemy missiles.

Now the data that had been sitting at the back of her mind came screaming forward and almost out of her mouth, only her wingmen got it on the radio waves first. "Sarat! Did any of you see that Quineg? They are headhunters! The enemy is using headhunter type missiles!"

After that? Jasmine could not help but let a feral grin come to her face. When she spoke again, ice should have gone down any spines that heard it. "Aff. Looks like they do not want to play fair QuiAff? Well than let us match them and play by their own rules today." She waited to get agreements from the rest of her Star before she visibly changed her combat tactics for the first time since landing on this planet.

Jasmine started off by using the two left arm mounted Kolibri Delta 8cm pulse lasers on the light enemy mech that had been firing at the old Corvis. She didn't even wait to see if these energy blasts hit before aiming her right arm mounted Type KOV LB-X autocannon at a second enemy light mech. Her mech's systems were picking up a lot of data from both her battlemech and from the other battlemechs that were nearby. Very quickly those electronic boxes worked out that these light mechs were not up to even Scavenger Lord capability for defense in the first reports sent back from the now disgraced Dragoons.

Before long all of the light enemy mechs in her area where down and not moving…..but for smoke raising off of them under the red glow of this systems primary. Now it was time to focus on the smaller but way more numerous and way lighter battle armor suits that dominated this battlefield. For the first time Jasmine was missing her Nova class omnimech. All of those super charged 5cm lasers would have been more helpful than her current weapons loadout on the Golden Age battlemech design based off the SLDF Wardog.

And when she had run out of cluster rounds for her Autocannon, the carnage she could reap was much reduced. Now she could only normally kill three of the light battle suits at a time with her powerful energy weapons. But her AMS had gotten a workout…right up until the time that it had ran out of ammunition. Now the fast and very smart enemy missiles could not be intercepted by anything, but the tons of armor spread out over her battlemech. She was just thankful that they had very weak warheads on those missiles, oh and that the enemy had not figured out how to reload the launcher while in the field.

The Drift Shag class battlemech, was an updated copy of the old SLDF mech called the Falcon, had been running up kills faster than the twice as heavy machine that Jasmine was running. The Kolibri Omega 5cm pulse laser and quad mounted Series 1b hot running 3cm lasers were like an energy weapon lawn mower. Those longer ranged 3cm lasers were strong enough to stop one of the enemy's light suits with ease, but only if the arm carried heavy battle shields had been dropped. If the Drift Shag ran into something heavier than those battle suits? Well, that was why the light mech had the 8cm Series 6b ready to deal with them. That weapon only needed one or maybe a second hit to take down one of the light class enemy mechs. If there was a knot of enemy light mechs? Then the heavier battlemechs were called in to wipe the floor with them.

########

The Nova Cats didn't have it all their own way in this ground battle with this new enemy. The Cylons might have been caught by surprise by the arrival of such powerful reinforcements to this low technology human world, but that didn't last for long. They had been fighting humans with aerospace fighters and battlemechs for years now, and they had learned some things within the first few years of that fight.

The ground blast of nuclear weapons was just one tool in the Cylon Empire's toolbox to fight against battlemechs. They also used mass attacks that were launched against any over eager mech pilots that had been separated from their support. If things broke just wrong for the Nova Cat pilot, they would die at the hands or blades of the Cylons. That happened to a Mongoose C that was swarmed by the light suits or by what was later reported to the Nova Cats that were called Heavy Centurions. Also, the lone recovered Storm Giant had taken a few too many missile hits to the cockpit by a group of Pretorian class light mechs that had been able to put enough missiles in the air before they were turned into so much scrap metal. The still stunned pilot of that massive mech had been ripped out of the cockpit one bloody chunk of body parts at a time by the long cutting blades of what the clans had thought were light battle armor.

In less than a half a dozen hours after the Nova Cat mechs and battle armor had landed on the planet. The battle was over for this planet, and as they say there is nothing so disturbing of a sight to see as a battle won, but a battle lost. It was worked out that the total population of over a million humans that had been on this planet less than 72 hours ago had been reduced to a hand full of thousands of battered survivors. They saved as many as they could while the Nova Cats worked to find out what had been going on. They were slowed in this investigation by the fact that very few people from this planet of any rank had seemingly survived the onslaught by these marauding AIs.

The Watch trained members of this task force even had not found out that much about the only major safe haven that had been set up in some lava tunnels. You know like who had set it up in the first place and who had been in charge of the last line of defense of those tubes. When asked, the locals just gave the interviewers a bewildered look and shoulder shrugs. It was like the Nova Cats were hunting ghosts or maybe something even more elusive.

