TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal
  by Loren L. Coleman
  Only after General Motors contacted Ceres 
  Metals on [Vicore Industries’] behalf was the 
  Capellan company willing to listen to Giovanni’s 
  proposal.
  Excerpted from Vicore Industries’ “Phoenix Report,” 
  1 August 3067
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 2
  Warlock, Capellan Confederation 
  7 April 3065
  Overseer pro-tem Nikolai Kwiatkowski 
  shivered as he charged between 
  buildings, slipping along the icy, un-
  protected walk. Frigid gusts whistled 
  through frost-rimed metal framing, the 
  support structure meant for enclosing 
  ferroglass which was still waiting on 
  delivery three years later. A strong blast 
  of wind blew back his parka’s fur-lined hood 
  and ran cold hands down the back of his neck. 
  Dry snow, as gritty as sand, stung at his eyes. 
  Ducking forward, the large man weathered 
  Warlock’s arctic grip until he finally bulldozed into the rotunda 
  door. The revolving entryway created a thermal lock for the prov-
  ing grounds’ Operations Center. Shrill alarms rang inside this 
  building as well. Nikolai’s thick glasses fogged over and he swiped 
  at them with one hand. Ignoring the elevator, which only seemed 
  to work on alternate weeks anyway, he took the stairs three at a 
  time and arrived gasping for breath with his throat on fire at the 
  second-floor observatory only two minutes after the first perim-
  eter alarm had sounded.
  “What in the Chancellor’s great-and-worthy name is going  
   on here?”
  Not that anyone paid attention. 
  Sirens continued to blare in three discordant tones as technicians 
  pulled out procedural manuals and argued over their instrumenta-
  tion. One man switched his tracking station from direct feed video 
  over to broadband satellite. His female counterpart switched it 
  back. On their shared monitor, the image jumped from the blocky 
  silhouette for a Blackjack OmniMech, rust-red and looking lost 
  against drifted snowbanks and frosted conifers, to a tactical over-
  view of the local taiga. A large, flashing red icon eclipsed one 
  entire corner of the display. Then back to the Blackjack.
  Hùn dàn niŭ-kòu tóu-bù! Bastard button heads! Nikolai reached 
  over to the alarm panel and cleared the annoying sirens. Everyone 
  stopped dead as if he had thrown the master disconnect breaker 
  for their brains. The overseer pro-tem switched the nearby station 
  back to satellite and pointed at the red icon. 
  
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  Art of the Deal • Page 3
  “What is that?” he asked through clenched teeth.
  Jīng-lĭ Fen Xou, the operations manager, bowed perfunctorily. 
  “DropShip,” he said in his usual abrupt manner. 
  “One of ours?” Meaning one belonging to Ceres Metals or the 
  planet’s military garrison.
  Xou shook his head. “Ours would not set off alarms.”
  They could, actually. The southern continent proving grounds 
  were off limits on a live-fire day, such as this day with the BJ2-O 
  undergoing its yearly retrials. But if the approaching vessel was a 
  Capellan flight, it was not even trying to broadcast proper IFF clear-
  ances. With Warlock sitting so close to the Capellan-Federated 
  Suns border, that likely meant a Davion DropShip. 
  Didn’t the FedScum have their hands full enough with their civil 
  war? They had to make Nikolai’s life on this ball of ice more dif-
  ficult?
  Nikolai swallowed dryly. Help, he knew, was at least three 
  hours away at the garrison post of Yumen. Where soldiers of the 
  Confederation were treated to such luxuries as cafeterias, night-
  clubs, and the Canopian pleasure circus currently on-world. Ceres 
  Metals’ usual overseer, Nikolai’s boss, was there as well. No doubt 
  enjoying himself. Which meant that responsibility for this breech 
  would land squarely on Nikolai’s shoulders.
  “We have a visual,” one of the techs called out. 
  Out of reflex, Nikolai looked out the large ferroglass window 
  fronting the room. Snow flurries occasionally pelted the glass, 
  driven horizontally by the sharp, arctic winds. Some of the larger 
  flakes stuck, melting into long runnels that trickled toward the bot-
  tom edge. Visibility was intermittent, up to five hundred meters. 
  Any DropShip visible by the naked eye would be landing right on 
  top of them! 
  He moved to an auxiliary station where the technician had se-
  lected for penetrating radar. The computer painted an amber 
  silhouette over the green-black scope. 
  Spheroid vessel. Military design. 
  Nikolai scrubbed his palms against the side of his trousers, drying 
  away nervous sweat. Running the Blackjack’s retrials by himself 
  should have been another small stepping stone toward advance-
  ment. This was shaping into an administrator’s nightmare.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 4
  Then the computer tagged the vessel as an Intruder—at 3000 
  metric tons one of the smallest spheroid-class assault DropShips 
  one could find.
  “They assault Warlock with that?” he asked aloud. A deter-
  mined band of Capellan space-scouts could hold off any military 
  force arriving in an Intruder. It could not even transport a single 
  BattleMech.
  Correction: it might hold one `Mech if the cargo bay was refitted 
  and you didn’t load too much tonnage in the way of spare parts. 
