spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale complete

[Cannonshop]

IMHO they should try to "find" some bigger cylon/colonial jump engines and fix up these two Potemkins with them. Transporting 50 dropships in one go right in orbit of a planet is just evil. >:D

They're already buying industrial tooling, they don't need to 'find' one, they need to design one...and then manufacture it.  The bigger and more significant problem isn't moving 50 dropships, it's filling 50 dropships without stripping New Circe of military age personnel.

[EAGLE 7]

Cawest

Have to say I enjoyed the story since you first started.  Thanks on behalf of all the BT junkies in need of some mech combat scenes.

[cawest]

Cawest

Have to say I enjoyed the story since you first started.  Thanks on behalf of all the BT junkies in need of some mech combat scenes.

thank you.  i try to have ones were they make sense. to bad that golden century was not out when i planned this out and did the first two write ups.  i had wanted to do a ground base combat between the SLiE and bandits.   

[glitterboy2098]

IMHO they should try to "find" some bigger cylon/colonial jump engines and fix up these two Potemkins with them. Transporting 50 dropships in one go right in orbit of a planet is just evil. >:D

especially as a stopgap while they set up production of smaller engines to mount on those dropships. once they've gone fully jumpdrive on everything, the potemkins can be turned into resupply ships. 38 kilotons of cargo space each means they'd be able to act as a logistics point for entire fleets. that's a lot of tylium, H2, ammo, and spare parts.

[DOC_Agren]

 Did Callahan Munitions, CEO Francis Harold Callahan ever find out why Robert Copeland wanted owning that much of “his” company?
I know I said

If Copeland buying in, he has a plan

But I'm not sure if I missed something...

[georgiaboy]

Heck, if the docking rings are spaced right, you could put a Behemoth on each.


put factories in each dropship, then all you need are some snowden's in the oort cloud or asteroids. and you are set.

[cawest]

Did Callahan Munitions, CEO Francis Harold Callahan ever find out why Robert Copeland wanted owning that much of “his” company?
I know I saidBut I'm not sure if I missed something...

i can not say with out letting to much out of the bad, just yet.  Sorry. 

[DOC_Agren]

I just wanted to make sure it was not something I missed

[cawest]

Chapter 48

By Cliff
Beta and Clean up:  Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

1 July 3049
Barbados system. 

Robert was tired, almost bone tired.  This Pilgrimage had pushed him in ways that the other missions had not, and right now he felt every day of his age.  He was going to have a hell of a debriefing, when he got back home.  He had been running his jump fighters in his fleet ragged after the carriers had not been needed for the ground missions.  It had not taken them all that long to know that something was going on.  Stuff that was not covered in any briefing reports he had been given when he had left New Circe.  There was a lot of traffic, and some of it flowed through areas that were not too far away from them.  It was way more traffic than should be in this part of space.  Barbados was way off of the normal shipping lanes for the clan and anyone else, for that matter.  When the jump fighters had reported the first convoy of a half a dozen JumpShips.  That had been a concerned, and it was logged into the mission database. 

When a second report had come in a few days later, that those six JumpShips were all Star Lord class vessels.  That had caused a third group of scouts to be sent to that star system.  They quickly reported back that not only were they fully loaded Star Lords, but three of them had what looked like full loads of Overlord-Cs strapped onto their hulls. 

That was distressing for Robert and Jules, and when an intercepted communication had come back that the JumpShips were using Jade Falcons merchant codes.  That had almost caused Robert to pull the plug on his other scouting missions while they were in this part of space.  It was only after they had mapped out a dozen new sightings, that a pattern of ship’s movements was worked out.  The groups of maybe clan ships were bending around this one section of interstellar space.  It was almost like this system was marked like a shallow water or sandbar and was marked as a navigation hazard or something for interstellar craft to avoid. 

While the hidden small jump fighters mapped out the traveling routes.  It was obvious that a major part of the clan was on the move.  In only a few short weeks they had found units from the Wolves, Jaguars, Bears, and Falcons were all already identified by many different jump fighter scouts moving around.  They also had seen a few warships, which were last known to be with the Diamond Sharks and Snow Ravens.  None of the ships had shown obvious battle damage that the scouts could detect.  It was odd, very odd.  One of the good things about the scouting mission, was that in the local area they had found other things of value to the SLiE. 

They had found four damaged Corvette class warships.  That was not a surprise, if you look back on it.  That class of ship had been used for scouting the stars for many centuries.  They were small, relatively cheap to make, and they had been made in numbers measured in the many hundreds in that length of time.  The locations and other major and minor information and notes were taken down, because after all a warship was a warship.  And those types of things did not just grow on trees, not even for the clans.  Robert copied almost all of this information for his own files.  He had the beginnings of an idea, but it was only the start of one.  He was still not sure if it was a good idea or not.  Only hindsight would be the judge of that. 

That was about the only good news.  Well that, and no one was seriously hurt while they were on the Pilgrimage dirtside.  The down note had been about the Egg Sac.  High command had run some computer models, before the Styx had left New Circe.  They had said that the Styx could be attached to the larger ship, and she could bring it back to New Circe decades earlier than had been planned or even hoped for.  That had been the major goals for a few decades of these missions.  The Egg Sac was a very valuable transportation asset, and that did not count the extra dropships that had been attached to her hull. 

When the tug had pushed the smaller Styx into the perfect center between the bow and stern of the Potemkin, everything still looked good.  And it all had been going according to plan, right up until they had run up the test equipment with the real-world data.  Every test they ran for the next few weeks had shown that no matter what they did, or how they move the Tramp around.  The Colonial jump field was going to be short by at least 100 meters from the bow or aft of the larger ship, if they tried to activate it according to the plan that higher command had put together.  No one knew why this was different than what the computer models back home had said, compared to what the test equipment was now showing to their operators.  Robert thought that it might be the dozen damaged dropships attached to the long hull of the transport warship, but he was not sure. 

Robert had to call a major meeting to work out what to do next.  It was during that meeting that one of the engineering staff had dropped a bomb shell, which had both shocked the group and made a few people laugh out loud.  Robert had not been one of them to laugh at the idea that had just been pitched to the group.  The idea had been to leave the old Widowmaker ship behind and take the Smoked Jaguar’s Congress class warship Hunter’s Pride and the Mustang.  The two Congress class warships might be used to keep other ships in the SLDF Navy in operation, or even just using parts from one Congress to get the other one back into operation.  If they went that route?  The rebuilt Congress class ship would not have a Colonial made jump drive, but at least it could move around New Circe and provide some extra fire support in case of an invasion. 

Robert liked the general idea, and after he spent some time thinking about the pros and cons of the base idea.  He had decided that it was a good idea, but he was going to make one little change in the offered plan.  It would have been better if the Whirlwind class Weasel had survived the battle with the clan invasion force.  She already had a few lines in the Remembrance the Wolverines had made and updated as needed.  The Pride did not, and there was another Whirlwind class ship out there just sitting in the cache site. 

After the meeting Robert ordered the tug to push the Egg Sac to about double the safe distance for a “normal” jump drive.  It was very close to the point where the warship had been when they had found it the first time on this run.  It had taken longer to get the Congress class Mustang and the other Whirlwind class ship attached to the hull of the Tramp.  In the end, where they had to make the attachments had blocked two of the three docking collars. 

It had taken about a week to fix the docking collars on the soon to be renamed SLS Weasel II.  But soon they were repaired and now the two liners would have a place to attach for the ride home.  The Mustang collars were also damaged, but more so than the ones on the Whirlwind class vessel.  But as the crews on the Styx had the time, they were going to be working on them also.  You never know when a few more drop collars might turn out to be useful. 

Robert was worried that they were going to be carrying too much mass to move the required distances.  He had known that they would burn threw more fuel carrying the added masses of the “two” warships.  How much more?  Robert did not know, but he didn’t want to run out of fuel on the way home again.  He wanted to do a test jump with the two jump carriers added to this odd mass of moving metal, just to make sure it was possible.  If they ran out of the special Colonial made jump fuel?  That would be the way, that they got word back home for some help to come out to get them.  Robert and Jules already had the plans done from when something like that, had happened to them on that one run back from the Inner Sphere.  They just needed to dust them off and back brief any new members of the command staff. 

The first test Jump for the Styx carrying so much mass would be from the cache site out in deep space to the high orbit point over the planet.  The jump alarm did not sound off and even after a close inspection, it did not show any issues after that move.  Now they could try for a more complicated test jump.  Two days later the empty liners lifted off of the planet and quickly were attached to the mass of life carrying metal.  After the skeleton crews for those dropships were sent back down to the planet, the jump test was rerun. 

Robert was only mildly surprised that everything looked to be okay, and he now had a good plan B.  They did one more short test jump, before coming back to the planet.  After no issues were found on these tests.  The two liners “were aloud” to return to the planet’s surface.  Then the two warships were released into orbit around the planet from the hull of the Tramp.  Thanks to the Colonial made jump drive they did not need to drift that far for the safe use of that system.  This was the time that Robert and most of the other space crews were able to partake in the Pilgrimage.  For the next few days, they would all rotate down to the planet. 

Jules and Robert were on the bridge of the Styx at the same time, both men had gotten back from spending some time ground side three days ago.  They were planning on conducting some training events for the jump ships and jump carriers’ crews.  The pair of officers had noticed that the crews were starting to get a little lax while on duty.  In between words, every eye on the bridge went to one corner of the room at the sound of an alarm. 

“Jump coming in!!!!  120 seconds out!!  It’s right on the Nadir point!!”  It was like a stone had been thrown down a mountain, or someone had just used a hornet’s nest as a football.  Crap just started happening. 


##################

Nadir point

Sun James looked around her own bridge and floated over to one screen, and she looked over the shoulder of the Radar operator.  She had no idea why she was here, but that had been the mission she had been given.  Her people traveled the stars like their ancestors had once traveled the waters of their long forgotten birth planet.  That didn’t mean that they did it at a whim.  But when your clan leader calls you into a private meeting, and she tells you where you are going.  Well you’re going where they had pointed on the star map, with a grin on your face.  Even if it was going to be about as much fun as pulling all of your nose hair out, one hair at a time. 

What Sun did not know, was that thanks to her Inner Sphere designed jump engine.  A Jump fighter was waiting 7 light seconds deeper in space for her to come into this jump point.  It was watching the JumpShip and recording it with all of its passive systems.  When the jump fighter picked up that the jump ship mounted radar was warming up.  It activated Its Colonial made jump drive at its lowest power requirement.  There was a very small chance that the interloper would have noticed the 100ton fighter going into faster than light mode. 

Robert and Jules were looking at the data dump provided by the returning jump fighter.  Robert reached out and hit the pause button on the flow of data.  “I have no idea what class of JumpShip that is, but the paint scheme is pure James’s family.” 

Jules nodded his head and zoomed into the still image of the front of the vessel, and then he slowly started driving the image down the spine of the long vessel.  “That is an old Liberty class ship, and it looks like she has 3 old Manatee’s on her collars.  But the fourth Collar is plated over, and the docking arms are also missing on that one spot.” 

Robert put his hands behind his back.  “Let dirt side know, that our friends are here.”  Robert did not know if he was really thrilled about this part of the mission.  But it was not his call to make.  “Also send a greeting to the James’s family ship, when the time is right.”  The SLDF needed to protect their ability to move small ships faster than light, that let them know things.  All before the “only” light speed restricted systems could do their jobs. 

Before the first message could reach the planet from the jump point.  A small craft was on the way to the Styx from ground side, and it would be carrying the person that had been selected to deal with this.  The Styx would take the small craft and jump to the jump point, as per her orders.  Robert was going to be mainly only a passenger for this next part of the mission.  The modified Tramp class ship jumped to the jump point, when the clock said that the radio greeting should have reached the jump point plus a handful of seconds. 

Sun was a little surprised at the radio message being displayed on her screen.  Then a warning was displayed, that a jump was inbound overwrote the first message.  She was quick on her feet and she realized that she really was going to meet people.  “Alert the passenger docking hatch, we will be having a visitor.  I just hope they are not jerks, and we still have to make the other meeting.” 

##################

Robert and Jules were sitting in a small briefing room on the Styx.  The meeting between the two groups had been held on the newly arrived foreign JumpShip.  There was not any way that SLiE was going to let anyone on a ship with Colonial made AG for any extended length of time, if they could help it.  There were only three people currently in the room, and one of them was very red faced. 

Robert had his work face on, and he was acting in his role as the mission commander.  The person on the other side of the table held a rank that was higher than his on any normal operation.  But right now, Robert held a higher position, and that was in writing with the Lord Protector’s name.  If the mission failed?  It was Robert, which was on the blame line in more than one way.  “So, for some reason the Jarnfolk will not work as the intermediaries?  Query Affirmative.”  Robert’s voice was ice cold as he said each word exactly as he wanted them. 

The Rear Admiral had not been in combat, but he had served in the SLDF for over 40 years.  All of that time had been in support of units at the pointy end of the stick.  He had not been in a combat position since he was 23.  After that, he had been in support of those other combat positions.  His skill in those types of jobs had been the reason, that he had been given the job of working with the Jarnfolk and contacting with the Dark Caste.  Now, it looked like that had not worked out as well as planned.  It was now up to Robert to find a way to fix whatever was broken, but first he had to find out exactly what had happened in a briefing he had not been involved in. 

The Admiral started to bristle, and then he backed down from the very pointed question.  He knew that he had failed in his assigned mission, and he just did not understand why.  “They are not being reasonable!  They are only going to be carrying me and a single dropship a few jumps and back!  It’s not that big of a deal. Query affirmative.” 

Jules’s head had tilted to one side, and his face was anything but still.  He had worked with this man before this mission, and he had talked to people who had worked with him.  His opinion of him had not improved on this run.  “Just what the Frak did you say to them?” 

It only took 30minutes of talking for Robert and Jules to know what had gone wrong.  They kept grilling the senior officer for another 2 hours, for more information and finer details of what happened in the meeting that had gone so badly.  Only later would the two men, in a private meeting would they work out what each had done.  They had a good laugh about how they only were dragging out the meeting, to get back at one of the people that had been a pain in the neck for most of the trip.  Sometimes you have to take what the universe gives you for a little joy. 

###################

Early the next duty shift.

Robert had taken a long-ranged shuttle the SLDF had made sure that he had brought along, for the short distance run over to the older JumpShip design.  As soon as the back briefing had been done, he had sent a short message to the Jarnfolk ship asking for another meeting.  He made sure that he identified himself by name and mission title with his meeting request.  Robert won 10 scrip off Jules when the reply came back to the bridge of the Styx. 

Now Robert was sitting in the very small room on the 45-meter spinning deck built into the hull of the Liberty class ship.  Across from him was sitting a hard face woman.  She had not said a word, as Robert had entered the small room on the spinning deck.  As soon as his butt hit the chair, he started with his prepared statement.  “Thank you for seeing me, Captain Sun of Clan James.”  Robert spent the next few minutes talking about anything and everything, but what the meeting was supposed to be about.  He had taken the time to read up on other dealings with the Jarnfolk while they had been on the way to this star system. 

Sun held up her hand to stop Robert in mid-sentence.  “Finally, someone who has proper manners.  I will talk with you, like one of my clan Commander Copeland.  So as a fellow member of the same family I can tell you.  I was surprised when my leader gave me this mission in a very private meeting.  I was asked by my Family leader to ask about where have you all been, and what have you been up to?”  This was a double question that was common for her people to ask someone.  The Jarnfolk were travelers, and a Jarnfolk officer always wanted to go some were that no other of their kind might have gone. 

Robert tilted his head to one side, and he let a sly smile cross his face.  He made sure that his tone was just the way he wanted it.  He knew that he was going to be playing with fire, but he just could not help himself.  “Oh, we were only fighting killer robot AI’s in the very deep periphery, that is Rimward of Terra.  Other than that?  Nothing much that I can recall, and what about you?  Any jump space monsters, or ships lost in time and space?”  It sounded very blasé to his own ears, and he could not help but feel the smile reach his eyes. 

Sun James just blinked a few times, and she didn’t say anything for a while.  Then a sly smile came to her own face.  “Look if you don’t want to say, that’s fine.  We understand secrecy.  The clans want most of us dead or in one of their ****** castes as well.”  More than a little venom colored her voice, as she took what Robert had said as a joke. 

Robert had his working face back on, and he just let the last statement hang in the air.  “I have a present from my people for you.”  Robert reached down and then passed over a paper wrapped package of a well-known size. 

Sun leaned forward a little and took the package.  In her culture it was rude not to see what had been given to you as a present.  She untied the colored string and the paper fell away.  The black and silver over and under pistol was now fully exposed to everyone in the room.  The Jarnfolk loved sidearms, it was something that was at almost at the genetic level for them.  She found out how to open the breach to the large under bore with very little fumbling of the unfamiliar weapon.  She was looking down the second barrel when the two small ammunition boxes were put on the desk.  “I have never seen anything like this.  Is it any good?” 

