"Operations", Part 7

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• Date: August 17, 3029
• Planet: Ryde
• Location: Leopard-Class DropShip "Shadowfox", Briefing Room

Once in the briefing room, Mikell waited for Vandal to arrive and looked up. "Please close the door." Vandal hesitated, and did so, hitting the lock as well. "About what just happened, I'd like to know what you know about the gentleman who was talking with me." Vandal seemed to be mulling it over. "Is it personal, or business?"

"Business. Which is why I'm so careful to talk about it. When we knew him he went by Janus Templar, and called himself an agent for the Lyran Intelligence Corps. And what I know about him?" He found himself a seat, and sighed out slowly. "He's not simple to summarize."

"I have some time." Mikell folded his arms.

"It's important you understand. I've worked for colonels as cheap extra manpower to field, I've worked for spooks trying to use a unit as a probe so they wouldn't have to use their own assets. But Janus is not just a spook, he's a different breed entirely. He doesn't make incredibly detailed demands, he doesn't saddle you with various kinds of conflicting or distracting objectives." He looked up, and his eyes focused on Mikell steadily. "But he does judge you, not just on what you do, not just on how you do it, but on why. And if he doesn't like why? You're going to find yourself headed into an end you ain't gonna see it coming."

"You had the wrong reason, then?"

There was hesitation, then the slightest of shrugs. "I wasn't what mattered to him. What mattered was my commander having an unauthorized mission he went on while on a contract, because he needed to get supplies. The problem was, we were over the border within the Combine on some world called Karbala. We mixed it up with some mercenaries on the planet, there was a bit of collateral damage from the forces pulling the raid. Well, we got off-planet and out of the system, and word got out about the attack. Three months later, we are contacted by Templar with a contract offer and our commander accepted." He shook his head. "We went out, business as usual, raiding across the border and making our way from planet to planet as a harassment campaign to keep the Combine forces wasting time and energy chasing us down. Janus didn't exactly like what our commander was up to, though, and I'll be honest he was kind of . . ." Vandal trailed off and sighed. "So we received a message one day instead of a contract payment. Telling us we were on our own. The JumpShip who had been given orders to assist us had been given orders instead to return to Lyran space, stranding us there. Of the whole outfit, three of us managed to get out of there. I ditched my BattleMech, and it probably saved me. I made it as far as Sakhalin before hearing the other two got caught trying to leave Carse."

"I hear you. That would be how I found you, then, without anything to you other than your talent?"

"And I had been out of a cockpit for almost a year. Skills had gotten a little rusty." There was a long silence. "So, there you have it. That's one bit of my story. And it's all that's relevant to Janus Templar. Don't trust him, but if he's already approached you then he's either already setting us up or he's testing us."

"What do you suggest?"

"Let's not disappoint him." Vandal sat down, and hmmed. "So, call everyone here, let's start the briefing?" He seemed more relaxed now, but all the same he kept his eyes on Mikell as he made the call. "Nobody else needs to hear about this."

Mikell put on a confused look, keying the door unlocked as he consulted his datapad. "Vandal, that's a strange thing to say. We were just talking about what your team saw on Dalkeith V." He looked over as the door opened and slowly the 'MechWarriors began to filter in, Kelly still grinning ear to ear and having bright red paint on her face. "Kelly, what is that?"

"I was putting teeth on my Wolfhound. It didn't look right without them."

"Well, okay then. Everyone here? Let's get started." Mikell motioned to everyone, and they gathered around the table. "The Lyran Intelligence Corps would like to hire us again, on the strength of our previous audition." A couple chuckles from Otto, Casey, and Simone, but everyone else glanced at others. Olivia and Reginald shared a look, Aubrey glanced to Mikell, Vandal looked down, and Kelly looked at the ceiling lights. "The details are as follows." He activated the table, bringing up a map of the Tamar Pact. A small patch of worlds were highlighted on the edge in red, while a blue dot appeared where Twycross was. "We are to garrison a world known as Anywhere-"

"Is that seriously the name?" Casey spoke up. "Really?"

"Would you rather go to Here?" Olivia smirked across the table. "Or Hardcore?"

"Hardcore sounds awesome." Simone grinned.

