5

Chapter 4: The Scarface Methodology.

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That was one of the most exhausting days in my life. Slowly, I laid out things for them. Battletech in my reality, its history as developed by a bunch of people over decades with the game and then the massive expanse of the universe that was fleshed out by sourcebooks, novels, computer games and even a cartoon series. The broad scope of 'Classic Battletech' which was around this time period and went back and forth of expanding both the history and future of the universe.

They took the news that their lives and choices has essentially been entertainment made up by a group of game designers … surprisingly well really. All three men - including Quintus!- even showed sympathy towards my position, genuinely seeming to appreciate my questioning of what reality was given my story. But in the end with the -abbreviated- version given, the First Prince got down to the core issue, asking me simply what I intended to do about all of this now that I was here.

I thought about it for a long moment ... and I gave him my answer.

It was part speech, part verbal diarrhea that embarrassingly played out for a good five minutes or so that could have been summarized far more verbrosly as 'I believe in you, Katrina Steiner and the idea of the Federated Commonwealth as probably the best hope for mankind at this point in time. Thus I want to put a finger on the scales of history and tilt the result a little to make damn sure this time, it works'.

The three men opposite me took it in silently but intently until finally I ran out of words feeling like a bit of an idiot; a stirring movement of glorious words it was not. But I think it was perhaps all the more real for that, an honest venting if you will. Finally I finished and Hanse Davion looked at me for a long, long moment after that with a gaze rather hard to meet. So much so I was really having to put effort into not squirming, before he turned to Ardan who nodded once and then to Quintus. I noted that the spymaster had a noteputer running in front of him then and I would bet it was linked into some kind of biometric lie detection system pointed at me, probably built into this room. At any rate, he too gave Hanse a nod. And with that, Hanse stood and headed over to a small sidebar and returned with a bottle of … something … and four glasses.

"It is tradition in my family, Mister Smith, that when House Davion makes pacts of such gravity, we seal it with a drink" he stated, pouring a few fingers into each of the four glasses and passing them out. That done, he screwed the top back on the bottle and lifted his glass, Ardan and Quintus following suit. I too matched their gesture as a gaze more intense than anything so far was leveled at me and his tone turned totally up to full 'First Prince' levels. "So I offer you this pact John Smith. Swear to me your allegiance as a citizen of the Federated Suns - and then Commonwealth. Offer me your personal service as an advisor and your knowledge and I promise you both my protection and my best efforts from now until my last day. I promise your service will be rewarded, both personally and in the advancement of the vision of the future you seem to share with Katrina Steiner and I".

Wow that was … heavy. Very formal - and very direct.

And there was only one possible answer to give. So I took a deep breath and stood, the three men opposite standing too as I lifted my glass and unerringly looked into the eyes of The Fox.

"My Prince" I said to him putting a slight edge on the pronoun, "I accept".

"Smashing" he smiled and with that, shot the drink back with the other two men and I joined them.

I didn't choke too much either.

What was that, Mech coolant?!

After I got my breath back I continued, pulling my iPhone out and navigating a few sub menus to hit a command. Across from me the iPad beeped and Quintus quickly activated it with a raised eyebrow at me. "

Just accept the file transfer" I asked and he pressed the indicated buttons, establishing the Bluetooth link and letting the data flow. "I just copied over the other 'Battletech' primary sources I had on my person when I got here" I explained to their curious looks and instantly Quinus's full attention was on the documents listed. "Wolves on the Border is a novel watching the Dragoons in service to the Combine - from start to finish. Both internally inside the Dragoons and the Combines political machinations around them, Takashi and other Warlords. Right up to their eventual flight from the Combine in thirty twenty eight into the Draconis March and starting their own private war against House Kurita. And then there are the three other books. They are known as the 'Warrior Trilogy' .. and detail the events leading into, during and immediately after the Fourth Succession War from the end of this year to the end of thirty twenty nine. Including a great many internal points of view of ComStar at the First Circuit and their manipulations against the Inner Sphere as a whole and the Federated Commonwealth in particular. Also a great deal from Michael Hasek-Davions point of view, his plotting and scheming and from similar people on the Lyran side of the fence and of course, a birds eye view of Sian".

Ah, charming, Hanse Davion's face trying to fight off a look of with numb disbelief. I must be one of a very few people to have ever done that to him. The moment broke as the iPad chirped happily as the file transfer completed and I pushed the iPhone across the desk to join it.