Robert had a slightly different look on his face.  “It’s not bad.  The ammunition is a little hot for normal shipboard uses, and it will punch threw most body armor.  The under-barrel fires something like a mini grenade, that will punch threw battle spacesuits.” 

Sun put the weapon to one side of her desk.  “Thank you.  I was told that you might have a gift for my family, if we decide to help you.” 

[cawest]

Robert let a laugh come out.  “You are referring to what was agreed on with our last meeting between our people.  The payment for acting as a go between for another meeting.  I have six old Star League deep space rated space suits.  I also have 4 space suits that are of a new design, that I think you and your people might like also.  Our aerospace fighter jocks love them.  Those 4 are offered as an apology for the earlier miss understanding between our two space faring people.” 

Sun now had a beaming smile on her face.  “I always like dealing with other professionals.  I will pass over our planned course and the location of my next meeting to your staff.  What else do you have to trade?  And what is it going to cost my family?” 

They spent the next few hours on the business of the day.  One of the key reasons that the first meetings had failed, it was that the prime representative for Clan Wolverine had been cheap.  He had not thought to bring the specially made pistol, and he had not wanted to “give” them the space suits.  All of this had been in his briefing package when they left New Circe.  He had thought that he knew the best way for him to get what was needed for the SLDF, as the officer on the spot.  He almost flushed over a hundred years of cooperation right out of the airlock. 

The only break had been when Sun wanted to see these new space suits that Robert had told her about.  She had spent almost all of her life in space, and her people spent more time in space than most others as a general rule.  She could evaluate a space suit faster than most people could figure out that something was a space suit and not some kind of swimming suit.  She was impressed with the suits, after only a few minutes of looking at them.  They were not combat suits, but for any other type of space-based work these would be extremely useful.  She paused long enough, that Robert could see that she had connected the dots about the usefulness of these suits. 

They floated and pulled their way back to the hamster wheel deck, and the pair went back to work.  When this part of the meeting was over.  Robert would be sending over another half dozen of the Colonial made suits, along with all the data he might have that would help the Jarnfolk make more of them.  For this information and extra suits?  They would turn over to Robert, the entire navigation and “story” files that this ship carried.  This ship had been outfitted with an almost complete James’s clan archive, to help them make the long trip somewhat safely. 

In the original plan.  Only the Jarnfolk and one member of the SLiE would have gone any further from this system with the trade items.  But due to the issues that had strained this part of the mission already, a few changes were made.  Robert and Jules decided that they would be accompanying the Jarnfolk, and not riding with them.  They would be taking the Styx, Hard Hat, and the Titan class “dropship”.  Captain Sun James knew that some of the “maybe clan Wolverine” were staying behind.  Her crew had “seen” two warships in orbit over the only habitable rock, trying to hide under tight ECCM.  There also was that large dropship moving around deep in system.  Thor’s systems had only gotten a slight whiff of it a time or three, but nothing solid. 

The now expanded group were only going to make 3 double jumps, so the Tramp was not going to be gone for that long.  At least with the second JumpShip now going with them.  The Jarnfolk ship was not going to have to leave one of the now almost empty Manatee class cargo ships free floating in this system for later return and pick up, just so that it could carry the tug to its new owners. 

#######################

2 double jumps and 12 days later
F3 star system. 

Captain Sun floated over her command chair, like she was some god or angel from one of the old books.  She had been mildly surprised that the Tramp class ship had been able to keep up with her Thor.  She gave herself a mental head shake as she thought about the last few jumps.  No, it had not only been keeping up.  It had been ready for each jump, before her extremely highly trained crew could do the same job.  It was almost like her vessel was slowing the Tramp down, as they moved through interstellar space.  She was about to order the sail deployed, so that her ship could recharge the jump drive and L-F battery banks.  Her mind was more or less jumping to different topics when she had to suddenly focus on protecting her ship. 

“Captain!!!!!  The Styx is launching her Titan!!!” 

Before Sun could do anything.  The Radar operator sounded off from her seat on the other side of the bridge.  “We have two dropships, under power, and an Invader class ship sitting 224 up 76!!!  We have company!!!  And they don’t look friendly!!” 

Sun’s eyes shot up first, before pushing herself to float over to the Radar screen.  She only had 4 modified workmechs on one of the Manatees and exactly zero fighters under her command.  She was about to order all of her people to weapons.  Then her jaw dropped so hard, that she started rotating in zero g.  “Good gods!!!  Look at the g’s they’re pulling!! 

#######################

King Cobra was sitting in the command chair of his Lion.  He was very proud of this ship as he looked around.  It was only a few dozen years old and it was updated to the clan standard model.  The only thing was, that he was board out of his skull.  He had teamed up with another commander of what the Clans called the Bandit Caste.  That one commander had a modified old Star League era Titan assault and fighter carrier under his command, and he also had a very close friend who ran an Invader class JumpShip. 

They were sitting and waiting for a clan cargo JumpShip or small group of them to stop by this system.  The information that they had “bought” from Clan Burrock, had said that this single star system was an identified system, for any of the JumpShips that might have mechanical or other issues that might affect their transit.  At least every few months a “repair” or recovery ship would stop by to help any ships in distress. 

The commander with the Titan would force any JumpShip to remain, and he would handle any fighters or combat dropship that the clan JumpShips might be carrying.  King Cobra’s Lion would attach and take over the JumpShip and attached supply dropships.  His armed personnel living in the infantry bays would be the ones to board and handle any issues on the cargo dropships and civilian designed JumpShip.  He was hoping they would get an Odyssey or a Star Lord, but he was equally worried that they might catch a Comitatus.  The Comitatus and her 20 fighters would make his life very hard.  It was the whole, what does a dog do after it catches the car it was chasing. 

He had been surprised when two JumpShips arrived, but also thankful that the waiting was finally over.  He might have failed out as being a mechwarrior, but by now.  He had proven his command ability half a hundred times against almost every clan touman.  As the two JumpShips appeared, he gave orders for his crew to get to work.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the other bandit commander had reacted just as quickly as he had.  For some reason this surprised KC, but he didn’t give an outward sign of this. 

All KC would need to do for now, is make sure that he was in a blocking position between the two new JumpShips and their ride home.  If things went too far wrong collecting these JumpShips.  He and the JumpShip would leave.  They might or might not come back and check on the Titan.  Those were the breaks for those who called the Bandit Caste home.  KC already had plans to take care of any issues the jumpship’s crew might have about leaving the other dropship behind.  He was pretty sure they were the same plans that the other dropship commander had for him. 

As King Cobra watched, he saw 2 Rogues, 3 Issus, and 2 Gothas as they were leaving the carrier.  They were quickly followed by the Ahab and Tyre class aerospace fighters.  The Tyre was the senior pilot over on the old Titan.  To see her out in space, was a sign that they were serious about taking these prizes.  As his mind worked on that, his heart stopped as the situation changed right before his eyes.  Someone on one of those two JumpShips was on the ball.  Then his blood froze as the computer told him what was coming out to defend the two JumpShips. 

KC eyes went large as 4 Avar and 6 Visigoth class fighters were noted as coming off an oddly modified Titan class ship.  Those were 10 Clan grade Omni fighters.  That was not good, and KC was glad that he had been told to stay back and cover the Invader class ship.  The old Star league Titan he was working with should have been able to pack 18 fighters.  But she was only carrying 10, and one of them was down with a bad life-support system.  The space that had once held those other 8 fighters, had been converted into cargo space and other items to better support those 10 attack craft on the types of missions that the Dark Caste needed doing.  Maybe this new craft had similar modifications done to it.  He knew that half a dozen dropships like that had been “sold” by the Burrocks to “different groups” around clan space. 

Clan Burrock didn’t know it, but they were the largest supplier of space-based assets to the whole Dark Caste.  It was a fine line that they were walking.  The core groups of the Dark Caste had to keep it looking like the Burrock’s were controlling the Caste, when in fact it was the Caste that was using and sucking the Burrocks dry. 

#####################

Fred Hakansson felt the kick of his massive engines as it pushed him out the bay door.  Almost between eye blinks his Visigoth was now in open space.  They were ordered to launch and stay at maximum speed, and to have the battle as far away from the JumpShips as possible.  That was okay with Hakansson, he loved the kick in the base of his spine as his engine went into over thrust.  He was both looking forward and not, about getting Colonial artificial gravity plates fitted onto his craft.  He was told that they would get the same “feel” of acceleration, but they would only get it at the highest thrust levels and even then not as strongly. 

They had pulled his jump engine pod, and the support crews had replaced it with more weapons not long after leaving the Barbados system.  The mission commander was not wanting to risk that technology being leaked to the Clan or other groups.  That just freed up mass for more weapons as far as Fred was concerned.  It didn’t take long for his fighter’s targeting systems to give him a run down on what was threatening his people. 

The 6 Kirghiz jump fighter still did not have their jump engine pods pulled from their hulls.  They were the emergency reaction team for this mission.  If they were needed, they would punch out and cover the jump ships or go get help from the other jump carrier.  All Fred knew, was that it was not his problem to worry about.  This was going to be his first test against human pilots and not Cylons, and he was very excited at the opportunities this gave him. 

Fred could not help but smile as he studied the data coming into his craft.  He could tell that these pilots were failed out Clan Aero pilots just by seeing what they were doing.  They had broken into a cloud of 9 individual craft and they were not working together.  They were not even working as small teams.  They were trying for individual glory, and not war.  With a simple command the Wolverine fighters went into a looser formation, but not as willy-nilly as the caste fighters were. 

#####################

Minuet smiled as the “flight” CAG handed off targets.  Lt Hakansson and his wingman were going to be getting the 90ton Royal Ahab.  She was getting to go after one of the smaller Royal class 40-ton Rogues.  That was going to be a good fight for her 35ton fighter.  She was just glad that the quad pack of Colonial made KEW cannons had been removed from her nose.  While they were great at fighting skeet and making ground attacks against Centurions and human form Cylons.  They were not that effective against “hard” targets.  An LR PPC and two ER Medium lasers, now those were very good weapons at taking on “harder” targets. 

Minuet had to throw her craft into a combination slide slip and barrel roll at very high g’s.  She fired at the same time as she did the maneuver.  Both of her ER mediums missed the Rogue, badly.  They were “technically” within range, but they had only run up her heat levels.  The heavier weapon did smack the Royal tech fighter hard on the nose.  As she brought her light fighter around to line up on the other craft, she looked at her displays projected on her visor.  The targeted pilot had fired both of his Artemis helped LRM 15s at her.  Her last second maneuver had caused all of the 30 long ranged missiles to miss her.  Her updated PPC had blasted a lot of the first-generation Ferro armor off the nose of the enemy craft in her return fire. 

With one last look at her heat gauge, she did some fine adjustment to her targeting of the wildly flying enemy craft.  Suddenly the enemy craft snapped hard over, and Minuet got a good look at the belly of the other craft at very close range.  Without thinking she pulled her main trigger, and just like that the 3 light speed weapons reached out from her craft.  For a brief second, the light energy connected both craft.  It was very brief for the older design, which had not been designed to handle damage at this scale.  About the only thing that Minuet could identify, was one wing with the Box LRM launcher still attached and the odd little aft mounted turret.  The rest of the craft was just a fireball rapidly expanding and cooling in this local area of space. 

Without saying a word, she dropped her madly over heated craft back in formation.  Now she let her wingman take the point position in their combat flight.  While she was cooling down, she would make sure no one tried to get behind her wingman.  She only absently mindedly noted that he was working to line up on the one remaining royal Rogue class fighter.  It would not take long for the heavy energy weapons on his craft to take out this slightly heavier fighter.  That is, if he could ever score a hit on the fraking thing.  No one ever said that the Dark Caste had bad pilots.  They might have bad gunners, but their pilots were not bad at all. 

Just as Minuet’s fighter made it to a heat neutral state.  Her wingman had gotten target focused on the Rogue, and he almost lost his life.  That was when a 40ton full on Clan fighter called an Issus tried to jump him from behind.  The little 40ton clan second line fighter was known to have some issues.  Like packing a pair of very high heat generating clan tech ER large lasers, but not having the needed double heatsinks to use them effectively.  If Minuet did not protect her wingman?  Then those large bore lasers would be backed up with a pair of ER mediums and a streak 6 launcher.  The Avar was a good craft, but that amount of firepower was going to gut her partner’s craft like fresh caught fish at a family reunion’s fish fry. 

All of those thoughts went through her head at the speed of her finger pulling the trigger, and a single bolt of purple energy left the nose of her craft.  It tracked all the way to impact dead onto the thrust bell of the second line clan fighter.  The two red blast that had come from her weapons mounted on the overly long wings shot by over the cockpit of the enemy craft.  The Issus pilot didn’t notice the energy bolts going over her cockpit.  She was too busy trying to kill the fighter currently off her nose.  And then she was focused on trying to punch out of a craft that had a fusion engine and a full tank of fuel trying to kill her.  She failed at both counts, but only after getting two strikes from her large lasers on her target off her nose.  It was just too bad that before she could punch out, her fuel tank and fusion engine went out to lunch at the same time.  There was only enough left of her body to read as “some” organic molecules in the general area. 

#####################

Fred Hakansson was having to work hard to take out the assault mass fighter.  His system said this was not a clan tech updated craft, but an older craft that had survived all of the wars and battles of clan space.  Fred had gotten a little to close and had come within a hair’s breadth of being NARCed for his troubles.  That would have made the twin 20 pack and 6 pack missile launchers a lot more effective.  Lt Hakansson did not have that much of a range advantage over the long shooting 443b.  He had taken hits from just about 100 LRM hits all over his airframe.  His wing man had taken about half that number of missiles hits.  But the hits from three first generation extended range gamma lasers had almost made him lose control of his craft. 

Fred pushed those thoughts out of his mind and lined up for another shot on the heavier fighter.  He knows that there could not be that much armor left on the other fighter, not after what the pair of SLiE pilots had already done to it.  He pushes his clan tech 300xl class engine, and he works on getting in closer into the dog fight with the heavier Ahab.  His wing mounted heavy weapons indicated that they were within range, and he pulled the trigger to the first detent on his stick.  The waste heat washed over him like a hair dryer on a summer’s day in Phoenix. 

The heavy g loading kept him from doing anything but put a thin smile on his face.  Two more of his heavy weapons had hit this target.  One had hit on the thick part of the craft were the left wing met the main body of the fighter and it protected some of the craft’s missile launchers.  The wing lost its structural support and snapped off at the point of his weapons impact.  If they had been fighting in an atmosphere?  That would have been a kill.  In space the loss of a wing was not that much of an issue for the pilot to have to deal with.  The loss of the weapons mounted on that wing would have been more of an impact on the battle. 

What had drawn the smile under over 4 g’s of thrust?  It was the heavy weapon hitting dead center on the hump not far from the wing he had just clipped off the enemy craft.  Fred knew that this was where the engine and fuel tank were situated on this class of airframe.  He just cut back on the engine thrust on his craft, when his HUD showed that the target craft had suddenly had a huge heat bloom.  The IR glow was not that far from where his second Clan grade extended range gamma laser had hit.  A second bloom was picked up that followed the first one in quick succession.  This one came from the front of the craft, and that would be the pilot punching out of his battle-damaged fighter.  The enemy pilot suddenly thinking that dealing with the cold and unforgiving environment of deep space was a lot safer idea, than sticking around inside what was left of his craft. 

Fred Hakansson now takes the time to see what was going on around him.  He was not that surprise to see that “his” carrier was charging into the battle.  His looking around had been in time to see the sixth and last of the 100ton fighters come out of the bottom of the three launching bays of his ride.  There were 5 of the heavy fighters already in a line behind the jump carrier.  That would be the next to last line of defense of the small convoy of JumpShips.  He was okay with that.  After dealing with the Ahab, he was not looking forward to tangling with the other Titan without some heavy support of his own. 

Fred looked a little harder at his screens mounted just below chin level in his cockpit.  He was working out what had happened while he was taking the Ahab to school.  2 of the Avars were out of the battle, one was snapped in half behind the cockpit.  That was bad, and then he noticed that the number of red icons were lower.  Both of the Rogues and two of the Issus were gone, and the third Issus had the last pair of fast Avars on its tail.  One of the 500b’s just winked out on the screen, when the CAG sitting on the Titan sent a signal for him and his wingman.  It was a message of what their next target was going to be.  Fred was not surprised that his next target was the clan tech 55ton Tyre.  It was packing a double fire rate class 10 autocannon, which would be very dangerous to even a dropship.  While he forwards his intentions to his wingman, he was putting the spurs to his craft again.  The huge 300 rated engine red lines and off he went to tangle with another Bandit Caste fighter. 

