The Coming Storm Chapter 1: Part 1 - The Coming Storm, a Mechwarrior/Battletech + Tom Clancy Crossover fanfic

The Coming Storm

Low Earth Orbit, 400 km above Earth

4 October 1957

It silently sped through space at eight kilometers a second; a slow orbit. Now, two hours after the burst of the last stage of its R-7 rocket, four long antennae spread away from its main body.

Sputnik 1 continued along on its orbit, never noticing the slight changes around it as it cruised over America.

Far away, the stars shifted such that while they appeared to be the same as always, they weren't.

NORAD/United States Northern Command

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

Sol System, Earth Space

1 March 2005

"Sir, we've got something." A technician motioned to one of the screens.

"What in the hell was that?" General David Mathews asked aloud as he stared at the display. Whatever it was disrupted their Keyhole network.

"EM pulse by the looks of things," the technician noted. Mathews looked at one of the monitors. It displayed a large surge in the electromagnetic spectrum across a wide band of frequencies.

"Enemy action?" Mathews mused, "Chinese trying anything? Did they launch their Moon mission ahead of schedule?"

"No, sir," another technician replied, "No launches detected in China, and from what we could make out before the network went down it was from beyond local orbit."

In that instant, the Keyhole network came back online, monitors and signals returning to life.

"Okay, what happened there?" Mathews said as he paced through the newly restored signals, glancing over some of the information.

"Sir… That's a good question. We've got reports coming in from the other NORAD installations that they experienced a disruption as well."

"Keep me posted." The General clapped a tech on the shoulder. He walked back to his office and started making phone calls.

Bridge, ISV Paul Atredies

Medium Orbit, Jupiter

Sol System, Earth Space

1 March 860 AS

Supreme Bashar Robert Merlow looked about the bridge. The crew were used to this by now, being in an unknown universe in an unknown timeframe. The problem here… everything was off somehow. Reconnaissance flights into the system determined that this was indeed Sol, the cradle of humanity, but its location was wrong. Also, if other interstellar news traffic was to be believed, there was another Sol system as well. No one had any idea this system even existed. These thoughts churned through his mind before a call on the bridge snapped him back to the present.

"Sir," Lieutenant Yanna Vincze called from tactical, "we have an update from our in-system jump."

"Go, Lieutenant."

"We appear to have accidentally disrupted communications on Sol Three, sir."

"Oh." Merlow pondered that for a moment. That wasn't the intent, he just wanted to get his ship closer to examine what appeared to be Earth better. "How bad? No permanent damage, I hope."

"No, sir, just a temporary disruption in their satellite communications. Disruption lasted for less than half a minute."

"Alright, add that to things we can't do in system then." Merlow turned to his first officer Fleet Captain Ismail Saliman. "Any idea of the tech level here?"

"According to preliminary recon flights we're looking at late 20th to early 21st century at best," Fleet Captain Saliman said as he brought up a holographic display. "Extensive satellite network, a single primitive space station, and a rather large population base. Other items of note: numerous nation-states; a very weak unified global governance system; on the precipice of ecological disaster; large nuclear stockpiles; and numerous political and military conflicts across the board."

"That doesn't make any sense… the rest of this universe has space-faring technology and interstellar communications and these people don't?"

"That seems to be the case, sir." Saliman changed the holographic image. "If any of the major powers in this universe decided to invade this system, they would be near powerless to respond."

"Any indications of that happening?"

"Nothing concrete, but there may be something coming if our agents on the nearby planet of Antallos of a so-called 'Motherlode.' Unsavory factions may be moving in here, thinking there is booty to plunder."

"How many people are on Sol Three?"

"Upwards of seven billion." Saliman changed the image again. "Here are the casualty projections, sir."

Merlow stared at the display. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in the initial strike if they landed in a densely populated civilian zone. The nukes these people had could blunt the damage, but if the invasion were at all organized… The decision was simple.

"Call in Tessa, Tom, Scarman, and Winters if you can get a hold of him. I guess we get to save Earth."

The Oval Office

The White House, Washington DC

Sol System, Earth Space

3 March 2005

President Jack Ryan Sr. sat as his desk in the Oval, pondering the current report before him. A disruption to the global satellite system that lasted for 18 seconds. It was originally thought to be against American assets but reports from around the world indicated a global blackout. It was nation-agnostic which was throwing everyone for a loop. Despite a surprising amount of cooperation between the CIA and NSA in their task of sifting through potential terrestrial culprits, it was generally agreed upon that whatever the blackout was, it did not come from Earth. All evidence pointed at a source out of Earth's orbit, probably natural. That was scary, as natural phenomena in the universe was still quite mysterious. Ryan rubbed his eyes. He pressed a button on his desk phone.

"Get me the Secretary of Defense."

"Right away, sir."

The line rang for just a moment.

"Jack."

"Tony."

"What do we know about that Satellite blackout that isn't in the report?"

"Well, not much to be honest. Besides the fact that whatever knocked us out for a few seconds wasn't ground based, we don't have much to work with."

"Any indication that it would happen again?"

"Nothing so far, but we're not ruling anything out."

"What about the ISS?"

"Their equipment is a bit more hardened, so nothing really happened there. Everyone is in the dark about this one."

"What can we do about it?"

"For the moment, nothing. Sending shuttle missions out to harden our sats would be expensive as all hell, and most of them are commercial. The cost would simply be too high."

Ryan sighed, "Well, I guess we just wait and see?"

"Unfortunately, that's all we can do."

"Gotcha. Thanks Tony."

"Not a problem Jack. Anything else?"

"Nope. I gotta get back to all this."

"Alright, you have a good on Jack."

"Tony."

That seemed to be the end of that. Hopefully, whatever the hell knocked out the world for a moment wouldn't happen again. Hopefully.

Conference Room, ISV Paul Atredies

Medium Orbit, Jupiter

Sol System, Earth Space

8 March 860 AS

Merlow looked at his assembled senior officers. All of them were members of the Bashar Council, some even of them COs of their own Dreadnaught-class vessels. Tessa Testarossa: Bashar Superior, Chief of Naval Operations and commander of the Dreadnaught ISV Duncan Idaho. Marcus Scarman: Bashar Superior, Chief of the Systems Security Service. Rory Winters: Bashar and commander of the Dreadnaught ISV Gurney Halleck. Thomas Serov: Bashar Superior, Chief of the Marine Army. These four were among the most experienced commanders in the Independent Systems Alliance not to mention the closest in space to Merlow's current position. All of them were briefed about the meeting so Merlow wasted no time.

"So," Merlow tapped on the table, "what do we have?"

"Rob," Scarman spoke first, bringing up the central holographic display, "we have no ground assets available. We have no idea on the current day-to-day makeup of the world and even if we did, we have no responsibility to 'save' it."

"Ground assets aren't a problem, Marcus." Winters changed the display, "We can insert forces covertly like we did on that world Antallos. Besides, we just watch their programming for a few days."

"No go on that, gentlemen," Testarossa chimed in. "Their satellite encryption is unexpectedly tight, and what transmissions we do receive here from their over-air communications are weak at best."

"We just move closer, then," Merlow glanced at Scarman, "What about early detection capability? Can we intercept them in open space?"

"Not outside the system." Marcus changed the image to one of the solar system. "The FTL capabilities of this universe are quite similar to our own, instantaneous jumping from point to point, except they can't do it in-system as capably as we can. The vessels we've observed so far are not very capable in space combat, but we can't discount that they may have capabilities we have yet to observe."

"Heh, how many times have we jumped into battle blind?" Serov chuckled, "Brains, brawn, and superior technology have carried us through much more difficult situations. Latest reports indicate that we're looking at a few ships at best. Some of them look like converted civilian freighter vessels with only a couple of real combat vessels."

"Winters, your flotilla was assigned that patrol route," Merlow noted. "Can we get officers inserted into this Pirate group?"

Winters stroked his chin for a moment. "It's an option. We've had people on the ground for months, inserting themselves into the local populace to get a feel for the place. We're gonna want to take hold of the place, that's for damn sure."

"That's the future. I want the here and now." Merlow maneuvered the conversation like he would his ship.

"I have a couple of candidates that could integrate with them, for the loot and all that," Winters ceded. "Some of their tech is fascinating. They like to use mechs as the core of their units for one."

"Could a planet at this one's current technological level take on these mechs and their ships?"

"Robby boy," Serov interrupted, "They don't have to. We could do it for them, and they would be none the wiser."

Merlow rolled his eyes, "Tom, we can't do everything for them. We have our own problems to worry about, not to mention we're kind of understrength for a fight. We're just getting our people off ice, and colonization isn't exactly quick."

"Rob, I have a Corps worth of people ready to go, with equipment to match," Serov replied.

"Planetary defense will take a whole lot more than a Corps. We're talking about defending seven billion people, with population centers and military bases across the globe." Merlow changed the image to Earth, with all relevant points highlighted. "The amount of ground to cover with forty thousand people is immense. We also cannot afford to redeploy enough ships to defend our interests and this planet."

"You keep thinking in terms of an actual military force coming here. It's not a military force, it's a hodge-podge of maybe military-grade hardware and converted civilian ships. You have, what, Strike Group Liberty here? One Dreadnaught, four Cruisers, twelve Destroyers. All dedicated war ships, and that's not even including the fighter wings. I haven't had a chance to look at what the major players in this universe field, but I can guess some cobbled-together piles of scrap won't be able to actually stand toe-to-toe with you."

"It's not just that. Sooner or later this world is going to be brought into the wider universe, and the sooner they're armed and ready, the better. We have a chance to jump start a civilization and steer them towards what we already are. We already know what kind of shit the universe can throw at us, hell multiple universes taught us that, but these people are ignorant of what fresh hell can await them if they're not prepared."

"There is the very sensitive matter of sharing technology," Testarossa remarked. "Our technological edge is what has enabled us to survive all this time, through multiple universes and multiple wars. We can't give it away to people whose motivations we don't know."

"I understand the concern, Tessa, and we have protocol for this. I'm not saying we give away our technology, but we must give these folks the ability to defend themselves and prosper. This is Earth," Merlow stated as he pointed at the holo-display, "and we have an obligation as human beings to defend her."

Scarman sighed. "We can move operatives into position to gather intelligence, but beyond that I advise we do nothing until the threat becomes too great."

Merlow clapped his hands together with finality. "I can certainly agree to that. Let's wrap this up, assign our officers, and see what develops. I'll keep the strike group here for another few days as the officers begin their integration process and then we'll continue our patrol."

With that last statement, the meeting adjourned. Merlow sat back in his chair. He didn't like the idea of leaving a woefully unprepared world for an invasion force, but in the grand scheme of things he knew that there was only so much he could do for the time being. The "Independent Systems Alliance" barely had one system to its name, and that system was still in the initial colonization stages. He wanted to build a home for all the displaced people he brought with him, but that took time; and if this universe were as hostile as the last, time was not on his side.

The Oval Office

The White House, Washington DC

Sol System, Earth Space

20 March 2005

President Jack Ryan sat back in his chair, reading the latest reports out of China. Ever since the capitulation of the Chinese government, Jack and the new Premier Fang had been ironing out reparations and trade agreements between themselves and Russia. The last war had been a complete and total disaster for the Chinese, and they knew it. The Russian economy was on the upswing, and the United States had an ally in the East. The end of the war brought about its own complications, but the finer details were being handled by the State Department.

Ryan turned the page. It revealed another document, this one about the latest readings out of NORAD. Another EM pulse, but this one weaker than the last. It noted quite an odd occurrence to have two such events happen in such a short period of time, but with no notable disruption in satellite traffic it seemed that whatever it was did… nothing. Why the hell did they put this in the report? He pushed a button on his desk phone.

"Give me the Secretary of Defense." It rang once.

"What do you need, Jack?"

"Why is there a report about another EM pulse if it was nothing, Tony?"

"Well, considering the timing, I thought it would be good to note. You know that saying: Once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence…"

"Well, the third time hasn't occurred yet. Seems wasteful to note it down."

"Not in the slightest, Jack. If the third time does occur, I want to be able to say, 'told you so.'"

Ryan scoffed, "Sure, Tony. Sure."

"Besides, it just feels off, you know? It feels like we're missing something here. Something from beyond our orbit causing EM surges? Twice? I don't like it."

"I trust your gut, Tony, but unless there is something out there actively gunning for us, I'd say we have nothing to worry about."

SM Superstore

SM City Manila, Philippines

21 March 860 AS

Lieutenant Shizuka Banderas took in the sights and sounds of the SM super store. It amazed her to see a glowing beacon on consumerism jutting out of the poverty and traffic of Manila. To her, this country was her ancestral homeland from a planet once forgotten but here she was in the thick of it. She noted outside of the mall and its surrounding area was unbelievable blight and poverty stemming from decades of government mismanagement and corruption. Only now was the country really getting back on its feet, and even then, it was slow going. She knew the native tongue of Tagalog, but it was almost unnecessary given her implanted universal translator.

Somewhat lost in her thoughts, one of the floor salespeople approached her.

"Hello ma'am, can I help you find anything?"

Banderas jumped a hair. The salesperson recoiled, embarrassed and apologetic.

"I'm sorry, ma'am! I did not mean to scare you!"

She took a breath, "No, it's fine. Umm… Actually, can you point me to the bathroom?"

"Of course, the WC is over there."

"Thanks." Banderas walked quickly to the bathroom, checking her disguised cell phone for any updates. Primitive cellular technology was the emergent tech of the era and she knew that a more advanced version that was only two more years off would look far too suspicious to the people around her. Entering the bathroom, she looked for an empty stall. It was fortunate the bathroom was empty for the moment. She activated her sound bubble in her stall and made a call. A small holographic image of Fleet Captain Mariko Maeda appeared above her cell phone.

"How's Manila treating you, Lieutenant?"

Banderas sighed, "It's hot, crowded, and oddly welcoming. I've not seen slum living like this in… well ever."

Maeda's image smiled, "Welcome to the early 21st century. What is the year there?"

"According to the local cell service, two thousand five."

"Explains their level of technological advancement. That's one hundred fifty-five years before the exodus from Sol…" Maeda stroked her chin and changed the subject, "Your initial data nearly ready?"

"Yes, ma'am. Managed to record a day's worth of international news traffic, mostly video with some audio only feeds, along with local and provincial news traffic."

"Good work, Lieutenant. Keep that info coming and send them at regular intervals. Once we've compiled enough intel, we'll contact you and the other agents again."

"Roger that, ma'am. Banderas out." She shut her cell phone, terminating the link. She took a good look at the case design of the phone. Say what they will about the tech level, she really liked the design of the Motorola Razr. All that hung in her mind was why they were being sent here. What did the brass want with this Earth and why did it seem so urgent?

Large Zenith Telescope

Vancouver, Canada

16 May 2005

Doctor Stephan Deacon lived for this kind of thing. It was relaxing to take a break from government contract work to focus on why he became a scientist in the first place: Space. There was a plethora of supernovae this year, but he was more interested in the galactic plane. There were some rumblings from his friends in the US Department of Defense of some sort of EM pulse that disrupted satellite traffic earlier in the year and if it were a natural phenomenon he was determined to discover it.

He knew that this telescope would be hard pressed to find something like that in space in a short amount of time, but he was determined, and this also gave him an excuse not to take government contracts in the foreseeable future.

The telescope was pointed just off the Moon's orbit, taking in data from a darker spot in the sky when the screen lit up.

Deacon glanced over, knowing that patch was supposed to be empty when a white blob appeared within.

Supernova? He thought to himself, That would be exciting! Wait. This doesn't… why is there such a thermal difference between the center and the edge...?

NORAD/United States Northern Command

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

16 May 2005

"That was localized this time…" General David Mathews remarked. The display before him was missing a spot. This didn't seem like the last two disruptions.

"General, two Keyhole sats are down," one of the technicians reported. Mathews was utterly perplexed. The last two times were general disruptions, this one was terribly different.

"Enemy action?"

"Unknown, sir. Point of origin is beyond orbit again, but this doesn't seem right."

"Agreed."

"Sir," another technician called from across the room, "All other NORAD installations confirm 2 Keyhole satellites are down."

"Keep me up to speed. I'm calling this in."

Pirate Dropship Drakon

Pirate Point between Planet III and IIIa

16 May 3020

"Holy mother of God," Captain Burgess Hale whispered. Despite a religious upbringing, he didn't believe in God. His former life as a Federated Suns officer and current life as a hired pirate had been one long hard scrabble struggle. If God existed, he obviously didn't give a damn about humanity, let alone one disgraced former member of the AFFS.

Only now it looked like God had decided to smile on Hale and his rag tag group of pirates. Here before him was the motherload every pirate dreamed of. Rich enough and heavily industrialized enough to that his people could be picky about what they took. And if the smattering of transmissions that they had sampled were anything to go by, primitive enough to be a cake walk.

The only problem was a persistent sense of déjà vu. Hale couldn't help but feel that he had seen this planet somewhere before. But that was impossible. He was in the middle of the Grantville Cluster, a cluster of stars over fifty lightyears across just off the Outworlds Alliance that everyone knew was devoid of any inhabitable worlds. This made the cluster a handy place for pirates to lay low between raids. And that's just what Hale had been doing when they started picking up radio transmissions from this system. On a lark, he had decided to investigate, hoping for maybe some lost Star League cache.

And it looked like he had hit pay dirt.

"Prep for JumpShip separation, boys and girls," he told everyone. "It's party time!"

He took one last look at the planet's image, still haunted by that nagging familiarity. He pushed it to the back of his mind. Whatever it was, it couldn't be important.

Large Zenith Telescope

Vancouver, Canada

16 May 2005

Doctor Deacon stared at the readout and image he took from the telescope. The resolution was so much clearer now that he'd locked the telescope to track the object. It was metallic, and with this level of detail it was close.

The object shown in the center of his display was cylindrical in shape with a rounded bow and several spines extending from the rear. Right at the moment of image capture, what appeared to be thrusters were firing revealing more of the hull.

Next to the larger object was a smaller one, more spherical, a bright glow emitting from one end locked into a path towards Earth.

"Doctor Deacon," he heard a voice behind him, "I had no idea you were into BattleTech."

"Excuse me?" Deacon turned to face his fellow researcher, a Doctor Lloyd Fargo.

"That's an Invader-Class jumpship, right? Almost looks like a satellite capture. Fantastic job to the artist on that one."

Deacon stared at the spectacled man in disbelief, "Wait, what?"

Fargo was too engrossed in the image to notice.

"With a Union-Class dropship disembarking, nice!" Fargo looked closer, "It even has battle damage, look at that…"

Fargo turned towards Deacon's agape face, "Where'd you find this? This art is fantastic!"

Deacon took his right hand and wiggled the mouse, zooming in and out of the image.

"You mean…"

Deacon simply nodded. Fargo lowered his glasses in disbelief.

"No way…"

Situation Room

The White House, United States of America

16 May 2005

President Ryan was ushered into the Situation Room, fighting a mighty yawn. It was past 11:30 at night and he was woken up after a quite restless sleep after his most recent meeting in Beijing. He had just spent the last week working directly with Premier Fang concerning reparations, trade, and terms of conditional surrender in the Chinese war against Russia. Transitions to a more open governance policy in the Chinese system were shaky, but there was hope that the hardliners remaining in the Communist Party would see the light, especially seeing the effectiveness of a relatively small protest had in shaking up their nation. That was neither here nor there.

Before him were the Joint Chiefs of Staff, SecDef Tony Brentano, His VP Robby Jackson, and the CIA power couple of Ed and Mary Pat Foley. This was serious, but to be woken up at near midnight it was a given. He stood at the head of the table, took a breath, and motioned everyone to sit down.

"What do we have?"

"At 11:20PM Eastern Standard Time, NORAD detected a large EM signature." Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mickey Moore began, "Unlike the last two pulses, it was concentrated. We also have a location: The L2 Lagrange point beyond the Moon."

"Who the hell has space assets past the Moon?" interjected VP Jackson.

"That's not all. We have reliable imagery data from a civilian observatory, the LZT in Vancouver. Look," the image at the head of the room changed, "The two objects here look manufactured. The larger cylindrical one is holding at the Lagrange point, deploying what look to be solar panels while this spherical object seems to be heading towards Earth."

Mary Pat rubbed the bridge of her nose, "Do we have a landing timetable?"

"Hard to say for certain, but we can expect contact within the next few hours."

"Aliens…" Ryan scoffed to himself.

"Looks like it, sir, but it gets a whole lot stranger."

Ryan allowed a weary smile, "The only way things get stranger is if the second coming of Christ waltzed through that door and gave us the Fonzie 'Ayyyy!'"

The room allowed themselves a muted chuckle.

"Sir, we have a new file here of images from the LZ. We don't have any more than these yet, but NASA is tasking Hubble to look, and we're contacting every civilian optical telescope we can to get images," General Moore paused, "Sir, the Doctors at the LZT attached several documents they thought would be relevant. To be quite honest, it's made things a hell of a lot more confusing."

"What do you mean?"

"Take a look, sir."

The President nodded, opened the file and started thumbing through it. He spread out the pictures on the desk, along with their corresponding documents. Something was familiar, far too familiar with the attached docs. BattleTech Technical Readouts of the Union-Class DropShip and the Invader-Class JumpShip. These two objects matched up with their technical readout images, to an uncanny degree.

He used to play BattleTech in college, up until he got hired by the Agency. That was years ago, before an era of hunting a Soviet ballistic missile sub put him on track to become the President. The thing was, he still had those books…

"Well, damn, things have gotten a whole lot stranger," he admitted, "Bring us to DEFCON 2, and wake up Jack and Sally. I need them to bring my books."

NORAD/United States Northern Command

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

17 May 2005

"You have got to be shitting me." General Mathews muttered to himself as he read the latest orders from Washington, along with relevant data sent to him. He shook his head, wondering what the hell the Joints Chiefs were thinking. They couldn't be dealing with things from science fiction, could they? To be fair, there was an honest to goodness spaceship currently orbiting Earth, and he admitted to himself that all possibilities had to be on the table.

He glanced back up at the main monitor, watching this craft in low Earth orbit make its way around and around the planet. Actual aliens. The universe was a strange goddamn place.

"Sir, the craft is breaking orbit."

"Predicted flight path?" He watched the monitor, hoping that it was going back to where it came from.

"Unknown, sir. It's deorbiting above the Pacific."

Shit, the General thought to himself, "Where's it gonna land?"

"No idea, sir, but if those engines can get it here in less than 4 hours, I'd have to say anywhere."

Pirate Dropship Drakon, Briefing Room

Low Planetary Orbit, Planet III

17 May 3020

Captain Hale swept his eyes over the assembled. To his left, his "Intelligence Officer" and captain of the Drakon, Reynold Mamoto was still listening to a muted audio stream. On his right Mechwarriors Tony Denaro, owner of one Commando, and Ken, the Stinger pilot, the were playing dice with infantry boss Lieutenant Irdon Koltan. The third Mechwarrior, Dana Zumross, was absent, probably tinkering with her Hermes II as usual. Just as well, so long as she got to burn something, she was happy.

"Okay, Reynold, I gave you 3 hours to find me targets. What do you have for me?" Hale eyed the captain questioningly.

"We have our pick of anywhere that looks appealing. This world is heavily industrialized, but practically undefended. There are some militia installations, but no orbital defenses, no fortresses, no mech bases. Anywhere we want, really." Mamoto nudged over to another monitor, "They use some sort of encryption on their communications, but nothing we should really we worried about. From what we can parse, it's like they don't think we're here or they don't care. They seem completely oblivious to spacecraft."

Bridge, Pirate Dropship Drakon

Low Planetary Orbit, Planet III

System S3-19570410

17 May 3020

"Man, look at all this junk," Hugo Chin, pilot of the Drakon, said as he maneuvered the Dropship into orbit above the unnamed planet. "I've never seen so many satellites orbiting a rock in all my life. I don't think even New Avalon or any of the other House capitals have this much stuff, not since the Second Succession War anyway."

"Big deal," snorted sensors officer Jane Dietrich. "It's all little stuff, com sats and stuff."

"You know, we could fill our holds with just the stuff sitting up here and still make a profit," Chin speculated.

"What, Hugo? And forgo the pleasure of having solid ground under our feet and something other than canned air to breath?" Captain Mamoto said as he propelled himself onto the bridge in the microgravity environment. "Besides, we're not exactly well stocked with vac suits. Who exactly is going to do the EVA to grab a bunch of satellites? Our esteemed MechWarriors in their mechs?"

Chin shrugged. "I was just saying, skipper…"

"Never you mind that," Mamoto said, ending the dialogue. "Jane, any signs that they've noticed us?"

"You mean other than being pinged by several dozen RADAR sources practically since we detached from the Elephant?" Jane said sarcastically. "Noooo, none at all, skipper."

"Oh, good," Mamoto said, completely oblivious to the sarcasm. "Okay, Hugo, take us down. We're going with landing point C."

NORAD/United States Northern Command

Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado

17 May 2005

"No fucking way," muttered Lieutenant Thomas Warner as he stared at the first high resolution photographs of the alien intruder from the spy satellites in orbit. He had been hearing outrageous rumors about the alien spacecraft coming it, but he hadn't believed them. The similarity of the alien bogey to any fictional spacecraft couldn't be anything but a coincidence. Then he saw these pictures.

The spherical ship looked beat up and worn, its paintjob scored with what looked like burn marks and minor cratering. But even so, Warner could make out the faded insignia painted on the side, a red and gold sunburst with an upright sword across it. On top of the logo was a more freshly painted black X that appeared to have been hand drawn. But what really drew Warner's eyes were the blocky English style lettering and numbering adorning the hull.

"General!"

Bridge, USS Nimitz

400km South of American Samoa, Pacific Ocean

17 May 2005

The FLASH message printed out before Commander of the US Pacific Fleet Admiral Bart Mancuso. They were out on war games exercises with their Pacific allies when the message came in.

"They've gotta be joking." Admiral Mancuso breathed to himself as he read the message from PACFLT Command.

"Sir?" Captain Ted Branch looked over from behind him, "What is it?"

"We're being ordered to prepare an air superiority and ground attack mission in New Zealand."

"The group is close enough, but why are we attacking New Zealand?"

"We're not," Mancuso waved the message in disbelief, "According to this New Zealand is about to be hit by a goddamn UFO and we're the closest carrier group in the region."

"No offense, sir, but that sounds like bullshit."

"Captain, it's FLASH traffic. I honestly hope its bullshit, but these things tend to be far too real," Mancuso glanced at Branch, "Prep the strike, Captain. I'm calling home to see what's going on."

Cornwall Park Big Lawn

Cornwall Park, Auckland, New Zealand

17 May 2005

It was a beautiful and sunny day for the people visiting Cornwall Park. The first thing most people noticed was the distant roar not unlike that from a jet plane, if a little deeper than normal. Some people looked up and saw a brilliant spot of light that appeared to not be moving very much unlike most jets. But the light grew brighter, attracted more attention from people on the ground. As the light and sound grew unbearable, a hot wind began to pick up and it slowly dawned on the onlookers that the whatever-it-was was descending towards them.

One by one, people began to run away, giving way to a mass stampede. They realized very quickly that whatever that thing may be, it was going to land right on top of them. Most of them even survived.

The Dropship Drakon landed in the park. The column of fusion fire underneath it brought the thirty-five-hundred-ton vessel to a soft landing, its power digging out a crater in the dirt beneath it and utterly annihilating any living thing unfortunate enough to be caught there.

Cargo Bay, Dropship Drakon

En Route Planetside, Planet III

17 May 3020

"Touchdown in thirty seconds," Mamoto's voice said over the intercom.

"Why an island?" MechWarrior Dana Zumross said suddenly as she sat in the cockpit of her Hermes II.

"What?" someone else said, confused.

"Why are we landing on an island," Dana asked again. "Why not on the mainland near richer pickings? Why a rinky dink island in the middle of nowhere?"

"Well, darling," Ken, the Stinger pilot replied, "if you actually bothered to come to the meetings, then you'd know, wouldn't you?"

"Stuff it, dickwad.," Dana spat, annoyed. "Just tell me."

"Twenty seconds," Mamoto said.

