Chapter 91
By Cliff
Beta and Clean up: Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop
Posted 22 October 2023
Irece IV, Gas Giant
Nova Cat occupation zone
Dec 3054
Robert Copeland first looked to his wife and then over to a person wearing a uniform that even a month before would have sent him off the deep end in a perfect example of fight or flight. Now not only was a member of that group helping "his" people. But the one-time threat group was the leader of not a small force that had been key in not only kicking the Cylons off New Circe, but they also had helped in destroying them to keep the location of New Circe hidden. The cherry on the pie was that four Nova Cat warships were holding down the home front of the SLiE, all while a very upset SLDF had launched a second set of massive raids to kill every Cylon they could find as far as they could reach without running out of supplies. Thanks to the Cylons pulling in everything they had on hand to a single massive attack on New Circe, these raiders were very successful…for the humans. At least they were very successful until the humans started to run low on supplies, and then the SLDF had to pull back the raiders or risk following the Cylons down in defeat.
Even the Styx had been knee-deep in these follow up attacks after her high-speed run from the Inner Sphere to get her in range to vent some spleen all over the Cylon Empire. At first, she had been ordered to keep an eye on the old Colonial liner used as the main base at Gateway and doing some light scouting/raiding around that area. After the battle for New Circe was decided, she and her crew had been left off the leash to collect her own share of Cylon heads. Her colonial made jump drive mixed with the dropship carrier packing her own 18 aerospace fighters had been able to take local control of any given space, and then an Overlord full of battlemechs "borrowed" along with 6 of her own aerospace assets from the Lyssa had been able to stomp a mud hole into any Cylon they found on the ground.
After these assaults were done onto the heads of the Cylons, and most of the combat was completed on any given planet. The ground forces where then to break or….. re-appropriate anything that SLIC and the Colonials had found to be useful after so many years of fighting Cylons. The 2,000-ton cargo capacity of the modified Tramp held "only" about a third of what the TTM own Mule had been rated to carry. But that total combined open cargo bay mass had made it very easy for Robert to bring some nice things back to New Circe when he had been advised to stop while the getting was still good by his wife…er staff.
Not long after the cargo had been unloaded on the planet's surface and the crew of the dropships and Styx had been given some time to check on loved ones and then do what needed to be done when bad news was handed out. Then the Styx was tasked with helping patrol the local space to spot any Cylon counterattacks that might be on the way while the cat was thought to be away from her kittens. After more combat related ships, if smaller than the civilian based ship, had replaced her in this very important combat duty. The Styx had been contracted to make some high speed runs back in forth between New Circe and the Split system to help normalized things once again.
The first mission that the Styx was given was to return the combat units and Overlord dropship so that it could go back to supporting the Lyssa. Then the Styx and her crew were to be bringing back a mix of cargo and personnel that needed to be with family on the once hidden planet. It was not long before the Styx was taking those same people back to the Lyssa to continue helping with the war effort against the Cylon Empire. Some of those personnel would have to stay behind on New Circe to help put back together their broken families. Over 4,000 people on the planet were killed or disabled so badly that it would take years of even clan grade medical devices to remake them physically whole. All of this was done in this one attack on the planet, and that didn't count the lesser wounded.
After a few months of this, things seemed to have gotten back to normal or at least it got to a point that "you could see normal from there". That was when TTM was contracted by SLIC to make a stealth run deep into the Inner Sphere. This mission was to carry three full SLIC Teams, a VIP, a Nova Cat owned and crewed Mammoth, the TTM Mule, and the captured Blakes Will carrier currently owned by TTM with a full load of aerospace fighters. To say that this was a complicated mission to be given them was a massive understatement. It was only thanks to the missions that Robert and SLIC had already been running within the Inner Sphere for all of these years that it was even possible to think of this plan as anything more than a pipedream.
That was how the M/V Styx found herself hiding behind Irece IV, a gas giant in the Irece system. A star system that was in the Nova Cat Occupation Zone, and it was at the closest point to Terra for the Nova Cats. Thanks to the detailed navigation data from the SLDF and SLIC along with a little bit of tech from the Colonials, this had been the easiest part of the mission for the Styx to undertake. There was every chance in the world that the Nova Cats didn't know that the modified Tramp class jumpship had arrived at this star system. It was just too bad that this had to change, at least it would have to change if this mission was going to be looked at as even being partially successful.
Robert looked over to a leader of the SLIC team and gave a sigh that was just audible to the person standing the closest to him. "Well, we have been here for a dozen hours, and no one seems upset with us… yet. I would say that it's time to see what happens when we contact the locals for the first time." In a louder voice. "Major, please launch and boost that relay satellite your team was so kind enough to build."
