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As soon as she heard of the deal between Northwind and the Arano-Bassot, Melissa Steiner-Davion always the consummate diplomat, made a "counter" proposal by which the FedCom would pay half the upgrade costs of the Cosara lines in exchange for a preferred status for 25% of its production and 50% of the dockyard against preferential rates for using it.

That proposal was very well accepted by the council of Elders in Northwind and by the administration of Cosara Weaponeries.

After all, why should Melissa and Hanse be preoccupied by the Arano-Bassot deals? They had helped rebuild the Wolf Dragoons, improved the production for St. Ives – a client state at best – and now they were upgrading the factories in Northwind and providing tech support for the construction of a dockyard in a world that belongs to the Federated Commonwealth – at a time that the FedCom had its tech capability fully used on other projects. For the Steiner-Davion this sounded like a good deal.

At least that was the official version but who really knows what is going on behind the scenes?

After a long and tortuous investigation, TMI was reasonably sure that it had discovered who communicated the targets to the 'pirates'.

After providing them with an interesting target - a Leviathan carrying an extremely valuable cargo - the trap was set, and all we had to do was to wait for them to show up.

This time, everything went as TMI had predicted - the pirates, disguised as civilians in one of the DropShips carried by said JumpShip, tried to capture the JumpShip, but instead of a valuable cargo, they found a force of marines equipped with battle armor and PA(L)s. Once the signal was given, the suspected location in Taurus was also stormed by special forces. Said special forces also used in large quantity PA(L)s and some VTOL transported battle-armor that dropped through the roof at the same time. So fast and brutal was the operation that some 'pirates' were captured alive, but unfortunately, their unknown equipment was destroyed, even if some state-of-the-art code-breaking and listening tools from obvious Capellan origin was found. After a 'robust' interrogation (including narco-interrogation), nothing of interest was revealed, except for that it was a classic cell system well compartmentalized, that communicated with others only via coded transmissions, dead drops and other similar means, making it impossible to identify the final destination.

The 'pirates' captured on the JumpShip had with them another prize in their logs, the coordinates of destination, an uninhabited system near the border with the Capellan Confederation.

The coordinates were immediately sent to a task force that was waiting on standby, and that on February 12th​, 3053 entered the system simultaneously at the nadir and zenith jump-points.

At the nadir jump point, the TCS Samantha Calderon a Congress class Frigate, carrying 2 Lee-CV arrived accompanied by 1 Mriya, while at the zenith jump-point, the TCS Cyrton, a Pinto class Corvette, carrying 1 Lee-CV arrived accompanied by 1 Mriya. In both locations, the TDF quickly took control of the JumpShips waiting there , while the DropShips were launched in the direction of the 'pirate' base location.

Unfortunately, a Scout JumpShip was near the base at a pirate point, and before the Taurian DropShips arrive, a DropShip departed from the pirate base and soon after a series of explosions destroyed it. That DropShip successfully docked the Scout JumpShip and departed the system under the impotent but furious Taurian sights.

Their only consolation was that the base had been put out of service. Analysis of the base debris didn't give any usable information.

Only three JumpShips and five DropShips were recovered, the rest according to the surviving "pirates" having been sold or sent away.