"Okay, next person to speak up? I'm assigning kitchen duty. Not cooking, cleaning. Up to and including the grease traps." The trio shot him hurt looks. "Our particular focus is a water processing plant, turning polar ice and snow into bottled water which then gets sold inward as 'Water from Anywhere'." Otto raised his hand, opening his mouth, and then closed it before blinking. "Yeah. I don't even begin to make these things up. There's also pirates in the area, and wouldn't you know it their raids seem to be targeted at the processing plant and making off with the water shipments. Among other things from the agriculture on-planet."

"We are fighting pirates stealing food and water." Olivia piped up. "What. Coreward Frontier planets, I swear."

"Olivia, one week KP." Mikell barely bothered stopping to let that sink in. "The locals aren't equipped to deal with it, since there's BattleMechs involved. We're being tapped to take care of it, and the agent hiring us described it as 'a suitable interview for further employment'. We are to determine the extent of the pirate threat and neutralize it. Civilian casualties are to be kept to an absolute maximum of zero. There are two things which are going to help us on this." He touched his earpiece. "Janice, if you please?"

The door opened, admitting a rather plain-looking woman, dressed in a blue jacket and slacks, no insignia anywhere on her outfit. "Hello, folks. I'm Sergeant Janice Fredericks, formerly of the Twycross militia garrison." She nodded at either side of the table. "I lead Lorelei Team, a squad of infantry with two hovercraft APCs, hired from people on Twycross and Ryde. It'll be a pleasure working with you."

"Not directly with us." Mikell took over again, Janice stepping back. "You might have seen her around in the last seven weeks or so, which has been the time she was recruiting people to join up. Lorelei Team is not here to help you on the battlefield except in rare instances where they can have an impact. What they are here for is to evacuate or otherwise protect civilians in the event they wind up in the engagement area."

"A squad could spread out pretty thin, boss." Vandal said, looking at Janice for a moment. "Especially in urban battles. Did you have a plan for that?"

Mikell shrugged, letting out a soft sigh. "Try to avoid urban battles. We're not remotely capable of doing those without having to level a couple city blocks in the process anyway." He brought up an image of a planetary surface map. "From what we can tell, the facility we are to garrison has one city not far away, and it's fairly small. I think we can prevent the pirates from attacking it if they're also after the facility, since it's roughly ten to fifteen kilometers away. Likewise, if they attack the city we possibly could intercept them before they reach it. But given we can't always choose where we will wind up engaging . . ." He motioned to Janice, who took a brief bow. "Lorelei Team."

"So do we have a plan how to approach the Anywhere contract?" Reginald asked.

"Well, if the pirates are the type to hit-and-run, we just have to catch them when they hit and handle them. If they have a base of operations on the planet, though, that means we need to find it and neutralize that as well. Given the intel we have, the suggestion is the pirates have a JumpShip which makes semi-regular arrivals and they ferry up spoils-"

"Booty." Olivia chirped in, while everyone at the table tried to ignore her.

"-and ferry down reinforcements and fresh units before the locals can respond." Mikell noticed Reginald holding up his hand, and nodded his direction.

Reginald folded his arms and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. "Tell me we're not going to try to take the JumpShip."

"We are not going to try to take the JumpShip. Largely because I don't think we could do it intact, partly because I don't have the capacity for the kind of headache that will bring to our logistics. What matters is this, if they're only taking their spoils-"

"Booty."

"Stop that." Mikell barely broke his verbal stride as he pointed at Olivia, who was grinning. "If they're only taking it up and leaving the people on the planet, they have a base of operations. And we can probably find it. Second thing, which I needed to bring up, is what Louis has a team working on amidst making sure our new DropShip functions." He pulled up an image. "This is called a Raven, model number RVN-1X. It is a Light-class scouting BattleMech designed recently within the Capellan Confederation, and we seized one on the previous contract and turned it over to the LIC." Kelly looked back at the console now, and was squinting at the image. "It is armed with two Medium Lasers and a six-shot Short-Range Missile launcher, and has a curious electronics suite which seems to interfere with certain types of long-range sensors. Particularly those advanced ones which govern long-range missile systems." He took a breath. "That's one side of the suite. The other side is an advanced and focused sensor which can cut through most natural or artificial countermeasures, making it easier to find things people want to hide. With this, it should be easier to sweep for a hidden pirate base once we get the general idea of where to search."

Kelly raised her hand. "I killed it, didn't I get to keep it?"

