Battletech Welcome to the Jungle

Interlude 4-EL

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
Just a warning, chapter isn't threadmarked(although I don't know whether Yellowhammer can do it or not).
Yeah, I was busy getting this ready to post.


Interlude 4-EL​

Olivetti Weaponry Campus, Hammarr, Sudeten
Tamar Domains, Tamar Pact, Lyran Commonwealth
April 13th, 3016


Elias Lehmann bit his lip and tried to look busy. Most people wouldn’t bother to interrupt a maintenance man at work. It was one of the fringe benefits of his position; as far as most people were concerned, he was just part of the scenery.

He wasn’t convinced that the suit-clad men and women with subtle earpieces and almost-hidden bulges fit into the category of ‘most people’, though. His work order was valid, but any in depth investigation into how he’d obtained it was unfortunately likely to discover that the authorization came from the wrong physical location on the network to have actually been assigned by the facility’s Chief of Maintenance, even if it was done with his credentials. Physical access to a computer network was an advantage that cut both ways.

Thus his need to be unremarkable. The cover identity he’d been given when his superiors had determined that they needed eyes inside the up and coming corporation restoring a Star League era factory was good, but nothing was perfect. Under sufficient scrutiny, even the best forgeries would become apparent.

In short, his position would be secure right up until it wasn’t.

Technically, what he was doing right now could be considered a violation of his orders to passively gather intelligence. Technically. But the sudden jump in LIC agents wandering the Hamarr campus of Olivetti Weaponry had immediately raised his hackles.

Something out of the ordinary was happening, and the little hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention had told him it was important.

It had taken a month of subtle investigative work to determine that Building C was the geographic center of the Lyran Intelligence Corp’s presence on the campus. At first, that had been a bit of a puzzler. Building C should have been of only moderate importance. If anything, he’d have expected them to be at Building E. Olivetti’s R&D department had been quietly but consistently stepping up their security for the past two years. He’d actually worked up several notional plans to get a look inside only to have to scrap them as security ratcheted tighter, sometimes on a weekly basis.

By contrast, Building C was largely administrative with only a handful of higher security rooms in the basement to house servers for the local network and databanks. That had been the clue that sparked his memory and made him realize what his subconscious had been telling him all along.

He recalled hearing one of the other maintenance personnel mention seeing a man in a suit with an attaché case cuffed to his wrist on the second or third day that LIC had been present. At the time, the statement hadn’t registered as important, but in retrospect that was exactly the sort of arrangement intelligence officials used for confidential documents.

It hadn’t been difficult to add two and two and get four. After years of secretive research, Olivetti had stumbled on something, and LIC was here to ensure copies were made before something unfortunate happened to that research.

The labs were still too hard a target to infiltrate, but the very fact that a bunch of new people were going in and out of Building C meant that security there wasn’t quite as tight as it might have been. More people and increased use of facilities meant an increased need for maintenance and repair.

It had been simple to use his carefully concealed access to his boss’s credentials to generate a handful of reports about overheating in one of the less secure server rooms and then assign himself to handle the inspection and repair of the HVAC system.

Which was how he found himself with his head and upper chest buried in a hot air return in a stuffy server room, fiddling with his probe.

Like the old saying went, ‘IT has the worst computers’. The servers that were running the local systems were actually somewhat older than the company, and had likely been acquired secondhand. Likewise, the building had not been designed from the ground up as a server farm, but less than professionally refitted for the purpose. Instead of multiple isolated and secure environments, each with separate self-contained cooling units, the basement was served by the building’s HVAC system.

One one level, that was a good thing for him because it meant he could theoretically get access to supposedly secure rooms via the ventilation system like something out of Immortal Warrior. The downside was that it complicated his cover story. A cooling unit failure wasn’t possible when there weren’t any cooling units, which meant he’d need to pretend that either an air vent or filter had gotten occluded or that a thermostat was broken.

Both were far from impossible, but either story could get messy. He couldn’t carry the usual complement of tools in his toolbox and still fit an infiltration kit as well, so he didn’t have everything he’d need to get at all the normal items on the checklist.

Even so, he considered as he advanced an infiltration rig with a small clipper and fiber optic camera through the vents, if I can at least figure out which of the more secure rooms they’re using, I’ll be in a better position. Best case, I can come up with a plan to get access to the data or even-

He finally got the head through the hole he’d cut in the latest filter and the camera’s advance hit the third grate along the path he’d charted. What he saw made him drop his datapad. He was so distracted, he only barely remembered to withdraw the camera a few inches as he swore.

Dummkopf! Schweinearschlecker!” he chastised himself as he recovered his noteputer from the bottom of the ventilation duct.

“Having trouble up there?” A voice asked from below, and Elias felt himself freeze. For a half-second his brain spun its wheels trying to get traction.

“Ah, sorry about the language,” he said, setting the noteputer down and extracting himself from the vent to reveal a security guard looking up at him in amusement.

“I’ve heard worse,” the man responded genially. “Having trouble?”

“I think I found the problem, but it looks like one of the fasteners is stripped. Not that the angle or the tight space is helping,” he said, affecting disgust. Better to baffle someone with bullshit than extend the conversation. Sure enough, the guard nodded.

“Well, I was just doing my patrol and saw the lights were on in here. Thought I’d say hello. Hope it doesn’t take you too long,” the man said, clearly already mentally checked out on the conversation.

“I hope so too,” Elias said, and inserted himself back into the HVAC system. Pretending to fiddle with a tool gave the guard time to get out of the room. Listening carefully, he heard the door open, then a brief hint of a radio call.

“Yeah, just maintenance working on a-” before the door closed and cut the sound off. That had been entirely too close.

Picking his noteputer back up, he carefully advanced the camera again, just to confirm what he thought he’d seen. Sure enough, sitting on a desk in open view of the air vent two rooms over was an old-style high-speed data reading head with a Star League data core sitting in it.

Even in only the bare moments he’d had to think, he’d reassessed his earlier assumptions. That wasn’t a rig with a write head on it, so they weren’t recording data from Olivetti’s research department for distribution.

Olivetti’s R&D division was getting an influx of new data. Enough and important enough data to need to be stored on a Data Core. Even if it was something like the technical specs for a new Battlemech, the data would have normally been transported in a conventional ROM format with laminated paper or plastic for the physical blueprints.