"The iPhone has the same unlock code" I added and my voice seemed to jolt them out of their stasis. "And the same files are present on it – as well as a number of 21st century TV shows, music and other media"

Quintus recovered first - although I'd take an oath that for a split second I had seen pure shock flash through his otherwise poker-perfect eyes- and started to pack the iPad, iPhone and his various notes and folders into a secure briefcase.

"I'll have preliminary summaries on your desk in forty eight hours Highness" Quintus promised his liege simply. "If I have your leave - and with Mister Smith's permission, I have a handpicked team on standby in the palace with whom we can start a full scale debriefing on these issues and apartments you can move into through this process".

"By all means" I agreed. I had little doubt that what few possessions I actually cared about could be quietly packed up and shipped here.

"Excellent" Hanse agreed turning to face me as he stood, followed by the rest of us. "John, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship" he smiled, extending his hand, which I took after a slightly shocked pause.

Okay. Now that was just showing off.

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So. How would Scarface have put it?

Probably something like 'In Battletech … first you seize the Helm cache. Then you hit New Dallas. Then you troll the Wolf with weather reports!'

Well ... here was step one then I suppose.

Point of order, when I came clean to Hanse Davion I have to admit I did not expect to be put into the field. Firstly, I wasn't field trained - or trained in general for that matter. Second and more pertinent, with minimal ego, I could state I was clearly a critical strategic asset for the Federated Suns. And potentially catastrophic security threat to said Federated Suns if I was to fall into the wrong hands. I had fully expected to be locked in something of a gilded cage for quite some time and had accepted that as the price for making a difference on a Sphere-Wide scale. But that was fine by me; said gilded cage would give me a front row seat to events as they played out. I hoped and expected that eventually, when my knowledge was no longer relevant, I'd get a nice junior noble title, a bank account containing many zeros to the left of a decimal point and an estate to retire to and enjoy the rest of my life in neo-feudal luxury. Which was, again, pretty spectacular if my 'basic guest apartments' in the palace were any indication!

Although honestly compelled me to note that I did hope to call in some favors to dance on the unmarked graves of Myndo Waterly, non-fake Thomas Marik and Romano Liao someday.

With an Assault Mech. Using Triple Strength Myomers.

And yet, here I was, watching New Avalon slowly recede as our shuttle burned for the Zenith point...

The reason I was here, being honest, was my own damn fault. I had made a stupid comment to Ardan -who had shown up at quite a few of my debriefings- as I had traced out the Clan Invasion corridors as I remembered them onto a map; noting how easy it was on New Avalon for me to keep thinking of units and politics like a giant chessboard. To forget of the millions or billions of lives who would be impacted by the decisions that were being made and would be impacted by my choices. Wondering if that was fundamentally how Katherine Steiner-Davion had gone wrong. Never having served on the front line or really even put herself at risk.

Oh yes - such comparisons were actually understood now by Ardan, Quintus and Hanse. It had taken a month of intense work to drain me dry of most of what I knew about Battletech, but finally I had unloaded what I recalled. A team of crack debriefing experts sworn to secrecy had worked me day in - day out, systematically recording everything before indexing, cross checking and expanding on it. Fleshing out every detail they could.

It took time and a hell of a lot of effort that left me with headaches, but eventually it was all over and I was confident I had laid out as much knowledge of Battletech as I could easily remember. Although some of it was less than useful, on the whole combined with the four e-books being ripped apart it was an asset beyond measure. I mean I suspected they were still taking my future knowledge with large grains of salt and at least for now, carefully looking for supporting evidence, but...

Even so, Ardan Sortek (who had actually become something of an almost-friend to me as I saw much more of him than either Hanse or Quintus) had made it clear that my layout of the failures of the more distant future had hit Hanse hard. Even if he barely showed it, the failures of his offspring had clearly stung him. Which on reflection I should have anticipated. After all, superhuman genius or not, as their Father it was only natural for him to be heartbroken at how his children would turn out.

He was heartened, again according to Ardan, that Victor had at least had honestly tried his best; always fighting for the people of the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth - never giving up no matter what.

Even if he had all the political smarts of a Gauss Rifle slug; Hanse had apparently needed a stiff drink when he had gotten to my notes on Omi Kurita.

But if he had needed a stiff drink for Victor, he had needed a fucking distillery when he got to Katherine.

I really hadn't held back about why she, despite any number of 'evil' characters throughout its history, was known in Battletech circles simply as 'The Bitch'. With a capital T and B. I hadn't pulled any punches when I had laid out her matricidal, regicidal reign of destruction as she tore apart everything he and Katrina had tried to build because if she couldn't have it, no one could. Laying out the lengths she had gone to to gain and then hold onto power...

Well, what Father wouldn't take that badly?

