"White Reach: Landfall" (Part 7)
- Date: September 25, 3031
- Planet: White Reach, Pelea Continent
- Location: Minos Firebase, Construction Site
"Sir." Elly's voice was in his ear. "We received a courier who delivered a diplomatic pouch, saying it was for the officers. Also received a reply through the HPG, ComStar had it downloaded to our systems for their convenience." That was out of the ordinary, but given how the station personnel were likely hip-deep in messages still it wasn't unexpected.
"Okay, let Olivia, Aubrey, and Reginald know to meet me in the briefing room. Have the data and pouch contents moved there" He turned around and started to move to the 'Aquila'. A few minutes later he saw Olivia and Reginald walking in that direction too, and they fell in together quietly. The briefing room had Aubrey already there waiting, as Mikell motioned for him to stay in his seat. Olivia, however walked over to the chair and dumped him out of it.
"Hey! Come on, convalescent 'MechWarrior here!"
She simply stuck out her tongue at him. "My chair."
"Your chair was on the other side of the table yesterday!"
Olivia smirked. "I move it."
"So how do I know which one is yours, they're all the same?" Aubrey dusted at his pants.
"If I dump you out of it-"
"Olivia, Aubrey, cut it out." Mikell sighed. "Olivia, please stop taking out your boredom on Aubrey." She frowned at the commander, opening her mouth. "Or I'll assign you to keeping Kelly out of trouble." He sat down and began reading through the messages, before sighing and looking at the table. "Okay, shall we start with the good news I got back from our dear friend Corey. He can replace the Wolfhound, but we have to do something for him." Reginald sighed, and Aubrey made a motion with his hands as he sat in another chair. "He has what he called the 'Quickscell Combo Platter' which has to be added onto the sale." Everyone began to groan, and he pointed at them. "Hey, we can use them."
"Quickscell? Really?" Reginald sighed. The company was known for producing some truly cheap-quality machines. Not because they didn't work, but because components were very prone to failure due to poor assembly or their standardized parts making maintenance being more difficult instead of easier. Quickscell made a wide variety of combat vehicles, and there was often no telling if they made something until you got into the mechanisms to take a look.
"A Manticore and two Condor Hover Tanks." Mikell tapped the edge of the table, bringing the display to show the two schematics. The Manticore was a heavy tank, sixty tons and armed with a PPC, a Medium Laser, a six-shot short-range launcher and a ten-shot long-range launcher. The Condor was a fifty-ton hovercraft designed to be be able to move quickly and respond to changing battlefield positions. It was armed with a Class Five Autocannon, two Medium Lasers, and a Machine Gun in the front. "I want the Manticore because it is a decent enough support for BattleMechs, and I want the Condors because they're fast and can flank well at a distance."
"Just so you know, Quickscell means Louis is going to have to go over these things very deeply." Olivia put in, shaking her head. "I'm not opposed to it, hell if you want to spend the money on this I could use less things shooting at me."
"I as well." Aubrey muttered, and winced as Olivia kicked him under the table.
Mikell glanced over at the pair briefly. "Regardless. If we want a second Wolfhound, we're going to need to do someone a favor, and I'm wary of what the Lyran Forces will want as their cut. Corey isn't asking much, just for us to spend roughly two hundred and seventy percent as much and get some things he believes we don't want." He coughed into his hand briefly and held up the other hand. "That said, there's another issue. I have a message from our wonderful Mister Templar, delivered this morning."
"Oh no." Olivia muttered. "So what's it say?"
Mikell looked up and moved from his seat to where the pouch was sitting on a shelf, showing it remained unopened. "Let's find out." He pulled the tab to tear it open, and stuck the data unit into the appropriate interface.
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them sat silently and Mikell looked around the table. "I am sharing this with everyone else." He said slowly. "We are going to need their support on this, and I don't want anyone going into this blind."
"I don't want to be here." Aubrey said hollowly. "This is so far beyond what I expected when . . . when I joined." He almost had said something else, Mikell noticed, but he had hidden it well enough under a sigh. Good, he wasn't blowing his cover yet. "What are we getting into?"
"We are so far in over our heads." Olivia swallowed, and leaned back in her chair for a long minute longer. Reginald silently stared at the table surface until she nudged him. "Go on, say something encouraging, Reginald."