########

Things changed with the Nova Cats when a massive spaceship jumped into this system without an E wave to warn the locals of the incoming vessel. The ship was long and thin but with a huge ring at the aft end which might have been a massive hamster wheel to supply a healthy gravity for the crew and passengers of that odd vessel. Then the long thin "jumpship" fired up massive engines and turned what could only be capital grade autocannons on the warships near the planet. The four Warships on this Nova Cat run mission and the modified ship called Zephyr almost came to blows of the capital weapons type before cooler heads were able to take control of the mess.

The Zephyr thought that the new warships had been the ones to attack the planet, and the Nova Cats had thought that the new arrival was working with a group that the locals called Cylons. This kind of thing was new for the Clanners to deal with, even from before the founding of the Star League jumpships used a common set of IFFs systems. It was just too bad that those systems were not normal on Colonial made vessels. The Zephyr had one, but she only had used it when she was in or very near the Inner Sphere. In this case she was not only not close to any known Inner Sphere planets, but she was also not expected to run into any of their few known warships.

The defuser of the situation was when what was later identified as a Qasar class aerospace fighter with an animal face over a Cameron star was imaged by one of the systems on the Zephyr. That marking was something that had not been in any of the databases that the SLiE had been able to get their hands on over the years. Well, that is that each of the images were in the databases, but not one of them had been combined in this way. Then there was the transmission from the planet's surface that had said that the ground based Cylons had been attacked by other outsiders, and these SLDF Nova Cats had saved those humans that remained on the planet. All of this information caused more confusion than it answered any of the questions that the commander of the Colonial warship/cargo ship currently had.

#######

The Star Admiral looked out one of the few windows in this small craft. He had been both hoping and expecting that something would happen in this star system, but he had no idea what the reply to these visions would be. But almost a million dead was not what he had been expecting. While he had been briefed on those numbers, he was reminded of the old saw about being careful what you wish for…. You might very well get it. The Nova Cat Star Admiral was still on edge when his fleet was joined by another strange warship so close to the planet. The reports of those two starfish just showing up had been thought of as just these Cylons having very accurate navigation data on this star system and they must have had used a pirate point that the Nova Cats scout ship had not noticed.

That thinking had been flushed right out the airlock when the strange long thin ship, not noted in any database, had showed up in a place that had not held even a null point for over two seconds. That was something that not even the famed Pathfinders of the old SLDF Navy could have pulled off. Oh, then there was the little fact that there had not been an E wave warning of a ship that was more massive than a corvette class warship was inbound to this star system. That was something that was a cornerstone of all the science that moving interstellar distance required. But this "ship" had just given the middle finger to all of that "known science".

It was just lucky that the Nova Cats forces had not just started shooting first, instead of taking the time to notice that this was not a vessel from those visions. Now that these Cylons had pulled out the cans of instant sunshine? It would be a short fight even though this new warship had the firepower of a heavy destroyer that could be clearly seen by the Nova Cat's CAP and the updated CIC of the Aegis class cruisers. That all changed when the Radio wave started exchanging a little data between the space bound massive warships. After a few messages sent from the planet and then directly between the two groups of warships, and just like that now the risk of a new battle was over.

########

Well, it was over but for the first face to face meeting between the Nova Cats and the commander of the Zephyr. And that was why the Star Admiral was in this small craft and not sitting on the bridge of one of the two Aegis class cruisers under his command. He was going to that first meeting with a group that was already fighting this group of rogue AIs. As the Nova Cat naval commander got closer to this odd "warship", he became more disturbed at what he was seeing. Kei's trained eye quickly told him that this ship didn't start off as a warship as the Clans or the SLDF would have designed. Those two powers had shared a basic common design philosophy.

His trained eye could see three different makes of naval scaled autocannon turrets that were all of the same size. It was a rule of thumb that you used the same style turret for all of your NACs when making a warship. The dropship collars also were not right to his eyes, it looked like they had been added almost as an afterthought and not by a design or Admiral's board. That was not something that was done, not even by the Traitor Lords of the Inner Sphere. In most of their eyes, it was all about the number of dropships that could be moved from star to star.

The docking into the small craft bay on this very long craft should have been like any other of a thousand that the star admiral had already done in his life. But thanks to these thousands of dockings that the Star Admiral had endured, he could also tell that this was not a "normal" small craft's bay. This one had to look like it was another modification made to the base design of the vessel after being built to fit Star League standard craft. That again was odd because the Clans, Star League, and the Scavenger Lords used all of the same designed small craft for hundreds of years. This small craft bay had the look of being like what you would see on a water born vessel and not a ship of the deep black. He was just wondering how backward these people might be compared to what the clan could call on if they were forced to use ships like this in a war of survival.