It was the first time, Ardan had quietly told me over a casual dinner in my apartment one night when we caught up, that he had seen Hanse genuinely seem to doubt himself and his abilities and it had shaken Ardan a little.

With that said, a few hours later Hanse had snapped out of it, accepted the failings and already started to plan (read scheme) how to better prepare any future children for their future roles and avoid such failings. And a determination to sit down with Katrina, honestly discuss the situation and look for ways to strengthen the alliance on a more fundamental level, give it the 'inertia' I had noted the FedCom had lacked.

His reaction to my diatribes on ComStar on the other hand ...

Apparently after reading that report on everyone's favourite phone company and their antics from Holy Shroud to their future mutant stepchild and their temper tantrum, Hanse had walked down to the Mech Bays and taken his Battlemaster out for a walk on 'The Gauntlet' - the NAIS military college training and testing grounds. The poor simulation masters had a great deal of work to clean up that afternoon after their Prince invoked his 'I'm the fucking First Prince' authority and used live ammo on the fake targets to work out some … issues. And it wasn't entirely an exaggeration to say that Ardan and Yvonne Davion had to apparently do some fast talking to convince him to not change his wife's wedding present to the Terran system.

Still, planning was underway to deal with everyone's favourite phone company. Revenge being a dish best served cold and all that - and even though I didn't have a need to know about it, I could guess at some of the more immediate actions being taken to ensure ComStars long term downfall and the ascendancy of the Federated Commonwealth.

Case in point; Helm.

An advanced team of some of his best MIIO and DMI personnel had already been dispatched to get the ball rolling shortly after I had exhausted my knowledge of that whole deal, on what was there and what would be need to be done to access it. Another more military team equipped for hostile environment recon had also been dispatched to New Dallas, but my knowledge on where the hell that core was had been somewhat less precise despite my best efforts. Helm on the other hand ... well, spend enough time around Spacebattles BROB threads, fanfics and Quests in the 3025 era and EVERYONE made a run for Helm, so I happily recalled a rather large amount of useful information.

Even more happily for Hanse and typical of his 'why deal with one thing when you can deal with three at the same time?' attitude, he had apparently decided that this was an excellent opportunity to accelerate the building of ties with the Lyran Commonwealth. Logistically, staging from Lyran space to hit Helm and then retreating back into it would be significantly easier than trying to jump from the Terran Regions and fight through the FWL. Further, having Hanse magnanimously share the spoils … well, political currency was arguably worth more than C-Bills on this level. Katrina would owe him one, the public of both realms would be given a clear, initial and shockingly dramatic example of what the two states working together could do and the Archon would be able to effectively isolate and marginalize nobles in the Estates Generals not exactly happy with the whole FedCom treaty by showing a spectacular success for the first joint operation.

Pretty typical Hanse Davion really.

Ardan had been chosen as the leader of the expedition, built around the Davion Heavy Guards RCT, as well as a handpicked NAIS technical team … and me.

To get back to the reason why I was bouncing through hyperspace, Ardan had (on his own without me asking) decided after my reflections that I needed to get out and participate in this venture, vouching for both my safety and security personally. To my mild surprise, Hanse had agreed without any hesitation, noting that it was an acceptable risk and there was always the chance that I would remember something on Helm at a critical moment.

And he had directly said that he trusted me. Which was rather touching really.

Of course, I had little doubt that Quintus had put people in place to make sure there was no chance I'd fall into enemy hands during this trip ... but I tried not to think about it much. More critically, I was fully aware that this whole thing was something of a test and act of faith on the part of Prince Davion. If my knowledge was wrong, he would be putting one of his finest RCTs at considerable risk with this deep strike.

On the other hand if this all panned out and my knowledge proved true … well, counting chickens and all that. No need to get ahead of myself.

The trip out was agreeably speedy, we emulated a command circuit of sorts by having our shuttles hop small craft bays on jumpships and dropships as they moved from system to system without needing to divert traffic, quickly reaching the Heavy Guards whose Jumpships had been waiting at the Errai Zenith point. They had been involved in Operation Galahad and had been scheduled to move back to their original garrison station as that exercise wound up. Instead, a press release was issued that they were proceeding to the Lyran Commonwealth for further -if much smaller scale- 'goodwill joint exercises' for the next six months. Carefully placed leaks had been generated, suggesting that this was in fact a cover for them prowling up and down the Combine border on the Lyran side, just looking for tempting targets to hit or raids to squash.

And if the Combine happened to nervously start looking over their shoulder as a result? Well, so much the better.

