DRAKES DEMONS

LIES AND SHADOWS

A BATTLETECH STORY

By Michael A. Cessna

Drakes Demons: Lies and Shadows A Battletech Story By Michael A. Cessna 2011 2013 A Floating Badger Production Cover artwork is copy written to FASA and/or the artist Kuleshov, and originally appeared at http://kuleshov.deviantart.com

Note: Battletech, in all its forms, is variously copyrighted to FASA, Microsoft, Hasbro Interactive, MicroProse, FanPro, Catalyst Game Labs and certain other parties. No part of this product is for sale. No part of this product may be reproduced without the express written consent of Floating Badger Productions, the author, or the various copyright holders. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is unintentional. This work contains elements of adult content, and may not be appropriate for minors.

Authors Note: This is a highly non-canonical Battletech story; although set in 3020AD, it diverges widely from the established storyline, and takes numerous liberties with established content. Information about Battletech, including descriptions of the technology, worlds, personalities and settings in this story can be found at the following websites: Sarna.net: Catalyst Game Labs: Shattered Core: http://www.sarna.net http://www.classicbattletech.com http://www.shatteredcore.net

An early version of DRAKES DEMONS appeared in installments at Catalyst Game Labs CLASSICBATTLETECH Forums.

For the spies out there, who get stabbed in the back by everyone involved

Someone gets it. I promise.

No good deed goes unpunishedever.

Anonymous

PROLOGUE
October 13, 3023 Gawalmandi, Lahore Indian Subcontient Administraitve Zone Terra The rain made the cobblestones slippery as they ran. The figures played their game discreetly, darting furtively through the shadows of the sprawling slum as people slept. The residents of the Gawalmandi district were still cleaning up after the festival of Vijayadashami, preparing for Diwali, on the 28th. Few noticed the running figures in the night, as the humidity began creating a foggy mist from the wet streets -- and those who did, wisely ignored them. The lithe figure in the lead suddenly turned right, and raced down an alley; approaching a wooden fence blocking the alley, the figure leaped into the air in midstride, and ran along the wall, until finally vaulting over the fence. The pursuers were undeterred, and followed with a similar, panther-like grace and speed. On the other side of the fence, the pursuer's leader suddenly motioned with his left hand, ordering the pursuers to split up -- unlike their quarry, he knew these warrens like the back of his hand... The chase did not last much longer. The quarry finally made a wrong turn, and hit a dead end; exhausted, for the first time in her life she nearly wailed at her failure in this, her ultimate task; she knew that her escape attempt had finally failed - she had been so close...now, all was lost. She knew that she would now die in this alleyway; her only prayer, to a God she no longer believed in, was to let her die quickly... The five pursuers now blocked her escape from the alleyway. Unarmed, she knew that she was too tired to fight; without weapons, with a bullet wound creasing her deltoid muscle, and weak from the surgery she had done on herself, she wouldn't last thirty seconds... The leader advanced into the dank alley, his for hunters following him in a loose formation. "It is over, Sister - continuing to struggle serves no one..." One of the pursuers sensed something was wrong, and tried to turn... Too late. Pfftpfft-pfftpfft-pfftpfft-pfftpfft-pfftpfft The exhausted "rabbit" stood in mute shock: the five elite ROM agents pursuing her now lay in pools of their own blood and other bodily fluids. She stayed crouched at the end of the alley, dreading whatever was coming... A figure appeared out of the mist; in his hand was a suppressed M2100 Commando Assault Pistol, its bulbous ammunition cassette making its form repulsively distinctive; a part of her mind noted the brass-catcher bag hanging beneath the receiver. The man holding the blocky pistol regarded her silently. Then, "Come with me, if you want to live." His voice had a cultured, Lyran-German lilt to it - Tharkad? Still, she hesitated; she was totally out of her depth. Her savior chuckled quietly, "I could have killed you on Solaris VII, but you were not the assignment, then. Come quickly - there is little time..."

What else could she do? Hesitantly, Janeshia Ward began walking towards the figure in the night, fully expecting a bullet at any moment... *~*~*~* Slowly, Janeshia awoke; had she been dreaming? No - she recognized the after effects of a powerful sedative. Then, she realized that she had been propped up on a divan, facing an open window; a sea breeze wafted through the gauzy curtains. She tried to move and winced - she remembered the bullet glancing off of the back of her left deltoid; her left arm was in a wrist-sling. Gingerly, she probed the area with her right hand - there was a professionally applied bandage over the wound; she thought that she could detect field combat sutures underneath. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she slowly rose on her right elbow, and swung her feet to the floor; her feet landed on cold, polished marble. The room swirled; whatever she had been given, it was strong. After a few moments to collect herself, she slowly rose and padded silently to the open door. Keeping back so as not to expose herself, she gazed out across the serene, azure-blue water... She turned as she heard a quiet scuffing of a shoe. A man entered the room after a moment, carrying a try of steaming chai. He smiled at her from under a sandy blond mustache - "I thought you might be awake. I did not want to startle you, lest you tear your stitches out." After only a moment, she nodded. "You were in the alley last night?" The man chuckled. "Four days ago, you mean? Yes. I also cleaned up the little self-surgery you did on your right lumbar. Tracking chip?" She nodded absently. Four days? "Then I missed the dropship." "You would never have made it. Please - sit," he said. As she sat dejectedly, the man drew back the curtains to fully reveal the magnificent scenery. "Your attempt to make the Lahore Spaceport was predictable; you will have to learn to do better, if you expect to live very long in this business." "What do you mean, 'business'?", she asked. He shrugged. "You are an exceptional Operative," he said. "Your skills are highly valued on the open market. A good plastic surgeon to disguise your bone structure, and..." he shrugged, "Well, let us say that you could do well." "What did I do wrong?" she asked. "You left a trail of bodies along the drug smuggling routes, all the way to Kabul, for starters," he said with a grin. "Laudable though that may be, it gave ROM a straight line to follow you. There was actually a strike team from a ComGuard unit waiting for you," he said, looking at her carefully as he served the chai. She snapped a sharp look at him - no one outside of ComStar knew of the existence of the "ComStar Guard and Militia". Or shouldn't, she thought. The man nodded to himself. "As I suspected," he said. To her look, he seemed to sneer arrogantly, though only for a second. "Surely you don't think that ComStar has been able to completely hide the massive shipments of raw materials, do you? Traffic flow analysis being what it is?" She had to concede that point. She sipped her chai while looking at him over the rim. "I suppose asking 'Who are you?' would be pointless?" 2