  Which was apparently the case, Nikolai saw, as a large shadow 
  detached itself from the hovering DropShip and landed under its 
  own jump jet power. The computer was having trouble placing it. 
  Identification jumped back and forth between an old PXH Phoenix 
  Hawk and one of the Confederation’s newer 3L Vindicators.
  “Where did that monster set down?” Nikolai asked sharply. “Is 
  the DropShip landing anything more with it? Where is our garri-
  son support?” 
  These people were not military-trained, and had not responded 
  with good Capellan discipline to the emergency. But they knew 
  how to get data when an oversight manager asked for it.
  “Two hours for Yumen garrison,” Fen Xou reported, answering 
  Nikolai’s last question first.
  “DropShip is standing by. No other forces deployed,” a techni-
  cian at another workstation reported. “Enemy `Mech is within two 
  kilometers of our live fire range.”
  Within two kilometers of Sao-wei Cho Tah Men’s Blackjack, then! 
  “Have Cho move to intercept,” he ordered. Perhaps all was not as 
  dark as he’d feared.
  “We are receiving a transmission from the Intruder.” A commu-
  nications tech held up her hand for attention. “Vessel identifies 
  itself as General Motors Flight One-one-three-eight-special. With…
  with the compliments of Governor Giovanni Estrella De la Sangre.” 
  She frowned. Then, “Message repeats.”
  General Motors? Nikolai sneered. Worse than the enemy, then. It 
  was their competition.
  “Whatever game this Estrella De la…whoever…is playing, I want 
  that BattleMech destroyed. ” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 5
  The BJ2-O was on the grounds for its live fire retrial after all. 
  And bringing the venerable Blackjack design back to the attention 
  of the Confederation Armed Forces, with the military’s recent in-
  fatuation with new technology, could not hurt the reputation of  
  Ceres Metals. 
  Or his own reputation, for that matter. Nikolai suddenly envisioned 
  this as his ticket off Warlock, the frostbitten zhì-chuāng of the St. 
  Ives Commonality. Away from the snow and the icy winds and the 
  long hours spent proving (or finding flaws in) someone else’s de-
  signs. A post on beautiful, warm Capella would not be too much to 
  expect. Even the world of St. Ives itself would be acceptable. With a 
  nice promotion. Surely he could bargain that in as well.
  Dreams which lasted until the Blackjack OmniMech finally made 
  contact with the foreign machine.
  “A Phoenix Hawk,” Sao-wei Cho reported. “The computer cannot 
  fix on the variant, but I recognize its profile. Something different… 
  Tā mā dè! It has reach!”
  Reach? Over the Omni? “What variant is Cho running?” Nikolai 
  asked, moving to the corner of the room where technicians 
  monitored tactical screens, tapping directly into the Blackjack’s 
  systems. 
  “Alternate configuration `C’, with double long-barreled autocannon.”
  A 3D, then? But only a single large laser? “Give me guncam feeds 
  on monitors two and three.”
  New screens winked to life, showing fields of white interrupted 
  by frosted conifers and tall, gangly winter hemlock. The image 
  swung drunkenly as the Blackjack stalked forward, swinging its 
  arms around to the right…in time to catch a blur of highly-pol-
  ished metal erupting through a waist-deep snowbank. 
  A laser mounted on the back of the enemy `Mech’s right arm 
  slashed angrily below the camera’s eye. On the Blackjack’s wire-
  frame schematic, the leg darkened by several shades of gray as 
  armor puddled to the ground. The BattleMech retreated before 
  Cho angled in with his autocannon.
  “Freeze that image and clean it up,” Nikolai ordered. 
  One of the techs did so. It was a Phoenix Hawk, all right. No mis-
  taking the lines. But not a 3D; the armor looked reinforced, and 
  more angular than the traditional design. Wide intake ports on the 
  jump jets. Better weapons, obviously. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 6
  “Upgrades,” he spat the word out with a bad taste. General 
  Motors had been busy, it seemed. It would make the OmniMech’s 
  job harder, but would not make the difference.
  Except that Sao-wei Cho kept reporting a difficulty in acquiring 
  solid target lock. “It keeps ghosting my sensors,” he complained, 
  suffering long-range strikes against his chest, his arms, and then 
  a shoulder-to-shoulder slash that burned deep enough to melt 
  through part of his engine shielding. 
  His return fire was sporadic, and mostly ineffectual. Flechette 
  munitions sanded some armor from the `Hawk’s left side, a bit 
  more from each leg, but more often than not Cho ended up carv-
  ing local conifers into kindling. Usually right behind where the 
  Phoenix Hawk had been standing a moment before.
  Nikolai stabbed angrily at the communications board, opening a 
  direct channel to his test pilot. The officer was lower-grade, it was 
  true, but his performance bordered on the embarrassing. “Quit 
  sniping with that hùn dàn pilot and stand up to him!” It was rare 
  for an administrator to intrude on any live-fire situation, but there 
  was more riding on this than Cho’s reputation alone. “Force him 
  to stand and fight.”