#######

Commander Felix Gaeta looked at the images being displayed on the main screen of his bridge with more than a little trepidation. Thanks to his training to support SLDF runs close to the human sphere or Inner Sphere, the commander had no problem identifying this craft as a Mark VII landing boat. It looked newer and had a few more "things" on the hull, but it was strongly based on a small craft design that was a few hundred years old already. It was only thanks to the fact that he had spent so much time working closely with the Inner Sphere and the SLiE that he didn't automatically look down his nose at the age of that design. The old lady was less than 50years old at the start of the 2nd Cylon War and had been ready for the museum and only being desperate had kept it on the battle lines. But it was a long way from 2841 when that small craft design had been cleared for first production. Even then the Mark VII was just an updating of the much older Ares class landing craft first made under the Terran Hegemony's flag.

Felix was just thankful that he had ordered the landing area gravity decking shut down before the small craft had even started on final approach to his command. He would wait until they had the meeting and greeting of these Nova Cat clanners and judge the situation for his next move. If things went badly or as badly as they very well could in Felix's mind? Well, then he would just ask them to leave his ship and have the nuclear warheads ready to fire. That should be enough of a surprise to give him and his ship enough time to open the range and get the Frak out of here.

As a Commander in the rebuilding Colonial Navy and SLDF, he had a lot more power to deal with something like this than anyone back before the start of the war with the Cylon Empire could have dreamed of. With a sigh he gave a head nod to his XO, a human form Cylon, standing a few dozen steps off to his right. That was all that was needed to hand over the command of the bridge of this vessel to the other officer of the Colonial Navy.

The docking bay that the small craft was using had been the main landing area for the old passenger liner back before the Cylons blew apart the heart of the Colonies. That one landing bay had been picked for the newcomers to use due to its location related to the bridge of this vessel. Felix would make it to that bay with just time enough to see the main bay lift finished bringing the small craft into the pressurized areas of this command without hinting to the technology held within the hull of this vessel. Felix gave his uniform one last review before he had the personnel hatch opened into the VIP receiving bay. Felix and his four persons escort grabbed handles that had to be back fitted onto the old vessel just for reasons like this. This was only the first stage of the meeting, but Felix hoped that it would work out that the SLiE would gain another allied power to fight the Cylon Empire. Humans needed to hang together or the Cylons would surely be glad to hang them all separately. Well hang them in radioactive fallout….. if not worse.

The Star Admiral had been surprised when the small craft had been directed to a brightly painted spot on the deck. Then the craft started to be lifted up, the Nova Cat officer didn't need to look at the screen that showed the aft of the craft to know that the hatch that they had just used was closing. This was a smart design if you had a large enough ship to keep from losing so much atmosphere each time a small craft landed or took off on a mission. Then there was the increased cycling rates that this design gave for getting craft off and back onto the vessel before jumping. All of this cycled threw Kei's mind at the speed of light.

The crew on the Mark VII had to check their straps when the lifting deck stopped, and magnetic locks held the craft in place in Zero g. Star Admiral Drummond did a hard push and quickly floated to the exit hatch of this craft. After making sure that the air was close to the right pressure for life and not toxic for the Star Admiral, the metal hatch on the small craft was swung open on well-maintained hinges. While the Nova Cats were exiting near the nose part of the delta winged craft, a hatch not far away opened and six people could be seen waiting for the new arrivals.

#######

Kei gave a head nod to his own escorts complete with sidearms that had been agreed upon in the later messages that had been exchanged between his flagship and this long and thin spaceship. Images of who would be in the meeting between these groups flashed through his mind at the speed of thought. Kei thought that the man in the center of the group was going to be the captain of this vessel. It was something about the uniform and that he was in the center of the group that was getting him to mentally tip that way.

Felix would have been shocked at the size of the four people falling in behind the other officer with a lot of gold on his uniform top. By now seeing something as large as Elementals was not that shocking to the colonials…even if the SLiE didn't go into the level of gene modifications like these other clans did. That is until the group walked past something that gave Felix a better eye for the scale of the escorts. The man in the center was at least a little taller than 2 meters and the bodyguards were closer to 3 meters in height and looked like their muscles had their own muscles.

Thanks to the enhancing of those exchanged radio messages between ships, the Star Admiral didn't have to worry about a full-on language issue like dealing with the Combine or the JarnFolk often had. While the Clan officer walked, his quick mind was putting everything into its proper pigeonhole. That was when he noticed the size of the other crew, and it was only thanks to his review of the Dragoons data and what the other clans had dumped into the Watch network that he didn't automatically think that these people were undersized. After decades of gene modifications, the average height of those from the Clan was very noticeable.

