A man out of time, and almost out of time (SIOC)

by cliff.west

You all can thank, or curse, Chris O'Farrell for giving me this idea. An OC/SI gets ripped out of his home dimension when the Dragoons were testing a repair on one of their supporting jumpships. What will happen next, and will it change the whole Inner Sphere?

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

By Cliff

Fact Checked and Sanity Checked by Drakensis

Editor (that I at least sometimes listen to, so the screw ups are all mine) Drakensis

Wolf Dragoons HQ, An Ting

Galedon District Combine Space

Jan 3026

Stanford Blake was sitting quietly in the room with Jaime and a few others, for something like this, it was better to wait and then react to what might be said. Jaime was looking at but not seeing the mixed length Daisho blades made up of a Katana and a Wakizashi sword sitting on his not small working desk. Within the Combine, to receive these blades was one of the highest honors that someone could aspire to receive in a lifetime. But for a mercenary unit commander to receive them and to have them come directly from the hands of the Coordinator himself? Now that was shocking to most of the 'normal' power players that moved behind the Shoji screens within the Combine just waiting to emerge to bite the unwary.

That shock would have been good news, and it should have been a good thing for Jaime Wolf but for that one book that had said that this was going to happen. Jaime Wolf had been indoctrinated into the Order of Bushido on the orders of the leader of the Combine himself. That ceremony should have been a center part of a great day for Jaime and the rest of the wolves as a whole. But it was not.

Stanford knew how much standing in that room to get these blades had taken out of Jaime. It was a mark to Jaime's training and discipline that he had not started shooting everyone in that room that had not been a Dragoon when the blades had been first shown to him. By now the head of Wolf Net had read 'the book' after Jaime had gone through it line by line. Stanford had read the book cover to cover at least a dozen times and some of the chapters a dozen more. The pair of them had not been the only ones to read the book within the command staff of the Dragoons or even 'just' the senior leaders of the Dragoons on this side of the Inner Sphere. Each of these additional persons were 'in lock down' until they had finished reading the book and not one word was allowed to be spoken outside of cleared rooms.

This concealment and security had been done by direct order of Jaime as 'The Colonel' and that was as good as writing something in stone as far as the spy chief and the rest of the Dragoons were concerned. Blake had written down every name in that book and short notes had been added on each of them, even if they were not 'major' players. Even without orders from Jaime many of them were being watched, some more closely than others that were seen as threats in that one book. Then there had been the military data that had been added to reports that Wolf Net had passed along before launching missions across the border that were very good, even for Wolf Net to have access to.

Jaime had talked himself down after that first reading of that book on the dropship, not that he had changed the already given orders to Blackwell. But after that first rush of orders, the brakes had been put on any more rash changes of directions from how things were done after first coming to the Inner Sphere. They had not stopped the work; he had only slowed down the new changes that were allowed. One key had been that Jaime had not stopped the refitting of mechs with updated heat management systems to increase their effectiveness on the current battlefield.

At first Stanford had not agreed with that order to slow down, but he could understand the reasons behind it after spending a few days thinking about it and reviewing the literary term 'butterfly effect'. Now he was sensing that this order and maybe some of the other Operation Caveman restrictions were about to be rescinded. The hope that Jaime Wolf had been holding onto for dear life, was that the book was a fabrication of some kind or belonged to another universe and not relevant to this one. Not that he had been counting on that one assumption in his planning.

Blake knew that Jaime had on some dark nights hoped that 'the device' was a very detailed and worked out fabrication that would fall apart like a house of cards when some predicted event failed to pass. Maybe it had just been good Intel work done by a group unknown to get the Dragoons to get them to break the contract with the Combine for some unknown reason but to hurt one or both parties. Then things that had not been done at the time of Jaime getting his hands on the book had started to come to pass more or less as predicted. Each of those events could have been explained away as possible, but that was not true of the two blades currently sitting on The Wolf's desk.

Jaime Wolf kept looking at the blades and suddenly he wanted to throw them against the wall or just into the garbage bin near the office's main door. He had thought that the Combine was the last hope of the warrior spirit left in the whole Inner Sphere and was also so ingrained into the mind, body, and spirit of someone born in Clan space. But some of the words from a man out of time had cut him to the bone. Every time he had thought about just giving the Combine a little more slack or a bigger benefit of a doubt for the latest transgression made against his people. Something predicted by that damn book would come true and Jaime would get a fresh slap in the face.

Now that Caveman had been so brutal and pointed out his lack of long-term thinking, he had forced himself to look longer term even if he didn't want to for the last many months. Jaime could not believe how hard it had been to look 1, 5, 10, 20, or 30 years down the road from where he was currently sitting making these mundane decisions. Before Drake Mendenhall, he had thought that he was a very good planner of operations, but it had been his brother's idea to use the struggling Blackwell Industries and had proven to be both brilliant and the perfect longer-term investment. But that had been one of the few times that the Dragoons had made such a move after coming to this place so far from their homes. It had taken great effort and more than a few failures, that thankfully were caught before they left his office, to keep looking that far out instead of what was more or less right in front of Jaime's face.

After a few close calls about his failures that Jaime had been warned about, he had put a hidden note on his desk that had said to look at what was going to happen further down the road. He had drawn a little face getting slapped under that note that was very carefully hidden from any visitor. He also had copies of those notes spread out in different places in his private working office and home, but Jaime thought he and his ever-growing staff were getting better at trying to make successful long-range plans. That had been why that the ground level planning had been done, and some of the other ideas that had come up that had not been brought before the rest of the Dragoons…. until now had been looked into.

Damn that Caveman. Okay Jaime, what is going to happen in the next few years? Most of your friends and a lot of those that look to you for leadership are going to die and it will all be your fault, Jaime thought.

Thankfully the leader of the Dragoons had enough time to think long and hard about what to do next if he came into possession of those blades. He knew that he needed to now make a big move…but how big and in what direction should it be made? That was the million C-Bill question.

Jaime Wolf looked up from the pair of finely made blades in an equally finely crafted wooden display case, and then he made eye contact with his head of intelligence or as it was more commonly known Wolf Net. "So how is the Caveman project working out in your last update?" Jaime was one of the few that knew Caveman was sending short reports every week or so, but always packaged very carefully so that the wrong people would not know what was said in them.

Blake felt like a huge weight was being lifted off of him with this question. Stanford could just tell that the old man was thinking about the future and there was about to be a major change to the whole of the Inner Sphere. He also could see some of the spark returning to his boss's eyes now that he was not looking at those damn foretold blades.

The head of Wolf Net didn't move an inch, but it seemed like he had grown before the rest of the room's eyes. "It has been turning out some major surprises, even under the limits that we are putting on them. There is not that much remaining within the accounts that we set up after the first contract with the Davions in 3005. They used some of it to get an increase of production up to almost too full speed on the Marauder II's, but it will take some time before there will be a major push of new mechs walking of that line. The last report I got said that they have a full mech company of them carefully hidden in the underground storage vaults of the campus with about 1.5 to 2 more per month average soonish as they further refine the production facility's output. Thanks to the warning about what happened to the Hephaestus station when the ISF had been able to sneak abord in another universe. Blackwell was being very careful about the people they let into certain parts of the facility and supporting space stations even if they are in FedSuns space."

He stopped talking for a few seconds and shoots a look around the room with a sly little smile. "Well, they are being more careful than usual, and it has slowed down some aspects of production."

