“Ah swear, Ma’am, we calibrated that laser to a ‘T.’ We follered the manual right down tha line. Ah can show you the pages we follered ta get the job done, an’ that job was done right.”

Mike the mechanic stood at attention, addressing Katarina respectfully in spite of his built-in drawl. Katarina was not impressed.

“You did, hmm? Why did you not verify with the onboard systems that it was complete?”

“Ma’am, we don’t always have access ta the onboard systems. Tommy, here: he was tha one who done reinstalled tha system once’t we had it complete. Ah didn’t stick around ta supervise: Tommy knows his job too well fur me ta be nursemaidin’ him awl tha time. But mebbe ah should’a made sure he had access to your security code ta pull up tha onboard systems. That’d be ma fault, an’ ah take full responsibility fur it.”

Tommy, the techie, seemed to have a harder time with standing at attention than Mike did. He was jittery, rocking back and forth on his heels, trying to keep his eyes forward but failing. When he talked, the gangly young man’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down like a yoyo.

“Aw, shucks, Ma’am: I swear Mike n’ I got it down right. Lemme show you the manual an’ the test results, hey?”

“Alright,” Katarina replied, still trying to maintain her cool, “show me. Then we will compare that to what the onboard systems found, and you will explain the difference to me.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Tommy turned and grabbed up a datapad, setting the 3D image to appear against the closest wall. Dark blue boxes and bright, curvy lines twinkled into sight, with relevant numbers highlighted. Tommy began to explain rather excitedly.

“See, Ma’am, here’s tha spec range for tha calibration, an’ here’s tha line that showed yer laser’s performance again’ it. Ye’ll note on tha timeline that tha lenses wuz way off kilter until we straightened ‘em out. Tha unit musta took a real hard hit last battle ta do that to it. But we got’em squared away.”

Katarina’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “My Mech barely took any damage in that last battle, and none to the right arm. There was no reason for it to be out of adjustment. Where did you get the instructions on how to set the laser?”

“We got’em right hyar, Ma’am.” Mike produced another datapad and turned it on against another wall. The image produced was almost identical to the one from the first datapad, with additional notes associated with spec points. Mike went on in a soothing voice.

“Now, ya see here, where tha settin’s are marked up? These here’r tha adjustments we had ta make on tha lens calibration. See? Ya got a whole sequence o’ data points ta match up with, an’ that’s just what we did. All tha way from point blank range ta three hunred meters out. It’s awl good!”

Katarina reviewed the notes associated with the calibrations, trying to find an error. Then something Mike had just said sunk in. “Three hundred? You tested it out to three hundred meters? What did you do past that?”

Mike shrugged. “T’weren’t nuthin’ more ta do, Ma’am. That there’s yer max range for a Large Pulse Laser.”

Katarina nearly exploded. “YOU IDIOTS!!! This is a CLAN laser, not one of your pitiful Inner Sphere pieces of junk! IT HAS TWICE THE RANGE!”

Mike stood calmly, apparently trying to absorb this new information. Tommy on the other hand looked like he was trying to sink into a workbench to escape Katarina’s wrath. Katarina was beside herself, so furious she could barely talk. Finally Mike spoke.

“We can fix that. Good as new. Ya won’t ever ‘ave another problem outa her, an’ that’s my word.”

Katarina turned back towards them, livid with rage. Just as she was about to cut loose on them again, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning in fury, she was just about to punch whoever it was that dared touch her in a moment like this. Then she saw it was Allen. She opened her mouth to tell him what had just happened, but he put a finger over her lips.

“I heard. Give me two minutes.”

He turned to Mike. “You’ve got it now? You know what the problem is, and how to fix it?”

Mike nodded. “Yessir. It’s a simple fix, an’ we can add it to tha notes fur next time.”

Allen nodded as well. “And you’ll make sure the same notes go on the Medium Pulse Lasers on her mech as well? Those are Clan, too.”

Mike was basically at attention now. “Sir, yessir! It’ll never happen again!”

“Dismissed.”

Mike and Tommy immediately took off for the Mech bay, toolboxes in hand. Allen turned to Katarina and hugged her close.

“I know. It’s infuriating that such an error happened, and it could have cost you dearly in the battle: may have contributed to the mission’s failure, in fact. But now, we need to seek a resolution: not revenge. Mike and Tommy are good, hard workers, and as long as they feel appreciated they will do whatever they can to get the job done. But if you treat them like morons, they will resent you and not work so hard, not care about your concerns. You want them on your side, and you won’t achieve that by calling them names and berating them.