"No, no, see." Olivia leaned over and motioned with her hands. "You traded that piece of Capellan junk for your shiny new Lyran-manufactured 'Mech."

Kelly rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know that." She said in a tone as if she was speaking down to a child. Olivia blinked at it, but said nothing. "But we have it back now. So is it mine again?"

Otto was stifling a laugh, and Vandal kicked him under the table as he spoke up. "That's not how this works. You made a trade, so even if we get back what we traded, it's now the company's."

"Oh, okay." Kelly flicked her wrist, a knife sliding out of her sleeve in a way which made Olivia jump back. "So, do I need to kill it again, then it can be mine?"

"Why do you have one of those?!" She yelped.

"Wait, you don't have one?" Kelly's expression changed to confused as she looked to Olivia. "And what makes you think I have only this one?" Her expression brightened and she smiled. "Here, you can have it." She offered it handle-first and Olivia took it for a moment. Kelly looked like she was thinking, then snapped her fingers. "Oh! Actually, can you hand that back, that one was a gift. I'll get you one of the others."

"That's okay." Olivia said slowly. "I'll have the Commander find me one." She looked to Mikell pleadingly, but he was just hiding his own smirk. "The briefing?"

Reginald leaned over to look at Olivia around Kelly. "No, no, we should let this all play out, because it's hilarious seeing you at a loss for words." Olivia glared at him, and he settled back in his seat before she relaxed back into her chair.

"Moving on. We have the Raven now, and I think I am going to assign you to it, Vandal. Otto, you can continue using the Locust-"

"Great." Otto muttered under his breath.

"-because we don't have a Wasp yet. For this contract I'm organizing two Lances. Sagittarius Lance will be myself with the BattleMaster, Reginald with his Orion, Olivia in the Warhammer, and Casey in the Valkyrie. We are going to be a strike lance, meant to be the heavy hitters employed once we know where a target is." He motioned his hands, pulling up another set of images to show the four BattleMechs in their division. "Pegasus Lance, you're led by Simone in the Griffin. You'll also be Kelly in her Wolfhound, Otto in the Locust, and Vandal in the Raven. It’s going to be your duty to find the target so we can hit it.""

"Where will I be, sir?" Aubrey raised his hand.

"I'll have you running the tactical station here on the 'Shadowfox'. Assuming we don't get it operational on the new ship before we land on Anywhere. We'll be leaving as soon as the DropShip is spaceworthy and can make the trip to Twycross and Salmacis. There we'll do a final check to make sure it's ready, pick up what we need, and head to Anywhere." He folded his hands before him. "Hopefully before the pirates have another chance to run off with more-"

"Booty." Otto said lightly, Olivia kicking him under the table with a pout for beating her to it.

"-goods." Mikell again barely changed his speaking rhythm, as his finger pointed. "Otto, KP duty until we get back to Salmacis."

He blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Okay, everyone, let's focus. Your BattleMechs will have their weapons turned to training mode and no ammunition will be loaded but we will conduct drills as best we can. Louis managed to get the Griffin here earlier this month, so once he finishes the calibrations on the Raven we should be good." He clapped his hands together. "Tomorrow, we start training in the new unit structure, and hopefully we'll be ready when we hit Anywhere."

---

• Location: [Classified], Director Templar's Office

Janus walked back to the desk, sighing as he touched a control. The display lit up, a prompt blinking in the air. "Take a note, Cyrus. I want Sergeant Laredo's file, and the name of his commanding officer. I also would like you to find Kommandant Harvey's contact information at the garrison to let him know what his men are up to without his knowledge." The words began to scroll as he dictated to the console, and he walked around to a cabinet to remove a book to flip through. "New task. Enable encryption Horus Four-Two. Call Anthony Aliandros." He walked back to the desk and glanced over the page. As the connection was made, the other gentleman's eyes narrowed. Janus spoke first. "I did look into matters as you requested. How is your work going?"

"I'm still in debt." Anthony muttered. "Picking up some cargo from Rysel Laboratories before leaving, and it will be disseminated to some other vessels. At this rate, I will probably still be in debt when the war is over."

"I am working on trying to keep that as short as possible, mind you." Janus tried not to smile. With the way things were, though, he had no real hope of it ending unless something serious changed.

"Very generous of you." A roll of the eyes. "I am absolutely certain you have it in hand, what with the Federated Commonwealth on task and having no problems with invading forces."