"I got nothing." He said, and looked to Mikell. "Wait for two more weeks until the command center is operational and Jade has had a chance to sweep for listening devices the generous local contractors have left for us." He stood up. "Until then, our contract is made clear and we should get back to work."
Mikell nodded, and cleared the data. "We'll be having the full meeting soon, though. Think on this and try to come up with ways of handling this. I need to review orders with Louis for parts." He stood up. "Now that we have a supplier, of course. Keep your comms in, folks."
- Location: DropShip 'Aquila', 'Mech Deck
Louis looked up for a moment from his own datapad. "Waiting on parts. I need the whole leg structure assembly from a fifty-five ton BattleMech since the hip snapped when it fell. That's not all, because of course it's not." He snorted and pointed to another sling not far away, which held the Particle Projection Cannon from the right arm. "It's broken, we need a new one." That was all he said, his usual laconic manner about these things having an edge to it. Mikell noticed the bags under his eyes, and decided to change the working schedule so he could get more rest. "I hope you can find another one, boss. I'll be able to get the Griffin back to full functionality for sure once we do."
Mikell looked up at the suspended weapon. "What's wrong with it?"
Louis sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. "Look, the PPC fires a stream of charged particles, that's where it gets its name. What's going on is there's something broken in the focus apparatus which doesn't let it work as it should. Its accuracy is dropped very far down, as is its range, but within a hundred-twenty meters it'd probably be impossible to miss with since it's turned from a cannon to a shotgun."
"That sounds-"
"With the same problem as the base model being less effective within ninety meters or it fries the electronics." Louis continued, pointing to the weapon. "In short, it's now as dangerous to the user as the target if you want to use it as a weapon. For what it's designed for, it's useless. I can't fix it because I can't put the thing back together within tolerances once I dismantle it to figure out which piece broke to cause this. Find me another one."
Mikell made a tossing motion with his hand. "Well, give me a list of what you need from off-planet. Castellan Foundries is claiming they can give you armor-quality steel in whatever amounts you request-"
Louis didn't even miss a beat, speaking quickly. "I need a hundred tons."
"- as long as it's not excessive, and that sounds excessive."
Louis tapped his datapad on his palm. "The Griffin uses nine and a half, the Orion uses fourteen and a half, the Warhammer uses ten, and the Stalker is going to need thirteen and a half." He pointed it at Mikell, rattling off the figures nonchalantly as though he had prepared this speech. "The Locust and Raven both need four, the Valkyrie needs six, and the BattleMaster also uses fourteen and a half. That's sixty-two and a half right there, and I'd like to replenish our stockpile. Which was a minimal thirty, maximum sixty. You do the math."
"Right, okay." Mikell sighed and nodded. "What else?"
"Six tons of autocannon ammo for the Orion, ten tons of LRMs, ten tons of SRMs, and five tons of machine gun ammo." He rattled off. "On top of that, the aforementioned leg assembly and PPC, four sets of actuators as spares, and Irene's list of medical supplies."
"There's a Rysel Distribution Center two jumps away, should be able to negotiate something." Mikell absently frowned. "I'll have to be in touch with that salvage yard on Galatea again, see what they have. We're also getting some new equipment here."
"Tools?"
"No, combat vehicles. A Manticore and two Condor tanks." He pointed at Louis. "They're coming in from Quickscell." As Louis opened his mouth. "I know. You and your best team are going to go over them before we look for help crewing them. I want you to completely inspect them, and look for any sub-standard parts or assembly. I want to be sure these things are really going to work out for us."
"Quickscell. Pardon me, sir, but why are you buying that crap?"
"So I can replace Kelly's Wolfhound."
Louis opened his mouth, closed it, and paused. "What."
"It's a package deal, I don't have any control over it and this is the only way right now. Or I could try begging the Lyrans, telling them I got one of their brand new designs trashed and I need another one."
"Send them the battle recording, we recovered that. They can watch all of Kelly's use of it and see it put up a good fight."
"And it lost. That's what they're going to see."
Louis threw up his hands. "Spare me the fragile egos of Lyran Commanders!" He cracked his knuckles. "I'll deal with it, as usual, but do we have a clue when we're done here? This is going to get expensive fast if this keeps up."
"I worry about expensive, you worry about keeping things running as best you and your teams can." Mikell sighed. "But believe me, someone's going to be helping me foot the bill. I'm taking the salvage we still dragged off and seeing if we can find a local buyer. There's a couple multi-system trading companies who have representatives on planet."