That implied that the ‘limited production run’ of a Thunderbolt design with advanced technology … wasn’t. Rumor had it that the new Thud variant incorporated everything from EndoSteel and double-capacity heat sinks to an advanced autocannon and Ferro-Fibrous armor. If those rumors were correct ... then logically the Commonwealth at large had or would soon have the capacity to produce at least some Lostech. That … that would represent an enormous shift in both power and prestige among the great houses. Worse, if Olivetti was getting this data from LIC, that meant that the wider government had access to it, and had for some time. How far could the information have been distributed in even one month?

Too far.

His control needed to know about this Data Core and, if possible, what was on it.

A quick adjustment of his camera revealed that the core itself wasn’t hooked into the local systems at all.

On the other hand, if they’re making use of the data, then it has to be on the local servers somewhere.

Another shift of his camera gave him a look at the ceiling of the room, and now that he was looking for it, a bundle of cables stood out. The colors were much brighter than their counterparts, and there wasn’t any visible dust on them.

So, a parallel network? Definitely separate from the rest. Almost certainly air-gapped, he decided. That was a bit more difficult, but …

He could see where the bundle entered the wall, and it looked like whoever installed things had been in a hurry; they’d routed it through a new installation right above the old junction box. If he could tap the right cable …

A check with the camera showed him which one he was looking for, and he’d been trained to use a neat little gadget just in case he ran into a situation like this.

The problem was that nothing in life was free, and the MITM, affectionately referred to as a ‘Mit’ or ‘Mitten,’ caused a measurable spike in latency on any network it was used to access. The flip side was that once he’d established his place as the ‘man in the middle’, he could send data packets back to the server that looked exactly like legitimate packets and potentially extract quite a bit of information.

He took a moment to consider, and decided that it was worth the risk in this case. With newly installed hardware, their first thought probably wasn’t going to be ‘we’re being hacked!’ but rather ‘damn it, what’s gone wrong this time?’

That would leave him a short window to gather data and then get out. It was definitely in violation of his orders, but just knowing that the Commonwealth had access to a data core wasn’t enough in this case. Even his supposition that they could reproduce the components going into Olivetti’s new Thunderbolt was insufficient. If the Blessed Order was to prevent a recurrence of the violence of the first two Succession Wars, it would need hard data, not guesswork.

The problem would be accessing one of the junction boxes.

He’d managed to track down an old copy of the building’s layout including electrical, water, and other utilities, but it was just that. Old. It was, in fact, a copy of the plans filed when they got the permit to do the renovation that turned the basement into a server farm a couple decades ago. Any changes that had been made in the interim wouldn’t be included.

That meant that the only place he could be absolutely sure of finding the wires where he expected them to be was in that first junction box. That was a problem, because he was potentially working on limited time.

He wasn’t technically cleared to be in this building, even if he’d been able to make it look like he was, just as he wasn’t supposed to be assigned to a ticket that shouldn’t exist. All it would take was one person getting suspicious, and the junction box was located right between two rooms with some of the highest LIC presence on the entire planet.

He couldn’t afford to just block off a hallway to get access to the space above the drop ceiling; it was far too likely some spy would get nosy. That meant …

He studied the plans and then tapped the screen.

A heating duct passed right over the box. If he switched out the manual cutting head on his rig for the laser head, he could burn through the bottom of the duct, the top of the junction box, and have access to insert his Mitten. Theoretically.

He could also insert into the wrong cable, damage the interior workings of the junction box, set something on fire …

Any of those would be the end of his mission and quite possibly his life in the bargain. He didn’t mind giving his life for peace in the Inner Sphere, but if he was going to die he wanted to accomplish something by it. Or ideally not get caught at all.

He spent another couple minutes looking for a better option, but couldn’t find one. Not one that fit with his cover story anywhere near as well, anyway.

Gritting his teeth and trying not to focus on all the ways this could go horribly wrong, Elias packed up his tools and moved his ladder over to one of the nearby heating vents. If somebody asked, he suspected that a malfunctioning thermostat had the heater blowing hot air into the room.

Thankfully, nobody showed up to question him, because the excuse wouldn't hold up to much more than a curious or friendly security guard. He carefully advanced his infiltration rig through the heating vents towards the location he needed, making relatively quick work of the filters along the way. It was much more difficult to determine where he needed to be to make his cut.

While he pulled back the infiltration rig to swap out the cutting heads, he spent several minutes studying the video he’d taken of the room earlier and double-checking the distance from the nearest heating vent back to the location of the junction box. Only when he was sure he was in the right place did he slowly begin to pulse the laser cutter he’d just installed on the rig and laboriously begin to cut a square out of the floor of the duct.

It was a very touchy job, and the way the heat from the metal washed out the picture didn’t help speed up the process. Twice he was forced to go back and recut small sections that hadn’t burned all the way through, but eventually the bottom of the vent dropped down onto the top of the junction box.

Fortunately, it was cool enough that it didn’t melt then adhere to the plastic, but it took a little bit of work to brush it aside with his rig, and the faint noise it made as it fell off to the side seemed very loud in the quiet. That was deceptive, and he knew it; the vent bounced the sound right back at him.

But it was just another source of stress, and he found that he was holding his breath. He took a moment and backed out of the vent, worked his shoulders to loosen the tension, and wished for a water bottle. Somewhere along the line his mouth had gotten dry, but while working around the servers, any spill risk was verboten.

After a couple more deep breaths, he crawled back up into the heating vent, but he didn’t begin cutting through the junction box immediately. Instead, he double checked which port the cable he needed was plugged into, then referenced the manual for a good angled photo of the top and front of the box. The logo on the top made picking out where to cut much easier than it could have been, but it took him more than ten minutes to laboriously make the four cuts required.

Even then, he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded until his rig’s gripper lifted the rectangle of plastic aside to reveal undamaged innards.

“Now, the Mitten,” he muttered to himself as he cracked his knuckles. Both of his wrists were tense and he felt like he was trying to develop a writer’s cramp in his right hand’s fingers. He hadn’t used an infiltration rig for so long since his training more than a decade ago.

Thankfully the process of inserting the Mitten wasn’t complex. Unfortunately, that didn’t make it easy. One of the options was basically ‘jam it in the cable,’ but that still left the need to carefully manipulate the grippers and double check to make sure he was going to insert the damn thing in the correct orientation and into the center of the cable. He actually ended up burning a pockmark into the cable’s casing to hold one of the insertion pins.