The SLIC team commander smiled, and she did a slight turn and waved one finger in the air at about shoulder height. With that one hand motion soon one of the small craft bays on the modified Tramp had opened and what looked like a collection of spare parts slowly left the small craft bay. When the small handmade craft was at a safe distance from its mother ship, a small Ion thruster fired, and the craft started moving towards the North pole of the planet. It would take four hours for it to rise high enough in orbit that the transmitter could have a line of sight with the only planet in this system that could support life without a lot of high-tech toys being needed.
With a few long jets of cold gasses, the satellite was ready, and it sent a ping of data on a very tight beam back to the hiding Styx. The idea was that if something bad happened, any attack would be sent down the line to the data relay satellite first and not start looking for a hidden transport at a second location until the decoy was destroyed. It was a good plan, and it was the best one that they could come up within the time frame they had to plan this mission. The satellite was quiet until the tight beam from the jumpship was received to give it new orders. And with those new orders given, the main transmitter activated, and it was made for anything but a tight beam transmission.
######
Khan West looked up when the lights started flashing a few seconds before the sound of an alert was heard and felt in his bones as massive speakers sounded off their part in the alarm. After only a few seconds Khan West's communication device activated. "Sorry my Khan, but we have received an unauthorized transmission from off planet. The garrison commander has sounded the invasion alert, and he has scrambled fighters to find the intruders."
You didn't become Khan of a clan if you were slow of wits. "What did this transmission from off planet say? There had not been a reply sent quineg."
The silence was deafening, but after a few seconds the reply came back and not for the first time Khan West was wondering if he needed to find another garrison commander for the capital world of the Nova Cat OZ. "I do not know, my Khan. The commander did not tell me."
Before Khan West could tell the young warrior to find out, a new voice came over the line, and this one belonged to the garrison commander. "We do not know, my Khan. The transmission was in coded, but it has to be a threat quineg?"
West rubbed a forehead of a size that only an Elemental could own. "What did your duty Watch officer have to say about this?"
The tone told West more than he needed to know. "Why should I talk to that surat My Khan? I am the garrison commander quineg."
Khan West reached over and selected a noteputer and took a few notes before this went on too much longer. These notes were to make sure that the Khan remembers what exactly he was thinking at this moment in time, and to buy some time so that he didn't say something that would need a circle of equals to fix. "Send me a copy of this message and I will judge that."
It was a credit to the Garrison Commander that his staff had the data to the Khan of their clan in less than ten seconds. The message was indeed coded, but only the contents in the main body of the message was in code. Who this message was meant for was very clear to anyone that had taken the time to read the thing. When the message was loaded into a special folder of the Khan's noteputer, the body of the message became clear to Khan West to read.
With a tired voice West spoke to his communication device. "Commander please sound that this was only a test and drill for a real invasion. You may keep looking for the source of this transmission, but as the header of this message said, it was for me."
The Khan of the Nova Cats headed to the communication room in this building with the right noteputer under his massive arms a few minutes later. At the speed of light, a meeting was arranged between two strangers and an enigma that was making not only the Nova Cat's Watch nervous. It had only taken twenty-seven minutes to localize the device that was transmitting the message to this planet, but it took another hour and a half before the detailed analyses told the Khan's staff that it was "only" a relay satellite of less than 100tons in mass. If it had not been for those many messages flowing back and forth, it might have taken a few days or a huge amount of luck to find where the messages were originally coming from.
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A few hours after the last messages were exchanged between the hiding jumpship and the planet, a K1C class small craft left the New Barcella drop port. She was making a high-speed run towards the gas giant that was currently on the other side of this star from the Nova Cat controlled planet. Things would not have happened this fast if not for the Star Admiral having codes that matched to a file that only the last and now dead Khan of the Nova Cats knew about. That didn't mean that a lot of the current Khan's staff were very happy with him more or less telling them to sit down and color while he went to take care of this meeting.
As soon as the small craft was clear of the planet's atmosphere, it went to a full 2g burn for the next hour, then it slowed down…. Well, if you can call 1.5g thrust slowing down. The Khan of the Nova Cats was a busy man and so he was in a little bit of a hurry to make it to this meeting. If the Khan was willing to deal with that kind of G load, then the rest of the crew on the small craft could also. Besides, the dropshuttle's crew could recover when they reached the meeting point.