"It's simple really," Hale broke in before the two began squabbling. "Despite being a 'rinky dink little island', the target I have in mind has enough loot sitting in the open that we could stuff the Drak's holds full and still not get everything."

"Ten seconds, Nine…"

"And besides," Hale continued, ignoring the countdown, "there's only the one militia base in the area. Now we can probably handle anything the locals can throw at us, but we're not exactly drowning in spares as is, so I want the damage to our mechs minimized."

"…three, two…"

"Gotcha boss."

"…touchdown!" Mamoto cried as the muted engine roar cut off.

The MechWarriors could all feel the Drakon settle down gently… and then lurch violently to the side. Luckily, the mechs were all still in their cradles, so they weren't tossed around like giant rag dolls. A few seconds of mass cursing filled the comm channels during which Hale noticed that the floor of the bay was now a thirty-degree slope.

"Mamoto, what the hell happened?" Hale demanded furiously.

"Er, sorry about that," Mamoto replied. "Apparently the ground isn't as solid as it looks. I think one of my landing feet is in a sewer. But don't worry! The doors are clear, and we can take off again with no problem."

"We better," Hale growled. "Okay, open the doors and let us out."

The mech cradle released Hale's Hunchback, and he carefully piloted it across the now uneven floor to the opening hatch. As he stepped outside, Hale was followed by the rest of his lance. The ground and some of the nearer building appeared to have been damaged by the Dropship's landing, but there were no militia forces to greet him. That was good.

"Okay people let's do this by the numbers," Hale said once the quick spot check was done. "The target area is roughly north of the LZ. Form up on me and…" The other three mechs of his lance dashed past him at their best speeds. "Dammit!"

As he put his bigger and slower mech into a run after his errant pilots, Hale decided that he really needed to work on unit discipline. He was just glad that his choice of targets was unlikely to kill his people for their stupidity.

Wintergarden Café

Auckland Domain, Auckland, New Zealand

17 May 860 AS

Lieutenant Commander Yakim Simeonov was sitting at a table in the café, enjoying an espresso when the news hit. A UFO had landed in the middle of Cornwall Park and deposited a mech unit in the city. He ducked out and crouched behind a low wall. Immediately, he went for his phone and brought it to his ear.

"Commander," the voice on the other end responded, "What's the situation?"

"We have hostiles planet-side," he stated urgently, "I repeat, we have hostiles planet-side."

"Confirmed, Commander. What's your situation?"

"Unharmed, but it's chaos. News reports are patchy, and we're hearing big goddamn noises coming from the West."

"Roger that. The Strike Group is already en route back, but that will take a few days. Can you hold out that long?"

"Not a problem. What are my orders?"

"Gather as much intelligence as possible and only engage if in imminent danger. Further orders are being transmitted to you now."

"Roger that. Simeonov out." He snapped his phone shut, looking at the orders through an implanted AR display.

-Orders for all ISA Agents on Earth:

-Gather Intelligence

-Engage only in imminent danger

-We trust your discretion, do as necessary

He was slightly confused at the last order. It seemed contradictory but given the situation it made some sense. He looked around, trying to find where the mechs were and where they went. Another small explosion sounded from a couple of kilometers away.

Well, I guess I'll start there.

Under the Northern Motorway

Wellington and Union Street, Auckland, New Zealand

17 May 2005

"You know, this is absolutely the last time I volunteer for an easy Annual Training in a friendly country" Sergeant Tony Dansel remarked as he watched the Mechs stomp under the highway while the detachment he had ended up in charge of cowered behind a building. "Oh, and all of you who have ever given me shit for what I read owe me a dozen drinks."

"What, just because you read about giant robots?" Private Jim Johnson said snidely.

"No, because I read about these giant robots. It's sure as hell not a publicity stunt or anything cooked up on Earth, because you could feel the ground shake when that thing touched down, and no one has anything that big that can do reentry like that. So, the simplest explanation is probably some combination of an alternate universe and time travel. Well, maybe aliens with a perverse sense of humor" Dansel said, as he continued trying to dial anyone in his chain of command.

"Simplest?!"

"What do you know anyone today who has giant robots with beam weapons like what took out that news chopper that happen to look like a kludge of two separate Japanese animation franchises that were used wholesale as the basis for a board game? Oh well, on to practicalities. Anyone manage to get through to higher?"

A chorus of negative replies ensued with a sarcastic follow up "Nope, they said they're in a meeting holed up in the TOC before they left for the day. Of course, no one told them that isn't supposed to stand for Teenagers Only Club."

"Naturally," Dansel sighed, peeking around the corner, "It's a shame really, these guys are so spread out they can't really cover each other. Why couldn't this have happened next week when the Cav brigade would be here?"

"You have a clue what's going on then, mate?" A quiet voice breathed in Dansel's ear. He turned around to find a dozen men in urban camo, not quite pointing their weapons at his people.

"We have hostiles, that's for damn sure. From their numbers, equipment, and poorly painted over insignias some kind of independent forces. My guess is pirates," He looked to the leader of the new arrivals behind him, "You guys know anything about BattleTech?"

"What, the MechWarrior PC game?" one of them piped up.

"Yeah. Giant robots, distant future, sucks even harder to be infantry," he paused a moment, thinking, "Best bet is probably blowing the leg joints with explosives. Problem is the whole getting spotted and dying part. That, and my guys don't have explosives, training, or a surplus of balls." Dansel extended his hand, "Name's Dansel, by the way. Sergeant, US Army Reserve."

The leader gave him a firm handshake, "Captain Lewis, Australian SAS. I think we can provide the explosives and training. Think you boys can provide the bollocks with a distraction?"

"Well, sir," Dansel smirked, "depends on how much expensive equipment we can get away with breaking."

The Northern Motorway

Close to St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

17 May 860 AS

Simeonov was driving now, having a better idea of where the mechs were headed. The docks, St. Mary's Bay was the target. Interesting choice, as it was not a relevant military target, but this whole thing didn't seem like a military operation. Landing in the middle of a densely populated area with a few mechs didn't seem like hallmarks of a proper invasion. This smelled of a raid.

This goddamn traffic, he thought to himself, do these people not know there's robots stomping around?

He looked left and right for an opening. That's when he saw them. Uniformed military folks, hitching repelling gear to the side rails. Those mechs were probably right below him. He turned off the engine, grabbed his backpack, and hopped out of his car. It was a rental, and he gave them false IDs anyways. He had to see these things.

Close to the Northern Motorway

Close to St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

17 May 2005/3020/860 AS

"Dansel here. He's moved as far as he probably will for area security. Initiate SCV rush. Over," Sergeant Dansel said into the walkie-talkie, as he observed from his perch 150 feet off the ground in the control box of a gantry crane.

In the nearby motor pool, rumblings could be heard as the engines of ten, then twenty, then thirty massive vehicles started up in rapid succession. There had been locks on the gate, which had lasted seconds in the face of the bolt cutters the Aussie SAS had with them. There had been locks on each steering wheel, which didn't matter, since the vehicles were already pointed in the direction of their enemy and weren't meant to be steered in any case. There was a lock-out key for each vehicle secured back at the TOC that was needed to activate them, but anyone with three months of experience in the unit knew how there were never enough of them on hand, and that a bent piece of coat hanger would substitute. There was fence around the motor pool, that was barely higher than the tires of each slowly accelerating juggernaut and flattened to the ground without slowing the horde at all.

'Corporal' Jankowicz was bored. There had been no resistance worth mentioning, and none in his sector. He couldn't even try to loot anything shiny for himself, the support personnel were taking care of that far behind him. So, when his sensors lit up with anomalous contacts in motion, it was with an exuberant wordless shout that he moved his Stinger out to get a look.

"Dansel to Team 2, initiate pratfall. Bollocks Brigade, on your own initiative. Over."

"Jankowicz here, I've got major movement in my sector, taking a look-see," he moved his mech towards the oncoming bogies, "Coming up on- Holy crap what the hell are those things?! There's a heavy armor battalion like nothing I've ever seen bearing right down on me with huge fucking cannon!"

He opened up his medium laser on the first truck, turning it into a pile of slag.

"Send everyone! Wait... huh, never mind, some joker sent a bunch of fuck-off huge support vehicles my way. That thing on the front just looked like a huge gun for a sec. Damn but they blow up pretty though."

Entranced as he was with seeing how quickly he could tear up the targets, he failed to notice the minute figures between the buildings on either side of the road dumping out crates and barrels, then dragging cables across the path with hastily tossed ropes.

"Jankowicz, get the hell back in position," Hale resolved at that moment that he was pulling that irresponsible jack-ass from piloting just as soon as they were off-world, "Look sharp everyone, looks like someone was trying to draw our attention over his way."

Simeonov glanced over the side of the motorway and saw it. A mech. Small, about eight meters in height, but it looked nimble to him. The mech fired its arm mounted laser and was slicing through a gaggle of vehicles speeding towards it. He opened his cellphone and rang command.

"Command, I've got eyes on a bogie. Small one, but certainly potent enough to take on civilian equipment."

"Roger that, Commander. Patch us into your ocular feed."

"Roger. Patching you in… Now." Simeonov gave his commanders a live view through his eyes, "I can provide ECM support from here, if I'm authorized."

"I'll have to get that cleared by command. Stand by."

Now he waited, hoping that he could help these people and maybe even gather essential intel in the process.

Jankowicz backpedaled, unwilling to leave the last two targets active. Playing his laser across both with a single continuous beam, he turned and accelerated down the road. He first noticed something wrong as the left foot of his mech started to slide forward. Trying to compensate with the right leg he felt something crunch underfoot as his mech lurched off-balance.

The Stinger entered an uncontrolled skid forward. With commendable reflexes he triggered his jump jets to try to get clear. Unfortunately, his mech's feet had by then slid under the replacement cable for the gantry crane, turning what would otherwise have been a brilliant save into a headlong tumbling sprawl as the jumpjets scraped him into and along the asphalt.

"Go go go!" Dansel chanted, willing the commandos forward as he moved the gantry towards the fallen mech. Let's see that piece of shit get up with no legs and a forty-ton container on its chest.

The Aussies practically flew to the mech, each two-man team flawlessly shoving their payload into the closest leg joint or seam. As they dived for what cover was available, a series of staccato bursts rang out as the improvised satchel charges detonated, momentarily obscuring the fallen war machine. As the smoke cleared though, it was apparent that while much the worse for wear and in fact with one foot entirely detached, the mech was still functional and in fact already rising from the ground.

"...Well fuck. Fuck it all to hell."

One of the SAS pairs had been hit hard, as randomly ricocheting shrapnel had been practically funneled towards them by the curvature of the mech. Even with the less wounded man carrying the other, they were still in the open, and entirely too far from any kind of concealment.

Without conscious thought, Dansel did the three things he had been explicitly instructed never to allow anyone to do with one of those cranes, accelerating it to more than twice its official top speed. Of course, to put that in perspective, it was still a pace that a running man could easily outperform.

Jankowicz was in a foul mood, and more than a little dazed. On my first mission with a mech, these worthless shits tear the whole mech up! I'll be lucky if Hale just leaves me to die here, He looked about and spotted two wounded men gimping their way away from him, Oh hey, a couple squishies didn't make it away. That's right little bloodbags, try to get away from me, I'm going to... what's that rumbling sound?

As he turned his mech towards the noise, Jankowicz's first reaction was controlled panic at the huge monstrosity bearing down on him. His second reaction was barely controlled panic as he saw the container lovingly positioned at precisely his Stinger's head height. His third reaction was uncontrolled panic upon realizing that all his leg actuators were flashing danger signals and that the thing was taller than his surviving jump jets could clear in time. His fourth reaction was hysterical sobbing as he realized that the container was correcting for his movements. His fifth, and least helpful reaction, was to fire everything he had as it bore on the thing as he continued to turn.

A mobile dockyard gantry crane, even a relatively small one like this one, intended solely for lifting at most a forty-foot container of no more than two hundred tons, was a massive structure. Its legs had to be solid, incredibly heavy metal just to support it's 75-meter height sitting still, much less while in motion, or still worse in motion with the boom lowered and a load suspended. It was over-engineered to withstand almost any plausible circumstance, up to and including hurricanes, because such a crane represented an immense capital investment that would have to survive for years to pay for itself, and preferably decades to allow for ongoing profit.

However, when the designers had tried to cover their bases, hostile heavy weapons fire had been low on their list of crucial factors (though it must be said that most had idly speculated at some point on how to most efficiently undo all their work). Hostile fire by a directed energy weapon designed to slice through advanced armor composites like butter hadn't remotely crossed their minds.

As such, Jankowicz's laser had nearly effortlessly sliced through most of the leg closest to him and his heavy machine guns, while not nearly so dramatic in effect, still didn't do the integrity of the crane any good at all, a problem that was compounded as the crane continued to move forward, further stressing already critically damaged structure.

It began to buckle towards him, Jankowicz's spatial awareness and centers for logical analysis collaborated to belatedly inform him that there had been more than enough room under the thing for it to go by, and he could always have thrown up an arm to ward off the improvised projectile. This proved to be no comfort whatsoever as the structure descended upon his mech even as he tried to hobble clear.

When the crane first started to buckle, Dansel had scrambled up the ladder from the underslung control booth fast enough to have set a world record had anyone been properly recording the event. Any hope of an open casket hero's funeral would at the very least require him not to be under most of the structure in an easily crushed space.

He reached the top-mounted engine room and paused for lack of a better idea, he briefly mulled over his options for an exit line, Dramatic declaration? A last laugh? Obscure geek reference? Guess I'll go with understated.

The rear legs of the crane tore off their rails and it accelerated towards the ground and the intervening twenty-ton speed bump, the previously distributed hand-held radios crackled to life.

"It's been an honor, gents. Dansel out."

Simeonov clapped, applauding the tenacity of the soldiers below him. The property damage was immense, but these soldiers succeeded in their mission: disabling the small mech. His cell phone vibrated.

"Command am I clear?" he asked emphatically, knowing that the soldiers below him stood no chance if this small mech's support units came to play.

"You're clear to assist the locals, Commander. Good hunting."

"Thank you, Command. Simeonov out." He retrieved a small hexagonal panel from his backpack and slapped it on his chest. In a matter of moments, his clothing was completely replaced by skin-tight tactical stealth armor. He retrieved his collapsed weapons and equipment and deployed them on his body. He hopped down, off the motorway. Small jump jets slowed his descent bringing him before the prone body of a soldier collapsed in the heap of twisted metal on top of the mech. With ease, he tore the wreckage off him and carried him away from the combat zone. He looked for the pair of other soldiers that were limping away a moment ago. He saw them a few meters away thankful to be alive. The Commander ran over to them.

"You guys okay?" he tended to the more wounded soldier. Shrapnel had peppered the poor men, but Simeonov had just the solution. He injected the two soldiers with combat gel, rapidly pushing out the shrapnel and repairing the damage to their bodies.

"Who in the hell are you, mate?" the less injured soldier wheezed, exhausted.

"Commander Simeonov. You guys got balls, I'll give you that, but your gear is definitely not up to snuff for this shit."

"Don't got a choice, Commander. We got rifles, but that don't do shit against these things. Explosives is our only real choice here."

"We make do with what we got," Simeonov referenced his internal clock, "You guys should be healed up enough to move. How're you feeling?"

"I…" the more wounded man moved his previously shrapnel-riddled limbs, "What in the hell, how?"

"In due time, soldier. Let me see your radio." He took out his cellphone and pressed it to the radio, "Thanks. You can have that back now." He activated his internal communicator and shifted the frequency to the military channel scanned off the radio.

"This is Commander Simeonov to all surviving friendly forces. How're you holding up?"

"Who the hell is this?"

"A friendly," one of the rescued soldiered piped in, "He treated us and managed to get Dansel out of the wreckage."

"Roger that, Three. Callsign Bollocks Six, Commander."

Simeonov chucked to himself, "I like it, Six. Sitrep?"

"One robot down, three to go. The rest are deeper in the docks. We got lucky here."

"Hardly luck, Six. You guys did well. I think I have equipment capable of disrupting the mechs. Need a hand?"

"Any help would be fantastic, Sim."

"Roger. I'll engage as best I can. You guys keep doing your thing." Simeonov turned to the two soldiers beside him, "You guys down to keep blowing shit up?"

The two soldiers nodded, smirking.

"Let's fuck'em up, gents."

Hale couldn't see Jankowicz's Stinger over the cornucopia of stacked shipping containers from where he was. That was part of the reason he had deployed him over there; to keep an eye on their blind spots. But Hale could hear his man scream in terror over the radio only to be abruptly cut off. And that the cut off occurring at the same time as the big crane that Hale could see coming down did not bode well.

"Jankowicz! Status report!" Hale demanded as he negotiated his way around the stacks toward his location. "Jankowicz! Answer me!"

"I'm… I'm okay," came the Mechwarrior's shaky voice. "Oh God, I'm stuck. Hatch is jammed shut and the damage board is all red and yellow lights. I don't think I could get the Stinger standing even if I weren't buried alive."

"Buried alive?" Hale said incredulously. "What the hell are- Holy shit!"

The giant crane was an almost unrecognizable mound of twisted metal. Nothing under it could be seen. The only reason Hale could tell the Stinger was under there was that the very tip of its rifle-like medium laser was poking up from the wreckage. Assuming that arm was still attached to the rest of the mech, Jankowicz's ride must be lying flat on the pavement with ALL that wreckage on top of him.

Extracting the Stinger could be a problem. While Hale had no doubt that his own lasers could slice the tangle of structural supports like so much butter, he risked doing further damage to the other Mech. Mechs were goddamned expensive and Stingers carried ammo that would explode if it were hit. That meant that he needed to do this manually.

"Jankowicz, you dumbass," Hale growled as he started his Hunchback forward. "The repairs to that Stinger is coming out of your cut and- what the hell?"

Hale brought his mech to a complete halt just as it started to lose its balance and managed to stay upright. Looking down, he saw that the ground was crisscrossed with cables suspended at ankle height. If he had been going at any speed, Hale almost certainly would have tripped and fallen. Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention.

"Son of a bitch!" Hale yelled, firing his left arm laser at a man carrying a suspicious looking package. He missed, the man ducking out of sight and his laser blasting a hole in a nearby shipping container. Hopefully, shrapnel from the container nailed the guy, but Hale didn't have time for that. "Koltan! We got enemy infantry in the area! What's your status?"

"Almost done, Burg," came the instant reply. "You need my people to sweep the area?"

"No, get back to Drakon with the loot," Hale decided. Decisions, decisions. He couldn't leave the loot unguarded, but he couldn't dig Jankowicz out with an unknown number of infantry sappers in the area, and God only knew how much infantry might be lying in wait for the convoy. So, he needed one mech to cover his PBIs and another to watch his back and help him dig out the Stinger. With the Stinger down, the only real anti-infantry weapon left in the Mech lance was Zumross' flamer…

Hale's eyes drifted over the wreckage and noticed what looked suspiciously like fuel leaking from what looked suspiciously like a fuel tank, creating a rather large puddle where the Stinger was probably lying.

"Zumross, stay with Koltan and make sure he and the loot get back to the Drakon," Hale ordered as he took careful aim with his right-hand laser and making damn sure that his target was nowhere near the spread pool of flammable fuel.

"Will do, boss," the woman acknowledged almost cheerfully. No surprise there; it wasn't like there was any love lost between her and Jankowicz.

"Denaro," Hale continued as he cut one trip cable with a laser shot. "Your Commando has tow-hands. Get over here and watch my back."

"On my way."

Movement caught Hale's eye. He lashed out with both lasers this time. He couldn't tell if he hit what he shot at. Keeping one eye on the surroundings, he went back to cutting more cables while swearing under his breath.

This was supposed to have been a no cost milk run. Now he was wondering if he were going to break even.

Bridge, ISV Paul Atredies

Between Kokpekty IV and V

Kokpekty System, Draconis Combine Space

17 May 860 AS

Merlow stood beside the tactical holographic table, seeing live footage from Lieutenant Commander Simeonov's eyes. He had already ordered Strike Group Liberty to travel back to the Sol System, but that was going to be a few days, and those were days that he knew these people needed. He watched as Simeonov moved with local soldiers, dodging and weaving between shipping containers, coordinating with these men, trying to bring down a larger mech.

He shook his head, "Gods, the enemy is unorganized. Earth is lucky, to say the least."

"Sir, we're getting more from Earth," called one of the Lieutenants from comms.

"Route it through." Merlow dragged open more screens as news footage began pumping in. CNN was broadcasting up to the minute information from New Zealand, shaky grainy footage taken by primitive cell phone cameras displaying these mechs.

"We're looking at, what, three hostiles, possibly a fourth?"

Captain Saliman opened another window with an image of the landed entry craft, "This thing is massive. We have to assume more than that, and some support vehicles."

"Looks like they're looting, not really a proper engagement."

"Rules out a military op, I think, sir."

"Do we have word from Antallos? Who are these guys?"

Saliman opened another window, "We're hearing the name Hale from our officers there, runs a little pirate outfit, used to be a merc, rumors of former military affiliation."

"Huh. Pirates don't have the luxury of choosing their people. Coordination would be a bitch even with a small force like this one…"

"Sir, we have yet to recover a mech from this universe so full combat capability is unknown but judging from what evidence we're getting here Bashar Serov would probably have a field day."

Merlow allowed himself a smirk, "Certainly," he turned to face his XO, "Captain, we're going to want to announce ourselves to the major powers as soon as we get to Earth. We can't stick around with all our vessels, but we can certainly help them with Serov's forces. Tell him to get organized and bring everything he'll need for a proper planetary defense to Earth."

"Sir," Saliman objected, "that will leave our current colonization defense efforts under-manned. What if they get hit?"

"We'll have Strike Group Rhineland in place for defense, and Strike Groups Bretonnia and Kusari are doing a very good job of not being noticed."

"That will leave our exploration efforts undermanned, and-"

"Captain," Merlow brought up his hand, "everything is a compromise. We just might have a chance to bring an already industrialized world into the fold and give us a desperately needed infusion of manpower, industrial capacity, and fresh ideas."

Saliman thought over his superior's claims. Having an industrial base was something that the ISA needed. Colonization was a time-consuming process, and even their 'oldest' colony in this universe was months old. They could help retool this Earth's infrastructure to support continued interstellar expansion across this empty pocket of the galaxy and reestablish their people properly.

"The Civilian Council will absolutely love the fact that they could have one of our colonies up within the next two years rather than five, Captain."

"I understand, sir, it's just…"

"I know, I know. I don't like taking risks like this, either, and the major players in this universe have access to a lot more in terms of sheer numbers and material than we've ever encountered, but that's why we have to make this work."

"…"

"Trust me on this, Captain. I've led us across the multiverse. I don't intend to lead us astray."

Situation Room

The White House, United States of America

17 May 2005

"CNN never fails to deliver, do they?" Vice President Jackson noted.

A large TV on the far wall of the Situation Room was showing everyone on earth what was happening in Auckland, New Zealand. Wobbly footage from ground correspondents were showing the fight for Auckland in St. Mary's Port.

Next to that TV, another displayed an overhead feed from their Keyhole satellites, giving them a clear view from above.

Jack Sr. was huddled around the table with his kids Sally and Jack Jr. along with the Joint Chiefs, SecDef, and freshly brought in USAF Brigadier General Martin McMayers. McMayers wasn't a member of the Joint Chiefs, but he was an old BattleTech player and could help translate game to reality as best as he could to the rest of the Generals around.

Jack Jr. leafed through the scattered books and images that littered the conference table. Much like his sister and many of the others in the room he was a little worse for wear from the situation. He grabbed a can of energy drink and downed it in one go.

"Okay, we can add a Hunchback to the list," he noted, shaking his head and rubbing his face.

Part of him wanted to head to bed. Another was glad he had an airtight excuse for not going to school the next day. Yet another was thrilled with the prospect of real life Mechs, though he was quite aware of the implications and problems that brought them. Being the son of the President had its perks as he frequently rifled through military hardware books. However, he didn't care. Mechs were cool.

"That makes a Stinger, and Hunchback, and a Commando," McMayers wrote into a notepad next to him, "That's, what, two lights and a medium Mech?"

"You missed the Hermes II," Sally placed a BattleTech Sourcebook back on the table.

"Two lights and two medium Mechs," Jack Sr. proclaimed, "A scouting force?"

"Look more like Pirates, sir," McMayers leaned back in his chair.

The others kind of stared at the four of them, confused and somewhat intrigued by their knowledge of the subject.

"What about the emblem on the DropShip?" Sally stroked her chin, "It's a Federated Suns insignia."

"Crossed out," noted McMayers, "and you could throw a stone in the Inner Sphere without hitting a Union. Same goes for the Invader."

"So, which is it?" asked Jack Sr. "Pirates or FedSun?"

"The way they're acting, sir, I'd say pirates."

"I just hope they're not burning Auckland to the ground…"

Flight Line

RNZAF Base Ohakea, Ohakea, New Zealand

Squadron Leader James Garvey glanced along the line of parked olive-drab F-16s that were lined up beside the runway.

I suppose I should be grateful that I've got as many as I do, he griped to himself, but I'd feel better if I had more than six birds ready to fly when I'm going to be fighting these damned... 'Mech' things.

In only slightly different circumstances, the RNZAF would have been out of the fast-jet business for several years by this time, but after the abortive war between the US and Japan, not to mention the subsequent Indian near-invasion of Sri Lanka, a combination of a more defense-conscious government establishment and substantial Australian pressure on their trans-Tasman cousins to 'pull their weight' has seen 75 Squadron's obsolescent A-4K Skyhawks replaced with a squadron of General Dynamics F-16s.

Unfortunately, eight of 75 Squadron's eighteen aircraft were currently in Australia for joint training exercises.

Of the ten left at Ohakea, only six could be armed in such short notice.

Garvey slumped into a folding chair, We're so far out of the way that no bastard's supposed to be able to reach us without weeks of warning. Nobody ever counted on giant robots from space!

On the other hand, the robots were about to get a lesson in air-power. It had taken almost an hour to get the Falcons loaded. The Wing Commander had almost had a heart attack at the thought of bombing a New Zealand city, especially without direct orders from the government. Now, the RNZAF was about to fly its first fighter mission in anger for almost half a century. Four of the Falcons were packing AGM-65F 'Maverick' missiles on their outer wing-pylons; the other two were carrying ECM pods and laser-designators; all six carried centerline drop-tanks and, on each inner pylon, a massive GBU-15 two-thousand-pound laser-guided bomb, to deal with the attackers' damned spaceship and, if the Mavericks weren't enough, to clean up the tin-men themselves.

Can't say I like the thought of that much collateral damage, either, but I will not see the first armed invasion of New Zealand's shores go unpunished, and if the Yanks think I'm going to let their precious bloody 'Aluminium Clouds' have the pleasure of bombing Auckland, instead of me... well, that's why the wingtip rails have live Sidewinders on them.

Operations, HMNZS Te Kaha

Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand

"Engineer, any chance of more speed?"

"No more chance than when you asked ten minutes ago, Captain!" was the hot answer over the inter-phone.

Commander Barry Youngman winced. He deserved that, "Very well, Charge: best efforts."

As he hung up, he glanced about the compartment. Every officer and rating in sight was fully 'smurfed up' in their anti-flash gear and attended to their duties with a professional intensity honed in deployments off Afghanistan, the former UIR, and the pirate havens of Somalia. For an instant, he couldn't control a small, brief smile of pride - then he brought himself back to the moment. "Nav?"

The navigator glanced up from her display briefly. "Steady on course two-one-five and twenty-seven knots, sir: we should reach the outer arbor in fifty minutes."

"Pee-wo, time to firing range?"

The Principal Warfare Officer had just finished updating his plot in anticipation of that question. "Estimate thirty-five minutes before the main gun can engage targets in Silo Park, sir. The Sea Sprite's already orbiting the area, ready to observe fall-of-shot."

"Very well."

Pirate Convoy

Cornwall Park, Auckland, New Zealand

Ping!

