MBMSFS Chpt 3

==Manufacturing a Blueprint for a More Stable Federated Suns‎‎ - Chapter 3 - - Close' only counts with Horseshoes and Hand Grenades -==
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
----
===Getting the right man for the job.===
[Arthur Corean]
[?????]
The cold air was a bitch in more ways than one- not only was the steam rising out of every open vent on my cold wear gear a distraction, but my breath misted in front of my eyes so heavily that it obscured my vision of the SLDF-era noteputer in front of me. 
 
Though I suppose it didn't matter at all by this point because the screen was fuzzy and indistinct to my sight- I was typing furiously, entering prompts and adjusting lines of code on the fly on pure instinct, with my many years of education in SLDF-era programming providing the muscle memory.
 
We likely only had one chance to make this happen since we didn't have the digital access key that had once been owned by Major Edwin Keeler- that lay deep within the palatial estate of Helm's Planetary Governor, the bastard putting the invaluable piece of tech on display like a trophy piece. It made our inability to recover it all the more painful because the man just didn't know what he had... though even if he did it wouldn't have changed a thing. It would have been well outside of reach, and attempting to take it would have given everyone else some idea as to what we were after, and that couldn't be allowed to happen.
 
Secrecy was paramount, the element of surprise both our Sword and our Shield; it's why backup plans existed, which was what the noteputer I was currently working on was. 
 
Hanse had given me a noteputer from a General in the SLDF many, many moons ago to work on. Within its confines laid some of the highest levels of credentials within the SLDF short of Kerensky the Coward himself, and it had been my job to carefully peel the layers back one line of code at a time. I studied how they worked, how they were authorized, how they were verified, and how I could circumvent those with 'legal' credentials needed to access the Nagayan Mountain Complex. It took many more moons of hard work, but after a lot of elbow grease, some spit, and a little polish I managed to crack the creation process and... did something with it to make it work.
 
I felt it strange that I couldn't quite remember what it was that I did, but I'm certain that I did it. In fact, I know it worked because if it hadn't I wouldn't even be here right now, on Helm, taking on the most historically significant undertaking in the history of the Inner Sphere.
 
 >Authentication successful...
 >Credentials... verified...
 >Access granted... 
 >Welcome General XXXXXXX, XXXXXX to the Nagayan Mountain Complex
 >Please stand back as the access doors open
 
"We're in," I shuddered in pure, unadulterated excitement as I heard the rumbling of stone and squeaking of steel as the impressively hidden blast doors at the end of a dried-out river bed began to open, "We're in! We're in!"
 
I quickly disconnected the noteputer from the data cable once it was safe to do so, and I sprinted out of the gatehouse and down a muddy path that was strewn with small rocks. My limbs felt sluggish as hell, my legs unsteady and my arms numb, but even slipping and falling onto my knees didn't dampen my enthusiasm. I barely remembered dropping the noteputer and picking it back up as I staggered down the path to see the doors opening up.
 
The mud beneath my feet provided no traction as I slid to a stop in front of the doors, and it appeared as though I was just in time because the tunnel in front of me started to come to life! Row after row of robust light sets popped on in sequence, the great reveal of some kick-ass movie, though I was a touch surprised to see that the tunnel was only a few dozen meters deep... and while I felt my heart soar at the sight of the first few rows of Battlemechs and tanks... there was a strange sense of wrongness about all of this.
 
The feeling only intensified as a hand clapped my shoulder and I turned to see the First Prince of the Federated Suns standing next to me in his full parade regalia, the man smiling proudly, "You did it, Arthur. You've found the Helm Cache!"
 
"Capitol work, Arthur," Ardan's voice rang out and I looked over my other shoulder to see the Prince's Champion smiling at me warmly, "You're now my very special friend."
 
That... that's not right. Is it?
 
"Well done, Arthur," A cool, beautiful voice spoke out and I spun around completely to see hundreds of men and women in Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth uniforms all gathered around me. They were clapping fiercely, I could see some of them whistling, but I couldn't hear them.
 
What stood out the most was that Katrina Steiner was there in a resplendent dress, whites and blues of silk and lace with a stole slung across her shoulder bearing the eponymous Steiner Fist embroidered in gold silk. Or was it silver silk? No, blue silk with a silver trim.
 
Her strides toward me were as though she walked on water, and the smile on her face was as dazzling as the woman herself, "You've done both the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth a most wonderful service. To honor this achievement I offer myself and my daughter to be your concubines so that in the future the rulers of the Federated Commonwealth will have your keen intellect and devilish good looks."
 
I stared, completely dumbfounded.
 
"What?"
 
The Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth reached out and stroked the side of my face as her lips grew increasingly close to mine, and she spoke once more, "-It its time to wake up, Arthur-"
----
[Arthur Corean - Age 28]
[Corean Enterprises Headquarters]
[Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[March 15th, 3026]
 
"-Mister Arthur, your nap is over," A soothing voice rang out, and I startled awake.
 