When the clan made K1 DropShuttle went around the gas giant between the equator and the North Pole, they saw what they were meeting on. As soon as the LOS was clear to the electronic brains of the craft, it saw a Tramp class jumpship with a Triumph CV acting as top cover with six aerospace fighters already deployed in close orbit of the carrier. There also was a Mammoth with a Nova Cat IFF and a Mule class with a MoC IFF that were still attached to the spine of the long jumpship. Khan West didn't have to be in the cockpit of the K-1 to know that the flight crew of his small craft were in contact with the jumpship not long after rounding the massive gas giant of a planet. In one of the last sets of messages sent to the Khan from the hiding jumpship had asked that he only bring the minimal number of staff for this meeting and that Safcon had been activated by his allies.
The Khan could have taken one of the Sassanid class dropships, but 3000tons of dropship and 15 points of Elementals was bit of an over kill for this kind of a mission. The next smallest clan dropship at the Nova Cat Khan's command would have been a Broadsword class dropship, but they didn't have one that could support Elementals in armor. So, what was a Khan to do? The one thing that was for sure was that he was not going to go to a meeting inside of a merchant castes cargo dropship.
The Nova Cat Khan did have a captured Fury class dropship that had passed flight test months ago for it to be used by one of the garrison units in the OZ. Then again that might have given the wrong unspoken message, so that had left the Khan's Own to do the job. She was a K1C that was used for Khans of the Nova Cats to get around a planet on tasks that using a combat dropship would have been wasteful to use. Clan space was very short on anything like a long-ranged passenger jet/dropship service much less did they have the right kind of craft to do that kind of job.
For Khan West the K1C fit with his style, and it could be docked to a jumpship's docking collar or it could be taken into a small craft sized bay commonly found on Inner Sphere jumpships. That the dropshuttle could only carry 6 passengers and that fact could be spun many ways, but mostly it could be shown as a strength play to both those within and outside the Clans. You all see? I'm soooo powerful that I only need 5 guards to be safe around you.
######
The crew on this small craft might have been "down checked" Aerospace fighter pilots, but that didn't mean that they were not highly trained in their current job. The K1 was attached to the open dropship collar at speed not seen by even above average "merchant crews", and it was a docking that was as smooth as silk. After the docking with the jumpship Khan West exited a hatch and entered the civilian jumpship with his five elemental guards following very closely behind him. It would have been an impressive sight to see half a dozen massive Elementals even if they were not in the battle armor that drew its name from their line of modifications to human genes. Only for some reason the few crewmembers that the Nova Cat Khan had seen on this merchant jumpship didn't seem that impressed with them.
Khan West was met at the hatch that allowed entry into the main body of the jumpship by a man in a Nova Cat's Black Ocean uniform. The image of the man was a dead-on match, if you added a few years and a dropship load of stress for the Star Admiral. Before West could say anything, the floating man rendered honors to the leader of his…. Clan.
Khan West reflexively did the same… it was a military thing that was ingrained into his very muscle memory. After the bare minimum of spoken words, the Nova Cat Admiral led the floating line of fellow Nova Cats to what everyone who had seen a schematic of a ship of this class would have known as the main briefing room. The room started to move as soon as everyone was on the hamster wheel and for some reason the Star Admiral gave a little smile. By the time that they made the room's hatch secure, the pull of gravity had noticeably started.
Khan West's eye was drawn to a special box strapped to a nearby table as soon as he entered the briefing room from the main corridor of the grav deck. It was a box that was only used for holding a giftake from a member of high standing within the Clans. This one was on the larger size that Khan West had only seen the like of after the battles on Tukayyid. With that one item, Khan West knew right then that this was going to be a longer meeting that even he had thought.
Instead of starting with the ornate box. The Star Admiral started the meeting by passing the Khan a small black cloth bag full of Nova Cat patterned Codexes. West emptied the bag onto the desktop, and he took the time to look at each one before he put them back into the bag. This was something that had to be done in a certain way, and this action was the same one that had been used by most senior officers of the old SLDF after a major mission. Only instead of "dog tags", the current clans used a digital codex.
Kei started the verbal briefing when the last codexs had been returned to the death bag, with asking Khan West what he knew about his mission. This was the best way for them not to waste time covering information in detail that was not needed. That took all of four minutes, but it was enough for Kei to know that he only needed to cover the data from after his task force had fallen out of contact with the rest of the Clans HPG network. The Star Admiral also covered in the early part of this meeting some of the major events of the Cylon War that the Colonials and SLiE had been fighting. The Star Admiral had to cover the 20billion lives lost already three times before he could move on to more current events.
To say that Khan West was surprised with this data was an understatement, and over all the story was very hard for him to believe. That is until the Nova Cat Admiral started playing BattleROMs that had been specially selected from the battles of Lost Home and a second planet that was not listed in the attached data files. That was more than enough for the Khan to know that the Nova Cat officer was not crazy…. or at least he was not that crazy. A few of the escorts for the Khan were making soft noises about a righteous battle against evil and ect, ect from behind the Khans back. At that point the Khan knew he was going to have to replace his escorts, just so that they could get back into combat to get that kind of crap beaten out of their heads one more time or they would be useless to the current Nova Cat Khan.