He shrugged as he settled back in his chair. "Names have meaning, as you well know," he said. "I have used many aliases in my life, but here, I am my true self. All the same, you cannot reveal what you do not know." "True. Am I a prisoner?" He laughed. "Only to your own mind. You are about thirty kilometers north of Mandalore. In a couple of weeks, Diwali will end, and you can slip out through the Bangalore commercial port; controls are much more lax, there, with all the tourist traffic..." "In the alley, you said you could have killed me. You killed Tobias?" He nodded. "Why?" "I never ask 'why'," he said. "Most times, 'Who', sometimes 'Where', occasionally 'How' -- always, 'How much?' It keeps things simple." "You have no cause?" He looked at her expressionlessly. "'Causes stack innocent bodies like cord wood," he said, a menacing chill in his voice. "The so-called 'house lordlings' - and yes, that includes Comstar - goad and cajole the masses into ceaseless wars for their own vanity, that they disguise as 'causes', so that they can look at themselves in the mirror." He paused only a moment. "People like you and I are hated and reviled, because we circumvent that process what a Davion, or a Kurita, or a Liao would send tens of thousands of men and women - and children - to their deaths to accomplish, people like you and I can accomplish with a single bullet or a bit of poison." Again, she could not argue. Her own experiences of the last year had completely broken whatever faith she had had in Jerome Blake's "divine mission", leaving her with an empty void. She found herself struggling against the hatred that burned at the void's perimeter... She thought of poor Erinn, dead in her office chair in the ComStar compound on Solaris VII; she had been unable to cope with the contents of the file Tobias Gruenfeld had been killed - by the man in front of her - while passing to Janeshia. She, herself, had nearly suicided in the monastery in Tibet, before a burning rage for revenge made her flee. ROM teams had pursued her through the Himalayas, and down the Hindu Kush. Now, on a beach in India, she realized that she did not even know where to start... The Shooter seemed to read her mind. "I do not know what happened," he said, "and out of professional courtesy, I will not ask. But, it seems to me that you are not suited to one of the major houses. I would recommend heading for the Periphery ComStar's presence is much thinner there, and I think you will find a place in the Concordat..." "Why there?" she asked. "There have been some pretty significant changes internally in the last several months," he said. "The Concordat, if you have to choose, is probably the best state out there, as they do not really go out of their way to pick fights with anyone. "For the moment, you should relax and heal. You are safe while inside here; I gave the staff off in October for Diwali, so they will not return before mid-November; the house is fully, if simply, stocked. In the top drawer of the dresser behind you, you will find documents, cash and a briefing paper on your new identity - I took the liberty of booking you on the Nightwing liner for Quentin - from there, you will be on your own. In 3

a week or two, once you've healed a bit more, I will secure appropriate clothes for you. My home is plugged into the TerraNet, but all of the computer cameras in the house have been disabled. I must ask you not to go outside uncovered, lest an errant sat-pic identify you. I have an extensive paper library, mostly fiction and literature, and I will remain to check on your dressings." "Thank you," she said, meaning it more than she ever had. "May I ask why you are doing this? Taking these risks for someone you do not know?" "Certainly," he said, with an ironic grin. "People with your talents are rare, and I hate to see good talent go to waste..."

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March 27, 3024 Asteroid GG-74-356 System JDXQ-39 Between the Outworlds Alliance and the Federated Suns "ECHO COMPANY - NOW!" Colonel Adonais "Addy" Gunderson roared into his comm-unit. The twelve battlemechs under his direct command all sprang out of the crater that had concealed them with a practiced ease that belied their slender experience. Landing with puffs of regolith that would have been accompanied by loud thuds had there been an atmosphere to transmit the sound waves - the Strike Company of the Second Battalion of the Taurian Uhlans' Second Regiment roared into action, looking for pirate raiders to kill... *~*~*~* The fight did not last long. The 2nd Battalion swarmed around the sixteen-mech pirate company, hammering them with heavy PPC and laser fire; on the dark side of the asteroid, heat build-up was not as great a concern as it would have been had the wrecked dropship been on the sunward side. Two pirate Stingers, their pilots obviously highly-skilled, actually escaped the Uhlan's trap, and raced into...nothing: two F-90 strike fighters of Wilbur Richards' 30th Interceptor, at Gunderson's snapped command, turned strips of regolith in front of the Stingers into glass with bursts of their nose-mounted PPCs...considering the quality of the mech-driver pirates "rehabbed" by Drake's Demons, his former mercenary unit, following their capture in the former pirate fortress of Tortuga, he just couldn't see the logic in throwing away good talent - the pirate survivors might be useful. The rest of the 30th, aided by a flight of Ajax bombers from the 55th Attack, had destroyed a pirate Leopard-class dropship on the ground; the pirate Union-class had wisely surrendered when the captain saw the pair of aerospace fighter squadrons directly overhead, and the bulk of a Vengeance-class fighter carrier in higher orbit, beyond... ...As a Colonel, Gunderson could have had his pick of the ancient, yet still in pristine, factory-condition, Star League battlemechs discovered the year before; instead, he had opted to completely refit his reliable, old Shadow Hawk (named the "Ice Hawk", because it ran so cold) with League-grade equipment and systems. Larger mechs, he reasoned, meant more armor - and a fatal belief that a mech pilot could withstand just that little bit more of damage...just before the enemy killed you better to stay focused on what you knew. Presently, Gunderson refocused his attention on his sensors, while watching the hard-suited recovery Techs of Milo Thompson's Support Battalion as they scoured the battlefield for mechs and parts - the Demons might have recovered over ten regiments of battlemechs between Tortuga and a derelict Star League Defense Forces transport, but 5