Blake was still talking and thinking about the future at the same time. "We are not wanting to risk something the size of an assault mech being shipped out here, at least not with the current conditions." The head of Wolf Net shot a covered glance around the room before continuing. "I was told that the first one sold about an hour after Blackwell posted that a Marauder II was going on the market. We are giving our friends first call on any that look to be hitting the market from now on, but the FedSuns last week put in an order for a twenty-four of those assault class mechs with money already set aside in an escrow account." Besides the Lyrans, everyone in the Inner Sphere needed more assault mass battlemechs, and the FedSuns was short more than most of the rest of the other House Lords in that class of Battlemech.

At seeing the slight downturn of Jaime's lips, Standford clarified. "The Supply department of the FedSuns knows that they are not going to get them for some time, but if none of our friends have the needed money on hand when one is ready. I passed along to the Blackwell sales department that it would be okay to go ahead and transfer one to the FedSun's Quarter Master's office. Ten million C-Bills is 10 million C-Bills and that is the kind of money Blackwell can use right about now." He was not going to say that 20million would be even better as far as he was concerned.

Blake let a little smile come to his face. "For the first time, but for the odd year, Blackwell could be in the black for its budget without needing some slush funds from us to cover the books. If they didn't need the funds to keep expanding, in a few months they could have been a major money maker for the Dragoons all while still building up a nice stockpile of supplies for us to fall back on."

Jaime looked a little lost for a second but quickly came back to the world. "What else have they been spending our funds on? You said that the Mad II production increase used only part of those funds." The leader of the Dragoons was already leaning more and more to one plan, but he still was not sure…. yet. He wanted to know what might not have been in the summaries he had been given.

Blake got a little smile to come to his face. "They are pumping some of those extra funds from the Mech sales and renting of mech repair bays first into buying and setting up a Blackwell Security Battalion. It's on the last slide of your daily brief from last month. It is currently made up of mostly Fleas, Hornets, Valkyries, and some other Bug mechs that we had ordered but had not gotten them across into Combine space yet. They are filling them with anyone that passes the local training program or released from the medical rehab department. As more money comes in, they are going to work on buying heavier machines on the open market and put the others in storage for a rainy day. The back up plan is that they took delivery of some out of production hulks out of some nearby boneyards and they are hand making the parts to repair them as a teaching point."

He stopped talking and looked at his noteputer for a few seconds before looking back around the briefing room. "They have a few Mackies but also a mix of Hammerhands, Battle Axs, second Generation Swordsman, and the odd battlefield recovered Combine Gladiator were picked up on the cheap." The agent shifted gears again. "They think, and I agree, that we will need every mech and trained pilot that they can find in the future." Blake felt that having a pool of at least 36 trained mech jocks that could be called on with short notice was a nice hidden ace to have.

The head of the Dragoons nodded his head in agreement and at the idea of this security unit being set up. He didn't want to put all of the cards on the table of the Inner Sphere, but it showed that he should have thought about something like this years ago. Maybe he had been thinking that the ISF and other groups were too damn good for that kind of thing to go unnoticed for long or the rumor mill would pick it up. Now he was a lot less worried about that kind of thing, after all this was just another company and one only found in the FedSuns part of the Inner Sphere.

Jaime gave a slight head nod that was more for himself than the rest of the room. "Let them know that they can keep the dozen assault mechs in hiding, and they can slowly add some heavy metal to this security unit from outside sources." Jaime looked over to the blades one more time. "They are to try to keep it down to only two lances of assault mechs on the active rolls of the security unit at any one time. Now, what about the other production lines on New Valencia?"

Blake was about to tell Jaime that he was not in supply, he was in intelligence, and then he stopped mid thought. "The line with more flexible weapons systems of vehicles is up to steady low-rate production, which was at a rate that we hadn't needed for some time. It will take more time to get higher rates of production out of these current Bandit and Badger lines. Blackwell now also has put in a line for less flexible Bandit and Badgers production that had been marked as 'repairs only' before being sold on the second-hand open markets." Those two designs were less flexible because they had been built without omni tech, and they had a higher margin of profit than what they would get on the Dragoon used vehicles.

Stanford let a small smile come to his face and makes a point to not look away from Jaime. "They have been selling very well, and that has driven up sales of anything else that Blackwell puts its maker's mark on. I was happy to see that they are worried that letting slip Omni tech this early could cause issues downstream for the Dragoons. Still, that is more funds to get more expansion going even if it's only a few dozens of thousands of C-bills per tank in profit. With new tanks and VTOLs coming off the production lines every day? They will soon start to fill in a few gaps for the FedSuns military and other mercenaries close to New Valencia." While many a mech driver looked down their noses at tanks or anything that was not a mech, most knew that a tank used in the right way was bad news for a battlemech.

There were dozens of those two types of Dragoon sponsored omni vehicles that had been confirmed to have been recovered by different groups across the Inner Sphere after 3006. Yet somehow, it had not been noticed that Bandits and Badgers could be quickly changed up with different weapons load outs. It was a good bet that many repair crews had noticed that they could be repaired much more quickly than other like vehicles, but not that they could change into sets of different configurations. After all nothing like that had been done before so why even look for that kind of capability in a newly recovered bit of battlefield salvage. That all would change whenever Blackwell started waving the sales flag on this capability after the issues with the Combine had been delt with.

Jaime smiled at the head of Wolf Net. He didn't pay that close attention to the month-to-month output of Blackwell, that was why he had a staff, but he had been cornered a few days ago. Of course, that didn't mean that he was totally in the dark about most key things. "Yeah, I got a note the other day demanding that Blackwell stop arming the enemies of the Dragon. Someone has even been reported to have said that the Dragon wanted me to move Blackwell fully into Combine space and become a weapons supplier to them alone."

Jaime gave a loud snort; Anton had more or less made the same demand and it had not worked then and it was not going to work now…. even if Jaime had not seen that book. "And the 'New' production line?"

Now Blake gave a smile and re-crossed his legs to sit a little deeper into his chair. This was a project that he had been given, and he had put in enough time to have been kept in the loop and this was on top of his normal job. "It turned out that Defiance was actively looking for the factory on that planet, and they jumped on the idea when Blackwell came knocking on their doors. It took longer to get the contract done then it did in setting up the specialized equipment. To speed things along Blackwell paid the cost to make a high-speed run out to them with a supporting Buccaneer class cargo dropper to Defiance headquarters expecting that they would jump on this idea."

The head of Wolf Net had an almost sneer on his face and then got to the good parts. "After the contract was signed, Defiance also set up a sudo command circuit out of their own pocket to get our team out that way as fast as they physically could. After our guys launched a pair of modified Neptune's into the water, they found the place in a week. It took longer to get the contract signed than it took them to find…. the location."

Stanford gives a loud snort, and a true smile comes to his face. "Maybe next time they won't drag their feet even that long when we come a calling with an idea." He was looking forward to reading a copy of the internal reports for Defiance about what they thought about the speed of Blackwell finding what they had been looking for years to find. It would just add more mystique to Blackwell, that maybe could be parlayed into something down the road.

Now Jaime's bushy eyebrows shot up, and for him that was a show of major surprise. This move was one step below the average person standing up and ripping his clothes off before he went screaming around the room. Then Jaime's face went so still that even a Kurita couldn't read him with any accuracy. Blake kept talking, if a little slower. "As it turns out, again, the Caveman was right on the money with his knowledge. No matter how many that have been read into the project didn't want to believe him, he was proven close enough to being right to hurt some feelings."