When this part of the briefing was over, the Star Admiral offered to show the Khan what had been recovered and brought back for the Scientist caste to study. After leaving the briefing room and the hamster wheel the group floated their way to a cargo bay. To the Khan's surprise they went across the one cargo bay to a hatch on the far side. Thanks to all of the years traveling between the stars, West knew that they were going to another docking collar.
It was not until they went through an airlock and the inner hatch had opened that Khan West knew that he was at the outer edge of the Mammoth class dropship. Khan West had known that it had a Nova Cat IFF from the ride in on the K1C, and the insides had all of the correct markings and crew were in the right uniforms, even if there grooming was not to Nova Cat standard, and a few other odds and ends that said this was really a clan vessel. They all acted like Nova Cats, and each one of them reacted as you would expect for them to when meeting the Khan of their clan. Khan West almost knew that one of "his" escorts had a Watch supplied image and data collection device on his person. The face and irises that would cross the field of view of that device would be recorded and run against a Nova Cat database back on New Barcella. It also would be collecting any stray DNA that should be floating in the air for tests to be run and matched against other databases.
Khan West was brought out of this line of thinking when the Star Admiral came to a floating stop next to a cargo hatch to large just for people to use…even people the size of Elementals. After a code was punched into a data pad, the hatch was pulled open, and the group entered what should be the Number 1 cargo bay of this massive dropship. Khan West did notice that the hatch stayed open after the last of his escorts had entered behind them, and this was a breach of SLDF safety rules. His turn to look at the still open hatch also allowed the Khan to start surveying the room.
The room was not full of space rated cargo containers, but it held things that were identifiable... at least after reviewing those battleROMs in the briefing room. He still found the frozen bodies of three Number Ones, and four Number Twos very disturbing in real life. The Khan had seen reports were some of the scientist castes had wanted to start looking into full human body cloning for years. All of the papers had said that it would take at least a few decades after the program started for it to even to start showing any progress, much less generate any results.
######
Khan West floated over and put his hand on one of a trio of missiles that had been recovered off of some battlefield. "Okay Star Admiral, what do you want?"
Kie tried to sit down on the chest and shield of a Centurion only to start floating away from hitting a little too hard. "Support, my Khan. I have only two warships that are not damaged and the loss of the Titan is being sorely felt by my forces. We have tapped the last of our stored mechs and aerospace fighters, but they are barely Solahma level equipment."
Kie gave a loud snort, "It is not even that good. I have even seen Dark Caste groups that went into battle against us with better equipment, and that is just not right quiaff. My allies are tapped out, they are only one planet that has been the shield of mankind against an Empire of machines for almost a decade. quineg"
Khan West didn't let anything show on his face. "So, the hidden den is not so safe after all quiaff. That is not helpful, and you have yet to tell me where it is."
The Star Admiral made a sour face. "My Khan, our allies do not trust the rest of the clans. I have been assured that if the Nova Cats have to make a run for it…. like other members have." Kie passed over a card that was an advertisement for a resort on Canopus. "If you can get our people to that location? Then they will do their best to get everyone to safety from that point onwards. They will not guarantee that they will take you to the home planet, but they will help them get out of the rest of the Clans and Inner Sphere militaries way."
As the Khan was thinking that traveling all the way around the Inner Sphere while something like the DCMS was trying to kill you was less than ideal, the Admiral was still talking. "If you are open minded, some of my allies have sent you a copy of their side of the story."
Khan West looked up in time to see the warship commander push through the zero g room a data storage device. West's massive hand covered the device, and he didn't even look at it before it was gone from sight in a pocket of his ship's suit. "Okay what else?" he waved to the area around him. "How did you get here? You are not on a Nova Cat jumpship, quiaff."
The Star Admiral didn't want to lie to his Khan, but this issue had been covered by the last Khan that the Star Admiral had talked to before starting on this mission. His orders had been to make sure to use OPSEC and it was not a full on lie if Kie just changed a few things. Besides the Wolverine's version of the watch had the time to come up with something that the Star Admiral could use when this question came up in civil company.
Kie didn't even smile when he started talking. "I ran into the Styx at Canopus, and he has a verifiable reputation that had matched with my needs. I would say that they came through with his skills to get me here without being shot at by anyone…including members of my own clan. I know that he wants to do some trading, but only if the Khan of the Nova Cats can assure him that he will not be shot, and/or that his ships will not be taken by a Khan's forces. The rumors of what the Jade Falcons and Steel Vipers are doing in their own zones has made it all the way out there."