"Don't sell what we can use for spare parts."
"Louis, you wound me. Of course I'm not selling those, but everything else is going to go." He shrugged, and Louis shrugged back. "Is the base construction going according to plan?"
"Two days and we'll have a basic shell of a 'Mech Bay ready to service up to ten BattleMechs. Fair warning, it's not armored or reinforced to take damage, only to not collapse under the weight of the equipment. Four days and the command center and power station will be online. Won't be pretty but they'll work. After that, another twelve days for living quarters and secure storage which isn't on the DropShips. Both of those will be little more than bunkhouses and warehouses, mind you."
"Fair enough. I'll see what I can do about contracting these folk for potential additional work here, improve on it." Mikell turned and looked out of the open hatch. "Also, there may be a briefing I want you to attend within the next few days, if you can."
"I can find an hour somewhere." Louis waved his hand dismissively. "You go deal with the rest of this, maybe you can cut in line at the ComStar station to get the messages out. Now let me get back to work, sir."
- Date: October 11, 3031
- Location: DropShip 'Shadowfox', Briefing Room
"It wasn't a jamming signal." Jade said slowly, her eyes focused on the shotglass in front of her. "That was a high-powered transmission which was being broadcast to every telecommunications satellite over the planet. At the same time. With instructions to rebroadcast in such a way it covered the entire planetary surface with the signal, every few seconds." She poured another shot for herself and Mikell, shaking her head. "The system couldn't handle both this task and normal operations, so it was stuck only doing this."
"Why?"
"You remember how you had me set up the encryptions for the unit comms? Well, this was encrypted in a way I'd never seen before."
"That's-" Mikell took his shot, and held it in his mouth to prevent him from saying something sharp about the change of subject. "Okay, Jade, the point of encryption is other people can't break your codes. That's why I had you working on something non-standard for us."
The blonde woman looked over her glasses at Mikell, and sighed. "Bear with me." She poured a third shot for each of them, shaking her head. "Everyone uses a specific basis to encrypt their codes, think of it as an alphabet unique to each set of codes. The Draconis Combine has one, the Federated Suns have a different one, the Taurian Concordat apparently throw dice and see what happens, you get the idea." She took the shotglass in hand and paused. "This alphabet isn't in use by any of the major powers anymore." She drank the shot in one swallow, sighing out through her nose.
"Hold on, if nobody uses it, how did you wind up breaking it?"
"It wasn't in use anymore. It was in use before, and it took me finding some of my old manuals to figure it out." She rubbed her thumb around the rim of the shotglass absently. "Mikell, I told you I didn't want to get shot at. That's because it scares me. Signals which shouldn't exist scare me a hell of a lot more."
"What are you talking about?" Mikell drank his shot again, sighing after. That was going to be too much, he turned the shotglass upside down as Jade went to fill it again. "Jade, why shouldn't it exist?"
"This particular encryption base isn't for military orders, it's an emergency broadcast protocol which was developed by the Star League for civilian use only. About five hundred years ago, give or take. The book's cagey on exactly when it came into use, but the signals were intended to be used only by civilian facilities as a standard they were planning on using. It's the basis for most systems we use now, but in the last three hundred years everyone's put their own little spin on the code and the basic form has been lost except in some really old publications." She paused. "You are so lucky this is a hobby I am serious about, you know?"
A long pause. "So you're saying someone is using SLDF signals, which they shouldn't be even aware of, here and now?" Jade nodded, shrugging. "Why?"
"I can't tell you."
"The source of which Olivia blew up."
"I really wish she hadn't now. I could have known more."
"What was the code saying?"
"I haven't cracked it entirely, but I can guess from the context. It was like a program sequence, something you would send to a computer." Jade's brow furrowed and she dropped her head to think for a moment. "Not an activation code, not something meant to turn anything on but a query."
"A what now?" Mikell was regretting the shots now, swearing he felt his brain going numb.
"A query. It's just trying to get a response, a signal basically transmitting 'Hello, I am here, are you there?' and expecting a reply. I don't know if they ever got it, but I'm suspecting they hadn't found something or this would be over."
A long pause again, and Mikell turned his glass back over, accepting another shot of the rum Jade was drinking. Then he spoke up to the blonde woman quietly. "Our orders were to find out if there's any truth behind a Star League cache on the planet which was drawing all these mercenaries to try to plunder it."