################

Per Askim was captain of this Titan under the SLDF flag.  She ordered the last of the fighters to launch, and she fired up her main engines.  Her modified Titan was not going to be as fast as the other craft of like parentage.  That is unless the older Star League craft had some unrepaired engine damage the sensors were not picking up.  To add the Colonial made jump engine to her Titan, it had added a lot of mass and the engines had not been changed that much during that refit.  She was betting on that her girl having better armor and weapons than the other Titan class warship.  She would have sent all of her fighters to counter the 2 stars of clan craft.  The mission commander had vetoed that plan, before she could even send it forward.  She would only be allowed to advance into battle, if she left someone behind to keep any leakers from getting her craft and getting to close to the two almost undefended JumpShips.  With a satisfied smile on her face, the assault carrier was about to earn the assault part of her classes name. 

[cawest]

Raptor kept his face still, so that his crew could not tell what was going on in his head.  He had been a great dropship commander, in his eyes.  He had only held that job for a few years, before he started his downward slide.  It didn’t take long for the Jade Falcons to judge him wanting in every way that they measured such things.  He had fallen all the way down the clan ladder, until he had been issued a Mauser and room in a Soma barracks at the edge of a space port.  He had not stayed in that unit for long.  He had come up with a plan and found a few other likeminded people living in the same barracks or close to it.  He smiled as he remembered the radio calls, as he had blasted out of the space station in “his” Titan. 

This enemy ship was going to find out that his ship was fully ready for combat.  He had even been able to update some of the weapons over the last few years.  He had focused on his long reach weapons that were his fighters.  He had plans to use what was recovered from this mission to replace all the older Royal designs for newer “real” clan fighters like the Scytha.  Still two of his ship’s Pontiac 20 autocannons had been replaced with longer shooting and cooler firing second generation Gauss rifles.  Both were in his nose, and they had been credited with a pair of fighter kills already.  The only thing that was bothering him, was that the enemy assault ship was not pulling the power she should.  It was like she was not getting the right power to mass ratio out of the standard rated engines.  After a few heartbeats he just smiled and orders his ship to increase speed.  If a damaged assault ship wanted to come out and cross swords with his magnificent maintain ship.  He was okay with that, and you never know.  He might be able to add a new ship to his fleet.  He knew a shipyard that would do the work for him, for a very good price. 

That smile did not last long.  It took him about 3 minutes for him to understand that he had miss calculated the odds for the battle very badly.  The other Titan might have bad engine damage or engines that needed a lot of work, but there was nothing wrong with its weapons and fire control systems she was packing.  He had just about made it to the edge of effective range of his old generation gamma large lasers.  That was when the other ship had opened fire like a star exploding, and it almost blasted his ship apart under his deck shoes.  He had sailed his great craft right into the heavier guns of a “wounded” enemy, and he had paid the price. 

Raptor had commanded his 12,000ton dropship like it was just an oversized fighter, but that was only out of desperation.  He knew it was more by luck than skill, that his first two gauss rifle shots had hit the brow like bridge that was so well known of this class of vessel.  Those pair of hits had seemed to stun his opponent for a few vital seconds.  Those few seconds had been enough for him to use his ships better acceleration to try to open the distance from this horse with teeth.  He had thought that he was safe, and then the enemy had proved that they were packing a ship load of fully updated clan grade weapons.  He had thought it was a lamb to be taken, but it had proven to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  That was his last thought, as a mix six pack of LR PPCs and Gauss Rifles found their mark and the engine and bridge were hit at the same time. 

Per Askim smiled as the last round cracks the engines on the old Star League age dropship.  She had seen the air, water, and other stuff start to vent out of the bow of the Bandit caste ship as it started to flip out of control.  As she watched the out of control dropship, escape pods started to separate from the wreck.  She almost opened fire again as two small craft came out of the side of the craft that should not have mounted small craft bays.  She had no idea what they were, but they were broadcasting a surrender notice on the radio waves at a fairly high volume as soon as they hit open space.  She knew that this broadcast would not have stopped a clan unit from burning them down.  She had to remind herself, that she was not clan.  She was SLDF, and they would take surrenders from anyone who they had fought with honor.  Even if they were pirates and war criminals, the SLDF would take their surrender.  They might shoot or toss a few of them out of an airlock afterwards, but they would take their surrender. 

####################

Robert folded his arms and just shrugged his shoulders to give a nonverbal response to the look he was being given from Jules.  Finally, he gave a reply, which was more for the benefit of the bridge crew than for his friend.  “If they want to deal with them?  That is their call.  It’s not like we are sharing a common ship, so the security risk is minimal.  At least it is a minimal risk for us.  Query Affirmative.”  And with that one statement any questions of POW’s was handled. 

The JumpShips were getting ready to leave this system for the last set of double jumps.  After the first day.  The rest of the stay in this system had been without issue.  4 of the light Avars aero fighters had made only one pass on the Lion class dropship.  They had not destroyed it, but they had done some damage, and the Lion had scored its own hits on the attacking fighters.  Robert ordered Captain Askim to let the retreating dropship go.  As long as they left this system, that was good enough for Robert and Sun.  It was noted that the Invader class ship had to have been in this system for some time.  In less than ten minutes after docking, both ships were gone from this local area.  So, it must have had a full charge on its jump drive. 

Robert had been invited over to the Thor for a meal, drinks, and update.  Robert was just glad that they had the meal in the gravity deck.  He had reverted to turning off the Colonial deck plating in all areas of the ship for at least 8 hours a day.  That was just so that they would keep their zero g skill sharp, and this was coming into play every time they had a run in with non-Colonial or non-Wolverine forces on this trip.  That command decision had not help with morale of the JumpShip and dropships, but very few actively complained. 

He had been first shown the “survivors” of the attack.  Sun had written a detailed report and passed it along to Robert.  Robert was understanding that this type of report was a requirement, which had been put out by her Family leadership before she had left for this mission.  The report had not covered all of the questions that he had wanted to ask.  But most of those other questions, he could not have asked even if he had unfettered access to the survivors. 

Sun James had contacted the small craft and escape pods.  They had not needed to launch any of the dropships to collect the POWs.  Sun ordered the 2 small craft and the pods to dock with one of the Manatee dropships, the one that was almost empty of cargo.  The Jarnfolk crew was plused up, as the survivors were pulled out of the life pods and the few that had made it to the only small craft the Titan had carried.  Only about half of the dropship’s crew and only 3 of the 10 fighter pilots lived to be recovered, and not one of them held the rank of officer. 

Sun was holding on to a metal bar on one side of the cargo bay, as Robert looked over the small craft.  “So, what is it?”  Robert called over his shoulder as he floated around one of the two craft tied down at the bottom of the cargo bay.  It also held some of the recovered enemy fighter hulks, from this battle.  Still his voice echoed like he was in a massive canyon. 

Sun at first was going to just give a short reply to the question, and then changed her mind.  “I think it’s a Lupus class boarding craft, but it had a lot of SAR modifications done to it.  All we really know, is that it’s based on one of the NL designs the old Star League used.  We did find old and very faded Clan Wolf markings inside one of them.  That is what made me, and a few others think that they are a Clan Wolf design, or they were used by them some time in the past.  The one they used the most was called the Lupus.” 

Robert did a little head nod.  “I can see were these might be useful for your family.  But what about the pirates you recovered?” 

Sun had a beaming smile that had help get her, her given name not long after she had reached puberty.  “Oh, we have done this kind of thing before.  You know Hofn is a planet that is notorious for its bad weather.  We will leave them on the surface for a few weeks, but with enough food and other supplies so that they don’t die.  After that, they are normally very happy to be allowed back into dealing with people on a regular basis.” 

Robert didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut and waited.  He did wonder if something like that would help get more of the human form Cylons to shift over to the SLDF’s point of view.  The hard part would be to make sure that they were sincere about their change of heart.  He spent more time looking at the two odd little small craft, than he did anywhere else on the Jarnfolk ship.  They would be leaving this system early the next shift, so Robert spent his time wisely. 

#####################

58 Light years later. 
2 days later

Zog stood with her arms behind her back and looked out the window into the great abyss.  She had been waiting in this system for a month.  She or one of her fellow group members, had been stopping here for over the past year.  She had read the orders that had her always stopping here for many weeks at a time, with mild annoyance.  It was not a bad system, but with only a marginally habitable planet to call this star home.  It was not prime real estate, even for the clans to claim.  Even with 6 gas giants and 4 super gas giants, it was not that great of a star system for resources.  Every one of the gas planets had between an average set of rings, to a few that had truly impressive sets of rings.  Some that could be seen at the jump point without needing that large of a telescope.  That was not what had Zog’s attention.  As the 110 meter in diameter deck came around again, she saw what was causing her so much mental distress. 

She was a 6th generation member of the Dark Caste.  Her group had set up on a planet, that had been found by chance not long after Operation Klondike had been wrapped up.  It had been her group, that had been the first bandit caste to infiltrate the rest of the clans.  And now they had started to get a steady if thin amount of supplies on a steady basis from those same clans.  Her many great grandparents had made sure.  That when they left the Clans that they were going somewhere, that the clans would have a very hard time finding them again.  So far, they had been successful in hiding their major support base and centers of population.  Now she was wondering if maybe they should cut contacts with this group on any future runs.  The glass in front of her lit up as a door to this office opened behind her and the corridor lights filled the dark room. 

Zog turned to face the man.  “Mr. Copeland, please have a seat.” 

Robert knew that something was up.  They had arrived in this system right on time, and Sun had worked her magic.  Only a half dozen hours after they had arrived, a small craft had left one of the dropships that a huge Star Lord had been carrying.  They had inspected the Hard Hat and just before they left, Robert noticed that one of the inspectors was acting funny.  It was nothing he could put his finger on, but something had changed.  He had been called down not long after the inspection team had first arrived, and he made sure that he was seen.  It was sometime after his arrival that he noticed a subtle shift. 

Robert took his seat and he put his working face on.  “Thank you Captain Zog.  I take it that the tug and her cargos were as agreed on.” 

Zog took her seat and watched the other man.  “Yes, it was, but before we get down to that part of the business between our people.  I have a few questions.  I was one of the people that went over to inspect her.” 

Robert kept his face with the working smile on.  “I thought so.  Were you in the suit with the faded Burrock shoulder flash and the Rank of Star Captain on the helmet, which was only there if you looked at it under the right types of lights?” 

Zog felt her jaw drop, and then she saw the glint in the eyes of the other officer.  Now it was clear that she had been spotted, and that was why she had seen him on the Tug in the first place.  He had wanted her to see him.  That was very smooth.  “I guess I need to work out a way to do that kind of thing, a different way next time.  But yes, that was me, and after checking out the tug.  I spent a lot of time looking at your Tramp. 

She was watching Robert, and she could tell that this man was not going to give anything away if she kept just trying to drop hints.  “I have a little hobby.  And we know that some of the members of a certain, call it a tribe, were not wiped out when some think that the deed was done.  I have studied all of the ships that were in the first Exodus fleet, from the Inner Sphere.  I know that this is not an uncommon past time for people.  I have talked to a lot of others with the same type of hobby, but they were always focused on tracking down the warships.  When I was younger, I did the same thing.  But after my teen years I started looking at the support fleet.” 

She was trying to pick up anything from the other man, but he was a white wall.  He was not giving any clues that she might be getting close to the truth.  “To get to the point.  Do you know how many Tramp class ships left with General K, when he left the house lords behind?” 

Robert could not hide his surprise, but he played it off very well.  “I have no idea.  I would have to assume that it was a lot.  If I remember my history classes correctly?  They were pretty common design, and often seen with the independent units in the SLDF.” 

Zog saw the first crack on the man sitting across from her.  She had to fight to keep her face from giving anything away.  “You would think so, but those types of ships took a lot of enemy weapons fire because of the types of ground units they were known to carry.  Again, to the point.  Not that many, compared to the rest of the fleet.  Do you know what fleet, after the Sea Foxes held the most of the remaining Tramp class ships?” 

She waited until she just could not hold it back.  “Clan Wolverine!  And they had one called the Styx.  The same Styx, that is listed as missing after the No Name war!” 

Robert felt ice flow into his veins, and it leached into his voice.  “Captain Zog, I think that this meeting is over.  I do not have time for people who waste my time.” 

Zog held her hand up.  “Please have a seat Captain. I will drop it, and let’s get back to what others above our paygrades have worked out before.” 

Robert had been already rising from his chair.  He was hoping that he would not have to call in an extraction team or have to shoot his way out of the office.  He looked over one shoulder and try to work out what his next moved should be.  At seeing the sweat on the brow and the distress looked on her face.  Robert retook his seat, but he kept his hand near his holdout pistol and his emergency radio, that were hidden about his person.  Robert tried to put his workface back on, but he had no idea if it was up to the task or not.  He would have been surprised to find out that to Zog.  His face had not changed at all during the whole event. 

Zog was very worried that she had just blown one of the most important missions for her group in the last decade.  “I am sorry, I should not have brought that up in this meeting.”  She shifted gears with the skill expected of someone selected for this important of a mission.  Any race car driver in the world would have loved to have those skills in shifting physical as well as mental gears.  “When it was agreed to years ago.  We were to provide information on the Sassanid class of Battle armor carrier.  We were not able to do that, but we were able to get the plans for the Confederate and Leopard class dropship replacement for all clan ground forces.  They are calling it the Broadsword, and it went into full production in 2979. 

Robert was fighting to keep his breathing under control, he knew about the Sassanid.  SLIC had been tracking it for some time.  One of the things in the reports on that 3,000ton dropship had said that it went into production before 2884.  Still this lance carrier could be a nice addition to his peoples landing forces.  They did not have the need for something that could carry 75 battle armored troops and supporting cargo.  Robert hoped that this would change in the near future, but he was not betting on it.  Robert was almost distracted enough to not hear what Zog was saying next. 

“I was told by my leadership, that if you did not want to cover that part of the trade.  That they would understand.  We do have the manufacturing plans for the two clan light fighters that had been discussed before.”  She looked down at her PADD for a quick second before looking back up.  “They are what the Clanners have been calling the Batu and Sulla.  As a salve to not having the agreed upon dropship.  We will give you all the data we have found on a new assault dropship that the Steal Vipers are working on.” 

She passes over a different PADD to Robert, and Robert gingerly picks up the device.  It held two main data files, each with the name she had just used.  Robert knew that the SLDF already had the 35ton Avar, so another light fighter design was not that great in his book.  He first reads the bluff on the Steel Viper designed 40ton Batu.  He finds that it went into production in 2985, and it was tailored made for interception.  It had a secondary mission of ground attack with 18tons of pod space, which was better than the 14tons that the base Avar had available.  Robert then flipped to the data file on the 45ton Sulla.  He was surprised that it had been made by the Star Adder starting in 2998.  Robert quickly noted that even though it was 10 tons heavier than the Avar, but it only held a half ton more pod space on the base design.  It held more fuel and it was a lot better protected, than the base Avar.  He had no idea if his people would put either design into production or not.  That was something that was well outside of his understanding. 

Robert looked up from the digital pad.  “I think that between the designs of these three craft and the data you have described.  I think that we can agree that your people have met their end of the bargain.  Are you prepared to work out what might be done for the next meeting?  What can we bring to do a high value trade?” 

Now Zog rose from her chair and walked back to the window, to look out into the deep of space.  She always found that looking into the abyss was both relaxing and allowed her to think more clearly.  “I was given a few ideas, but also a warning to pass along to your people.  The clans are on the move, between their space and the Inner Sphere.  I am not talking about just a few ships.  It is a major muscle movement of many different clans, and its being supported by most of the other clans.  We have not seen anything like this in our recorded history.  I know your people and mine have been working together for a long time.” 

She stopped talking for a few long seconds and worked to get her thoughts in order.  “We can get most large aerospace combat support from the Burrocks.  They have been deluding themselves for years, about us.  They think they have been using us, but it has always been the reverse.  What we have a problem with, is getting support craft.  I was told that we can get another dropship design, one more fighter and maybe the plans for one of the main ground based Omnimechs.  We need another tug, and some parts that would draw to much attention to our future plans to get them from Clan space.  If you look at the file that is behind the Batu?  You will see what we need.” 

Robert went to the document and looked at the list.  It was more or less the same as the list that his people had been given for this run.  Robert made a show of slowly “studying” the list.  When he felt that the time was right, he played a card.  “This will be hard, but I think we can do that.  I was told to ask about any updated or improved weapons the clans might be deploying.” 

Zog returned back to her chair and gave a snort, when she was about to put her butt back into the chair.  “The Clanners are working on a lot of different weapons, all of the time.  Our contacts in parts of the Burrocks keep us informed about many different ideas, but the warriors are blocking any new weapons deployments.  They like the rules the way they are.” 

[cawest]

Robert and Zog did a snort at the same time.  She gave Robert a sly smile at hearing the snort come from the man.  “I take it you agree with me, that this makes no sense.  I always want the best weapons to kill those that are trying to kill me and mine.” 

Robert let a real smile come to his face for the first time in his dealings with the Dark Caste.  “That is something that you can rest assured, that I believe in also.  We have our own issues where we live, so we can shoot for another meeting in 7 years from today or according to our back up schedule.  You can always use the Jarnfolk to send us messages.  You know we will make it worthwhile for your people to keep an ear out for us.”  In all of the years of meetings between the Wolverines and Bandit caste only two meetings had been missed.  That was an amazing record, but with the distance involved between these two groups.  It was to be expected that sometimes they would miss meeting up at the edge of nowhere and the back end of beyond. 