I sat up, my heart pounding as my eyes whirled to take in my surroundings.
 
I was in my office, the one below ground. 
 
The safe one.
 
My eyes fluttered as I blinked blearily to moisten them, and a smooth hand brushed through my red hair before gently pulling my head back until my furry vision was filled with the tip of a plastic nozzle. Two droplets of liquid later my vision had been restored, and I could see the softly smirking visage of Amanda Yu, my secretary, standing next to my cot.
 
The realization dawned on me and I groaned, "God. It was just a dream?"
 
"Huuhuuhuu, yes, you were dreaming, Mister Corean," The former maid tittered as she moved away from me to push forward a trolly laden with a light meal and some piping hot coffee, "Your arms and legs were moving, but they were trapped underneath you since you were laying on your belly. It was rather cute, my dog does the same thing when he runs in his sleep."
 
I inhaled through my nose as I stretched out before grasping onto the saucer plate and pulling the coffee up to my nose; I could feel the caffeine suffusing my oversized brain and waking me up already.
 
"Dunno how I feel being compared to your cute little pooch, but I suppose that 'cute' is 'cute', no matter how you slice it," I sipped at the hot black liquid after blowing on it a few times, "And I have heard from the gossip rags that I am rather adorable."
 
"So you say, Mister Corean," Amanda chortled as she strode toward the door, the woman swiping her access keycard and inputting her personal code, "I will come back once lunch is prepared."
 
The armored doors swished shut behind her and I was once more alone in my office.
 
My eyes immediately zeroed in on the armored locker where my SLDF-era computer terminal and the SLDF noteputer from that General rested, safely ensconced behind a half-meter of Battlemech armor.
 
I hummed as I picked up a sandwich and bit into it- ah, roast beef on sourdough with plenty of real mayo, my favorite.
 
"Perhaps I can skip the base-side authentication protocols entirely by creating a loop in the verification procedures?" My fingers beat a tattoo on the surface of the trolly as I mused out loud, "I can have the noteputer talk to the terminal... trick it into circumventing its primary network path... and then have the terminal ask the noteputer if the credentials being given are valid instead of the Castle Brian's database." 
 
"It could work, maybe, but while that could be a Plan B..." I hummed as I considered the plot, my mind working out the programming framework that would be needed to accomplish such a feat from the 'user' side of the door, "Plan A is still the best bet, I think. Fool the system into accepting General Marcus Rechen's modified credentials simply because his would be among the highest active within the Inner Sphere. Since the Castle Brian wouldn't have an SLDF network to connect to it would make the General the highest ranked officer in the region..."
 
My fingers brushed against each other to remove the crumbs before I returned the coffee to my lips.
 
"Thus command of the facility would naturally default to him on principle..."
 
It could work. It will work.
 
However, I wasn't going to make it work by sitting around and drinking coffee. 
 
Hanse brought this to me because he knew that I could make it work the first time, and with the possibility of the dead man's switch activating it needed to be handled by the best.
 
I smirked as I set the empty cup down and cracked my knuckles.
 
He came to the right man for the job.
----
===Test Range===
[Arthur Corean]
[Fort Marshal Cohen Test Range]
[Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[June 17th, 3026]
I couldn't stop myself from smiling as I crossed my arms over my chest, my polarized safety glasses and ear protection doing little to protect me from the heat that buffeted me as I watched Major Arnold "Hotfoot" Willis put his MAD3-D Marauder through its paces. Each time his pair of PPCs fired the heat washed over me, warming my skin in the cool spring morning air, even from fifty meters away. From this distance, I could barely hear the whirring of his beautiful machine's fusion engine, but I could hear the snapping 'pops' as the water vapor in the air was superheated by the passage of a pair of brilliant viridian lances and a searing line of acintic blue from over the top of his cockpit. 
The man was an excellent pilot, one intimately familiar with the heat cycling needed to keep his temps under control, as the Marauder was a hot beast even in its current configuration- the four extra single heatsinks doing little to help because the Large Laser put out far more heat than the stock -3R's A/C-5 autocannon.
"Heat threshold reached, activating Coolant Pod," I heard the Mechwarrior's voice crackle over my headset, and I turned my head to watch the noteputer's display on his 'Mech's temperature readouts. 
 
 Off to the right were a half-dozen other noteputers with more readouts from various sensors we'd scattered across the interior and exterior of the 'Mech, but at a glance, they were all either 'Green' or edging into the 'Yellow'- a far cry from the 'Oranges' and 'Reds' we'd seen when we first theory crafted the design and prototyped it.
 
 Given that the man had been alternating between Alpha Striking and Bracketing while shooting at the solid-steel target cubes down range for the better part of thirty minutes, I'd say that the first true stress test of the Re-Charge Coolant Pods was already a smashing success!
 