After that it actually was fairly easy, just push and then switch over to the data monitoring program on his noteputer. It only took a moment before he started receiving data packets. A lot of data packets.

If they’d been encrypted, he would have been stuck there. Codebreaking was not one of his strengths. Luckily, it seemed somebody had scrimped a bit on security. They probably figured they didn’t need it on a newly installed, physically isolated network.

It took a couple minutes to identify for sure which network protocols they were using and start turning the packets back into useful data, but when he did he drew an involuntary gasp. The data being pulled from the Core wasn’t what he’d expected. It looked like they were pulling data related to ERPPCs!

That wasn’t something that Olivetti’s new Thunderbolt supposedly mounted. Was this an unrelated discovery or …

He didn’t have enough information to speculate accurately, so he tried as best he could to sit on the urge.

It seemed like the classified data wasn’t being permanently stored on the computers in the Research building, because over the next hour, several different segments of data were accessed. Everything from what appeared to be data on two different designs of BattleMechs to documentation on EndoSteel and Double Heat Sinks. If anything, it seemed like the Lyrans had access to even more than he’d suspected, and thanks to the intercepted packets, he had proof for his superiors.

Now he needed to get the information offworld.

Looking at the time it was … later than he’d intended to stay. It was almost an hour after what should have been quitting time. He … definitely needed to get everything packed up and head out. As it was, he’d have to intercept the automatic email his boss would get notifying him about the overtime.

That wasn’t his main concern; the major issue would be if a guard became suspicious. As it was, he could argue that he was just saving time in the long run by finishing up tonight instead of heading back over here for half an hour come morning, but if he’d taken much longer …

Note to self: next time you go data mining, set an alarm.

That thought was enough to bring a smile to his face as he finished packing up. A couple final movements collapsed the ladder he’d been using, and he quickly walked it back to the closet he’d taken it from in the first place. Then he was able to grab his toolbox and head for the exit. He nodded to one of the LIC suits as he was leaving and the man nodded back distractedly. He was the only other person Elias encountered on his way to the employee exit. A scan of his card unlocked the door and he was out. Now all he had to do was put a message together, encrypt it, and email it to the HPG station for transmission onward.

Then he could worry about securing his own trail and finding passage towards the Drac border to misdirect any efforts to track him. If everything came together, he might even make Precentor for this!

XXXXX​

Brian Moore swept his eyes over the cameras as the previous shift’s guards packed their things up to head home for the evening. Nobody had reported anything out of the ordinary, so he was hoping for a quiet shift.

Of course, that’s when he noticed the guy in a maintenance uniform pass by one of the basement cameras.

“Hey, Eric, I thought you said day shift were all out?” he called as the other man was reaching for the door.

“Well, ye-” the other guard said before he stopped himself.

“Shit, forgot about the guy working on the HVAC in the basement. There was some sort of issue with the temperature in server room two,” he corrected himself.

Brian frowned. Eric was new as a shift manager, but this was basic shit he was fucking up.

“Okay, but next time you tell me it’s just the spooks left in the building, please be sure about that,” he said. It wasn’t worth taking to their supervisor, at least not yet. If the guy didn’t shape up, though …

He kept one eye on the camera near the rear exit, just to be sure that the maintenance guy was actually leaving, which is why he noticed the color of the toolbox as the man scanned his card and stepped out the door. It was red with black endcaps.

“Didn’t Eric say that guy was working on HVAC?” he asked Miles, the guard he was sharing the shift with.

“Yeah, he did,” Miles shot back from where he was inspecting their safety equipment.

“That’s what I thought,” he said and stood up to grab the maintenance logbook. Every morning the day’s maintenance tasks were sent out to each building so that they could match the guys who actually scanned in with the guys who were supposed to be there. He flipped the book open and ran his finger down the page. Sure enough, right there at the bottom: HVAC repair, Server Room 2, E. Lechmann.

Twisting in his swivel chair, he grabbed the phone and dialed maintenance’s phone. It rang once. Twice. Then the automated system answered.

“Thank you for calling the Maintenance Department! Your call is very important to us!”

Brian muttered darkly. It took nearly three minutes for him to navigate through the phone tree to talk to an actual person.

Even then, it was just the after-hours service dispatcher, not anyone from the department itself. He was tempted to just give her the message and be done with it, but he could just see some meeting four or five months down the road where his guys were getting blamed for letting maintenance into the building with another black toolbox after some fucktard zapped another fucking server. If he passed the damn message on to someone actually important in maintenance, then there was no way that they could claim the message got lost in translation or anything.

Finally, after five minutes of bullshit and a demand to speak to her manager, he was given the Maintenance Boss’s comm number.

He dialed.

The phone rang.

“You’ve got Travis-”

Brian was already in a bad mood. He hadn’t even been on shift fifteen minutes before he’d had to deal with two people fucking up.

“This is Brian Moore with security. I just caught your guy Lechmann on camera leaving my building after working in a server room all day with a fucking black toolbox! For the last fucking time, if they’re working in a server room, they’re supposed to be using the blue-capped toolboxes to prevent any more incidents. If one of your guys kills another fucking server, it’s on you!

For a moment the line was quiet.

“The hell do you mean Lechmann was working in a server room? He was supposed to be over in Building G working on a sump pump. He isn’t even safety trained for working around servers!”

There was a half-second where none of that made sense, then both Brian and Travis erupted in expletives as Brian reached over and hit the silent alarm.

XXXXX​

We found out later that Lehmann, if Lehmann was even his real name, had installed a tiny little security camera opposite his door. Small enough, and high enough that in the heat of the moment nobody noticed it.

That’s why the first warning we had that something was wrong were the bullets punching through the wall we were stacked up against to force entry.

Agent Camden went down right away; a bullet punched through the wall and caught him in the triceps, broke his humerus, and was only then caught by his vest. In a way it was fortunate, if the rifle-caliber bullet had hit him squarely instead of after it started to tumble his vest probably wouldn’t have stopped it.

The immediate consequences, however, were hell on the mission. Instead of rapidly forcing entry to the apartment, armed and armored LIC Agents and SWAT team members ducked for cover, returned fire, or moved to assist their injured fellows in a chaotic scramble. All the while, rifle-caliber bullets punched through the walls and caused friction between the two forces as SWAT officers tried to pull back and evacuate civilians while we demanded they push forward and take down the spy we were there to stop.

