80

Note.: This chapter is chronologically before chapter 79, this is what happens during the time the Taurian task-force is moving into the Lothian League.

In August 3053, a high-level Canopian delegation arrived in Taurus for negotiations following the evolution of the situation in the Free Worlds League, the Marian Hegemony with the aim of dealing with these peculiar situation and with the territory between both nations.

The fact that the Magistracy and the Concordat had an excellent relationship since before the beginning of Emma Centrella's reign, and had complementary objectives and very few conflicts of interest, eased the negotiations considerably.

By the end of September they had agreed on the following, the systems West of a line Liu's Memory - Fronc (including both) would fall under the sphere of influence of the Magistracy, while those East of said line would be for the Taurian Concordat.

Regarding the Marian Hegemony, it was decided that as soon as the Marian Armed Forces invaded the Lothian League (something that both nations took for granted), the MAF would invade the systems of Islington, Algenib, Mariu's Tears, Horatius and Ballalaba, while the remaining systems - Bacallieu, Pompey, Suetonius, Stafford, Alphard (the capital), Addhara and New Venice would be occupied by the TDF. As soon as the MAF had available forces, it would also clean Astrokaszy from the pirates present there.

The goal of the Concordat was to either add "its" worlds to the Lothian League while at the same time turning it into a client state or to create a Concordat enclave if negotiations with Lothian League were not to its liking, while all the Magistracy wanted was to eliminate a troublesome neighbor (and win several systems), taking advantage of the fact that the Free Worlds League was busy with a nasty civil war and couldn't do anything.

To allow for this decisive strike,, the Magistracy had to authorize the movement of a considerable number of Concordat forces through its territory, in order for them to arrive on time. This was taken into account in the new military alliance between both nations, which considerably expanded the treaty in force since the end of Andurien Crisis / Periphery Wars of the 3030s.

Among the forces sent by the Concordat were the 1st Battalion of the Revenants and the Reach Guards (the former Aurigan Royal Guards) as well as 3 other battalions of ''Mechs, all with combined arms support. Sending so many of the core Arano-Bassot forces was a move from they political enemies, hoping that they would suffer grave losses, and at same time let Coromodir with weak protection. That was swiftly counter-balanced by Kamea, contracting the St. Cyr Heavy Assault Group, that had just ended its contract with the Federated Commonwealth. An expensive move, no doubt, but in the end the defense of Coromodir was even increased.

Part of the agreements included the Concordat providing equipment and training to Magistracy technicians to develop, implement, and maintain a native HPG network.

The biggest surprise, however, was the Magistracy informing the Concordat that it had acquired two WarShips, the MCS Coranna and the MCS Kossandra. While the first was a Whirlwind class Destroyer the second was a Texas class Battleship. The problem was that although the MAF was able, at the limit, to maintain the MCS Coranna, the repair of the MCS Kossandrabecause of serious problems to the keel was far beyond the capabilities of Magistracy. Due to these problems, the Magistracy proposed to exchange the ship for two Concordat class Frigates and two Pinto class Corvettes as well as training personnel to maintain and crew them.

After deliberations ,the TDF Navy, always eager to get its hands on a bigger WarShip, agreed on the idea but only after a close inspection by Taurian technicians to know if they could do something out of it.

Of course, the Concordat was also very curious to know how the Magistracy managed to get its hands on such WarShips or the advanced 'Mechs they had recently deployed.

The answer was a fascinating story, that the Magistracy didn't share right now but the truth emerged years later. Some years ago, an exploration ship in Deep Periphery South of Magistracy, had found a system with a dead colony. In orbit, there were several JumpShips and two WarShips, while on the ground, nothing indicated that there had been a conflict. Taking the maximal protection (use of advanced Hazmat suits for everyone stepping on the planet), the exploration ship found out after investigation that all these were the remains of a ghost colony, clearly in the middle of expansion phase by the look of the infrastructure. Only after a hospital had been found, they were able to get a picture of what had happened. According to the records that were found, a native virus spread in the colony 5 years after they had landed. By the time they noticed the problem, it was already widespread and people were dying at a very high rate. The records ended with no indication of a cure or of any survivors.

As for the origin of the colonists, they seemed to be the survivors of a Second Exodus, calling themselves SLDF in Exile / Wolverines. The WarShips in orbit were the SLS Yukon (destroyer), now the MCS Coranna and the SLS Bismark (battleship), now the MCS Kossandra.

Due to the care needed to prevent the people involved in the removing of the hardware, to catch the lethal virus that had killed the colony, it took years to transfer the equipment and ships back to the Magistracy, something that at this moment, mid 3053, was in the final phase. Not only did they have about a regiment of advanced 'Mechs, including several models never seen before (among them the Bull Shark), but also a fully automated 'Mech factory, that had been transferred to the Magistracy and was currently working at full capacity.

What the Magistracy got from the dead Wolverine colony apart the hardware, was a treasure trove of information. The stories of the Exodus, the Pentagon Civil War, Operation Klondike, the creation of the Clans, the Trial of Annihilation of Clan Wolverine, and their Second Exodus to the doomed colony near the Magistracy, where the last ones had died. Also several technical datacores with information on iron wombs, advanced weapons like the Enhanced ER PPC and ER Medium Laser that until now were only produced by the Concordat and several advanced designs like the already mentioned Bull Shark, or the Pulverizer, Stag I and II, Mercury II and Wolverine II. But the most important information was the location of the Clans Homeworlds and the full maps of the Exodus Road, the original one and the reverse one taken by the Wolverines during they return to the Inner Sphere and beyond. That information was shared with the Concordat, in exchange for support in several projects, including terraforming and help in building/upgrading strategic (civil and military) industrial complexes. It was decided between both nations that this information would not to be shared with other, at least not for the time being.

Jean-Luc also wanted access to that information and to more designs. While thanks to being part of the Concordat elite, he was granted access to much of it, he couldn't get access to others as the Canopian protected their advanced automated factory, that apparently was even more advanced than the late SL ones that the VMI and CHI had. Even after negotiating with Emma Centrella and in exchange for sending technicians to help creating a battle-amour factory in Canopus and providing production rights of the Dragonfly MM-3 and 3R, Jean-Luc only got the blueprints and production rights for the Mercury II, but no data on the automated advanced factory . On the plus side, the Canopians also shared the full specs of the Nighthawk Mk.XXII (not the XXI or XXX, the ones with stealth armor, if they had access to it, these were MIM only) in exchange for helping building a factory to produce them.