 It seemed as though everyone else agreed as well because the gaggle of AFFS Mechwarriors, Mech-Techs, and senior staff officers that were attending the demonstration were all bunched up shoulder to shoulder- the men and women hanging over the shoulders of my scientists.
 
"Temps dropping fifteen Heat Units over the proscribed ten-second period as expected," Major Willis sounded incredibly bored for someone sitting inside of a 75-ton Battlemech, "Waiting until Overheat status has been cleared... Overheat status cleared. The hot coolant in the pods is... cooling; temps dropping as expected. Commencing Sustained Bracketing Fire."
 
After a handful of seconds the pair of PPCs on the Marauder fired off once more, twin streams of highly ionized particle packets slamming into a solid steel cube. A ripple effect of electricity roiled off the block of slightly molten metal as the waves spread out almost 90 meters in every direction- for Infantry close to the target they could expect to be simultaneously hit with a body-locking level of electricity, and if that didn't kill you then the 3rd-degree electrical burns would make the rest of your existence a painful one. The only saving grace was that the effect sharply dropped off the further you were away from the epicenter of the particle storm, to where your hair might stand up on end if you were at the edge of the blast radius.
 
"This is an impressive piece of work!" A bushy mustachioed Major strode up and stood next to me, the man grinning from ear to ear, "I'd heard through the grapevine that NAIS had been developing something similar! What makes this one so different!?"
 
He didn't need to yell, but I wasn't going to tell him to remove his ear protection because I sure as hell wasn't going to remove mine.
 
Instead, I gestured to the control knob on the side of the headset and dialed up the noise-canceling just a touch, which made him blink before he followed suit. 
 
Judging by the purple color on his shoulder boards the Major was a logistician by trade, so I suppose it wasn't surprising he wasn't as familiar with the common equipment used by the infantry and vehicle crews in the field, "I'd heard the same as well, Major-"
 
"Bardiche, Mister Corean, Gillian Bardiche," The Major offered his hand, which I shook firmly, "Chief Logistician with the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Davion RCT."
 
"-Well met, Major Bardiche," I smiled as I angled my head slightly so that I could look at him without losing the protection offered by the polarized lenses- an adjustment that was rewarded as the Marauder's blue-beam large laser fired off once more, "And while I don't know the specifics, as I no longer work with NAIS directly unless instructed by our Prince, I do know that they are trying to cool a 'Mech using a compressed coolant of some type. So when I heard that I knew I had to get ahead of them and offer a more sensible solution-"
 
I grinned as I turned my eyes back to the most beautiful Battlemech in the history of the Inner Sphere, "-as the Egg Heads rarely have anyone around them to tell them that their ideas are stupid and that they should feel terrible for ever having thought of them!"
 
"Ho! Rather strong words, Mister Corean!" The man adjusted his peaked garrison cap back to dab at his brow with a pristine kerchief, "If you don't know about the specifics then how can you know it is a foolish endeavor?"
 
"It's foolish for many reasons, Major, but let me ask you a few questions: 
 
1.) Is a machine's coolant system a closed loop? Yes or no? 
2.) What coolants do we have available to us that can appreciably cool a 'Mech or vehicle?
3.) Does that coolant denature the coolant in the system? Does it bond with the coolant in the system? Yes or no?
4.) What happens when you put a highly pressurized system under even more stress when you inject hundreds of kilograms of super-cooled gasses or liquids into it?
5.) Even if none of the above are a factor, how do you remove said coolant quickly and efficiently from a closed cooling system once combat operations are completed?"
 
The man chewed the questions over in his mind for a few moments before he cradled his elbow with one hand and pinched his lower lip with the other.
 
The Marauder fired both of its PPCs once more, sending beautiful streams of death down the firing lane.
 
"Those are some very good questions, ones that I don't have the answer to," He laughed slightly as he bounced around in place, rocking forward and backward on his booted heels, "I might be the head logistician for the Battalion but I really procure what the Mech-Techs and Treadheads tell me too. However, if I was a betting man I'd say that forcefully injecting hundreds of kilos into a pressurized system would be a bad day at the office! And if nothing else, the DPB-23 'Mech coolant in the system would have to be flushed out entirely! I may not know everything there is to know about Battlemechs, but I do know that a Centurion requires 890 kilograms of DPB-23, and that stuff isn't cheap, not when you'd have to replace it all after using such a flush!"
 
"Heat threshold reached... Coolant Pod re-charged... activating," Came Major Willis' voice once more in my headset, and both Major Bardiche and I leaned back and watched the temperatures of the Mech, which had been seven units into the Overheat bracket, dropped back down to Safe levels as the on-board heatsinks and freshly cooled coolant worked together.
 