that didn't mean that they had the luxury of leaving mechs - even wrecked ones - lying about. Now - what in Hades was on the wrecked Mammoth ten kilcks to the north? *~*~*~* March 29, 3024 Asteroid GG-74-356 System JDXQ-39 Between the Outworlds Alliance and the Federated Suns It had taken the rest of that day and part of the next, before the Uhlan's had rounded up the errant pirates and their gear, recharged their life-support systems, and began their march to the wrecked Mammoth-class dropship to the north. Gunderson had decided that since the pirates insisted that they didn't know how many mercs and pirates the mysterious Kurita nobleman had hired, an approach march would be safer than trying to reboard the dropships, and trying for a combat drop... It would also help put the fear of God into the Uhlan's, who were entirely too bubbly after their hard-vacuum fight, and needed a wakeup call. Presently, the 10 klicks from the Uhlan DZ evaporated; the Uhlan company pilots were all very quiet, increasingly aware of just what would happen to them should their cockpits be breached in a fall... The Mammoth appeared to have had come down fairly intact, which Gunderson did not see as a good thing -- why would the captain of a functional dropship even pop his collar in an uninhabited system? Unless he had a reason... Gunderson halted the battalion's thirty-six medium-weight mechs on the exterior military crest of the crater rim; edging forward to 'peek' his sensor's over the rim, he saw the dropship squatting in the crater's center. It was obvious that the dropship had been here for some years: two of the ship's externally mounted engines lay in heaps at its feet, and holes pock-marked the exterior hull where meteorites had battered their way through. The ship would not fly again without a major rebuild -- which meant that it was likely stuck here permanently. The small shuttle craft grounded next to the bulky freighter, however... One hour later... Gunderson drummed his fingers on the console next to his right joystick, listening as Courtney Herzfeld argued with the Kuritan functionary on the shuttle. Gunderson tuned his Star League-era optical scanners on the shuttle, trying to see what was annoying him...Then he saw it -...and fired his back-mounted PPC, calving a molten trail of fused regolith in front of the shuttle, instantly silencing the argument.

Marching his mech forward, Gunderson keyed his mike, and growled in dominant-inflected 'janese' "ENOUGH, PEASANT! Put your master on the comm now, or I will hull your ship!" After a moment, across the comm came "This is Tanegawa." There was an unmistakable sneer in his voice Tanegawa clearly felt that he had won the waiting game. "Tanegawa-san," Gunderson said, using an inflection designed to place Tanegawa beneath him socially, "know that I am Adonais Gunderson, of the Taurian Concordat, and while the games of schoolchildren may amuse you, there is much to be done. Who are you, and why are you here?" "Periphery slime!" Tanegawa snapped. "How dare you interfere with me! I am on a mission from the Coordinator, himself! Your puny 'state' will..." "...Not incur any wrath from the Combine, isudskie!"* Gunderson growled. "You are a minor provincial merchant flunky with delusions of adequacy, and I can smell your terror through the commlink! You will answer questions, now, or I will tear your ridiculous affectation of a shuttle apart one plate at a time! Dadekai?"** Silence - for a moment, Gunderson thought that he may have overstepped his play...however: "Hai," came a meek reply. "I am sorry, Sir. Please visit any punishment upon my unworthy..." "Spare me, Tanegawa," Gunderson said, mustering as much disgust through the commlink as it would allow. "Speak." "Sir. I was sent here to find this dropship, the 'Kangan Maru'. It had escaped a pirate attack on its Jumpship some thirty years ago, but we have not been able to find it. We assumed it was here, because its cargo never seemed to turn up..." "Better, Tanegawa, better. What is its cargo?" "I was not told that, Sir. I swear! I was only told that it was of vital importance, and would be of great value to anyone who could find her..." Gunderson seriously considered holing the shuttle craft anyway, but decided against it. "Tanegawa, I am sending a team of Marines to your shuttle. Your Jumpship fled the system as soon as we arrived -- you may be annoying, but I won't maroon you here. You will be transported to the Combine Consulate on Vandenburg, and returned to your people there. Give my Marines any trouble, and you will be eating vacuum. The disposition of your shuttle depends on your actions..." *~*~*~* Boyd "BB" Bolser started his third hour aboard the dead ship still picking his way through the cargo holds. He had been inside the ship for less than 30 minutes before he knew she was so much a spare parts bin. She had been out here too long, pounded by micrometeorites, to be salvaged, although many of her internals could be reused. Curiously, the Kangan's fusion reactor pumps for feeding in reaction mass were shot, but he wasn't sure why; hydrogen didn't leave that kind of erosion, nor did water. He had a dim memory of that sort of erosion, but couldn't remember where he had seen it...
1

* = Liar; ** = Understand

Once he had seen the deterioration in the fusion reactor, he had moved up to the cargo decks, a four-person fire team of Marines at his back; they were silent, knowing how dangerous these scavenging missions could get. They were more of a nuisance to him than anything else, but Gunderson had insisted... Bolser had heard of the Kangan Maru for years - a private freighter captured by the Combine during the Second Succession War and sold to a friend of the thenCoordinator, she had been reported lost with some kind of high-value government cargo when the Merchant-class Jumpship she was attached to panicked when pirates appeared as they were charging their drive after a misjump. The captain had ordered her two dropships to scatter and hide in the system's asteroid field while she maneuvered her ship deeper into the system to recharge, cutting her sail loose as a decoy, and stepping a new one en route. The ship had managed to recover the Mule-class merchantman, but had lost contact with the Kangan, and wrote her off as lost. Justifiably, Bolder thought, her owners were blindly furious, and had every officer of the Jumpship executed as an accessory to piracy, but the legend of the massive cargo ship with a mysterious cargo had entered into Lostech Hunter legend quickly. After three hours in the lower holds, however, it was starting to look like the emphasis was more on "legend" than "fact": the holds were certainly full of cargo, and it was valuable, but until the fourth hold on the lower level, it was all pretty mundane. The fourth hold did contain a cargo of interest - two hundred-litre barrels of extremely highquality ceramic base material (i.e., "mud", but mud ideally suited to producing high-end ceramic materials, like engine parts) - but there was nothing truly unique... Making his way into the upper holds, however, Boyd Bolser finally discovered two things: why the ship's fusion intakes were eroded so badly, and why not all lostech treasures came from the Star League... *~*~*~* Bolser sprawled in his chair in Gunderson's office aboard the Skyhaexan, the 2nd Battalion's Overlord-class transport, a ball of whiskey in his hand. "...so, I just backed out of there as quickly as I could, and shot you the tight-beam," he said, finishing his report. Gunderson leaned back in his chair and regarded the lostech hunter silently. He was reasonably certain that Bolser didn't know that Gunderson had installed infrared cameras on the Marines' armor, but he couldn't be sure. Whatever the case, Bolser wasn't lying - as soon as Gunderson had seen the Combine loadmaster tags on the shipping cylinders in the upper galleries, he had ordered the Mules in orbit to land as close to the crater as possible, and for unloading to commence...starting with the shipping cylinders... "...I still just can't believe it," Bolser was saying. "Whatever possessed the Combine to put that much product on one ship?" "Supply and demand, most likely," Gunderson replied. "Go and rack out, BB you and Courtney have done extremely well, the last couple of weeks. Good job." Boyd smiled, and happily drained the last of the whiskey from his zero-g ball. Rising to go, he said "I have to say, Colonel, I always felt working for governments was a