This meeting went on for another hour.  It was not the last meeting between these three groups.  While the Jarnfolk ship recharged her jump drive, the three groups would talk and trade data about the different areas of space they had traveled.  But soon it was time to go, now that the engines had been recharged.  Zog and her JumpShip had another mission that they had to complete, before they were heading away from Clan space again. 

Zog was using some Burrock contacts to funnel and support groups, which did not fit in with the rest of the clan established society.  Her ship would pick up some of those people and some needed supplies over the next many months, before heading back to her own hidden home.  She would have added at least two more combat dropships to go with the two mules, Elephant, and Union C she now carried on her ship’s long spine when she was done. 

Sun James was going to leave this system in her modified Liberty class JumpShip Thor.  Not even she knew where they were going to go from this system.  She only knew that she was going to leave on a given date.  This was her first time in this part of space, and she was not going to let this opportunity slip threw her fingers so easily.  When the two “normal” JumpShips left this system, it had left only the JumpShip Styx at the jump point.  She would be leaving as soon as they repaired her jump sail. 


That was not really what was going on.  Jules had a team working on some of the jump sail, so it was not all a deception to be put on for the other ship’s benefit.  It also gave the Styx time to check out the system to make sure that no one had been watching them from the shadows.  When she did leave, she did a maximum distance jump of her Colonial made jump drive.  She ended up in deep space, and they would do the required scans, to make sure that any trackers were taken care of.  None were found, and when the Colonial made jump engine was brought back up.  They jumped into the system that they had been attacked in along with the Thor. 

The Jarnfolk had picked up most of the wreckage and fighter hulks before they had left to make it to the meeting with the Bandit caste.  They had been flying towards the Jarnfolk craft, so it was a simple matter to pick most of them up.  Robert and Jules were not that interested in wrecked third rate aerospace fighters.  Now that the Hard Hat was gone, the Styx had an open spot on her hull.  The Star League in Exile could always use another Titan class hull.  It would take some time to repair all of the damage, but it still would be quicker than building a new hull from scratch. 

It was only twelve hours from the time that the Styx jumped out of the one system that they had the meeting in with the Dark Caste, until they were again back in the Barbados system.  They all were only over the planet for a few hours after reporting the planned meeting between the Jarnfolk, SLiE and Dark Caste had been completed successfully.  It was only long enough for them to check into with the ground teams.  Jules was going to take the jump Titan on a mission, which only he and his daughter knew about.  They would only be gone a day or two, and that was all he would tell his long-time friend about the mission. 

In a little over 27 hours later the jump carrier was back over Barbados.  All Robert knew was that all of the jump locations were not logged into any of the databases on the two ships.  Robert tried one time to corner his friend to find out what he had done and where they had gone.  Jules had replied that it was something that had to be kept secret.  Robert accepted this reply, and he did not push anymore.  Now that all of the meetings outside of the system were done.  They were on a tight timeline, for the rest of the Pilgrimage. 

Without the tug to help move the two hulked warships.  It was up to the skill of the crew of the Styx to get the two damaged warships reattached to the core of the modified Tramp.  It took a lot of time, fuel, and most of all pre-planning on the command staff’s part.  But for once, it was fuel that could be found in this system so that was not a real issue.  They only had two days after all the work was done, for the crew to get dirtside for some last-minute fresh air. 

When the liners lifted off of the planet, for the short burn to the nearby L1 point.  The target for them was at the far end of that L1 point, but it was really only technically still in orbit over the planet.  The Dark Caste and Jarnfolk had not shown for a surprise second meeting.  Robert was not surprised, not with all of the moving around of clan warships and JumpShips that was going on in this whole area of space.  The members of the Dark Caste or other boarder line groups did not live long, if they ran into any members of the warrior caste.  Still it would have been nice to see if they knew, why the clan was expanding into this area.  Robert did not participate in the final Pilgrimage meeting on one of the two liners.  He and Jules were too busy making sure that the last jump, from the last sun, which they would see for weeks, was going to be a safe one. 

When it was time to go.  The two jump carriers moved out and the jump fighters were not that far behind them.  The last man-made object to leave this system was the Tramp and her large attached cargos.  People on the liners settled into having a massive celebration dinner and a round of parties.  It was something that was always done, and the finale for a Pilgrimage. 

####################

8 August 3049
Canopus IV ComStar Compound

This meeting was very important.  It was happening in over a dozen different star systems at the same time, spread out over half of the Inner Sphere.  One of the attendants was from the First Circuit sitting in her office on old Terra.  ROM was pulling out all of the stops for this one meeting, and the man sitting on Canopus thought he knew why.  Things had been happening all along the outer edge of human occupied space.  Now it had gotten the attention of all of the key players within the company, that was more powerful than most of the house lords.  The only thing was that both ROM and the First Circuit did not like change.  The only change they wanted, was what was foretold by the Book of Blake.  Or at least as they had interpreted what he wanted those changes to be. 

Everyone was waiting, as one by one images appeared on everyone else’s screens across over half of human controlled space.  When the last screen went from mostly static, to just a very static filled image it still was a quiet meeting.  In more than a few of those rooms, the anxiety level started to rise as each title was displayed for everyone to see. 

You could not see the faces under the hoods of the white robes displayed on those lines of expensive screens.  The lighting had been set in such a way, so that the speakers would intimidate the lower level functionaries on meetings like this.  The voice that came through all of the speakers on the different worlds left no doubt who was speaking.  “So, what have you found out?” 

The head of ROM on this edge of space spoke from under his own hood and equally dark back drop.  He knew that this question was going to come up, but not that it was going to come up first and from whom.  He had sent dozens of reports, that were covering what he was about to say to a list of the most powerful people within ComStar. 

“Majesty Metals and Manufacturing has been increasing the sale of high-tech weapons to anyone with the cash in the bank or in their pockets to buy them.  It started with one company spreading out a few items, here and there in the Magistacy of Canopus and border regions of other realms.  Somehow this dribble of sanctioned items has increased to a flood.  When we tried to stop one of the key outside sources of those high-tech weapons, the mission failed.  It was tried, twice to stop this one small group from spreading these sanctioned items around this general area of space.  The second time we tried to interdict them.  We landed a full ground combat unit, and it was attacked or more to the point.  They were ambushed by MMM security and mercenary forces that had been waiting for them.” 

The new head of ROM in this area, now was wishing that he had not gotten this latest promotion.  But when your boss is recalled back to the main office for “consultation”?  Someone had to do the work, which was quickly stacking up while he was “being interviewed”.  He was just glad all of the fingerprints connected to this issue were not his.  Still he was only going to cover what had been in those reports.  Some of it he knew was not wholly true.  ROM used the term of “cooking the books” to describe how you adjusted reports like this going to your bosses. 

“I received a report that said, more late Star League era technology was recovered from that last an major attempt than has been released to the press.  Now we think that they were able to recover a lot more than just a few samples of late Star League vintage weapons.  At first, we thought that they had just used this or samples from the one source of updated equipment to repair some of their damaged units.  Now we think that they used some of the “new” items as templates to make more of the higher tech devices, as well as putting recovered items on existing combat units.” 

The head of ROM in the FWL interrupted the lower ranked and much younger counterpart on the rim of his own powerful fiefdom.  “MMM has been supplying the FWL, Capellans and the Mercenary Market with more than just a small trickle of updated machines spread out over a year.  They have been supplying a variety of weapons and finished machines that is well over the normal amount.  That they are known to have been able to manufacture, all in a very short amount of time.  How were they able to put them all into production in that rat hole?” 

ROM of MC waited and took a deep and quiet breath before he finished his “brief” to this group of powerful people.  “I don’t think that they are manufacturing all of them.  There PPC production plant on Canopus has only put out a tenth of their normal output over the last few months.  We think this is due to some equipment issues, that they are keeping very quiet.  It was what I had found out in early June, and that I passed along to Terra that I started connecting the dots.” 

“I have found out, that there is a new and larger supplier of newer weapons helping MMM flood the market.  One of my people found out that they have received maybe as many as 100 ER PPCs.  Each one of those weapons is as good as the H-class weapon that is made on holy Terra.  And we found out that MMM will be getting another shipment.  This one is going to be at least double the size of that last shipment that MMM has received.  Besides that, vague hint.  We do not know what else the next shipment might bring to MMM.  I need to reiterate, that this is a totally new supplier, and not the salvage company that started this ball rolling.” 

The head of ROM in the MC let his shoulders go back a little more than they should have.  “Part of this higher output of weapons and mechs coming from MMM, is our fault.  MMM used the ComStar supplied parts and people, to increase basic chassis production and key spare parts for many of their product lines a few years ago.  Then we helped them set up the whole new Clint battlemech production line, as part of a deal, that I was not brought into.  I assess that when key members of MMM saw how something like that was done.  Then they took that sacred knowledge, and they used it in other areas of the company.” 

A deep voice came from a screen that only held a vague outline of a hood, but maybe a slightly glowing red eye was coming from under the cover.  It was very hard to tell, as the hood shifted to one side and the screen got just a little fuzzier.  The young member of ROM could not help but feel his heart rate jump at the voice coming out of the speaker.  He had no idea who that person was or were Jardine was, but the voice alone was making his blood run cold. 

“And what of word, which has reached my ears, of new King Crabs that are starting to come off of the lines of MMM?  How was that possible?”  The voice didn’t just hold a veiled hint of violence.  It seemed to drip as the words came through the speakers. 

The young man had to lick his lips, so that the sudden dryness would not affect his voice.  “That is one of the issues my teams have been working on.  We first thought that maybe someone had come out from Cosara Weaponries on Northwind.  But there has not been anyone that has set foot on Northwind and come out this far in the last 50 years.  If the information did not come from them, or anyone on Terra?  Then it had to come from someone outside of the usual suspects.  We did find out that the new electronics company making the TT&S for the King Crab, was “loaned” money for the startup of that company.  I was able to pick up and send a communication package and TT&S out to a Com Guard unit I know.  They got back to me a few weeks ago.  They said that it is as good as what comes from the storehouses or from the production lines on Mars.  The same is true of the dropship’s engines, that we have seen.  I expect that soon new Unions, Lions, and Fortress class dropships will be launching, and all of them wholly made by MMM.  I would expect that after they get their legs under them, then even these dropships might end up with updated weapons.”  He knew that he had just walked out on a very thin limb. 

That was like throwing a kid onto the train rails, right in front of the oncoming train.  Even people who play the game at this level.  They can lose control, if they are pushed too hard and too fast.  The top member of the First Circuit of ComStar finally held out a long-fingered hand, and the voices stopped like they had been cut by a guillotine. 

The voice was hard edged, as it addressed the whole meeting.  “The ROM of Magistracy of Canopus would not have brought this up, without having a plan that he would like to advocate for that might mitigate the problems he had pointed out.” 

“Yes, Primus Waterly.  I have an idea that I would need to get high level approval for.  I have the location and some other data for the next transfer of high-tech weapons to MMM.  I think we need a repeat of the Vandenberg White Wings.  I understand that MMM has been heavily invested into this pick up of weapons.  If they lose the cargo, and the payment for that shipment?  That will clip their wings quite nicely.  And with our past connections to them?  They will have to come to us for help, with their hat in hand.  I think we will be able to take over half the company, if not more.  If we can take over this company, on the quiet side?  It would give us the keys and a heavy lever to use on the whole Magistracy of Canopus all in one shot.  When we add that, to what we have developed in the FWL under our guidance.  This would put us in control of a third of explored space, and even maybe a small toehold in the Capellan Confederation as well.” 

The Primus gave an evil laugh that carried to all of the listeners connected to this meeting via faster than light transmissions.  “When Precentor Martial gets back from his little trip.  We can start working that ax.  It will be like what we have been doing in the Combine just before 3039.  This will make the Kapteyn idea work like we had planned in the first place.  Blakes Will be done!!!” 

The HPG live meeting went on for half an hour longer, and it was incredibly expensive for every second it was active.  They were using a lot of dedicated HPGs support, and that amount of usage could not be hidden for long.  Not even ComStar could do something like this, for long or that often and keep it hidden at the same time from all of the intel agencies around the inner sphere.  With the approval of the highest-ranking members in all of ComStar.  The plan was green lighted, and it was even given three times the resources than the whole Tirpitz Affair had been given all of those years before.  Within hours of the meeting ending, huge balls were starting to roll around a goodly sized part of the Inner Sphere.  ComStar started to flex some long hidden muscles. 

####################

Notes:

Egg Sac:  I have to say that it is one of the worst named ships, ever.  Whoever named it should have had their hair removed from their nose, one hair at a time. 

Designs that were picked up.  The Design for the Broadsword class dropship, Batu, and Sulla omnifighters are all older designs.  But they are newer than any of the other SLDF fighters in production on New Circe. 

Meeting with the JarnFolk.  Sun James is a rising star member of the James Family, and she reports only to Alice James.  She has a unique paint job on part of her Liberty class jumpship the Thor.  For this mission it was carrying 3 Manatees (1 mech and 2 cargo), and no 4th collar.  They came straight from the water world of storm-tossed Hofn. 

Bandit Caste attack.  Lion (Clan) Captain King Cobra MechWarrior dropout affiliation unknown, Titan (Star League) Captain Raptor (6 x ac20s, 2x GR in nose, 22xLL, 10xML) with 2x Rogues 133Eb (40tons XL, IS FF, 2xLRM15 artemis IV FCS, 2 MPL), 3 Issus (40tons Clan tech (no DHS) 1x streak SRM6, 1x erSL, 2x erML, 2x erLL), 1 Ahab 443b (90 tons FF, DHS, 1x erLL 2x lrm20, NARC, 2x srm6 2x ML), 1 Tyre (55tons Clan tech 16DHS 1 ulac10, 7MPL, 1erSL), 2 Gotha 500b (60tons 12DHS, LPL, 4xML, 2xLRM15 Artemis fcs), and 2 Lupus small craft.  They are a copy of an old Star League NL-series assault transports.  These had been taken from clan wolf a decade ago. 

SLDF Titan class jump carrier.  6 Kirghiz, 6 Visigoths, 4 Avars, 2 Vipers.  The Vipers are not allowed to be used except under a strict set of rules. 

[Kyryst]

Considering jump drives have mass limits, it might be more strategically viable to recover the corvettes, sooner then larger ships. They are more likely to have usable jump drives that can move the corvettes.

Nice to see them carrying on the Wolverine tradition. Loot everything that isn’t nailed down and whatever you can take that is. LOL.

[glitterboy2098]

Considering jump drives have mass limits, it might be more strategically viable to recover the corvettes, sooner then larger ships. They are more likely to have usable jump drives that can move the corvettes.

Nice to see them carrying on the Wolverine tradition. Loot everything that isn’t nailed down and whatever you can take that is. LOL.

tradeoffs. corvettes might be easily upgradable to use colonial drives.. but their firepower is pretty low, making the result of dubious utility. Whirlwind Destroyer's aren't that much bigger (corvettes run 100K to 300K tons, the Whirlwind is 520K) but it is designed with quite a bit more firepower than most Corvettes.

mind you, i'd have gone for the pair of 760K ton Congress class frigates, but the whirlwinds would leave more room for error.. and possibly a chance to stuff in one or two other small ships along the way back.

that said, i'd probably  make sure i sent several more ships to grab as many as possible.. including Galactica or one of the other really big ships to haul the Potemkin back.

[georgiaboy]

Ah but load the Corvettes with U-LBX Autocannon and use them as AAA platforms. Change up the Shot load of the LBX to a larger round should give better results against the Cylons. ie change from #4 bird shot to #2 game shot in the LBX. bigger but fewer elements in the LBX should damage the Cylon raiders better, or you will have to change over to large and medium pulse lasers which will also require heatsinks.

[cawest]

Chapter 49

By Cliff
Beta and Clean up:  Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

############################

1 Nov 3049
Unknown system on the edge of MC patrolled space
By Hotpoint.

Maureen Farren expected that her second visit to this particularly off-the-grid destination would go in much the same way as the last. Jump in, get hailed by some particularly mysterious people that wanted to exchange cargo in an extremely shady fashion that verged on a cloak-and-dagger operation from a pulp novel and after the cargo was transferred jump back out. 

It therefore came as a big surprise when the Pampanito, her Merchant Class JumpShip, arrived and she found another vessel already there openly waiting for her and which hailed her with the correct pre-arranged introductory code. As it turned out however that was by far the least surprising thing that happened to her all day. 

“What have we got?” Farren asked her sensors and navigation officer. 

“Unidentified JumpShip Ma’am”

“Not close enough to get a good look at her?” Farren queried.

“It’s not that, it’s that I’ve never seen a JumpShip of that class before. Big though, not much shorter than a military Potemkin but it’s a lot skinnier kinda like someone stretched out a Leviathan maybe?”