Marshal Ran Felsner, commander of the Heavy Guards, was an interesting sort of fellow. He was actually technically the commander of the entire Brigade of Guards now, but that position it seemed was half ceremonial, with a half dozen senior officers in the Brigade seemingly rotating through it. In his absence, 1st Guards CO Stephen Davion was tagged into the Field Marshal hat -and was distinctly unhappy according to Ardan about not being selected by Hanse to go play Laura Croft - but even so it left Ardan rather outranked Colonel to Marshal.

With that said, 'The Sword and the Dagger' had been on the money about both their friendship and easy ability to work together. And Ardans low rank was increasingly a technicality; he was already well recognized through the Guards Brigade as the First Princes 'shotgun', almost a second Prince's Champion in some ways. And that was before he and a handful of 1st Guards Mechwarriors had single handedly foiled the whole imposter Hanse plot. Even if the whole truth about those events was a tightly kept secret, the Brigade as a whole knew enough that they were almost worshiping the ground Ardan Sortek walked on these days.

Anyway, on this mission Ran remained in change of the Guards and would deal with any military issues while Ardan was appointed by Hanse as the overall expedition commander. I had little time to shake hands after we docked; the Heavy Guards jumped out inside of fifteen minutes, riding a pseudo command circuit of jumpships across the border to a cordial if surprised greeting from the authorities in Skye, who had just barely been warned we were coming. Apparently one-time-pad messages between New Avalon and Tharkad had been flying -they actually DID use them it turned out, mixed in with regular encryptions. Not to defeat ComStar (that was just a bonus it seemed) but apparently to keep critical information out of mid-level personnel in political and military circles. Where most spy activity took place.

Even so, all Hanse had said to Katrina was that the AFFS wanted to launch a hit, hold and run raid on a high-value FWL target and he requested an accompanying Lyran unit to go with his men. One whose loyalty was unquestioned ... and a whole bunch of empty dropships and jumpships to haul away an undetermined amount of loot - with the promise of a straight split down the middle. Hanse even put up the money to fund covering raiding into the FWL, using some of the Mercs on the border to obscure the target in the middle of a bunch of distraction attacks.

That alone had probably gotten the Archons curiosity piqued. After all, when did people offer to pay the Steiners money?

And so I found myself somewhat unsurprised when we jumped into GR-4239-8876A. An uninhabited system with a yellow dwarf star about six light years inside theoretical Marik space ... and twenty nine point three two zero light years from Helm.

Uninhabited … but not empty.

"Is Katrina showing off?" I asked the cramped war-room on board the Excalibur class Iron Fox - command ship of the Heavy Guards as I counted off the ships on the sensor feed. I was relieved to see twelve Jumpships with the indicators I had learned to read indicating that their parasites were all also in the green meaning we were all accounted for.

"Undeniably" Ardan smiled gently. "A casual display of her logistical might to her new allies who are bringing one of the best units in the Inner Sphere to the party".

"One of the best?" someone protested in the rear and I couldn't help but smile at the faux outrage.

Ardan offered only a twitch of a smirk in response to the snark though, as he refocused the ship's external sensors on a more distant cloud of Jumpships, coded blue for allied-non AFFS waiting for us at the agreed non-standard jump point beyond the proximity limit. According to their transponder data, two of the Jumpships were impossibly rare Monoliths whose spines bristled with Mammoth and a few Mule class dropships. By my count there were eight of the latter and sixteen of the former! The largest ships capable of grounding in the Inner Sphere - with enormous cargo capacity.

Huh. That might just be enough to haul away the shinies.

I mean sure, the memory core might be the key and, objectively, worth vastly more than the SLDF military gear stashed there … but hey, I'm sure no-one would object to hauling away a whole bunch of wargear while we were at it, right? I wondered exactly what Hanse had said to her in his message to get this response...

"But it does seem the Archon has taken this whole thing pretty seriously" Ardan continued.

"Oh?" I asked - suddenly feeling a tad nervous as I turned back to glance at him. No matter how certain I was, the possibility of annoying Katrina Steiner with a wild goose chase if for some reason I was wrong was not a happy one. "Why do you say that?"

Ardan simply nodded towards the projection as he straightened, releasing himself from his jump chairs restraints.

"Because she sent the 'Hounds".

---

As an aside, the Battletech materials given to da boyz are quite literally what was on my iPad when I started writing this. I have them all in dead tree format of course, but its a hell of a lot easier to use the digital version, lucky me

Chapter 5: Release the Hounds!