Lieutenant Irdon Koltan ducked and cursed inventively as a bullet ricocheted off the transport truck's armored skin less than a meter from his head. Almost the entire trip back to the Drakon had his people be harassed by sniper fire. The trip itself was taking far longer than it should have with the roads being choked with abandoned civilian vehicles that needed to be cleared out of the way, the need to fetch those of his people who had decided to do some private looting, the need to take an occasional detour, and fighting off the occasional band of irate militia. Despite all that, they were almost home.

Ping! "ARGH!"

"Zumross!" Koltan shouted into the radio as one of his men collapsed. "Have you found that sniper yet?"

A staccato pounding filled the air as the Hermes II mech fired its autocannon at a building. The building promply collapsed, but thankfully the debris didn't fall into the convoy's path again.

Ping!

"Damn! Missed," came the mechwarrior's reply. "Sorry, sir. My sensors aren't showing squat, and I think there's more than one sniper anyway."

"Well that's just perfect," Koltan muttered as he shut off the radio. He raised his voice. "Okay, people, I can see the Drakon now! Let's double time it…"

Ping! "ARGH!"

"…right now!" Koltan finished. "Go! Go! Go!"

Silo Park

East of St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

Hale was getting frustrated. No plan survived contact with the enemy, but this was an ass backwards world and there was no real resistance that he could see. Despite this, they had taken out one of his mechs and he was now dealing with infantry weaving between these damn shipping containers. There was also this damnable flash that would blind him periodically. He'd never see that before.

He caught a glimpse of another one of the infantry ants and fired his laser. A neat hole appeared in a nearby shipping container with no sign of whether or not he managed to kill a man.

"FUCK!" he screamed as he slammed his fist in frustration. His mech's anti-infantry capabilities were lacking at best, with an urban environment neutering that limited capability even further. The ever-expanding fuel puddle under the pile of rubble covering Jankowicz didn't make things any easier.

"Denaro, how long?"

Denaro's Commando carefully sifted through the rubble that buried the Stinger, "Not sure, boss."

"Not the answer I was looking for."

"Sorry, sir, but I don't think we want to accidentally set this shit off. Wish we had some foam on hand…"

"Noted, Denaro, do your best."

Jankowicz's panicked voice pierced through the radio, "W-what shit? What's going on out there?"

"Jankowicz, shut up. You're in enough shit already." Hale was annoyed enough at the kid. He'd been a handful since day one. He was half tempted to leave the half-baked idiot on this rock if it weren't for the cost of replacing a mech.

Hale re-adjusted his mech to continue his feeble attempts at anti-infantry action when his private comms line flickered.

"What's the situation?" Hale asked as he scanned for targets.

"We've got a problem, Boss." It was Koltan.

Hale fired his laser at a nearby warehouse, catching another glimpse of an infantryman before his vision filled with a white flash. When it returned, he had blown a hole straight through with no sign he had killed his target.

"Define problem." Hale growled.

"Got into a firefight with some locals, and they knocked out the flatbed."

"Shit." The flatbed was a mech recovery vehicle. While not as irreplaceable as a mech, Hale was unwilling to leave it and the loot it was hauling behind.

He had to think fast, "Okay. You have Zumross with you, right?"

"That's right, boss."

"Leave him and a few of the other men behind to guard the flatbed. You take a smaller group and haul back as much loot back as possible. When you get back to the Drakon, you get Virgil to drag that thing home. Make sure they've got an escort, but you stay on the dropship. Put some steel in Mamoto's spine."

"You got it, boss," Hale could almost hear the smile on the other end, "been looking forward to that for a long time."

Bridge, Dropship Drakon

Cornwall Park, Auckland, New Zealand

A grounded DropShip on a raid had few responsibilities. The big two were watching for counterattacks and providing intelligence. There was some threat of a counterattack, but Captain Mamoto wasn't worried about that. He had a crew to take care of overeager militia. Mamoto's more pressing concern was gathering intelligence, especially given he was the group's intelligence officer.

The signals he was able to intercept over-air were all local news broadcasts. Many of them were displaying in 2D and putting up images of stylized artwork of mechs. So, this planet did know of Battlemechs but their knowledge was distorted at best. They ran clips of an animated series which featured mech he'd never seen before alongside the footage of their company's mechs. Maybe they'd lost the knowledge of mechs, like many worlds in the Inner Sphere during near infinite wars waged across human civilization.

"Skipper!" Jane called, ripping his attention away from the news broadcasts, "We've got incoming aircraft."

"What?" Mamoto was a little shaken. The Drakon wasn't in the best shape to fend off fighters, "How many, from where, and are they heading towards us?"

"Six bogies, several kilometers to the southwest." Jane checked the readout, "Design unknown. I'd guess air breathers."

"Six planes." Mamoto's voice quivered a hair, "Hugo, spin up the engine and begin take-off preparations."

"What about our guys on the ground?" Hugo protested.

"They either make it back on time or they don't." Mamoto retorted, "Now how do we-"

"New contacts!" Jane's eyes bulged out of their sockets, "More fighters coming over the horizon from the northeast. ETA, thirty to forty-five minutes. We got… holy shit, that's a lot of 'em…"

"We have to get everyone on the same page. I'll put out the call."

Silo Park

East of St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

"Incoming aircraft! I repeat, incoming aircraft!" Mamoto's voice pierced through the comms.

Hale nearly tore off his headset, "Roger that, Drakon. We'll be back in plenty of time." He paused for just a moment, "Any chance of AA support?"

"Are you joking?" Mamoto's voice tinged with outrage and fear, "You want me to risk my hi- ship!?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. We certainly couldn't, not your precious ass." Hale mocked. He understood the DropShip was far too valuable to risk, but he wanted to live just a bit longer. He shifted his attention.

"Denaro, how much longer 'till we pry Jankowicz outta that shit?"

"Almost done, boss." Denaro had been carefully prying rubble with his Commando, trying to clear enough of it without igniting the pool of fuel underneath them. So far, no sparks had ignited the fuel which Jankowicz was eternally grateful for.

"Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou…" Jankowicz started babbling.

"Shut up, Jankowicz." Hale growled as he scanned the skies. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted them. Six specs and their white contrails. They were far off, especially for a Mech not designed for AA action. On a lark, hoping to do something, he fired his two medium lasers.

Missed.

He supposed that he was going to have to wait until they tried to strafe them before he would have any sort of chance to hit. A warning light he'd never seen before popped up on his display.

"What the fuck does TAG mean?"

He fired his lasers again. The planes broke formation, now heading towards the convoy. With a mental shrug, he went back to covering Denaro's back.

Skies Over Auckland

Auckland, New Zealand

Squadron Leader Garvey glanced out his cockpit as several green lines of light streaked by.

"Break, break! Move on the convoy!" He jerked his F-16 right, trying to evade the apparent laser fire from below, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, laser fire!?" Garvey shifted his attention to his wingmen, "Report in, wing."

"Tiki-Two, up."

"Tiki-Three, up."

"Tiki-Four, up."

"Tiki-Five, up."

"Tiki-Six, up."

"Good. Tiki-Three, Tiki-Five, you broke lock. Paint us some targets." Garvey switched to his Maverick Air-to-Ground Missiles, "Wing, fire when locked."

"Tiki-Three here, painted a target."

Garvey smiled, "Alright, wing. Give 'em hell. Tiki-One, Rifle!" A Maverick streaked off its rail, angling downward towards its target.

Corner of Puriri Drive and Campbell Cres

Alexandra Park, Auckland, New Zealand

Dana Zumross was bored. The idiot Koltan had left behind to secure the flatbed weren't the brightest nor most talkative bunch of people. Normally, she would have enjoyed the relative silence in her Hermes II as she was not the most into bonding with her shipmates. However, after twenty minutes of guarding these bastards and making sure these militia forces didn't do anything stupid… anything would have been better than standing in silence.

She couldn't wait to be back on board the DropShip. She was looking forward to bathing Jankowicz in his fuck-up, especially in all the recordings made during his 'short-lived burial." Zumross was going to blast that over the PA in the mess tonight.

Her mind occupied by the day-dream of torturing her 'comrade,' she was snapped back to reality by a warning light on her display.

"That's weird," she muttered to herself, "that indicator never lit up before…"

She was used to the temperamental quirks of her 'Mech. Most inherited 'Mechs had a few gremlins. She mentally added this one to the list.

Her comms crackled to life, "This is Drakon to all forces. We got incoming aircraft. Repeat, incoming aircraft."

She shook her head. There would be time to fix this later. She shifted her 'Mech to AA mode, but before she could do a thing four explosions rocked her Hermes.

Silo Park

East of St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

Sergeant Dansel awoke with a start. He sat bolt upright, the thing that he noticed was a lack of pain. He looked around, expecting to be under the mattress and bedding supplies he wrapped himself in to attempt to survive the collapse of the crane he was in. Instead, he found himself on that mattress in a warehouse with multiple holes blown in it.

"Good to see you're not dead, Sergeant." A voice behind him remarked, "Your unit's gonna be happy with that."

Dansel spun himself around. Cloaked in the relative darkness a figure emerged, dressed in a skin-tight tactical suit. A red and black eagle in a circle and triangle-like hexagon emblazoned over their left breast.

"Lieutenant Commander Yakim Simeonov." The figure extended his right hand, "Welcome back to the land of the living."

"Sergeant Dansel." He blinked as he grasped the man's hand, being pulled to his feet, "The hell happened after the crane-"

"Collapsed? Well, you buried a mech. Good work on that one, taking one of these things out of the game."

He shook his head, "How am I-"

"Alive? Luck, and a couple of syringes of combat gel. That was a hellish drop, soldier."

"Can you stop interrupting me?"

Simeonov chucked, "You're lucky to be alive. Relish it for a minute before we hop back into hell's mouth."

"Right." Dansel grasped at the loaned radio on his waist, "Dansel to all units. Requesting status report, over."

"Jesus, about time." A voice responded, "Nearly earned a Darwin award there, Sarge. Sim bring you up to speed?"

Dansel nodded, "For the most part. Did those two Bruces manage to make it out alright?"

"Bollocks-Three here. Yeah, we did, thanks to our mate Sim there. We're more than alright, if I'm honest."

He lowered his radio, staring at the Commander, "What the hell is in that, what, combat gel?"

"It cures what ails you," Simeonov responded as he peeked out a doorway, "save for getting your head torn off. Even then, we can do a pretty good job at putting you back together again." Simeonov fired his rifle out the door then ran past Dansel, "Shake a leg, Sarge!"

Dansel ran after the man, out another door and into another warehouse. As they cleared the threshold a massive explosion nearly threw them off their feet. He hugged the wall and peered out the door. The far half of the previous warehouse was gone.

"I've been pissing off the pilot of that big mech for the past fifteen minutes," Simeonov chuckled, "I guess he finally decided to fire the big gun."

"Goddamn, that Hunchie's AC-20 packs a punch."

Simeonov cocked an eyebrow at him, "Wait, you know what that thing is?"

"Yeah, the weapons loadout matches the tabletop game. Hunchback 4-G. One AC-20 in the right torso, two medium lasers in the arms and a small laser in the head."

"A game?" Simeonov questioned.

"Yeah. Ever heard of BattleTech?"

"I- Command are you getting this?" Simeonov asked to apparently no one, "Okay, search the archives please."

"Who are you talking to?"

Simeonov glanced at Dansel, "I'll explain later." He handed him a pistol, "How's your aim?"

Dansel stared at the pistol in disbelief, "The hell is this gonna do against a Hunchback?"

"It's a surprise." Simeonov grinned, "Follow me." The men quickly left the warehouse, the crackle of burning wood and metal punctuated by the smell of singed ozone and the sounds of explosions.

Simeonov lead his freshly-awakened charge to the husks of the ruined civilian construction vehicles. The large mech was still firing into the warehouses, green lasers burning holes in metal and wood alike. The smaller mech was still digging at the pile of rubble, nearly done with extracting its fallen friend. This was going to be a gutsy play, but if it worked it would stop the assault here dead in its tracks. He handed Dansel a small tool, then radioed the rest of the friendly soldiers.

"Alright, guys. I've got a plan fitting of your name, over"

"Six copies. What do you got, mate?"

"Alright, Dansel and I are going to disable their sensors. Now, that's only going to give us thirty seconds max. On my signal, you boys are gonna run up and plant explosives on the joints. With any luck, we're going to bring them down. How copy?"

"We copy, Sim. Two, Three, Seven and I will rush these bastards." The voice paused, "Are you sure they won't be able to see us?"

"Dansel and I are going to test that one out for you. If we go down, well, it's gonna be a whole lot harder."

"Roger, Sim. We'll wait for the signal. Out."

Dansel tapped him on the shoulder, "How the hell are you gonna blind these guys? These pea-shooters can't take out a 'Mech!"

"Aim for the head, Sarge. Fire a couple of rounds and wait for the flash. When you see the flash, step out and keep firing. If they don't slice us in half, we'll know it worked."

"And this thing?" Dansel motioned with the tool handed to him, "What the hell is this for?"

"Cutting tool. We're going to need to rip those pilots out somehow."

"Oh." Dansel stared at the tool for a moment. His mind swam, his face contorting into an evil smile, "Oh my."

"Okay, get ready." Simeonov kneeled, peeking out from the rear corner of the ruined vehicle, "On my mark…"

Dansel steadied his hands, resting them on the bed.

"FIRE!"

The pair squeezed their triggers, willing their rounds in the heads of the massive machines. All three of Simeonov's shots found their target, sticking their payload into the armor of the mech. Two of Dansel's rounds connected, embedding themselves into the smaller Commando. They waited a moment. The rounds timers triggered and exploded in a series of flashes.

Captain Hale shielded his eyes. Static drowned his cockpit as his displays failed to show anything. He stared at his RADAR and saw nothing. All his external sensors were down. He fired his lasers, hoping and praying that whatever the hell hit him was right in front of him.

"Goddamnit! Denaro! Can you see anything!?" He screamed.

"Boss! I'm blind!"

"Go go go!" Simeonov kept firing, hoping that his gamble worked. The large mech fired its lasers in anger but hit nothing, "Bollocks team, GO!"

Dansel stopped firing and broke into a sprint, running to the Hunchback as fast as his legs to take him. He jammed the pistol into his pocket and gripped the cutting tool tight. He had been waiting for this moment his entire life.

"Dansel!" Simeonov yelled after the sprinting man, "Where the fuck are you going!" The Commander continued to fire round after round, alternating mechs to try and keep them blind.

Dansel didn't hear him as he clambered up the Hunchback, climbing like a man possessed. The week of climbing up that crane and the sheer adrenaline pumping through his veins were paid off here. In a matter of moments, he was on the 'Mech's back. He took the cutting tool and started working on the back.

Hale's cockpit was still drowned in static. He couldn't see anything, his external sensors were down, the only thing that was working were his internal sensors. A hotspot appeared on his back, small enough to tell him that something was trying to make its way into the rear of his machine.

"Denaro! I've got something on my back!"

"Boss, I still can't see a damn thing!"

Hale started sway his 'Mech back and forth, trying to shake whatever the hell had crawled on his back off.

Simeonov kept firing as four soldiers emerged from their hiding spots, sprinting at the mechs. The two men in the lead sprinted to the smaller mech, satchel charges in hand. They ran for the legs. They jumped and jammed the explosives into the knee joints of the small mech. Scurrying away as fast as they could, they dove for cover as the two charges detonated, destroying the joints and sending the small machine face first into the pavement.

The other two men were a touch behind and ran at the farther, larger mech. They tried their damnedest to jam their charges into the leg joints, but the constant stomping and wiggling from the beast deterred them. They dove for cover before one of the massive feet trampled them.

Dansel held on for dear life, thanking whatever God that may have existed for the deployment in Texas and the rowdy nights spent on the mechanical bull. He kept his hand as steady as he could, cutting through the door hatch as fast as he could. He could almost feel the cockpit in his mind: the sensation of knocking out the pilot, the feel of hijacking this 'Mech so he could carry out his fantasy of creating his own personal interstellar empire. Dansel was jerked out of his fantasy by another twist of the Hunchback's torso.

Oh, I am so ready to pilot this thing.

Hale fired his lasers again, twisting and turning his mech to get the hot spot off him. He couldn't reach the bug; the Hunchback wasn't designed for ripping rear-mounted intruders off it. Even if it was, he wouldn't have wanted to risk firing his medium lasers at his own back armor. He tried to distract himself for a moment.

"Hale to all ground forces, what's happening?"

"Boss, Zumross is down!" a voice replied.

"What!?"

At that moment, he saw a light creeping in from behind him.

Corner of Puriri Drive and Campbell Cres

Alexandra Park, Auckland, New Zealand

The AGM-65F Maverick was designed as an anti-ship weapon and carried a three-hundred-pound high-explosive warhead. Granted, the chemical composition of those warheads was somewhat less advanced than those found in the larger BattleTech universe, and they were never meant to defeat a BattleMech's ablative armor. Even so, they were more than enough to hit a medium 'Mech like the Hermes II like thunderbolts from the hand of Zeus.

Two of the missiles caught the Hermes in its rear and right shoulder, shattering the armor of those sections and wrecking most of the underlying structural members. The other two missiles struck the crucial blows: hammering into the 'Mech's left flank. They pulverized its armor completely, obliterated the underlying endo-frame and touched off the autocannon's remaining ammunition.

A colossal series of explosions tore the 'Mech apart like a toy stuffed with firecrackers. Dana Zumross shrieked in agony as feedback overloaded the circuits of her neurohelmet, spearing through her temples like white-hot chisels. The intense pain smashed her into unconsciousness even before the Hermes' computer triggered her command couch's ejection sequence.

The rocket-powered seat obligingly carried its 'MechWarrior soaring high into the air to descend on a parafoil. It neither knew nor cared that its passenger was already comatose.

Operations, HMNZS Te Kaha

Hobson Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

"The Air Force is engaging now, sir," the XO reported. "They're asking that we not fire on the robots, so we don't spoil their aim."

"Right, then." Youngman smiled thinly. "That leaves us with the big target, then, doesn't it? Pee-wo, how's the feed from the Sea Sprite?"

"We're all set here, sir. That spaceship of theirs almost looks like a travelling roadshow for bloody FIFA."

Really, Youngman thought to himself, nobody brings a football to the park unless they want it to get a thorough kicking.

"Five-inch," Youngman called, "sustained fire, at the spaceship."

"Five-inch aim of target!"

"ENGAGE!"

Bridge, Dropship Drakon

Cornwall Park, Auckland, New Zealand

Reynold Mamoto's already profane monologue on this FUBAR raid was reaching its crescendo, his cursing and agitation reinforcing one another moment to moment.

"Hale and his FUCKING 'soft target!' Why did I ever-"

God kicked the Drakon, and he was wearing steel-toe boots.

"What the FUCK was THAT!?" Mamoto screamed, the last word nearly lost in another explosion.

"Artillery from something-" *WHAM* "to the north-east!" Dietrich's hands flew across the controls, trying to find more data.

"That's-" *WHAM* "out to sea, damnit!" Mamoto covered his mouth in horror, How the hell could they have artillery- *WHAM*

"It-" *WHAM* "must be a surface warship or something-" *WHAM* "Captain! It's probably got three-" *WHAM* "guns! We're getting hit every-" *WHAM* "three seconds!"

"Okay, fuck-" *WHAM* "this-" *WHAM* "SHIT!" *WHAM* "Chin! Close the-" *WHAM* "doors and get us out of here!" *WHAM* "We're LEAVING!"

*WHAM* "What about Hale?" Dietrich protested, mostly for form's sake.

"FUCK Hale!" Mamoto snarled, flinching as another shell smacked into the Drakon's armored shell.

That fuck wanted to find the Motherlode. Now, he can take all the fuckin' time he wants!

Now, barring a minutes-long barrage or incredible luck, the Te Kaha's five-inch gun was unlikely to destroy the Drakon outright. The HE shells being lobbed by the destroyer were lighter than those of even the smallest of the old Star League's artillery, the 'small' 150mm Thumper. Each round was barely making an impression against the Union's armored shell. That didn't mean those shells were completely useless.

'Missed' shots that landed outside the DropShip's landing bay doors sent shrapnel flying into the cargo bay. They pinged around mercilessly, ricocheting from bulkhead to bulkhead until each tiny piece of metal was stopped by entropy or caught by something soft. The softer bits were dominantly exposed personnel, supplies, crates, loot…

Control cables…

*WHAM* "Captain! I'm not get-" *WHAM* "getting any response from the bay doors!"

*WHAM* "THE FUCK!?" Mamoto screeched.

"I can't close the bay doors!" *WHAM* "If we break atmo, we're gonna-" *WHAM* "vent into space!"

The more you shot at something, the higher the chance of finding that one weak spot: the chink in the armor that could wound or mortally kill a person or thing. The Te Kaha increased those odds by firing four of her Harpoon missiles at the DropShip.

One of the five-inch shells and two of the Harpoons found their weak points: a pair of weapon turrets whose armor had been neglected over the preceding centuries. They punched through, into the turret's guts, detonating amongst clusters of lasers, autocannons, particle projector cannons, and missiles. The secondary explosions detonated the ammo.

Reynold Mamoto blinked, looking at the ceiling, trying to focus his blurred vision.

Why am I on the ground? Why can't I hear anything? Why do I feel like I got kicked in the stomach by a BattleMech…?

He rolled to his side, the Drakon shuddering under him. He looked at the flight station. Hugo Chin was still sitting in his chair, but there was something strange about him. Something terribly wrong.

He blinked again, trying to focus on Hugo. His vision starting to correct, he finally noticed what was wrong with his helmsman.

His arms were gone.

Well, there goes Hugo's music career. He loves playing his guitar. He's gonna be real upset now that he doesn't have arms.

The Bridge shuddered again. Mamoto finally snapped back to reality.

Holy shit. Hugo's dead.

Adrenaline flooded through Mamoto's veins. He clambered back to his feet and rushed the flight controls. Though covered in blood, they seemed intact. With not another thought, he slammed the engine ignition button.

Jesus, Koltan thought to himself as he picked himself off the deck of the cargo bay. He had just arrived with most of the loot when the bombardment began. Then something made the thirty-six-hundred-ton vessel ring like a church bell.

"We're being shelled by artillery!" a panicked voice called from deeper in the bay.

"Secure the loot!" he ordered the shaken crew, "Move it! We have to go back for-"

A familiar rumbling came from beneath his feet. The Drakon's fusion engines were spinning up. His head darted to the open door he had just led the rest of his team through. It was still open.

"Fuck!" He ran to the lead deck tech, "Close the bay doors!"

"We can't!" called another tech from behind him, their voice barely rising above the cacophony, "We can't retract the ramp! The outer door won't close while the ramp's extended!"

"Then close the inner door!"

The noise was deafening now. Outside, Koltan could see the ground falling away. A mammoth wind roared from the open door, forcing everyone inside to grab anything they could to secure.

"The inner door hasn't worked in ages!" the lead deck tech was drowned out by the symphony of noise, Koltan forced to read his lips.

His eyes bulged.

It finally struck him what the person just said.

"I see the surface ship!" Dietrich shouted, her eyes locked on her sensors. Hugo was her friend, and now he was gone. Unfortunately, she had more pressing concerns, like ensuring that she survived here.

"Kill it!" Mamoto's voice strained against the pain and noise from below, "Kill it now!"

"Gladly." Dietrich muttered as her hands tried to punch the weapon controls. Her right hand wasn't cooperating with her, pain shooting up her arm as she tried to raise it to the controls. It was probably broken, so her left hand took up the slack.

The remaining turrets unleashed their payload. A particle projector cannon, twin autocannon-fives, and forty long range missiles spat their deadly munitions at the ship below. The Te Kaha responded in kind, firing her remaining four Harpoon missiles at the receding vessel.

Travelling at near light speed, the PPC bolt arrived first and missed, passing aft of the ship. The autocannon shells arrived soon after, peppering the destroyer in a hail of shrapnel and flame. The shells strafed bow to stern, smashing bulkheads and sending metal splinters careening across the deck.

The missiles from both parties arrived at each-others intended targets. The hail of missile fire from the Drakon was flocking to the wounded Te Kaha, many intercepted by the lone Phalanx Close-In-Weapons-System. Near half of the missiles were swatted from the sky, some plunged harmlessly into the bay. The rest did a number on the wounded destroyer. Ten missiles made it through, scouring the deck of any remaining life. By some miracle, the bridge was spared but only just.

The Harpoons crashed into the hull of the Drakon, one of them finding one of the last weapons turrets. The impact ripped the turret from the ship triggering another secondary explosion that rocked the DropShip to its core. It was fortunate that this turret was the last PPC the Drakon had.

No. 75 Squadron RNZAF tried to climb to prevent the DropShip's exit, firing their Sidewinder missiles. The Squadron from the Nimitz had just arrived on station, firing their AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, but it was too late. The DropShip was going too fast and was too high for the missiles to reach their target.

The howling air raced out the open bay door. Koltan could feel his ears pop as the pressure dropped.

"We need to use the manual override!" he shouted at the tech. "Where is it?"

The tech looked at him wide eyed. Then hiss eye drifted over to the open airlock door, just in time to see an unlucky soldier lose his grip and sail through it, screams lost in the noise.

"Bloody wonderful," Koltan muttered to himself. "Of course, it's in the airlock."

Taking a risk, he took one hand off the pipe he had been using as an anchor and reached for his utility belt. It was a silly and expensive thing he had bought in his pre-pirate days on a lark, but it had some useful gadgets on it. Among them was a grappling hook with nearly three hundred meters of light, spider silk cable complete with powered winch.

Koltan attached the hook to his anchor… and then let go. He flew towards the open bay door, and was brought up just short as the governors kicked in. Then he let the cable play out slowly as he spelunked inside the open airlock scanning the interior for the manual release. It was getting hard to breathe.

He spotted it. A heavy lever surrounded by faded black and yellow stripes. Koltan made his way carefully over to it. Something big and heavy flew past Koltan as he did; it nearly hitting him. It didn't, so he paid it no mind.

An eternity later, his hand fell on the lever and Koltan pulled with all his might. The lever moved with great reluctance born of poor maintenance and accumulated build up but move it did. There was a flash of light and suddenly the boarding ramp was fluttering away into the atmosphere. Koltan couldn't watch it long because the great outer doors smoothly slid shut.

Koltan collapsed to the still rumbling deck as soon as the air stopped moving outwards, ears still ringing. He lay there exhausted.

"I'm going to kill Mamoto," he growled eventually.

Silo Park

East of St. Mary's Bay, Auckland, New Zealand

"Oi, motherfucker!" a voice called from behind Hale, "Power down the mech and peacefully exit via the front or I put two in the back of your head!" The voice was accompanied by the distinct sound of a weapon being cocked to fire.

Hale sat for a moment, paralyzed. His display was clear, just in time to see the wounded Drakon retreating from the planet. That sight crushed any hope he had left.

"Aww, did the widdle piwate's fwiends weave him to die?" Hale felt the muzzle of the weapon on the back of his head, "Now, dipshit. The only reason your brains aren't splattered across the cockpit is because blood and guts seeps into the upholstery."

"I'm, I'm, I'm powering down now. I'm kneeling so I can exit. Give me a second." His mind raced, searching for an out, searching for a solution, How did this all go so terribly wrong?

The Hunchback assumed the standard position for field disembarkation. Some long-forgotten designer put in more than a little though into making a 'Mech capable of letting a pilot out on flat ground without laying flat on his ass. Popping the cockpit, he began to descend by pure reflex.

"Alright, if someone could please take custody of this murderous idiot and call the MPs, I'd greatly appreciate it!" Sergeant Dansel wiggled past the back of the pilot's seat and sat down, "Kindly refrain from administering superfluous kicking, please! The last thing I want is Amnesty International breathing down my neck!" He settled himself on the seat, in awe of the dream he was now living, "I'll be down in a sec! Gotta make sure this thing ain't booby-trapped!"

Commander Simeonov lowered his rifle and stowed it on his back. It was over, and before him lay three examples of mechs for the ISA to analyze. Of course, the task remained of getting these mechs into his superior's hands and making official contact with their heads of state, but he knew that was all in due time.

Sergeant Dansel descended from the front of the mech a minute later. Before him, two of the Aussies were covering their prisoner from behind. He glanced to the right, seeing two more of them with Simeonov, in a serious exchange. He walked up to Captain Lewis.