Farren frowned. “Is her jump sail run out?”

“No. I guess she got here earlier and charged her core before we arrived. She certainly hasn’t got all the docking collars of a Potemkin, no idea why anyone made her so damn long. Biggest gravdeck I’ve ever seen by far too, take a look” he said, sending the image he was looking at on his own video screen over to the main screen on the bridge.

“Wow. Almost looks like something built by aliens” Farren observed humorously.

“Yeah, but at least they haven’t got artificial gravity” the communications officer chipped in from the other side of the bridge, grinning broadly. “We’re being hailed Captain. Voice comms.” he added.

“Let’s hear it” Farren responded as the loudspeakers crackled to life.

“This is Captain Felix Gaeta of the JumpShip Zephyr hailing Captain Farren of the Pampanito. We have the cargo you’re here to collect. With your permission we’ll send over a dropship to offload.”

Farren scratched her nose absent-mindedly, the other Captain’s accent was a little strange but she had heard reasonably similar in the Free Worlds League, particularly when visiting the worlds near Oriente. “Permission granted Captain Gaeta” Farren responded. “If I may say that’s a mighty fine looking ship you have there. What class is it? I’ve never seen one before.”

“It’s actually a Zephyr class, only one was built before the Daussalt-Shimmon shipyards over New Earth were blown all to hell during the First Succession War” the captain of the eponymous vessel replied. “Somehow in all the confusion, and with half the old Terran Hegemony being nuked to oblivion, it ended up in the Periphery” he explained. “I know it’s pretty but let me tell you it’s a bitch to keep running, no replacement parts on the market so you have to custom make everything yourself.”

Farren laughed. “Yeah, that’s one good thing about operating a Merchant Class, buying the spares won’t break the bank” she replied. “You don’t act like the people we traded with before, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Yeah, they’re paranoid until they get to know you. We’ve hauled stuff for them before, I usually follow a trade route way rimward of here but I got offered a premium to do this run and hopefully it’ll turn into a regular contract. Head up here every six months or so, find a free port where I can fill up my cargo hold before I head back and maybe I’ll be able to afford to eat after covering my overheads.”

Captain Farren sighed, yes that was the life of the Captain of an independent cargo JumpShip alright. Just because the ship itself was worth a fortune in C-Bills that didn’t mean you were rich in the sense you lived a life of luxury. “Hopefully we’ll see each other again in a few months then Captain Gaeta, steady work for both of us. I might even buy you dinner if I think you’re looking thin” she joked.

“I might take you up on that Captain, our dropship is on its way, Zephyr out”

############################

Aboard the Zephyr Felix Gaeta turned to his SLDF liaison officer. “Verdict?” he queried.

“Well your English is more than adequate although your accent still needs work” the other officer replied. “I’m pretty sure we can count on the crew of that old tub to spread the word of a one-of-a-kind JumpShip that’s started to haul cargo out of the Deep Periphery. Sailors stories wind their way from bar to bar like drunks.”

Gaeta laughed. “Shouldn’t be too long before the Zephyr is well known enough that we can trade openly with most of the ports in these parts. I guess that orbital shipyard you told me to mention was a real place?”

“Yep. The Mariks hit it first back in 2789, then the Federated Suns totalled what was left” the SLDF officer confirmed. “New Earth in the Tau Ceti system had already been fought over during the Amaris Coup” he said. “The Rimworlders completely devastated the place, mostly out of spite, and later Jerome Blake and his newly acquired goons arrived and hoovered up most of what was left of planetary industry so nobody having records of a new JumpShip prototype shouldn’t provoke too much suspicion” he said. “I mean everything was such a mess back then that entire colonies were forgotten about, like Niops.”

“Good thing that the Zephyr pre-dates gravity plating. It certainly looks a lot more like something that came out of the Inner Sphere than our other big ships” Gaeta noted just before the ship’s sensors sounded an alarm. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know.

The AEW Officer looked up from his screen. “Incoming jump signatures Sir, Kearny-Fuchida type” he reported. “They’re big” he added as the emergence wave continued to expand in size and intensity.

“Has the dropship carrying our cargo delivery already detached?” Gaeta checked.

“Yes. Sir, she’s accelerating towards the Pampanito, underway at standard thrust” 

“Damn” Gaeta said under his breath. “Recall her” he ordered, wishing not for the first time that spaceships could just stop in their tracks. Unfortunately momentum was not to be ignored. “Launch the ready Raptor according to protocol, have them conduct their jump with us between them and the civilian JumpShip.”

“Right away Sir”

Gaeta turned towards his SLDF liaison. “Any ideas who our new guests are?”

“Well whoever it is at least they’re not Cylons” the officer replied. “Out here I’d guess pirates, they might have been tracking the Pampanito, or maybe someone aboard tipped them off.”

The AEW officer stared at his screen and blinked. “They’ve arrived. And I don’t think they’re pirates.”

“What have we got?” Gaeta wanted to know.

“Three warships, the tactical computer is identifying one as a Lola III Class destroyer, it cannot identify the other two. I’m not receiving any IFF signal from them.”

“Frak me sideways” Gaeta swore. “Since when were there warships around here?” he asked the SLDF liaison.

“As far as I know there haven’t been any since the early years of the Second Succession War before they were all used up, I mean not counting the times the Rickenbacker came up here to escort supply runs” the officer replied. “According to intelligence the only people that might still have warships in the Inner Sphere are…” he trailed off. “Okay, if it’s them they’re a long way from home but I think we may be about to get our ass kicked by Jerome Blake’s weirdo fan club” he theorised. “So… did anybody not pay their telephone bill?” he asked wryly.

“Spool up the FTL” Gaeta ordered.

“It’s completely powered down” the officer sat at the helm noted. “That will take us twenty minutes Sir” he added with obvious disquiet at being stuck there. You couldn’t keep an FTL spun up ready to jump continually, especially a civilian one as mounted on the Zephyr which wasn’t as sturdy as the military version, it would strain the drive leading to eventual failure. Standard-operating procedure if you had several Raptors or jumpfighters aboard was to keep one of them with an FTL spooled up and ready just in case, rotating which one that was every hour or so.

“I know, helm” Gaeta replied flatly. “And if we’re still alive in twenty minutes we’ll be grateful we started now.”

“Sir. The Captain of the Pampanito is on the horn and she’s freaking the hell out” the comms officer informed Gaeta.

The liaison chuckled mirthlessly to himself. “Tell her if they want her to change her data plan to what they say is a better tariff just to sign whatever they want” he advised sardonically as the three as-yet-unidentified warships swung around in their direction, directional thrusters flaring.

############################

Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three – Com Guard First Fleet

ComStar proudly boasted the most powerful navy in the Inner Sphere. Or at least they would boast about it if its very existence wasn’t a closely kept secret. With over two dozen warships in service, ranging in size from corvettes all the way up to battlecruisers, the sheer firepower available to ComStar was unparalleled, particularly when you considered that nobody else had any warships at all.

In reality this situation caused something of a problem for the naval arm of the Com Guard when it came to procurement. While they could obtain funding to build their Faslane Class yardships, justified in large part in order to assist the ComStar Explorer Corps in their long-range operations outside the Inner Sphere, trying to get the First Circuit to agree to divert funds to actual warship construction was often stymied by the question ‘What do you need them for exactly?’

In the early years of ComStar the answer had been simple, ‘In case Kerensky’s people return with their warships’ but that argument had lost its impact in the decades, then centuries, since the bulk of the SLDF set off in the rough direction of the galactic core never to be seen again.

For a while those seeking greater funding for the fleet attempted to spin the fleeting appearance of the so-called Minnesota Tribe as a means to loosen the purse strings, but even they were regarded as a mysteriously interesting quirk of history by the early thirty-first century.

Most of the fleet were therefore centuries-old SLDF relics, with the notable exception being the Dante Class Frigates which had been designed and built from scratch by ComStar. The first coming off the slips in 2941. The Dante was an excellent design, one better suited for the likely opponents it would face than the older vessels it joined in service. Com Guard had wanted at least a dozen, in the end it only got three before the C-Bills dried up again.

Opportunities to flex their military muscle were vanishingly rare. Even seventy years later the surviving veterans of the operation which came to be known as the Tripitz Affair in the Inner Sphere still managed to get drinks bought for them at bars frequented by the fleet because they had actually seen action under the ComStar banner. In large part this was the reason the fleet embraced the current mission so enthusiastically, not only could they demonstrate to the First Circuit what they could do, it represented one of the few opportunities to do anything at all.

The flagship of the mission was the Lola III Class vessel Divine Wisdom which launched its single squadron of some six aerospace fighters. Massing some 678,000 tons it was the largest of the three vessels now bearing down on the two civilian jumpships which had rendezvoused near Magistracy space, although not the most heavily armed. Her companions were both of the Dante Class, these being the Montpellier and the Bordeaux and as they went they both began to launch their own complements of aerospace fighters, some twelve each.

It was all very much like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but with luck a good effective showing of the Dante’s that demonstrated their capabilities practically might lead to them being put back in production, the fleet leadership hoped. There were already plans underway to surreptitiously hint that a few of the older SLDF warships were run down and would need replacement sooner or later. Why not do it sooner while they were still fit enough to be mothballed for emergency use rather than fit only for the scrapyard?

They could have just simply blasted the JumpShips from extreme range but that would have robbed Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three of the opportunity to obtain some really good up-close and detailed recordings of the action. Divine Wisdom, Montpellier and Bordeaux had orders to collect as much exciting video as they could of the mission although if the targets made to jump away they should cripple them immediately.

############################

Captain Maureen Farren over on the Pampanito would have loved to run away but her ship had only just arrived and lacking the fancy Lithium-Fusion batteries you typically only found on warships she was stuck until she could recharge her jump core, and that took days.

Whoever these warships belonged to they hadn’t tried talking and they weren’t responding to hails.

“Okay so I think I’m gonna die and I don’t know why” Farren said to herself fatalistically.

“We’ve got another emergence wave Boss” her navigator and sensor officer reported.

“Let me guess. It’s the undead spirit of Stefan Amaris risen up from the depths of hell and here to kill us personally” Farren replied sardonically.

“Dunno, does he ride what I think is a Riga II Class destroyer?”

Farren rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Jesus. You don’t see a single warship your whole life and then four come along at once” she muttered.

“We’re picking up a wide-band transmission from the new ship to the other warships, unencrypted” comms announced. “Putting it on loudspeaker.”

[cawest]

“I could try and say this more diplomatically but let me be absolutely clear. The first one of you ****** that opens fire gets my boot up their ass” the accent of the man talking sounded a little like Rasalhague mixed with Hegemony English.

Farren blinked. “What the ****** is going on?!” she asked of a largely indifferent universe as the latest warship to arrive seemed to be moving to intercept the others, launching its own fighters as it came.

The captains of the three Com Guard vessels would have dearly loved to know what was going on too. Felix Gaeta on the Zephyr had some idea at least, the Raptor he had sent off to summon his escort arrived back just before the SLS Yukon.

############################

SLS Yukon – Wishing that SLS Rickenbacker was here instead

Captain Walter Mroczkiewiz sometimes regretted the sheer utility of his ship. It mounted enough naval grade weaponry to readily hammer Cylon Basestars into the ground in a major fleet action, it carried enough aerospace fighters to ruin the day of a whole heap of Raider squadrons and most recently the Cylon-tech upgrades to her Colonial jump drive meant that she could safely jump further and more frequently than the rest of the fleet while burning less precious tylium in the process too.

Even when the engineers eventually got around to upgrading the drives on the battleships Bismark and Zughoffer Weir, the addition of Cylon tech could triple how far you could get on a metaphorical tank of gas, it was still going to be less extravagant in resources to dispatch Yukon so Mroczkiewiz fully expected the rest of his career aboard to be charging around the galaxy arriving just in the nick of time like the frakking US Cavalry.

The end result of all her inherent advantages was that any time there was some kind of perceived problem or job to do the solution all too often was “Send Yukon to sort it out”.

A few years ago the time taken for Yukon to reach Magistracy territory from New Circe, in order to act as an escort to the Zephyr, would have been unfathomable. Even at a leisurely three 30LY FTL jumps per day, one at the end of each duty shift so everyone got a chance to sleep, you could make the journey in less than three weeks. If nothing else it shifted your perspective of how far away the Clans were, Strana Mechty was no longer a couple of years away but a couple of months.

If the Lord Protector ever decided to make the Kerensky Cluster glow in the dark Mroczkiewiz strongly suspected that Yukon would be handed the job.  Well unless they perfected the Long-Jump drive, in which case Strana Mechty would be only weeks away for any of the warships of Clan Wolverine in which case the mighty Zug might get the job instead. It could carry as many fighters and more cargo.

This time however Yukon had likely bitten off a lot more than it could chew. While the first batch of the Riga Class had been line warships, designed to slug it out with other capital vessels, the so-called Riga II’s like Yukon had scaled back on the Naval Lasers and NPPC’s in favor of carrying a lot more fighters. A partial conversion to match that of the Clan refit Riga’s known as the York Class added even more fighters but no more capital ship grade weaponry. The myriad LRPPC’s, medium pulse lasers, anti-missile systems and LB-X UAC’s Yukon now boasted for point-defense were pure murder against Raider swarms but they weren’t nearly punchy enough to help take on a Lola III, or likely whatever the hell those other two warships were.

On the plus side the fifty Kirghiz and Visigoths that had been launching from her fighter bays were going to eat the Rapiers and Spads the opposition seemed to be using, even if they were the SLDF Royal version. Clantech with a few special Wolverine upgrades was well ahead of anything even the Star League employed at its height and it was unlikely the opposition had heavily genetically-engineered pilots all with plenty of combat experience.

Those new model warships were sure disquieting though. If someone was building new capital ships then they had an awful lot of military-orientated industrial production at their back.

Of all the times for Rickenbacker to not be around after all those years it had carried the role of the ship which flew the flag of New Circe, albeit secretly of course, up here in the Inner Sphere. Well sort-of secretly anyway, the ‘Black Lion of Merope’ wasn’t exactly unknown, just unexplained.

“Transmission from the Lola III, text only. They want to know who we are and are ordering us to stand down Sir” the Comms officer reported.

“Tell them to identify themselves first” Mroczkiewiz ordered. He needed to stall here to give the Zephyr enough time to retrieve their dropship and jump away.

“Lola III replies that we are outnumbered three-to-one, this is not a fair fight.”

Mroczkiewiz smirked. “Tell them that we concur with their assessment and are magnanimously willing to delay initiating combat until they can obtain sufficient reinforcements” he responded, I always wanted to use that line he thought to himself happily.

“Signal incoming from the Zephyr, Wolverine codebook with added Colonial encryption. Their FTL is spooling up but it will be some time before they can jump to safety.”

“And the good news keeps right on coming. I doubt we can stall very long, if they weren’t so surprised to see us they’d be shooting already” Mroczkiewiz surmised.

############################

Expeditionary Squadron Gamma-Three – ComGuard First Fleet

“Does anyone else think that the First Circuit knew more that they told us?” a junior officer suggested. “I mean they only sent fighters to deal with the Tripitz, is this the reason why they sent three warships out this time?”

“It is not our place to ask such questions Adept” the Demi-Precentor in command responded sharply. Himself inwardly wondering if the story he had been told by the commander of the First Fleet regarding wanting to get more of the Dante Class was just a cover. ComStar was hardly an open organization, even internally it was secretive as hell.

However, since ROM was the finest intelligence agency in the Inner Sphere, and the Primus and First Circuit were the unparalleled political intellects of our time, the people at the top must have been aware of this rogue warship. The mission brief to destroy the ERPPC shipment was therefore merely a cover, the Demi-Precentor reasoned. If they hadn’t wanted him to destroy this unidentified Riga they were have surely given instructions to ‘take prisoners’ rather than giving express orders to ‘take no prisoners’.

“Prepare to open fire on the Riga on my command, have Montpellier add her weight of fire to ours against the enemy warship and instruct Bordeaux to first disable the engines and jump cores of the enemy transports to prevent their possible escape before engaging the Riga II” he ordered.

Although outnumbered his aerospace fighters should be enough to hold off their opposite numbers long enough that they couldn’t effectively interfere in the warship fight, especially if he softened them up with a few anti-fighter missiles. “Target the enemy fighters with missiles. We’ll volley them off first and then get to work on the Riga” he said, fully confident of what the outcome of this battle would be now that he had decided to initiate it. “Missiles away!” he ordered in what he hoped was his most commanding tone of voice.

############################

SLS Yukon – Now too busy to wish the SLS Rickenbacker was here instead

‘Detecting multiple missile launches from the Lola III, none from the unknown warship types’ the tactical officer reported. “Looks like Barracudas and White Sharks.”

Mroczkiewiz nodded, standard armament for a Lola III. The class lacked fighter-scale weaponry to deal with threats smaller than another warship so it used anti-fighter missiles instead. “Missiles closing on our fighter screen.”