When Kei was about ten steps from the hatch and the group blocking the way, he looks directly and speaks to the man in the center of the mass. "I am Star Admiral Kei Drummond on a mission from the Clan Nova Cat's Khans. Who do I have the courtesy of addressing?"

Commander Felix Gaeta had two ways that he could address this statement in his orders, both were ways that he didn't agree with. Still, he would try not to offend this member of Clan Nova Cat. "Star Admiral, I am Commander Felix Gaeta of what remains of the Navy of the Colonies of Kobal and it's allies. I take it that I have you to thank for coming to the aid of these poor souls living in this star system. I am just sorry that we were too late to keep the body count down. I do have to ask why your command is so far from the clan invasion routes to Terra?" And with that, the gauntlet was tossed, and the turd was now in the punch bowl.

The Clans might say that they didn't play political games, but you didn't make it to the rank of Star Admiral by not knowing how to play those games despite the words to the contrary. If the Star Admiral had not played those games, he might have missed the look of the short man's eyes when he made the remark about Operation Revival. This also showed that this group knew what was going on in a spot that was a long way from this location in space.

For a few seconds the Star Admiral wonders if they knew more about that current Operation than he did. They had been out of range of HPG listening range for a few years now. The last word had been that the Smoke Jaguars had been absorbed by other clans. That had been almost as shocking as finding out about the 15-year treaty to put the operation on hold thanks to the clan losing a proxy battle for Terra. It didn't take a great mind to know that this was going to be the spark that would start the wars that would end up splitting the rest of the clans even without his visions.

Kei kept his face very still, but he could "feel" his bodyguards get a little tense behind him. "You seem to know a lot about the Clans of Kerensky."

When he didn't get the expected response from the short dark-haired man he kept with his train of thought. "I agree that it would have been better if we could have saved more quiaff. The attack was both faster and used weapons that should not be used in battle by real warriors. After I was able to get my ships moving, it was already too late. That will be something that I will have to live with, quineg."

Felix had made sure that he was recording everything that this group said, but that didn't mean that he was going to rely on that replay. "So, you have been sitting around this part of space just waiting… But what were you waiting for?"

Now the Star Admiral looked a little sheepish and he at first wanted to change the subject. He knew how the rest of the clans thought about Nova Cat's visions, so he could guess how others outside of the Clan might think about hearing them. Kei had thought about the cover story but at the last second, he went with his gut and told the truth. "I had a vision about AI's killing humans. I saw that others were fighting against them but needed help. After some thought, my Khans sent us out to stand with any of those that would stand and fight against this evil."

Felix was about to make a joke about visions…then he thought about the odds of the Rag Tag fleet finding New Circe…a planet named for a minor god of his people. Oh, and the little fact that they had been following more or less a woman that was written about in ancient prophecies. "So, your leaders sent four warships all this way on the say-so of your vision? That is an amazing level of trust, or is your clan powerful enough for this large of a diversion?"

The Star Admiral was visibly surprised that he was not mocked after he made his last statement. "Neg, but it was not just me that had the vision about these evil robots. Everyone in my crew has had the same vision of these AIs killing people, and they saw that some part of the old Star League was standing up to these AIs and dying while they did this job. Are you this group or is it one of your allies? Quinaff."

Now Felix was taken aback at what was just said. "That is a complicated question. And I think that we need to go to our main briefing room if we want to discuss something this deep. I have to ask about what you and your people will do if they hear things that they don't like? Before we enter that room all of your weapons will need to be put in a locker before entry. We have seen reports about how you clanners react to news that they don't like, and I would not want to be a firsthand witness of violence on that scale."

The Star Admiral was at first offended at this comment, but after taking time to think about some of the reports from the Jade Falcons and Smoke Jaguars about their actions even before Operation Revival. "Neg. I understand where your people are coming from, but I cannot risk you being less than honorable with me. I will keep one close guard with me and leave the rest of my escorts with their weapons in hand in another room or corridor."

Felix was about to object and then he thought about how Bill Adama would handle something like this. "Star Admiral, I think that I can live with that modification."

Felix did a slow half turn in the air while he still held on to the handle. At least they had been following the orders from higher command for any ship that was close to working with those from the Inner Sphere. That had been a simple order that the space crews were to spend at least four hours per day in Zero G to have better cover for the Colonial made gravity plating.

Seemingly at the last second Felix changed his mind and invited all of the clanners into the briefing room. This was more out of safety…for the Clanners, than anything, and it was something that Bill Adama would have done. After making sure that everyone was seated, Felix pulled a Colonial card and put it on the table. With a single digital command his staff made sure that all of the gravity plates for the whole ship were turned back on.

Felix waited for the shock to leave the eyes of the visiting clanners. "Star Admiral, now that we are safe. Would you please ask some of your escorts to wait outside in the corridor as we had first agreed?"