Stanford shot a look around the room. "So yes, the Zeus is the near sister of the Rimmer made Rampage battlemech. The factory had five full-fledged late grade Star League production lines when it was shut down to make them. All they need to do, after cleaning them up, is put ores in one end and watch the mechs come sliding out the other end of the bread box."

There was no way for the Dragoons to know that this factory was the only source of the highest tech weapons in the Rim Worlds Republic before it was destroyed by the very upset SLDF.

Blake bites the inside of his lower lip for a second and then decides he will say it anyway. "You know finding this makes me wonder what House Cameron and SLiC were doing or who had been paid off for those cutting-edge auto-factories to be sent to the Rim World Republic in the first place. I read about how upset people were when that huge auto factory for the Valkyrie was being set up on New Avalon even if that mech was supposed to be going into the SLDF and not a house military. I mean they still talk about it, like it was yesterday. Now to find out that the RWR had them years before the FedSuns got them, and they were for assault class machines and not a high-end light design. That is more than a little disturbing about how deep that…man had his hooks into the Star League."

The head agent saw the level look coming from Jaime and decides that he needs to get back on topic. "A few dozen Blackwell 'support' teams that went with the scouting equipment are helping our partners reprogram the lines to make the lighter machines. Right now, those teams are mainly focused on 'fixing some software issues' that they found on the auto production lines on the Defiance side. When they are done with this work, it will be set up so that the Lyrans will only be making older tech mechs on their lines and not fitted with any SLDF grade weapons or technology."

When Jaime didn't say anything, Blake kept right on talking. "Defiance hopes to have the first Zeus's coming off of their two lines by the start of June or the end of July with the on-hand supplies found in the facility. We get two lines that they are making what we told them are 'Stalkers' and 'other' types of spare parts until we can get legally cleared for us to make more Shoguns. The idea is to have one Shogun line and modify the other line to make new Annihilator 1Xs. The work on the Annihilators is not going to start until Blackwell gets more of the right people on site to both do the work and keep any spies out of their spaces. Thanks to the factory already being set up for those higher tech cannons, this will not be an issue with making these replacement Annihilators. That should be easy to get away with, because each factory complex line is separated in their own underwater dome with connecting tunnels to a central shipping point facility." While it might sound easy, Blake was a professional and knew that it never was that easy.

Suddenly, Jaime tilted his chin down a little. "And the worm in the apple?"

Blake was not phased in the least at this pointed question. "The fifth line. That's the one that we have to share the output with Defiance. They will have the first Rampage 2G/Ringos, and yes, they are playing up the Wild West theme with some new armor plates to change the overall outline of the vanilla Rampage design." He shakes his head a little. "That 'brim' going around the head might even work as a sunshade for the pilot. Anyway, the Lyrans will start getting at least a few new assault mechs by the end of the month, not that they really need any more top-heavy units."

A round of snorts of agreeable sound comes from the rest of the room. "I just think Defiance is trying to get some money coming into their bank accounts to help pay down the cost that they have already built up just from looking for the place for the last two hundred years. I'm okay if that is how they want to spend their political capital with the Estates General getting them to buy some mechs with RWR heritage. If I was them? I would have just started making spare parts on that line to get more machines back in operations across the Lyran Commonwealth, but spare parts are not sexy enough for them."

The head of Wolf Net didn't need to tell Jaime that the ground team was trading some of the spare parts the Dragoon teams were making for the required ores to make the first set of supplies needed to be put away for the future or for selling on the open market under the Blackwell name.

Major Yukinov was the commander of Able Battalion (Wolf's Own) and he also was the second in command of all of Alpha Regiment when Jaime was busy being the leader of the whole mercenary command and he spoke up now and he sounded very impressed. "That was very quick work. How were they able to pull that off?"

Now Blake could not keep the smirk from coming to his face at full power. "With the base information given by Caveman and his supplies, the team had a good idea on what they were going to find besides were to start looking. The Blackwell HR department was able to quickly gather the right people along with the right supporting equipment for up to SLDF grade systems. It was a crash review on what they knew about RWR manufactory facilities like what was used by them from the time of the Usurper war. I think more than a few were surprised to find out that almost half of our Falcons had come from the Roe Weapons Systems factory on Apollo as 4Nb's. On top of that Defiance was very…. motivated and sent the very best people they had on file with our group of reinforcements. Our scout team was able to spend some time alone with the lines before Defiance could make it on site to arrange some evidence and took care of the supporting code in the bread boxes."

The Agent saw the furrowed brows and quickly down shifted mental gears. "Late Star League auto factories are cutting to almost bleeding edge tech. To give SLiC some points, it's all blacked boxed so the secrets can't be pulled out. Our team used some tricks to hide those files that can make Late Star League tech, like what the Valkyrie line of Corean on New Avalon has. Wolf Net doesn't think that they would risk cracking the black boxes and making the whole line worthless. It should take them many man years of work to dig through all of that computer code to find the files to make late SLDF weapons, or until Blackwell sells them the skills to fully activate them. It is assessed that they are focused on getting only one line working before looking that hard at the other lines."

"And the security of the site?" asked Jaime. The last thing anyone wanted was to have someone run an objective raid on a new facility to remove this new source of weapons from the LCAF much less from the Dragoons.

It could take a few years for the defenses of the underwater base to be fully emplaced and the crews trained for their use in this odd type of combat environment. Normally, at least after the 2nd SW, the defenses were put into place first and then the high payoff target was put under its guns as a way to protect the realm's investment as it was being built or rebuilt from a time before the 2SW.

Blake addresses the question. "It's good, and the two-armed scout subs that Blackwell sent are staying to patrol around the site. A pair of Neptunes can pack a good punch on intruders and the active probes would keep anyone sneaking around at arm's length. Our contacts on Galatea said that Defiance is looking for a few merc units to pick up a mid-length contract, but they need to be at least a Regiment sized unit to apply for this job. I made sure that the White Witches were put on the short list of groups we… errr Blackwell said that they liked. I think they will get it, and maybe another Company sized Mech unit heavy on energy weapons without dropship support to set up near the site where that old repair facility had been. I have seen one report that says the Lyrans also are planning on using the same cover methods in getting the mechs out. The press release will say something like that the company has found an old RWR battlefield or storage facility full of wrecked hulls but repairable and they are just repairing them to be sold as they finished testing those old hulks."

Jaime turned to look at the newest member of the staff sitting in the room with them. She had not said a word the whole time, as was normal for her. She had only been brought into Caveman a few weeks or so ago and was still getting over the shock. This officer normally was in charge of the supplies that they were getting by hook or by crook and normally outside of what Blackwell was making on the sly. After being brought into Caveman, she had been given a few more jobs that she was only allowed to talk about with a very short list of Dragoons. She also moonlighted as part of Major Ruthenford's Contract group when they needed help looking for contract landmines.

Jaime used a very calm voice. "Captain Battisello, how are things for you? Are the close quarters combat teams settling into their new home?"

Captain Cecilia Batttistello didn't smile; it might have broken her face. Being told that you would have died and everyone else on the station that had been your life and soul for the last nearly two decades, now that had a way of grabbing you by your sense of humor and not in a good way. "Now that FS is being looked after by someone over in Wolf Net, I think that we are…. okay."

