Alys Marik's Ace-in-the-Hole?

[DeJaVu]

WOLVERINE
Type/Model: WVR-9MWolverine
Mass: 55 tons
Chassis: Crucis-A
Power Plant: Nissan 275XL
Walking Speed: 54 km/h
Maximum Speed: 86 km/h
Jump Jets: Northrup 12000
Jump Capacity: 150 meters
Armor Type: Starshield A with CASE
Armament: 1 Fusigon Strongtooth Heavy PPC
1 Guided Technologies 2nd Generation Streak SRM-6
1 Diverse Optics ER Medium Laser
Manufacturer: None
Primary Factory: Field Upgrade
Communications System: Garret T11-b
Targeting & Tracking System: Sync-Tracker


Duchess Alys Rousset-Marik is hiding. I don’t blame her, mind you. I’m hiding from the Word, too, except that I don’t have armies of BattleMechs and mercenary defenders following me around everywhere I go. The Duchess has hit on an idea that I think needs to be spread around, however, and Dale on Thermopolis just sent me the information I needed to complete it. I haven’t heard from her since, but I’m hoping for the best.
The Word of Blake needs a massive factory complex to refit their older ’Mechs into the new and frightening variants they’ve unleashed over the last year. On Augustine and the worlds surrounding it, the Duchess needs much less space. Alys Rousset-Marik uses a mobile refit complex, not a factory.
She uses a DropShip. Several of them, actually, across her area of space.
Reports of an up-gunned Wolverine have been filtering through my files for months, but it wasn’t until Dale got me the specs that I could say for sure that the Free Worlds League Military has finally followed suit with the rest of the Inner Sphere. LCCC transmissions indicate that roughly thirty percent of the extant Wolverines are to be modified to the new -9M configuration, and those units with ties to the Duchess are doing theirs aboard her DropShips.
The –9M is a fairly simple upgrade of the fifteen-year-old -7M that has served the FWLM so ably for more than a decade. The weapons mix is more similar to the old -6R model of my granddad’s day and age, but much more damaging. A powerful Fusigon Strongtooth heavy PPC is mounted on the Wolverine’s right forearm, allowing it to retain the useful hand actuator there. An Irian-licensed Guided Technologies Streak short-range missile rack provides a potent close-in punch, a good weapon to capitalize on the big holes the Fusigon will make in the enemy’s armor. For security, an extended-range laser is also present, but most MechWarriors seems to use it as a last resort. I may be wrong about that, but the maintenance and replacement records I’ve seen indicate that the laser is fired a lot less often than the other weapons, even in simulated combat.
The Combine is looking to support its Komodo anti-battle armor ’Mech with a heavier machine and tapped one of their own new Wolverine variants to do it. This version carries a haphazard load of missiles, machine guns, and a snub-nose PPC that mean that the Wolverine-K will most likely spend its time just shooting whatever weapon is available against whatever target it has. A pair of B-pods also protects this machine’s ankles, but the real danger is beneath the armor. With triple-strength myomers enhancing its physical strength in combat, the Wolverine-K’s sword can easily become the deadliest weapons in this ’Mech’s arsenal.
I know one woman who hopes that its choice targets will be the shifty shapes of Purifier battlesuits.