Kei had been in hamster wheel gravity decks that ranged from the smallest to the largest used by the Clans too many times to count. He had also been in enough of them when they were first spun up that he could tell where he was. For a few seconds he thought that this meeting room was in the grav deck, but he had gone from Zero G to what was as close to Terran normal that his inner ear could not tell the difference. When the hatch opened, this short man's own guards were standing in the corridor that was not moving. With wide eyes part of Kei's mind knew that they were standing and not floating in zero G.

When the door closed leaving only Felix, one escort, the Star Admiral, and his own single escort were the only ones in this room. Felix had a little sly smile that he had worked hard on copying from Starbuck. "Star Admiral, my people are not from around here. We called ourselves the 12 Colonies of Kobal and we built the seeds of our own destruction with what we now call Cylons."

########

Felix took the next hour talking about the early history of the 12 Colonies of Kobal, the first and second Cylon wars. He just got to the area when the Rag Tag fleet found another world with humans living on its life-giving surface. That was when the Admiral raised his hand to pause the waterfall of words that had been assaulting him for the past few hours. Felix had left off somethings, one of the major facts was that the planet was hidden in a nebula, and he hoped that the other man had not caught on to that fact.

Kei was finding it hard to breathe as his mind was fogged over by this man's story. "You said that your people lost 20 billion people in this second war alone….. quineg?"

Felix let a sad smile come to his face that was not at all forced. He could not speak for a few seconds as he had flashbacks of those blasted cities. "Yes, and over 99.8 percent of our military with them, and all in less than a week of the war…. no war does not fit. A week of slaughter. It does kind of put your wars into perspective does it not."

Kei looked like he had bitten into a rotten apple. "I take it that The No Named are helping, but it will be hard to forgive them for their past crimes. Quiaff."

Felix felt his leg itch where Starbuck had shot him all of those years ago, and then an image of his Cylon born XO flashed into his mind. "We have a saying back home. It goes like there are three sides to every story that you hear. Your side, their side, ….. and the truth. It is meant to get a person to try to look at all sides of things, and then see what might have been covered up for one side's advantage. Also, is it right for kids to be held accountable for what their many great grandparents have done? If so, what would others think about the SLDF fleeing from their oaths to defend the Inner Sphere or when they supported the Rim Worlds before the Star League Civil War. Muchless what people might think of Amos "The Butcher" Forlough and what he did in what your people call the Reunification War on the Outworlds Alliance and the Taurian Concordat?"

Felix could see the tall man getting ready to dig in his heals, and he pushed over a data pad. That caused the other man to have to shift gears when he looked at the device. "What is this?"

Felix dropped his chin just a little. "It's a list of all of the crimes that the SLDF participated in since its founding, and it also includes what was done to keep the House Lords from working on things like Nighthawk light powered armor. It also covers what the Clans have done after their founding that is covered in a few certain copies of different Remembrances my people have recovered over the years. If your training and education did not cover these subjects? I know that a short paragraph is accessible for each item listed on that device. If you are going to hold the Wolverines to a standard of conduct, then it is something that they and the Colonial Navy should hold against you and the rest of the Clans." Felix was not going to cover that he knew that much of this data was supplied by many different Watch reports that SLIC had collected over generations of work.

The Star Admiral looked down at the device and he was surprised at the length of the titles and after the third review of titles on the screen, his heart sunk. "Are you driving us away? QuiNeg?" Kei was dismayed at the cracking of his own voice. They were so close to the goal that had been driving all of them for so many years.

Felix let his face fall and he shakes his head from side to side. "No, we need all the help that we can get against the Cylons and save the rest of the human race. But it is the devil we know or us having to deal with the devil that we don't know. If you can't work with our allies, then maybe you need to fight the Cylons in your own way."

Kei looked up from the device one more time. "We have had years to get used to the idea of the Wolverines still being around and fighting for a just cause. I need to talk to my staff and the rest of our people before I can say one way or the other. Would you be amiable, if I brought all my people here quineg. I want them to see the battlefields on this planet that we have been seeing in our visions. That also would give me a chance to talk to all of my staff."

Felix was now on full alert. "How many people are you talking about bringing here?" Felix was envisioning an invasion force or something like what they had done with Nike's World. "How many warships are you wanting to bring out here?" He only had this one ship, and it would take some time before any other major combat unit could make it into this part of space.

The Star Admiral thought that he understood what was now visibly worrying the other officer. "I have a remaining Fredasa class scout and five Carrack class transports along with their dropships." He wanted to make sure that the other officer knew he was not going to bring in a battleship of some kind to be more of a threat.