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My first thought of Patrick Kell was that he was a recruiting posters wet dream. He cut a rather striking figure in his BDUs, certainly looking the part of an elite Mechwarrior. And given that he had almost single handedly held what was left of the Kell Hounds together after Morgan had his nervous breakdown, fired two thirds of his Mechwarriors and run away; he was not someone I was inclined to underestimate.

With the younger Kell brother came a number of officers, including Dan Allard, who clearly both knew and was happy to see Ardan again and to whom Ardan passed on a hug from his father (in a kind of adorkable manly way) that got a chuckle from everyone present. The rest of the officers names were vaguely familiar to me but the only one I recognized was Salome Ward. The future wife of Morgan … and mother of Phellan Kell.

Everyone's favorite traitor.

On the other hand, her first reaction to seeing Morgan return in the original timeline wasn't to gush over him like the other idiot Mechwarriors, but to punch him in the face and storm off, so bully for her. She could hardly be held accountable for her son's actions I suppose.

Enough people were in the briefing room on the jumpships grav deck that we were rather tight for space. I squeezed in between the commander of the Guards Jump Infantry and the leader of the technical team handpicked from NAIS on a fold out seat. A few lower ranked officers (as in one star Generals) seemed a little surprised to see me in the room but as none of the top brass even blinked at my presence, they kept their mouths shut as the briefing started.

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"Alright" Ardan started the briefing with a nod after the hatches into the room were dogged down. "Our mission for the First Prince and Archon is an objective raid on the Stewart Commonwealth world of Helm". The holoprojector engaged as the lights dimmed. A map of the Inner Sphere showing the Lyran/League border and the relative positions of the fleet and Helm flashed for a few seconds, before it zoomed 'in' to show first the star system, then in on the planet itself. "The secondary target of this raid" Ardan continued, "is a cache of SLDF Mechs, vehicles, equipment and other such supplies we strongly suspect are in a depot under the Nagayan Mountains" and with that, a part of the globe flashed with a red circular targeting marker on a mountain range just barely visible on the hologram, zooming into a 3D map of the region.

Damn that was cool. Sure it was probably not as high-def as something ComStar or the Clans might have … but it was a free standing holograph! Awesome!

"How big a cache are we talking about?" Patrick asked, clearly doing the sums on the cargo hauling capacity the Archon had sent along...

Ardan then glanced at me and all my geeking out vanished behind a stab of sudden nerves. He knew the answers of course, but he insisted, firmly, that he wanted me to lead the briefing on these questions.

Apparently he thought I had a strong future ahead of me in this kind of staff work after some of the conversations and insights I had offered. Which I thought was bullshit; having unique insights into people thanks to foreknowledge didn't make me any less a complete armchair General, but who the hell was I to tell a man the Guards thought could walk on water -with an Assault Mech!- that?

Clearing my throat, I gave the best answer I could remember from Gods knows how much speculation on Spacebattles about what could have been there, based in turn on Carlyle's too few observations in the book and probable SLDF unit structures.

"Best estimate is probably between two and six Regiments of Mechs and a comparable or greater number of armoured vehicles" I said clearly and steadily as every eye in the room snapped to me in surprise. "We can expect late Star League SLDF regulars equipment in all probability, but there will probably be a considerable amount of advanced Star League weapons technology nonetheless given its vintage. Also an undetermined number of supporting units, infantry gear, general supplies and logistics support, spare parts and so on…"

"As I recall, Helm was heavily hit in the opening battles of the First Succession War" Patrick noted into the slightly stunned silence evenly. "Something about a logistics base raid?"

Huh, man has a good memory. I mean, there were a lot of planets blasted to hell in the first two Succession Wars, sad to say...

"Correct I nodded. "Helm had been a key base of operations for the SLDFs Army Group Marik during the civil war, with a major logistics hub on the ground. After the SLDF jumped out of the Inner Sphere and while Free World League factions were squabbling over who had the legal rights to it, Minoru Kurita quickly sent a heavy strike force to seize and make off with the supplies, citing the precedents of 'Might makes Right' and 'Possession is nine tenths of the law'".

Ha! Got a number of smiles at that joke!

"However" I continued, "he found nothing there. Kerensky, it was assumed, had loaded up the contents onto his fleets and left nought but empty warehouses. True to form, Minoru decided to throw a temper tantrum at the wasted trip and launched a saturation nuclear bombardment that killed about eighty percent of the planetary population before leaving" and with a gesture at the tech, the holograph of the world vanished to show a scattering of stills and vid pictures of the destruction from archives I had been able to find prior to leaving New Avalon.

Well that killed the mood. Variations of 'fucking snakes' echoed around the briefing room at that from both Guardsmen and Hounds. Heartwarming the way hate for the Draconis Combine could bring everyone together so easily from opposite sides of the Sphere...