“Not exactly like facing a missile barrage from a couple of Basestars is it Sir, Query Negative?”

“Negative” Mroczkiewiz confirmed as the missiles closed on his Kirghiz and Visigoth squadrons that were heading towards them, engine thrust well below maximum acceleration so the opposition would not know their capabilities.

Being hit by a Barracuda was like getting clobbered by a class twenty autocannon, not something you wanted to happen in an aerospace fighter. The White Shark carried an even more powerful warhead but the guidance system wasn’t nearly as good so missile aficionados often argued as to which was the superior weaponry.

It was someone’s abstract debate in the current circumstances because as soon as they were close enough Laser-Anti-Missile-Systems on the SLDF fighters effortlessly shot them all down.

The Com Guard aerospace pilots had just enough time to be more than mildly confused by what they had just witnessed before they ran head-long into a return volley of Colonial-designed Lightning-Javelin Missiles that completely ignored their Electronic Counter Measures and could turn tighter than they could.

The warhead on a Lightning-Javelin was pitiful compared to that of a Barracuda, or especially a White Shark, but a hit with a small laser is better than an outright miss with a PPC.

The pilots of the Com Guard Rapiers and Spads shook off the hits they took, few had suffered more than minor damage by the strange missiles that struck them, but then things got very much worse when they got lit up by some new kind of particle-projector-cannons that hit harder and started hitting further away than anything they had ever encountered in the very worst scenarios played out in the fighter simulators they had trained in.

Naturally once the Naval Lasers and NPPC’s on the warships opened up the officers on the Com Guard warships largely ignored what was happening to their fighter squadrons, there were bigger things transpiring, but to the poor sons-of-bitches in the Spads being hit by LRPPC’s that was by far the most important thing going on in their severely curtailed lives.

Yukon could not possibly take on three warships alone so the orders were for the Kirghiz squadrons to blast straight through the enemy fighters, literally in some cases as they opened up with everything they had going past, and start hitting the closest warship as hard as they could while the Visigoths dealt with the Rapiers and Spads.

With the closest warship being one of the previously unencountered type the Kirghiz wondered what to expect and to their annoyance they soon learned that unlike the Lola III these new warships were equipped with an impressive array of anti-fighter-defenses including literally dozens of pulse-lasers and a surprisingly large number of LRM batteries. The Laser AMS fitted on the Kirghiz could shoot down a lot of LRM’s, but was not guaranteed to get nearly all of them, and the pulse laser batteries forced the fighters to keep their distance and plink with LRPPC’s only.

Quickly the order came to go hammer the Lola III instead where they should be able to achieve better results. They did at least get close enough to the new warships to determine their weapon complement and lay-out concluding that they were actually quite well suited for fighting Cylons oddly enough.

“If we live through this I’m going to request a couple of Heavy Naval PPC’s from Zug, they gave a few of them to Galactica” Captain Mroczkiewiz declared as the enemy naval lasers and autocannons pulverized his poor ship. Yukon’s own batteries were returning fire but she was extremely outgunned in this engagement. “No, scratch that, I want Enhanced Heavy Naval PPC’s” he corrected himself.

“Jumpship Pampanito is dead in space and venting air, jump drive and thrusters knocked out. Zephyr has also been hit several times, her FTL is still operational, weapons fire on both vessels has ceased” the tactical officer reported. “Guess the enemy assumed that Zephyr had a standard jump core too.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption on their part” Mroczkiewiz responded. “Are the Raptors ready?”

“Yes Sir we have two unmanned Raptors with nuclear strike packages launched and ready to go. Autopilots and FTL’s programmed”

Mroczkiewiz frowned, orders were to avoid using colonial drive systems when possible for fear of revealing the existing technology to the Inner Sphere. A Raptor could jump in right next to an enemy warship and blow it all to hell but if a craft that small was seen making a jump… “Screw it! Tell the Kirghiz squadrons to break away from the Lola, let’s nuke the frakker” he decided as yet another salvo of naval autocannon against the hull stripped away more armor and rattled the 600,000 ton warship.

“What about the other warships Sir”

“Hold on that, the close-in weaponry on those things might take out a Raptor that appears next to them” Mroczkiewiz responded. “We might need to soften it up first” he added. Even Cylon FTL’s weren’t accurate enough to jump you close enough to reach out and touch another ship so with the even less precise Colonial drives you had to jump as close as possible then kamikaze in.

Nuclear weapons were truly powerful but in a vacuum you really needed a contact detonation to get the full benefit of one. If you managed a contact detonation however it would potentially send pieces of ship in all directions, like enormous shrapnel, which was why you wanted to be nowhere near such an event.

“Kirghiz squadrons are clear.”

“Do it” Mroczkiewiz ordered.

############################

Aboard the Divine Wisdom the Demi-Precentor and his bridge crew had just enough time to register the flash of light half a kilometer to starboard before the fighter-sized craft which had suddenly popped into existence there took a sharp turn towards their ship and accelerated right at them.

The much brighter flash that occurred shortly thereafter only briefly held their attention as a hole considerably bigger than a Union dropship was blown through her, triggering a wave of secondary explosions right along her hull and venting a tornado of gas, debris and crew into space.

“Zephyr reports that her FTL is spooled up and ready, requesting permission to jump out. Her airlocks and bulkheads are holding but she’ll definitely need serious time in the yard.”

“Tell her to jump away” Mroczkiewiz responded, heralding another large bright flash in space, this time non-nuclear, as Zephyr engaged her FTL drive. “Status of our own FTL?”

“Incoming enemy fire has knocked the synchronization coil out of alignment. Engineering is trying to get it running again.”

Mroczkiewiz only had a vague idea what that actually meant but trusted that his engineering team were considerably better informed on the matter.

“Enemy Naval Lasers have just knocked out two of ours and one of our NPPC’s Sir”

“Looks like Zephyr won’t be the only ship that’ll be spending plenty of time in the yard” Mroczkiewiz wryly observed.

“Well our squadrons are winning the dogfight at least” one of the junior officers said brightly. The casualty ratio there was skewed very heavily in favor of the SLDF-in-Exile judging by the incoming data arriving on the bridge.

Mroczkiewiz sighed. On the plus side his Kirghiz and Visigoth fighters had jump drives of their own so if Yukon went down they wouldn’t be stranded.

“We’re picking up an incoming jump signature. Emergence wave says it’s a K-F type drive”

Not the Zephyr coming back then, Mroczkiewiz thought to himself, though why would they?

[cawest]

“We have another warship arriving, edge of the battlespace, no IFF, computer indicates another Lola” the tactical officer inform the bridge.

“Right. Let’s nuke this one too then” Mroczkiewiz said decisively.

“Computer is updating analysis, ship is heavily modified, OH HELL YEAH!” the tactical officer suddenly exclaimed. “Lola II hull, modified M5 Caspar design… it’s Nike!”

Mroczkiewiz suppressed the wave of elation that ran through him, a ship’s Captain needed to maintain at least a little decorum. “Send Captain Gibson my complements by encrypted tightbeam and request that he gets his pet AI to stomp all over the people presently trying to kill us forthwith.”

############################

SLS Nike – AKA “The Daemon”, “The Caspar with the Bondcord”

“I’m not your frakking pet” the holographic representation of Nike’s persona growled. “You and the rest of the crew are essentially ballast” the AI complained as the ships bow swung around towards the enemy.

“Behave” Captain Alan Gibson; former fighter-pilot turned ship’s captain, Nike’s bondholder and occasional conscience (devil or angel on her metaphorical and/or holographic shoulders, depending on circumstance) chided. “Any ID on those warships?”

“Nope” the tactical officer replied, Nike shaking her head to indicate it was a mystery to her as well.

“I guess it doesn’t matter. Scramble fighters to support the Yukon’s airwing and then go kill them” Gibson ordered.

In her original configuration the Caspar designated TQF 162M5D had carried drones. Now her aerospace fighter complement was a mix of Avars, Visigoths and a pair of Kirghiz all equipped with cutting-edge weaponry that her drones could not have matched, not to mention miniature jump drives. They were certainly more capable than the drones but at least the latter did what they were told and didn’t talk back or argue when receiving instructions (or rather what Gibson preferred Nike to call ‘suggestions’).

Both squadrons away. “Permission to stomp Captain” Nike requested happily.

“Stomp away”

“All hands brace for acceleration” Nike’s voice boomed from loudspeakers all over the ship.

“Ah shit” Lieutenant Sheffield Binkley the ships Electronic Warfare Officer (and resident hacker) swore as Gibson grinned. It was alright for the boss, he benefitted from the genetic engineering New Circe used to create future fighter-pilots and could happily take several more gees than a baseline human. Binkley was not so fortunate.

“Floor it” Gibson said gleefully as the fusion engines at the back of the ship flared to life. It wasn’t quite as much of a boot in the ass as his old Kirghiz had been on max overthrust but for a full-size warship it was pretty damn spectacular. With the Yukon in trouble Nike needed to get into the fight quick and that meant a few of the crew were going to take a battering.

Fortunately Nike’s arrival had already resulted in one of the enemy warships turning to face her, helpfully reducing the volume of fire directed at Yukon, and Nike used directional thrusters to jink any incoming long-range naval autocannon fire as the two ships entered effective combat range.

Nike reduced thrust and opened up with her batteries of Naval Lasers achieving the first hits of her fight with the unknown warship type thanks to superior gunnery and timing.

Her first refit after arriving at New Circe had seen her original armor, much of it already stripped anyway after centuries without repairs, with superior Lamellor Ferro-Carbide and this was one of those occasions when a tougher skin was going to come in extremely handy. It wasn’t like ‘cracking starfish’ as Nike called slugging it out with missile-spamming Basestars, todays foe was a proper warship and apparently a well-designed one. It was even quite attractive to look at, sleek but without lacking too much of the menace a warship’s appearance should aspire too. “I’ve requested any data the Yukon has already collected on this thing” Nike informed the bridge crew.

“Please don’t contact other vessels without my approval Nike, or at least tell me first even if you’re going to do it anyway” Gibson complained.

“Ain’t nobody got time for that” Nike replied, holographic image grinning broadly. The ship was clearly enjoying itself immensely, as a warship probably should. “Sir” she added as an afterthought.

“Wetware’s kinda slow” Binkley spoke up.

Gibson turned and glared at him. “Don’t encourage her” he requested in a tone that indicated it should be taken as an order.

“Oh wow! I’ve just been sent a data package from a Kirghiz routed via the Yukon” Nike said gleefully. “I’m so glad we made that last jump with the K-F Drive and the rubber band is still wound up on my FTL.”

“What are you doing Nike!” Gibson wanted to know. One of the slang replacements for spooling up an FTL drive was ‘wind up the rubber band’. Supposedly it had to do with an analogy Gaius Baltar liked to use when explaining for the Colonial jump-drive worked.

“They don’t have any capital ship weapons facing aft. I’m going to give them an enema” Nike replied gleefully.

Nike disappeared in a flash of light then flashed back into existence directly behind the enemy warship shooting at Yukon. Nike was close enough to use her close-in armament as well as her naval guns.

“Anal, no lube” Nike said cackling to herself as she opened up with all the gun batteries she could bring to bear into the rear of the undoubtedly very surprised enemy warship that was still taking fire at the bow from Yukon.

A plethora of Naval Lasers, LRPPC’s, Pulse lasers and an absolute storm of 50mm cannon shells fired at ultra rates from two dozen autocannon slammed into the enemy ship with the vessel unable to fire back with more than her anti-fighter weapons. The ship eventually tried to turn to avoid but Nike had better maneuvering thrusters and moved to keep at the rear of her prey. “Who’s my bitch? You are” Nike said, laughing like a super-villain from a Saturday morning kids holoshow.

Not long afterwards both Nike and Yukon ceased fire from what had quickly become a tumbling hulk venting gas and unable to respond.

“Oh, this isn’t good” the Senior Adept commanding the remaining ComGuard warship stated flatly when the badly damaged but still operational Riga II, and what he thought was some kind of Caspar with a science-fiction jump-drive, both turned in his in his direction.

He was right, it wasn’t.

############################

New Circe. 
SLS Lyssa. 

Major Kumar hated living in a construction zone.  He nearly lost his mind, when his wife had decided to remodel their home while they were living in it.  It was four weeks of hell, that he could never forget.  Now he was living in another one.  This time the construction zone was on a moving space station over his planet.  They were still trying to work out what was the best use of the ship he was now living on.  One modification was that they had pulled out 2 of the worst damaged battery banks and replaced them with living, storage, and workspaces.  And no, they could not have removed them at the same time.  No, they had removed one, done some work, and then decided to remove another one.  Rumor also had it that they might be removing another one of the massive energy storage devices.  The sound of cutting and bending metal could be felt deep in your bones every second of the day and long night. 

Major Kumar was a supply geek, and he had been moved to his “New” office from the ground base that supported the resupply missions.  It was a sudden move due to the classification level of this last mission, and he hoped that the move was going to be very temporary.  It had been a surprise when the Colonial ship Zephyr had returned to New Circe.  The ship had to be emptied quickly so that it could be inspected, and any repairs and upgrades could be made.  An old plan was dusted off and the modified Olympus class space station was put to a new use. 

Within hours of the Zephyr’s return to New Circe, he had been moved to his new office.  Every dropship that had been on the Jess’s Toybox mission was going to have to be cycle threw the SLS Lyssa.  The Zephyr could not land on the planet, that huge rotating ring mounted on the aft of the ship precluded that kind of operation.  To help speed up the unloading of the surprising amount of “stuff”, the long Colonial ship was docked nose first into one of the Repair bays of the converted station.  This made moving the “stuff” faster and easier off the long and thin ship.  All of the cargo was pulled off those ships and put into storage on the Lyssa.  It was up to the Major’s team to get a base idea of what it might be before it was sent to the “normal” Wearhouse on New Circe.  It also would not draw so much attention, if it was moved in smaller shifts of cargo instead of one huge landing. 

All of the crew from the Colonial ship and the dropships had been sent “down the gravity well” to start their post mission interviews.  Those interviews had been done very quickly, thanks to the many missions that had been run back to the Inner Sphere.  Even the Colonial ship had been inspected and returned to service before they had even made a small dent into sorting the recovered items. 

Some things that were transferred to the station were easier for the Major’s 20-person team to deal with.  Items that had been left over or things that were bought in bulk, could easily be identified and sent dirt side.  The same was said of the items found in the smaller and better prepared SASs tunnels and bays.  They had sent down the Tanks, repair bases, repair bays, Mechs, LAMs and other recovered items at a steady rate, but not a flood. 

The problem started, when they started working on the items pulled out from what might have been part of the main base or the other outside defensive points going around the castle.  Maybe it was because the base was larger, or maybe the unit had left in a hurry.  But even the recovered armor hatches were in poor repair, compared to those items recovered in the SAS area.  As it turns out, even Improved Ferro-Aluminum armor hatches can age if it is not protected from the elements for a few hundred years.  Everything that had been left in that part of the base had been left for a reason.  Most of the time, the items looked to have been damaged even before it had been left to rot for a couple of hundred years. 

Nothing that was pulled out of the Toybox was just going to be quickly turned over to a combat unit to use.  The next few loads sent back to New Circe had carried 5 Chevaliers, 3 Korvins, 4 Bulldogs, 4 Royal Von Luckners, and 6 Pollux heavy ADA tanks.  Sometime later they sent down the 3 recovered LT-MOB-25b mobile long toms and 2 towed Sniper class artillery systems.  The Major knew that the reserve units were going to get those 5 artillery units, and they were looking forward to it.  The barrel wear gauge had said that they were almost factory new.  If they had a hundred rounds down the barrel?  He would be very surprised.  It was just too bad that the drive train and suspensions were a totally different story, they were totally fraked up. 

####################

Major Kumar was reviewing and signing the shipping documents for the next lift going dirtside.  This one was carrying 3 Turhans, 2 Command Fury tanks, 2 Demons, and 7 totally waste of space 70ton tanks called the Magi.  His head came up when someone knocked on his door, and it opened.  In walked in Captain Hennesy, his second in command. 

“Hey boss, you got a minute?” 

The Major could tell that something was up, just from the tone his second in command used.  “Yes, Captain.  What can I do for you?” 

Captain Hennesy took three more steps into the office and then waved for a young spaceman to follow him into the Major’s office.  “Sir, this is Spaceman First Class David.  He has an idea that might help with that maybe APC design that was brought back.” 

Major Kumar sat taller in his chair.  They had a few dozen hulls of something, that no one could identify.  “Really?  That could be helpful.”  He looked over to the younger man.  “Please, Mr. David.  What the frak did they dump on me.” 

Spaceman David looked down at his feet.  He had been a late addition to this team, mainly due to his boss on this ship knowing something about his family’s history.  It took him a minute to focus in on not thinking about the rank of the person he was talking to.  “Sir, they are called Ritter’s.” 

Major Kumar was about to say something, but Captain Kennesy beat him to it.  “Okay, and tell him how you might know something like that. Query Affirmative.” 