Felix was typing as fast as he could on the device that had not left his side of the desk. He already had an idea about the four warships in this system. Thanks to the Dragoons traded data, it didn't take long for Felix to find the ships in question. It would only be months down the road that he would admit that he had been confused between Carrack transports and the Nova Cat famous modified Carrack Merchant. Sometimes you just can't cover all the bases, all of the time. The SLiE just happened to benefit with this mistake, because Felix never would have let that much firepower arrive in the New Circe system.

Felix, as the onsite commander, was supposed to make a call like this and he approved for this splinter group of the Nova Cats to come to this star system. The pair exchanged some more data before the Star Admiral left the briefing room for his small craft. The meeting lasted another hour before Kei had the oddest feeling of walking all of the way to his ride home. Spending that much time walking outside of a grav deck like he was on a planet's surface was giving him a lot to think about. These people were not some fallen group from the Star League, but they were a group that had technology that even the Star League would have thought of as magic.

######

While the Star Admiral was on his way back to his flagship, Felix updated his report and then sent the coded message out on the TacFax to get it started on its way to New Circe. With the latest update to this powerful device the turnaround time for a report should have been only a few hours. It would take longer for the meetings to decide what would be in the reply than it took for the message to travel the 500 light years between these two locations. That delay worked out very well for both groups before the next major set of actions could be taken. The last message that Felix received in this star system held a course and travel time that he had been ordered to be passed along to the Star Admiral. But that information would only be given if the Star Admiral and his fleet agreed to a higher-level meeting to fight the Cylon Empire.

The Star Admiral needed almost three weeks on the planet before he and his people were ready to travel again among the stars. Normally it was the pair of Aqueduct class dropships that needing refilling that delayed the moving of the rest of the little fleet. Those two support dropships did land along with the rest of the dropships in areas that had not been on the receiving end of a WMD but were still useful for the Nova Cats. Small craft and short hops made by the rest of the Nova Cat dropships would get anyone closer to the sites of battle between the humans and the Cylon Empire for the collection of raw material. It was not all relaxing, wine, and dancing as both groups tried to support the survivors of the Cylon attack.

While people were recovering from this latest round of space travel, the Star Admiral's staff passed around all the data that he had gotten from the Colonial. The datapads and noteputers with all of the dirty little secrets of the SLDF, SLIC, and Clans had been not so well received at first by this group of Nova Cats. At least the groundwork had been set up by having classes on clan and SLDF history starting after the third month of travel from the Pentagon worlds. Still, it was only after the Nova Cat's Watch files were opened to anyone who wanted to compare them with the files from the Zephyr did the data mostly get proven out. It was not like this database had everything in reference to the actions of groups like SLIC and the SLDF, but it held detailed data of the Clan related one's on the data pad. It was just too bad that they didn't think about getting a Goliath Scorpion database before the mission had been launched.

With the data given and modified visions still pushing the Nova Cat members of this operations to keep fighting these Cylons, the Star Admiral came up with four different plans. It was up to him to decide on what way to move this small fleet, but he let a pole out for anyone to voice their own opinions on the raw outline plans. One plan to be voted on was to stay on this planet and wait to see if these Cylons would return. The second plan was to go back to the Pentagon Worlds or to the nearest access to the Nova Cat HPG network and ask for guidance from higher. The third option was to join the battle against the AIs, but to find a planet closer to this SLiE and Colonials to be based out of. The last option that was offered was to travel to the SLiE's home planet and more or less join this SLiE and battle this Cylon Empire until one of them was destroyed.

The only one surprised by this turn of events were the SLIC teams that would review the data about this pole the Nova Cats had voted on the sly. 99.8 percent of the Nova Cats that had already spent years of their lives traveling this far in deep space wanted to join the SLiE and fight the good fight to stop the evil that was the Cylon Empire even if they might have been descendance from Clan Wolverine. The term "no named" had long ago been dropped. When the Nova Cats were rested, all of the available supplies were gathered, and all of the salvage that could be safely recovered was packed down? The Star Admiral ordered the dropships to lift and make for the L1 point to the waiting warships and the up gunned transports. From there they would follow the path that they had been given by Commander Felix Gaeta.

The Nova Cats were joined by a team from SLIC that was added to the Star Admiral's staff before the Zephyr had left this star system. They were to keep an eye on things and report back to New Circe, even if things seemed to be going as planned in their eyes. What was not known by the Nova Cats? It was that two other SLIC teams were hidden among the survivors of Lost Home. They were the survivors of the ground SLIC teams, and they also would be keeping a close eye on the Nova Cats from the shadows. Each of the three SLIC groups were working in a cell structure, so the other teams didn't "know" that there were other teams working on this same mission.