Cecilia was not ever going to use that man's name ever again outside of using it as a curse that rated right up there with Amaris. She never in a million years would have thought that a member of the Clans would sell the rest of them out like that. One part of her brain wished that it was just some hidden brain damage that had caused him to betray the Dragoons like he had much less all of the dependents. "The hard part will be keeping him alive when more people find out about parts of Caveman." She was not going to shed a single tear when this happened to that that…. thing meets his fate.

The hard-faced woman didn't give a hint to what she had been thinking. "Before it makes it to your desk in any official way. The Kommando teams are not that happy hiding who they are from the rest of the station crew, until only cleared Dragoons are allowed on board. But they have already helped stop some minor smuggling on and off the station by some of the cleared local hires allowed to dock to her hull. To keep them quiet in the station's bar, I had to throw them a bone and let them pull out their Nighthawks for use in private."

The captain had to stop talking as some low mumbling started but quickly stopped. "I made sure that they understand that they have to keep those suits out of view from even our people so that even the slightest rumor won't be leaked to the outside world."

She changed the subject and turned on a mental dime. "We are still getting about 100 new heatsinks a month from Blackwell, as they hoped. They are not coming in all at once, but we are getting them and then using them when we have enough. When the Kommando Furies come in or one of the Wolf Net craft? They are full of other things that we need for repairs the combine is blocking, and that cuts down on the number of 'good' heatsinks they can bring out to us. At first, my repair chiefs had wanted just to put the new heatsinks on our heaviest machines, to give them an edge in any combat they might get into."

She paused to give effect and add power to her words. "We just can't do that and keep hidden about what we are doing to them, even with orders to not use that advantage. We now know that we are being closely watched by the Five Pillars, ISF, Yakuza, and some free lancers that might or might not be part of other agencies. We had to fall back on Plan C, so now whatever machine is in the repair bays from the other units is worked on. They are getting their heat management systems ripped out and replaced when we have the parts on hand, and no one is watching too closely. About the only mechs in the repair bays that are being vetoed in getting the updated cooling systems are the bug mechs. After a mech has come through our baby for a treatment, then any of the regiments field support teams can replace the damaged ones down the road." She didn't need to say that this would only happen after they got more of the combat power refitted and back on the line.

Jaime was looking at the beautiful blades again, and it was like he was trying to see into the fine metal grain of the swords like they might have the answers he was looking for. After almost a full minute of silence he spoke without moving his eyes from the two swords. "Very soon we are going to be set up as war criminals by the same people who gave me those weapons of honor."

He was still not looking around, but you could tell that he was addressing the whole room. "Now things will start to change very quickly in just a few months. If this fourth war is going to kick off, we need to make sure that the Combine can't invade this soon to be flagged Federated Commonwealth."

Jaime let those words sink in for a few seconds. "Our contract is up with the Combine in 28 months; and we will stick to the absolute letter of the contract and do everything that is required of us to the letter and not one period more. We don't need any of these butterflies that we have been warned about if we get started too early. I want the breaks put on any training of Combine units starting as soon as the next published training schedule. I don't want those with the dagger trained by us on where to put it most effectively in our collective backs. But when it is time for us to leave?"

The tone turned so cold that it sent shivers down the spines of everyone in the room and still Jaime was not done. "We will make sure that the Combine is not able to take any worlds from the country that will be our new homes until the coming of the old family. In 28 months, you can expect that we will start looking at a change of mission for all of the Dragoons and those that we have found to be friends."

That was it, with those few words, the Dragoons were not even going to try to work on a new contract with the Combine. It was almost time to pull the gloves off a little more. At least he only waited a few months, Blake just hoped that those months would not be the measure of success or failure.

Jaime turned and looked back at the head of Wolf Net. "Let Team Caveman know that they are cleared to go with all parts of Capitoline W." That was it, the bandage had just been ripped off and there was going to be very little chance of stepping back from this point forward no matter how much Jaime might want to.

Blake had been expecting this turn of events ever since he had found out about Jaime getting those two swords for action on Benjerman and other actions in that book. Still, he was a little taken aback at this plan and to be told to undertake all sub parts of that same said plan. SHEILD had only been the start of things, Jaime and he had spent weeks adding and sometimes taking away sub parts of Capitoline all the way until last week as a war plan. If they were going to tell Hanse Davion or any of the other House Lords about the truth of the Dragoon's past? Jaime would have told Blake to break out Plan Lobo and hop on the next Jumpship heading away from this star. Well even with Capitoline W, the head of Wolf Net was going to have to catch a jumpship. Only he would have enough time to activate some fake documents to conceal his travels.

Stanford shot a look around the room and all he saw were wide-eyed looks. "Are you sure, Jaime? Do we need those extra mechs that badly, I know that we are short some machines due to the maintenance load and not hiring more local support? I just don't think we can find enough unassigned mech pilots, at least not and keep our security level and skill levels to what we are used to."

Jaime smiled a very wolf-like smile. "It's not just about us using those mechs hidden under that mountain Stanford. I don't want the FWL to get anything, not after what they did to us. Besides NAIS could use that library core, as well as we can."

"Are you going clear them to use Narco or Babble juice on Drake?" This was normally Blake's call, but with this asset Jaime had the final call on such things. If they were going with W that meant some Wolf Net Files would have to be handed over to third parties. Handing data over was not something that Wolf Net and the Dragoons were known to do very willingly, and that had been before the information coming out of Caveman.

Jaime didn't say anything for a few long seconds and then drops his chin just a little before speaking. "No….. at least not without him volunteering to do so of his own free will. He has been and will be willing to help us, so just make sure that any recordings about subjects that are too close to home are removed from any files we hand over. We are not ready for Lobo to be released just yet and Drake knows about 'them'. Besides I don't think that most of the people we need to talk to will believe that we are in an old game and a huge set of books that someone had started writing back in the 1980's."

Blackwell compound, New Valencia

Cruis March, FedSuns

Late Jan 3026.

Drake was drumming his fingers on the tabletop looking at the latest reports coming in from around the Inner Sphere. What was one of the nice things about him working so close to Wolf Net? It was that he was plugged into a lot of what was going on around the Inner Sphere without being required to write or brief any reports. He got to soak in the data and do what he wanted with it. It was a lot like when the ex-NCO had spent time as a Division S2 for the first time. Only this time, he just could pick and choose what he wanted to read about and not have to worry about breaking it down into briefings for other members of the staff and the commander for what they thought were the primary, secondary, and tertiary areas of interests. As one of the senior members of SHIELD, he didn't have to do any reports unless he wanted to. Most of the time he would just walk over and talk to Franko about something that had caught his eye over a cup of coffee or bottle of beer.

The man from Earth looked over at the list of projects that the SHIELD team had put forward and he felt his mouth turn down. He was both surprised and disappointed that only about a third of them had been approved to move forward on, and even most of those were rated as approved but they still had to wait until further orders from higher. He dove back into the data looking for a golden nugget only to think back to some of the past meetings of Shield.

(Flash back)

Drake looked around to the new office for SHIELD and he could still smell the fresh paint used on the walls. He marked it down to the future of the 80s striking again or it could have been another example of the fall of the tech base for the whole Inner Sphere. As his eyes ran over the room and out the window to see the massive main building that held the core of Blackwell Industries that was only three short buildings to the North. It was not much of a skyline compared to what the man from Earth was used to but in modern warfare, large buildings tended to draw a lot more incoming enemy fire.