"Which is why I and my team put our heads together to make a Coolant Pod of our own," I held out a hand toward the Marauder as it once more resumed firing, "We use matching coolants in our Pod, so there is no risk of coolant contamination, at least not as long as the system isn't compromised itself. The internal tank pumps cooled fluid into the system while pumping hot fluid in, and as the fresh coolant normalizes the temps across the loop, the hot fluid in the tank is gradually cooled separately by its own dedicated mini-heatsink."
 
"As you can see, that means you can keep triggering the Pod as long as you, and your 'Mech, can last on the battlefield," I nodded for him to follow me, the pair of us walking over to another tent set up a few dozen meters away, and I pulled back the flap to let him inside.
 
I took my polarized safety glasses off so that I could see, and was greeted with the sight of a handful of scientists leading a half-dozen scientific interns through Corean Enterprises's process of data tabulation, collation, and storage. 
 
The funny thing about the whole situation was that among the fresh Doctoral interns were a few faces that I'd worked alongside in the Egg Carton.
 
As some paper guy had said, 'Well, well, well.. how the turn tables have...'
 
They had been a bit stand-offish and were less than enthused to have a teen like me in their work groups, but after just a few years they were now working under me.
 
I didn't care about it, as I had my own shit to focus on, but for some reason, Hanse seemed to think that I was a rather 'big person' for hiring them even after 'all they put me through'. 
 
I get the feeling that Hanse thought that I was some poor tortured soul, shunned by all of my peers or something like that, which was rather very much like Hanse, but if it helped him see me in a better light and made him feel like he owed me one then I wasn't going to disabuse him of his misplaced notions. They were sort of prickish at times, but when it came down to it I was able to work with pretty much everyone, no matter what the group or topic.
 
The moment people learned that I actually knew what the fuck I was talking about they tended to utilize the Scientific Method and reevaluate their opinions on me sooner rather than later.
 
Though if you heard their harebrained scheme to forcibly inject compressed freon into a closed loop system already under immense pressures to keep the hot as fuck coolant from sublimating on contact with the heatsinks... then you'd think that they had never science'd anything in their entire lives.
 
I distinctly remembered that Coolant Pods the Federated Suns researched had the tendency to rupture things, like coolant lines and heatsinks, though it was the fittings themselves that suffered the most stress and were often the first point of failure. So when I heard through Hanse that a team had been built up to work on this I grabbed a few handfuls of people and went to work to build something better simply because idiocy like that shouldn't be tolerated anywhere, let alone at NAIS- Doctor Stephenson might be a phenomenal number cruncher, I loved working with him as a fellow team member, but the man just wasn't cut out to lead a science program.
 
Sure, Freon was a commonly used coolant in some Battlemechs, and thus wouldn't incur any penalties or cause degradation, but most used heavy oils like hydrocarbon/silicon formulas, or water-based glycol mixtures like DPB-23. Freon was more commonly seen in High Heat energy weapon Mechs, of which there were few in the Federated Suns, and once a heatsink was 'tainted' then cleaning them out to accept a different coolant was a massive pain in the ass. You're talking hours spent spraying the interior of the graphene radiators with a spray wand and solution, lest the remnants of the previous coolants react, which typically causes gunk build-ups which are obviously not nice.
 
The fact that the system doesn't even siphon off the excess to prevent said pressure problems is just another nail in the coffin. 
 
That certain models of 'Mechs after the Coolant Pods' introduction utilized sometimes two or three of the damn things was a breathtaking display in trust on the part of the Mechwarrior in his or her machine. That only a single Pod could rupture your coolant lines was bad enough, but to stress them with potentially three pods worth of extra coolant? For three one-time uses?
 
That was either crazy or gutsy, and considering how Mechwarriors were in general I tended to believe it was the former more than the latter.
 
I stepped to the side and gestured for the Major to take a seat at one of the unoccupied chairs before I turned my attention to my data collection team, "So how are we looking so far?"
 
Doctor Hadrian Wallman- yes, his parents thought it was funny too- adjusted his glasses as he looked at me, "Well, we're only thirty-five minutes into the stress test, but based on last week's baseline testing we're already seeing a 16% increase in the Major's overall volume of fire-"
 
It might not sound like a whole lot, but if used in a Mech with lower heat loads, such as an Autocannon boat, then as long as they weren't flagrantly mixing in their energy or missile-based weapons then they could feasibly run their autocannons dry before they began to overheat. For the energy-based builds like Major Willis' MAD-3D, it actually allowed him to safely Alpha Strike the machine without staying longer than a few seconds in an Overheated state.
 
For machines with lesser energy-based armaments? 
 
Well, it just might allow them to Alpha Strike, and then Alpha Strike again once their weapons groups cycled.
 
In vidya game terms, it's both great for Burst and Sustained DPS, something that very few 'Mechs could do without.
 
I rubbed my hands together.
 
Hanse, you owe me for saving these people from their own stupidity.
===Loud Rapping on the Window===
[Arthur Corean]
[Corean Enterprises Headquarters]
[Avalon City, New Avalon; Federated Suns]
[December 23th, 3026]
 
"Yuri," I groaned out weakly, "You're going to have to take your moping somewhere else, because you're really dragging down my mood."
 