"How're your men, Captain?" Dansel asked in a hushed tone.

"Better than expected, all things considered," Lewis motioned to the pair with Simeonov, "Fitch and McCay are over there with Sim; Cassel, Bourke, Allwood, Hutton and Smeaton are banged up but if Sim's got any more of that combat gel they'll be up and kicking sooner rather than later. Your people are on their way, but they took a hell of a beating, so they'll be a minute." Lewis looked up at the retreating ship, "I have to say, I'm disappointed mate. I thought you were going to take the ship as an encore."

"Guess they heard their mothers calling, Captain." Dansel glanced at Simeonov, "Do we have any idea who this guy is?"

"Nope, but if it weren't for him we'd be in a lot worse shape. I'm guessing the brass is gonna wanna question him."

"You're not wrong, Cap. You're not wrong. Anyways," Dansel motioned to the kneeling Hale, "I'm just gonna do some shameless gloating to break down this schmuck's will."

With great ceremony, Dansel strode in front of the defeated Hale and drew the pistol Simeonov gave him. Making sure it was safe, he spun the weapon theatrically in his right hand, bringing the muzzle right to Hale's forehead with a flourish.

"I'm guessing since you had the heaviest 'Mech, you were the one in charge." Dansel crouched down, holstered the pistol, and took a swig from his canteen, "I have two questions for you Colonel, General, El Supreme Commandante, or whatever the hell you call yourself: How did you find us, and what year is it?"

Situation Room

The White House, United States of America

"Mr. President, Colonel DeMers is ready for you." With a nod from Jack Sr., General McMayers activated the communications line. A harried and visibly tired Colonel Kevin DeMers greeted him.

"Colonel," the President began, "what do you have for us?"

"Mr. President, at approximately 0300 Eastern Daylight Time, Auckland experienced an extra-terrestrial incursion. Cooperating with Australian and New Zealand forces, we managed to neutralize the enemy's combat element and captured some of their forces. Unfortunately, we were unable to prevent their transport and support personnel from escaping the planet."

"Colonel, I have all of that in the official report. It also says that a Sergeant Tony Dansel and an unknown man by the name of Simeonov were instrumental to the success of our forces on the ground."

"That is correct, sir."

"Care to tell me why Sergeant Dansel is unavailable and this Simeonov isn't here?"

"Sir," DeMers blinked, trying to stave off the fatigue, "the kiwis are currently debriefing Simeonov and Sergeant Dansel is involved in tactical training exercises and familiarization regarding the new threat. We're getting him here as quickly as possible."

Ryan allowed a smile to creep onto his face, "Tactical training exercises…" he paused, "Colonel, would this have anything to do with the report I've received from the New Zealand government regarding an armed Humvee taken from your motorpool, apparently crewed by five Aussies and I quote 'one loud bloody yank' tearing about Auckland?"

"Sir-"

"I'm not done, Colonel. They were at last report patronizing a local game store, an express dry-cleaning facility, and an electronics store. Also, it seems they made a brief stop at the NZSAS barracks and vandalized it with pirate paraphernalia."

"Sir, Sergeant Dansel in the course of his exploits was administered an unknown medication given to him by Simeonov. One of the on-base medics unknowingly administered a medication that caused an adverse reaction, triggering a hyper-manic state. Latest reports indicate he has just finished a session at a local karaoke bar singing a variety of Australian songs that none of us have ever heard before. Frankly, sir, I was trying to give the man more time to wind down before you saw him."

Ryan sighed, "Colonel, I appreciate the concern you have for you men. Now, please, get him on the line." The feed cut out as the Colonel left the frame. He stared at the blank screen as his Vice President bust out in laughter.

"Robby, the hell?"

The VP couldn't help himself, "Jack, Jesus! I mean, Jesus Christ! I-I can't!" Jackson's laughter continued unabated.

"At least there's something to laugh about after this mess."

Interrogation Room

Papakura Military Camp, Auckland, New Zealand

"Your name and rank for the record please."

"Lieutenant Commander Yakim Simeonov."

"Affiliation?"

"…"

A New Zealand SAS Major and Colonel stood across from Simeonov, a steel table between them in the bare interrogation room. The local forces had treated him well and were greatly appreciative of the help he rendered them during the fight for Auckland, but he was still unknown to them. He understood their suspicion. Why was there suddenly an armed unknown helping them? What motives did he have? Was he an enemy or a friend? Despite all this, he didn't have clearance to disclose anything to the locals. Not yet, anyway.

"Commander," the Major sat down at one of the empty chairs across from him, "Let it be said, for the record, that we appreciate the help during the Invasion of Auckland. If it weren't for you, more lives would have been lost."

"However," the Colonel interjected, sitting down next to her subordinate, "we cannot ignore a heavily armed man that seemingly appeared from nowhere."

"I understand your concern," Simeonov nodded, "but I cannot disclose any information until I am given the go-ahead by my superiors."

"Who would that be?"

"…"

"Commander, please. We need your cooperation."

A knock came from the door. The Colonel nodded, and the Major left the room. Simeonov sat in silence, staring at the Colonel. A moment later, the Major returned.

"Ma'am," he said, "The President of the United States wants to speak with our guest."

"What? We're not done here, yet."

"Orders from the PM, Ma'am."

Simeonov breathed a small sigh of relief, "Colonel, if you would be so kind as to return my phone. I'm going to need it for this interview."

Situation Room

The White House, United States of America

Ryan massaged his temples. This day was stranger than fiction. Sergeant Dansel didn't help, with his manic episode and his thousand-yard-stare all throughout the call. He was glad to be done with that. Now came a more serious talk. This Simeonov helped on the ground in New Zealand, but his allegiances and intentions were unknown. In the brief report from his New Zealand counterpart, he refused to disclose any information of any relevance. Maybe, as President, he could get the man to say something of note.

The video line reconnected with New Zealand, the blank screen replaced by the live feed of Simeonov. The tanned skin of the man matched with the look of a Siberian Steppe hunter, his face hard from what Ryan imagined was years of experience.

"Commander Simeonov."

"President Ryan. Excuse me, if I may make a request of your man here."

"What would that be?"

"I request that he plug my phone into the communications line. My superior would like to speak with you over this call."

"Colonel? What do you make of his phone?"

Colonel DeMer's face popped in on the edge of the frame, "Sir, it looks clean. NZSAS says nothing malicious."

"Mr. President," Simeonov interjected, "He would like to speak with you."

Ryan nodded to the Colonel. The moment he plugged in a mini-USB cable into the phone, half the image on the screen was taken up by another tanned man.

"Who are you?"

Supreme Bashar's Ready Room, ISV Paul Atredies

Kokpekty Jump Threshold

Kokpekty System, Draconis Combine Space

"Ah, sorry for the delay, Mister President. Couldn't have my man here disclose this to the wrong people."

"I hope I don't need to repeat myself." Ryan said.

"Forgive me. My name is Robert Merlow, Supreme Bashar of the Independent Systems Alliance."

Ryan blinked, "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar. I don't remember any faction in this galaxy called the 'Independent Systems Alliance.'"

"Heh, that's because we're not from this galaxy. Are you familiar with the other factions here?"

"Familiar enough," Ryan hardened himself, putting on his best poker face, "So, what is it you want Mr. Merlow."

"To help, Mister President. I understand your planet was just attacked by force of mechs, am I right?"

"How do you know that?"

"Eyes and ears, Mr. President. Eyes and ears," Merlow gestured to the left, "My people like Commander Simeonov have been keeping an eye on your planet for the past month and a half. We wanted to make sure you folks weren't wiped out and I'm happy to see you survived."

"I see." Ryan waved over his Vice President, "I'm not sure you're familiar with my nation, so I'll formerly introduce us. I'm President Jack Ryan and this is Vice President Robert Jackson of-"

"The United States of America. We keep historical records, Mister President. Your nation has a proud history."

"I'm sorry, are you time-travelers or something?"

Merlow laughed, "No, nothing like that. We can get to exactly what we are when we reach Earth. The more pressing issue here is the problem your planet is facing. You've fended off one ship. They've fled and are going to return to where they came from. When they do, you're probably going to have more visitors than you'd like. All of them armed to the teeth and wanting a piece of the pie as it were. They won't come immediately, they can't, but they will come sooner rather than later. I'm sure you'd like some help with that."

"What kind of help are you willing to offer?"

"Military assistance, technological assistance, anything and everything to bring you all up to speed on the galactic stage."

"This sounds far too good to be true, Mr. Merlow."

"If I were in your shoes, I'd think the exact same thing. We don't offer this level of assistance lightly, and I'm sure you're going to want to include the leaders of the other major nation-states on Earth."

"Naturally."

"Now, Mr. President, we'll be in Earth orbit in a week's time. I'm sure that should be enough time for you to contact the other heads of state while we're in transit. When we get to Earth, we can discuss terms for this assistance and plans for the defense of the planet."

"I look forward to it."

"Fantastic. President Ryan, it's been good talking to you. My people planet-side will make themselves known and help your military and research folks get a bit more prepared. Consider this an olive branch."

"Thank you, Mr. Merlow"

"We'll see you in a week. Merlow out." He shut down the feed, the holographic screens featuring the faces of the US President and Commander Simeonov fading away. He stood up and strode back onto the Bridge. Captain Saliman stood from the command chair, surrendering it to the Supreme Bashar.

"Is Serov en route?" Merlow asked his XO.

"He will arrive at the same time as us, sir."

"Good. Our officers on the ground are going to help prep the way for our assistance package. Get the word out to the rest of our forces."

"Yes, sir."

Situation Room

The White House, United States of America

"Commander Simeonov, will you care to join us in Washington? We could use your expertise."

Simeonov shook his head, "I'm sorry, Mr. President. The New Zealand Government has insisted I remain here. Another one of my comrades will be in contact with you soon."

"Thank you, Commander. I suppose I should leave you with your hosts."

"Very well, Mr. President. I'm sure we'll speak again."

"Good luck, Commander." The feed cut out, leaving President Ryan, his VP Robbie Jackson, and the Joint Chiefs in silence.

That silence hung in the air for a minute. The room felt heavy, no one willing to break the ominous stillness.

Ryan looked to his VP, "Robbie, get Mary Pat and Ed back in here. We have a lot of work to do."

Bridge, Pirate Dropship Drakon

Planet III-IIIa Langrange Point

System S3-19570410

The Drakon broke atmosphere, reoriented itself, and then began thrusting at a leisurely one gravity towards the Jumpship White Elephant.

"Elephant, this is Drakon," Mamoto called into the radio, exhausted, "We're coming in. Have a docking collar ready for us." Mamoto had never been a stickler for procedure, but right now it was extremely comforting.

"Jesus, Mamoto," replied the Elephant's captain. "What the hell happened to you guys down there?"

"Hale's 'milk run' turned out to be a damned trap, Benson." Mamoto replied. "He got swarmed by militia and aircraft. We barely got out alive."

"Shit, you got no loot at all?" Benson asked.

"Didn't you hear me? They're dead!" Mamoto said, his voice tinged with hysteria. "They're all dead!"

"THE FUCK YOU SAY!?" a new voice roared. It didn't come from the speakers but from behind Mamoto. Mamoto's head whipped around to see a bruised, bloody, and enraged Koltan charge into the bridge.

Mamoto squeaked as the other man grabbed him by the lapels of his jumpsuit with one hand and shook him.

"Are you out of your FUCKING MIND!" Koltan roared, spittle flying into Mamoto's face. "You took off with the fucking BAY DOORS OPEN! You absolute FUCKING IDIOT! YOU COULD'VE KILLED US ALL!"

Mamoto babbled something about saving the ship.

"Save the ship? SAVE THE SHIP!?" He twisted Mamoto's collar a bit tighter, choking the airway of the DropShip Captain, "YOU WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE YOURSELF! Now, turn this ship around!"

"Excuse me," a softer, more measured voice entered the conversation.

"WHAT?" Koltan's ire shot to the other voice.

"Not that I mind you strangling the skipper," Jane Dietrich noted, cradling her right arm, "but there's not much point in going back."

Koltan's grip on Mamoto's collar lessened slightly, "What do you mean?"

"Not unless you think we can fight through that."

She nodded toward a bank of screens displaying the local news broadcasts. One had the Hermes II, explosions tearing it in twain. Another had the Stinger and Commando prone, obviously disabled. A third displayed Hale's Hunchback in field shutdown, with local militia all over it. The fourth and fifth displayed now seemingly innumerable fighter craft with surface naval ships below them, one heavily mauled but still floating.

"Well, shit." Koltan lowered Mamoto a hair, "I guess Burg's on his own."

"Can you let me go now?" Mamoto sputtered out.

"Sure." Koltan released the DropShip Captain.

"Then-"

Mamoto's next thought was interrupted when Koltan's fist met the side of his face, knocking him out cold.

Mustering Grounds

National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California

20 May 2005/860 AS

The National Training Center. Recent conflicts and the integration of the Russian Federation into NATO made this place the busiest training grounds in the world. The US Army was used to playing host to all the branches of the US Special Forces and foreign militaries deployed here for exercises, but this was on a different level. Hundreds of troops were arriving daily along with scientists, civilian advisors, contractors, and tons of equipment. The most interesting part were the 'Mechs being brought in today.

Lieutenant Shizuka Banderas leaned on the flatbed truck, knowing its covered cargo. She was ushered to this base as soon as it was deemed necessary by her superiors to make herself known. She knew that Commander Simeonov was being flown over from New Zealand soon. Their government was spending their sweet time gleaning as much information as possible from him. She looked over at her assigned guards. Two soldiers with MP bands, armed at all times. It seemed that they didn't trust what the Supreme Bashar said completely.

A familiar face approached her.

"Lieutenant Banderas?" Staff Sergeant Tony Dansel extended his hand, "Sergeant Dansel. Welcome to Fort Irwin."

She took his hand, reciprocating the handshake, "Good to meet the legend in the flesh."

"Heh, I was just lucky."

"Luck is where skill and opportunity meet, Dansel. Tell me, what do they have you doing these days?"

"Well, they're running me to the bone, been giving briefings to the guys here. Who knew giving five briefings a day for the past three days could be so exhausting?"

"Ah. You excited for the new arrivals?"

"You mean the actual 'Mechs? Oh, hell yeah! I've been waiting for this ever since I pried that guy Hale out of the Hunchback!"

Banderas smirked, "Well, you may have to wait for a little bit longer."

"Why?" Dansel sighed, "We have to know how these things perform, and-"

"You want to be the first person to pilot one. I get it."

"Okay, I'm transparent. Sue me."

"My lawyer is filing the lawsuit as we speak."

"Funny."

"Oh, excuse me." A figure motioned to Banderas, pulling her presence away from Dansel.

Staff Sergeant Dansel stood there a moment before peeking under the tarp of the flatbed. Like Banderas, he knew the contents of this cargo. The brass had finally convinced the Kiwis to ship over the 'Mechs from the Battle of Auckland. This transport specifically had the Hunchback, and he was excited to finally get a crack at piloting. He wasn't sure what they had to give in order to gain access to these war machines from another world, but he could guess. The sheer number of New Zealand troops belied the answer.

Those in the know realized that knowledge was power. Understanding the technology the enemy used, what their capabilities were, how to effectively combat them, all of that was more important than footing the bill for rearming an ally and conceding a few economic shares from the resulting technology. So, the United States offered New Zealand subsidized contracts with their arms and armor manufacturers in exchange for the battlefield salvage. New Zealand was more than happy to oblige, their military still significantly under armed and lacking any heavy armor to speak of.

The civilians deployed to the NTC were predominantly defense contractors and technology researchers. They needed to see the technology on display and see what kind of countermeasures they could devise in a short amount of time. Stealth technology, was that effective against the sensors of these mechs? What kind of targeting systems did they use? How effective were existing weapons against the armor of these 'Mechs? There was also the question of the technology brought to bear by their new guests. The weapons fielded by these military advisors from outer space were impressive and capable of disabling the sensors of these mechs. They had faster-than-light communications on a personal scale. What other technologies did they have to offer? Was it possible to manufacture their gear with existing methods? How long would it take to retool their arsenals to produce such weapons? All questions these people would have to answer and answer quickly.

"Commander." Banderas saluted her superior, Simeonov.

"As you were, Lieutenant." Simeonov pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it and taking a long drag, "How've they been treating you?"

"It's only been a few days, but these US folks are nice enough. Been grilled over my gear, the rifle and cellphone specifically. A few of their scientists are freaking out about the cellphone."

"It's capable of encrypted FTL communication, of course they 'd be quite interested. Quantum computing and entanglement is a pipe dream for these folks right now."

"Is it really wise, letting them pour over our gear like this?"

"Not our call to make. If the brass says jump, we jump."

"I know, Commander. How have the New Zealand folks been?"

"Well, after getting clearance from up high to give them information they warmed right up. They're still incredibly thankful towards me, which helps. They want me to help them draft up a proper training regimen for their SAS guys."

Banderas looked around, "It's surprising. I've not seen many women in their ranks."

"They'll come around sooner rather than later. They're gonna need to. The sheer logistical capacity needed to sustain an interstellar civilization is going to force them to reconsider their recruiting practices."

"Also, that Dansel guy. What's his deal? He seems really into these mechs."

"Have you gotten the information brief? These mechs are straight out of a game here. Damnedest thing, they have rulebooks, novels, and videogames based around this 'BattleTech' universe. Hell, Dansel knew the loadout of that mech we recovered."

"Gods are you saying-"

"Possible space-time event. No idea when it may have occurred. They may be in the same boat us as, adrift in a new and hostile universe."

"Sergeant Dansel, right?" a voice behind Dansel distracted him from drooling over the Hunchback. Dansel turned around, greeted by the approaching figure.

"Sir." Dansel saluted Major Domingo 'Ding' Chavez of Rainbow Six, one of the best-worst secrets of the counter-terrorism world.

"At ease, Staff Sergeant. Just wanted to take a look at Quasimodo here."

"I understand, sir. Man, I can't wait to get in the harness here."

Chavez laughed, "Knowing what you did, you'll probably get first crack. Jesus, mano, from what I've heard you've got balls of steel."

"Heh. Major, I was just excited is all."

"Guy, you fell from a two-hundred-foot crane then proceeded to jump on the back of a 'Mech and make the fucker surrender. President's gonna pin a medal on your chest personally for that."

Dansel shook his head and grimaced, "I-I really don't-"

"Look, legends in the field are important. Heroes are important. Just because you don't want it doesn't mean it's not gonna happen."

"Shit, sir."

"Kid, you'll be fine. Your guys are alive, you're gonna get to play with a goddamn alien robot, what's not to like?"

"You have a point."

"Speaking of this giant robot, what kinds of toys are on this thing?"

"Well, it's hard to appreciate what we have here before know its history. First, let's start with the history of the BattleMech…"

Pirate Dropship Drakon

Planet III-IIIa Langrange Point

System S3-19570410

20 May 3020

The surviving members of the Drakon's pirate company – as well as select officers from the Elephant's officers – had gathered in the Dropship's main cargo bay. They surrounded four containers secured to the deck in the middle of the bay. Three of the containers were anonymously boxes of sheet metal. The fourth was like the others except that it had wheels attached to one end and jacks extended at the front.

"About time you got here," Captain Benson said crabbily when Koltan and Jane arrived. "Can we see what the take is now, or is it too soon for you?"

"Sorry, Captain," Koltan said, his tone not at all apologetic. "I just wanted to make sure everyone was up and out of sick bay before we started. You know how nasty things can get if someone thinks that they're not getting their fair share."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Benson said dismissively. "Jumped up gropo…" he muttered, not quite under his breath. He wasn't quite unheard.

"Hey, show some respect!" one Koltan's infantryman shouted angrily. "You wanna talk shit, YOU jump out of an open airlock and see if you survive."

"Now, now, people," Koltan said to his people with good humor. "I'm sure the good Captain here is just impatient like the rest of us." He pointed to the wheeled container. "Let's do this one first."

Obediently, Maria Burns and a couple of techs floated themselves over to the designated container's access hatch. There was a keyhole in the handle, and a quick tug by Burns on the handle confirmed the hatch's locked status.

"Well, darn, I can't get it," Burns said melodramatically. "Whatever can I do?" She made a show of thinking hard. "I know, how about…"

"Get on with it already!" Benson barked. "Ow!" Someone had slapped him on the back side of his head. His eyes whipped around furiously, but the only person behind him was Jane Dietrich looking utterly innocent with her cast bound arm was nearest to him. It didn't seem possible that she could hit him with her good arm and get into that position with him seeing her move.

"Wow! That was easy," Burns exclaimed, drawing Benson's attention back to her. Burns was waving around an electric cutting torch dramatically. "I guess the owners of these things made them out of shoddy materials." She handed the torch back to one of her assistants. "Hmm, maybe there's nothing worthwhile here." She turned to her audience. "Are you sure you guys want see what's in here?"

A chorus of "yeses" bombarded the engineer as well as inarticulate cheers and whistles.

"Okay then," Burns said. Grabbing the still hot edges of the hole that she had cut. With a gloved hand, she braced herself with her legs on a convenient ledge built into the container hatch. "And behind Door Number One we have…" She tugged open the door and it slid up without resistance. "…canned goods? Um, it looks like stacks of canned beans, vegetables, fruit… Ooh! Strawberries!"

"What? We grabbed a bunch of groceries?" Benson complained, outraged. "Who picked this thing?"

"I did," Koltan replied evenly. "It was just outside the LZ, so I decided, why not?"

"But what good are groceries?" Benson persisted.

"I don't know about you, Captain," Koltan said, "but I'm sick and tired of standard rations. But if you want to give up your share, hey, more for the rest of us."

"Uh, wait a minute…" Benson stammered, backpedaling furiously… or trying to anyway.

"You heard the Captain, boys and girls," Koltan shouted to the crowd. "Let's get all this to the Drakon's galley! There's gonna be some good eating tonight!"

"But…" A jubilant cheer drowned out whatever Benson had been about to say.

"And behind Door Number Two, we have… a bunch of anonymous wooden boxes," Burns was saying.

"Aw…" chorused the crowd in disappointment.

"But wait!" Burns said dramatically. "Could there be something in the boxes?" The container was practically stuffed full with crates, barely leaving any room on the sides. Burns held out a hand. "Crowbar, Alex! And can I have some volunteers from the studio audience?"

Much grunting and manual labor later, one crate had been extracted from the container. Once that feat was accomplished, Burns popped its lid with the crowbar. The contents were… unexpected to say the least.

"Plush toys?" Burns said, bemused by the little blue humanoid with white hat and pants in her hand. "Hmm, kinda cute though." She turned it over and looked at the little white tag on it. "'Made in China'."

"No way," one of the sweaty volunteers griped. "This thing has way too much inertial mass to be just plush toys, there's gotta be something else in there!"

Several minutes later, the air of the cargo bay was polluted with clouds of cute plush dolls floating everywhere. Some of them had fallen apart at the rough treatment given to them by the pirates, and now fluffy white stuffing was also added to the pollution.

"Hey, this thing has a false bottom!" Burns announced, her lower half sticking out of the now empty crate. Her words were followed by the crack of wood being splintered and torn. "Check this out, guys," she said as she exited the crate. In one hand was the crowbar, in the other was a weapon that hadn't been there before. "I think we grabbed someone's contraband."

"Another Kalashnikov clone?" Koltan said, somewhat amused as Burns handed him the weapon. On close examination, it was indeed one of the endless variations of the ancient AK-47. The venerable design had been in production as a cheap and easy to make infantry weapon for over a thousand years.

"And magazines," Burns added. "And plenty of ammo…" Her eyes played over the container and the crates within, her mind running some quick math. "If all the crates in there are like this one, you could probably outfit a small army."

"Nice to know I don't have to buy arms for new recruits," Koltan mused. He looked around the cluttered air and found he could barely see the far walls or ceiling. Something tickled his nose as a bit of fluff floated by. "Okay people!" he shouted. "Let's get this mess cleaned up before…before… ACHOO!"

"Behind Door Number Three, we have… two ground cars?"

The third cargo container had two vehicles inside, civilian model ground cars. The first was a sleek black sports car with a slit cut in front. The second car was painted orange and more primitive looking but had some kind of flag painted on top of its roof and numbers painted on its doors.

"Hmph, not much here," Koltan said eventually when it became clear that the cars were all the container had. He shook his head in disappointment. "I suppose we could give them to some self-styled pirate king as a gift."

"Yeah, we don't exactly have lots of open road in space," Benson agreed, equally disappointed.

"Eh, they can't all be winners," Koltan said. "Okay, let's lock it back up people!"

"And finally, behind Door Number Four, we have… more boxes. And wonders of wonders, there's a manifest here." Burns took a sheet of paper that had been put in a plastic folder on the inside of the container's hatch door. "Let's see now… flat screen monitor, DVD player whatever that is, radio… hey, I think we hit the jackpot!"

"What?" "What is it?" Eager pirates crowded around Burns.

"Hold on," Burns told them. They appeared not to listen and crowded in even more. "Hey! Back off and give me some light. BACK OFF I SAID!" The last words were a shout and the pirates reeled back as Burns brandished her crowbar threateningly.

"So," Koltan said, completely unfazed by Burns. Then again, he hadn't been one of the ones crowding in. "You said something about a jackpot?"

"Yeah, this thing's full of what looks like consumer electronics," Burns replied.

"Okay, that's valuable," Koltan said thoughtfully. "And I suppose it'll sell, but why 'jackpot'? The number of people who actually have the money to buy this stuff out here in the Periphery isn't all that great."

"Well according to this," Burns said, waving the manifest, "there be computers in here."

That got everyone's attention. Computers of any kind were rare. They were essentially lostech, with only primitive mainframes still being manufactured on a few select worlds deep into the Inner Sphere. Out here on the Periphery, the only computers still in operation were the minimum required to run DropShips and JumpShips, and of course the ones that had to support pirate mech operations. If any of those died, then there were absolutely no replacements except what you could salvage or more likely, steal from someone else.

"Okay, this I gotta see," Koltan muttered. "Which boxes are they in?"

Burns turned back to look at the container. It was stuffed with boxes of all shapes and sizes, like some demented riddler had decided to create the ultimate three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. She threw Koltan a look that practically screamed, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Right," Koltan said. "Okay, people! Start emptying this thing!" He paused then quickly added, "CAREFULLY!"

"This is a computer?" Koltan said skeptically, handling the briefcase sized box; it even had a little plastic handle on the side. Real computers were mainframes. The smallest ones were typically the size of a desk. Most were the size of refrigerators or larger and massed tons. The little thing in his hand couldn't be more than a dumb terminal, which were damned useless without mainframes to connect to.

"That's what it says on the box," Burns said doubtfully handling her own box of dubious computer hardware.

"I suppose that worst case scenario, we could use these to replace some of the broken terminals around the Drakon," Jane mused, examining her own box. She did a double take. "Hey, Maria, check the stats on the back of the box."

"Huh, fifteen quotation mark monitor," Burns read aloud. She looked up, confused. "What's the quotation mark supposed to be? And why is there only one?"

"Keep reading," Jane insisted.

"One point seven gigahertz processor?" Burns read, disbelievingly. "Five hundred twelve-megabyte ess dee arr ay em, whatever that is."

"I think that might be random access memory," Jane told her.

"No way!" Burns disagreed, her eyes not leaving her box. "A sixty-gigabyte hard drive? Jane, this has got to be a hoax! It's impossible."

"I don't think so," Jane said thoughtfully. "This is stuff being bought and sold on the planet here, right?"

"I guess. We just grabbed containers at random," Koltan admitted. "What's the problem?"

"The problem is that you simply can't fit computers this powerful into packages this small!" Burns told him. "It's simply not physically possible!"

"Why?" Koltan asked, mystified.

"Because computing power reached the maximum miniaturization in the late twentieth century," Burns said. "There was simply no way to get mainframes any more compact without losing functionality somewhere. Anything smaller simply had to become special purpose machines, kinda like the computer systems in mechs for example. Even then, you couldn't fit this much computing power in this tiny a package!"

"I dunno," Jane mused. "The Star League were rumored to have some awesome stuff. And maybe these things were purpose made for something."