vacuum shaft, but you're proving me wrong...", then left Gunderson's office, just a hair on the unsteady side. Don't get accustomed to it, BB, he thought. I'm not you're average bureaucrat. Absently, he tuned his monitor to the external cams, and watched the unloading of the Mammoth in process. Merchant crews in sealed cargo exoskeletons were maneuvering the massive thirty seven-thousand litre tanks out of the Mammoth's cargo holds, and onto transporter trucks. Their task was made much easier as the shipping cylinders were all fixed into a rectangular framework, making them act like a standard shipping container. Lithium Hydride. In a highly-refined, crystalline state. Gunderson could think of several dozen applications, civil and military, right off the top of his head. Although not suitable as reaction mass for battlemech fusion reactors (it reacted explosively with water, and hydrogen cells were dangerous enough in combat), it could replace the fuel in a civilian reactor and extend its use by a factor of ten -- of course, it was also highly corrosive (the Kangan's crew had been using it to run their reactors after they landed here, until the ship was hulled beyond repair), but its real value lay in its seed reactions for industry. The "Province of New Jamaica" (as Tortuga had been renamed) stood to make a healthy profit off of this treasure hunt...Of course, that facade would need to be maintained, at least for the time being. Sometimes, as he rested his hand on the briefcase carried by the ISF agent whose remains had been found in his quarters aboard the Kangan, Addy Gunderson wished that he couldn't read traditional kanji...

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April 24, 3024 Private Office of the First Prince The Bunker Gaveston's Gorge, Rostock New Avalon Crucis March, Federated Suns

The Bunker dated from Prince Alexander's day. Built into the flank of Gaveston's Gorge, it was a concealed facility, unknown to most of the people of the continent of Rostock, let alone the rest of New Avalon. Alexander had designed it as a bolt-hole for the Davion Family, after securing his victory over the Council of Regents in 2527. In a remote section of the gorge, a surreptitious ledge - barely large enough for a drop shuttle to land on - led into a natural cavern...guarded at all times by the Special Company of the Davion Heavy Guards. Within a long, Battlemech-capable passageway meandered on a down-slope for ten kilometers, mimicking the pathway of an underground river; at randomly-spaced intervals, side chambers had been bored, and water pumped in and frozen, both to reduce the thermal signature from satellite reconnaissance, and to help regulate the underground temperature. The Bunker's vast facilities contained massive dispersed-core computer processing networks that were fed data manually, by intention (it kept them off of the planetary network), whose products were the domain of the Breakfast Club, the strategic analysis team loyal only to House Davion. There were also armories crammed with weapons and vehicles, including a reinforced regiment of heavy Mechs. Quintus Allard, head of the Ministry of Information and Intelligence Operations, knew all of these factoids by heart...but his attention was currently focused on his Prince. Hanse Davion sat quietly, regarding the viewer feed from Rostock's North Coast - Avatar and Galahad were already up, with Valiant to follow in an hour; the "Rostock MoonRise" was one of the most spectacular views in the entire Crucis March, and the uninitiated could be forgiven for thinking that the First Prince of the Federated Suns was relaxing by drinking in the sunset. Quintus knew how wrong they were - Hanse wasn't even looking at the viewer... "How's Justin doing?" Hanse asked suddenly. "Improving, highness," Quitus said without missing a beat. "The Spica injury hasn't been aggravated, and the tai chi is helping the thigh strain..." Hanse shifted slightly in his chair, and cocked an eyebrow at Quitus. "You're still alright with the Kittery operation?" For one of the few times in his professional life, Quitus Allard shifted uncomfortably, then said, "I - I can't say that I'm completely 'alright' with it, my Prince. But Justin is a highly capable officer, and although the danger is more...precisely focused...than it would be in 'mech combat, I would put it at considerably less, overall. He'll do fine," Allard finished, with more confidence than he felt. 10

Hanse nodded absently, then tapped the thick pile of decades-old real, 'dead-tree' sheets of paper on his desk. "What about Addy? Do you think this is even possible? Could it be a deception op? I mean, my God, Quintus this could change everything..." Allard had regained his composure - this was his element, and the fundamental changes and challenges it represented enervated him in a way that he had not felt in years. "My Prince," he began, "firstly, we have to keep this under our hats; I don't think we should inform Katrina Steiner - at least not yet," he added quickly, at Hanse's sharp look. "I'd like permission to recall every former member of the Breakfast Club I can lay hands on..." "But not Gunderson..." "No, Sir. Gunderson is doing spectacular work with the Demons out there, and I feel that interrupting that would be counterproductive..." "Agreed. On the Breakfast Club, see to issuing the necessary orders. I want options quickly, Quintus." Hanse's features took on a dark look. "And also, I want you to try and open a back-channel to Marik - if we can undermine this Concord business, we need to. I also want to schedule a series of exercises along the Taurian frontier, for public consumption -- make sure Gunderson knows to reassure Calderon that its all for show - I want her file again, as well - but don't tell them the truth..." "Of course, My Prince," Allard said, bowing. "It shall be done..."