"So I guess this 'apparently' was not quite accurate?" Patrick continued, unerringly drilling down into my briefing in a way that was just slightly unsettling, but kept things moving.

"To the best of our intelligence" I started and I didn't miss the eye rolling from some others as I pushed forward quickly "the officer in charge of the Freeport logistics base, Major Edwin Keeler, did not join Kerensky on the exodus. Instead he decided that with the SLDF going, total war was more likely than not to break out. Accordingly, with remarkable foresight, he decided to hide what Kerensky did not take. Keeping it safe for the SLDF to use when they returned, presuming I suppose that Kerensky wouldn't be gone long. But just in case he was …" I paused here, to glance at Ardan.

Partially for effect I admit. I did have some sense of the dramatic after all.

"Suffice to say this next information is absolutely need to know. It will not be discussed outside this room" Ardan said, looking everyone in the room in the eye and getting an acknowledgement from them and raising the tension in the room a notch that he was taking this so damn seriously, before he turned back to me and nodded. "Proceed agent Smith".

"Major Keeler also placed in the cache a Star League library core" I said slowly and clearly.

I wanted to make damn sure no-one missed or misunderstood this.

"A database containing civilian and Military information across most every key field of human knowledge. We're talking both the complete scientific and engineering data to, from first principles, build the tools to build the factories to build the tools to build late Star League era technology. From advanced weapons to Jumpships and Warships. From the most basic to impressive civilian hardware such as terraforming technology and biomedical tech that House Cameron held close to its chest. Knowledge chosen specifically as a doomsday record of last resort to ensure humanity could recover the Star Leagues complete knowledge should the war Keeler thought was coming do … well, exactly what it did do. In short; you may consider this the ultimate anti-lostech device".

The room had gone dead silent as I carefully laid out exactly what we were going after. It took a good five seconds for some Guardsman in the back to sum up the general thoughts of everyone in a low whisper.

"Jesus H Christ..."

"Our primary objective is thus to recover this core and evacuate it - along with any other salvage we can without compromising extracting the core - to Tharkad" Ardan took back the briefing smoothly, wrenching the shocked gazes back to him and snapping them out of it with his crisp tone, kickstarting their military discipline. "Specialist Rastcor" Ardan gestured to one of the other civilians in the room, "from the New Avalon Institute of Science and his team are probably the best Star League era computer experts in the Federated Suns. They will be responsible for finding, securing and extracting the core. Make no mistake ladies and gentlemen" Ardan looked around" with a pointed gaze. "For the sake of getting this core -or at least a complete copy- to safety, the First Prince considers this entire task force, if need be, expendable".

I expected an uneasy ripple at that but got nothing but dead silence. Either they were all still in shock at what they were going after … or they all grimly agreed with that conclusion given the sheer stakes of this mission they were now aware of.

"Sir" General Lawrence, commander of the 14th Lexington Armored Regiment asked into the silence as the officers digested that statement. "Where on Helm are we hitting?" Again Ardan nodded to me and I took the hint.

"AO will be in the vicinity of the Nagyan Mountains - exact location will be slightly dependant on some specific … intelligence ...we're waiting on" I said, expecting to get another eye roll at that, but a clearing of a throat directed my attention to the back of the room.

"I can speak to that" a man in civilian clothes who I had noticed leaving the Kell Hounds shuttle spoke up. I blinked, not even having seen him enter the room, but confidently he stepped around to the front near Ardan and Marshal Felnser.

"Ah, Agent Williams, good" Ardan noted, glancing around to quickly explain. "Prince Davion sent a number of MI5 and MI6 teams into the Free Worlds League to lay the groundwork for this operation some months ago. Your report?"

The other straightened at that - his civilian sort of air vanishing as I recalled that unlike MIIO, DMI were in fact serving members of the AFFS. "Got back from Stewart two weeks ago via Helm, Sir. While at the Jump point posing as a commercial freighter passing through, we got an encrypted update from the ground team there - it was a hefty burst, but it contained the second package you were waiting for".

Ardan shared an intense look with me before turning back and I felt that kind of butterflies in the stomach deal hit me as this got more and more real. "You have both?"

The other smiled faintly and moved forward to the thin table that ringed around the holoprojector, placing his briefcase carefully on it. He then worked the combination locks very carefully, before retrieving a key from a pocket and, with it in place, carefully opened the armored case.

Inside, carefully placed into a foam insert, was a small black rectangular device about the size of my iPhone with a faded purple eagle drawn on it that I recognized as a memory chip. Essentially a portable solid state hard drive.