Two people entering the briefing room brought him back mentally into the land of the living and he watched them until they settled in. A tall woman stood at the head of the fake wood topped table and first shoots a look to the displaced man. "Now that we are all here. I will open the meeting with old business, the latest update from Dragoon command. If you look at the board, we have changed line 7 and 21 to delayed." A slight groan came from the room.

Caveman ran his right hand threw his short brown military haircut and with a huff. "Well, that sucks but that is why they get paid the big bucks. I want to add light powered armored to the list for mass production." This was greeted with a grown…again.

Lieutenant Anton Shadd from the Seventh Kommandos started slowly rubbing his chin and then spoke. "I still don't think that it's worth the money. The Seventh uses old Nighthawks suits, but its hard to get those raised in Clan space to get around the idea of the stealth systems they are built with. You need heavy suits to be on the open battlefield, like the clan Elemental suit."

He holds up his hands at seeing the look coming from Caveman. "I know that your books have a range of weight classes for deployed armored suits, but they aren't what I would call useful in combat." A sound of agreements goes around the room.

Mary speaks up now. "We're not even to the tech level to make any suits in those books, they use a of mix of very late Star League, Clan, and things that no one in explored space currently knows."

The man from Earth smiles and out of the corner of his eye he could see his friend, the Wolf Net Agent, stiffen in his chair. "What about the Class 1 Arenas on Solaris? I think that the earlier we can send a team to interview them the better."

The lawyer assigned to Project Caveman spoke loud enough to carry over the talking of others. "What are these Class 1 Arenas you're talking about? I don't think I have heard of them."

The head of production for all of Blackwell spoke before the meeting was overwhelmed by other voices. "You know that on Solaris that they have different classes of fights but the most popular are the Class 6 Unlimited games." Mary waited for a few seconds until she got a positive head nod. "Well, the classes are broken up by mass with only assault mechs in Class 5 going all the way down to Class 1. The Class 1's use different types of exoskeletons or even infantry with heavy body armor."

She stopped talking for a few more seconds. "It's visibly bloody and held in the wilder arenas of the Gaming World. Most think they are blood sports that civilized people should avoid, so of course they draw large enough crowds to make money…. for some people."

Franko looked around the room and his quick mind worked out a plan that might stop this from descending into another argument. "Drake, how about that we relook at the battle armor issue after the short term Combine problem has been handled and we could get some infantry types assigned to the team to get their imputes before we have to break out the check book."

The room was full of head nods of agreement but for one person, it was clear that most of the rest of the secretive team of SHIELD hadn't liked his idea about combat PA(L). The general rule was that they felt like the only real battle armor was something equal to the 1ton Clan made Elemental type battle suits.

In a soft voice the short cut dark hair man spoke to the empty room. "Those clanners just don't understand that perfect is the enemy of good enough."

The man was trained in the Big Green Machine for over a decade with deployments into combat zones, and he just hates to think about how many infantrymen were going to die because they don't have at least some of the light powered armored suits to stop the enemy fire. Thanks to playing this as a game, he knew that Misery was almost as cold of a planet as you could have and still have a largeish population base.

Taking one more shot to change their minds. "Okay I can tell when I'm peeing in the wind, but Misery is cold as hell and some of those suits could keep the grunts stay warmish in such a freezing environment." He could tell that his statement had fallen on deaf ears.

####

It seemed like every few weeks items would be moved around on the priority list that the members of SHIELD had put on that whiteboard. It took the man from Earth a while to realize that the approved but delayed list was slowly growing, and the 'no' lists were getting a little shorter every few weeks. Now that everyone was here Drake started his part of this song and dance.

Mary sat back and rubbed her forehead and let out a huff. "I know that I have covered this a dozen times." She needs a few breaths so that her tone is calmer. "We need to keep all of these expansions cost neutral. The funds that Jaime has already cleared for us to use have been reduced to the only touch in emergency levels."

Drake gave a huff; Mary had told him this every few meetings and he held up his hands. "Yes, and you have also told me that as soon as one new idea has paid for itself, then we could move on to something else."

Franko gave a shake of his own head as he started to parrot what had been beaten into the team's members ever few weeks. "And we know that Blackwell is a business and if a business ran too far into the Red, then it was not a business anymore, it was an asset auction waiting to happen." He covered most of this in an almost sing song like voice of a middle schooler.

The mech jock snorted at the antics of the Agent. "Well at least Blackwell doesn't have to worry about to many stockholders getting upset with what is going on, at least not with our connection to the Dragoons."

What was not said? It was that if the Dragoons failed or were hurt too badly in battle to be a viable unit then it was possible that this assumption would change, and SHIELD knew about how the Dragoons combat power looked after the battles on Misery and fleeing Combine space in the information they had been shown. If the Dragoons stopped being a unit, the rules for Blackwell would go under a major revision weather they wanted this to happen or not.

Mary was still rubbing her head. "The CEO passed along an update on Project Nemo." It was like she had said free beer when she used the code word for something to do with Kwongjong-Ni.

Drake and the rest of the group now were giving Mary their undivided attention. Seeing that this was the case and with a small smile the head of all production for Blackwell addressed the rest of the room. "As was somewhat expected, Defiance had been very happy with the deal over Kwongjong-Ni, even if no one knew that it would be possible to make massive numbers of new machines at that location. Neither group were up to the level of making any money on that deal just yet, but the writing is on the wall close enough that it had made their mouths water. And to the point, the Dragoons were known as one of the only users of the Falcon battlemech and that Blackwell was one of their keystone suppliers, so the other company has made a very surprising offer."

The room is a little less still, and a sly little smile comes to her face. "The surprise was that no one on this planet knew that Defiance took over all of the Stormvanger Assemblies sites after they mostly were thought destroyed in 2789."

The Lawyer clears his throat. "So, Defiance has the rights to the Falcon that we were looking for…. that could complicate things if the legal management of that line has fallen to the larger company."

Mary now has a huge smile on her face. "It turns out that it had only taken a few words in the right ears to get that other company thinking that this was a very good idea. I think that it is a good bet that within the data flowing into Wolf Net that they will find that the Archon had been the rock that had gotten the avalanche moving on the idea of this gift/reward for outstanding service."

Franko had his work face on. "I will have to pass along a RIF (request for information) on what might be known about that."

The head of production gives an eyebrow raise. "I would love to read those reports when they come in. Now to get back on track. Defiance has very quietly turned over everything they had on the old and damaged factory on Hesperus II along with the legal approval of production of anything connected with Stormvanger….. at least what was produced by that division on the planet Hesperus. It was not much as mech production lines go, but it is going to save Blackwell many millions of C-bills in cost and even a few years of work rebuilding a small production line from scratch. We should now have the first new production spare parts for the 4N Falcons starting to come out of the rebuilt line at the end of 3026. It is hoped to have new mechs coming out in low-rate production levels sometime in the middle of 3027. If all of the stars line up, Blackwell could have full rate production running of about one mech per week by the end of 3027."

The room erupted into cheers that lasted even when Mary held up her hands to get the room back under control. "Now calm down. The downside is that all of those dates are linked to how much money that our parent company and leadership can get to pay the people needed to do all of the work or to buy the raw materials needed to get the line up and running in the first place."

