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Veni, Vidi, (Re)aedificavi "I Came, I saw, I (Re)built" (A Commissioned Battletech Isekei)

Chapter 46 New
Chapter 46

Surprisingly, Mac didn't wake up blindfolded or restrained. Fortunately, he woke up. Usually, an enemy agent was killed during an infiltration. Mostly because when you were an LIC agent like Mac was, you bit the poison capsul hidden in your teeth to ensure that being taken captive didn't happen.

Unfortunately, Mac used his tongue to probe at his teeth before wincing at the lone spot that was now bare, raw, and seeping tiny amounts of blood from the section where teeth had been violently removed.

Using his fingers, Mac prodded the section where his emergency lockpick and some other tools were located beneath the surface of the skin on his shoulder only to realize that whoever this was, they'd found that as well.

The cell he was in was painted white, and bright white lights shone from an armored glass ceiling. There was an obvious doorway, but not other signs of entry or visibility into the room. Which meant that if Mac were going to try to escape, he was going to have to rely on the human element of his captors. Something that he couldn't work on until he knew exactly who it was that had captured him in the first place.

While Mac sat there in his own thoughts, time seemed to stretch into an eternity and take no time at all. The only sound that existed outside of his own breath and heartbeat was the constant blowing of cold air through the vents that Mac couldn't see.

So. Mac counted his heartbeats, using that and his breath to try and keep a sense of time, to try and figure out how long he was waiting, one, two, three, he blinked and he'd reached two hundred and sixty five.

Eventually, the door slid open, and a pair of men stepped in and moved to grab Mac's arms. The LIC agent didn't fight back. Not yet at least. He needed to gain as much information about this facility as possible to escape.

But, when he tried to gain and attempt to glimpse outside of his cell, a black bag was thrown over his head, and instead of walking him to allow him to get an idea of where they were going, they cuffed his legs and hands together and carried him to the next location.

The bag on his head muffled the sounds that the men made along with blocking out any and all light entry. Which, if Mac were honest, actually felt good compared to the harshness of the white lights of his cell.

Then, he was thrown into what felt like a chair, his arms and legs secured completely, and the bag removed from his head. Blinking rapidly, Mac tried to get his eyes to adjust to the light to see a lone female in the new room with him. The men who had been present before had vanished, leaving him alone with the calm brunette with gray streaks in her hair.

"My name is Doctor Hartford," the woman's eyes didn't show any emotion. "You are going to tell us everything you know. Whether you desire to or not."

Fuck, she was probably one of the people experienced in narcointerrogations. Truth serums didn't really exist, but since the beginning of Humanity's entry into space, various chemical concoctions had been developed and discovered by the various interstellar nations. No two of them were the exact same, but almost all of them had similar results.

Interrogations weren't like what you'd had in the past. After all, torture was unreliable at best, and downright lies at the worst. People would say almost anything to make pain stop. The drug coctails on the other hand. Well, they didn't rely on torture, they instead relied on the basic principles that the human brain worked off of.

Odds were that whoever had captured him had already done a brief profile on him, they'd start with his cover identity, and make sure that everything he said lined up with that, and then they'd slowly move onto the various secrets and his contacts.

Thankfully, the LIC kept things compartmentalized. They wouldn't get everything. But any operations on Kalidasa that were related to the various manufacturers were going to b e compromised.

"You will try to claim that you will not tell me anything," Doctor Hartford was still speaking, and Mac realized he'd screwed up by tuning her out. The enemy often gave information to people they believed were helpless. "But everyone has a point in which they surrender everything that makes them who they are. It is only a matter of time."

She stepped around a table full of syringes and various medical implements, nothing sharp barring the syringes, and the two men who Mac couldn't see were probably still present, just in hiding.

"I would prefer to skip all of the unpleasantness that comes with the implementation of the chemicals," Hartford gave a small smile. "However, if you desire to attempt to withstand what is coming, I will gladly take the opportunity to refine my craft."

"I think we both know how this is going to go down, doc," Mac replied, trying to affect a cocky grin he imagined Snow Fire probably had when she managed to kill a Coordinator. "Let's see just how long it takes to break me, eh?"

"I wish I could claim it is only the male species that partakes in this foolishnes," Hartford sighed, her gray eyes wandering to people who Mac couldn't see with his neck restrained as it was. "But I have encountered just as many women who have acted the same. Oh, well, it matters not. Hold him still, he will need to be unconscious while we administer the IV.

The two men who had vanished stepped back into the light and gripped his shoulders, driving him down to the reclined chair/table, one of them clamped his hand on Mac's neck, immobilizing it as Hartford stabbed a needle into the obvious vein on his neck, a sharp prick and bit of pressure, and Mac knew no more.'