*~*~*~*

0718 hours, Local Time Carverton Township Outside San Jacinto, New Vandenburg, Taurian Concordat Alois Lonim stood unobtrusively, surveying the damage. The remains of the petrol station still burned in places, after the crash of the burning minivan into the banks of petrol pumps. The EMS paramedics had spread modesty sheets over the five corpses on the ferrocrete, now that the crime scene investigators had finished their prelim. Five dead, fourteen injured, three seriously - one of whom would likely not survive her injuries - and one captured. Alois had had a word with the news crews -Jackson, Carmen and Blaise were all acquaintances that he had passed tidbits to from time to time, and owed him more than a few favors, each. There was no sense in creating panic, at this point. The reporters were all calling it a 'terrible accident' in their live-fromthe-scene broadcasts. The whole situation was damned odd, Alois thought. None of the shooters were known Kray-Zee or Dust dealers, nor were they known gun runners or mercs...but they were better armed than some Home Guard units - thank the Deity they hadn't whipped out the RPG, whose ammo had cooked off in the van - and the team in the van had seemed very focused on one individual in particular -- Alois would deal with her in a few minutes.

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His deputy, Alan Martinez, came up to him, paper notepad in hand. "All carrying 'burp guns', Auditor," he said quietly. "Different manufacturers from all over the Sphere, but all in the same caliber - they look like hand-modified jobbers. Mish-mash of pyro, nothing unique, and entirely typical of a wandering spook-merc unit. Electronics are utterly mundane..." -- he left that last hanging significantly. Lonim nodded. "All very tight-together, nothing out of the ordinary -- 'move along - nothing to see here'. The survivor in custody?" Martinez nodded. "They have her in the Tank in San Jacinto..." "Good. Leave her alone in an interrogation room for a while, and run a facematch on the deceased. Then, I'll talk to her..." "Yes, Sir," Martinez nodded, turning and lifting a radio to his lips. Two hours later Lonim stood in the monitoring room of the police station, studying the subject on the security cams. She had exotic, "Horn of Africa" features not quite what Lonim thought of as 'Ethiopian', but not exactly sub-Saharan Africa, either. She was very tall for a woman, standing well over two meters in height, but was lean and lithe, with almost panther-like movements. But what was bothering Alois Lonim was that she was disturbingly familiar. Time to move this forward, he thought. "Chief," he said to the police division commander, "get her into cuffs-forward, and find a coat or a sweater to cover them. I'll take her from here." The grizzled detective looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged. "Fine by me," he said. "Frankly, she's too dangerous for my tastes." He picked up a hardline handset, and dialed a number...

Janeshia Ward was dejected by what she saw as abject failure. She wasn't sure what she had done wrong, but somehow, a ROM team had detected her in San Jacinto or pursued her there - and she had been forced into a very public action to deal with them...then had the bad luck to misjudge the force of the petrol station's explosion. For her trouble, she had a mild concussion, a bruised shoulder, and handcuffs on her wrists. The detective did not speak to her at all as he led her to a...air conditioning service van?...in the station's underground garage. Two men were standing by the driver's door the younger of the two was pulling stained work coveralls on over his suit. Great, Janeshia thought, a minor Periphery intelligence service had demolished her identity. She was simply not cut out to operate on her own, she thought, despite the Shooter's confidence in her. Maybe she could make a deal...it wasn't like she had any remaining loyalty to Comstar...The tall man in the suit looked her up and down, his face impassive. He silently nodded to the detective to put her in the back of the van, then turned back to the younger agent. The interior of the "delivery van" surprised her with its sophistication. Her practiced eye caught signs of modifications adding armor plate (likely using Battlemechgrade armor), along with an advanced bank of surveillance equipment mounted in the

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rear; Comstar had better gear, but not by much. She sat in a captain's chair, and allowed the detective to buckle her into a 4-point restraint, as the older agent watched. Presently, both agents boarded the van. The driver closed off a privacy door, and the older agent sat in another captain's chair, facing her, as the van began to roll. The agent was silent for a time, as they rolled out of the police garage; Janeshia didn't bother trying to memorize the turns, as she had only a superficial knowledge of San Jacinto, and doubtless, there was a chase car -- and any agency this good likely had four or more chase vehicles, anyway. Finally, after about ten minutes, the agent spoke. "I've considered your situation," he said, "and considering the information I received a few minutes ago, I think we can dispense with games. Your name is not Susanna Kemal, and you are not from Sirius. Why were you shooting it out with a Comstar intelligence team in Carverton at six o'clock in the morning?" She made her decision. "The correct term you want is 'rom', acronym R-O-M," she began...

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May 4, 3024 20km North of Benchmark N-69-G Merderet Enscarpment Raldamax, Outworlds Alliance The Periphery Sergeant Kenji Nakamura thumbed the switch on his communications board to push his order to his platoon. "All units - five round stonk in sixty seconds, then scoot to alt-pos-three..." Turning to his vehicle gunner, Suritomo Hakawa: "Five shot volley on my mark...three...two...one...fire." At Nakamura's command, the gunner from Dieron stabbed his firing stud; twenty missiles roared from the Hunter light tank's tubes, quickly followed by four more volleys. Spread out across the reverse rim of the salt pan, the other five vehicles of Nakamura's platoon fired similar barrages into the valley pass below. Five hundred long-range missiles plastered the valley floor in a tight pattern, spreading their jellied Inferno agent among and on top of the two lances of pirate Battlemechs. As the pirate machines frantically increased their speed to clear the firestorm into the Demon's own waiting ambush - Nakamura's vehicles, after coughing their last volley, all rumbled quickly away from their firing positions, and accelerated across the salt flats, racing for new firing positions near Mount Buganda's West Hand Gorge. Rocking in his command chair, Nakamura reflected that this whole 'military thing' the Draconis Combine had conscripted him into wasn't such a bad thing, overall...once you actually got to fight in one of the "good and honorable fights" the Combine's state news organs kept saying the Combine's Mustered Soldiery (the DCMS) always fought in. Nakamura was under no such illusions: after being thrown away for being lowly tankers in a losing assault on the Federated Suns' world of Ozawa, Nakamura and the survivors of his battalion banded together with several surviving dropship crews, and escaped the AFFS assault with their equipment. With their officers dead, and certain of prison or execution if they dared return to the Combine, the tankers made their way to the mercenary world of Galatea...and nearly starved to death, before Sevon-san had hired them into Drakes Demons. Then, Nakamura met Ranjit Singh. Conditioned to look down on all non-Japanese-descended persons from his birth, Nakamura was terrified of the formidable Sikh officer from the morning he strode into the warehouse the Demon recruits were using as a barracks, and instantly took charge... In the following years, Singh had welded the disparate elements of the Demons now the Taurian Defense Force's IVth Corps - armored forces into a finely-honed instrument of destruction -- something Kenji was more than happy to turn against pirate raiders...Ahiko tried to hide it, but he could still occasionally catch the haunted glimpse in her eyes of her days as a slave of Paula Trevaline, the pirate 'queen' who formerly ruled Tortuga...he didn't even mind the fact that she had to drink vodka before laying with him as his wife, anymore... ...For Kenji Nakamura, killing pirates was a very personal vendetta. 14