Khan West was not a fool, and he was betting that the Star Admiral was walking a fine line between his clan, his Khan, and the mission of protecting the human race against these AI…er Cylons. "So, he will want to sell this to us? quineg"
The head jerk from Kie almost had caused him to start to twist in Zero G. "No, my Khan! Sorry, My Khan." It was not a good idea to yell at a Khan, but Kie slowly moved his arm. "These are the things that I have brought for my Clan to study. How can you support my mission, if you don't know what it is that we are fighting against. quiaff."
Khan West had a lot to think about and while he could decide now, he felt like it was better to wait for just a little while longer before he jumped out that drop door. "This is a lot to prosses Star Admiral. I think that I need to take some time and review some files."
Khan West noticed the sly look on the smaller man's face. "I understand my Khan, would you like to stay here or are you planning to go back to the planet."
Santin was not sure where this was going and so asked. He fell back on bluntness that most assumed was the Elemental default. "You are up to something quineg?"
Kie kept that same look on his face. "While we have been talking, I had your K1 moved to Small Craft Bay 4 on this vessel. If you take a break and need more time, you could tap into the Dropship's security systems from the data ports in the bay. We are living in strange times, and it is always best to have as much information as you possibly can before you leave the den. Quiaff. You could also use the ship's communication system to bounce messages off the relay sat to your headquarters on the planet or to the recharge station at the jump point."
Khan West snorted and gave a head nod of approval, that almost sent the larger man spinning around the room. With the help of one of the Khan's escorts that just happened to be in the right spot, they were able to get the massive man back to a hand hold before anyone else on the cargo vessels saw the flailing Khan. From there it was a quick trip to one of the four small craft bays that a ship of this class of cargo ship was built with.
######
For the next dozen hours Khan West and the crew of the K1C sent data back to the rest of the Khan's command staff and accessed the dropships security system as the Star Admiral had offered to the visitors. After that time and the Khan had some very restful sleep, word and messages were passed to both the defensive forces of this system and the bridge of the jumpship. This was all that was needed to clear the jumpship that belonged to Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale to arrive at the L1 point near the planet.
Khan West thought that as long as they were this close, if they were just a little closer, it could cut down on the response time of any of his forces if this did turn out to be some kind of trap. Besides if a destroyer, frigate, and their dropship escorts could not handle one merchant jumpship and three dropships of any kind built by the hand of man? Well then it was better to find out now, repair and retrain those crews before something like that happened when the next round of war kicked off again with the rest of the Inner Sphere or other Clan's combat forces.
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Khan West had made it back to New Barcella without any issue and he even had a full day at work to catch up with what had happened while he had been off planet. It would be another two days before the Styx would be moving from behind the gas giant to the nearby L1 point. This decision had not gone over well with the planet's garrison commander. In protest, he had called for a circle as soon as the Khan had landed back at the drop port. That was ten minutes that Khan West would not be getting back as he set a personal best time in beating a mechwarrior in an augmented situation. Now Khan West could just sit back and let things work out as a new garrison commander was selected in the "normal" clan way. As this meeting started, Khan West was wondering how many circles were going to be called by the end of the day today.
The meeting room was graveyard quiet as the images stopped playing and recorded radio calls of a clan city dying faded away into the background. When Khan West got his own temper back under control, he looked over to the head of the scientist caste of his clan. Even after he had watched this data three times before, Khan West was having a hard time keeping in control of his rage.
With a hard slap on the desktop, he got the room's attention. "I want you to look threw that data and find every edit mark and I want it done tonight." Like many within the clans, West hated being lied to, and right now he wanted to make sure he was going to be killing the right people. But at least the Widowmakers were long gone. That still left a long line of people that had helped deceive his clan and the current ones that had helped in keeping this covered up.
Clan Nova Cat had slowly been shifting away from seeing the founder of the clans and his father as being near gods, more to them being more human for the last few years. If what he had just seen turned out to be true? That was going to not go over well with some members of his clan even after the Crusaders had been purged. Khan West was again glad that so many of those Crusaders and Fence Sitters had been killed off or had converted to be full blown Warden about their outlook on the Inner Sphere over the last few years.
The rest of his staff looked at him with hollow eyes and the only Front-line Galaxy commander on the planet spoke up. "What do we do now?"
Khan West was now very thankful that he had seen the data a few times that the rest of this room had just been exposed to for the first time. He could feel that everyone in the room and the ones viewing it were reaching out to him like some kind of life belt. "We study and we get ready for the storm that is coming to the human race. We all have known a storm was coming, now it would seem that there will be more of them and not all of those coming wars will be with outside forces when this SLiE is known. But first, we will study the tactics that this new enemy uses, and we will keep an eye on the rest of the clans when their own Watches find out about these…. things."