The end-result is that when we did finally manage to force entry, we found that Elias Lehmann had killed himself with a cyanide capsule after exhausting his modest supply of ammunition, but not before ruining his computer hard drive with what turned out to be acid, and destroying several unknown devices by throwing them in a metal trash can with a bottle of lighter fluid and most or all of a bottle of 190-proof liquor…

Excerpt of debriefing: Agent [Redacted]
April 15th, 3016
Hammarr, Sudeten.​

XXXXX​

Juragua, New Delos, New Delos System
The Protectorate, Free Worlds League
April 17th, 3016

Cordaro García was glad to be inside for the moment. Even if the air quality had finally evened out now that the fires set last year during the Revolt were all out, the summer sun baked down all the harder without the smoke to block some of it. And, of course, there was not a cloud in the sky to offer any shade either.

The heat of the day was, thus, the preferred time to get the day’s mail into the town’s post office boxes. The air conditioning kept him cool and the mail would be ready for everyone when they stopped by on their way home from work. It was a win-win.

As he was going through the mail, sliding letters into boxes, he came across a name he hadn’t seen much recently. Kristopher Kelly had gotten a lot of mail for several months and sent just as much mail back out. That, however, had stopped sometime last year.

A few letters or parcels still showed up for him, but the man hadn’t been in to pick anything up since that mess with the invasion.

If he’d been outside, Cordaro would have spit. A bad business all around. Certainly the Dragoons could have fought harder; their record showed that! Where were the sort of victories they’d won against the Capellans? But to murder a man’s brother and his family and not expect him to come looking for retribution? Foolish. And with the fires on top of that?

Cordaro shook his head and opened the box in question. It was pretty full with some letters postmarked more than a year ago now. That was … actually longer than the post office was supposed to keep any mail for a PO Box without a forwarding address.

A quick look showed no such address on file for Mr Kelly…

And now he was curious. Technically the letters and packages were to be destroyed, but surely no one would care if he looked inside one or two of them. After all, there might be something valuable in there! Or at least interesting.

He quickly emptied the box out into a bag and set it under his desk, then got back to filling the rest of the boxes. Later that evening, once he got home, he opened the bag and dumped it out on his table. There were a couple parcels, which he opened first, but they contained nothing but stacks of ROMs.

Grumbling to himself, he reached out and grabbed the letter that had come that day off the top of the pile. There’s been something tucked into the envelope, so he tore it open and dropped it out only to reveal another damn ROM! Then he looked at the letter, but it was just gibberish!



Wait. Why would someone get letters written in gibberish and dozens of ROMs in the mail… he wondered, and after he’d come up with the logical answer, he picked up his phone.

XXXXX​

A/N: Thanks again to Seraviel, Lordsfire, and Yellowhammer for beta reading, idea bouncing, and canon compliance checking. This chapter is vastly improved by their efforts.
 

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
also I love how ComStar agents somehow think advanced mechs of all things were what caused the damage of the first two succession wars to be so bad instead of ya know WMD spam. I mean mechs didn't kill worlds 99% of what caused that was nukes, warship weapons fire, and very nasty chemical and biological weapons and above all else a massive breakdown of supply chains and the loss of key technologies mostly involving terraforming
 
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Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
I think it's best to assume that Com* agent got the information out then hoping that he didn't. Not that them knowing about the Core will change much by this point the information should have spread enough that them trying to destroy it is near-impossible now.
also I love how ComStar agents somehow think advanced mechs of all things were what caused the damage of the first two succession wars to be so bad instead of ya know WMD spam. I mean mechs didn't kill worlds 99% of that caused that was nukes, warship weapons fire, and very nasty chemical and biological weapons and above all else a massive breakdown of supply chains and the loss of key technologies mostly involving terraforming
And In a strange twist of fate it seems someones about to read ComStars mail.

Wonder what lead to that.
Vilegrave appears to be the only one who paid attention here, and even he appears to have missed the reference. Or maybe just what year it is.

In order, yes, the COM* agent got the information out. That is what landed on New Delos addressed to Kristopher Kelly, alias of ...

COM* agents don’t think advanced ‘Mechs caused the destruction of the Succession Wars directly. They did so indirectly when the Successor States went raiding everywhere to nuke everybody’s advanced production sites.

And what led to reading Com*’s mail is Vesar Kristofur being a control freak who couldn’t resist the desire to go play secret agent when he was supposed to be at home doing the paperwork. Instead of, say, having it sent to the town one town over from Cienfuegos. Where it piled up until an acquisitive postal worker decided to steal it, then when he discovered what it was, called SAFE.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
Out of curiosity did the agent manage to inform his superiors about the possible data core the Lyrans have?
It looks like enough time elapsed between spy leaving the facility and SWAT team shootout, for him to encrypt the message and email it to the HPG. And now the information will be in the hands of SAFE, just as Dragoons entered FWL service. Since their analysts will most likely come to the same conclusion as the spy, we might see the Dragoons raid Hesperus earlier than OTL. And depending on how complete is the information he sent out, it might give them a leg up on the research of these technologies once they manage to decipher it (I seriously doubt he got even near the complete data his noteputer probably didn't have the capacity), eventually reducing the Lyran technological lead.

also I love how ComStar agents somehow think advanced mechs of all things were what caused the damage of the first two succession wars to be so bad instead of ya know WMD spam.
It goes to the indoctrination of Comstar members, they believe that they are the only ones, responsible enough, to handle any kind of advanced technology. It's why Comstar is merrily sitting on lifesaving technologies like water purification and various medicines that could have saved millions or even billions lives per year. They are the biggest killers of the Third Succession War.
 

GROGNARD

Well-known member
It goes to the indoctrination of Comstar members, they believe that they are the only ones, responsible enough, to handle any kind of advanced technology. It's why Comstar is merrily sitting on lifesaving technologies like water purification and various medicines that could have saved millions or even billions lives per year. They are the biggest killers of the Third Succession War.

Absolutely correct, Psi.
Lack of safe potable water and diseases (both natural and manufactured) have been the biggest killers in EVERY war throughout history.
 

Rodon

Member
eventually reducing the Lyran technological lead.
Well, they may try, but even the Dragoons will have trouble raiding Hesperus earlier. Even as the Lyrans start putting out more mechs, and already have a handful of advanced mechs built with more on the production lines.