The young spaceman turned a deep shade of read.  “Oh, right sorry, Sir.  Well you see, my mom works as an account manager in our village bank.  But on the weekends, she still helps out at the local militia and Army Reserve depot.  She loves working on the Chevaliers.  She really loves them!  We have design prints of every version of the Chevalier that you can think of, and even a few that never should have been thought of.  The family made a game of trying to find different design prints.  Those things are framed right next to the family photos all over the house.”  He gives a soft snort.  “She was so fraking pissed when I joined the navy, and not the ground forces.  She did not talk to me for months after I signed the papers.  Anyway, one of the plans my dad found, was of a APC version based on the Chevalier hull and turret.” 

You could have knocked Kumar over with a feather, and all he could do was look at the younger man with wide eyes until his years of experience kicked in.  “Okay, why did they call it the Ritter?  You were in the cargo bays, how many and in what condition are they in. Query affirmative.” 

David forgot who he was meeting with for a few long seconds.  “Oh!!!  Ritter is the German word for Knight, just like Chevalier is a French word for the same thing.”  He got a little lost look in his eyes.  “They all are in pretty bad shape.  I think that you could get six or seven working with some re-conditioning and some parts that should be in the warehouses.  Four of the others would need some major re-fit time, a couple more might be salvageable, but you would need to talk to someone from the Depots.  I saw a few more that just need to be stripped down, maybe they can be used for parts donors for the best six or seven.” 

Major Kumar’s eyes moved from the young man to the Captain.  “Please take Mr. David down to the main cargo hold.  Have these Ritter’s marked, then have them put on the next cargo run to the main warehouse dirt side.” 

################

It had been a long few weeks after the meeting with Spaceman David.  Major Kumar looked on as the last loads from Cate’s Hold came off a Colonial made cargo ship.  They could have used a “Normal” dropship, but this craft was available, and it worked just as good.  This was the last of the heavy equipment to be brought back from Jess’s Toybox.  He was not alone, as he watched the items coming off of the ship in a long line of prime movers and trailers.  Those items would only stay in this Wearhouse that Copeland had used on his supply runs, until they could be moved onto their “final” destination. 

Kumar took a few steps forward and looked down at the moving ants below him.  He was very tired, and it could be heard in his voice.  “Admiral Xi, that is the last of the major end items.  Will any of it be useful to fight the Cylons?” 

Xi looked down, but her mind was elsewhere.  This run from the Inner Sphere had brought back more than any of Roberts runs, but most of it was not as useful as the smaller amounts of cargo.  She did not say anything as the line of 6 Torrent hulls moved below them.  This part of the load were all items that could fly, after they had received a lot of work and some key items from the spare parts store houses.  They had already unloaded the 2 Meteors and 3 Mosquitoes airframes from the Colonial ship.  Behind the old bombers would be the only “real” aerospace fighters that they had found.  They were not much to look at, and she doubted that they would even be issued to third line units around the planet.  Still she thought that she could find some use out of a pair of Tridents and Hellcats II space fighters. 

[cawest]

Xi did not let her eyes leave the landing and loading field.  “The 4 Chameleons are earmarked for the mech training school.  The same for the six Wasps, after they are rebuilt.  But the 2 Ostoc were missing all of their legs.  So, they are just going to be turned into simulators for the school being set up over in the Victorian City State.  I have a memo sitting on my desk from the R and D department requesting the Hoplite and that pair of Mercuries.” 

The Major had to put his hands on the small wall between them and a long fall to the ground below.  “Well that is good news.  I was worried that we just had junk after we kept opening all of those shipping units of Voxx 25 and Omni 10 fusion engines.  I know some of the Voxx engines can be used in our Gabriel hover scouts.  But what the Frak used a 10 rated engine?  If that is the only real junk in all of that cargo?  Then maybe it was not a waste of my time.  Query affirmative.” 

Xi smiled, but she had to be careful what she said.  Somethings were not allowed out to the general public, just in case it could be used in courts over favoritism.  “Who knows, but I’m sure someone will find something to use those small power plants.”  She was thinking about trucks or even distributed power grids.  Then again, someone else might have a different and better idea on what to use those small engines for.  She staid overlooking the ship, until it took off for orbit high over their heads. 

####################

Helios Delta
Canceron

John Basilone was looking over a package of supplies sitting almost out of sight from his location.  This was the third package that had been left in this exact spot.  One of the ideas for his role in watching these drop offs, was to get an idea about the field craft of these humans picking of the supplies.  This had been the first real world test of that theory.  The theory went that If they had bad or very bad field craft?  Then it was a good chance, this all might be a Cylon trap. 

Lieutenant Basilone had not been happy about Van letting both the humans and the Cylons, know that a new player was active on the planet.  Late at night John would have to admit, that he would have done the same thing if he had been in Van’s shoes.  Besides the young Sergeant had a great idea about leaving his extra supplies behind as an offering for the first test of the humans.  It had been even smarter of him, to keep an eye on them while he was hidden under a couple of meters of water.  He had both watched and recorded the whole event. 

They had only left a field pack on each of the other drops at this location.  Those civilian grade backpacks had held mostly food, a pistol, and a box of 50 rounds for the sidearm.  They also had exchanged notes with the other scouts, and everything seemed to be working out.  John let is eyes fall to the road below him without moving his head. 

The remains of the Centurion Platoon were still evidently spread out on the hard and weather worn surface.  John also could see were the humans had come out and removed parts of the fallen metal Cylons.  It was just another example of the differences between humans and Cylons.  The human form in charge of the metal forms did not care about them, or when they fell.  Most of the time they were just left on the battlefield like any other battlefield trash.  The humans were slowly picking it over, to find useful items to help them survive against the invader. 

Basilone moved his head incased within his clone of the ComStar made Tornado suit, until he was looking back at the package in its hiding place.  This one was larger, than any other package that they had dropped to date.  The scouts had been able to get some of the supplies from the Sneaky set up someplace safe.  This package was only about 25kg worth of supplies, but thanks to the exchange of notes.  It should have a larger impact than a pistol, some ammo, and a few dozen days of meals that had been in the other drop offs. 

This pack still had some long shelf life meals protected from the elements, but most of the mass in this drop off was made up of medicine in thick field packing.  The medicine was not as old as the food, the medication had been shipped in from the City State on New Circe.  About the only area of medical tech that the Colonials had a lead over the SLiE, was in anti-radiation treatments.  They still could only make them in kitchen sink scale labs.  But they had already made enough to replace the Colonials stocks, on the ships and to have a little stockpile spread out between the two governments.  The SLDF even had standing orders for some more of them.  That order was still waiting to be fully filled, and it might not be filled in the near future. 

As far as John knew, all of that ready medication was already at or on its way to Ragnar Anchorage.  From there, John knew that it would find a good use on the planets that the Cylons had paid a visit to with nuclear weapons.  While he was thinking about those meds, a red dot appeared on his display as data was forwarded to him from one of the other scouts.  John took a steadying breath and was again thankful for the time he spent trying to work with the Colonials. 

################

Hacket was one of the best scouts in the area.  He had been asked to take these missions, to pick up “New” supplies being dropped off at this point.  He had thought his life was over, when he had been asked to do the mission the first time.  Then he had found the first package, just where he had been told it would be waiting for him.  It had been a nice sized field pack of a design, that he had never seen before that day.  He had made sure that no one was around the local area, and he had quickly and quietly grabbed the package.  He had to admit, it was a nice over watching position of the coast road and not be seen by Cylons.  He had been paid in three of the full day meal packs and the pistol with a full magazine of military grade rounds, for the risk he had taken on that first mission. 

He had undertaken each of those other drop off and pick up of supplies.  Each time he had been told to look to see if anyone was there before he made the grab. Like he would need someone to tell him that after all of these years living under the guns of the human hunting Cylons.  Each time he had not seen anyone.  And he was confident that no one had been around, when he had made his pickup.  He even had been collecting a few things from the fallen Centurions in the local area between pickups, so by now he knew the area well.  He had not gotten, what you would called “used” to the area.  Doing something like that would get a scout dead very quickly. 

Hacket reached down and pulled up the package, and he left behind another letter in a weighted down pack just as he had been instructed to do.  Just as he was about to turn to leave the area one last time, he froze.  Something was off.  He had no idea what was off, but he could feel that something was off in the area around him.  He slowly put the heavy pack down on the ground, and he reached for his thigh holster for his new pistol and anti Cylon ammunition.  Then his eyes came to a rest on something in full shadow.  It was not standing by a tree, but a closely growing clump of trees was behind it.  It was something to provide concealment if not some cover.  Sweat started to bead up on his forehead, as his heartrate shot up to and past dangerous levels.  Then his eyes went to his right, and he almost dropped the heavy package he had been sent to collect.  He thought he was going to die.  He had missed something, lots of somethings. 

The tallest and biggest person, he had ever seen was standing in front of another tree not 5 meters away from him.  He was not moving and the only real part of his body, that he could see were the eyes and a round green and black face.  Hacket was about a hair away from pulling the trigger at one of the two strangers, but his mind could not workout which was the primary target. 

###################

John could tell that the other man had seen him, as soon as he stopped moving mid step.  The scouts had been impressed with how the Colonial’s had collected the first package.  They had only noticed him once he was within a dozen steps of the overwatch location.  Every report the lieutenant had received all had said the same about his skills.  They had kept someone in the local area even when they were not dropping off a package.  It didn’t take long for the SLDF scouts to realized that it was only one person picking up the packages and some parts from the Cylon hulks.  That still didn’t mean that this was not some kind of Cylon trap, but it was not very likely. 

John slowly raised one finger to cross his green and black painted lips, just as he had been shown to do by some of the Colonials before they had taken on this mission.  It was a sign to keep quiet, and everyone had been surprised that it matched the one that the SLDF Recon teams had been using for centuries.  When the Colonial’s head nodded in understanding at the sign he had just seen.  John pointed up and to one side of the tree line.  It was on a line, that the Colonial had not thought to try to make it to this point by. 

John slowly moved away from his hiding point and walked in front of the Colonial scout.  He was moving in slow and steady steps, just like it was any other day in the hiking trails.  But the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end as soon as his back was to the Colonial.  There was a stranger, that was armed walking behind him.  And Miss Basilone’s little boy was not in heavy enough body armor to stop the round that weapon could fire. 

Hacket was following the huge man, as he glided through the tree line like a ghost.  Hacket had always enjoyed, that he was almost 1.8m tall after the first few months of the new Cylon war.  As far as he knew, he was one of the tallest survivors on this planet.  But this guy was a full 2 meters tall and looked to be almost third wider at the shoulders than he was.  And the way he moved?  It was like a huge cat moving through the trees seeking his next meal.  Hacket had to almost double time to keep up with the gliding steps of the massive man.  He also was making a lot more noise and leaving a lot easier trail to follow than the tall man was doing. 

They kept going deeper into the woods, until they reached a spot that was flat and clear.  But it still was covered by tall trees around them.  Hacket had never even known this location was here.  He assessed that it made the perfect meeting place.  He also noticed four large bushes, that formed an outer ring near the surrounding trees.  Hacket was led to the center of the clearing, and when the huge man stopped and pointed to a bush.  His eyes naturally followed the pointing tree limb of an arm.  When the bushes started to move, he wished that he had not looked.  He was really starting to dread that he had agreed to do this mission. 

##############

Near Sundown
Hidden human camp

Tiamat was again on his way to the village bar, and not for the reasons most people would want to go to that location at this time of day.  Everything had been going great over the last few weeks, and he should have been expecting the next shoe to drop on his head.  At least this time, he was only going to be responding to a note that had been passed from the gate guard to meet Hacket at the bar.  At least, that would keep whatever had gone wrong from the rest of the community.  Tiamat knew something had gone wrong, because Hacket had not just walked over to his “office”.  You know like he had done on the other two pickups from that point. 

It was a bright and nice day, so Tiamat had to stop at the door for a few seconds to let his eyes adjust to the darker interior.  Before they had fully done so, the head bartender was pointing him towards a table that was so far at the rear of the bar that it was almost outside again.  It was rare that this one door was open, and then only when the whole place was packed with humans being humans.  As Tiamat walked over, he exited the building to be under a covering with a few empty tables. 

This area was a covered and concealed patio, that was only used by people who were still comfortable to be exposed to the open air while they relaxed.  The only table that was occupied on the whole patio was the one holding the scout, a bottle of something amber, and a larger pack held in a crescent armed low backed chair.  Tiamat had to admit that it was a nice place to have a meeting without drawing a lot of attention from the members of the little village. 

Tiamat was confused by the scene in front of him and the note he had been given.  “So, you were able to meet with them after all?” 

Hacket used his glass holding some amber liquid to point to the package across from him, but he didn’t smile.  His face was so pale that he looked more like a ghost than a man.  “They were waiting, just as you said they would be.  Only I didn’t fraking see them, until I had the bag in my fraking hands.  I followed one of them into a little clearing to have a private talk away from the highway and any wondering Cylons.” 

Tiamat felt his eyebrows closing together, he knew something was off with his scout.  “Really?  So, they were human after all and not some ghost or something sent by the gods.”  The last part was more than a little sarcastic sounding even to his own ears. 

Hacket choked on his drink and patted away the droplets that had fallen onto his shirt.  He took a few minutes, before he said his next carefully chosen words.  “How tall am I, Tiamat?” 

Tiamat quickly concluded that this was going to take a while, and he took one of the empty seats before addressing the question.  “I don’t fraking know, 1.8 or 1.9.  Why?  And what does this have to do with anything?” 

Hacket put his drink down and gave the older man a level look, that was just on the other side of being borderline hostile.  “I am 1.8, in my shoes.  The guy I talked to today?  He was every bit of 2.2 and he was one of five others that I saw at the meeting.  Each one of those Frakers was at least that tall.  And oh, one more thing.  They were in metal suits like a Centurion but way, way more powerful than anything I have seen or even heard about them using.  So, I don’t know if I would call them Fraking human or not.  I about put a load in my shorts, when I first saw him.  And I would bet that Caprican is not his birth tongue.  I don’t fraking know why I think that, but I just would bet on it.  They did give me these for you to look at.” 

Hacket pushed over a thin stack of pages with images printed on them to the man sitting across from him.  “We knew that the Cylons were human looking.  These are the ones they have seen, and they did not tell me where all they have been found.  The ones with red circles around the images, are the ones who want all of us dead.  They said the blue circled ones mostly want to just be left alone, but to be careful with them anyway.  Just to be on the safe side.  They all come back after they die, with all the knowledge that they had when they died.  I think that is what explains what happened to Jerry’s group, after they hung that one old looking Cylon.  They got a new body and then came back to the camp looking for some payback.” 

Hacket spent the next few hours talking with the local leader all about the meeting he sat through under the covering trees.  After the first half hour, Tiamat joined him in drinking from the bottle of recovered ambrosia.  There was some give and take about the human forms.  Tiamat knew of two human form Cylons in the stack of images, but this new information was going to take some spreading out to the other camps.  The medicine was going to be a great help around the camp starting tonight.  The promise of 60l of fuel was also very nice, if it ever got to them.  More long-term storage food would have been nice, but they had crops planted around in spread out patches for a few years now. 

What had caused Tiamat the most issues?  They were the parts about how his best scout had talked about, how he had seen bushes that had turned into over 2m tall metal suits as if they were magical.  Then how those metal suits had opened, and 2m tall men had exited, what had sounded to him that they might be like Centurion hulls or skins.  This story did connect a few dots on why this group had not just come out to meet them, at the first agreed supply drop point. 

He had liked it, that this group was not claiming to be anything related to the gods.  They were just there to scout and maybe kill a few Cylons, if they walked into the opportunity.  He could understand and relate to both of those missions’ statements.  Whoever they were, they were letting the Colonials control any contact that might happen between them.  That was not something that the Cylons would have done in the same situation.  Cylons would have pushed to be taken to a camp of survivors.  They had seen it happened before, and now most camps had a trust but verify policy anytime they came across a lone survivor. 

Tiamat about came out of his chair, when Hacket told the leader more about what the strangers wanted.  The tall men had asked for Hacket to point out any bases that Cylons might be working out of.  They also wanted to know about any major Cylon supply lines in the local area.  The first thing that popped into Tiamat’s mind was that this new group was going to hit a base, and then the Cylons would come rolling out looking for them.  Only they would be finding any humans, that might be in the now hot area and not these tall men who had attacked the Cylons in the first place.  Tiamat brought this up to Hacket, and he was quickly relieved that although he was not asked about human settlements in hiding.  The scout had only pointed out a few known Cylon routes and bases, that were well away from any known group of hiding Colonials. 

Before he went to bed that night.  Tiamat suggested to the defenders, that they post a few more guards further out from the camps.  He only told them, that he was worried that it had been to quiet lately.  And he was worried that the Cylons might start becoming more active, to make up for the break the Colonials had been enjoying. 