"How do we determine what for?" Koltan asked.

"Only way to do that would be to open the box and turn it on," Jane said. She wiggled her cast bound broken arm. "Um, one of you guys is going to have to do that."

Several minutes later, a box was opened. The "computer" inside was smaller than expected; a good half of the box's volume was taken up with accessories, pamphlets, and some kind of foam padding.

Burns turned the unfamiliar device over and around, examining it at all angles. "How do you turn this thing on?" she asked plaintively.

"I got a better question," Jane said, holding up something that looked like a torture device. "Where do you plug this in?"

Koltan shook his head in bemusement, then grabbed what looked like a little plastic book floating past his head. He read the title. "Pirates of the Caribbean?"

ISV Stilgar

Between Cradle and Planet IV

Sanctuary System, Independent Systems Alliance Space

21 May 860 AS

Planetary Carriers. The heart of the attack or defense of a planet. Many of them were still in mothballs, sat in a pocket universe ready to be reactivated as soon as they had the crew and personnel to do it. The compliment was impressive by any nation's standards. Railguns, missiles, particle cannons, direct energy point-defense weapons, anti-capitol ship torpedoes, it was capable of unleashing devastation on a planet or a vessel. The only problem is there was only one fully crewed and ready for action. For the few months the ISA had been in this universe, it had been stationed in orbit over Cradle, the first colony established since their arrival. Now it was being pulled away from its garrison post and redeployed to another world, one not affiliated with the ISA. One that despite its unknown allegiance they were tasked with defending.

Bashar Superior Thomas Serov examined one of the cargo bays. He inspected the equipment being brought along for the defense. Deployable orbital defense platforms, ground vehicles, drop pods, reserve aerospace vessels, autonomous drones. It was an arsenal that would make any of the Inner Sphere powers cower in fear. Despite the sheer power, Serov was concerned with numbers. Merlow had a point: forty-thousand soldiers was a low number to mount a proper defense. He would be leaning quite heavily on their drones and even then, he knew he would be stretching his forces razor thin.

A head popped in between the rows and rows of equipment.

"Sir!" Lieutenant Commander Ichirou Sato greeted him, saluting, "I had no idea you would be here!"

"Yo Sato." Serov motioned him to stand down, "How're we looking?"

"Sir, all of the equipment is ready and accounted for. The fabricators are running optimally to create replacements as needed."

"Good, good." Serov leaned on a nearby Ix tank, "You think this'll be enough?"

"We make do with what we have, sir."

"Sato, honest analysis."

"Bashar," Sato handled his touchpad looking over the inventory, "We're going to be paper-thin. We might be able to manufacture additional equipment for the natives, but all we have is one ship for this."

"We're gonna have to be judicious in how we deploy, then. We might be able to gather more materials in the asteroid belt for more gear."

"Materials isn't the problem, sir. It's capacity. We simply don't have the capacity for planetary-scale mass manufacture."

"Yeah. I know. We need to bring this Earth up to speed as fast as possible." Serov stroked his chin, "Could we establish a logistical base on their planet?"

"Maybe. We'd have to see what their existing manufacturing capabilities are."

"Early 21st century tech, but they may have progressed differently than how our records show."

"Sir, we could mitigate our lack of numbers with our mobility advantage. Our aerospace power has won us the day in nearly every conflict we've fought."

Serov already knew Sato was correct. The power of their aerospace squadrons was instrumental in every single ground war, from the liberation of Bretonnia to the anti-insurgency operations against the Black Flag Corsairs. In aerospace, the ISA ruled the day.

"I'm gonna head back to the Bridge. Sato, keep up the good work."

"Sir." The Lieutenant Commander gave Serov a smart salute, which he returned in kind. Serov turned and started to walk quickly to the lift.

Forty-thousand to defend a world of over seven-billion. Serov mused to himself, We can do it. I hope the locals know how to fight.

Bridge, Pirate Dropship Drakon

Planet III-IIIa Langrange Point

System S3-19570410

23 May 3020

"All hands," Captain's Benson's voice announced over every speaker on both the Drakon and the Elephant, "standby for jump in T minus five minutes… mark."

"Jane," Koltan said as he sailed onto the Drakon's bridge. "Everything secure up here?"

"Mmm-hmm," Jane replied absently, her eyes glued to the screen in front of her. But it wasn't one of the bridge monitors. It was an odd-looking device that looked something like a keyboard attached to a monitor. It took a moment for Koltan to recognize the thing as one of the looted "computers". Small pamphlets and booklets floated around her.

"I see you managed to figure out how to get it working," Koltan commented, his eyes tracing a long cable running from the computer to a convenient power outlet where an adapter had been used to get it plugged in.

"Hang on a sec, Irdon," Jane told him, eyes not leaving the screen.

Irked at Jane's inattention and curious about what she was working on, Koltan peeked over her shoulder. The most obvious thing he could see was a gray grid that dominated the screen. Most of the grid squares were filled with an array of multi-colored numbers. Some squares were blank and dark gray. Other blank squares were a lighter grey, though not very many; Koltan had the distinct impression that the light gray squares were raised above the elevation of the other squares, a neat trick for a 2D screen.

Jane did something that moved a pointer over a light grey square. With a tap, the square turned an angry red with a black circle thing in it. Other squares did the same. A happy face above the grid changed into something less than happy.

"Nooooo!" Jane wailed in despair. "I almost had it!"

"Had what?" Koltan asked, concerned. "Was it something important?"

"Yes! No!" Jane said angrily. She seemed to search for words "Ah, you wouldn't understand."

"Okay, if you say so," Koltan said slowly, deciding not to push. He looked for a safer topic. "Why is this thing taped down?"

"Microgravity," Jane replied. "This thing has moving parts."

"Yeah, it gets pretty warm after a while," Jane told him grumpily as she did something to make the grid disappear. What replaced it was some picture of a rolling meadow. "I think there's a fan in there to keep it cool. I dunno what other than the screen could be generating the heat though, but it's definitely not just the screen."

"T-minus one minute," Benson announced.

"Wait, back up a moment," Koltan said. "What do moving parts have to do with duct tape?"

"Action and reaction of course," Jane said, as if it were obvious. "Fan spins one way; the rest of the machine wants to spin in the other. And in microgravity, the machine will spin unless secured to something. I already broke one of these things discovering that little fact."

"Broke?" Koltan echoed. "How?"

"It spun itself into a bulkhead," Jane answered. She shook her head in wondering contempt. "These things are way more fragile than any computer has a right to be. And it looks like the operating system is optimized for single users only, however much sense that makes. It looks like Maria was right; the locals did compromise to get all this computing power in such a tiny package."

"T-minus ten seconds."

"So, what were you doing when I came in?" Koltan asked. "Cracking some esoteric security code?"

"Five. Four…"

"Ah-" Jane stammered, folding down the computer's screen. It seemed like she was trying to evade the question.

"Three. Two…"

"Jane," Koltan began, annoyed. "Don't make me-"

"One. JU…"

The JumpShip White Elephant and attached DropShip Drakon vanished in a globular cloud of electromagnetic static that radiated from the low-end radio bands to the middle of visible spectrum. The bubble lasted for some thirty seconds before vanishing, leaving nothing behind to indicate that anything had ever been there.

Around Earth, dozens of satellites and observatories watched the event. A good many belonged to intelligence agencies and had powerful cameras whose mission had been switched from watching the Earth below to the mysterious interloper from beyond. Dozens more belonged to various scientific agencies, powerful sensors re-tasked from observing distant astronomical phenomena to observing the energy output of advanced technology. Finally, there were the numerous civilian satellites, streaming video to curious people the world over.

Five minutes after the pirates' departure, the video of their jump was on YouTube. Less than an hour later, YouTube crashed due to the sheer number of users trying to access this video on the website.

Blue Room

The White House, United States of America

24 May 2005/860 AS

It had been a week. It felt like years. That Merlow character promised that he would be in orbit today, and here Jack Ryan Sr. was hoping that the man didn't bring another invasion of his planet. BattleMechs from the BattleTech universe, an invasion of Earth, and now another unknown variable was coming to Earth offering help. Absolute science fiction, but here he was. Yesterday, the JumpShip and DropShip had left the system, leaving behind their comrades and 'Mechs. The news wire was going wild with reports and speculation of what would happen next. BattleTech authors were on CNN giving interviews. Developers of both the tabletop and video games were being interviewed by news outlets from across the world. It was pandemonium, but he couldn't worry about that now.

Sat around him were the leaders of some of Earth's major nations: Eduard Grushavoy, President of the Russian Federation; Fang Gan, Premier of the People's Republic of China; Tony Blair, Prime Minster of the United Kingdom; Horst Köhler, President of Germany; and Jacques Chirac, President of France. Each of these men knew the significance of what was happening today. They were going to be greeting the leader of an interstellar nation on Earth. The air was tense. No one knew exactly what to expect.

An aide broke the silence, entering the Oval Office.

"Sirs, they're in orbit." She said.

"Thank you." Ryan replied. He shifted his attention to the gathered world leaders, "Gentlemen, let's make an impression, shall we?"

"Ryan, why are we doing this here?" Blair asked, "Shouldn't this be done at the General Assembly?"

"And risk an attack that would wipe out the UN?" Grushavoy retorted, "Tony, that would be negligent."

"We can provide security here," Ryan tried to reassure the British PM, "and the risk is completely on the US here."

"I agree with the President," Gan said, "It is best to allow him to shoulder the risk."

"What does the news know?" Köhler asked, "Do they understand what is happening?"

"The Press Secretary already made the announcement yesterday." Ryan replied, "We had to make sure that we kept panic to a minimum."

"I hope this works, Ryan." Chirac noted, "I do not think our planet can endure an interstellar war."

"I hope so too, Jacques. I hope so."

Cargo Bay, ISV Paul Atredies

In High Earth Orbit

Supreme Bashar Robert Merlow looked over his honor guard. State visits weren't his specialty, but he had done a couple over the years. Going from strictly a military leader to the de facto head of state was a bit of a transition for him, but he used to it after leading the ISA from universe to universe over the past forty years. Hopefully, within the next five he could peddle off these duties to the First Councilor of the Civilian Council, but until then he was going to have to take these responsibilities. Next to him, his good friend Bashar Superior Thomas Serov clapped him on the shoulder.

"Ease up, Rob!" Serov shook his friend, "They're not gonna try to pop ya while we're down there."

"I'm never worried about dying, Tom." Merlow retorted, "I just want to make sure we make a good impression."

"We're only bringing a small transport with a civie-lookin' ground vehicle. Why do you have one, anyways?"

"The years have taught me to be ready with one in case of situations like these."

"So," Serov leaned on the transport vessel, "What's the plan?"

"We're going to be landing at Andrews Air Force Base, escorted down by a few of their fighters. Our fighters will provide cover until they take over. We'll be greeted on the ground by some of their representatives, and then we're gonna drive to the White House to meet with their leaders"

"You think they can blow us outta the sky?"

"I don't think so, but the transport's shields will be fully powered. We'll keep all offensive power routed to the shields unless we need to defend ourselves. No need to alarm them with active weapons."

"Okay, sure, but what about our men? We're only bringing a squad?"

"Again, we don't want to scare them. This is all we could negotiate."

"Right. So, when do we leave?"

"Soon. Let's load up. Try not to piss them off, man."

"Oh, come on!"

Welcoming Committee, Flight Line

Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, United States of America

It was a cold day in Maryland. Chief of Protocol Donald Ensenat was standing in the welcoming committee, nervously playing with his wedding ring. He always felt a little jittery when welcoming a foreign leader, but this was on another level. He was making first physical contact with the leader of a foreign interstellar nation. He had been briefed already, knowing that this Supreme Bashar Robert Merlow was bringing twelve soldiers and his own ground transportation for the drive to the White House. He also knew that another man would be accompanying him, Bashar Superior Thomas Serov, apparently his second-in-command. This whole event was greatly unusual, but he understood the gravity of the situation. This was for the survival of Earth, the continuation of their planet to stand on their own in a seemingly hostile galaxy. He squeezed his hands. It was colder than he thought. He should have brought gloves.

He looked above. A wing of F-16s from the 113th Fighter Group were above, escorting a large transport vessel as it crossed into their airspace. His eyes widened. The vessel was larger than any of the planes he was used to greeting. A 747 didn't hold a candle to it. It came down quickly but carefully, gracefully following the runway until landing beside the welcoming committee. The gust from the landing engines nearly blew Ensenat off his feet. He took a few steps, recovering before he had a chance to fall over. The massive transport's landing legs extended, bringing the vessel to a halt. He took his position at the head of the red carpet, awaiting his guests.

A door on the rear of the vessel opened and a large ground vehicle emerged. It looked to him like an oversized and elongated SUV, complete with blacked out windows and four small black flags each displaying a red insignia with stylized eagle incapsulated by a circle and a triangular hexagon. The vehicle drove around the welcoming group to the end of the red carpet, ready to take his charge.

A door opened on the side of the transport. Out emerged twelve soldiers in what looked like dress uniforms armed with rifles. The lined up on either side of the door at attention. Ensenat waited at the beginning of the red carpet, anticipating the next people to emerge.

From the door came two men, dressed in near identical military uniforms. Ensenat noted the pistols holstered on both gentlemen's waists. He put on his best smile and waited for the men to walk towards him.

"Supreme Bashar Robert Merlow, Bashar Superior Thomas Serov," Ensenat greeted, "welcome to the United States of America." He extended his hand for a handshake.

"Mr. Ensenat, thank you for having us," Merlow replied, grasping the man's hand.

"Please." Ensenat motioned down the red carpet.

"Quite the welcome we're getting here, Mr. Ensenat." Serov remarked.

"As the head of a sovereign nation, it is only appropriate." Ensenat replied.

The trio walked down towards the waiting ground craft, Merlow and Serov both noting the large presence of news cameras on them.

"Large media presence here." Merlow noted.

"They were notified yesterday of your arrival, Supreme Bashar."

"Just yesterday?"

"We didn't want to panic the world any further, you understand."

"Makes sense." Serov said. He waved to the cameras, "I hope they get my good side."

"You don't have a good side, don't lie like that."

"Gentlemen, we don't have your national anthem. I hope you don't mind if we play our own before your departure."

"Adherence to ceremony." Merlow said, "That's not a problem."

The ride to the White House was uneventful. Merlow and Serov sat across from one another in the vehicle.

"What are we expecting here, Robby?"

"We have a whole thing happening in front of the White House, couple of ceremonial things, then we get down to brass tacks. Then lunch."

"Ooh, lunch! What's on the menu?"

"One thing at a time, Gods." Merlow looked out the window, "Man, everyone is out in force. People are lining the streets."

"First time any of them is gonna see an alien. I wouldn't miss it." Serov smiled.

"Oh, shut up."

Blue Room

The White House, United States of America

The ceremonial events of the day had taken longer than a usual state visit. The unusual circumstances of the occasion caused the previous events to drag on, the longest being the series of national anthems and the speeches given by all the Heads of State. With the pomp and circumstance out of the way, it was finally time to begin the talks that brought all of them here in the first place.

Around the circular table, eight men sat with a small device in the center that Merlow brought with him. He neglected to bring paper print-outs of the talks, but he did hand a USB stick to a staffer to print out copies. With all the men settled, Merlow began.

"Gentlemen, I am the leader of the Independent Systems Alliance, a group of people that have fled multiple catastrophes in multiple universes."

The other leaders sat in silence.

"Now, I know you're all wondering why we would offer to help you. Why would we be so willing to share our technology and expertise with Earth? The answer to that is quite simple: This is the cradle of humanity. This is where it all began, where the origins of our species started the long hard trek to the stars."

Merlow activated the device in the center of the table, bringing up a holographic image of Earth.

"Gentlemen, I couldn't bear the thought of the cradle of humanity falling victim to an invasion before it had a chance to actually prove itself. What we're offering is knowledge and capability. Technology and prowess. The ability to lift yourselves off this world and take your place among the stars with us."

"Vassalage." President Grushavoy nearly spat, "You want us to give up our sovereignty."

"Hardly. A partnership, where you would be under the ISA's protective umbrella. You would get centuries of scientific advances, solving most of the problems Earth has in a matter of years. Global Warming? Gone. Hunger? Gone. Unemployment, poverty? Gone. The work involved would elevate the poorest on the planet to heights you could hardly imagine."

"You are offering a fantasy." Premier Gan noted.

"Not in the slightest. The technology we can provide can ensure the well-being of everyone on Earth at least ten-fold. Right now, you are reliant on oil which is not only a finite resource but is poisoning the planet. How does hyper-efficient solar technology sound coupled with reliable and clean fusion power? The technology for us is old hat, we could teach your people how to build this in a matter of months. This would also give people an opportunity to learn new professions, get themselves out of poverty."

"All of this sounds well and good," said Prime Minister Blair, "but what about the more immediate problem of defending our planet against another possible attack?"

"That's what I'm here for." Replied Serov, "I'm your military advisor. We've fought off invasions before, and we can do it again. I can teach your people how to fight with the weapons we're bringing to the party and how to coordinate everything."

"What will this cost us?" asked President Chirac, "Is Eduard right? Will we give up our sovereignty?"

"Earth would become a member of the Independent Systems Alliance as another system. You would choose representatives to represent you on the Civilian Council. The laws of each nation on Earth will be respected as long as they do not conflict with the laws of the Council."

"Wait," President Ryan paused the conversation for a moment, "are you not beholden to your Civilian Council?"

Merlow brought his hands together, "Not quite. Our government system works on a partnership between the Civilian Council and the Basharate. To maintain tactical and strategic flexibility the military is allowed a degree of autonomy as long as it is for the benefit of the state at large. I am authorized by the Civilian Council to represent our nation, if that is your concern."

"As it stands," said President Köhler, "we would have to bring this up to the UN General Assembly. Every country is going to want something out of this, economically and otherwise."

"Gents," Serov changed the hologram in the center of the table to that of a scarred planet, "given the potentially imminent threat, I don't think we wanna sit here flapping our gums while another attack could be mounting. I'm itchin' to make sure this planet doesn't burn. We've seen that. It's horrifying."

President Ryan leaned in, "Besides technology and expertise, what else are you willing to share?"

"We're willing to share intelligence with you, what intelligence we have. I understand you may have other intelligence sources?" Merlow asked.

"Well, if you can call rulebooks from a game an intelligence source."

"It's not the strangest thing we've relied upon." Serov noted.

"Gentlemen let's shelve this meeting for now and have lunch," Ryan said, "Talks like these should be conducted on a full stomach."

"Agreed," Gan leaned back in his chair, "as long as it is suitable."

Serov perked up a bit, "What's for lunch?"

"Now, I'll field questions from the press."

Press Secretary Regina Leonard stood at podium, ready for the myriad of questions about to be thrown her way. This past week had been hell. News of an invasion outer space, the subsequent fallout, the news of an interstellar sovereign arriving in Washington, it was all so much in such a short amount of time. Having the unenviable job of breaking this news to the ravenous press was grueling enough once a week. Doing it near daily was pushing her to the limit.

"Yes, John."

"What is the purpose of the visit by this Supreme Bashar?"

"I can't comment on that, but what I can say that it is vital to national security." She pointed at another reporter, "Darren, go ahead."

"From what we've seen so far, BattleMechs are real and it may be assumed that the factions of the BattleTech universe may also be real. Where does this 'Independent Systems Alliance' fit into all this?"

"We don't know yet, but we'll find out together. Missy, yes."

"Could this be a prelude to an invasion?"

"We don't have enough information at this time, but when we do we'll tell you. Donna."

"We've heard reports that the New Zealand government has surrendered possession of the 'Mechs captured in Auckland to the United States. Can you comment on that?"

"Not at this time. Nick, go ahead."

"President Ryan is meeting with the leaders of China, Russia, Germany, the UK, and France along with Robert Merlow of the ISA. Why is the entirety of UN not involved in this meeting?"

"I can't say. That will be all the questions for now, thank you all."

Leonard retreated out the back as reporters all shouted questions after her. An aide closed the door behind her. She allowed herself a sigh.

Why is this administration caught up in all this kind of crap all the time, and why did the President pick me to handle it?

"What is the level of support you can offer us, Merlow?" Ryan asked, sipping a cup of water.

"We can offer a Planetary Carrier and all of the resources within in terms of direct military support. Research and technology will be provided by our R&D division."

"Manufacturing?" asked Gan.

"We can get your arsenals and factories started, but the rest you'll have to do on your own. We simply don't have the fabrication capacity to arm an entire planet in this short a time."

"What of patents?" Köhler interjected, "That sort of thing may make things complicated."

"We'll file open patents in all countries of note. We can hire lawyers to iron that stuff out."

"Intelligence sharing," began Blair, "how will you support us there?"

"We coordinate through our officers here and we'll share all information we obtain about the universe at large. We will provide personnel and equipment, and we will expect a similar contribution on your end. Our scientists will also expect what findings made here to be shared with us as well."

"Honestly, I think we've gotten all the big strokes out of the way." Serov said, "I think we should move forward. President Ryan, I think one of your aides has printed out all the papers we need to sign this into effect?"

"One more thing," Ryan put up his hand, "if other countries want to join, shall we have them sign the treaty post-fact?"

"I'm perfectly alright with that," replied Merlow, "Tom?"

"I don't see a problem there. I'm sure once they see the benefits, other countries will be flocking for help."

"Alright. If we're in agreement, then I think we should move ahead."

"Let's do it." Ryan looked around the table, "Gentlemen?"

The other world leaders nodded in agreement.

Merlow smiled, "Welcome to the ISA, everyone."

Large Zenith Telescope

Vancouver, Canada

30 May 2005

"What do you mean, they're not there anymore?" Doctor Deacon asked incredulously, "That's nonsense!"

"I mean exactly what I said, Stephan." Doctor Fargo adjusted his glasses, "The stars aren't there anymore. It's subtle for most of the sky, but about two days ago the stars… changed. We've asked other observatories to just be sure and cross referenced our star charts, and everything is wrong."

A few weeks ago, such a thing would have been deemed impossible by scientists assembled, dismissed as a foolish prank. Of course, that was before New Zealand was hit by BattleMechs from the imagination of game developers. Reality was a cruel mistress.

"Show me."

Oval Office

The White House, United States of America

2 June 2005

Tony Bretano sat across from the President. The past couple of weeks were already surreal, and here the Secretary of Defense was about to drop yet another bomb on his President.

"Tony is the sky falling again?" Ryan looked up from his paperwork wearily.

"Well, it's certainly not right." Bretano handed across a folder, "Here some pictures from observatories around the world. The sky's wrong."

"Are you kidding me right now? How can the sky be wrong?"

"You remember how one of the leading theories was that JumpShip may have suffered a misjump and emerged in our timeframe?"

"Yeah. That made the most sense to me, honestly."

"Well, it looks like we have an island in time scenario."

Ryan sighed, "You're kidding."

"No, sir. If we cross-reference our star charts and observatory information with what Merlow's people have already given us, it looks like everything outside a certain radius is off."

"Jesus H. Christ."

"Fortunately, that's not all. General Mathews over at NORAD and Bashar Serov have devised a pretty decent orbital defense system."

Ryan thumbed to the right page, "Oh. Oh wow, is this real?"

"It is, sir. Using our existing nuclear stockpiles, tech, and some help from Serov's ship we can lift a decently effective orbital defense umbrella."

"It would be augmenting Serov's existing orbital defense platforms…"

"Yes, sir. They're already beginning to deploy the platforms from that Planetary Carrier of his. He can get us okay coverage, but with these plugging the holes we should theoretically be covered."

"Huh. Well, we have to talk with our allies first, see if they'll be on board with putting nukes in space."

"No need. Serov developed this plan with the other treaty signatories."

"Good. I'll talk to Appropriations. This shouldn't be too hard to greenlight."

White Sands Launch Complex 37

White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, United States of America

17 June 2005/860 AS

US Army Brigadier General Alexander Miller looked at screen over the assembled variety of weapons. Next to him was their special guest ISA Captain Martha Willemsen. They had assembled a range of weapons that the ISA were willing to share with their new allies. Along with them were other members of the US, Russian, UK, French and German militaries along with civilian contractors from the respective countries.

"What is all of this?" Miller asked.

"It's a smattering of weapons we'd like to demonstrate to our new friends," replied Martha Willemsen, "along with some recreated samples of the armor taken from the captured 'Mechs."

"What's first?"

"That would be the rail gun, sir."

"Really. How effective is it?"

"We're about to find out, General." Willemsen turned to a nearby technician, "Begin the countdown. One minute, if you would." The technician set the timer.

"Captain, could we produce these weapons Earth-side?"

"Initial estimates place small-scale production within six months, with eighteen months projected for the beginning of mass production."

"Fire in ten seconds," called the technician.

"Hmm…" The general looked at the display.

"Fire in three. Two. One."

A dull crack was heard as the weapon fired, piercing the sample of armor down range.

"Impressive." Miller observed, "Clean, with a nice exit cavity."

"I'll say. The Bashar will be happy with that."

"What kind of range are we looking at?"

"Direct line of sight… several kilometers. With our targeting systems, you can compensate for all sorts of variables, from wind speed to Coriolis effect."

"You could snipe with the thing…"

"Oh, we have. It's not pretty what it does to flesh."

"What's up next?"

"Let's see…" Willemsen looked over her notes, "Ah, the pulse laser. Good for close-in support and short-range fighting."

"Like a Phalanx?"

"Yes, but longer range and higher power. Perfect for your current fighters and infantry carriers."

Miller was in absolute awe. The warfighting capabilities of these ISA folks was unreal. He watched as a volley of missiles was unleashed at the weapon, it sliced through the air and destroyed each and every one.

We just might have a chance.

NBC Studio 4E

NBC Studios, New York

29 June 2005

"Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to Dateline NBC. I'm Stone Phillips. Tonight, we look at the stars. It had been nearly two months since our planet has been rocked to its core, realizing that not only are we not alone but we are not safe. Rampant speculation has gripped the world as we look up, wondering whether these invaders travelled back in time on accident or if it was something even more unreal. We sent our very own Dennis Murphy to interview two experts in their respective fields: Doctor James Armand of Harvard University and Commander Luella Lovel of the Independent Systems Alliance."

"Space. The Final Frontier. We imagined such words in the realm of science fiction, worlds filled with aliens and new discoveries to be made. Unfortunately, to our collective surprise, the universe sent someone to find us first. We were invaded by 'BattleMechs,' machines seen from the fictional worlds of the BattleTech game series. It made us wonder whether we were planted in their universe, or if they came to ours on accident. Joining me are Doctor James Armand and Commander Luella Lovel. Doctor, according to the scientific community, what is the consensus? Are we in their universe or are they in ours?"

"Dennis, from our observations and cross-referencing data from our new friends at the ISA it seems that we have been transplanted in another universe."

"What evidence do you have to support this?"

"I will let Commander Lovel explain."

"Well, Dennis, from what we've gathered from observational data on Earth and our own stellar cartographical evidence, a sector of space about sixty lightyears has been transported thousands of lightyears out of place."

"How is that even possible, Commander?"

"A phenomenon of this kind has never taken place, or at least has never been recorded, in our centuries-worth of archival evidence. What we do know is that everything within sixty lightyears is where it is supposed to be, but everything outside of that is completely wrong."

"Doctor, how long ago did this occur?"

"Given the speed of light, about fifty years ago which is why we haven't noticed it until now. Light takes time to reach us, so anything beyond fifty lightyears would have been impossible to notice until a sufficient amount of time had passed. There are other questions we haven't been able to answer, such as why the changes happened all at once and not gradually. As I said, light takes time to reach us, so why did the other stars suddenly blink into existence? It doesn't make any sense…"

"Commander, given what we do know, where exactly are we?"

"From what we have been able to map so far, our bubble of space is sitting in between the Draconis Combine, the Outworlds Alliance, and the Federated Suns. Our best estimates place us…"

Office of the Director of Central Intelligence

George Bush Center for Intelligence, Virginia, United States of America

"Hun, look at this."

"What, Ed?"

"Interrogation records of our captured prisoners. They've confirmed that the mercenary unit 'Wolf's Dragoons' showed up with their five regiments of 'Mechs in 3005."