Even if the Dragoons succeed in, if not capturing some of the tech, damaging Hesperus. There are a number of groups expending rapidly, and so even if that damage is 'permanent' for the time being, other groups are expanding enough that it won't make a huge difference. And Hesperus now, with CAC's butterfly wings flapping they will have a decent chance to repair all their damage fairly easily.
 

PsihoKekec

Swashbuckling Accountant
I seriously doubt they will reach the factories this time either, the battle will probably be notable for the first use of Foundtech outside of Catachan Harabequisiers, as the LCAF is sure to send Royal Guards to defend the crown jewel of the Lyran armament industry. It's possible that WD will salvage some of the advanced tech, but it's doubtful they will hand it over to FWL (just like Snord and LC). Of course, the Hesperus raid was also part of inner FWL intrigue, so it's possible they will again wait to send them against Hesperus just until their contract is about to expire.
 

PeaceMaker 03

Well-known member
And what led to reading Com*’s mail is Vesar Kristofur being a control freak who couldn’t resist the desire to go play secret agent when he was supposed to be at home doing the paperwork. Instead of, say, having it sent to the town one town over from Cienfuegos. Where it piled up until an acquisitive postal worker decided to steal it, then when he discovered what it was, called SAFE.

Ironic if SAFE tells the Goons, and they start a bigger feud with C*, that allows all of C* dirt to go public. I never like the lack of blowback on C*, like using nukes and blaming Grey DL. So much for peace and neutrality.

If it turns out Janos figures out C* was part of the civil war that lost a brother and a son......

Would that be enough to target earth/ terra?
If the Goons take earth do they become IlClan?

If goons or FWL go public with C* instigated a civil war vs. the legal FWL government is an act of war.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
Ironic if SAFE tells the Goons, and they start a bigger feud with C*, that allows all of C* dirt to go public. I never like the lack of blowback on C*, like using nukes and blaming Grey DL. So much for peace and neutrality.

If it turns out Janos figures out C* was part of the civil war that lost a brother and a son......

Would that be enough to target earth/ terra?
If the Goons take earth do they become IlClan?

If goons or FWL go public with C* instigated a civil war vs. the legal FWL government is an act of war.
That would cerytainly be one hell of a butterfly!

1. Would cause Comstar to build up military in a hurry if they can survive the initial onslaught. Which they likely will to some degree.

2. Clans would probably not have a Comstar Explorer vessel poke them as those resources would go elsewhere.
 
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Crazyone47

Active member
Hey is Edward Regis still going to be Commander Pro Tem of the LCAF?
Or is he still on Archon Katrina's List of Officers she would like to prosecute?
Actually as a result of Weber what events have been butterflied away
 
Interlude 4-C*

Speaker4thesilent

Crazed Deplorable
Interlude 4-C*​

Mu/Mu-XVII, Classification Omega-III
Blake’s Will be Done
May 4th, 3016


“Oh shit,” Adept Ruth Dubois heard one of her analysts blurt out as she was walking through the Signals Intercept and Decryption room.

It was both unprofessional and a potential indicator that something had gone horribly wrong, so either way it was worth investigating.

“What was that?” she inquired at a slightly louder than normal speaking volume and waited for the guilty party to fess up.

“Uh, Ma’am? I think you need to see this?”

The guilty party, it turned out, was Acolyte Kaminski, and the man’s normally tan visage was looking rather grey. Since his assignment was analyzing intercepts from the Commonwealth/Combine border regions, that look was rather alarming.

Blake forbid that the ISF managed to set off a dirty bomb on Sevren after all, was her first thought, then she stopped to remind herself that the Combine weren’t the only ones willing to resort to terrorism to get their way. LOKI was overdue for some fresh disaster as well.

Then she looked at the message, and her heart sank even further.

“Is there some confirmation of this one way or the other?” she asked after a long moment to read and then reread what it said.

“Not that I’ve seen so far, Ma’am,” Kaminski responded.

Ruth took a deep breath and closed her eyes to think while she let it out slowly. She didn’t want to be alarmist, but at the same time, any ISF agent worth their salt wouldn’t have wanted to be alarmist either, and the message had still been sent. That meant-

“Is this going to be as bad as I think it will be, Ma’am?” Kaminsky asked, derailing her train of thought.

“I suppose that would depend on how bad you think it’s going to be,” she shot back by reflex while she considered a more serious response. Before Kaminski could speak back up, she answered him more seriously.

“There is a reason the Blessed Order spends so much money on Mu branch even though there are humanitarian crises all over the Inner Sphere. For what the Order spends on our daily budget, our charities could feed a hundred thousand children starving all over the near-periphery for a week,” she acknowledged. “But even a handful of raids back and forth across a border could result in a hundred or even a thousand times those casualties.

“This?” she asked, and shook her head, staring back at the intercepted message. “If the spy who is reporting this is correct, we could be about to see the worst atrocities of the First and Second Succession Wars all over again.”

While Kaminski was still staring at his monitor in horror, Ruth took another calming breath, intending to try to decide what to do once more, only to find that her explanation to Kaminski had clarified her options in her own mind.

“Send me a copy of that message, Acolyte. I’ll be in my office,” she ordered.

When she arrived, she found the copy she had requested already waiting in her inbox. The message she composed was extraordinarily terse. The encryption that would be required to ensure its security as it made its way towards Terra at the highest priority she could assign would be vastly larger than the bare few words of the message itself. For all that it was still likely to be the most important dispatch she would ever send.

Ruth looked down at the four words of her missive and the appended intercept.

The Shroud is torn, stared back up at her.

Her finger pressed the enter key.

XXXXX​

First Circuit Meeting Chamber, Hilton Head Complex,
Terra, Sol System
May 11th, 3016


“-now have independent confirmation of the initial ISF report thanks to a decrypted communication from an agent of the Maskirovka. However, the Mask report details information on data cores being received by the Shipil Company on Skye and a secure depository on Zebebelgenubi, rather than Sudeten and Morges as in the initial ISF report.” Julian Tiepolo stood impassively and listened as Tojo Jarlath, the only-recently promoted Precentor ROM, proceeded stoically towards the conclusion of his report.

