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Four months after the loss of contact with the Great Valkyrate and Oberon Confederacy, I was looking at the reports about modified Portable PPCs for use with battle-armor and preliminary research reports on miniaturized gauss rifles also for battle armor, when I was 'asked' to participate in a war council with the leaders of both the Taurian Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus and their close advisors.

In the old days, that would have included fast traveling to Taurus via command circuit. Now, thanks to the military HPG network created just for that, it was a matter of going to the secure office in the palace where our end of said network was.

Thanks to the infiltration of the rear / administrative echelons of the AFFC, pioneered by the Reach Intelligence and largely expanded by the TMI and MIM, we had a good idea of what was happening inside the Federated Commonwealth, military wise.

This program focused on infiltrating / compromising secretaries and / or data operators with security clearances high enough to deal with confidential / sensible data, but low enough to be virtually invisible, as they were so many of them in the administration making everything work.

Even if the relationships between both nations had been getting better in the past decades, the Federated Commonwealth was still the principal focus of the TMI. 

Not that the spy game had gone completely one-sided. Several agents had been caught inside the Federated Commonwealth and been traded quietly for MIIO / LIC ones caught inside the Concordat. For obvious reasons, both nations preferred a quiet and civilized resolution of these problems.

According to our reports, some unknown forces had started invading the Federated Commonwealth from the North, near the Free Rasalhague Republic. Because the FRR served as a buffer state between the Federated Commonwealth and the Draconis Combine, the best forces of the AFFC were not deployed in that area, nor any WarShip, at least according to the reports of our intelligence services. The invaders were using unknown equipment, but from the videos that our intelligence got their hands on, they were identified as the Jade Falcons, one of the Clans, the descendants of the SLDF, reported in the Wolverine data files.

At the same time, we got news through the Magistracy and Concordat offices in Outreach that the KungsArmé had placed several contracts for mercenaries, paying better than they normally did, and indicating high risk missions.

To me, that indicated that the FRR was also invaded and I expressed that opinion. However while the majority agreed with my statement, we didn't have any confirmation so far. Nor any information if the Combine was also invaded as I suspected if everything went like in OTL.

Like I thought already a few months ago, the invasion of the Inner Sphere by the Clans had started.

Because of the data found on the Wolverines planet, both Periphery nations knew that this was an invasion by the descendants of the SLDF that had departed with Kerensky. A force that both nations didn't particularly like. Hated would be more exact. Both considered hilarious that this time the war was fought on the territories of the Inner Sphere nations and not on theirs.

Edward Calderon and Emma Centrella both decided that because the invasion was on the other side of the Inner Sphere and on Inner Sphere territory, they would for now wait and see. Evidently, defense preparations and expanding the budget were approved, but no information was shared with the Inner Sphere nations under threat. But knowing that the Clanners ultimate objective was the control all the Human Sphere and that if they conquered the Inner Sphere, they would come to the Periphery after, they already knew that some measure of collaboration with the Inner House would be needed to be necessary, but later. For now, both sides could exhaust themselves.

In the FWL, a bomb attack killed Thomas Marik and several of his supporters, creating chaos in his faction.

The Wolf's Dragoons called all their units home, activating the escape clauses of their contracts, without explanations to anyone.

Both the TMI and the MIM detected movements of troops inside the FC, in direction of the invasion area, but considerable forces were still kept on the common border with the Draconis Combine. For now, no movement of WarShips reported, but access to that information was (still) very limited.

The aid from VMI / CHI to MMM to help them built the NightHawk factory provided both companies with insights in ways to help and improve the construction and design of the related but slightly inferior Colibri PA(L) design series.

One of the things that caused concerns in both Periphery nations was the number and types of WarShips the invading Clans had. Unlike the powers of the Inner Sphere, they had several Battleships, including several of the Texas and Mckenna classes, something that no-one had with the exception of the ex-SLS Bismark that was starting to be analyzed in Bolthole, but that would probably take a decade or so before being declared operational. Obviously if everything went right with the refit / update.