"'He duhmpf meh mefhore Hisphmas!" He whined back petulantly, his face and voice obscured by the small rectangular pillow I had on the couch in my 'official' (read: less safe) office at the top of Corean Enterprises' tower.
 
"I didn't understand a word you just said," I hummed as I opened up an email on the internal server and saw the latest results from my newest batch of prototypes- a simple governor for a Supercharger.
 
They were looking very promising, and to date, out of twenty prototype pieces, not a single one had blown up in three months of low-stress testing! 
 
Sure, it was a far cry from battlefield conditions, but nothing blowing up was a giant blinking sign to tell you that you were on the right track!
 
I smiled.
 
"She dumped me, Arthur," Yuri's face was flushed red as he raised his head up and looked at me with bloodshot eyes, "Caroline dumped me! Just before Christmas too! I had the perfect evening planned out, with a beautiful gift as well!"
 
I frowned.
 
Alright, Arthur, time to put the 'Big Brother' hat on...
 
I reached over and pressed the power button on the monitor to shut off the display so that there wouldn't be anything to distract me before interlacing my fingers on top of my desk, "Alright, so Caroline dumped you just before Christmas? A little insensitive, I'll admit, but... if you flip it on its head, wouldn't you feel more hurt if she waited until after the picture-perfect evening... and after you gave her that 'beautiful' gift?"
 
He wasn't crying, but I could see his eyes were certainly moist, and he sucked up some mucus before he replied, "I'd feel awful either way, but... I suppose that it would ache more if she waited until after to tell me she wanted to break up."
 
"Yes, alright, that's good, let's keep that mental train moving," I nodded as I leaned forward a touch, "Now, did she give you a reason? Or was it something out of the blue?"
 
"I never saw it coming," He muttered as he rolled onto his back, the young man barely 20 years old holding the pillow to his chest, "Like when Yeathers would trick-shot me with a PPC from 700 meters in the Sims."
 
Outwardly I was as warm as I could be, but somewhere deep in my soul, I felt an all too familiar ache.
 
I'd never had the pleasure of sitting in a sim-pod for anything other than familiarization training with my father when I was a boy, and after I'd taken the Neural Helm compatibility test at age 8, I never got to sit in one again. My neural structure was too divergent for the Helm to make heads or tails of me, and thus what would have been my time playing with Big, Stompy Bois was relegated to Yeathers and Andrew; not having me in the rotation likely was what afforded the two of them as much practice as they did. Where Yeathers did her six years of mandatory service on the Capellan border and got out as soon as she was able to shadow our mother as the future Countess of our estates on Augusta, Andrew was the lifer in our family- the one who'd always said he'd die in a cockpit and not on a comfortable bed surrounded by his family.
 
I was a fully grown man. I thought that I'd grown used to disappointment, and I had, but that didn't stop the sting whenever someone started telling stories about their time in a 'Mech and I couldn't contribute to the discussion because I'd never be able to pilot one.
 
It was the emotional part of me that lamented my obscenely developed brain and intellect, but the logical part always made sure to pat it on the back and let it know that we were likely to be killed just as much as anyone else inside of a cockpit. 
 
That we were safer where we were now. 
 
It was hard to refute that, so the cry-baby part didn't even try anymore, but from time to time it reminded me that it was still there- my love for Battlemechs hadn't vanished simply because I would never be able to stride into battle in one myself.
 
So I used that hurt to try and connect with my brother a little better; it was the least I could do for the lad.
 
Yuri rubbed at his nose with his fingers as he sniffed, "Y-yes... she did say that we were breaking up because of the distance. She told me a few months ago that she finished her civilian aerospace pilot's certification and was going to apply to join the AFFS' Aerospace branch since that improved her chances of getting accepted but... I guess it sort of just faded into the background and I forgot about it."
 
"I suppose that little details like that can get lost in the sauce when you're busy thinking about kissing a pretty girl with your hands up her shirt, but take it from me, little brother," I straightened myself up as I dispensed my sage advice, "Even if you have a near-perfect memory such as myself, you can and will forget things that women tell you. I firmly believe that it is a genetic trait born into men as a self-defense mechanism, so that you can maintain your sanity and focus on the important things like securing food, shelter, and making babies-"
 
The twenty-year-old Business student snorted as he rolled onto his side to better look at me, his blue eyes regaining some of their light. So seeing that I was making some positive headway I continued to regale him with my very well-reasoned and totally scientific theory as to why men perpetually forgot things that women considered 'important'.
 
"-and to conclude: Men think about the big picture things while the women focus on the particulars," I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded firmly, "That and hormones and horny are a hell of a combination. The moment kisses start getting exchanged and hands start grabbing then everything else just fades into the background. However, let's apply my hypothesis to your situation in particular-"
 
Yuri rolled back onto his belly, the tips of his boots hanging over the edge of the couch's armchair, the boy keenly interested.
 