Alliance Port Raldamax, Outworlds Alliance Later that day Ranjit Singh - formerly of the Capellan March Militia, now a Colonel in the Taurian Concordat's Calderon Rifles, part of the IVth Corps, guarding the Province of New Jamaica - sighed inwardly, and hoped that he could control his unnatural urge to shoot the rude and ungrateful little Amisher in the face -- the man stopped just short of saying that the pirates would not have come to Raldamax had the "Taurian mercenaries" not come here, implying that the Taurians were somehow at fault for the last two hundred years of pirate attacks. "Chairman" (a strange title for a military officer) Jason Edwards, of the Alliance Military Corps' Aerospace Arm, very deftly smoothed over the farmer's ruffled feathers. Listening to him, Singh wondered honestly at the validity of the "Piranha Principle" - as a graduate of the War College of Goshen, he simply could not understand why the Combine had not hammered the Alliance into thin paste centuries ago. As the delegation left in somewhat less of a huff than when they had arrived, Edwards turned back to the assembled officers...at least he had the courtesy to look embarrassed. "I do apologize, folks - sometimes, the local religious committees can be...difficult." "Not a problem at all, Chairman," Ranjit said smoothly. "Everyone has different views of military action..." The platitudes continued as the men and women walked through the hot sun to the reasonably cool shade of the air-breathing fighter hanger housing one of Raldamax's local strike squadrons, but Singh's heart just wasn't in it. Rooting out the pirates was Duke Silas' (Ranjit thought that had a nice ring to it) idea of "forward defense" -- and that meant dealing with self-important busy-bodies who thought that Gandhian Non-Violent Resistance was a viable tool against Battlemech-equipped pirates. On the bright side, Chairman Edwards was justifiably proud of his air wing...even granting that the air wing was the only real military force on planet, Singh had been impressed by their abilities in the last three weeks, as the combined forces hounded the pirates relentlessly...The performance of the Raldamax ground forces, however, could perhaps be charitably described as "at least they didn't shoot themselves, or their allies"... From Singh's point of view of his subordinate, Major Paula Stinson, was that beneath her polished "political smile", she was even more ready to be quit of Raldamax than he -- mechwarriors could generally count on being either loved or feared wherever they went, but the disdain Stinson and her 'mech battalion had encountered here was rather unique, as well as unpleasant. "...So," Edwards was saying, "Where are you headed from here?" He was also polite enough to know when his planet's insulted guests were ready to leave. Singh smiled with genuine warmth for the first time that day. "To Alpheratz," he said, referring to the Alliance capitol world. "We'll rendezvous with the rest of our regiment, and see what happens from there..."

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"Personally," Edwards said, "I wish they'd hire you folks outright. People love the Aerospace Arm because we can't hold ground or put troops in the streets...Which makes it virtually impossible to train local people effectively." Singh's respect for the AMC went up a notch at Edwards' admission - it was an excellent, concise and refreshingly frank assessment of the Alliance's military problems in a nutshell. "Well," Singh said, "The real problem in this region, after Tortuga, is Port Krin." There were silent snarls all around the table from the assembled officers, Taurian, Demon and Alliance alike - everyone hated the open pirate paradise and slave port. "That said," he continued with a Gallic Shrug, "we are an awfully long way from home" - a true enough sentiment, felt by all of his troops - "but this is very definitely a case of 'your enemies are our enemies'...We'll have to see what happens..." Shaking hands all around, the officer-group of the Calderon Rifles' 2nd Mobile Battlegroup (Reinforced) boarded hovertrucks to take them to their ships... ...and as they sped off, one person in particular watched them impassively. Soon, the person thought, soon enough, it Shall commence...

*~*~*~* May 18, 3024 The Crypt Mithras Mountain, Taurus Taurian Concordat Oolahn Jerrod considered the situation his deputy, Alois Lonim, had just dropped on him, as she sat in a chair in his office. Alois had done the smart thing when the New Vandenburg police had captured the rogue Comstar agent, covering his tracks by telling the media that she had died of injuries without regaining consciousness. The Comstar agent had been extremely forthcoming in her debrief, enough so, that Lonim had bundled her onto a high-impulse shuttlecraft, and held a Navy Scout-class Jumpship (kept at a pirate point for fast-packet transits) from Jumping until he could get her aboard for the two Jumps to Taurus. Considering the level and detail of her debrief, Jerrod would bake the Navy a cake himself. His problem with Janeshia Ward was what to do with her, now. She was definitely a "high priority" target for Comstar assassination, well worth Comstar going to extreme lengths to eliminate her...on the other hand, he thought, perhaps there was a way to 'make war support war' -- Jerrod realized that he had just been handed a weapon of immeasurable utility, and would be foolish and worse not to use it. "So, Miss Ward," he said. "I've reviewed your file. Your honesty is as refreshing as it is welcome. Still, it needs to be asked: what loyalties, if any, do you still feel towards Jerome Blake's 'divine mission'?" Ward looked him straight in the eye - another person would have been chilled at her glare. "I have no loyalty to a base lie that has slaughtered billions," she said coldly. "Good," Jerrod said flatly. "The real question is, what do you wish to do about it?" 16