Khan West let out a loud sigh. "We have some of the bodies of these human clones, and examples of their machines and weapons. I also saw some of those Centurion hulls that were slightly used along with some wrecked hulks of what they called a Praetorian mech. We need to wisely use this boon that was paid for by human blood."
Many in the room were taking notes and things just started to flow into Khan West's mind. "I think that our Star Admiral is covering his bets, but he did warn me, in that first message, that he was no longer fully clan or Nova Cat. I would say that this Star Admiral and his people are more like belonging to a different caste within the Nova Cats, and we will all handle them as such. The data that we just viewed, and more, is for our use only and it is not to be shared with other Clan Watches unless under my direct orders. It is also not to be released to anyone not in this room without my written orders agreeing to that release." He didn't need to say what he would do to anyone that broke those orders. The death of a garrison commander was still fresh in everyone's mind.
Khan West suddenly rose from the chair, and he went to his massive height to tower over the room and the lower mounted holo screens. "This group of Nova Cats have a mission to set up and protect a backup den for us if the Combine tried to kill all of us by backstabbing. But besides five Carracks, those four warships, and a lone scout warship? They were only fitted with Solahma grade battlemechs, our clans oldest battle armor, and Solahma grade aerospace fighters. I know that we are still at the end of a long supply chain. All as we are still trying to rebuild from our losses fighting ComStar, the House Lords, and all while beating back trials from other clans. This is on top of at the same time that we are pulling out of the Home Worlds. Still, I think we can give up two stars of omnimechs and one full star of Elemental grade battle armor to be sent with this new caste leader to replace some of his combat losses. Also see if we can hand over a star of our best omni aerospace fighter designs and a second star of second line aerospace machines."
The room looked like it was about to explode. "We cannot replace any of the dropships that they lost or were damaged, and the same is true for replacement parts for their damaged warships. But see if you can find any second line machines or field refits of house designed mechs that we can do without and send them. I think we need to keep it down to a star or two of those battlemechs, any more might cause a leak to other Watches when word gets out about this transfer. This is all to be a reward for their faith and courage to follow their visions and then stopping those…. things with their blood. And they did that job with machines that were dated back to not long after Operation Klondike so even those old machines should be useful for them in this current fight."
Khan West looked over the head of the Nova Cat Watch and it was just a good thing that the head of the merchant caste was sitting next to him. "I want the Watch to keep a close eye on them, all of them, from the second they arrive at the L1 tomorrow. Stick to them like glue while they are on the ground and do not stop watching until they leave again. Anything that is above what I have already stated they will be gifted? They will have to go through our Merchant caste members, and I am sure that they know how to get the best for their fellow Nova Cats quineg." He was not going to bring up the Jenner IIC and Griffin IIC lines that had just started production this year. Khan West had no idea what might be on hand, that was why he had subordinates.
The Khan of the Nova Cat looked to his SaKhan and Loremaster and gives them a head nod, now the SaKhan took over the meeting. The Khan had spoken and now it was time for him to play the silent leader type to the SaKhan's bad cop. Khan West had a sinking feeling that this issue was not going to be over until that jumpship and crew were long gone from the Nova Cat OZ. West was also wondering how long it would take for the images for the battle that "caused" the No Named to be hounded to what everyone had thought was their death to make it to other clans out of his mind. The big question mark would be, what would the clans that were still in the Home Worlds do when they found out about "the great lie" that they had been given. The only thing that comes to Khan West mind was blood, lots of blood would be spilled.
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When the Tramp class jumpship arrived at the L1 Point no one in this star system, outside the crew on the jumpship, knew that the E-wave they saw was one that had been sent by a modified HPG station hidden inside the long jumpship. Even before the solar sail was fully deployed, two cargo dropships started making their way to the drop port outside of New Barcella. Both of the dropships were looking for cargos, but only one of them was willing to trade for it. Only a few knew that it was expected that the great Mammoth class would not be gifted enough cargo to be filled, and the SLiE and the Star League Nova Cat leadership was perfectly fine with this.
The poor sheep on this planet didn't know that the newly arrived crews on one of these cargo ships had a few surprises that they knew the exact worth of. That was the whole reason that the SLiE had made sure that the Star League Nova Cats had taken that Mammoth class dropship on this mission. The Khan of the Nova Cats had been worried that it might be one of "his" merchant castes that would be the ones to take advantage of this group. Oh, how wrong he had been.