"And according to the pirates and the internal clocks of the equipment we've captured, it's 3020."

"Right. It matches the source books. The first novel that features the Dragoons was published in 1988, seventeen years ago. If the BattleTech fiction was written by someone native to this time, how the hell did they predict the arrival of the Dragoons two years before it actually happened?"

"Oh. I'll get in contact with the Bashar, see if they can confirm."

Prisoner Detention Barracks

Area 51, Nevada, United States of America

16 July 3020

Captain Burgess Hale, dispossessed MechWarrior, was bored.

Boredom was not an emotion that he expected to feel as a prisoner. Wracked with pain from torture? Yes. Abject misery? Yes. Hunger and deprivation? Yes. Fear? Of course. His current captors confounded his expectations.

Hale wasn't miserable except insofar that he was a prisoner. Instead of being thrown in some dank dungeon, his people had been given their own facility. True, they were little more than converted storage containers with air conditioners and bunks installed surrounded by a chain link fence, razor wire, and towers with armed guards. However, the facilities had been unreasonably clean and none of the guards had ever tried to have 'fun' with the prisoners. Also, while the weather was too hot for his taste, there was plenty of drinking water available despite that idiot Jankowicz almost killing himself from not drinking enough.

Hale wasn't starving. It didn't even seem to occur to his captors to deprive the prisoners of food. And while not four-star restaurant quality, the food that was provided was still better than the field rations he was used to. Some of it was even pretty tasty. In fact, some overheard comments from the guards indicated that the food he had been getting was this world's idea of field rations.

He wasn't afraid. Well he had been for the first few weeks. Hale had been afraid of being tortured or just executed if he didn't tell his interrogators what they wanted to know, but after his limited store of useful information dried up, he was interrogated less and less. Hale was surprised that he and his people weren't simply disposed with. In fact, he got the impression that his captors didn't know what to do with his people. Only Dana Zumross was still interrogated regularly, and perversely she seemed to enjoy the process. Dana sometimes disappeared for days at a time as the locals consulted with her on her favorite topics of discussion.

Speaking of Dana, a familiar van pulled up to the prison compound's front gate. It was dark out and most everyone else had gone to sleep, but the bright lights surrounding the compound illuminated everything quite nicely. So Hale was the only prisoner to see her get out of the van. His eyebrows rose in surprise as he saw that she was carrying a large and heavy backpack. Up until now, none of the prisoners had been allowed to get their hands on anything that could conceivably be used as a weapon.

Watching, Hale observed Dana exchange a few friendly words with her escort. In fact, it almost looked like that she was flirting with some of them, but that couldn't be right. In the entire time he had known her, Dana had always preferred tinkering with her machines to human interaction.

"Having fun?" Hale asked after Dana was ushered inside the fence line. She still had that backpack.

"Actually, yes," Dana replied stiffly. Ah, there was the Dana that Hale had always known. "It's kind of nice to actually talk to people who can challenge you intellectually without worrying about being killed or worse," she added wistfully as she opened the door to her own room. There were more rooms than there were prisoners, so everyone had the luxury of having a private room despite there being four bunks to a room. Obviously, the locals anticipated catching more unwary pirates.

Once inside her room, Dana hit the light switch and began dumping the contents of her pack on an unused bunk. The contents seemed to consist entirely of books and writing pads. And there was one slab of plastic and chrome that had TOUGHBOOK etched onto it; Hale idly wondered what the point of sheathing a book in armor was.

"What's all this stuff?" Hale asked as he picked up one of the books. It looked like a math textbook.

"Homework." Dana replied simply.

"Homework?" Hale was confused, "What, they're making you tell them stuff on your off time now?"

"They're not making me tell them anything," Dana told him irritably. "I've pretty much reached the limits of what I can tell them as far as mechs go, but they still want to know more. 'How does the armor spread the thermal pulse from a laser evenly?' 'What are the mathematical formulae for H-H fusion reactions?' 'How do you make high temperature superconductors?' Captain, do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to be asked these kinds of questions and not be able to do more than look helpless in reply? Me! The so called 'technical expert' of our little crew!"

"I never really thought about it. Why the books?"

"Self-improvement." Dana took the textbook from Hale's hands, "There's still a lot of stuff I don't know about the very technology I grew up with, but I'll be damned if I don't fill those holes."

"And they let you have all this stuff."

"Yep." She grinned at him. "If I can get my technical knowledge up to par, I think I can make myself useful to the locals, get a high paying job with them, and move out of this dump. Now shoo! I have some studying to do!"

Hale found himself unceremoniously pushed out into the brightly lit night. Normally, such brusqueness would have really annoyed him, but his thoughts were troubled. Dana's words kept running through his mind. Make myself useful, she said.

"I wonder," Hale mused to himself as he walked over to his own room. "I wonder if these guys could use a good cadre to show them the ropes..."

Hale was no longer bored.

Buster's Busted Bar

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

27 July 3020/860 AS

Lieutenant Jacob Morgan sat at a table in the corner of the bar. He'd been following this group of lowlifes for weeks now, gathering as much information as he could. The loud-mouthed DropShip Captain Mamoto had been regaling the bar patrons of the exploits of his 'heroism' to any and everyone he possibly could. With wealth like he proclaimed, these tales would probably bring a whole lot more of these rats to Earth. The Basharate would need to hear of this.

"So, there I was," Captain Mamoto was saying to the small crowd in the bar as he took a sip in the bar. "My poor Drakon was on the ground getting shelled by a neobarb wet navy battleship the size of an Invader, no, a Star Lord class Jumpship! But I held my ground! I waited hours under a rain of high explosive shells while my guns fended off the hordes of infantry trying to board by ship, hoping against hope that all our people would make it back aboard. But alas, it was not to be. One by one, the neobarbs swarmed Hale's mechs with primitive aircraft and raining down bombs. I waited until the last of Hale's mechs died and with regret decided there was nothing left that I could do. So, I lifted off while under fire."

"But how could there be so many militia in one place?" a skeptical listener asked.

"Ah, there's the rub," Mamoto said dramatically. "That was a rich, rich world we landed on. You all saw the loot, right?" There were grudging nods all around. "It turns out that we landed right in the middle of one of their major military bases. That idiot Hale picked the absolute worst place to land…"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Jane Dietrich whispered to her drinking partner. They were on the other side of the bar from Mamoto, "but wasn't Captain Mamoto who picked our landing site?"

"Yep," Irdon Koltan replied, completely unconcerned as he sipped his own beer.

"Maybe we should refresh his memory?" Jane wondered. "Publicly."

"Nah, don't bother," Koltan told her. "Mamoto's a Dropship captain. You're just a lowly crewmember. I'm an even lowlier PBI."

"That's not fair," Jane said, frowning.

"Welcome to life as a pirate," Koltan told her cynically. "Not that the Inner Sphere's much better. Let's talk about something more pleasant. How's the loot selling?"

"Pretty good actually," Jane replied. "I can't believe how fast they're selling, especially the computers. Hell, it's not like they're compatible with any and all standard equipment." She frowned again. "Now that I think about it, I can't recall Mamoto mentioning that last part."

"You still spend a lot of time on your own machine for some reason," Koltan said knowingly. "I never realized solitaire was so entertaining."

"Hey, I'm not just playing Solitaire on my shiny new computer, you know," Jane told him. She looked back at Mamoto. "Even so, I can't believe the price some people are paying for the things. However useless the skipper is on the bridge, he's one hell of a salesman."

"Ah, I knew there was a reason I let you convince me to not kill him."

Morgan observed the scene from his corner. It was only a matter of time now.

Antallos HPG Facility

Precentor Hadrian Long, ComStar's representative on Antallos, examined the strange… device. His trained eye noted that the lid consisted almost entirely of a flat screen monitor, the main body that appeared to be mostly keyboard, and the numerous ports of unconventional design. The monitor displayed a pastoral background with some icons lined up on the side. He turned to the subordinate who had brought it to him.

"It's primitive," he said to Demi-Precentor Alan Short. "I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is that there is nothing in our records like it," Short replied patiently. "No one in the Inner Sphere produces anything like it. No one in the Periphery should be able to produce anything like it. And the coding is nothing like that used by the Star League; it's almost alien to the point of being indecipherable. So we can rule it out as being 'lostech'. Somewhere out there is a planet that has the resources and industrial base to create an entire computer system entirely from scratch."

"Oh, Short, don't be absurd," Long snorted skeptically. "The most likely explanation is that some early pre-Star League colony went further out than most others. The Explorer Corps have found such worlds before and none of them are exactly paragons of the kind of advancement that you seem to be implying. This world is probably just another one like it. What's its name again?"

"The pirates are starting to call it 'Motherlode' because it looks so rich," Short answered. "But that's not my point. This isn't some ancient relic like what most people use. This is quite obviously newly made."

"So? There are still factories in the Inner Sphere that produce mechs," Long explained. "That doesn't mean that these people understand how it works or can make new ones."

"But, sir, we should still investigate it," Short said, almost pleading. "Our mission is the preservation of technology after all, and you know the pirates are going to do to a world even half as wealthy as what rumor says. They'll smash everything, and another light of civilization will be lost to the darkness ignorance and barbarity."

"Yes, yes, write up a report for the home office," Long said dismissively. "I'll make sure to include it in the next month's status report. But you're being unduly impulsive Demi-Precentor. Even if these 'Motherloders' are the paragons of advancement you say they are, it means nothing. I have little doubt that the pirates here will eliminate them before we would be able to investigate. Worlds as wealthy as the one you described would draw them like flies."

"But, sir…"

"I'm sorry, Short," Long said, not sounding very sorry at all, "but that's the way it is. Our Blessed Order's mission may be to preserve technology, but we certainly don't have the ability to save every little lost colony out here, especially when we don't know where they are!"

Vorax's Palace

"Lovely," said Controller Aden Vorax, ruler of the city-state of Port Krin. The sleek and glossy black ground car may not have been the most advanced machine ever made, but it most certainly had been made with loving care and an eye for aesthetics. "Thank you for the gift, Captain Benson."

"Not a problem, Mister Vorax," the Jumpship captain replied as he fondled a pretty slave girl serving him a drink.

"And you say there is a whole planet that can make treasures like this?" Vorax asked, glancing at the absurdly small "computer" on a nearby end table. Currently, its screen was displaying some 2D entertainment video. On display now was an attractive woman in black shooting at the floor around her with a gun in each hand. As he watched, the floor gave way and the woman dropped through the improvised hole.

"Oh yeah. You have to see it to believe it." Benson said smugly, drawing Vorax's attention away from the machine. "And as it so happens, I'm the only one who knows where it is."

"Indeed?" Vorax replied, raising an eyebrow in interest. "That could be very… profitable."

"I certainly thought so," Benson said. "I imagine you could make a lot of money selling it to other captains."

"Please, Captain, that is so gauche," Vorax said with a knowing smile. "There are other ways that can make even more money."

Mustering Grounds

National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California

Sol System, Earth Space

29 July 2005/3020/860 AS

It is a truism in military life that you tend to run into the same people again and again. It is also a truism that you will run into people you really don't want to be anywhere near where you end up, and that often these are the same people that you just can't seem to avoid running into again and again. Even allowing for these acknowledged universal truths, which had been experienced multiple times by all parties formed up in the parking lot, the current situation was still clear evidence of a higher being. A malicious bastard of a higher being possessed of a horrible sense of humor, but a higher being nonetheless.

Burgess Hale, former AFFS Captain, and dispossessed Mechwarrior was wondering if this had really been such a good idea after all. Most of the faces were unfamiliar to him, but eleven stood out as being people he'd seen before. Ten of them had affected postures of studied neutrality, but the bastard who'd bluffed him out of his mech seemed to be bouncing between outright hatred, pure disgust, and unholy glee entirely at random.

What the hell, the two guys I hit who are missing limbs don't look as pissed to see me as he is.

Commander Simeonov stepped out to address the formation.

"Everyone, you may have noticed we have a new addition to the unit. Mr. Hale, formerly of the Drakon, formerly of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, is going to be assisting us with the evolving tactical doctrine of both using and destroying BattleMechs. Since he's new, I thought we'd welcome him to your company with a little fun run."

Simeonov grinned as small exclamations of pain and dread peeped out of some members of the unit.

Hale followed along with the warmup exercises. He noted that he and the maniac seemed to be the only two in normal exercise clothes, while everyone else was in near full combat attire. His study was interrupted by the maniac passing him a water bottle and some pills.

"Unless you run marathons for fun, you're gonna wanna take those now."

"Sorry?"

"The Commander likes to see if he can really run people to death. Even if they were poison, you'll thank me for killing you quickly." The man glanced around him with dread, "For that matter, is there any way I can get your old cell just to be away from this?"

More than two hours later, Burgess Hale decided that he really would have preferred poison. He wasn't sure how large this facility was, but it certainly felt like they must have circled the whole thing twice. The most humiliating bat was when they let the guy in the wheelchair set the pace on the tarmac, though at least he'd only been the first of many to fall out during that stretch. After the third time coming back past the barracks, they finally slowed to a walk.

After they cooled down and been released for hygiene and breakfast, the maniac extended his hand.

"Staff Sergeant. Tony. Dansel." He wheezed, taking in as much air as possible, "I'm. I'm sure you recognize me from our last meeting. Just to. Just to make things super sunshine happy. For the both of us. I'm the guy you're probably going to be training to use your old 'Mech. Do me. Do me a favor. If you're gonna rig it to kill me, make sure it's before the next batch of these human right violations."

"Only. Only if you take me with you." Hale struggled to catch his breath, I don't think I've had my ass kicked this much, even at Kilbourne.

"Heads. Heads up. You see those unit patches on the caps of our other old buddies? If you see the same patch but blue and we've left you alone: run. They kind of have a grudge from your landing, and I really haven't been helping.

Special Materials Research and Development

CERN, Meyrin, Switzerland

5 August 2005/850 AS

Doctor Staci Garnier looked across the lecture hall. It was staggering, the number of scientists gathered here for the symposium today. She finished her lecture on practical fusion power and how to effectively construct and utilize the reactors in a variety of applications. For her people at the ISA, this was old tech. Their civilization had been using fusion power for centuries in everything from vehicles to home generators. The mathematics and materials behind it were nothing new to her as well, but for the scientists before her she may have just been a God descending from Mount Olympus to bestow the knowledge of fire to primitive civilization.

They had gotten the basics down, but had issues maintaining a sustained reaction that would net a positive power output. Their methods and materials were antiquated, but they were like sponges, filling with the waters of knowledge.

"So, with these methods we can construct and maintain our own fusion reactors?" an audience member asked.

"Safe, clean fusion power, capable of powering anything and everything you're already running and more."

"What about a runaway reaction?"

"Doctor, this is cold fusion. We don't use hot fusion anymore for that reason."

"What about scaling? What are the practical limits of this construction method?"

"You're looking at anywhere from the size of a small car to as large as capitol-ship vessels and beyond."

A murmur passed through the audience.

"Everyone, this technology can be manufactured natively in a matter of months in small scale. Mass production will take longer but trust me when I say your civilization will never be the same."

The Box

National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California

8 August 2005/3020/860 AS

Serov looked down at the monitors before him. He understood why they wanted the Hunchback unmodified, but he really wanted to see what the combat capabilities would be like if they made equipped it with ISA-level technology. Their R&D teams were already seeing if they could produce their own BattleMechs. The principles were sound, something he had never considered before: a war machine designed to enter any battlefield, fight in any terrain, and last centuries. Bipedal locomotion was out of the question, he had already seen the results of that, but the concept had serious merit. Adaptability was something the ISA coveted, and he had an inkling that these 'Mechs might be the solution.

"Sir, we're about to begin the test." Dansel said, sitting at the panel of displays, his hand on a radio.

"Very well. Let's see what your tech can do."

It felt good to be in control of his Mech again, Hale thought as Quasimodo crested a small ridge. Technically, Quasimodo – it felt funny to be driving a mech with such a personal name – wasn't really Hale's anymore. The Hunchback had been in his ride since he had inherited it from his uncle.

Outside, the desert was a rolling plain that was mostly flat with just enough rises and dips to make things 'interesting'. Buildings dotted the terrain at random, fakes constructed to provide for more realistic training scenarios. The day was hotter than Hale would have liked for Mech operations what with heat being every 'Mech's enemy; but since Quasimodo's lasers had been powered down to training levels (which Hale couldn't override) and the autocannon loaded with blank ammo, he wasn't too worried.

"The general idea of this test," Zumross had told him before he climbed into the cockpit, "is to see how good BT sensors are against the systems that these guys can make. The rules are to follow the nav points and to try and shoot anything before they shoot you. The idea is to see if they can sneak up on you and get their shot off before you kill them. Any questions?"

"What's 'BT'?" Hale had asked.

"I dunno exactly," Zumross had told him with a shrug. "Some acronym that refers to any offworld made technology. But no one's telling me what the letters actually stand for."

"So how come you're not the one doing the driving?"

"Oh, because you're a better pilot than I am," Zumross had explained. "That means that these guys can get a better idea of what Mechs are really capable of. And besides," she had grinned mischievously as she added, "I already did this test. It was… interesting."

Quasimodo's computer bleeped, bringing Hale back to the present. The impersonal feminine voice its computer told him that he had reached the first nav point. As he brought Quasimodo to a halt, Hale thought over Zumross' use of the word "interesting". He was certain that there was more to this test than what Zumross and Commander Simeonov had told him. This couldn't be some overelaborate hazing ceremony, could it?

"Control, this is Quasimodo," Hale said, keying the radio. "I'm at Nav Point Alpha."

A couple of the locals' planes roared by overhead, moving lower and slower than anything Hale had ever seen short of actual VTOL craft. According to Zumross, they were some sort of specialist ground attack fighter, carrying light autocannon in the nose and enough bombs to turn his Hunchback into a smoking hole in the ground. They were there to keep an eye on him and make sure that he didn't try to run away with the 'Mech.

"Roger that, Quasimodo," a familiar voice came back. "Everyone's in position. Start your run any time you're ready."

"Dansel, that you?" Hale asked.

"Yep, that's me."

"I'm supposed to teach you to be a MechWarrior," Hale said. "You should be here in the jump seat, so you can watch me work."

"Well, I would be there, but the jump seats really cramped," Dansel said. "The eggheads think my being there might screw with your reaction time. Besides, I can watch you just fine. Didn't you notice all the cameras and monitoring equipment in the cockpit with you?"

Hale cranked his head around to look behind his seat at the nightmarish maze of wires and plastic boxes that were duct-taped, screwed down, or otherwise secured in seemingly random locations.

So that was what they were all for. He thought.

Quasimodo had barely taken a step when a ground car that the locals called a Humvee burst out from behind a building half a klick ahead. A red blip immediately appeared on Hale's RADAR display. Reacting instantly, Hale speared the vehicle with both lasers. There was a puff of smoke and a light on the Humvee started blinking, indicating that the vehicle had been "killed". The soldier than had been operating what looked like a missile launcher of some kind saluted Hale as the Humvee sedately left the test area.

"Okay, that was easy," Hale said aloud, relaxing.

The side of another building more than a klick away flared as a fireball appeared in front of it. There was a bleep as his computer registered a "hit" on his Mech. Cursing, Hale activated the image intensifier and zoomed in on the building that had shot him. The view wasn't good, but it looked like there was a tank hidden inside the building.

"I intend to," Hale muttered as he switched his display from RADAR to infrared. While infrared detection had some obvious limitations in the middle of a hot desert, Quasimodo's sensors might be able to spot the heat from the exhaust of the internal combustion engines that seemed to be used in everything on this planet. In fact, there was a blip right over…

A tank rolled into view, a low wall obscuring everything but the turret. It had barely appeared when one of Hale's lasers struck it. The burst of smoke and blinking light was gratifying.

"Ouch, another point for the visiting team," Dansel said.

"C'mon, Dansel," Hale replied mockingly. "Make this a challenge!"

Three small blips appeared on Hale's display moving fast. They were also behind him. Without thinking, Hale ducked Quasimodo behind a nearby building, interposing it between himself and the contacts, although that required a little crouching. His computer bleeped.

"Well crap," Dansel said disgustedly. "The referee computer's calling it a near miss."

Grinning, Hale didn't reply. Instead, he stood Quasimodo a little straighter, poking the head a bit above the top of the building to take a quick look and ducking back down before they could shoot at him. He spotted three VTOLs of the type that the locals called "Apaches". One of them was already peeling off, obviously having expended its load on the near miss; for some reason, the locals didn't seem to build anything with endurance in mind. The other two Apaches were spreading out, obviously hoping to flank him. Well, he couldn't have that.

Hale leaned Quasimodo over around the building's corner and fired its laser and autocannon. The Apache he shot at signaled its death before the pilot could reach. Hale didn't wait; he spun Quasimodo around just as the other Apache zoomed around the opposite corner, trying to take advantage of the other VTOL's "sacrifice". He fired everything at it and was rewarded with another kill. Hale's computer bleeped.

"Argh," Dansel commented. "Only the chin gun fired. Computer's ruling no damage. Stupid machine."

Hale was chuckling and had started to reply when the computer bleeped.

"Ooh, score another for the home team," Dansel chortled. He sighed. "It's a pity that Comanches don't carry more or heavier ordinance though."

Hale spotted the "Comanche" as it turned to leave. It was another VTOL, one that bore a slight resemblance to a Ferret, but with small winglets for carrying ordnance. Only they weren't really winglets, Hale realized as he watched them fold into the Comanche's body. They were more like bomb bay doors, and they didn't show up on his display at all.

Studying his display closely, Hale saw that the Comanche did show up on it, but the contact was weak, fluttering in and out of existence as the computer tried to determine whether it was there or not. Hale switched to RADAR, but the results were little better.

"Control, Quasimodo. What the hell?" Hale said outraged. "Have you people been fooling with my sensors?"

"Sorta, but not in the way you think," Dansel replied gleefully. "We'll tell you all about it after the test. Control out."

Another Comanche appeared in the distance, popping above a ridge dead ahead. Hale immediately laid crosshairs on it and fired everything he had. The Comanche ducked back down behind the ridge without firing back, but also without signaling that it had been killed. Hale realized that it hadn't opened its bomb bay doors.

"Ooh, a complete miss," Dansel commented. "The computer says your lasers passed to either side of the chopper and the AC burst went low. I guess your mighty BT tech isn't very accurate if it can't, y'know, see what it's shooting at."

"What kind of test is this?" Hale demanded.

"You'll see," Dansel replied. "Heads up, Quasimodo. Next contestant's inbound."

Frantically, Hale began to cycle between Quasimodo's sensor modes, trying to spot the next machine coming at him. As he did, an alert he had never seen before popped up on his display. What the hell was a 'TAG ALERT'?

Things went downhill from there.

Zumross and Simeonov met him after the test at the foot of Quasimodo.

"What the hell was that?" Hale demanded irately. The Comanches had been embarrassing enough. Then the planes had come and started plinking at him from what should have been impossible distances, not even bothering to strafe or divebomb; the damage that their supposed hits would have inflicted had they been real had been lovingly described by Dansel. According to Dansel, Hale had been killed a dozen times over while trying to get Quasimodo's sensors to work properly. What was worse was the way the planes just refused to show up on any of his sensors until they had completed their attack runs; even then, they just flickered in and out of existence. The only time Hale ever got solid reads on them were when they passed directly overhead, but those moments were far too brief.

"Hoo, didn't expect that," Simeonov said, taking a drag off a cigarette.

"You mean the stealth fighters, sir?" Zumross asked politely.

"Exactly that!" Hale headed for the main building when what Zumross said clicked, "Wait, stealth fighters? The hell do you mean 'stealth?'"

"Technology that tries to fool sensors, cloaking them from detection." Simeonov said simply.

"I've never heard of such a thing," Hale objected.

"I have," Zumross admitted. "I've read stuff about Star League lostech that might do similar things, but I always dismissed that as just stories."

"Yeah, but that's lostech," Hale griped. "These guys are so primitive that can't even build decent armor. How the hell can they have lostech?"

"They never lost it." Simeonov smiled, "They invented it. Gotta admit, I'm impressed."

"Invented? How?"

"Because until we came, they had to invent and build everything they have," Zumross said quietly, looking around at busy base wistfully. "Because they had to make everything from the ground up. Because they understand everything about their technology. Because unlike the Inner Sphere, their economy has never been smashed, their scientists never wantonly slaughtered, and technology has never backslid."

"Oh, c'mon," Hale scoffed. "They must have done some backsliding. They lost space flight, didn't they?"

"They never had space flight," Zumross said, completely seriously.

"Never had…" Hale began. He stopped then shook his head. "If they never had spaceflight, how the hell did their ancestors get here? The original colonists had to get here somehow."

"Well, you see Captain, they're not colonists." Simeonov said, stamping out his cigarette, "You're looking at the birthplace of humanity."

"But the homeworld of humanity is Terra," Hale pointed out. They were almost to the building now. He could see Dansel waiting right outside the front doors.

"The point exactly, Burg," Simeonov lit another cigarette, "This is Terra, transported thousands of lightyears and near a millennium into the future."

Hale gawked at the ludicrous statement. Before he could formulate anything to say, Dansel spoke.

"Yeah, welcome to motherfuckin' Terra," he said to Hale. "The biggest damned bullseye in the BattleTech universe."

Oval Office

White House, United States of America

10 August 2005

Jack Ryan's throat was dry. He took a sip of water as he looked at the camera and teleprompter before him. He had a feeling that this speech would be the first stone thrown of an avalanche that could change the political face of Earth forever. He was left with a nagging question: While this would be for the good of the planet, would it be good for America? He had to wonder if he was betraying his country to save the world.

He had to ask himself if there would be an America left to betray if he didn't. He had to do this. Sometimes, in times of great trepidation, you had to take that first step forward. As the so-called 'Leader of the Free World' he had a responsibility to set an example.

"Mr. President, you're on in five."

An aide took the glass of water away as the camera man counted down silently.

Four. Three. Two. One.

"My fellow Americans, and citizens of the planet Earth. On May sixteenth it became clear that we are not alone in the universe. This realization came not as we had hoped, in the name of peace and friendship. It was in the form of a cowardly attack against a free nation. An attack against civilians that amounted to nothing more than a grand act of theft that left hundreds dead, thousands injured. It was only by the grit and determination of our armed forces and those of the brave New Zealand military that we were able to prevail."

"We thought that was the extent of it, that the arrival of these pirates from a fictional universe was a cosmic accident. A twisted act of divine comedy."

"We were wrong."

"On May thirtieth, we found out that our world is adrift, displaced into this hostile and unforgiving universe. We are in the Inner Sphere, thousands of lightyears from where we are supposed to be, surrounded by scavenger states and feudal warlords whose greatest desire is to unite the whole of humanity under their despotic rule. They have lived in constant war and stagnation for hundreds of years."

"It was only through great fortune that we were able to rekindle the hope for peace we all desire thanks to the olive branch extended by the Independent Systems Alliance who have been helping nations around the world to have us, Earth, as the shining beacon of progress and benevolence that the rest of the universe has forgotten. We are the beacon, the shining light in a universe fading away."

"I make the following plea, not only to the leaders but to the people of the world. We cannot be consumed by our petty differences any longer. We are a target to those who envy our accomplishments and to those who would see us as a threat to their schemes. I do not exaggerate that this is the greatest threat to our civilization that we have ever seen. We now stand at the edge of a great precipice that threatens to consume us all."

"I say to you now, people of the world, that we will not go softly into the night. We will fight for our right to survive, to thrive in this universe. Other nations have already moved to do so. Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and the United States have all joined together with the people of the ISA. We seek to protect our world from external threats and strike at those who would wish us harm. We urge the people of the world to join us in this endeavor, to take our place among the stars as a beacon of hope and prosperity."

"I have already asked that a Global Defense Bill be pushed through the houses of Congress, and a resolution will be presented before the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations."

"I will leave you with this. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of this great nation, said this on the eve of our War for Independence: 'We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

"Good night, and God bless you all."

The cameraman signaled. The broadcast was done. He leaned back in his chair and he couldn't help but think of the words of another leader from the annals of history. One who was forced to take as great as risk as Jack had done today.