Janus paused, and compiled his thoughts, always having trouble doing this when it came to Anthony. "Something else is going on in the Virginia Shire. There are rumors about mercenary activity picking up in the area and units aren't where they're supposed to be for an effective defense. It is . . . out of step with what is expected."

"And this matters to me why? I'm a civilian, you're the one who chose to go into spy work."

"I agreed to keep watch, Anthony. I agreed to stay near to . . . it, and keep track of who else seemed to be looking into it." He drummed his fingers together softly. "I have insulated myself, somewhat, while you have made a spectacle. Do you understand the process of staying out of the public eye?"

"I'm more insulated than you think, and better connected where it matters." Anthony sighed softly. "Let's not argue the point, though. Time is limited, and I am actually aware of some matters you might not be. Would you believe there were forces loyal to Duke Aaron Sandoval which were dispatched to Carnwath to look into possibilities of a cache of Star League items there?"

"The Star League never had a cache on Carnwath."

"That's irrelevant. What's more relevant?" He leaned forward, and his gloved hands came into view of the video pickup as it followed him. "Someone else did." His eyes focused on Janus' face through the console. "But you already knew, didn't you? Your connections, no doubt."

"Did Sandoval find anything?"

Anthony chuckled and shook his head. "I'm connected, but not that connected. Not for lack of trying, but there are many more people in line to try to curry favor with a rising star like that." His eyes shifted around. "And you have heard another bit of news, haven't you? You're connected in a way that matters."

"I am not sure what you mean."

"Yes you are." Anthony adjusted the video feed and looked around briefly. "Everyone important went to Terra, for the Steiner-Davion wedding. Except one of whom I was expecting to join the VIPs and he didn't send anyone in his stead." His eyes focused on Janus. "Sorvetz Reisel-"

Janus held up his hands. "I am not dealing with this again."

"You know something is wrong here." Anthony angrily snapped. "You can tell it doesn't match up. He should have at least sent his daughter, but no. There were people who missed their presence, I got asked about it quite a few times-"

"Lord Sorvetz Reisel is your problem, not mine. Do not make him my problem, I have plenty on my plate right now with the war and coordinating issues going on. What of your plate, Anthony? How did those trade negotiations go with the Arano family?" Anthony's brows dropped to a squint. "I heard there were issues as well, with favored groups under House Centrella massively underbidding you."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"But you would rather talk about the person who holds your debt, and try to use me like a trained dog?" Janus shook his head. "Enough, Anthony. I am keeping watch, as I agreed. I called you because there has been a rising amount of inquiries about - and activities in - five systems." He lifted his fingers and counted. "Dalkeith. Sakhalin. Port Moseby. Phalan. And Accrington. They have narrowed it down that far, I think. I am still not sure exactly who, but now you have given me another name to look out for."

"He's in your-"

"Not Reisel. The man is on life support, and he is no danger to anyone anymore. He had his glory days before the turn of the millennia. On the other hand, in your sector-"

"I am working on that. I have to head back through some holdings and be sure people aren't screwing it up. Then I can make inquiries, but I might have a line on someone desperate or stupid enough to take a chance for me."

"Anthony." Janus paused. "If anything changes from the way the situation is now, if it becomes unstable in any fashion? Do not worry about it, just send who you can find. Damascus cannot, absolutely cannot, be brought back online."

Anthony was quiet for a long breath. "Well, well. Here I was thinking in the last fifteen minutes we weren't going to agree on anything anymore. I have a short list. The skilled, the lucky, and the lucky idiots. What about you?"

Janus glanced to one side at the image of the contract he'd released this morning. "I have a much shorter list, I am sure. But I need to see if they can do the job."

"Fair enough. Keep me posted, diplomatic pouch only. Send them to-"

"I know where to send them to. Hopefully they will find you there after I do. Good luck with your crushing debt."

"And you, you have good luck with your terrorists and troublemakers." Anthony severed the connection, and Janus let out a long breath, looking to his desk and touching a button. "New notes. Check file on Duke Aaron Sandoval, his family and political rivals. Pull recent data on Coromodir." He paused, and sighed to himself, closing his eyes. Anthony did have a point. "Check file on Rysel Laboratories, their owner and associated businesses. New instruction. Compile summaries and raw data for tomorrow concerning noted files and references. Execute."