"Mikell, in ten years we probably won't even need to find caches. There's rumors someone's got a translation key for the research databases the Star League left behind, and if that's true they'll be able to build the stuff the caches contain. Twenty years we may find it more of an inconvenience they still keep turning up."
"That's in ten years. We're talking about now." He looked at his glass and then sighed before taking the fourth shot. "Jade, because you're not going to be at the briefing tomorrow, I want you working on this problem. And there's something I need to tell you."
- Date: October 12, 3031
- Location: Minos Firebase, Briefing Room
Vandal nodded, and turned to look around. "Nicest place I've had briefings within the last eight years."
"Well, can't have that." Casey took her coffee cup in hand and splashed it on the wall. Olivia's head snapped to stare at her. "What?"
"You just wasted good coffee."
"It's for a good cause!"
Olivia pointed a finger at Casey, scowling. "You never waste coffee. You drink it. Use Louis' coffee next time."
"I don't want it to eat a hole in the wall."
"Ladies, if either of you disturb my coffeemaker, it won't need to eat a hole in the wall." Louis rumbled, and both looked at him. "I'll put a pair of dents on the wall with your heads."
"Wait, both of us? Why both of us?" Casey scowled.
"Because I'll be sure it was one of you, even if I don't know which one."
"Can I do it?" Kelly piped up, sitting on her chair and looking at the wall. Mikell was reasonably sure she was trying to figure out a place to start.
"If we can please dispense with this? We've got a lot to cover." Mikell wearily sighed and stood up. "In late September, we received a new set of orders from our lovely employer. Mister Templar would like to remind us of some things, and clarify some others. Originally the briefing was only going to be the officers, but things in the message changed that. All of you have a right to know what we're getting into."
There was a brief silence, and Casey spoke up. "I don't like what that implies."
Mikell wordlessly touched controls on the table, and set the message to play. An image of Janus Templar floated over the table, cut off at the waist and in a blue-green shade instead of lifelike color. "Greetings, Commander Sethan. I have received news about what has been transpiring on White Reach and become quite concerned. I was hoping to avoid revealing certain things, but you now need to be apprised of the changing situation." There was a pause as Janus' eyes shifted to read from something, a prompter perhaps. "The Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces have decided the situation is a perfect chance to give a portion of the graduating class from Sanglamore Academy some real combat experience. A full battalion has been dispatched to deal with the mercenary issue and pacify the planet, under the pretense of training. I say pretense because of the second and third pieces of information you need to know."
There was another pause and Janus straightened. "The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns have decided to assist in this and to undertake their own exercises. The Robinson Battle Academy is sending a company to also take part in, I quote." His voice changed slightly. "War games and exercises against the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces as part of an exchange of ideals and tactics." A small smile quirked across his mouth before he continued. "I know this one is a pretense, as there is another reason they are there. We will approach that shortly, because the third piece of information is even more interesting and disturbing."
He stopped smiling, and let out a breath audible through the pickup. "A battalion's worth of forces from the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery crossed the border into the Federated Commonwealth at Port Moseby not long ago, and have hopped away from there. Indications are they are headed to White Reach, and you will be finding them landing sometime early next year. This would be why I alluded to a pretense for the both the LCAF and AFFS deploying here."
Mikell paused the recording, and glanced around the room at the silent faces. Nobody was smiling, not even Kelly. "Did everyone catch that?"
Olivia looked at the others and spoke up. "Two battalions, and a company on top of what's already here. Oh, and those are House units."
Vandal spoke up softly, shaking his head. "Robinson? Not really a House unit. That's Duke Sandoval's little fan club. I wonder who's leading the detachment. I can tell you this though, once they find out the Combine is on planet?" He winced. "There's not going to be a lot stopping them from picking a fight."
"Cadets against a DCMS invasion force." Simone mumbled, and sighed. "I'm going to guess at the next part." She whispered to Casey, who gave a thumbs-up. "Go on."
The recording resumed and Janus seemed pained. "I need to apologize for asking you this, but under no circumstances can any of these forces be allowed to hold White Reach and its contents. Especially the Combine, since they might be emboldened by what they discover in the cache-"
"Wait, what?" Casey blurted out.