THE memory chip … I hoped.

The Colonel accepted it before he carefully handed it off to the technician with a few muttered orders, the NCO inserting it into a slot on his console and getting to work.

"Any problems stealing it?" I asked in a tone that could best be described as 'forced casual'. The DMI agent actually laughed at that, a short bark of contempt.

"SAFE are hit and miss at the best of times" the other didn't quite roll his eyes. "This time the coin came up tails; most of the Stewart family are offworld on vacation on Marik -probably plotting takeover attempt number six of the Captain Generalship- and took their best security with them. Everyone left was pretty much asleep. We got into the archives past three rent-a-cops who didn't even leave their break room and swapped the chip for something that looks the same, without anyone the wiser. Short of plugging it into a machine, no-one will ever know the difference I'd bet. And most likely they'll just assume the old thing finally kicked the bucket".

I got the distinct feeling that the spy was mildly insulted at his crack team, probably one of the very best in the entire Federated Suns used to daring missions against deadly, competent enemies, being sent in a priority one rush … to steal a worthless trinket from a planet that was asleep,

"Okay, I'll bite. What is this?" General Felger, XO of the Mech Regiment (and more typically its CO when the Marshal was busy leading the RCT) asked. And again Ardan nodded to me.

"In part, this is in essence a badge of office for the noble invested into the land hold of Helmfast. Which is basically the whole planet minus the capital. The chip should contain a Star League era high resolution map of the entire planet - before the Snakes blasted it that is" I added as the map in question loaded onto the screen.

It was hard to not grin like a madman right now.

"And if we combine it with the requested current maps..." I left the hint hanging and with a smile, Agent Williams retrieved another item from inside his case, this time a standard holo-disk. Looked exactly like a CD, but I knew its data storage was on the order of hundreds of terabytes, with data stored in multidimensional holographic constructs rather than the 2D laser etched storage used in CDs/DVDs/BlueRays back in my time.

"The locals idea of flight control is 'just don't bother us until you're ready to ground at Helmsdown" Williams grunted as he passed the disk over. "The inbound team were able to make multiple passes at multiple angles over the target area with a high resolution imager before landing to conduct trading for our cover and put a ground team into play".

"And their cover is?" Ardan asked with a raised eyebrow. I recalled he had very little time for the cloak and dagger side of things, only slowly growing to understand that not all battles were fought on the open field. The events of 'The Sword and the Dagger' at least had seemed to make him understand that Hanse had to play those games - and play them better - or else he'd lose everything...

"Selling stolen top of the line Lyran medical equipment at a very very cheap price. Not that they say it's stolen of course, they are just a 'free trader' who jumped the border for some reason and are selling it at five percent market price on a planet that wouldn't even get close to being able to afford it normally. Locals get their hospital in Helmsdown up to standards you might actually consider near acceptable equipment wise and our team has no questions asked as they sit around waiting for the next free jumpship collar to wander through - which is about two weeks away".

I nodded in approval of that. The people of Helm - hells the Free Worlds League in general - were hardly Kurita or Liao. And I knew the locals would never have gotten so much as one eagle if they had found the cache; the Duke of Stewart, Captain General and probably every other province would have shown up wanting a piece. And Comstar would have probably just slipped in and nuked it (and framed the Lyrans for the dead of course) while they were busy arguing over the thing.

A refurbished hospital in exchange for the cache might sound like a rather dud deal … but to be brutally honest, it was a step up from what they got in the past - which was a little civil war on their planet followed by a whole load of nothing. And the locals probably couldn't care about wider geopolitics, just delighting in the fact that they didn't have to fly to another system to get an MRI now or wait for the very infrequent mobile hospital dropships that showed up to rent their services.

"Any military activity?" Ardan brought my attention back

"Zip according to the report" the man said shrugged. "No line units, just the local militia who barely know one end of their rifles from the other and would be hard pressed to stop a scout Lance, let alone what you've brought. The latest LIC reports of activity on the border are also on the disk, complements of Simon Johnsons people".

"Anything else to report?" Ardan asked.

"No Sir".

"Very well. You're dismissed for now Agent Williams, we'll debrief in full later. And I remind you this briefing is classified".

"Roger that Sir" the other saluted and left. When the door closed behind him, then Ardan nodded to the tech.

The holographic projection split at that point, the left hand side showing the old map from the Star League era chip, the right the map scanned by the Stealthy Foxes dropship as it orbited. Apparently the Star League standards for topography and mapping were still fully in force and it allowed a quick calibration to the point that each map was showing the same location to the same scale. And the difference between the verdant world on one side and the one with only patchy signs of greenery on the other was slightly depressing. Fucking snakes.