New Circe

End of Dec 3053

The Lord Protector sat back in her office chair and slowly rubbed her eyes to get the sleep sand out of them. She was starting to feel the age that nine years of war was making her feel on days like today. It seemed that every other day had given her another problem that had more down sides to fix than positive… at least in the short term. The issue with this splinter group from the Nova Cats was a prime example of the problems that had been dropped into her lap. Many of the senior members within SLIC and her staff had wanted her just to send them away, but that was why she was paid the big bucks. She had overruled those groups and that was more or less the last word on the subject…at least outside of the fickle tone of public opinion.

The SLiE had won a major victory with the destruction of the Cylon colony ship and its escorts not so long ago. It had been a costly victory with the loss of the hull of the Nike and the Rickenbacker now just useable as a source of refined metals for recycling. The loss of life was not as bad as it could have been thanks to changes in how space battles were fought on SLDF warships, and along with the enforced use of colonial grade or stronger space suits even for everyday operations. But still the Cylons could replace their numbers faster than the humans on New Circe could. And she was not going to start pulling ten year olds out of schools and putting them into the active military like some had already suggested.

They had not been able to save much from the massive Cylon Colony ship during the post battle clean up. After all, it had been hit with a fast-moving massive object the size of a destroyer, after it had been fired into by massive capital grade weapons. Oh, then there had been the little fact that a few hundred kilotons worth of explosives had been fired off at one time from inside of the Cylons Colony Ship's massive hull. All of that equaled to a fine cloud of rapidly cooling mostly head sized or smaller objects in the local vicinity.

It was assessed that the cracking of that huge warship had been done with at least three nuclear weapons in the Nike's locker, and that had been set off before the "brain" of the Nike died. Thanks to all of the work between the Nike and the Cylons, they had been able to download most of her personality into a highly modified Cylon body. She would get updates from both official and unofficial routes now that she was covered in all of the same laws that the ex Cylon POWs had been accepted into the public.

The Lord Protector had more than a few concerns even when she had read the report about Nike having to learn to walk again. By now she was well into her military training to catch up with her Wolverine born agemates. She was far behind in hand-to-hand skills of her peers, but her marksmanship skills and space combat tactics were in the top 1 percent of the whole planet, much less against her peer groups. The results from her Ground combat tactics course were only in the top 20 percent of her agemates, but it was climbing quickly. The reports of Nike's first date had both been funny and at the same time horrifying on so many levels. Jenifer snorts and forces her mind to get back to the reason for her newest headache.

The Lord Protector knew that New Circe needed every space capable command to fight the Cylons. The main reason to be willing to work with this splinter group of the Nova Cats were the four heavy warships, powerful scout vessel, and four heavily armed transports at their command. Oh, then there were the supporting dropships and the small supporting factories they were reported to have packed into dropships all to support a years long travel between the stars. The Khans of the Nova Cats had expected that this group would be fighting, and they would need some way to support their forces far from Clan space. They were not as well supported as the Dragoons had been, but this splinter group could keep themselves in battle for a while.

Those warships were badly needed by the SLiE and by extension the SLDF. The Kaga and the Pegasus had been ambushed by the Cylons while they had been covering the SAR and the resources recovery mission after that battle in the Lion's Head nebula. The Kaga had been hit hard and she had lost over half of her fighters in this one battle alone. Luckily, they had been able to recover all but ten of her aerospace crews from the carrier, and that was about the only silver lining from that ambush. The Pegasus had been blasted by a full squadron of Dreadstars until it was more of a wreck than a warship. Then again that Colonial Battlestar had been able to take out the whole enemy battle squadron with it. That had been done while the Colonial warship had covered the Kaga until she could launch her fighters and then jump out from the point-blank firepower of the ambushing Cylons.

The follow-on battles of the Lion's Head Nebula also had taken a big bite out of the SLDF Navy's Order of Battle. Even now the Zug needed major work to get the battle damaged fixed so that they could get her back to fighting the Cylons. That had left only the Yukon and the old Galactica as the remaining mainline warships left to support the SLiE in the war against the Cylon Empire. Well…. the Egg Sac was technically available…but only technically. There were the smaller jump capable combat dropships and four converted Colonial Civilian ships that supported smaller types of operations with their refitted capital weapons. These were used to attack and destroy the many small Cylon supporting manufactory sites that had been spreading out from both old Cylon and Colonial explored space like malignant fingers.

Every Cylon site that could be "reduced" made the supply situation for the Cylons that much harder and the supply lines that much longer for them to deal with on top of the combat losses. The same was true for the SLiE, and she had taken steps to reduce the human supply lines. Those stretched supply lines had been the main reason for pulling out of the Colonial worlds and covertly spread the term of Cinder worlds about the population of New Circe. The pulling out of all but a few covert spying and possible staging bases had made sure that anything of value had already been sent to Ragnar Station. It had not been a bloodless "final" pulling out of those damaged worlds when her orders had been given.