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The Styx and the three dropships had been gone from the Irece system for three days, and this was the first meeting for the Khan about most subjects related to her. The first to speak was the head of the Merchants of the Nova Cats that had been doing most of the trading with this "Commander" Copeland. Even being watched so closely from everything from space stations at the jump points to dropships in orbit and even a massive ground station. No one knew that this jumpship had used something other than a "normal" K-F jump drive to move interstellar distances once more. It would not be until 3058 that anyone would even start looking at this data with the right kind of software and the right experience to know that something might have been off. Until then they all were just seeing what they had been expecting to see.
The merchant leader had been the one to push for this meeting even before the M/V Styx had left this star system, so Khan West was going to let him speak first. All it took was a head nod from the Khan to get the caste leader to start talking in a waterfall of words. "First off I would like to say that we had a good trading mission with this Robert person and his mate, and we would like to thank the Khan of the Great Nova Cats for allowing this to happen." It was always good for a lower caste to suck up to the top of the five different castes of the Clan.
Using last names for those that had not earned a blood name was still hard from many of the older generation of Nova Cats to deal with, even after a few years of living within the Inner Sphere. "He had a selection of items that mainly fell into the luxury category that many of our people will find enjoyable, but that is not the reason I kept pushing for this meeting my Khan. Besides some finished items and odds and ends that you kind of expect for a trader. This…. person had 1000tons of a very vital or even strategic refined item that is going to shock many. I know that the head of the technician caste was shocked when I brought it up to her."
Before the merchant could say more one of the combat commanders interrupted. "What is so important about this ore? We have under our control dozens of worlds aff."
Khan West could see that the merchant really wanted to call for a circle right then, but after a few seconds the caste leader was back under control. Before he could say more, the leader of the Technician caste spoke in her soft voice. "Right now, and for the next five to seven years the limiter for our rebuilding with front line hardware was not going to be the capability of the mech factories that we brought with us, but the limited number of extra light engines we could finish. With this amount of the right ores outside of what we stockpiled before leaving? Now the limit is going to be how many omni hulls we can make… until we run threw that supply we have coming from our space-based factories of some of the other critical components. If we can get another supply like this one every other year or so? It would have us finished with our rebuilding just as our own mining operations are coming online enough to meet our needs in this area of support. I can tell you right now, that we will be able to build more Series V extra light fusion engines than we can produce the Jenner IICs to use them. If we can get more of that ore than I have already asked for? Well, we could even have enough extra light engines to trade to other clans or they could be used in the refitting of many of our second line machines to use better engines….. as long as it does not violate their assigned tasks."
It was known that even clan made XL engines were more fragile in combat than the "standard" type power plants. So, some combat designs were meant to be more robust than others. It was the age-old holy trinity of tradeoff between damage resistance, firepower, and mobility.
The speaker gave a long pause and pitched her voice low. "Or we could use them to refit some of the recovered House tech mechs or aerospace fighters that we captured to be a nasty surprise in any bidding against our garrison styled units. That also would increase the number of powerful combat units under the Nova Cat without drawing attention from other Clans. I have seen the projections from the Watch over the last year. They have been thinking about some home clan coming to backstab us and hit some of our garrison units thinking they are using "just" old House Lord equipment we have repaired and returned to service. If they do that, those more powerful units would be one more way to teach them about entering a Nova Cat's den without permission. Quiaff."
The merchant caste leader was watching the head of the Clan's Watch as the leader of the technicians spoke and was making her last few statements. These two castes were known to be able to work the closest without causing "to Many" issues. But sometimes the merchant and technicians both did things that made the other castes' job just a little harder than it might need to be. This was the case now, with the statement of needing some things from outside of the Nova Cats control.
The Khan smiled, if this had been just a few years ago, this kind of thing would have seen this person killed in a circle before her voice was done echoing in the room. Now that the Nova Cats had been fighting the other clans and the House Lords for so long. That using these almost underhanded tactics no longer was an issue that it once had been. Earlier in the year, someone in the Loremaster's office had even come up with examples of tactics that the great father had used against the Usurper, and they had pitched the ideas that if it was good enough way to fight for him. Well then why was it not good enough for his children to use? It was always better if you didn't have to reinvent the wheel every few dozen decades and with the clans referring to what the leader or his father had done was as good of a get out of jail free card as you could get.
With a careful look at the leader of the Technicians, and in a level tone the Khan of the Nova Cats addressed the Merchant leader. "We will have to see, but were you able to get a good deal on this…. material quiaff"
The older and small woman that was the deputy leader of the Merchant caste seemed to deflate more than just a little under the Khan's gaze. "Neg my Khan. They knew what they had, and they knew almost down to the half kilogram of what was needed to make some of the key engine sizes used by the clan's current generation of omnimechs. I do not think we were robbed at mech point, but we both got what we wanted…. even if it was more than I had hoped to pay for it."