Shadd from the 7th Kommandos speaks next to the still rowdy room. "When can they start putting the line together?"

The Wolf Net agent almost blurts out laughing, but in a steady voice. "Those two independent dropships that are really are part of the security unit on Hesperus II and sitting on the landing pads, have something to do with this." It was a statement not a question in the mind of Franko.

The Blackwell executive did a little head nod of agreement, and a smirk comes to her face. "Yes, they didn't send this report on HPG. It was a hard copy file that arrived early last evening. Those two Mules are being unloaded and the packing team from Defiance are looking at the factory shell as we're speaking."

God how I hate the corporate world. Why can't I just go blow something up? Thought Drake as he reached for another report that he wanted to address in this meeting.

"Speaking of money," Drake speaks aloud and opens the file about the New Medical Division of Blackwell. The display in the center of the room changed to match the report in his hands.

The man out of time reads very quickly the pages in his hand. "So, thanks to the Dragoons, the Blackwell's on-site hospital is a top-of-the-line facility but it's on the small side of things."

Was it a Clan Tech top of the line facility? Drake didn't think so, and he was not about to ask. But still, what had been done was not bad for only being a 6 month old idea opened up by a man from a different universe. When the idea had been tossed out, he hadn't known that Blackwell had a Star League grade MASH truck just sitting around in the motor pool gathering both dust and grumblings from the maintenance staff. When this was reported on the books, that truck was quickly used to be the base of a riskier idea that SHIELD had come up with. Someone had the bright idea that the truck could be used as the template for their first new product to hit the open market from Blackwell in many years.

The man from Earth rubbed his forehead in frustration as the slides slowly went by. "Okay I can see making copies of that MASH truck, but how about first making a lot of copies of the equipment and software that's inside of it?"

At the strange looks coming from the rest of the room he continued. "With copies of that high tech medical equipment, you could train up more medical professionals on it. Then when you have a few thousand train medical minded people ready. Well? Then you can open the taps to roll out that grade of medical equipment with a full-time school set up to show off about how to use the items we are going to be selling in the real world."

Franko had an odd look on his face, then he smiled at what Drake had just spat out only for the man from Earth to continue. "That makes more sense than if you just sold the trucks to the military, they would just be going to be sitting in a motor pool in some RCT until the next war or attack comes along. You know kind of like what Blackwell has been doing for at least the last decade with this one truck."

The Gamma Regiment warrior Captain Heutzenroeder made a sour face. "Caveman makes a good point, and it's something that the Regiments have seen before. It would be the rare commander in most of the Inner Sphere that would allow one of his limited and expensive machines to be used outside of combat or at least not without a direct order from higher command."

Drake had to fight not to do a fist pump in the air at the support. "Well, now that we have an understanding. How about we get started with opening the current Blackwell hospital's lab and surgery wards for appointments outside of the Blackwell facility."

When the room didn't break out into a riot, he started talking again with the rest of the base idea that he had been thinking about for some time. "Then I would bring in some of the locals that are medically trained and then work on retraining them to help with the added workload that our facility would be taking on. I would keep adding to the local supplied work force until I was ready to open a second local hospital/clinic."

Mary had an odd look on her face. "Well, at least that idea fits better with the cost neutral plans that Blackwell is having to work under."

The idea was voted on to be pushed forward to the Medical Division and the company CEO for her review, but it was a good bet that it soon would be passed over to the Medical Division for implementation.

###

It had not taken but a few weeks before the new division of Blackwell took over the hospital nearest to the facility in the city of San Angeles with the thanks and a signed check from the governor of New Valencia in early October to cover starting expenses. The Blackwell Medical center in Raiteland would be open by the end of next month thanks to the number of medical trained personnel that Blackwell could call on that already knew their jobs and only needing a few days of testing to knock the rust off.

Drake and Franko each had small side bets between them with the Medical Division head that said by June of this year, he is going to have his first off planet request for an appointment. Edward Jenner thought that the pair had been joking. When the plan was put forward for the second hospital, Megan had told Dr. Jenner to make sure that they had a way for any appointments coming in from the local HPG station could be efficiently handled. You could have knocked Edward over with a feather and Franko passed over a 10 C-Bill note to the displaced man in front of the whole meeting.

The companies' legal department was also working to take over the troubled New Valencia Agriculture Company headquartered on New Valencia. That company had been almost shut down due to deep financial issues and gross illegalities in the company's procedures in early 3025. It was one of the main reasons that Blackwell was keeping all of the needed expansion cost neutral in the public books. There was blood in the water that had been started by VAC and the press was waiting to see who they could take a bite out of next.

The local FedSun's rep over seeing this troubled company was hyper focused on a version of near grain that could be grown in high mineral and salt content soils that were common on a lot of borderline planets around the FedSuns. When the paperwork was done, now the FedSuns was going to be paying Blackwell a nice fee just to come in and run the place and to keep the idea of that grain from becoming a nightmare. After they got the place cleaned up, the VAC facility was going to be the headquarters of the Planetary Support Division of Blackwell Industries.

There were lots of things going on, but it seems like to Drake that they were not making that much overall head way with the big picture. The ex-NCO had to keep reminding himself, that he was trying to stop the downward slide of the whole Inner Sphere and then trying to drag it back up. That is thousands of worlds and a few trillion souls that he was talking about in effecting in a hand full of years. All with the support of a lone mercenary unit and a small parts company that they owned. Oh, and that mercenary unit was about to run head long into the teeth of the full force of the Combine and it was one of the most military focused of the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. The FedSuns, before it became the FedCom, alone had about 80 mech regiments and a few hundred tank and infantry regiments in its order of battle. On paper the Dragoons were in for being on the receiving end of a major curb stomp.

(end flashback)

BAMMMM….!

Drake about comes out of his skin at the loud sound now echoing around his office. He doesn't know if it was his bout of deep thinking, or if it was his PTSD kicking him in the butt that launched him up out of his chair. He had almost broken his neck turning to look at the wide-open door to the office that he was currently using to securely review files supplied by Wolf Net or internal Blackwell documents.

Franko walked into the room with a huge smile on his face that said he had made the loud noise caused by kicking open the door very much on purpose. The ex-Army NCO was still working on getting his heartrate back under control and by the look on the agent's face he had planned to give him a start and the agent was not going to hide it. That was okay with the man from Earth because he had glued three long, thin, and slightly toxic thorns into the padding of the agent's office chair a few weeks ago and they could only be found one way….by sitting on them.

Before the top Wolf Net agent made it to Drake's desk, the man from Earth made an observation coming off the other man. "Well, I take it that the meeting with Team Banzai went to your liking."

Franko took a seat and played with a sheet of paper in his off hand. "Yes, and it turns out Wolf Net had missed something. The FedSuns and NAIS have had some prototypes of 'Freezers' in field testing since mid-22, and we had no clue about them. They said that the Hoff facility has been hand making prototypes as fast as they can, but they are using some caustic compounds that we know are a dead end. We gave them a few of the DHS that were not stored well, and the plans that we 'found' to go with the damaged units. The NAIS might be able to have them in low-rate production for at least lab testing in the near future. How long it will take for one of the big boys on both sides of the FedCom to get them into production is anyone's guess."