"-the Federated Suns would likely also not be happy as they would assume it was being kept secret from them by the Commonwealth, when that is simply not the case." The sentence continued and this time everyone who hadn't seen the message had jumped to their feet; Mikell hit pause again and held up a finger to indicate they should wait before interjecting. He hit play again. "The rumors of a Star League cache on the planet are, in fact, mostly false. The cache originated after the fall of the Star League, and was placed there by another party, one who I have not yet identified. But the cache we know of is named 'Damascus' and there are three people I know of who are aware of its location. There may be many more who I am not aware of who are aware of its existence, and I must assume there are since I trust the three who were aware of it have not given it up. But I want to amend your instructions to find if any other forces know about Damascus on the planet, and how much they know. Once you have determined this, I need you to execute them and eliminate their files and all backup data you can locate. I would like the individuals you may find to be delivered to me so I can be certain of the extent of this, but I understand reality is never quite so clean. Personally involving myself any more than I already have would draw more attention than I am willing to chance. I will do my best to see to it any repercussions from this will not harm your standing."
Mikell paused the recording and leaned back in his chair. "Okay. There it is."
"We were supposed to be here kicking out unruly mercenaries, not fighting a war." Otto said bluntly. "I'm not interested in dying here."
"We're not going to die here, Otto." Vandal sat back down and pulled Otto back into his chair. "Commander, what do you say about the orders?"
"There still is more to follow, but you've heard the largest part of it." Mikell folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. "We need to beat everyone else to finding the cache named Damascus, and we need to figure out who we chased out of Grendich Downs and how much they know. Jade luckily has a copy of the signal they were using which should help us out once we get a chance to find what we're looking for. But the sheer numbers against us are going to make this... difficult."
"Difficult." Simone snorted. "That's not the half of it."
"Once the House forces arrive." He stopped and pointed at Vandal. "Whether it be Davion, Kurita, Steiner, or Sandoval." Vandal nodded. "Once they arrive, I'm sure they'll start picking on each other. We'll have some time, but now we need to begin a search of the planet looking for Damascus without drawing attention to what we're doing. First thing to do is blanket the area around the city, once we are fully repaired. Louis has the supplies on hand to replace armor and rearm the weapons, so it's a matter of weeks before we're functional again."
"Please, I beg of you all, don't go breaking them on the first time out." He said slowly.
"This is on top of anyone else who wants to take a crack at this." Mikell continued. "So I need you all to know these are our orders from our employer. Now here are my orders." He placed his hands flat on the table. "Keep eyes and ears out for anything which may help us figure this out, but for the foreseeable future the plan is to stick near the city and look exactly like we have been doing. If any of the others come near the city, we need to push them away and guard this place. When we find any news of where Damascus is, we need to follow up by making sure nobody else knows, before we move all-in on top of it." He hesitated. "If the worst happens, we fall back to the firebase here, and work on extracting ourselves. This means we cannot lose control of the base, or we lose access to the spaceport and we won't be able to lift. In a choice between us dying keeping the cache safe or losing the cache... I'll write a very good apology to Mister Templar and we're taking up work in the Periphery. Maybe near Canopus."
"I'm game for that." "Sounds like a great plan." Casey and Simone chimed in, and smirked at each other. Olivia rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"For now, nobody else in the outfit needs to know about this. Elly, Eve, and Jade all know but outside of this room and those three?" He tapped the table hard with his fingers. "Nobody." He glanced around. "And if any of you want to quit and leave, I'll pay your fare to Galatea and you can look for work there. I won't hold it against you."
There was silence before Otto stood up again. "Fuck that." He said strongly. "I'm not running. I really want to, but who's going to drive the Locust if not me?"
"He said it, not me." Simone pointed out.
Kelly raised her hand. "So, do I get to drive the big Stalker now?" Everyone's head snapped to her, then to Mikell at that. Louis mouthed from behind her 'please, God, no'.
"I've actually got another Wolfhound coming, Kelly. You have that one." He pointed at her. "We'll figure out arrangements once it arrives." She beamed at him and nodded, bouncing a bit in her seat. "Anything else?"
"Sir." Reginald looked over at him. "What more do we need to go over?"
"There will be officer meetings next week to discuss our strategy for taking care of this. Until then, just try to relax mentally." He stood up. "Thank you for staying together with me for now. Let's get back to work, we still have a long way to go."
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