“As such, we must presume that a large number of copies of this data core have been made and distributed throughout the Lyran Commonwealth,” the man who had replaced former-Precentor Kristofur in the aftermath of the Wolf’s Dragoons fiasco last year, finally concluded,

“This is an outrage!” Horatio Yu, the elderly Precentor Dieron, began the usual politicking immediately. “For an operation on this scale to go unnoticed is unconscionable!”

Precisely as expected.

“It does seem … remarkable that we are only hearing about this now,” James McGovern, Precentor Atreus agreed in a more measured tone.

“Respectfully,” Jarlath interjected, “My predecessor was … very narrowly focused on solving the mystery of Wolf’s Dragoons. It would appear that ROM’s failure to detect this situation earlier is a result of his mismanagement of his responsibilities. Perhaps if he had been doing his job as head of the Blessed Order’s intelligence services instead of galavanting around acting as a field agent we would not now be in this position.”

“Or you’re attempting to lay the blame on a man who is not here to defend himself,” Yu shot back immediately. Clearly, the man had seen his opportunity and was making his play.

In other circumstances, Tiepolo might have been tempted to throw his support behind the man, but Yu was a traditionalist. He would demand both a traditional replacement for the head of ROM and a traditional solution.

And in this case, that would lead to disaster.

“Another man might, but I am not,” Jarlath replied calmly, failing to raise his voice, and the contrast stood out sharply.

Once again, as planned.

“Please, Precentor Yu, this is a time for logic and calm consideration,” Tiepolo said, reinforcing the impression Yu had just given his fellow Precentors that he was on the verge of panic, and thereby undercutting his position.

Yu shot him a dirty look, but Precentor Tharkad was already nodding along and Precentor Atreus began to follow suit a moment later.

“Agreed, let us hear the rest of what our new Precentor ROM has to say. We need all the facts before we can decide anything,” Precentor Babić said. He and Yu were as opposed as the nations they represented. Besides, as Precentor Tharkad, he had a vested interest in passing on any blame, lest it come to rest on him.

Jarthath carefully reached down to the podium in front of him and folded his notes, instead using a remote to alter the holo projector’s display.

“As I mentioned, the information must be considered to be very widely distributed within the Commonwealth by this time,” Jarlath began. “As such, any attempt to conceal it once again behind Holy Shroud must be considered unlikely to succeed.”

That statement was not popular, but none interrupted, not wanting to risk the appearance of rushing to judgement.

“Not only would we be competing against LIC, who are a formidable foe at the best of times, but we must inevitably come into conflict with the Combine’s Internal Security Force and Order of the Five Pillars as well as the Maskirovka as they seek to seize a copy of this data care.

“Worse, if Davion intelligence is not already aware of it, they will find out soon, and once every other intelligence service in the Inner Sphere becomes involved in a shadow war, not even SAFE can remain ignorant for long. At any given time we will not only need to maintain our own security, but penetrate that of a skilled and determined foe while navigating the chaos of up to four other intelligence services attempting to seize any core we attempt to destroy.”

He paused and gave that a moment to sink in. the faces of the national Precentors were all beginning to take on a familiar expression as realization set in.

Holy Shroud only needs to fail once to see the information spread to another of the Successor States, which will no doubt immediately begin making copies of the information just as quickly as they can. Or worse, risk exposure as two factions of ‘Mask Agents’ or ‘Rabid Foxes’ encounter each other in the field and expose that some other faction is out there intruding in their shadow war.”

The same grim expression he had borne when he first received the news now decorated the faces of the other five members of the First Circuit.

“And what do you recommend?” the Primus asked, expression schooled to demonstrate some concern, but seeming serene in comparison.

“We can not halt the spread of this information,” Precentor ROM reiterated. “They do not need to know who has been behind Holy Shroud or our exact methodology to grasp our goals. In short, our previous successes gave the Successor States the time to plan for and motivation to succeed in ensuring that information about advanced technology, once regained, would not be easily suppressed again.”

That was the great peril of success: you learned much less from it than your opponents did from failure. And two centuries of ROM successes had taught the intelligence services of the Inner Sphere well.

“Instead, I recommend working to control the spread of the information in order to redress the existing imbalance of forces among the Successor States,” Tojo concluded his reply, again projecting confidence and certainty.

Clearly the audience for his performance had not yet even considered that possibility.

“A daring strategy,” Tiepolo said aloud, shaping his expression to display sudden understanding and interest, “But I believe I see potential. How far have you gotten with the specifics?”

With a press of a button, the map changed, the Lyran Commonwealth highlighted in blue.

“The Lyran Commonwealth, of course, already possesses and is preparing to make use of the information from the data core,” Jarlath reminded. “This is not the worst foundation upon which to build. The Draconis Combine has been steadily pushing back their shared border with the Lyrans since the First Succession War began, and the Commonwealth’s border with the League has been in a strategic stalemate since their seizure of the Bolan Thumb two centuries ago.

“With this in mind, it is extremely likely that any new designs will be introduced and aggression focused on the Combine border. In the short term, some Combine losses along that border would be … advantageous.” Yu had puffed up more and more like an oversized blowfish as Tojo spoke; the power of the First Circuit member reflected, in a very real way, the power of the Successor State they represented. Yu enjoyed representing the strongest of them, but his initial reckless attack had cost him. He subtly ground his teeth together but remained silent.

A second press of a button highlighted the Capellan Confederation, this time in green.

“The first target we must ensure gains access to the core is the Capellan Confederation. Over the course of the Succession Wars, they have lost ground against both of their neighbors and currently possess the weakest military forces, relying on a nodal defense and their superior transportation infrastructure and interior lines of movement to defend their worlds. By giving them early access to the core and protecting them from any LIC or LOKI reprisals, we give them an opportunity to build up their forces with superior technology which should allow them to create a buffer around their most critical industrial worlds and reclaim some of the strategic depth that they have lost since the fall of the Star League.”

That immediately had Precentor Sian on board with the plan. It was widely recognized that the Confederation’s representative was the least prestigious position on the First Circuit and the prospect of changing that was clearly irresistible to the man.

“Now, some time would need to be bought at this stage before allowing the knowledge to proliferate further,” Jarlath cautioned. “Without a look at the precise contents of the core, we can not know exactly how long the required lead time will be on infrastructure, but we can make some informed hypotheses.

