Comstar Interlude 3010

Comstar Interlude 3010

"So you're telling me that this is an independent development?" Senior Adept Dougless Franklin asked the Acolyte who was inspecting the latest oddity to arise out of the Periphery.

"Yes sir, while it's possible that they found some maintenance logs for a NightHawk somewhere in a cache and used them on some of the development, I can tell you that this is a unique invention." Acolyte Janet Williams said. "What really interests me is the power supply, while we managed to divert this shipment of Mithril along with some fudged paperwork, we don't have the notes on how to refuel or reuse the power source."

"Well, we managed to divert twenty-five of them, so do whatever you need to in order to figure it out." Adept Franklin told Acolyte Williams. "ROM wants us to figure out a way to compare and beat these things soon.

"Well, so far the power on the first suit we captured is still working despite all of the tests and trials we put it through." She responded. "I'll get some of our better engineers focused on the power source though."

"How did it hold up in the durability tests?" Adept Franklin asked, it was one of the reports he hadn't had time to look at yet.

"How about I just show you." She said and led him to a decent sized firing range with a suit of blackened Mithril hanging up in front of the targets. "This is after we had some of the Comguards shooting at it with small arms fire all day." She indicated the blackened suit.

"Damn." Adept Franklin said. "That's gotta be scary to face in a melee."

"Sir, it took two Small Laser hits in order for us to break through and start damaging what was underneath." She told him flatly. "This stuff is decently light in weight, can be manufactured on a world with any decent industrial capacity, and is probably going to change the Inner Sphere as we know it."

"But, we can't replicate the power supply?" the Adept asked.

"Sir, we can examine it and try to reverse engineer it all we want to, without the correct makeup of the fuel cell or whatever it is, we're just going to end up with some crazy versions of it." Williams responded. "We can make our own versions of the Mithril suit all day long. Until we can make our own version of the Fuel Cell, we're going to end up floundering just like the rest of the Successor states will."

"I'll pass the information on up the chain." He told her. "Any ideas on how to potential improve the suits?" Franklin asked.

"Nothing that whoever came up with this isn't probably already moving towards." She shrugged. "Probably trying to boost the Fuel Cell's output and drop some of the speed in order to get some more armor and the ability to mount small Anti Mech and Vehicle weaponry such as a small laser or a MPPC."

"Because they boost strength already, they probably can carry a whole host of SRM's don't they?" the Adept asked.

"I'm not an expert in tactics, but I don't see why they wouldn't mule a lot of extra reloads as well." The acolyte responded. "One of our Comguards is waiting with a review on the suit for you in your office sir."

"Sergeant Adept Lutrell." Senior Adept Franklin shook the Comguard member's hand. "What do you think of the captured samples?"

"Adept Franklin," The enlisted man started. "I would like to know when we are acquiring some suits like this of our own. Because I've never seen anything like this." He got a little amped up and dove into a raving review of the Powered Armor.

"Now, Adept Lutrell, tell me how you would defeat them as regular infantry." Franklin told the other man.

"You wouldn't." Lutrell stated flatly. "It's going to be immune to most of your standard small arms, an Anti-Material rifle will be effective, but only if you manage to hit one of the joints." He paused for breath. "Frankly Senior Adept, you would just retreat and hope that you had some armored vehicle support." He finished.

"Thank you Sergeant Adept, I'll have an acolyte see you out." And Franklin began to file some reports. He would need to be sending this up the chain.

"Primus, Precentor ROM is still working on engineering a civil war in the Free Worlds league." One of the adepts working in the main ROM center told Primus Julian Tiepolo.

"What were the latest reports on that from him anyway?" Tiepolo asked.

"Well Primus, it seems that Janos Mark's brother, while seemingly ambitious and desiring more power, was hesitant to side with Maximillian Liao due to the serious losses they have taken over the last several years." The Adept said. "It would seem that Duncan Marik, Janos' nephew was more susceptible to being pushed to engineer a civil war, and so he is working on ingratiating himself that way."

"Well then," Tiepolo responded. "I'll have to keep an eye on the situation then,"

He turned to walk out, but then Tiepolo remembered something he had intended to ask about and did an about face.

"Yes, one last question, how goes the infiltration of the Marksman Mercenary group?" He inquired. "I know that Colonel Hull has been on our radar for a while as a minor interest while he was about in the periphery due to his origins, but their recent actions have raised my interest. I like the inroads that the Taurian Concordat and the Federated Suns are making towards closer alliances, and I think we could push them to collapse the Capellans together if we engineer it properly. With the Marik's having a civil war, the Capellans on the verge of collapse, all we will need is to push the Lyrans and Combine into a conflict, and we could start seeing the collapse of the successor states."

The adept just nodded, eager to get back to work.

"Right then, I've got some more meetings to get to, thank you Adept." Tiepolo nodded at the younger man and walked out of the room that most of the ROM operations took place in.

"He scares me sometimes." One of the other adepts said to the one that the Primus had been talking to. "All of the Precentors are that way." He responded. "All of them."