"-did this conversation about her trying to join the AFFS' Aerospace Corps happen before or after you finished with a healthy dose of snogging?"
 
He blinked for a moment before his nose scrunched up, his mind focused... and then he began to laugh like a madman, "Hahahahahahahahahaha! Ahahahahahahahahahaha! It- it happened before the f-first time, hee hee hee, and after the second time-!"
 
BANG!
 
"Jesus Christ!" I roared out as I threw myself over my desk and rolled away, grabbing my brother by the arm and dragging him down to the ground with me.
 
I looked up to see the meter-thick Ferroglass that served as my primary office window spiderwebbed in the direct center of the glass- right where my chair was seated.
 
BANG!
 
A second spiderweb appeared at the lower right-hand corner of the glass, and I shot up to my feet while dragging my brother toward the front of the office, but not before a third impact smashed into the upper right-hand corner.
 
BANG!
 
I tried to open up the double doors to my office, but I was met with a load of bupkiss as the doors held fast, "Fucking locked!? Fuck!"
 
My slippered feet- hey, I like to be comfortable when there is no one around to judge- skittered over the marble flooring as I flipped a painting off of the wall and thrust my thumb into the biometric lock while my other hand furiously typed in a thirty-digit string that I'd created this morning- 
 
"What the hell is going on-!?" Yuri cried out.
 
BANG!
 
Likely the upper or lower left-hand corner. They weren't expecting the glass to be that thick. I'd upgraded it on the sly for this express reason. 
 
"Not now!"
 
They were trying to weaken the whole assembly at the corners of the installation point.
 
-and the two unlocked at the same time, popping open the armored panel to reveal a large screen and a bunch of colored buttons. I smashed the Red button, and from the ceiling dropped down a five-ton slab of Battlemech armor; I would have sprung for the ten-ton plate, but the lifts could only handle so much, and segmenting the plate would have weakened it unduly.
 
Bang!
 
"Major Willis!" I roared out into the microphone, and I knew that he'd hear because the man always had this particular radio on his person at all times, "Active shooter! West-side of the Dimurot building! Mech MG caliber pounding the glass! Can't escape Tower Office, door locked from outside!"
 
I blinked as I saw that I still had two more armor plates to put between me and the severely weakened glass, and I quickly slapped those buttons as well; the small corner monitor showing the plates descending quickly.
 
A pair of lights descended from the ceiling to flash a soft red as a warning klaxon sounded out throughout the building- we were currently in lockdown, so no one was getting in and no one was getting out. Good. Whoever the fuck locked me in should still be in the building. Hopefully.
 
I pulled up the rooftop exterior camera feeds and flipped over to view the Dimurot building across the highway from me, and I panned through the night vision, wide-angle lens, and then finally to the color thermal.
 
I spotted him.
 
"Twenty-seventh floor! West side of Dimurot building! Center of the floor!" I called into the microphone again, "Looks to be a pair- two males. They have an SRM launcher!"
 
<<"Hopper has eyes on! Hold tight-">> Came the Major's voice, though it was drowned out by the sound of a Manpad SRM streaking across the distance between the two buildings and smashing into the first armor plate.
 
Boom!
 
I am going to need a new desk. And a new chair. And a new terminal. 
 
"Secondary incoming-!" I called out as the man with the now-empty tube tossed it aside and picked up another one before launching it off, the explosion rattling my bones as it smacked into the armored plate once again.
 
Boom!
 
<<"Hold tight, Arthur! Hopper is taking the shot!">>
 
I zoomed the thermal camera out as far as it could go, just in time to see a Javelin thrusting into the air, the pilot, Hopper, sucking the guts out of the machine to get every meter of vertical height he could manage before two verdant green lasers lanced out from its torso to draw a line across the window my assailants were shooting from.
 
They must have been ComStar because they didn't even budge. The fanatical bastards.
 
The lasers missed, but I'll be damned if they didn't give the two men a blistering sunburn, yet... yet the pair just picked their weapons back up- one with another SRM tube and the other with his Anti-Mech grade rifle- and they both shot again. 
 
Boom!Bang!
 
"Hopper missed-"
 
<< "Yes, I see that- he'll be ready to jump in a few seconds-">>
 
"They've already punched through Plate 3 and are working on Plate 2, Willis-"
 
<<"Just hang on and have some faith, your paranoia has saved your life so let us just earn our pay-">>
 
"Jesus Christ, how many SRMs did they bring with them-!?"
 
Boom!Bang!
 
The missile impacted against Plate 3, but the hilariously large Mech-caliber bullet threaded the needle through the opening made by the SRM and smacked into Plate 2. 
 
I could see the dent left in it from one of the cameras in the second partition in the room.
 