“First, EndoSteel must be included on the core, because EndoSteel is little more than a precise alloy of foamed metal and foamed metal is foundational for the more advanced military technologies,” the new Precentor explained. “Moreover, confidence is high that the technology being included in Olivetti Weaponry’s supposedly ‘limited-run’ Thunderbolt is, in fact, included on the data core. If this is the case, double-capacity heat sinks, FerroFibrous armor, and advanced Heavy autocannon will all be replicable.” The display flipped to an image of one of the new Thunderbolts firing on an outdoor weapons range -- probably on Tharkad from the heavy snow visible -- with an arrow highlighting the autocannon barrel.

He paused to give the other members of the First Circuit a chance to absorb that under the guise of checking his notes.

“Intelligence is ninety-five percent certain that there is at least one further advanced weapon system on the core, but that the Lyrans have not yet managed to restore production.”

“Surely, then, you must have some idea for how long restoring production must take based on how long ago this new Thunderbolt line began construction?” Yu nearly accused

“While that does give us a minimum figure, it is much more likely that somewhere in the four to five year range is more accurate,” Jarlath fielded the question gracefully.

“Regardless,” he said and changed the projected image back to the strategic map and highlighted the Draconis Combine, “once we have determined that the time is correct, we can release the data core to the Combine, allowing them to stabilize their border with the Commonwealth and increasing pressure on their border with the Suns, thereby allowing the Confederation additional time to build up their forces and regain lost territory.”

At that Precentor Yu’s expression evened out. Potentially losing territory to the most incompetent of the Successor States militarily did not match losing it to the most feeble. And the man was a Capellan; he’d never quite forgotten his hatred of the Davions. With Precentor Tharkad and Precentor Sian’s votes as well as his own added to Yu’s that would make a formidable voting block, but for something of this magnitude unanimity would be preferable. Fortunately…

“Do you have any indications of which additional weapon system is included on the core?” Precentor New Avalon, the least political of all the National Precentors asked. No one got to this sort of position without being able to play the game, but it was well known that Precentor Voss was more concerned with theology and preserving technology than politics.

“The weapons mounted on the new variant Thunderbolt gives us some hints,” Jarlath explained before launching into the logic as he displayed the image of the new Thunderbolt again. “Note the use of flamers for anti-infantry-work visible here on the left arm in place of the standard machine guns or the advanced pulse lasers used by the SLDF in that role.”

“We can rule out advanced energy weapons because they would have been vastly easier to employ on the Thunderbolt than an autocannon. I don’t even want to imagine how many thousands of man-hours must have gone into the Gyro calculations for such a massive redistribution in weight. It would have been vastly simpler to focus on getting the extended-range energy weapons used by the SLDF’s Royal TDR-5Sb or the CCAF’s downteched early Succession War -5L and -5LS into production if they had access to either technology. Even a modification for the utilization of Pulse Lasers would have been much simpler.

“Likewise, we can take indications that Olivetti has been and continues to work on some ‘secret project’ to rule out Gauss Rifles. Working on mutually exclusive heavy ballistic weapons for a single Battlemech design is considered unlikely and would require massive redesign to use on a Thunderbolt or Warhammer.”

Again, the man tactfully pretended to fiddle with his note cards to give his audience a chance to process before concluding.

“The base -5S Thunderbolt does, however, mount both LRM and SRM racks. As such, it is considered very likely that the second advanced weapon technology is either the Artemis fire control system for use with LRM launchers or the Streak fire control system for use with SRM launchers, both of which are on our surviving Royal Thunderbolts. Confidence is high that they were originally intending to mount an advanced missile weapon on the new Thunderbolt, but were unable to make their deadline. Suggested cause is actually some issue with the ammunition required to utilize the advanced electronic guidance package built into the launcher. Our current theory is that Artemis is most likely. This would help explain confirmed reports of the late inclusion of an additional 5cm laser in the left arm. This was likely added in place of the guidance system for the missiles. We also have unconfirmed reports that Olivetti is looking at integrating advanced technology in their Warhammers, and Artemis was integrated with the Holly SRM-6 rack on the Royal variant of that machine.”

“Well reasoned,” Precentor New Avalon allowed. “Thank you for explaining the logic.”

Voss was harder to read than some of the Precentors, but ultimately easy to predict despite that. The man would vote for what he thought would best advance the vision the Blessed Blake had laid forth for the Order.

“How certain are you that the Capellan Confederation will be able to stabilize its borders with the Suns and the League?” Precentor Sian inquired after only a moment’s pause.

“When a major technological advance occurs, it effectively resets the bar for national strength. There are several historical precedents for this, but the two most easily explained are the introduction of the Mackie in 2439 and the launching of H.M.S. Dreadnought in 1906. In both cases, they made all existing military equipment in their respective branches obsolete overnight.

“Now, we would not expect to see quite the same degree of change in this instance, but-”

Tiepolo let the questioning proceed for another few minutes waiting for the right moment to act. Finally, there was a pause as the Precentors discovered that all the obvious questions had been asked. Before any of them had time to start coming up with less obvious questions, he interjected.

“It would seem that we now have all the facts we need to make a decision,” he said, sweeping the room with his eyes. “We have Precentor ROM’s proposed course of action. A vote in the affirmative is to proceed with this plan. A vote in the negative is to reject the proposed course of action.”

By wording things as he had, that meant a vote of Nay was a vote to do nothing. That would be very unappealing emotionally, but he hardly thought the minor manipulation would be needed. Still, better to present an easily detected finger on the scale than let the other Precentors know just how much of today’s meeting had been arranged beforehand.

“Aye,” Precentor Tharkad sounded off with the expected level of alacrity, happy to support a plan that placed no blame on him.

“Aye,” Precentor Sian announced less than a heartbeat later.

“Aye,” Precentor New Avalon added after a moment’s consideration, the need to control the proliferation of advanced technology winning out over the likely loss of prestige the Suns would suffer when they began losing ground to a resurgent Capellan Confederation.

“Aye,” Yu finally said a moment later, the prospect of seeing the Suns and the League humbled outweighing the Combine’s likely losses to the Commonwealth in the short term.

“Abstained,” Precentor Atreus said, finally having waited to see the way the wind was blowing.

“And I shall vote Aye as well,” Tiepolo concluded, allowing a fatherly smile. “I’m glad to see us united in agreement in such a difficult time. May the Wisdom of Blake guide us in the coming days.”