Alea iacta est.

The die is cast.

Quasimodo's Hanger

National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California

18 August 2005/3020/860 AS

It's too damned early in the morning for this, Hale thought grumpily. The regular morning torture sessions that Commander Simeonov laughingly called "physical training" had started off normally. Although Hale would never admit it, nearly a month of Simeonov's tender mercies had left Hale in better shape than he could ever remember being.

This morning, the regular run was cut short when they arrived at the improvised mech hangar after a mere single lap around the base.

"What's going on here?" Hale blurted on upon spying his beloved 'Mech.

Techs were swarming all over it. The main autocannon housing was being disassembled. Hale could see Zumross supervising several techs as they detached armor plating and hooked the freed edges up to a crane.

"Ah! Mr. Hale, welcome!" a middle-aged civilian greeted the newly arrived soldiers. He waved at Quasimodo, "Isn't she a beaut?"

"Yes she is, Doctor Cray," Commander Simeonov replied, "I brought my men here to see the modifications you're making."

"Modifications?" Hale yelped, outraged. These… these ancient primitives were messing around with modern technology? They were going to break something! Mechs were damn near irreplaceable, especially on this planet!

"Why don't you explain to them what your people are doing?" Simeonov went on, ignoring Hale's near apoplexy.

"Certainly! Please, call me Phil." Cray waved his arms theatrically, "Gentlemen, allow me to present the first repeating rail gun ever to be built on Earth."

With a flourish, Phil pointed to what looked like an inconspicuous box with muzzles sticking out of it.

"That's a rail gun?" Dansel asked, unconvinced.

Phil cleared his throat, "Technically, this is based on the design of the GAU-8/A Avenger. The base weapon used in ISA tanks, but we've made extensive modifications: rotating barrel; increased rate of fire; these and a variety of other factors increase its damage over the autocannon currently mounted on the 'Mech. It has more than enough capability of piercing standard BT armor."

"What else can it do?" Simeonov asked. His tone indicated a bit of theatre, that he already knew and was asking for the benefit of those who didn't know."

"Well, as I said before it is a repeating weapon, so it can fire multiple shots in one go. This allows for quick confirmation kills, and the ability to more rapidly switch between targets. Also, we were able to beef up the recoil compensation by studying the 'Mechs own compensators and implementing ISA techniques. The weapon also fires smaller rounds with greater impact, so we were able to shave off weight and increase deployment durations with smaller rounds. We also saved weight by simplifying the ammo feed."

"Simplifying the ammo feed?" Dansel asked.

"A significant portion of the weight of BT autocannons is that they can draw from multiple ammunition stores. A laudable bit of redundancy, but it imposes a substantial mass penalty."

"So, does it actually work?" Hale was a bit skeptical about the whole thing.

"Yes, at least in the lab. It took this long to work all the bugs out, so it can fire reliably. Now, we need to put it on a mobile platform for further testing."

"But why Quasimodo?" Hale persisted, "Why not one of your tanks?"

"Earth vehicles haven't been upgraded to ISA spec, I'm afraid," Phil sighed, "All the extra equipment we added means that there isn't a ground or air platform Earth fields that can use it. Well, a ship maybe. It weighs almost as much as Quasimodo's cannon, which means this 'Mech is the only platform we have that can carry it."

"Hey Phil," Zumross greeted cheerfully, planting a kiss on Phil's cheek.

No way. Hale thought. He had not just seen what he thought he saw. Who is this woman and what happened to the real Dana Zumross?

"Hello, Dana. How goes disassembly?"

"We're almost ready to remove the autocannon. I'll be going up in a few minutes to double-check that all the connections have been properly released. What're you up to?"

"I was explaining to these gentlemen about the new rail gun!"

"Cool." Zumross turned to the soldiers, "Has he told you guys about how much better this new gun is?"

"Better? It packs more a punch, but-" Hale was cut off.

"I know, it's more fragile and less redundant," Zumross smiled, "but I think the firepower and features more than make up for it."

"Features?" Hale dreaded the answer.

"It's got a variable rate of fire." Zumross explained, still grinning, "If you step down the rate of fire, the recoil compensators have less to compensate for. That translates to more accurate fire at longer distances. From what Phil's told me, it already has a range of several kilometers, so I can only imagine the distance you'll be able to hit with this thing."

"Kilometers? Seriously?" Hale was unconvinced.

"Yes." Phil patted the weapon, "The ISA's technological assistance has been invaluable. Commander, please thank Bashar Serov on my behalf."

"Can do." Simeonov gave Phil a half-hearted salute.

"We're also going to upgrade the lasers to the new pulse variants the ISA have demonstrated to us, along with upgrading the armor and installing a shield system, but until we get that manufactured this is what we have."

"Wait, who are these 'ISA' guys you keep going on about?" Hale asked.

Zumross rolled her eyes, "You don't know? You're led by one of them."

Hale looked at Simeonov who waved back at him.

"What?"

International Orbital Defense Headquarters

Low Earth Orbit

21 August 2005/860 AS

General David Mathews stood in the Command and Information Center refurbished International Space Station. It was surreal. A few months ago, commanding NORAD he had been the one tracking the DropShip that brought Earth careening into the realization that it was not alone, and the universe was angry. Now, he was on Earth's first dedicated orbital defense station with technology that would put those invaders to shame. The former ISS had been converted to its current state thanks to help from the ISA. It had artificial gravity, armor, weapons, even shields. They had moved all the scientific equipment out, replacing it with tactical datalinks and control surfaces for the orbital defense system being put into place. He was astounded at the turn-around.

Two months.

Two months and they had a fortress in orbit. Most of that work was done by a fleet of construction drones on loan from the ISA. They could build without sleep, without care. They kept building out the station: attaching more weapons, more armor. There were even plans to put in a hangar bay.

Science Fiction made real. Mathews thought to himself.

"We're not building fast enough." The woman next to him muttered to herself, "We need more drones…"

"Not fast enough?" Mathews asked, "This station is straight out of Star Trek, Captain."

Captain Kyra Toft, the ISA liaison, shook her head, "General, forgive me, but we know what a proper orbital station looks like. We were fortunate we could use the skeleton of the ISS for our purposes, but it's not nearly capable enough."

The General forgot sometimes that the ISA understood the gravity of the situation better than he did.

"We're short drones, and the fabricator on the Stilgar can't keep up with demand. We're lower on the order list than the weapons folks who need them to arm the ground forces."

"Captain, how many of these kinds of engagements have you done?" Mathews asked.

"Enough. I've seen the results of a thin defense, and we are paper thin. Logistics, as always, is a pain in the ass, sir."

"I know that far too well." Mathews looked at the holographic display in the center of the CIC. He saw the image of the Planetary Carrier Stilgar making its orbit. He was going to have to get used to a proper 3D display, "Captain, how effective will our nuclear platforms be in an initial engagement by your estimates?"

"We haven't used nukes in a long time, General. Certainly not in my lifetime. If the source books are to be believed, then we should be able to cripple a few DropShips if they manage to connect. Our weapons will probably be more effective, but we don't have enough of our own platforms to provide sufficient coverage."

"Is it possible to attempt boarding tactics?"

"Possible, sure. Our Marines are damn good at that, but we have to use our transports to ferry troops from hot point to hot point planet-side. I don't know if we can spare any of them for those kinds of maneuvers."

"So, we're making the assumption that they'll make it planet-side."

"Unfortunately. I don't like it any more than you do, but at least this time your people will have a lot more firepower on their side."

Main Camp, Band of the Damned

Black's Hole

Periphery Space

25 August 3020

The Band of the Damned was a band of pirates that had haunted the "eastern" edge of the Inner Sphere for centuries. Not being historically minded, the Band's origins were largely forgotten by its members. A few members who had some interest in glory and "historical legitimacy" claimed that the Band had been founded by members of Kerensky's Army. Other's thought the Band was even older than that, having tangled with and survived clashes with the SLDF during the Star League's heyday. A few skeptics and pessimists believed the current Band was only the latest unit out of many to bear the name, the others forgotten in the dust bin of history.

Whatever the case, the Band of the Damned traditionally made its home on a worthless planet whose only value was its proximity to the richer worlds of the Draconis Combine and the Outworld Alliance. Its name was constantly shifting but was almost always known as the Hole along with the name of whoever was currently leading the Band. Now, the planet was called Black's Hole.

"So, ye came from Port Krin, did ye?" Colonel Niles Black, current leader of the Band, said to the intruder that his men had captured. He was an obvious off-worlder with clothes in far too good a condition to be considered native to the Hole. The idiot had been found wandering around the wilderness near the Band's current camp. He was lucky that he wasn't just shot out of hand.

"Er, yes," the man said nervously, eyeing the pirates surrounding him. "I have a message from Controller Vorax for the leader of the Band of the Damned."

"Oh, do ye, now?" Black laughed evilly. "And what would that pompous dandy want with the likes of us?"

"Uh, Controller Vorax has heard of a planet out in the Deep Periphery that is both very, very rich and ripe for the taking," the man from Port Krin explained. "We've taken to calling it 'Motherlode'. But despite being so primitive as to lack BattleMechs, Motherlode does have a militia large enough to be troublesome to anyone that tries to take over. Controller Vorax would like you to help him take over Motherlode…"

"WHAT?" Black roared, outraged. "Does Vorax think we be mercenary lap dogs to be summoned at his whim? We be the Band of the Damned! We go where we please, when we please, and KILL who we please!"

"No, no, no! It's not like that at all!" Vorax's man said quickly. "Controller Vorax is proposing a partnership! The plan is that you and several other mech units will work together to conquer Motherlode. Once that's done, the planet is more than rich enough to be divided up between everyone!"

"Oh, really?" Black said, eyeing the man from Krin dangerously. "What if I don't want to share? What's to stop me from beating Motherlode's coordinates our yer sorry ass and getting there first?"

"I don't know Motherlode's coordinates!" the man said desperately. "Really, I don't! Controller Vorax is keeping it a secret and will only give it out when everyone assembles at Port Krin!"

Black thought about that. Unfortunately, that made far too much sense. Vorax was a canny bastard if a bit too smart for his own good. The question was, was this Motherlode really worth his and the Band's trouble?

"Hrm… well ye've got my attention," Black said grudgingly. "Tell us more of this Motherlode place, Mister…" His voice trailed off questioningly.

"Buckley," the man from Port Krin said, relaxing. "Joseph Buckley."

Buster's Busted Bar

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

25 August 3020/860 AS

Lieutenant Morgan sat in the corner of the empty restaurant, invisible to the eye and silent to the ear. He was glad for the stealth equipment his assignment entailed. He already knew the storm was coming, he just had to know how and when. He watched the only other two men in the place carefully, pointing a recording device in their direction.

"So, Colonel," Controller Vorax began, "how was your meal?"

"Quite good, actually, Mister Controller," Colonel Antoine Sanders replied. "Now to what do I owe the honor of such a scrumptious meal?"

"I am putting together a… how shall I put this… a coalition of independent mech units," Vorax began delicately.

"You mean pirates," Sanders said.

"Please, Colonel, I prefer the term 'independent operators'," Vorax chided. "But whatever we call them, there are many them and I need someone to ride herd on them and keep them focused on what they're doing and away from each other's throats. Unlike most everyone else, you have heavy and assault mechs to back up your authority."

"So, are you looking for a leader or a babysitter?" Sanders asked pointedly.

"Is there a difference?"

"No, I guess not," Sanders chuckled. "But I'm a mercenary, Mister Controller, not a pirate. I've been getting feelers from some Kurita outfit for a long term and well-paying job. What can you offer to outbid them?"

"Ah, that brings us to the objective of this little exercise," Vorax said. "Out in the Periphery, there is a wealthy and relatively undefended world…"

"Wealthy and undefended?" Sanders interrupted skeptically. "No offense, Mister Controller, but in my experience, those two words are an oxymoron, especially out here in the Periphery!"

"Ah, but that's because no one knew it was there until recently," Vorax told the mercenary. "It was only recently discovered by chance. The Jumpship captain was one of my people and Motherlode's coordinates are our secret." Vorax proceeded to describe the wealth of Motherlode to Sanders.

"Frankly, Mister Controller, that all sounds too fantastic to be real," Sanders said after Vorax had finished. "Wealthy and advanced enough to be worth taking but primitive enough to be a pushover? It's too good to be true."

"But…"

"However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Sanders continued. "If you can show me actual proof that this place actually exists – the sensor records from Jumpship and Dropship should be good enough – then you've got yourself a force commander and the Dark Wing mercenary battalion."

Bridge, ISV Stilgar

High Earth Orbit

Sol System, Earth Space

27 August 860 AS

"Bashar, we have a new report."

Serov nodded to the Lieutenant. He sat back in his command chair and brought up his AR display.

Threat imminent. Forces gathering on Antallos. Prepare for war.

Three simple sentences. Accompanying intelligence information about current combat composition and recordings of the parties involved.

Shit. Serov thought to himself, The people planet-side aren't ready. They don't have the manufacturing capacity for what they need. We need more.

"Hail Merlow, route it to my ready room."

"Sir."

Serov quickly made his way to his ready room. He sat behind his desk just as the holographic image of his friend appeared before him.

"Tom," Merlow greeted, "What seems to be the problem?"

"We need fabs, and we need them yesterday." Serov replied simply.

"We can't. We don't have the manpower to spare."

"You got the report, right?"

"I haven't looked at the latest intelligence brief. I've been busy."

"Well, it looks like Antallos is heating up. Some guy named Vorax is gathering a raiding party, and they want to come knocking."

"Let me take a look." Merlow paused, his eyes spaced out for a moment, "Gods, they are getting rambunctious."

"My point exactly. Let me pull a couple more of the Planetary Carriers out of mothballs and let's jumpstart this construction thing."

"We don't have the people for it. If we defrost a full crew for a Carrier, we have to defrost their family. Forty-thousand turns into one-hundred-twenty-thousand at least. We don't have the capacity to take care of them all yet. We hardly have the capacity to take care of the people we do have."

Serov grumbled, "Rob, I have a barely functional orbital defense network. I have my fabricators working around the clock to pump out all the gear I can, and from what the logistics people tell me the planet-side people will be at fifty percent fighting readiness in six months from now. We don't have six months."

"Glad to see your overconfidence melted away."

"Very fuckin' funny." Serov shook his head, "If it were just the Stilgar fighting these assholes with no civvies to take care of I wouldn't be worried, but they're going to land. They're going to land and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop that."

"You think I don't know that? A paper-thin defense is still a defense."

Serov sighed, "I know, I know. At least some of Earth's troops are being brought up to spec."

"If we can save even one life, we've done our duty."

"I'd like to lose none."

"If only war let us."

National Training Center

Fort Irwin, California

1 September 2005/3020/860 AS

Simeonov walked down the firing line, inspecting every soldier who was practicing with their new rifles.

"Controlled fire! Keep your breathing steady!" he commanded, "Hale, come on! Get it off auto! Single shots!"

Hale was still getting used to these infantry drills. In a 'Mech, he was deadly. Out of one, he couldn't hit a warehouse if it were a meter away.

Simeonov stood next to him, inspecting his form, "Hale, give me your rifle."

Hale handed it over. Simeonov flicked the fire control group and put three rounds in the center of the target five-hundred meters away.

"Goddamn." Hale stared, his mouth agape, "How the hell do you do that?"

"Training. Lots of it. You had the weapon on automatic. The kick from this thing feels like you're firing one of the .308 rifles they have on base. You fire this in full auto, you're not gonna hit a damn thing."

"I'm a MechWarrior, Commander. I'm not an infantryman."

"That kind of thinking gets you killed. You eject from your 'Mech, what do you become? A badly armed infantryman. If you can hit something, maybe you get out alive. If you can't, you're dead."

An explosion was heard in the distance. Hale saw his old 'Mech standing on the armored firing range, testing out its new weapons.

"If I'm in that, Commander, I don't think anyone on the other side could get me to eject."

A Mad Cat, the iconic mech of General Kerensky's children, popped up into view. Reacting instantly, the Hunchback fired a burst from its single rotary rail gun and its arm mounted pulse lasers. For the first second, the fire all struck the Mad Cat dead center, coring it. Then the nigh endless stream of fire abruptly stopped. The Mad Cat fell to pieces and shredded the falling pieces into even more pieces.

"We're over the red line!" Dana Zumross exclaimed, "These new weapons are great, but they're useless if they can't fire!"

"The new heatsinks are coming soon, but this is still useful." Doctor Phil Cray replied, "This lets us know how BT tech and the ISA spec weapons integrate."

"It can't rely completely on the rotary rail gun. If it runs out of ammo, it still needs to be able to fight without shutting down!"

"Problem, Miss Zumross?" asked the visiting Colonel from Russia in nearly flawless English. His presence was part of the ongoing integration of the first world militaries. He had the unfortunate luck to be named Ivan Kerensky, for which he had received an endless amount of ribbing from his comrades since the Battle of New Zealand. "It looks to me like the target is well and truly destroyed."

"Sure, it killed it with the rail gun, but when we tried an alpha strike the 'Mech shut down." Zumross checked her instrumentation, "Even with a short burst from the pulse laser, the heat climb is unacceptable."

"When the new heatsinks come in, that won't be a problem." Cray said soothingly, "Besides, now we know the weapons work flawlessly."

"What about the new shielding that's coming? That's going to add ambient heat into the system. If we don't solve this now, we'll have…"

As the two debated technical details in a manner that disturbingly suggested romantic foreplay, Colonel Kerensky shook his head at their antics and turned back to observe the testing. Quasimodo was busy blasting away at more faux Clan mechs, and Kerensky wondered if he should feel flattered or insulted.

Buster's Busted Bar

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

1 September 3020

"So, to what do I owe the beer, Colonel?" Lieutenant Koltan asked.

"Why whatever do you mean, Lieutenant Koltan?" Colonel Sanders replied innocently. "Can't a CO buy a drink for his newest officer?"

"Sir, I'm a damned Poor Bloody Infantryman commanding a small horde of PBIs," Koltan replied. "We're the lowest of the low, the peons that have to bow and scrape for our betters, the MechWarrior. So, when said MechWarrior – a battalion commander that owns his own Mech battalion no less – acts like he's trying to butter up a mere PBI Lieutenant, said Lieutenant has a right to get a might paranoid. Especially since we joined up a week ago and weren't paid any special attention at all."

"Well, I never thought I'd actually meet an honest pirate," Sanders said with a chuckle. "I like that. So, I'll do you a favor, Lieutenant, and be honest in return. Do you know why I attached the Drakon and its complement directly to my Dark Wing?"

"I imagine it's not for the Drakon's hefty repair bill," Koltan said dryly. "Internal explosions are a bitch to repair," he swirled his beer mug thoughtfully. "and it certainly can't be for the sterling competence and bravery of its Captain."

"It could have been," Sanders said. He grimaced. "Then I actually got to know the man. His sole redeeming feature looks to be a miraculous ability to find competent people to make up for his own incompetence."

"Hmm, never noticed that about Mamoto before." Koltan mused. "That alone can't be the reason you want to talk to me. A competent PBI is still just a PBI, and sir, I don't think I'm your type. You're certainly not mine, no offense."

"None taken," Sanders said, rolling his eyes.

"So, what you must be looking for is information," Koltan concluded. "Specifically, you must be looking for information on our target, accurate info at that. Certainly not the bullshit Mamoto spews out."

"Right on target, Lieutenant," Sanders said, pleased. "Have you ever thought of becoming a MechWarrior? A man of your obvious ability is just wasted in the infantry."

"Would that I could, sir," Koltan sighed. "but I got this rare condition – genetic the doctors tell me – that won't let me pilot a Mech. My brains wired in such a way as to be completely incompatible with neurohelmets."

"Pity."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Oval Office

White House

Washington DC, United States of America

1 September 2005/860 AS

"How confident are you in this information?" President Ryan asked, pointing at the document before him.

"Far too confident, Ryan." Serov answered, sitting down across from Ryan.

"Call me Jack, please."

"Jack," Secretary of Defense Tony Brentano interjected, "We're not even close to ready enough."

"Oh, I know we're not ready." Serov scoffed, "Your nuclear defense network is months from being one-hundred percent ready, and our own weapons platforms are spread very thin."

Ryan pondered this a moment, "How fast can we respond once they land?"

"We can be anywhere in the world in minutes, Jack." Serov answered, "The problem is we can't be everywhere."

"Air power is going to be key here." Brentano noted, "We can begin strikes against their forces when they land."

"You really think they're gonna come back and not have air cover?" Serov asked, "Aerospace is our domain, and our dominance of the atmosphere has won us more battles than I care to count. We have to assume they're going to be smart and bring some fighters."

"From what the source books say, I don't say I like the chances our fighters have." Brentano said, "A squadron of our fighters would have a hell of a time tangling with BT aerospace fighters."

"We're outfitting your fighters with our weapons, but the process is much slower than I'd like. The fabs on the Stilgar only have so much output and creating an entire planet's worth of gear is taking way too long."

"How are our own manufacturing efforts going?" Ryan asked.

"Same problem." Brentano admitted, "Retooling takes time, and we won't have tangible manufacturing capabilities for months."

"Our allies, what of them?"

"The Chinese have been the most successful, followed by the Russians. The Chinese arms industry has been looking for good gear to manufacture, and their emerging tech industry has taken to manufacturing Vis with aplomb. Still, their retooling efforts are going about as well as ours."

Ryan stroked his chin, "Have we considered capturing a DropShip?"

"Of course. We have plans in place to capture a DropShip. The problem will be getting close enough, but if we do manage to capture some, that might turn the tide in our favor…"

"Have your SOCOM guys speak with me." Serov leaned back in the chair, "If we can, we may be able to minimize the damage they could do. Hell, I wanna see what one of these things looks like on the inside…"

Bridge, JumpShip Kip Branhagan

Antallos Jump Point

Antallos, Periphery Space

11 September 3020

"Oh, this is bad. This is very, very bad."

Agent of House Davion's Ministry of Information, Intelligence, and Operations Tasha looked at the sensors as another pair of EM spikes signaled another pair of JumpShips arriving at the already crowded jump point.

Antallos was the premier trade post of this part of the Periphery, but this system hadn't seen traffic like this in centuries. Controller Vorax was spending a hell of a lot of money to put every JumpShip that arrived in system on retainer.

Tasha had no idea what Vorax's goal was, but it looked like he was putting together an invasion force. So far he had assembled two 'Mech battalions and the required DropShip and JumpShip capacity to transport them. If he invaded any House world, Davion or Kurita, even the Outworld Alliance, then the offended party would just move in and squash Port Kirin flat. The only safe alternative would be some backwater Periphery world, but what out here could possibly be worth sending a 'Mech company, much less two battalions?

On the other hand, that still didn't rule out that Vorax had gone off the deep end with delusions of grandeur, hell bent on challenging a Successor State. If Vorax intended to attack Davion space, then it was the duty of Tasha and the Kip Branhagan's crew to warn their superiors about it. If Vorax intended to invade Kurita space, then Tasha's superiors would want to know that too for entirely different reasons. They were undercover MIIO agents after all, and part of maintaining their cover included accepting a retainer that no sane JumpShip captain would ignore. That gave them an inside track on whatever Vorax was up to.

The EM spikes vanished, revealing a pair of Invader-class JumpShips.

"Okay, people," Tasha announced to the crew, "what do we have on the new guys?"

"Positive ID, Captain." The sensors officer examined the data diligently, "IDs match with what we have for the Band of the Damned. DropShips include three Leopards, a Union, a Mule, and… wait. Holy shit, an Overlord!?"

Vorax's Palace

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

15 September 2005

"Ere, now, Vorax, you mangy cur!" Black growled in outrage from the holo image being transmitted from his flagship's bridge. "What are ye playin' at?"

"Why, Colonel Black, whatever do you mean?" Controller Vorax asked innocently.

"Ye've got assault mechs waitin' to ambush me at yer spaceport!" Black shouted. "Ye didn't even respect me enough to hide them!"

"Oh, you have it all wrong, Colonel Black," Vorax smoothly assured the pirate. "The Dark Wing's assault lances are simply there to police all new arrivals and make sure they don't… get out of hand. They are there as much for my security as yours. Pirates can be such an unruly lot… not that I'm impugning your character in anyway."

"I don't trust ye, Vorax," Black said suspiciously. "What will ye do if I decide that this is a trap and decide to not go along with whatever ye have in mind, eh? What will you do then?"

"Why, absolutely nothing, Colonel Black," Vorax said. "If you don't want to take part in conquering the richest world you're ever likely to see with all the treasure that implies, then you're free to turn around and go home to your empty ball of rock with nothing to show for your trouble but a lot of wasted time, fuel, and food."

Black grunted like someone had just punched him.

"On the other hand, if you and your crew wish to be rich beyond your wildest dreams," Vorax went on. "Then please land, enjoy the hospitality of Port Krin – by paying for our services of course – and be sure to attend the Split Axe tomorrow at breakfast. You're the last one to arrive, so we'll be holding a briefing for all the unit commanders on Motherlode."

"Grr… okay, I'll play yer game for now, Vorax," Black snarled, "but this better be all you say or else." With that, the pirate commander, cut the connection.

"Pleasant man, this Black," Colonel Sanders said from off to the side where the holo-pickups wouldn't see him.

"Hmm, I considered not calling on him at all," Vorax admitted. "But the Band is the largest mech force on this side of the Inner Sphere… second to only your own of course."

"Of course," Sanders said sardonically, nodding. "By the way, did you know that the Band had an Overlord class Dropship before you called them?"

"Actually, no," Vorax replied. "Will this be a problem for you?"

"Not really," Sanders said with a shrug. "The more firepower, the better, I always say. And the more I look at Drakon's data on Motherlode, the more I think that I'm going to need all the firepower I can get."

"Surely, they can't stand up to a regiment's worth of Mechs!" Vorax exclaimed.

"Probably not," Sanders replied. "Ah, I'm just being overly paranoid in case the Motherloders surprise us with something."

The Split Axe

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

16 September 2005/860 AS

In the largest private room the Split Axe had, the commanders of Vorax's improvised regiment had assembled. The group was evenly divided into three obvious social groupings, each representing a battalion in the regiment. One was the officers of the Dark Wing, notable for the fact that they all had more or less identical uniforms and were relatively clean. The second was notable by their eclectic nature, a horde of varied uniforms and civilian dress comprised of every pirate, mercenary, or Antallos City State regular that Vorax had been able to hire, borrow, or sometimes just outright steal. And the third group was even scruffier and meaner looking than the second; the other two battalions were trying to keep as much distance between them and the Band of the Damned as much as the seating permitted.

Lieutenant Morgan kept to himself in the second battalion. This meeting represented all the strength gathered by the Controller for the invasion of Earth. He managed to get himself 'hired on' by one of the myriad groups looking to get rich on this expedition. Forces on this level could cause untold levels of carnage. Putting himself on the inside would give the ISA and Earth more than a fighting chance against these rats. He turned his attention to the front of the room.

A pretty woman in a ship's jumpsuit walked up the podium at the head of the room.

"Hello, everyone, I'm Jane Dietrich. Just so you know, I was on the Dropship that went down to Motherlode, so I have first-hand experience of the planet in question. Not only that, I've been studying everything I could about this planet almost since we left it, which makes me the closest thing you're going to find to an expert here. So, I'm about to tell you things about Motherlode that you might find unbelievable, but if you want to survive and get rich, then pay careful attention to everything I'm about to tell you. Got it? Okay now, this is Motherlode."

A holo image sprang into existence in front of the assembled pirates. A beautiful blue and green orb hung before them. It faded into a black sphere stippled with white lights then faded back to the blue and green. After a few seconds, it became obvious the image was cycling back and forth between both patterns.

"These are the composite day time and night time views of Motherlode. All the white lights you see in the night time view are cities."

Murmuring started up among the pirates tinged with surprise.

"Yeah, that's a lot of people. We're looking at a population count generally not seen outside the really good worlds of the Inner Sphere; we're estimating something like maybe two or three billion. On the plus side, all indications are that this is one of those really good worlds whose environmental conditions are just ideal for humanity. Just the industrial might required to build and support all those cities means there's literally more loot than we can possibly carry away once we've beaten off the militia."