Drake gave a loud snort, "I hope they keep it out of Kincaid's hands, or the Confederation will have them in mechs before the Lyrans roll them out. Where they surprised that Blackwell just wants a little upfront cash and some influence points instead of part of the production run on those things?"

The agent was looking sideways at his friend. "WE will get back to the second part in a second. What about Kincaid's hands?"

The displaced man had to really think for a few seconds, that statement had been just something that had popped into his head and out of his mouth for some reason. He rubbed his hand over his now out of regulation cut but still short brown hair. "There is a company on the Lyran side called Kincaid or something…... Industries. They are really working for the Cappies and they will get away with selling them the plans along with whole production runs of the 2nd gen heatsinks instead of for 'our' side to use. I always thought that it was a bit odd to do that, making DHS is as close as you can get as a license to print money, so maybe they are true believers, or some really nasty black mail is being used."

The agent pulled out a little note pad from his shirt pocket and took a few quick notes, and while he was writing he looked over to the other man. "I think this is new information." As the agent thought about it his face turned tight while thinking that this was just another reason to keep this asset wrapped up in bubble wrap until the heat death of the universe. "I don't remember this. I'll have to check the Caveman data files to see what we have on them just to make sure. I will see if Wolf Net can get anyone to digging deeper with what you just said if we don't have anything already in the files."

Franko looked over his notepad at some of the other shorthand notes and tilted his head to one side. "You never know, maybe LOKI would like to know about them. And no, the representatives from Team Banzai didn't seem that surprised that we were looking at needing a steady supply of some cash instead of one lump sum payment or part of the production run of the devices. They have to assume that Blackwell is or has been working on and failing with getting that product onto the market before talking to them. Besides, influence peddling is normal at this level within the Inner Sphere. Only asking for 1percent of the net sells every month wouldn't be that strange for this kind of thing."

Drake made a face that looked like a cat who had both coughed up a hair ball and smelled his own butt after his human had changed his food at the same time.

The agent put his little old school notepad away in its hiding pocket with a few quick hand movements, and he made a mental note that he didn't remember when he had taken to carrying that thing around. It was very bad field craft, but after the third or fourth time that is friend had surprised him with a new nugget of information out of the blue was the most likely culprit. He had started carrying that paper pad, but he made sure to lock it up anytime that he left the grounds of Blackwell or when he turned in for the night after spending time at the displaced man's home. It went right into the home safe beside his side arm.

"I hope that you have had all of your shots," asked Franko and he passed over the sheet of paper in his now free hands. It was one of a dozen pages that had been decoded from the ComStar run HPG station near the planet's capital a few hours ago.

Drake took the offered sheet and looked down thinking that the other boot was about to drop on his head. The plastic like sheet had only one image of a cartoon and the man from Earth let confusion show on his face. The sheet held an image of a Caveman having a high-class meal with a Fox. After a few seconds it clicked into his mind. "Okay, so I get to have a meeting with Hanse Davion?"

At the head nod of agreement, he smiled. "I can be ready to go in an hour." After a few seconds of quiet. "YESSSS! I get to go see the man!" Drake had been hoping that he would meet the man that was going to turn this timeline on its head with his wedding present to his young wife.

"Hold on there silly rabbit, tricks are for professionals. You just don't go see The Fox or any other of the great house leaders for that matter at the drop of a hat. Not even the Dragoons have that much pull sitting in their back pockets. We need to do some planning first, and you are going to have to do some work on your French, if you're going to be seen in the court of the FedSuns. Oh, and we are not going as members of Blackwell, so we are going to have to do some juggling to set up some cover stories for all three of us."

Crap my Arabic was a lot better than my French, thought Drake. He had been working on the latter for some months and not enjoying the classes at all. "What? Three?" He almost yelled.

Franko smiled at seeing the look on the other man's face. It was not that often that you could stump this odd man from a different universe. So, when you did? You wanted to remember it for as long as you physically could. "We will be meeting Blake Stanford on New Avalon."

Well crap, I was so not wanting to deal with that, was Drake's hidden thoughts about the head of Wolf Net. After a few seconds he connected a few dots. "Okay, so we are going to see if the Dragoons have a clear landing spot from Combine space…right? And what else are we going to do there?" He knew that you didn't just want to cover one subject when you got a meeting with the big dogs, so something else must be at play.

Franko kept the same smile on, but he somehow changed his face to look just a little eviler. "We are going after Helm."

Caveman felt his jaw drop to the floor in shock. For just a few seconds he thought that he should jump up and do a little dance, but the rest of the Shield teem had beaten into the ex-NCO as a base idea of how much of a pain it was going to be to launch a mission like that. By now the man from Earth was not sure something like that could be pulled off outside of a work of fiction. So, Drake had a confused look on his face when he asked the head of that beating group a question. "Are we ready for that move?"

The look he got from Franko told him that it was a dumb question that he had just asked aloud. Then he explained the look to his friend. It would seem like someone had been spending a lot of hot air to keep Caveman from knowing the truth about some projects going on in the dark of classified projects of the Dragoons. Need to know sucked and Drake would remember that he had been kept in the dark about something as big as going after Helm, even when it had been him that had told them about it in the first place. Just as he was starting to plan another round of changing black potting soil for Franko's prized coffee grounds, the target of this prank started to speak again.

"The Dragoons have a lot more recon and spying assets than other unit our size should have, but I think that is one of the key reasons that we have lived this long. You also would be surprised by how many friends that the Dragoon still have in the FWL after we left. Thanks to your books and information on the GDL we were able to get the Landholder seal of Helm and replaced it with a well-made fake."

The Agent stopped talking for a few seconds until the other man gave a come along hand movement to his friend. "A specialized 6-person Wolf Net team was able to first access the hidden base a month ago to check it out and run some tests. They have been living in and exploring the base, all while keeping a low profile and everyone is waiting for the clearance to take the next step. I don't have a detailed inventory, but from what I have been told. The base had a huge stock of supplies and enough mechs to outfit around four SLDF reinforced mech regiments, maybe up to nine armored regiments, and half a thousand nuclear warheads."

The grin on Franko's face looked a little manic as he kept talking. "I was told that they have not even tried to count the infantry related items, there was no way they would get that bored outside of death."

Drake just looked at the agent and his mind tried to do the numbers in his head, and it just got stuck on a hell of a lot of metal. "Okay I guess it has paid off for you guys not to just have shot me and then dump my body into the local star. So, what is my part in this game plan?"

###

The sun was just starting to set outside the huge windows that made up this office building that blended in with the rest on this campus. Franko had grown to truly like the displaced man after only a few months of the agent being brought onto this project. Still every time that he thought back to those first meetings with the man from Earth, were he revealed that he was a lot smarter than he had let others know in that hospital…. he smiled. By now Drake tended to let the name Caveman linger in most people's mind to keep them off of their game until he let them walk into the cream pie that he had waiting on them. Other times he would just lower the boom onto someone, or he would suddenly say something that was almost off of the cuff, but somehow pointed at the same time into someone's face. Like the comment he had made a few hours ago and was still ringing in Franko's ears.

Drake knew that he was valuable to the Dragoons, so valuable that he had not asked to leave the military side of the Blackwell compound without clearing it first, even before he had let them know about his little secret. He was a prisoner, but he had not pushed on the bars to see how strong they were, and gold bars were still just more prison bars at the end of the day. It was now very clear that the man from Earth had to know that the Dragoons were not going to let all of his information fall into anyone's hands, even if that meant he died by the Dragoon's own hands. And he also knew that they could have just dumped his body into space that day of the miss jump and saved on the risk of anyone finding out the truth about the Dragoons. What no one knew was how far that loyalty really went for a man from a different universe with nothing to lose or possibly nothing to live for.