XXXXX​

Primus’s Chambers, Hilton Head Complex,
Terra, Sol System
September 30th, 3016


“-which is about the time their taxi took an SRM. A second operative stepped out of an alley and threw a grenade into the back seat once the car came to a stop, just to make sure.” Jarlath finished his report of the latest from Sudeten.

“I suppose that answers a couple questions then,” Tiepolo responded after a moment’s thought.

“Indeed, it would seem that the Archon has relaxed her hold on LOKI, at least slightly,” the head of ROM agreed after setting down his glass of brandy.

“Her personal dislike for the organization was never likely to cause her to disband them. They may be something of a blunt instrument, but they’re still a useful tool,” Tiepolo acknowledged in turn.

Besides, a single civilian casualty as collateral damage wasn’t much when compared to the elimination of a DEST team out to snatch the Sudeten core.

“Excellent job ensuring that the Lyrans were able to prevent the Combine from obtaining a copy of the core,” he added with a nod to the Blessed Order’s spymaster. “And, may I say, the legwork on determining the second weapon technology on the core was excellently done. When we got the word that our best-placed asset on Sudeten had been exposed and killed, I must admit I wasn’t sure how you intended to move forward. Utilizing Olivetti’s negotiations for materials and the footprint at their planned Morges site to determine what they’d be building there was inspired!”

“I’ll pass the congratulations along to the Mu Branch team involved,” the younger man said.

It wouldn’t have been a complete disaster if the Combine got their hands on a copy so soon, but it would definitely be preferable to keep them in the dark for another year or so. Tiepolo contemplated that for a moment, then realized that Tojo had continued while he was distracted.

“-to know is how the Lyrans were able to edit the copy the Capellans got with so few traces left behind.”

That was the mystery of the hour. The first good look that ROM had gotten at the data core’s contents was when one of their plants in the Maskirovka had been involved with liberating the copy of the core the Lyrans had placed on Zebebelgenubi and had passed along some of the data to the Blessed Order while the core was being smuggled back to the Confederation. It had immediately led to something of a scramble to replace that core with an identical-looking one that hadn’t been sabotaged. They hadn’t even included the advanced missile tech at all!

Credit where credit was due, the Lyrans had laid out a nearly flawless trap. Without knowing that the information had been creatively edited, it likely would have taken the Capellan Confederation years to figure out exactly what was wrong with the instructions they’d acquired.

“I think that question is on quite a few minds,” the Primus temporized. Of course the most likely answer was that the Lyrans found some weakness in the software to exploit. They had, presumably, had access to it for several years. That was plenty of time to figure out how to prevent a clean copy from being produced.

“I think I’m more impressed that someone recognized that they couldn’t prevent the knowledge from getting out eventually, and that they acted rapidly and effectively to set up defenses intended to allow the other Successor States access to information that looks priceless at first glance, but is nearly worthless in application,” he continued after a short pause.

“I believe I detect Simon Johnson’s hand in that,” Tojo inserted. “You’ll also notice that LOKI seems to have been deployed almost exclusively on worlds where they’re actually using the cores rather than where they’ve locked them up for safekeeping. I have a sneaking suspicion that when we eventually secure a copy of one of those cores, we’ll discover that they aren’t missing key bits of information.”

One of those natural breaks that sometimes occur in a conversation broke out as both men drank. Tiepolo wordlessly offered Jarlath a refill, but the spymaster declined.

“I don’t believe I actually asked yet. How are the Capellans getting along with their copy of the data core?” Tiepolo finally inquired.

“As I anticipated, they immediately began making copies just as the Lyrans did, though they’re less particular about the medium. They’ve also begun the process of contacting their military contractors to exploit it. If we’re correct, Earthwerks will be taking advantage of it first.”

“Not too surprising, all things considered. I suppose Earthwerks is leaning heavily on their political connections since their CEO is one of those Lings?”

“You’d be surprised, then,” Jarlath responded. At Tiepolo’s raised eyebrow, he explained further. “Jacob Ling hasn’t been merely putting forward his business using his family ties to Mandrinn Ling of the Maskirovka, he’s been espousing a very well thought out plan. As soon as Earthwerks Limited found out what was on the data core through their contacts in the Mask, they managed to drag up quite a bit of useful data out of their archives.

“They’re proposing a revival of the Koschei, based on the -4I model that they were building during the late Star League and a refit of the Thunderbolt based on their -5LS variant. They argue that they can have both done before any other corporation could have a single ‘Mech complete since they have the design work and just need the advanced components to resume production. Of course they will have to replace some of the parts they ‘borrowed’ for their Bombardier line in order to to produce the Koschei again.”

“And considering how little funding the CCAF has to spare for this, they’re likely correct in their assertion,” Tiepolo allowed.

“... About that,” the head of ROM spoke up somewhat hesitantly. “One of my staff had an idea for how to covertly give the Capellans an infusion of capital to assist them in rebuilding their forces.”

That sounded interesting.

“Don’t keep me in suspense!” the Primus chided.

“It was suggested that we might have one of our plants within the Mask on Sian suggest that other Maskirovka agents within ComStar embezzle currency to send back to the Confederation, with the clear subtext that this is to be ‘only what you can without jeopardizing your cover.’ Then we turn around and let one of the Capellan plants that we are aware of have access to one of our larger accounts just before he’s scheduled to make his next report. When he makes his report, we replace it with a communication that he fears he’s been made and is sending as much money as he can back to the Confederation to atone for his failure. We transfer enough C-Bills to the Confederation to help them develop and produce more advanced BattleMechs, and then arrest the spy later that day for embezzlement. If it becomes necessary, at some point down the line we can also ‘discover’ who the thief was working for and use that to place political pressure on the Capellans for one concession or another.”

Tiepolo could understand why Jarlath had been reluctant to bring the suggestion up, but honestly, it would be a small enough amount that it could be lost as a rounding error in the Blessed Order’s annual budget while being substantial enough to fund a year or more of research and development for advanced Confederation BattleMechs.

He found himself nodding along.

“Actually, I think we can make that work, and if it buys us some diplomatic leverage in the future, then that really is money well spent. I’ll want to see a final write-up on your plan, but it seems like an excellent foundation for a-”

XXXXX​

A/N: Thanks again to Seraviel, Lordsfire, and Yellowhammer for beta reading, idea bouncing, and canon compliance checking. This chapter is vastly improved by their efforts.
 

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