She was not going to say that Copeland and his people had taken what was left of the first two production runs from the "new" Griffin IIC line and many of the better "C" Refits of Inner Sphere mechs that also were on the larger size….. but not always. She had no idea why they liked the Locust IIC and Piranha so much, but they had paid top coin for each one that could be found.
"I. See. Maybe you will do better next time quiaff. Please pass to my office and the Watch a copy of everything that your caste traded to this man and his crew." If anyone knew the Khan well enough, they could tell that he was not mad at this information. West was only fighting with himself as he was holding back a smile that would ruin his reputation.
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The head of the Scientist caste was the next to brief, and she started with slides that made a few of the combat veterans visibly slump in their chairs. "I will want to start by saying that all of this is just preliminary, and the information could change the longer that we have access to these samples. The engines on the light mechs were a type of lead/bismuth fission that we do not think is anything worthwhile to our clan in the short term. The hulls of the light mechs were nothing special to my people, besides how they were made and a few odd things in the metal itself. The same was true of the hulls of these…Centurions I believe was the listed name in the files. But those Centurions' insides held a secret, well let me tell you. Whomever made the computer core for them? Let me put it this way, it puts anything made by Ulsop Robotics and Nirasaki Computers look like sixth rate junk some kids found in a dumpster."
It was known even to the clans that the systems made by Ulsop Robotics and Nirasaki Computers were very good. They were so good that even the Clans could not make them, much less improve on those items that were very bleeding edge tech. As expected, the room reacted just like you would expect for a bomb shell like this.
The speaker let the room go for a while before resuming her prepared briefing. "As I was saying. Besides the Centurions we found a few other things of note. The missile bodies were nothing special as were the warheads we were sent. On the other hand, the seeker systems were incredible, and they work in such a different way that it is currently assessed that all of our ECM and ECCM would be completely useless against them. The fuel mix is "only" about 1 or 2 percent better than what we fill our own LRMs with, but it is not something we cannot duplicate with enough people, time, and resources thrown at them."
After the bombshell about the Cylon seekers on the missiles, the information about the fuel flew under the radar for most of those attending this meeting. Very few in this room knew that fuel for missiles had not improved by that much in the last few hundred years….. even within clan space. And still the Scientist kept talking. "The anti-personnel weapons were not special, but the projectile is a close match in design, if not in metallurgy, of what we have seen coming out of the Magistracy of Canopus and the League for the last few years. That design is something we can copy, but it could make some of our weapons not able to use clan standard ammunition if we go that route."
Now the briefer looked a little nervous. "Besides this anti infantry weapon, it was later noticed that the heavier weapons on the light mech were more different than they had been first assessed. The autocannons looked like nothing special on the outside, but on closer examination, it turns out the rate of fire is over double of what any of our Ultra class cannons can sustain. "We" have no idea how this feet of engineering was done, but it is almost as groundbreaking as the computer tech I brought up earlier in this meeting. I already have half a dozen different teams, and that is not counting those in the Home Worlds, wanting to get more of them for physical testing."
Khan West looks over to the head of the Nova Cat Watch, and he could just tell that the ex-warrior knew what the Khan was about to say. "I think this company needs to be watched very closely from now on. I want as many resources as we spend on watching one of the other Clans now focused on this Copeland, his company, and how they might be connected back to the Star Admiral and his new allies. I do not believe for a second, that the Star Admiral just ran into him after being dropped off in the Canopus system with his boon for my Nova Cats. This operation reminds me of some of those files I was able to read on SLIC back before the Exodus."
The head of the Nova Cat's Watch could not say anything, so he just did a head nod of understanding and then started writing like mad on his digital pad. This was something he had planned on asking for, because he had been thinking the same thing. There would not be a person in this meeting that now would say that the Khan had wasted clan resources that had been given to that Star Admiral. In a single week, enough groundbreaking items had been given to the Nova Cats to change the balance of power within the Inner Sphere and Clan space. That didn't count the special ores used to make the very hard to make hearts of the current generation omnimechs. Now the Nova Cats would just need to stay alive long enough to copy some of those boons and then put them into production to be refitted into his Touman.
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Notes:
First contact with a clan force: This is a test to see what might happen while things can at least have a little control.
What did they get for trading? A full run of 40ton Griffen IICs. Then they got every Locust IIC, Jenner IIC, Piranha, and clan weapon refits of IS mechs but nothing lighter than 50tons that had been on the planet.
Chapter Length: I know this was a short one…"only" 20 pages. But chapter 92 is a real monster.
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