For a moment, Ward's resolve seemed to dent a little. "I am honestly not sure where to start, Auditor," she replied. "My specialty was Inner Sphere mercenary operations. This is an entirely new universe-view for me..." Jerrod steepled his fingers. "I do not want you to believe that I am simply one more petty spook looking to get an intelligence feather...although I am certain that you will consider that to be the case. I have an operation in mind that would suit your skills, as well as your thirst for revenge against Comstar. But," he continued, "I have to be certain of where your loyalties lie." Janeshia looked at her hands for a moment, then looked up at him, her face as open and honest as she could make it. "I have killed many people," she said, "and I always - always - believed that what I was doing was absolutely right, correct and worthy. For me, it has always been about picking the Human race up from the dregs of its horrible past, into a better future. I was raised to believe that Comstar was that future, that the Order was the last, best hope of Humanity. "I now know what a sham it truly is. "The crimes committed in the name of this sham are so numerous, so heinous, there can be no true restitution from them. Ever. But, for my own part - for my own sanity - I have to try and make things right, as far as I can. Erinn -" her voiced cracked for the first time, "Erinn could not deal with the enormity of this crime that is Comstar. I loved Erinn" - she looked at him defiantly -- some 'backwoods' places still had idiotic biases against that sort of thing - "but I will not end as she did. I do not expect justice...I want revenge - not only for Erinn, not just for Tobias and his network. I want revenge for them all." Jerrod smiled - but only to himself. It would never do for her to learn the real reason for her being handed the information he had allowed Tobias Gruenfeld to pass to her before the Shooter had killed him on Jerrod's order. Sometimes, cannon-fodder was an unfortunate necessity. "I understand completely where you're coming from," he said, meaning it more than Ward would probably ever know. "Believe me. I think," he said, leaning back in his chair, "that you can be of tremendous service, both to the Concordat in particular, as well as Humanity in the larger sense. I have an operation in the planning stages, one that calls for a very unique skill-set that you are singularly qualified for. Interested?" Janeshia Ward smiled like a wolf. A hungry one.

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June 1, 3024 Isahaya Township Multan, Draconis Combine Junyo Osezaki crouched deeper, trying to better shield his terrified daughter and her children, as dust poured down on them in torrents as the pirate Battlemechs marched through the small mining town, blazing a trail of devastation. The pirates had landed at local dawn, and immediately made for the refinery district of the complex, as their Muleclass dropships had landed. The 'mech lance had made sure that resistance at the platinum refinery was neutralized, then had swung west, to relieve the commando team that had destroyed the telephone and microwave relay stations. Osezaki had to admit that it was a very wellplanned operation, for a group of 'dishonorable' pirates to pull off. As a retired Talon Sergeant in the planetary militia, Osezaki was well aware that the militia units on-world could not stand for long against 'mech-equipped forces. His only hope was to keep his family quiet until the raiders had passed, and hope that they weren't after slaves... His hopes were dashed, however, as the thunder of the 'mechs passage faded, replaced by scattered small arms fire - Osezaki had seen the smoke from the militia post as he hustled his daughter and her children into their makeshift bunker - meaning that the pirates were finishing off the remains of the militia (whose weapons and ammunition, Osezki knew from experience, were locked in the Arms Room of the Armory) and the local Constables. Looking his daughter in the eye, he wrapped his hands around the mouths of the two youngest children; she did the same with her oldest daughter... "...Lookit there!" came an uncultured voice in butchered Star League English from outside the door...Damn, Osezaki thought - what had he done wrong that they had spotted the doorway?

An hour later... The Osezaki family stood in a huddle with other survivors from their neighborhood, as the pirates made their choices for who would be taken. They had commandeered a public transport bus and were packing their selections aboard. Junyo had tried desperately to keep his family together, but in the middle of the group of terrified civilians, on the theory that the pirates would look at the front and back portions first. However, Junyo Osezaki's day just kept getting worse: as it appeared that the pirates were about to wrap up their 'selection process', Junyo spied Ito Kanataka - a brash young man home on leave from his DCMS armored regiment - creep up through the ruins of Madam Niuo's Tea House, and aim a flamer at the pirates' backs...the fool likely didn't 18

even care that he would catch most of the huddled civilians in the over-wash from his burst... Junyo Osezaki was too old, and had seen too much, to let some idiot with delusions of grandeur burn his family with Inferno-juice just at the point where they were about to escape with no more than a nasty fright. Junyo called out no warning -- he simply turned, hopped into the air, and 'bodyslammed' his huddled family to the ground...

Later Outbound from Multan Overall, Osezaki reflected as he watched his exhausted family sleep, things could have been infinitely worse. His desperate dive to save his family from Kanataka's flamer shot allowed one pirate with the reflexes of a cat to spin and fire a burst from the hip, killing the on-leave DCMS trooper trying to be a hero at the expense of Osezaki and his family. The pirate commander - an ancient, battle-scarred warhorse named Krunkle - took Osezaki aside, and told him that he would offer him a position in his 'battle-group' as a reward...and did not have to point out that Osezaki would be killed as a traitor to the Combine if he remained behind, his family suffering as much if not worse... Of course, as the pirate called 'Blade-Jack' - the man who had killed Kanataka had told him, not unkindly, Osezaki would likely have to fight to protect his daughter and grandchildren from other pirates...once they reached Port Krin...

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July 26, 3024 Kingston Towne, New Port Royal New Jamaica Province Taurian Concordat The hoverskiff settled into the water in a lee on the dark side of the World River. The two men within tossed out an anchor, pulled out fishing poles and settled down, to all impressions, to fish. Few observers - had there been any - would have spotted one of the men surreptitiously activate a white noise generator. Neither of the men had any interest in fish. "So," Silas Drake, Duke of New Jamaica, said to the other man. "Yep," Addy Gunderson replied. "You're still working for Davion." A statement, not a question. "Of course," Gunderson said. "We had that understanding, remember? Just as I presume you're still working for Katrina." Silas Drake hunched over his fishing pole. "Proximity is starting to become and issue." Gunderson was silent, letting his friend organize his thoughts. As a decorated war hero of the Federated Suns, there were still many Taurians who distrusted Gunderson, given the nearly five hundred years of bad blood between the two interstellar states. "Part of that agreement," Silas continued after a moment, "was that we would not hide from each other what was being shared." He didn't have to state to Gunderson that he knew Addy had been passing information to House Davion without telling Silas what it was. It was Gunderson who now hunched over his rod. After a long moment, he said, "I thought about that, hard, before sending it. It's not a burden I really wanted to drop on you, just then." He reeled his line back mechanically, and recast it. Silas studied the water. "I'll be the judge of what I can handle, Addy," he said. There was not a little hurt in his voice. "Not with this," Gunderson replied. Drake looked at his long-time friend and executive officer. Gunderson's mood since finding the Kangan Maru had been extremely subdued, even morose, to the point where Trisha Peterson, Gunderson's fiancee and New Jamaica's Attorney General, had gone to Marshal Wilhelmina Brandt - Silas' own fiancee, and Field Commander of the Taurian Defense Forces' IVth Corps - upset over Gunderson's dark mood. Gunderson's "ice man" reputation to the contrary, it was highly unlike him not to confide his problems to at least Silas. Finding out about passing information to New Avalon behind his back didn't help. His last comment, though, thoroughly unsettled Silas. While glad it was not what he had feared, if Gunderson had found something that momentous while recovering the Kangan Maru, it definitely did not bode well, for the Concordat, the province, or for Drake's Demons, Silas' original mercenary unit. Finally, Silas said, "Talk to me, Addy. We've been friends too long -- hell, Julia was my first wife. If it's this bad, I have to know!" 20