More murmuring from the crowd, this time tinged with avarice.

"Now this brings us to the bad news. The Drakon picked the most isolated, most vulnerable looking target to raid, and we still lost all four 'Mechs, a valuable 'Mech recovery vehicle, and damn near half our infantry complement to the locals. They seemed less interested in recovering what little loot we had taken – and yes, it WAS little, of what was there – than in trying to kill us. Now there's a possibility that we landed right in the middle of their headquarters for planetary defense or something, but maybe not. For all we know, every city down there is this well defended."

The Holo image switched to a Hermes II being nailed by unusually large missiles and exploding.

"One 'Mech was taken down by fighters, although admittedly it was by being shot in the back and suffered an internal ammo explosion."

Several faces winced. 'Mechs were damn near the most valuable things that most of them had, and ammo explosions tended to leave precious little behind in the way of salvage.

"How the other 'Mechs got taken out had to be reconstructed from our recorded radio chatter and watching some of the locals' news broadcasts. One 'Mech got buried alive, intentionally we think. One got taken out by infantry. The last was apparently taken intact, although we have no idea how that happened."

The holo changed again, this time displaying a 2D image of soldiers partying on and around a shutdown but reasonably intact Hunchback.

"The Drakon got into a duel with a naval warship. Unfortunately, we couldn't get any footage of it. What we do know is that it has some kind of autocannon. Not very powerful, but they got some lucky hits in that did near critical damage. It also had missiles, like those used to destroy one of our 'Mechs."

More murmuring, some of it tinged with skepticism, some with fear.

"Now, it's not all doom and gloom. While the local militia might a little tough, but they've got one glaring weakness that's going to let us stomp all over them."

The image changed to that of a 'Mech.

"As near as we can tell, armor is a totally alien concept to these people. The best strategy when dealing with Motherlode's militia that I can recommend is to evade or shrug off their attacks as best you can until you can shoot them with something. Anything will do, even a puissant little machine gun. Best of all, they have no BattleMechs at all. Their news reports after the raid made that pretty clear; they thought 'Mechs were fictional up until then."

A few people laughed at that.

"And that concludes my report. I'll be available after the meeting to provide copies of the data to whoever wants one. Colonel Sanders of the Dark Wing will be providing the operational details. Colonel?"

"Thank you, Jane. Okay, you shitholes, listen up because we're getting one thing straight right now. I'm in charge."

Angry, indignant shouts rose up to meet Sanders.

"QUIET!"

Silence fell, but not without a few grumblings.

"I'm in charge because Vorax wanted a professional to ride heard on you lot. Now, if your independence is more important to you than all the loot the lovely Jane Dietrich just described – loot that includes lostech I might remind you – then you can leave right now and I won't stop you. But if you leave, you are NOT coming with us. Now who's leaving?"

There was a lot of looking at each other, but no one got out of their seats.

"Okay, then. That said, I'm under no delusions that I can actually control you lot once we reach Motherlode. So, my strategy is simple. Each unit picks one or more area that they'd like to have and attack it. Each of you will carve your own fief out of whatever you pick. If you pick an area that ain't as rich as you like, then tough. You could try picking up and hitting someplace else so long as it isn't already claimed by another one of us. If you're big enough losers that you actually need to call for help from someone else, then you better hope whoever comes to your rescue doesn't charge too hefty a fee for the service."

Sanders gave a shark toothed grin.

"And if ANY of you violates these rules, especially the one about not attacking each other, then I have a couple of assault lances who will so kick your asses. Don't make it necessary."

There were a few frantic nods, although Colonel Black just stared at Sanders with narrowed eyed suspicion.

"Okay, the second most important thing, and the one that's actually easier to enforce, is that we all arrive in the Motherlode system together. How we do that is simple. Only one JumpShip – mine incidentally – will have the actual destination coordinates. The coordinates for each system will only be handed out right before each jump, accounting for the time each of you will need to do the jump calculations. There will be no hot loading of KF drives to get ahead of the competition here people."

A star system map appeared on the holoprojector.

"Our ultimate destination as a group will be Motherlode's zenith point. After that, I expect that you'll all try and get ahead of each other and claim all the best spots before the others get there. So, you have three options."

The holo zoomed in on the third planet. It had a single moon orbiting it. A point flashed between the two bodies.

"This is the closest pirate point to Motherlode. Although this is the point used by the White Elephant and the Drakon, I don't recommend it. First, because it's also the hardest point to hit. Second, because it's also the smallest point, too small for all our JumpShips to jump into. If more than one of you goes there at a time, there's a damned good chance that you'll wind up with interpenetrating hyperspace fields and kill each other."

Several members of the audience winced at that. The holo zoomed out, this time holding the planet and its star in view. A point between them flashed.

"This is option two. This pirate point is big enough to hold our fleet. It's the one I recommend because, well, it's the one I intend to use."

He grinned again at the crowd, as if sharing a joke. A few of them actually laughed.

"Finally, if your navigator isn't good enough to handle jump point calculations, then Motherload is only a nine-day trip at one gee from the Zenith point. Of course, by that time, most of us will have been there for nearly a week, so any Johnny-come-latelies will just have to pick whatever's left unclaimed. Any questions?"

Antallos HPG Facility

Port Kirin

Antallos, Periphery Space

21 September 3020

"Precentor, Vorax's fleet has just jumped out. We received a couple coded transmissions from them before they did."

"Ah?"

"One is addressed to the MIIO. The other is to ISF. They're contents are heavily encrypted."

"Of course they are Short, but it hardly takes a genius to figure out what the contents are."

"The first set of coordinates to Motherlode?"

"Assuming it really exists. Well, give them here. I'll make sure these get to their proper recipients."

"Davion, Kurita, and our message archives on Terra? I must admit Precentor that it disturbs me that we read our clients' mail."

"Oh, don't be silly, Short; such notions are got you exiled to the back end of beyond here with me in the first place. We do not read out clients' mail. We just store copies in case the first effort to send them somehow gets lost."

"Oh, of course, Precentor. How silly of me."

"Don't you take that sarcastic tone with me, you young whippersnapper!"

JumpShip Roach Motel

Waypoint One

Unknown System, Periphery Space

22 September 3020/860 AS

Lieutenant Morgan floated through the docking collar, his ears searching for the source of music. He tried to continue his intelligence-gathering efforts around the ship, but most of the other folks on his DropShip were unable or unwilling to discuss anything of real significance. After a couple days of dead ends, he decided he needed to find the best spot to loosen some tongues. That meant a bar, and fortunately his assigned vessel was attached to JumpShip with a bar. Anywhere with food and drink always got folks to loosen their tongues, and he felt quite fortunate that whoever ran this bucket felt a bar was a worthwhile investment.

Carl Jixton motioned to the bartender to turn down the music a tad. He was a pirate in the finest traditions of the craft, stretching all the way back to ancient Terra. Jixton spent his days drinking, womanizing, looting, and plundering. If a man could say to be born into a role, Jixton's birthplace was a pirate 'Mech mere seconds away from dropping down on some hapless mark. The pirate way was in his blood, imprinted on his very soul.

Like everyone else, he was skeptical of Motherlode. A successful pirate knew when a tale was too good to be true. His instincts screamed at him that Motherlode wouldn't be an easy mark. Nobody left billions of people's worth of industry to support them unattended. His instincts were loud, but his greed was louder.

Morgan entered the bar, readjusting for the direction of gravity. Gods, they don't even have artGrav. Rotating ring? Really? Morgan found an empty spot near Jixton's seat.

"Vodka soda," he told the bartender, "lime if you've got it."

Jixton appraised the newly arrived Morgan. He noted a couple of peculiarities: a fancy-looking pistol, a utility belt, and a general understated dangerous aura. He had a feeling he wanted to get on this guy's good side.

"Hello, friend!" Jixton greeted Morgan as moved seats next to the man, "You mind if I sit here?"

Morgan was taken somewhat aback, but there weren't that many people here right now, "I suppose so."

Jixton clapped him on the shoulder, "Thanks, pal. Always good to have a drinking buddy, you know?"

Morgan cocked his head to the man, "I suppose so."

"What company are you attached to?" Jixton asked, taking a swig from his glass of just rum.

"Got hired on by one of the local companies. They needed someone to pilot one of their 'Mechs, and it's owner was otherwise indisposed." Morgan smirked. His careful 'food poisoning' netted fantastic results. A Shadow Hawk would be a fantastic 'Mech to study for the ISA, and he was sure the previous owner wouldn't miss it.

"Ooh, think you'll keep it?"

"Depends on this job."

"Heh, can they really stop you once we're planet-side?"

"I guess not."

"Always gotta look out for number one, that's what I always say."

"Now I have to ask you, who are you with?"

"Black scooped me up into the Band of the Damned. On that Leopard Dizzy Kitten." Jixton leaned uncomfortably close to Morgan, "That man is fuckin' off, you know? Goddamn crazy-man."

Morgan's interest was piqued, "Yeah?"

"Fucker's got a taste for blood." Jixton whispered, "Last I hears he drank the blood of the last poor fucker that crossed him. Keeps that shit on ice."

Unstable. Good to know. Have to note that for command. Morgan took a sip of his drink, "How many 'Mechs does he have at his command? I've heard a lot about the Band and have to admit it's all pretty nasty."

"Don't got a number, but I've seen enough to say he probably commands the most 'Mechs this side of the Sphere. Glad I signed up."

"Sounds impressive."

"Oh, hell yeah it is! I'm ready to smash fuckin' skulls!" Jixton pounded the rest of his drink. He turned around and scanned the rest of the bar. The flotilla was a long distance from Motherlode and he was tired of twiddling his thumbs. He wanted some action, someone to warm his bed. His eyes locked on.

Jackpot. The bar two of the things he loved most in life: women and booze. Two women in this case. One, a lush-looking well-endowed brunette in a maroon MechWarrior's jumpsuit. The other a smaller waifish blonde wearing a slightly greasy technician's overalls. They were laughing at a table without a care in the universe.

He slapped Morgan on the back, "How lucky you feelin' pal?"

Morgan winced, more than a little annoyed, "However do you mean?"

"C'mon, let's get us some ass." Jixton motioned for another glass of rum. As soon as it was in front of him its contents disappeared into the pirate's gullet. He shook his head, put on his best 'powerful, fuckable MechWarrior' smile, grabbed Morgan by the arm and began to advance.

Morgan struggled to hang on to his drink as the larger man drug him out of his chair. He barely managed to stay on his feet, recovering from the sudden jerk as gracefully as he could. Holding his drink close, he walked behind the burly MechWarrior to the ladies' table. As they moved forward, they caught a bit of their conversation.

"…so, he said 'Did you get your 'Mech from a scrapyard?'" The brunette set her drink down, "Now, let me tell you something, Dani. I'm not gonna let anyone, much less an inbred Liao noble-fuck insult my mech. So, I charged the PPC and fired it straight at the fucker's face! No ejection, no muss, no fuss."

"Nat, if you had a Stinger like the rest of the lance you'd've been fucked with a capital F." the blonde replied, taking a sip of her drink, "That Battlemaster is a crutch, and I'm worried that PPC's gonna start going sooner or later."

Jixton took his opening, "Ah! It's good to meet fellow PPC enthusiast! My name is Carl Jixton: scourge of the successor states, MechWarrior extraordinaire, a lover of beautiful women across the Sphere! This is…"

"Name's Morgan." Morgan tipped his drink towards them, "Nice to meet you."

"Please," Jixton bowed, voice full of mock-nobility, "allow me to buy both of you delectable goddesses some drinks!"

The ladies glanced at the pair and laughed. They motioned to the two empty seats beside them.

"Of course!" The brunette said, "Please, have a seat."

Jixton and Morgan took their invitation. Jixton motioned to the bartender for a round for the table.

"So, I take it you know one another?" Jixton asked.

"Yeah. I'm Natalie, and this is my best tech, Dani. We're from the Jolly Roger. You know, the Leopard docked closest to this bucket's ass?"

Jixton had no idea.

"Of course." Morgan replied. He knew the names of each DropShip attached and wanted to take the opportunity for more information, "What company are you with?"

"We're freelancers in every sense of the word." Natalie took a sip of her drink, "My lance and I do a little raiding here, merc-work for Periphery dung-worlds there. If Motherlode's as rich as they say, my little company will be set for life. If it's half as rich as they say, we're still set for life."

Morgan took a mental note. He might be able to turn them with the right incentive.

Jixton was intrigued. He'd never bedded another MechWarrior before. That'd be a notch on my belt. He thought to himself, It'd be up there with that noble's daughter I had on Kentares…

"So, you command a whole lance." Jixton noted. "Wow, I'm impressed. And if I overheard you earlier you said you have a Battlemaster? Don't take this the wrong way, but how did you get an assault 'Mech? Usually you have to be pretty damn rich outside a House military."

Natalie flashed a coy smile. She raised both eyebrows and her drink.

"C'mon, Nat!" Dani urged, "Tell them! It's a cute story."

"Okay, okay." Natalie scooted forward, "It's like this."

Jixton leaned forward, ready to listen. Pirates always listened to stories. Smart pirates paid attention. It was one of the few things both he and Morgan seemed to share.

"You two ever hear of Ivan the Unstoppable?" Natalie began.

"Never heard of him." Morgan replied.

"He was… Unstoppable?" Jixton added.

Dani giggled. Natalie snorted. "Not so much, no. He was this badass MechWarrior. A real nasty pirate lord. Had a whole company and everything. Now, I didn't like him much. Let's just say he had cruel tastes towards women, yeah?"

"More importantly, though, he had this Battlemaster. Beautiful, beautiful machine. Star-League vintage, and lovingly maintained." Dani added. "Pimped out with all sorts of bling. Freezers - you know, double heat sinks - and all the lostech goodies you'd expect. He found it in a cache somewhere."

Morgan took another mental note. Another piece of tech for the boffins to look at.

"How did you end up with it then?" Jixton asked.

"See, on the battlefield, Ivan was unstoppable. A lostech assault mech? He was practically a god in the Periphery. But outside that mech, he was just any other man."

"Ah! Gotcha." Jixton thought he figured it out, "So you waited until he dismounted to stretch out his legs. I'm impressed, Natalie."

"Not exactly." Dani giggled.

"He had a weakness for women." Natalie continued, "He burnt through slave girls like a largelas through paper. So, I dressed up as a slave and used my feminine wiles to get him to buy me. Then, snip snip stab, and I'm making off with a mint condition Battlemaster. Sto-err, borrowed it right from under his men's noses. Permanently borrowed, if you get me."

Jixton felt a terrible tingle in his groin as she described, in loving detail, what exactly 'snip snip stab' meant. "Did you at least give him his money's worth?"

Natalie smiled. "Of course. I'm not totally heartless, and it's not like he was an unappealing specimen on the physical front. But hey, my callsign isn't Black Widow for nothing, y'know? I have to keep up my reputation."

"To be honest, I'd been planning on asking you to my cabin for a night of sin and debauchery, but I've suddenly reconsidered," Jixton gulped. "Still, the drinks are on me. Consider it payment for the story." He glanced at the door, "Now, if you'll excuse me. I have to… re-arm my 'Mech. Yeah."

Jixton beat a hasty retreat to the exit, peering worriedly behind him.

"Looks like your friend abandoned you." Dani laughed.

Morgan waved dismissively at Jixton's retreating figure, "Friend? Hardly. I'm glad you were able to drive him off."

"Aww, Nat, why'd you have to scare that one away? I was up for, what was it? 'A night of sin and debauchery?'"

"What about you?" Natalie cocked an eyebrow suggestively, "Would you be down?"

Morgan stroked his chin, "Well, I certainly wouldn't be opposed…"

"Care to join us on our DropShip?" Dani leaned forward, petting his hand.

Never said I couldn't enjoy my deployment.

"Sure. Shall we?"

DropShip Shadow Wing

Waypoint One

Unknown System, Periphery Space

28 September 3020/860 AS

"Thirty minutes to jump," the PA announced.

One week, Sanders thought to himself as he rested – slumping in your chair just wasn't possible in microgravity - in his office on board the Dropship Shadow Wing. For one week the fleet had sat idle in this uninhabited star system, recharging their KF drives. For one week he had acted the leader, enforcing his authority upon his subordinates. For one week, he had been dealing with his subordinates, the overgrown babies that were otherwise known as mercenaries and rogues and pirates.

Being in transit while on campaign should have been quiet time, at least far as CO duties were concerned. MechWarriors and aerospace pilots should have been training in sims, keeping their skills sharp. Techs should have been double-checking mechs and vehicles, making sure everything was operational. That anyway was what Sanders' own Dark Wing was doing. They were professionals.

Everyone else, not so much.

The other two "battalions" were an unruly lot, and the boredom of interstellar travel wore away at them. With no planets with innocent populations to raid, they had instead turned on each other. Some fights had gotten bad enough that Sanders had to intervene personally. Finally, he had resorted to simply abandoning any offending unit, leaving them behind here with no new coordinates to jump to or in extreme cases, just no JumpShip.

Yeah, that had gone over well. At least now the fighting was limited to words. Mostly.

The intercom beeped. Sanders automatically punched a button on his desk.

"What?" he snarled into the intercom.

"Signal from the Black Eye, Colonel," came the crisp reply. "Colonel Black wants to have a word with you."

"Oh, God, what does that idiot want now?" Sanders groaned. "Wait, never mind. Just patch him through."

The ugly countenance of the Band of the Damned's leader appeared above Sanders' desk. Idly, Sanders wondered if the devil looked like Black. He decided not; the devil would at least have the sense to make himself look threatening.

"Sanders, ye bloody cur!" Black began. "What the meaning of this. This next system can't be where the Motherlode be!"

"No, it's not, Black," Sanders said, affecting a bored tone. Well, not that affected. "What's your point?"

"Me point?" Black said angrily. "Where's Motherlode. Ye be leading us off into the back end of beyond to die of hunger and thirst!"

"Hardly," Sanders snorted contemptuously. "If your water recyclers are in decent condition, thirst won't be an issue… although taste might. And if you read the briefing material passed out, you would have known to stock up on food stuffs and hydroponics equipment before we set out."

"What?" Black said, outraged. "PAY for food? At Port Krin's outrageous prices?"

"There's a reason I told you that everyone needed a four months' supply of food," Sanders said coldly. "It was so that we could get to Motherload without starving on the way and still have something to eat in case something went wrong. And we still have a long way to go."

"I will nae starve!" Black shouted. "I demand we stop at the next habitable planet and forage!"

"Sure, request granted," Sanders said condescendingly. He rubbed his forehead, miming deep thought. "If I recall correctly, the next habitable planet is… Motherlode."

"What? Yer joking!"

"Sorry, Black, but no," Sanders replied. "There are no life bearing worlds at any of the systems that we're stopping at. If you want food, you're going to have to either rely on the charity of someone smarter than you – good luck with THAT by the way – or you're going to have to buy it from the same."

"Never!"

"Well, sorry to hear about that, Black," Sanders replied with mock sorrow. "We'll miss you as we step over your food starved corpses to help ourselves to all your gear. Sanders out."

Black's holo image vanished. Sanders relaxed and smiled. He felt much better now.

Oval Office

White House

Washington DC, United States of America

28 September 2005/860 AS

"Four months?" President Ryan asked the holographic image of Serov.

"That's what we have." Serov replied, "More time than I anticipated, which is nice. My man on the inside says we may also have some pleasant surprises. He may have managed to turn a company."

"Oh?" Ryan tapped on his desk, "Is that solid?"

"Well, as solid as it can be. We haven't written up a contract yet, but we have hard currency in the Inner Sphere, so we can pay them as needed."

"It's nice to have good news for once." Ryan motioned for Tony Brentano to approach, "Tony, how're we looking?"

"Jack," Brentano began, "we have repaired the recovered Stinger and Commando from New Zealand. The Stinger now has two of the ISA-spec pulse lasers and a machine gun. The Commando is also appropriately upgraded with a pulse laser and guidance upgrades to the missile launchers."

"The R&D folks had fun with those." Serov noted, "Whoever is piloting those are gonna like the new toys, the new armor, and the shields. They don't have shields here, which blows my mind."

"BT universe, Bashar." Ryan reminded Serov, "According to all the material, the closest they'll have is the Blue Shield Particle Field Damper. That isn't even close to being developed, and it has a lot of reliability issues."

"Well, that's reassuring." Serov shifted topics, "Have you read our proposal yet?"

"Which proposal?"

Brentano pointed to a piece of paper on Ryan's desk, "This one, Jack."

"Ah." Ryan began to read the title aloud, "Tactical Naval Cross Training… You want some folks to train aboard your vessel?"

"Oh yes." Serov nodded, "You see, we have more ships in mothballs and it would be nice to have our newest members of the ISA crew one."

"Would it be another capitol ship?"

"Yes. Command of the vessel would still be handled by my people, but we'd like to have some new blood. I'd also like more fabrication capacity, and this would fast-track that shit double quick."

"I see." Ryan looked over the list of nations to be selected from, "Priority goes to the first treaty signatories, then defers to members of the UN Security Council…"

"That is correct." Serov pressed a button, popping up a holographic screen, "The ship needs a crew of two-thousand and forty-thousand troops to be fully operational, not including pilots. I've already sent the request to the countries involved."

"Alright. Tony, get me a list of people who we should tap for this. Maybe we can have another ship ready and waiting for these bastards."

Serov stroked his chin knowingly, "Four months is tight, but we just might be able to do it."

JumpShip Kip Branhagan

Waypoint Seven

Unknown System, Grantville Cluster

2 November 3020

"Jump completed," the Kip Branhagan's navigator announced on the ship-wide broadcast. As he switched off the PA system, he frowned at his display. "That can't be right."

"Problem?" Tasha asked. The MIIO agent hung out on the bridge a lot these days, mostly to avoid randy pirates in search of a good lay. At first, she had hung out with them in the hopes of learning something useful. All too soon, it became obvious that they didn't know anything.

"I don't know, ma'am," the navigator replied. He pointed at one of his displays. "According to this, the stars here are wrong."

"What do you mean, wrong?" Tasha asked.

"The stars are wrong," the navigator told her. "They don't match what we have in the navigational database for the Grantville Cluster."

"Maybe the database is out of date," suggested the Kip's captain suggested as he drifted over. "How old is our data on the Cluster?"

"Pretty old," the navigator replied. "But there's too much difference for the changes to be stellar drift."

"Oh, Jesus," Tasha groaned. "Don't tell me these idiot pirates got us lost."

"No, no," the navigator said hastily. "The coordinates check out, so do the stars outside the Cluster. The stars inside the Cluster are a different matter…" His computer bleeped. "Huh, now that's really weird."

"What now?"

"I think our nav computer is packing up," the navigator said, looking at Tasha and the captain wide eyed. "It's saying… it's saying the star below us is Wolf 359."

Silence reigned on the bridge for several seconds as everyone digested the implications. Finally, Tasha spoke.

"Where's that?"

DropShip Distant Home

Waypoint Seven

Unknown System, Grantville Cluster

2 November 3020

Major Andreas Staedele, Commanding Officer of the Buron Cav mercenary unit was sitting on a ledge in the 'Mech cubicle on board the group's remaining DropShip. He thought about how he and his unit came into this mess. A disastrous raid, the lack of money, the universe seemed to be punishing them.

His thoughts were interrupted when someone entered the bay.

"So, that's where they found the one place to hang the laundry to dry." The voice said, "Thought you were here. Only place in the ship where no-one's around right now."

"Hey, Ned." Staedele greeted.

Lieutenant Celic 'Ned' Nedeljko, his Executive Officer, was wearing the same nonchalant smile as ever as he sat down next to his old friend. He eyed the laundry lines hanging between the Cavs remaining 'Mechs.

"So, Andy, what are you brooding about?"

"About this entire clusterfuck we're in, what else?" Staedele cradled his head in his hands, "First, we get our battalion thrown into the blender on the god-forsaken raid on Thestria. Then, we're nearly out of money, and now we have to work for that scum Vorax. I don't like it, Ned. Not one bit. If there's a God, I just hope he's got something very special in store for the 21st Galedon Regulars."

"Amen to that, brother." Nedeljko clapped his friend on the shoulder, "I don't like this assignment here either. I mean, seriously: A highly industrialized almost undefended planet this far out? I think someone's on something, but as long as Vorax pays us it's not like we can complain. Those C-bills could very well be the windfall we desperately need right now."

"Yeah, pays good for what they told us this would be about. Land on a valuable piece of real estate, hold 'till Vorax's security goons show up, get paid, get out. Something about this irks me, man. I've got a bad feeling."

Nedeljko laughed, "Jesus, you sound like Tom right now."

Tom Lemell, one of the MechWarriors still in the Cav's employ, was infamous for his pessimism and outright bitterness.

"If you think so." Staedele raised his head, "Hell, whatever. I'll let these morons and psychos Vorax hired take the lead. Let the idiots discover whatever kind of defenses Motherlode has. If half the tales they told us are true, there'll be more than enough left for us afterwards."

"How… mercenary of you." Nedeljko grinned.

"Why, thank you. I'm doing my best. Frankly, anyone killing some of these bastards would do mankind a favor. I'd do it myself if someone paid me for it. Hell, I'd do it on discount."

"Your word to God's ears, Andy!" Nedeljko laughed, "Your word to God's ears."

"Hopefully. Anyway, it's still six hours 'till the next jump. What do you say we-" Staedele was interrupted by the bay doors again.

"You here, Dad?" a melodic voice asked.

"Over here, darling. What's up?" Staedele walked over to his nine-year-old daughter Esther.

"Mom and Auntie Hanna say food's ready, and you two should come right now before we jump."

"Well, Ned, how could anyone resist against such despicable blackmail?" Staedele asked with a big grin.

"No idea, Andy. Let's go eat something. Who knows, we might actually finally be there after the next jump."

"Let's hope. Black's constant heckling is slowly pissing off our esteemed 'Colonel' Sanders."

"'Are we there yet?'" Nedeljko's voice mocking the Band of the Damned's Colonel Black.

With that, the three walked to the mess hall, the bay echoed with laughter.

Bridge, ISV Chani

High Orbit, Mars

Sol System, Earth Space

20 November 2005

It had been nearly a month since the reactivation of the Planetary Carrier Chani back into the ISA fleet. Her superiors wanted to begin training their newest members on the intricacies of the vessel, integrating themselves into the ISA's military structure. The soldiers of the nascent Earth learned quickly, but there was still a lot to cover if they were going to match their ISA siblings in combat.

Bashar Yuki Nagato stood on her bridge, glad to be surrounded by her bridge crew and off ice. She had been in cryogenic sleep, awaiting reactivation for her duties as Commanding Officer of the Chani. She was surprised to learn upon reactivation that she was to command a crew of primarily Earth-born crewmen, soldiers, and pilots. They were over eight-hundred years behind the times, but doctrine hadn't changed that much in that time. It helped that her entire bridge crew were clones of herself created before her birth. The ISA's shadowy programs always seemed to bear strange but effective fruit for its purposes.

"Bashar, transmission from Bashar Serov." One of her clones reported.

She took a breath to steady herself. She was always annoyed by that man.

"Put him through." She said simply. The image of her superior appeared before her.

"Yuki, how goes?" Serov asked with a smile.

"It goes, sir." She replied, "The locals catch on quick, and they're understanding their responsibilities better."

"How much longer before they're one-hundred-percent combat effective?"

"Well, training takes a while. A good few months at least. The fighter jockeys are catching on quicker. They are astounded by what our fighters can do."

"Love it." Serov paused, "How does it feel to be off ice and at the cradle of humanity?"

"Honestly, I never thought I'd see the day. I could not have imagined something like this in my lifetime."

"Despite the fact that we'll probably live forever?"

"Despite that, yes."

Serov shrugged, "Well, enjoy it. We're gonna have a lot of fun, just like the old days." He said with a smile.

"Sir, I would rather we not speak of the past." Nagato replied with a glare.

"Oh, come on! It was fun!"

"You son of a…"

Serov put a hand next to his ear, "What was that?"

"Nothing. Nagato out." She terminated the line.

That man is insufferable.