Franko knew that his friend was smart, and the agent thought that he could have made his own plans to get out of those bars without letting a hint about the escape being found by his watchers or for some time after he had fled if he had wanted to. But he had instead stayed with the Dragoons even knowing that they might have to kill him to keep what he knew out of someone else's hands. If you looked hard enough that was a major level of trust being given to the Dragoons, or was it to Franko?

The Wolf Net Agent looked around this office as he was thinking on that last part. It was not his per say, so he felt like he could judge the decorations. And it just happened that this looking and judging takes his mind off of the orders to kill someone he had come to think of as a close friend all the better. Franko had already killed dozens of people in his life and some of them he had known for years in one form or the other. But for the first time, the agent was hoping that he never would have to act on those sealed orders sitting in his safe. It was a lot to think about while he waited to leave for his next meeting.

###

Franko was waiting in the office for Megan Foster, the CEO of Blackwell, to return from a meeting with members of a group that were seeing off the last of the representatives from Team Banzai that were about to leave the planet. The agent was just using the time to get his thoughts into some kind of order so that he didn't waste either of their time.

Just then the door to the large corner office opened without any warning to slowly tap the expensively paneled wall. The agent hadn't moved while he waited for the CEO of Blackwell to take her seat and at least catch her breath before he started talking. After only a few seconds of reaching her seat, she looked at him and did a little thing with her head. "Well, that went off a lot better than I had first hoped." A sly smile came to the woman's face. "I think they were about to break their necks looking around at all of the work we have going on. I will just be glad when we can slow down and take a breather so that we can appreciate what we have done in less than a year."

Franko didn't smile, and he didn't move as the powerful woman talked at him. He just gave the head of Blackwell a level look when she took the time to take a deep breath. With the opening, he struck, "I'm sorry Megan, but it's only going to get more hectic for the foreseeable future."

Now that they had Drake, the foreseeable future was something that they had been dealing with for many months now. "We are to go with all parts of Plan Capitoline W."

The CEO had thought that she would be surprised by this move, but now that it had happened it was just another day that ended in Y. "That is going to be expensive, and what are the guidelines that we will have to work under." She was the CEO, but she had strings attached, and those strings were pulled by Jaime Wolf and Wolf Net.

The Agent was watching the woman very closely as he spoke. "Officially, you are to consolidate all of what has been labeled as level 1 tech by SHIELD into one area of the property, and you need to start hiring more less cleared people to run things in some areas of Blackwell. You can start expanding level 2 tech production into the area that you are producing the DHS and have the new Falcon line going in. We have already been looking at putting a possible Wolfhound line near it for some time, as well as other projects we have talked about. Also, instead of keep looking to get the okay to make the Marauders 2R from GM. Wolf Net now agrees that it looks like they are dragging their feet on us, so let's just cut our losses. We should be able to convert that foundation so that we can put down the new main buildings for a War Dog line."

He gives a little snort. "At least they are the same mass, so we don't have to make any adjustments to lifts, jigs, or the already poured foundation thickness. On my own orders, you also are to start laying the groundwork for production of level 3 tech. We can't start making it, but I will beg for forgiveness for just looking at what would need to be done to get that ball rolling."

Franko was using the planning shorthand just in case anyone might have slipped in and bugged her office or the woman herself. Level 1 tech was anything that was age of war or older tech based and was used on current mechs and tanks in production around the Inner Sphere outside of the vehicle production lines on this planet. Level 2 was the tech associated with the late Star League age weapons and no longer made any place outside of Terra according to the books from another universe. Level 3 was code for the weapons tech or anything that was connected with post Star League or Clan tech level weapons and supporting technology. The code was based on how Caveman had said was the way that tech was divided for that game in another universe.

Megan was sitting back in her expensive office chair and let out a loud whistle. "Okay that would give us Falcon, Marauder II, War Dog, and maybe the Wolfhounds if the Archon ever stops dragging her feet. They still won't even directly sell them to us much less to the combat units of the Dragoons." She kind of slumps in her chair. "Well so much for me working on keeping all of this cost neutral. At least using Defiance as a cut out for selling Stalker parts will help out more and more with our budget. It will still be a few months before the first pair of Annihilators can be smuggled all the way here mixed in with a shipment of spare parts for us."

Now she tilts her nose down and gives her panted pending, 'you're not going to like this' look and in a soft but powerful voice. "That is going to be expensive! You're talking about going from one very low-rate production line to three full rate lines on this planet with plans on a fourth in under a decade. And you have already said that you think that some of the Level 2 items would be quickly replaced by Level 3 tech as soon as we can get them into production. How do you think this will be managed?"

Now Franko was about to step out of his comfort zone, but he had all of those TROs to draw on, so he was almost comfortable with what he was about to say. "I was thinking that for now, we can limit the weapons side of the Level 2 tech that we should make for the Dragoons to use. Maybe some range of XL engines, the DHS we already are making, Gauss Rifles, newer armor types, 5cm pulse lasers, extended ranged 8cm laser, CASE kits by the hundreds, and ER PPCs. It will give us a way to test some of what we think we know. Besides, anything we don't need on planet." Now Franko gave a little smile. "I'm sure that Hephaestus will be able to use some of it for their secondary mission. As for paying for it? We are taking a page out of Big Mac's book. You will now be able to draw on the main Wolf's Dragoons bank accounts and be the name on file with ComStar. You also can start asking the FedSuns for any loans and grants that Blackwell might qualify for to help out." He knew that Nemo could make some of the items he was talking about along with things like the LB-X type autocannons, but that factory was a long way from New Valencia and being watched by LIC.

The Wolf Net agent part of Franko's mind was not happy with that part of Plan W. But orders were orders and if Blake was okay with the ISF and the rest now knowing that Blackwell was now drawing on Dragoon funds like other mercenary businesses, who was he to complain. "I think that Blackwell is going to be coming out of the shadows and into the light of day as a force to be reckoned with and not just as mainly being the supplier of the Dragoons. So, what do you think?"

She was the CEO so it was only smart to take any advice that she might have on this subject. Franko and Megan spent the next few hours working out in what order they would start this latest expansion of Blackwell with a few additions and more than a few cuts that Megan was certain that needed to be made. One of the biggest issues was making sure that ComStar or any of the other House Lords didn't find out too soon what the key details were or at least the extent of the next range of expansions. The one thing that Project Caveman had pointed out, it was that ComStar was more of a threat than even the most paranoid member of the Wolf's Dragoons could have dreamed of and that was saying something.

###

Notes:

Intel gaps in Shield: Drake and Franko are not told about every little mission that Wolf Net is running. Blake only tells them what he feels they need to know and not one word more. This is standard practice with intel agencies.

KDI agent. It was also talked a lot about going back to TRO 3050 and the story Proprietary in 2012. Confederation Blackjacks were found with DHS in 3028 and were traced back to KDI.

Light Battle Armor: SHIELD only has two combat focused members, one a mech jock and the other a SF trooper and they both have blinders about what Infantry is capable of on the open battlefield. The rest are what most combat people called Ivory Tower types that think that

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