Gunderson turned his head like an automaton, and looked up at Silas...the dead emptiness behind his eyes opened a gaping pit in Silas' stomach. Then, Gunderson told him what was in the ISF agent's file folder, found aboard the derelict freighter. And Silas knew.

*~*~*~*

July 27, 3024 ROM Headquarters Kisangani, African Administrative Zone Terra Precentor Demona Aziz paced like a caged animal. Something must be done!, her mind cried silently. Adept Ward's escape in India could not have simply ended with her 'death' in a mundane shootout on a backwater world like New Vandenburg. Aziz silently cursed the weakness of the fool, for believing in the blasphemous lies the peon Gruenfeld had passed to her. The idiot's only redeeming quality in Aziz's eyes was that she had only allowed one other weakling to read it before boarding a Jumpship on an express to Terra. In Aziz's opinion, ROM needed a serious internal cleansing of blasphemous views -- they had been in the intelligence business too long, and had become far too worldly, she thought. An Adept approached her. "Precentor?" she asked. "Precentor ROM will see you, now." Aziz nodded, while surreptitiously studying the younger woman. A pity that such innocence would need to be scourged with fire, she thought...

*~*~*~* July 30, 3024 A Facility With No Name Proxima Centauri System The black robed man waited patiently. At last, he was called. Gathering the briefcase manacled to his wrist, he stepped forward, following the Secretary into the Inner Sanctum. He had been here many times, but the decor still made him catch his breath ever so slightly. The Sanctum was a precise duplicate of the original on Terra, now part of a museum; here, this copy had served the same purpose for over five hundred years, allowing conferences in absolute secrecy. The Secretary bowed silently to the man in white robes behind the desk, bade the black robed man to sit with an equally silent gesture, then departed. The two men waited until the door clicked shut behind the Secretary before speaking. 21

"So, My son," the white robed man said, handing his lieutenant a small key. The black robed man inclined his head as he accepted the key, then unlocked the manacle connecting him to the briefcase. "Mi Papa," he said; the informality had been established as allowable long before. He opened the briefcase, and handed the bulging hardcopy file to his master. "Summarize for me, please," the white robed man said. A nod. "Sire. The asset in Africa has reported that there is still some resistance within the First Circuit on the Ward issue..." "Who?" "Precentor Demona Aziz." The white robed man touched a portion of his desk. The surface changed from an image of oak paneling to one of extreme, high-tech complexity; most Successor House Lords would kill, literally, to possess such a work station. "Demona Aziz," the white robed man said softly. A file appeared; at what others would think of as blinding speed, the white robed man scanned Aziz's file. "Ah, yes," he said. "This is the best candidate for 'Operator Y', yes?" The black robed man nodded. "I have run the simulations myself, Holy One. She is currently the best candidate." "Excellent. See that she is fed intelligence carefully. Encouraging 'Operation Y' is crucial to our ultimate success. How would you assess her mental state?" "Very similar to Conrad Toyama, Excellency." The white robed man nodded, a slight smile creeping to his lips. "Even better. The Comstar Guard and Militia?" "They can deploy at least five full divisions on the old SLDF model, Holiness. Their ability to provide competent pilots for more is highly debatable, at least at any time within the next ten years, plus or minus five years. That said, they have virtually no combat-experienced pilots, and no real general-grade officer with any experience. That does not take mercenary support into account, of course." "Brother Morgan?" "Still battling his demons in the monastery, Your Holiness." "Good," said the white robed man, nodding to himself; his eyes looked past his deputy, calculating. "See that the monastery's security is reviewed. We cannot afford Comstar infiltrating someone to poison Brother Morgan's repose." He made a small gesture for his lieutenant to continue. A swift note made in an otherwise-dead language. A nod. "At the same time, we're seeing more money appearing 'mysteriously' in the hands of the 'Order of the Saints Cameron'" - the black robed spy could not avoid letting the sarcasm leak into his voice "which most likely means that 'they' are getting confident, again." The white robed man waved his hand dismissively. "They can do physical damage, no more, and there are more than enough of the Faithful within their ranks to hamstring them effectively. This has always been the case, for almost two thousand years; their threat is minimal at best. What of the operation in the Concordat? That is the 'center of gravity' of the moment." Another nod. "Holiness. Our primary asset on Taurus reports that the renegade Comstar agent, Ward, has been sent to the new province. He says that the plan to neutralize the Comstar base on Antallos should proceed with no issues." 22

"Good. See if there is any way to allow some 'helpful' technology fall into her hands. What of this Kapetyn business? Has anything come out of the Marik's mysterious meeting at the Palaise?" For the first time, the black robed man smiled broadly and unreservedly. "That is the best news, Your Holiness - it seems that Janos Marik struck the deal we have been wanting...and did it with no prompting from us..."

...It was good that this system was seldom, if ever, traveled lest the sounds of laughter resonate outward from the base. For the first time since it went into 'war mode' nearly three hundred years before, Humanity's oldest surviving intelligence service was about to achieve its ultimate victory...

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Janeshia Ward
on assignment, Solaris VII