They had almost lost the Pegasus and the Rising Star in the covering of the last wave of evacuations of what were now called the Cinder worlds in all government documents and public talking points. At least by now anything that was even close to being worth the effort and fuel had been pulled out of those damaged worlds. By now only the most diehard or the crazy are left on the Cinder Worlds, but old Ragnar station was still supporting scouting/spying missions and any limited supply missions trying to help those few that had refused to leave. This was mostly done with what they could produce on that huge but old station hidden within a gas giant.

The surprising part was that 59 percent of those that remained on those battered Colonial worlds were Cylons. Some people could not handle other people or had not wanted to move to try setting up a new life on a new planet. The Cylons were mostly human forms that felt that they needed to remain behind, but there also were some freed Centurions walking around those planets. Supply points had been put down and carefully hidden, also each group was marked by the SLiE teams that had remained on Ragnar. Some of these hidden supply and support points would have back up Colonial made comms systems that had been carefully prepared. A note was left at each hidden supply point and each person was contacted by SLIC and told that help could be up to two years away…if ever. Those supply points were not there just to be a fallback position for any of the stay behinds, they were a multi-use sites that SLIC or Colonial Navy could use. Again, this was the case of the SLiE using one rock to kill more than two birds at a time.

The SLDF Navy was spying on the Cylons, but it was now thought that even the Cylons had more or less totally abandoned that part of space. Maybe the Cylons thought that now it was not worth the time or effort to fight over those battered worlds. The university and more than a few companies were paying to keep scientific packages in operation on the different Colonial worlds. It was hoped that the data could be used in the recovery of those planets or maybe be useful on other worlds that had been wrecked by damage caused by WMDs, but this time launched by other humans onto other humans. Data was data and this data would cover from before the Cylon attacks going all the way until now. That was something that the blasted worlds within the Inner Sphere didn't possess.

Jennifer gave a head shake to pull her tired brain out of the downward spiral that thinking about the Cinder Worlds tended to drive her into. She looked over and saw the latest threat assessment that SLIC had generated now that so many of the SLDF major combat vessels were out of the battleline. If these Nova Cats can be trusted, and they were going to be watched both within and without as they made their way closer to New Circe. Still having two cruisers and two destroyers fully crewed and combat ready would be a major boost to the SLDF Navy at this point in time. At least until some repairs could be done on what remained of the current SLDF Navy and some of the replacement crews trained up or released out of the medical wards.

That Nova Cat convoy would need at least the next six months to make it from Lost Home just to make it to the edge of the nebula that concealed New Circe. If SLIC could not find any major issues by the time the Nova Cats made it to that Gate Keeper star, then the group would be cleared to make the last two jumps to one of the "normal" jump points of New Circe. They could have brought them all the way to New Circe a lot faster, but moving those Nova Cat vessels in super cargo style would be a political nightmare in more than one way. She gives a snort and reaches for her noteputer that held the next set of issues that she was going to have to deal with. At least this one was not related to the Colonials or Victorians.

########

Notes

Star League Nova Cat Fleet: 5 Carracks Transports (2 dropships), 2 Aegis (750Ktons 20 fighters 10 small craft 62Ktons cargo, 4 dropships), 2 Lola III DD (680ktons 10 fighters 10 small craft, 108ktons cargos 0 dropships), Fredasa (180Ktons, 20 fighters, 2 small craft, 3.4kton cargo 1 dropship). 4 Mammoths, Behemoth, 2 Aqueduct, Pentagon, SLDF Titan (3 stars+1 spare frame), Carrier, Lion, ex-cargo SLDF Union, Confederate, Broadsword, Union C and 4 mining and production Mules. (19 dropships).

My choices of ships used by the Nova Cats: Black Lion, or other Battleships would draw a lot of attention. The Volga and Potemkin could be "better" used for supporting Operation Revival and other clans want them very badly. All of the Clans have many Aegises so they could be lost. Something as rare as a Liberator, Sovetskii Soyuz, and Cameron would have drawn a lot of attention. I was thinking about York or Whirlwinds for DDs, but there were many Lola IIIs. I went with pairs of the same class because you can always use one for spare parts to keep the other vessel going.

Leviathan class in this AU. Now the GB will have 1 battleship, 2 transport, and two other spaceframes that can be refitted into battlewagons…if they had the time and resources. The GS will have one Leviathan that "might" be turned into a battleship. The Nova Cats will have 3 Leviathan class spaceframes to do with as they please.

This idea. This idea had come from a seed out of Hotpoint's mind and then fertilized with a few beers and some free time.

58