<<"Teams 1 through 4 are moving across the highway now, they'll secure the building. If Hopper doesn't get them then they will. I've got their visuals-">>
 
"Dimurot is not going to like that," Yuri murmured, the boy in a daze as he stared blankly at Plate 1, the last bastion between us and certain death if Plate 2 failed. 
 
"I could give a flying fuck what Dimurot likes, not when they let a pair of assholes set up shop in their building to kill us!" I hissed as I eyed the dented second armor plate wearily.
 
When it came to Mech-sized MG rounds, it was the fragmentation that was the real killer, and we were trapped in an enclosed space.
 
"Speaking of teams, where the fuck is Team 7?"
 
<<"The elevators are locked down, but the emergency stairway door to the twenty-sixth floor is locked from the inside; they're going to cut it off, so just hang tight, lads.">>
 
Boom!Bang!
 
<<"Looks like they've run out of SRMs-">> Major Willis spoke out as I flicked the feed over to the interior of the place, <<"Hopper is jumping now.">>
 
Seeing that Major Willis was firmly locked in on the situation developing across the street, I decided to start flicking through the cameras on the 26th floor- I needed to see if there was anything or anyone else here, because there would be no reason to lock to doors to my office from the outside... not unless they wanted to keep me in.
 
Considering I managed to hit the lock-down button pretty quickly, whoever my assailant is might very well be stuck up here with us, and if that was the case then I needed to find them so that my security team wasn't breaching the floor blind.
 
I can't do shit else in this situation, so I might as well keep calm and make myself useful.
 
BANG!
 
"Fuck!" Yuri fell on his ass as the 2nd Plate failed and the bullet passed through to smack against our last line of defense.
 
All of the cameras on the floor were black. 
 
I grimaced. 
 
It was more accurate to say that all of the visible cameras were black. 
 
I still had some more cleverly hidden just in case, and much to my consternation, I could see Old Miss Daisy stalking around the floor with a weapon in hand.
 
The fact she had a weapon wasn't what bothered me, not really, because I wanted all of my important employees to be armed or at least within reach of a firearm. 
 
The new measure was approved by me since it was only a few months ago that a Death Commando strike team managed to penetrate New Avalon's security measures and destroy a small research facility hidden in the outskirts of Avalon City. They had been able to slaughter their way through the facility with impunity thanks to the fact that most of the staff were unarmed, so I felt it was best to beef up the protection by allowing the trusted individuals to maintain their own safety.
 
What did bother me was how she walked over to one of the damaged cameras and raised her pistol up before shooting it- the old woman seemingly dissatisfied that she hadn't properly destroyed it the first time.
 
"Willis! Tell Team 7 that when they breach the floor, Daisy Rittenhaus is to be considered hostile!"
 
<<"Fucking what!? Old Daisy is-!">>
 
"Fuck yeah, that's what I'm saying! She's going around shooting out the cameras on the floor!" I flipped the camera to follow her as she posted up at the corner leading to the hallway with her pistol drawn on the door leading to the emergency stairwell, and in her other hand was an object of some kind, "Deploy the signal jammer, Willis! Broadband! She's got a detonator in her hand of some kind, and there is what looks to be a bag next to the emergency door!"
 
Major Willis didn't need to be told to do anything more because a few seconds later I felt a slight tingle of static rush over my skin, and it turned out that Old Daisy had felt it too because the woman took one look at the now useless detonator in her hand and she rushed toward the bag near the door-
 
The door was tossed off of its hinges by a battering ram and a trio of flashbangs were tossed into the room, the explosives detonating the moment they hit an object.
 
Even blinded and likely deafened, Old Daisy displayed some amazing fortitude as she blindly dumped her pistol magazine in the direction of the door without a moment's hesitation. Not that it helped, however, as the first man in the room carried a ballistic Ferroglass shield and he had no compunctions about shield bashing the shit out of her old ass while a pair of fully grown men in armored kit tackled her to the ground. 
 
The first man straddled her waist and locked her wrists underneath his shins while the second stuffed his gloved hand into her mouth. Two more piled on to secure her legs while the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth men in the stack pushed past to secure the rest of the room. The 9th man began cutting her clothes away, and the remaining three filtered in as well.
 
Two more men with shields dropped them in front of the bag, likely a futile gesture if the explosives within went off, but it might safeguard someone's life. 
 
As much as I wanted so desperately to leave the room so that I could confront my father's most trusted confidant with her perfidy, the door was still locked from the outside; it would remain so until the threat was contained, and with explosives of unknown origin and make? 
 
Yeah, the safest place we could be right now was within the offices and behind tons of battleplate.
 
I thought about calling Major Willis again to let him know that Daisy was secure, but seeing one of the men from Team 7 on one of the hardline phones made me reconsider. 
"One last thing, Major. Yuri and I are fine. We'll keep off the net and wait for a proper debriefing once everything has been buttoned up."
 