  It was a gamble, playing with a `Hawk that way. Fifty percent 
  faster and sixty meters of greater reach with its jump jets, Nikolai 
  risked letting the redesigned `Mech slip behind Cho where it could 
  do a lot more damage.
  Then again, as the Omni lost more armor from his left leg and 
  lower waist, its rear-facing armor might just be stronger than 
  whatever it had left up front.
  The Phoenix Hawk let him come. It raced onto a dry expanse of 
  hard-packed dirt and loose rock, swept clean of snow by the hard 
  winds, and waited for the Capellan pilot. If Cho expected a great 
  advantage in closing—or any advantage, for that matter—he did 
  not see it. His autocannon continued to miss as often as not, while 
  the Phoenix Hawk struck at him again, and again. One ruby lance 
  cut deep enough to silence one of Cho’s autocannon, halving his 
  effective weaponry. 
  The `Hawk had to be heating up by now, not that General Motors’ 
  MechWarrior ever let on as he continued to fire the `Mech’s large 
  laser with regular accuracy. It sparked a thought that worried at the 
  back of Nikolai’s mind. “Give me a thermal profile of that machine,” 
  he requested, feeling a dead weight settle deep into his gut. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 7
  “It will switch Cho over as well,” Xou started to explain, but the 
  overseer pro-tem cut his manager off with a raised hand. 
  “Just do it!” he yelled as the Blackjack charged forward.
  No, the `Hawk did not appear to be running hot. In fact, its entire 
  heat-dissipation system appeared to be banked toward minimal 
  output. It was a thermal image that Nikolai recognized. So did the 
  computer. Which was why it kept bouncing over to the Vindicator 
  3L variant.
  Stealth armor!
  “Cho! Cho! Break off from that `Hawk.” 
  His order went out a few seconds too late. Medium lasers and 
  machine guns tore at the Blackjack with savage strength. The ruby 
  fury of its large laser slashed hip to shoulder, finishing off the 
  OmniMech’s armor.
  Then another laser lance 
  skewered the Blackjack 
  just to the right of cen-
  terline. This time the 
  enemy pilot found Cho’s 
  ammunition bin for the 
  Blackjack’s 
  autocannon. 
  Lacking cellular ammuni-
  tion storage equipment, 
  which could have chan-
  neled 
  the 
  destructive 
  force out specially-pre-
  pared blast panels, the 
  resulting 
  fireball 
  tore 
  through the OmniMech’s 
  entire 
  chest 
  cavity. 
  Golden fire erupted in a 
  catastrophic failure of the 
  fusion 
  reactor 
  system, 
  and the guncam screens 
  washed to static. 
  For a moment Nikolai thought he had lost his man as well as  
  his machine.
  Then the camera’s eye switched to the safety network built into 
  Cho’s ejection seat. Nikolai watched as the crash couch rocketed 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 8
  up and away from the exploding `Mech, leaving behind a mush-
  rooming cloud which was all that was left of several million C-bills 
  of Capellan state property.
  Likely all that was left of Nikolai’s corporate career as well. He 
  might be leaving Warlock, all right, but as something other than 
  a civilian. Sending Cho in unprepared. Interfering with a live fire-
  fight. The Capellan state did not look kindly on failures of this 
  magnitude. And the military would look for any reason not to 
  blame their own man.
  “Overseer,” the communications technician said quietly, as if 
  worried about disrupting the moment. She tapped the side of her 
  headset. “We have a new transmission from the Intruder. They…they 
  congratulate us on a well-coordinated exercise. And ask if we would 
  like them to pick up our MechWarrior before he freezes to death.”
  Nikolai gripped the sides of the workstation as if his life depend-
  ed on it, propping himself up, unsteady on his own legs. He had 
  been staring at the death of his career. Now he shook himself out 
  of it, his corporate survival instincts kicking in and recognizing 
  that—for whatever reason—a possible lifeline was being thrown 
  to him. 
  By the enemy. The competition.
  What was General Motors up to? 
  This was the most unlikely raid in the history of Warlock, if not 
  the entire Confederation. Was there something larger in play here? 
  He perked up. There just might be a chance to salvage something 
  from the ruins.
  “Yes,” he said, slowly, thinking it out. “Tell them we are happy to 
  have them return our test pilot. And if…” What was the name? “If 
  Gioavanni Estrella De la Sangre has further need of Ceres Metals, 
  then Overseer pro-tem Nikolai Kwiatkowski stands by to receive 
  word.”
  “Governor De la Sangre’s representatives are standing by at your 
  convenience,” the tech said after relaying the overseer’s response. 
  Putting one hand over her wire-mic, she looked askance in his di-
  rection. “Sir, what is this about?”
  “I think,” Nikolai said cautiously, “the most bizarre inter-corpo-
  rate memo ever placed.” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Art of the Deal • Page 9
  Which put Ceres Metals, and Nikolai, in one hell of a bargaining 
  position. Warm offices on Capella might not be in the offing any 
  longer, but neither, he hoped, was a cold cell on Sian. He could get 
  used to life on Warlock. Either way, he decided, after this the job 
  would be one hell of a lot more interesting.
  He just needed to keep his head above water, and one hand in 
  the deal.
  
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