Gods, I was starting to sound like a local. And to be slightly fair, Kurita were hardly the only party guilty of fucking over entire planets in the succession wars…

"What else is in the chip Agent Smith?" General Felger cut into my thoughts as the tech recalibrated the maps.

"Pardon me General?" I asked turning to face the other.

"You said in part it's the maps, what else is on it?" he insisted, his eyes narrowed.

"Ah. In essence, that chip contains a secondary command layer, either in the firmware or its software. Undetectable if you plug it into just any computer. But when the chip is interfaced with a specific 'gatehouse' computer outside the cache, it will authenticate us as authorised personnel, open the gate and shut down the security systems".

"And how could you possibly know that?" the General pressed, sounding unconvinced.

"That is classified level Sword-One " Ardan answered for me - causing the General to immediately shut up and almost cringe back into his seat as if a child scolded. 'Prince's Eyes Only' meant that they did not need to know and that Hanse had made judgements on my knowledge personally. Ergo, questioning it would be questioning their Prince; end of discussion. "As for where the cache is; Agent Smith?"

I nodded, standing up and feeling the eyes of everyone in the room on me as I gestured to the tech working the computers. "Sergeant, can you mark out the locations of Helmsdown, Freeport and Helmfast please?" I asked and in seconds the barely visible urban center of Helmsdown, rubble of Freeport and invisible landhold of Helmfast (seriously, no creativity in the names here) were tagged on the main continent on the current map.

Oriented, I nodded. Showtime. Gods I hope this was correct - but on the plus side this was also a nominal abort point if my information was way out of whack.

"Okay, first, you can all note a few things changed after the bombardment. Can you please refocus in on Freeport? Scale one to one thousand".

The pictures both swirled and dove through the 'sky' until the city of Freeport in all its former glory with the gleaming green/blue sea … and the ruins of freeport on the grey and dead seabed were side by side.

The signature of orbital bombardment and major nuclear detonations were also painfully clear.

"Please note that Freeport and the inland sea that used to be there are several hundred meters above the planetary sea level. Suffice to say that entire area was searched pretty heavily by Kurita for his loot before he gave up and more than one Lostech prospector has searched since without any trace. But our information was that while the cache was moved, it was not moved far. Without Jumpships, the people on the ground didn't have the ability to do so" and with that I stabbed a finger at the bloody red river snaking away from the town towards the south west. "The river is the key to the cache. Follow it please and cut back out to one to ten thousand?"

Obediently the viewpoint on both screens started to follow the line. On one, despite its red colour (as I recalled some algae or what not caused that), it was a healthy river, full of water bouncing along as it cut its way through the region. On the other screen … it was no longer a river, just a dry riverbed. Dried up, yet still faintly red even after all these years.

"The Vermillion river cuts across the planes, through the foothills of the Nagyan Mountains and into deeper canyons until … there, right there" I smiled with a sudden surge of confidence as, just like in the original novel, the river took a sharp turn and vanished under what looked like a massive overhang after the tech zoomed right in.

On the original picture that was.

On the right, while the riverbed was still visible and distinctive the river itself no longer flowed. But more interestingly, a large boulder in the first had seemingly of its own will, stood up on its side to block that end of the canyon and cave where the river had apparently vanished. And, had been rather clearly to my eyes, squared off. Also sitting off to the side was the truncated pyramid of the 'gatehouse' as I thought of it, an artificial structure not present in the past.

Which wasn't really proof of anything, it could have been anything after all. But for me it was the first real evidence that this WAS exactly like in Battletech and not a wild goose chase.

"Zoom back and move to the west … okay hold it" I said as the crimson line re-emerged, three or four klicks away in a straight line distance, on the reverse slope and side of the mountain. "And now, the river re-emerges and eventually winds its way into the sea. And clearly has other sources of water, although it's still almost dry today. So. How did it get from one side to the other. Anyone?"

"Probably just an underground cave system" Daniel Allard responded first with a shrug. "There are plenty of examples across the Inner Sphere of rivers digging under and through mountains or terrain to reemerge on the other side. I know on Kestral there is a river that goes about two klicks under a mountain before coming out and some crazy people like to put on scuba gear..." he started to tell a story when suddenly his words caught up with him and he straightened slightly, his eyes widening in sudden revelation. "An underground cave system…"

Ah, with the repetition and emphasis, suddenly everyone in the room started to shift and glance at each other. Now they were getting where I was going with this and I smiled as I started to explain…Last