<<"Understood, Mister Corean. We'll keep you abreast of the situation as it develops.">>
 
So rather than continue to clog up the traffic that was surely coming in hot and heavy, I simply wrapped an arm around Yuri's shoulder and pulled him close. 
 
The two of us slid down the wall and sat on our asses while we waited for the situation to be resolved.
 
I don't think I'd ever felt more helpless than right now, but damnit, there wasn't much else that I could do. 
 
There wasn't much else that I could have done.
 
I'd expanded the guard, overhauled my electronic security, and beefed up the physical protections clandestinely to the point where a damn Battlemech would have had to pound at them before punching through. Given the amount of ordnance our assailants had, they pretty much did have a damn Battlemech!
 
There wasn't much else I could do except rebuild and make the place even more difficult to assail, and that meant I'd probably have to spring for some turrets on the roof- the attack could have been stopped in its tracks if I had a laser turret on the roof above my office to give them hell.
 
Things to think about, at a later time, when I'm not so strung out on adrenaline.
 
Fuck, I'm exhausted.
 
The only good thing that would come out of this whole mess is that Hanse and Ardan would have to take my ComStar theories seriously now.
----
===Blame Game===
[... a week after the attack]
[Hilton Head, Terra]
Primus Julian Tiepolo smiled softly as he looked around the room, "Please, pardon my language here, fellow Precentors... but who the fuck approved this operation? Because I did not approve of it, nor did our fair Tojo... and according to Bernard Hustermann in New Avalon's ROM branch neither did he."
 
The Head Honcho of ComStar leaned over the table and stared down his fellow Precentors, all of whom had inscrutable faces, "Tojo and I had a plan to handle Mister Corean of Corean Enterprises. A plan you, whoever you are, just fucked up royally. The man had been completely unaware of our movements up to this point, but now? Now he is going to be jumping at every shadow he sees... which is not something we can't work around but it will make ROM's duties that much more difficult."
 
They were all silent on the matter, which was an unusual thing since they always seemed to have something to say on whatever matter crossed their desks, but yet now? 
 
They were as quiet as a graveyard.
 
"Whoever the perpetrator of this has grossly overstepped their bounds, and when we find out who did it, and we will find out, then being banished to a Periphery HPG station will seem like a kindness."
 
He was a touch disappointed that none of them flinched, but if such a simple threat could have elicited an outward reaction from them then they never would have climbed as high in the ranks as they did.
 
Julian Tiepolo sighed softly as he shook his head, "Very well then, shall we move on? Precentor Cobrin, Operation Galahad is still ongoing, yes? I want to know everything you do about what the First Prince is planning... while everything leads me to believe that they truly are just exercises, one does not move ten regiments of 'Mechs and hundreds of regiments of infantry and tanks for that alone. He is planning something, and I want to know what."
----
-----
===Technical Readout: Experimental Equipment - Corean "Re-Charge" Reserve Coolant Pods===
Corean "Re-Charge" Reserve Coolant Pod - Type A
-Weight: 1 Ton
-Slots: 2 Critical Spaces
-Cost: $25,000 C-Bills
-250kg of Coolant (Disperses 15 Heat over 10 Seconds)
-250kg of Supporting Equipment (Steel Frame, Armor Housing, Sensors, Pumps, Tubing)
-500kg of Dedicated Heatsinks (90-Second 'Recharge Time')
 
Corean "Re-Charge" Reserve Coolant Pod - Type B
 
-Weight: 1 Ton
-Slots: 2 Critical Spaces
-Cost: $25,000 C-Bills
-500kg of Coolant (Disperses 30 Heat over 20 Seconds)
-250kg of Supporting Equipment (Steel Frame, Armor Housing, Sensors, Pumps, Tubing)
-250kg of Dedicated Heatsinks (180-Second 'Recharge Time')
 
Corean "Re-Charge" Reserve Coolant Pod - Type C
 
-Weight: 1 Ton
-Slots: 2 Critical Spaces
-Cost: $25,000 C-Bills
-250kg of Coolant (Disperses 15 Heat over 10 Seconds)
-500kg of Supporting Equipment (Steel Frame, Armor Housing, Sensors, Pumps, Tubing)
-250kg of Dedicated Heatsinks (180-Second 'Recharge Time')
Corean "Re-Charge II" Reserve Coolant Pod - Prototype
 
-Weight: 1 Ton
-Slots: 2 Critical Spaces
-Cost: $25,000 C-Bills
-375kg of Coolant (Disperses 23 Heat over 15 Seconds)
-125kg of Supporting Equipment (Andosteel Frame, Armor Housing, Sensors, Pumps, Tubing)
-250kg of Dedicated Heatsinks (90-Second 'Recharge Time')
-Andosteel Frame Heat Dissipation Bonus: -15 seconds off 'Recharge Time'
----
<<Previous Chapter - Return to Story Index - Next Chapter>>
3