“I know it’s not easy. But these are men who deserve respect, even if they screw up. Label them, and you will get back just what you expect. So trust me on this, okay?”

Katarina sighed and nodded. “In the Clans they would have been demoted to work on vehicles, but I understand what you are saying. Here, you treat people so much better than they do in the Clans. I still need to learn this.”

Allen released her from the hug, smiled at her and kissed her. “You are learning. Kindness is having a good influence on you.”

She returned the kiss and the smile. “It is your love that influences me. But you already know that.”

“Yes, I do.”

* * * * * * * *

“I understand and agree with you about defending Madeline III, but we have some time before O’donnell can return with reinforcements,” Allen explained. “Besides, we had already committed to other operations. Let us take the assignments we signed up for, then return to Madeline III and post watch. We will commit full resources to the protection of the planet.”

Six weeks later, they were on a new planet: Taranis IV, an inhospitable rock, but one apparently rich in resources of crystal. Commander Nelson addressed the company.

“We had a base in the Northern Hemisphere, but had to shut it down for operational concerns. Now we have cause to believe another consortium is about to attempt a salvage mission to recover data and samples we left behind when we abandoned the facility. Obviously, we do not wish for these to fall into a competitor’s hands.”

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Allen nodded. “Understood. We will attempt to remove whatever materials we can as quickly as possible to avoid interference or interception. But you say an unknown dropship has already entered orbit? We’ll have to act fast. Armando, Wanda, Katarina, and Jessica: suit up, and let’s head out.”

Nelson had appointed them a Leopard Class dropship, the Tyrone, to drop them off at the base. He had inquired as to whether they would prefer a “hot drop” or simple landing; Allen pointed out that a simple landing would leave the Tyrone available for them to bring the samples to, whereas otherwise they might be pursued across unknown, hostile terrain. Nelson conceded the point.

They landed half a klick from the base, in the closest open, solid ground available. Jessica was first off the ship, running to get an early start. This made sense: she was in the slowest Mech, and the others would catch up to her easily before they reached the base. Soon they were suited up and ready to go.

“Oh, gee,” Jessica broadcast back, sarcasm virtually dripping from her words: “Falling stars! How pretty!”

Indeed, there were bright streaks of light coming down from the skies directly above them: evidence of another Lance making a hot drop towards the site. They were barely here on time.

Just ahead, Jessica and the rest of the crew could make out the tall dome that had been the biocenter for the base. They made a beeline for it.

Given the roughness of the terrain, they often had to resort to jump jets. The rest of the crew caught up to Jessica as they were about to enter the perimeter of the base. About that time their sensors picked up the approaching units from the other side who had landed just moments ago.

Katarina issued a broadcast on the open channel. “Attention, approaching forces. This is Commander Katarina Hazen of the Andurien Avengers, here representing the Schenectady Materials and Trading Company. We are retrieving company property belonging to Schenectady. You are trespassing, and have no authority to be here. Withdraw, or face the consequences!”

The reply came quickly. “You again? We warned you last time: don’t interfere with us again.

“This is Spectre-1 of Sunspot Strategic. This base has been abandoned, and is rightfully open territory for anyone seeking salvage. We are here on behalf of Outworlds Alliance Mining Consortium, conducting legal operations. Step aside, or you face the consequences.”

Jessica groaned. Their last encounter with Sunspot had nearly resulted in her death, and she was not eager to encounter the Black Knight again. But as she glanced around the base, she reflected that this would be a far easier terrain in which to elude him.

In moments they could see a Karnov transport plane landing on the dome and disgorging troops. They had been notified that one of the data terminals they were requested to retrieve was located there, so apparently the Sunspot crew knew what they were doing as well.

“Not on my watch!” growled Jessica, taking careful aim and firing her LRMs at the now stationary Karnov. Much to her satisfaction, both salvos hit, and the Karnov erupted into flames.

Meantime, Wanda had detected a Pegasus hovercraft approaching one of the other hotspots they had been advised about. “Not today, babe!” She gritted her teeth and jumped to intercept.

Armando was approaching the dome, but until the Karnov was gone he would not be able to land. He stood back and fired his Pulse Lasers at the troops remaining there, knocking one of them down but not killing them. Something weird happened with one of his lasers: a strange color shift, and the beam seemed to bend somehow, missing the target. It concerned him, but he didn’t have time to figure it out as he came under attack.

Lasers fired at him repeatedly, but kept missing him as a target. They, too, seemed to shift in color and direction, fortunately not striking him.