I was supposed to be at a tournament with my fiance and business partner watching Duncan and our other two fighting in the heavyweight championships. Sure, they could be coming with me to the local FWL embassy, but I'd waved them on ahead. I wasn't going to mess up my fiance's vacation with my work. Or at least I was trying not to bring a lot of it with me.

So, instead of going to watch the tournament, I was sitting in the waiting room at the embassy. If this got wrapped up soon enough, I could still get there in time to watch the match. Or at least that was my hope.

"Mister Blaze," a suited man with the FWL symbol pinned to the collar greeted me with a firm handshake. "I'm Michael Reece, the SAFE Liaison here at the Embassy, and I was hoping both you and Sylvie Siler would be here for this meeting."

"Sylvie and my Fiance are at the tournament, one of us needed to be there to showcase our faith in the people and 'mechs we're putting into the Solaris games," I replied, releasing the hand and following the man as he gestured me into his office.

"Fair enough," Reece shrugged. "Please, take a seat."

"What is all of this about?" I asked as soon as I sat down.

"Two weeks ago, someone attempted to sabotage a part of your facility," Michael reached into his desk and brought out a folder that was fairly thick. "It ended in a failure due to SAFE having stationed operatives to prevent espionage once you began working on the Liberator under the direction of the Captain-General."

I opened the folder and began looking through it.

"I recognize this guy, we hired him because he came highly recommended and had passed all of the screenings for both us, SAFE, and the other manufacturers on Kalidasa. I think he worked as a sanitation specialist."

"Well, in the two weeks since we took custody of our saboteur and began interrogating him, he's revealed he had a hand in the original failure of the Liberator, as well as a handful of other minor failures of components or manufacturing lines. With his intelligence, we were able to identify, round up, and eliminate at least one cell of the LIC on Kalidasa," MIchale continued.

"Why am I being told this?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Because if one agent was able to get in, then you need to strengthen your security policies. As such, SAFE is going to be more… Overt in our work on ensuring that your facilities are less susceptible to infiltration. We're also assigning both you and Miss Siler some people who will act as your liaisons with us directly. You'll receive them while you're here on Solaris, and then they'll accompany you and Miss Wright on your trip. She should be familiar with the process as she used to have one that accompanied her until she had finished speaking at the trial of her previous employers."

"Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?" I asked, this was concerning, but it wasn't something I could really work on remotely. I'd have to talk to Sylvie, Rebecca, Eddie, and everyone else to make sure that we all ended up on the same page on future steps.

"Not as such, no," Michael shrugged. "That said, there is one thing that you should know. The Captain-General is taking a particular interest in Siler's Salvage and Assembly now that you've revived his failed project. Your company may see what appears to be a windfall in the near-future if what I hear on the grapevine is true. But be careful of what strings come attached to such things…"

"I'll keep that in mind and relay that information to my business partner," my mouth felt really dry all of a sudden and I needed to swallow. "We'll be careful."

"Take care, mister Blaze," Michael stood and shook my hand again. "Be safe out there, the 'verse doesn't take kindly to people that change up the usual order of things… 'Specially when ripples can affect the entirety of the 'sphere."
 
"Not as such, no," Michael shrugged. "That said, there is one thing that you should know. The Captain-General is taking a particular interest in Siler's Salvage and Assembly now that you've revived his failed project. Your company may see what appears to be a windfall in the near-future if what I hear on the grapevine is true. But be careful of what strings come attached to such things…"

The attention of the head of the Great House on your burgeoning mech company tends to be a pretty good indicator that he's about to get some massive funding sent his way. Maybe they'll waive some paperwork and expedite some legal processes to let him expand his factory more.

Right now he currently has two SecurityMechs (Medium with Phoenix and Assault with Mackie) and two Battlemechs (Light with Mercury, and Medium with Liberator) factory lines up and running, which for a company that was founded less than a decade ago, that's a pretty solid lineup. Right now I think he should pivot back to his two SecurityMech Lines and upgrade them into functional Battlemechs, or look into getting a License for a Battlemech that'll fulfill a role that none of the current mechs can fulfill.

Considering the Federated Commonwealth is going to be a thing really soon, if he could snag a blueprint from them before they start declaring war on the Kapetyn Accord Allies (lol, allies, lmao) that'd be for the best. Like a Dervish (Medium - Missile Boat) from the FedSuns or the Chameleon which is an excellent training mech (Main clients would probably by various military academies)
 
It ended in a failure

The 'a' is unnecessary.

'It ended in failure' is enough.

So the head honcho finds out his pet project wasnt a failure due to incompetence but due to sabotage. Unveiling this discovery alongside a working Liberator design is guaranteed to undo most, if not all, the damage the initial failure caused.

And if the company does succeed and deliver a quality product, they can expect a fully booked decade of orders for Liberator mechs for several premier League units.
 

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