Now Jessica could see the Black Knight approaching. As before, he fired all weapons into the ground except the PPC, which he fired at her. He missed, and Jessica noted an interesting color effect seeming to flame off of the blast. She wondered for a moment if this was some new experimental version of a PPC, but that didn’t make much sense.

“Computer: analysis of beam patterns?” she asked.

“Notice:” replied the computer: “Atmosphere contains large quantities of Argon, Neon and Krypton. These rare gasses are disrupting laser and PPC fire.”

Jessica laughed. Fortunately she had missiles as her primary weapons: the gasses in the atmosphere should not mess with those. She broadcast the notice on the Company channel.

Katarina groaned in exasperation at the news. She would still try firing her lasers, but this was as bad as when her main laser had been screwed up by the techs. Aiming carefully, she found she could still hit targets about half the time.

Wanda was having the same issue; her shots were perhaps 50% effective. It wasn’t enough to do serious damage to the Pegasus hovercraft that had just unloaded troops who ran to retrieve the samples and data center. They were rolling loading equipment to the building: they would retrieve everything in seconds if she couldn’t stop them. She jumped again to get closer…

Armando jumped to the top of the dome, landing amid the debris of the wrecked Karnov. The troops that had been unloaded had just jumped off the dome, so his path seemed clear. He set about opening the top of the dome and pulling out the data center. He ignored the incoming laser fire until a lucky shot tore off one arm, leaving him to catch the data center by one hand. He cussed at that, in his native Spanish.

Once again the Black Knight stepped right into Jessica’s sweet spot, where she could fire everything at once. Fortunately she had enough heat sinks to manage it all, and let loose she did. Long and Short range missiles both battered the Black Night, but he still didn’t go down. Grunting in frustration, she jumped up onto a six-story building to evade that deadly blade.

Katarina was managing to fire on the Black Knight from behind, scoring occasional damage that could add up to what was needed to bring him down. She crossed her fingers and hoped.

Wanda landed beside the Pegasus, firing at point blank range and kicking the hovertank in the side. Still it wasn’t enough, and she could see the loading crew coming back out with the data center and samples on their loader. With her lasers recycling, she was unable to take a second round of shots at them, but ran around to try to stop the loading.

Armando discovered that the lucky shot had taken out more than his arm; it had taken out half his jump jets, making it perilously difficult to jump down from the twelve-story tall dome. In the meantime the jump crew that had just abandoned the top of the dome had seen him and were now working their way back up the dome’s side. He fired down at them but again their armor deflected his shots.

Jessica fired down with her medium lasers and short range missiles, trying to inundate the Black Knight with damage. But the Black Knight kept firing back, occasionally hitting her, and sliced at the building beneath her with his blade. Had the building not been especially reinforced it might have collapsed under her weight as its structure was weakened, but fortunately it was too strong.

Katarina had aimed her jumps towards one of the sites where they had been told a data cache and samples were stored. Now she arrived, quickly opening the pod holding the cache and removing it with one hand while she fired at the Black Knight with the other.

Wanda came around in time to see the loading crew slam the door on the Pegasus, having already loaded their cargo. As the craft began to speed away, she jumped forward and landed a substantial kick on the rear. The rear armor crumpled, the hover fan cracked and came loose and the Pegasus was grounded. She reached into the exposed cargo compartment and pulled out the data cache.

Katarina observed that they now had three of the data caches, and that enemy reinforcements were closing in.

“Avengers, retreat. We’ve got as much as we can carry: we’ll have to leave the rest.”

She vaulted to the top of the building next to Jessica, firing down at the Black Knight and enabling Jessica to jump off in the other direction and begin running for freedom. Wanda and Armando followed suit.

One of Katarina’s shots hit home on the Black Knight’s leg, apparently damaging the hip actuator and slowing him down to half speed. He was the closest pursuer, and they soon outran him on the way back to the Tyrone.

* * * * * * * *

“So? How did we do?” Katarina asked Allen as the crew settled in for a rest.

“Six million C-bills for the recovered data caches and samples, six million more for destroying the Karnov. Apparently that flyer had been a thorn in their sides.”

Katarina smiled. “A nice haul for a little work. And Wanda is doing very well for us. I am gaining confidence in her.”

Allen sighed in relief. “That’s good to know. We need to be a good team.”

“So, what now?”

Allen reflected. “They say they’ve got another mission for us. Some company is trying to establish a new base: they want us to go in and wreck it.”

Katarina shrugged. “Sounds simple enough. I am sure the repair crews will have the armor dents repaired in no time.”

Allen smiled. “I am sure they will.”

* * * * * * * *