################

SGT Van Barfoot and the rest of his scout team were moving quietly threw the tall green trees of the local forest.  The four man team were using the data that was based on what the Ogygia had been able to pass along to them.  It was mixed with what the few locals in contact with them have passed along.  As more data came in, and then checked out by the other scout teams.  Maps would be updated for their use and sent back to Ragnar. 

There should be at least one Cylon ground base somewhere in this valley.  It was listed as being a Colonial wildfire fighting base, until it was taken over by the Cylons not long after the nuclear weapons had stopped falling.  Now it was the center of most Cylon ground operations in this local group of large islands.  They were not to attack the Cylon base, only do some recon of it.  The LT had been very pointed about, that they were only to recon the area. 

The SLDF scouts were moving slowly under the cover provided by the tall trees, just like they were trained to do.  They would move and then stop for a few seconds checking out the local area before starting to move again.  You could not be next to a tree, when they dropped to a knee and stopped moving.  The instructors back on New Circe would berate you, if you did something dumb like that.  If you did something like that while on the mission?  You made it look like the tree had cancer or other diseases, and you could be spotted all because the bump looked out of place.

Van suddenly stopped moving, and he went to one knee with his non shooting hand coming up to make a fist all in one fluid motion.  Something was moving along the nearby game trail that the scouts were paralleling.  His whole team went to a knee and then after the other team members had picked up on the movement, they went on edge.  Now that they knew were the threat might be coming from, they slowly moved around a little to find better concealment. 

[cawest]

With the advance warning from Van in the point position.  The whole scout team had a few minutes to wait until the source of the movement reached them.  As Van watched from concealment, a Number 4 led a group of 10 Centurions going down the game path.  Van’s breath caught in his chest as the last Centurion stopped, and it started to scan the local area of the forest.  One part of Van’s brain screamed that the battered metal beast was an NCO, and it had detected that something was wrong or out of the ordinary.  Van had his weapon ready, but not pointed at the enemy only 50 meters away from his hiding spot.  He was just starting to think that his team was spotted, when the moving red eye shifted, and the battered Centurion moved to catch up with the rest of his unit. 

Van kept his detachment in place for a while, just in case the Cylons returned.  When it was clear of threats, the team started moving again.  The scout team was moving just a little slower and they were a little more aware of what was going on around them, than they had been before the close call.  With such a close call, the team did not stop for anything to eat or rest until they were over watching the Cylon base.  They would be in this location for a few days as they mapped out what the Cylons were doing, what their defenses were, and any patterns that the humans might exploit against the Cylons.  It was about as by the book recon mission, that you could ever asked to be given. 

It was around midnight when the whole team went on alert, and they pulled up and checked their weapons for combat readiness.  Moving out of the wood off towards the left of where the scouts were hiding, came a group of Cylons.  Thanks to the night vision devices built into the SLDF suits.  They could see that it looked like the same group of Cylons, that they had passed in the forest hours before.  This time the Cylons were not alone, as they walked towards the Cylon base.  Between an outer perimeter of Centurions, were walking scarecrows that were not human forms Cylons.  The whole team watched with their eyes, as the group of Colonials were moved towards the Cylons base.  It did not take long for the screams to reach the team on the little hill, after the last Colonial had disappeared into the Cylon base.  No one got any sleep for the rest of the night. 

###################

28 hours later

Lt Basilone arrived with the rest of the team after a long hard run from their own patrol and scouting areas.  For the first time on this operation, the whole scouting team was together with only one mission to complete.  After Van had passed an audio file with two hours of screams to his LT and the rest of the scouts.  John had the whole scout team move at their best speed to Van’s location after only listening for ten minutes of the whole audio file.  Lt Basilone knew that he was risking his orders, and he was just as willing to face the music when he got back home.  He even had kept a copy of the audio file, just in case he needed to play it at his court martial. 

Basilone was the last one to make it up the hill, but only by about a minute and a half.  While the team was being gathered, Van came up with a base plan for an attack on the small Cylon base.  The Lieutenant was able to flush it out with an updated supply list, which he and his group had brought with them on the run to this position.  While the Sargent and the Lieutenant worked on the plan, the rest of the team tried to recover their strength for the upcoming attack.  It was not easy for the gathered scouts to do, with the screams still coming from the Cylon Base. 

Ten minutes before the Lt wanted to launch the attack, the pair did a short pre-mission inspection of the rest of the scouts.  Everyone had some water and changed battery packs for different weapons.  No one even thought about trying to eat.  They were just ready to get off this little hill and cross the 300 meters of open ground to reach the Cylons and to stop the screams. 

John gave Van a little head nod, and the commands were sent out to each suit.  The last part was done more for the expected inquest when this mission was over, than for the need to inform each of the scouts to attack.  With the word given.  The 8 man team launched off the little hill, like 8 manned missiles of vengeance on a full hate afterburner. 

The Tornado and the Weasel suits that were based off that ComStar design didn’t have jump jets built into them, but they could run.  The Cylon base had a metal fence running around the whole perimeter of the base.  The main gate even had a vehicle barrier as well as a solid looking gate, that matched the 3 meters tall perimeter fence in height. 

The point man of the attack did not even try to make it over the access gate.  She just lowers her head and pushed off with her legs at just the right second, to put her right shoulder into the gate.  And as it turned out, the gate was as solid as it looked.  But the locks and hinges on the gate and anchor post were a totally different matter.  They shattered like glass, and the gate fell to the ground.  As soon as the next member of the SLDF scout team made it into the compound.  A rain of destruction started to flow out of them in a growing fan of death.  They started with a flight of grenades, that went into the heavy weapons emplacement meant to cover the inside and outside approaches to the solid gate. 

#############

The Number 4 was still washing his hands in an old stainless-steel apron sink.  He had loved being a doctor before the war, but not for the reasons most people would have chosen that line of work.  He “liked” causing others pain, he like causing lots of pain in others.  He had no idea, that this was the results of careful programing done by the Ones.  It had been done on select members of his line and a few other select members of the human form Cylon’s other lines.  He was mesmerized for long minutes by the swirling red and brown blood being drawn down the drainpipe by the flowing water.  His mind started replaying everything that he had done, to get that blood on his hands.  A smile came to his face has he remembered each scream. 

He was brought back to the world, as a flash of light and a thunderclap of sound echoed in his washroom.  With his mechanical augmented muscles, he was able to quickly make it to a nearby window to see what was going on.  He got there just in time, for the glass to be blasted into his face by a nearby 30mm KEW emplacement having its ready ammunition react in an unfriendly manner to a SLDF explosive charge. 

Cylons are very strong and very resistant to damage, but that didn’t mean that they were indestructible.  He was out like a light, even before the back of his head hit the hard and unforgiving floor.  He was not dead.  But the lights were on, but his brain was definitely out to lunch.  The head of this base was not going to take charge of the defenses, this time.  The head of the snake had been cut off and the humans had not even been trying to target him. 

The Number 4 opened his eyes to first look at the ceiling of his living quarters, and then some movement draws his eyes towards the door.  He lets out a little moan and he quickly finds out that he cannot get his body to obey him.  Just when he thinks that he can move again.  A metal foot is planted hard on to his chest.  Slowly he gets his eyes to focus.  He looks up at first the metal leg, and then he tracks up the whole body standing over him.  One part of his mind notes that it is the oddest-looking Centurion he had ever seen.  He even notices that the lines were all wrong for it to be from the Colonial’s new allies. 

The growing pain in the Cylon’s chest brought him fully back into the moment.  Both of his hands fly to the metal leg holding him down, and what was now causing him extreme pain.  He finds that he is powerless to move it even a millimeter.  It took 15 long seconds, for the metal foot to be pushed through his rib cage and crush his heart against the spine and hard floor.  It was 15 seconds that the Number 4 will remember every time he was brought back into a tank of goo for a new body.  He would re-experience those 15 seconds 8 more times, before the other members of his own line voted to have him boxed.  It was considered something that needed to be done, for the betterment of the whole Number 4 line. 

############

The scouts were spreading out as they cleared the base of Cylons.  This was marked as a Cylon ground company outpost, and it would outnumber the attacking humans by a large margin.  If the humans lost the initiative?  They would quickly be overrun, by the Cylons.  Each member’s path was displayed on their HUDs, so that the rest of the team could follow.  But it also would let them know what had not been covered or cleared yet of possible hostile forces.  Van had put his planned path into the system before they had even launched the attack.  He had spent the most time watching the base, and he had some things he wanted to make sure were done right. 

Van fired a fragmentation grenade into a known Centurion maintenance shop building before he looked into it.  With that threat axis taken care of, he went into the next building.  With a solid kick to the door frame, the whole door and frame came crashing down into the room.  This time, he did not put an explosive round into this building before he entered.  It had been noted that Colonials had been taken here.  None had left, so they might still be there.  When Van’s head entered the room, he knew that there were not any humans left alive in this one room building.  The room was dominated by a tall metal table in the center of the room.  Van knew the body was dead at a single glance.  You cannot live that long with your small intestines being pulled out and wrapped around one of the overhead roof rafters.  The open but none seeing eyes would haunt his dreams for years to come. 

Van turned and went to the next building on this little list of targets.  He had not been surprised that he found a dead Colonial in that building, but he had to try just the same.  Now he was going to find the Number 4, that he had seen entering and leaving this building.  It was only a few meters to his right, and he made the quick steps towards it at the dead run.  He did not even slow down when he hits the door.  He was not even trying to use the “right” way of entering a hostile building.  He just went through the thin wooden door with his heavy armor in a shower of splintering wood acting like a light brown cloud around him. 

Van looked down the barrel of his weapon, but he didn’t see any threats in his field of view.  Besides the door only the window seemed to be damaged.  His internal warning system had him look down after his first scan of the room.  That was where he saw the thing he had been wanting to find.  For a heartbeat he thought that somehow the human form had been killed, until his built-in mic picked up his breathing.  Then the monster made a louder sound and started to move.  Van took a step closer and put his right metal covered foot on the Cylon’s chest. 

As Van looked down, he saw that the Number 4 could see him.  Inside of his metal suit, Van smiled and that was a smile that should have sent chills down the Cylon’s spine if he could have seen it.  He slowly shifted weight over from his left leg to his right one.  He did this very slowly, until all the mass of his 2.2 meters tall body and the over 400kg of suit and weapons was almost all on his right leg.  Not for a second did his eyes leave the Cylon laying on the floor of the cabin.  He had to shake his foot a few times to get it untangled from the broken ribs and organs of the now very dead Cylon, so that he could finish clearing the room. 

Van knew that the Human form would be back, and that he would remember what and who had killed him.  That had been thought about, while they had planned this mission back before they had gained access to the ex ComStar battle armor.  They had been working on ideas on how to conceal the fact that the SLDF was now operating in Colonials space.  The Cylons had seen the Nighthawk suits, but the Tornado looked a lot different than that old SLDF suit. 

The suits the scouting team had been using had been Vis-mod or visually modified.  They didn’t look like Tornados or even Weasels, with the later having a more animal look to the head, legs, and arms.  What the scouts were wearing looked more like something a Shogun on ancient Terra would have warn into battle.  It was almost like something the Combine would have loved to have been able to issue to their most elite troops.  There would not be much of a risk of the Cylons knowing who was behind this attack.  Confusion can be an effective weapon, if it was used correctly. 

###############

It didn’t take long to clear the small base of any threats.  The attackers had surprise, speed, armor, and weapons on their side.  The small team of scouts ran a second sweep of the old forest base, but no active Cylons were found.  That had only left going deeper into the building that held the detention cells.  Only one of the team had gone into that building while clearing the base of Cylons, but it had only been to make sure that all of the threats had been taken care of.  The scout team didn’t have the time or personnel to handle what would happen, if they tried to free the Colonials in the middle of a pitched night battle. 

The officer looked at the room and he could not help but wince.  There were only a dozen Colonials left breathing.  Van had reported that over twenty had been brought into this camp.  He only stayed in that little window into hell for a minute.  All of the Colonials were trying to hide or be small targets in the cells, at the same time being as far from the cell’s doors as they could get.  He received the heartbreaking news that this was all there was to recover, human wise, from this base. 

John could only come up with one plan, and it was not what he would call a good one.  “Victor team.  Sling arms, and each one will pick up two of the smallest Colonials.  Bravo team will put the four largest Colonials into fireman carries.  We will keep weapons out and cover any issues we might run into.  We fall back to the OP.  Victor team will uncan and do a quick medical check at the OP.  We do not have time to play around, keep a hold of them until we get to the cover of the OP.  If they want to bug out on us after that?  Well that is their call.  Oh, and use your bayonets on the bars, don’t use the doors to get them out.” 

He had no idea why he added the second part to his orders, but later it would make his team think he was a genius.  The Colonials had been watching the huge new style Centurions enter the room that was holding their prison cells with dread.  Their crying could be heard threw the armor when the bayonets were attached to the rifles, and the SLDF troopers’ hearts sunk. 

Those cries were cut off like a switch was flipped, when the humming blades had cut the hard iron bars like they were warm butter.  The shock of seeing those bars being cut that way, left the Colonials so stunned.  That they didn’t put up a fight when they were picked up by the metal suits and carried out of the building over metal shoulders.  The shock didn’t start to wear off until after they had left the outer gate of the Cylon base. 

The stop at the small hill at the edge of the cleared area was quick and the renewed shock of seeing a real, if large, person exit the metal suits.  That had almost caused the Colonials to bolt for the wood line on their own, but they were too weak.  They did not even put up that much of a fight when they were lifted off the ground one more time. 

The “run” to the next stop point was over 8km away deeper in the woods.  This time the stop was going to be longer, the sun was starting to rise over the treetops.  John called a halt when he could see the sky starting to lighten.  Only two scouts would be in the main rest point out of their combat suits at the same time.  Van was on the first rotation out of the suits in the small camp.  It was not due to his rank, but due to his medical skills.  If they had not needed the attention after their stay with the Cylons, they would need it after the effects of the run from the Cylon’s base. 

Food and water had been stored at this point, and the dozen Colonials were only given enough of each to make them sleep.  They were thin but they had not been “starving”, so Van didn’t have to keep that close of an eye on them as they were eating a field meal.  Still he only let them eat half of a Colonial day ration pack.  They were told that they could eat the other half, when they woke up from a nap.  The Scouts had no problem noticing that one or two of the Colonials were awake watching the scouts, while the rest of them got some sleep. 

When the sun was starting to go down again, the whole camp was awake.  Now only two scouts were on guard duty.  The Scout’s commander had a lot of questions to be asked, and thanks to the translation software in the suit.  He was able to get his basic idea across to the scared Colonials.  Some of them got a little agitated, when the tall man would not tell them everything they wanted to know.  They didn’t push too hard, not when someone is over 2 meters tall and your tallest compatriot was barely 1.7.  That gave John more than a little advantage. 

The one area that the locals were not game for, was to be carried around like sacks of potatoes for another night of bruises.  The ones that were able, would be moving on their own power.  But the suits would help with the four of the Colonials, that were the weakest of the Colonials for whatever reason.  This would slow down the whole movement, but after a few hours of moving through the dark forest.  The Colonials called for a stop, but only to move the line of travel to a side trail that was just little more than open areas created by the tall trees. 

The expanded scout force made it to the second site so quick, that they only stopped to pick up supplies before continuing moving through the night.  The group kept going after only an hour stop at sunrise.  The way looked clear and John had them moving again, and the Colonials were eager to put more distance between them and the Cylons.  They made it to the cove that held four boats and a major stash of supplies for the scouting mission.  One of those stash items was a SLDF radio.  On the second try, the Sneaky was raised on the device. 

She would be able to pick up the recovered Colonials and take them back to the island.  Doing something like this was a risk on many levels.  One was having more people on the island would increase the risk of the Cylons finding them.  The other was that the Sneaky would have more Colonials in her hull than SLDF personnel.  They were lucky and that the last group from the dome had just been picked up, so the island house was empty for now.  That would change with the next load coming from the underwater dome.  No one knew when the next load would come from the dome, or an exact date of when the next or how large the next supply run would be. 

Van and John were up on an overlooking cliff of the cove, when the Sneaky surfaced.  It was only visible through the night vision devices built into the suits.  The rest of Van’s team would ferry out the survivors into deep water using the small boats.  It would take only one trip for all four boats to get the dozen survivors off the beach.  The ship was rated to carry 40 of his Light Battle Armor suits, and now that extra room was going to come in handy.  The Lt didn’t want to risk a “social” issue by splitting up the group into smaller lifts off the beach.  The rest of the scouts were spread out keeping an eye out for any Cylon patrols.  After the Colonials and Sneaky were gone, he was going to stand down his people for a few days.  It had been a bad few days, and they all could use some rest. 

####################

Helios Beta
Not far from the Ouranos Asteroid Belt

The old Raptor left over from the first war with the Cylons popped into real space, and it quickly and skillfully went into passive mode.  This craft had been working with a pair of new production Raptors running supplies to different spots around what had been once called Colonials space.  The three craft had just dropped off supplies to the scouting and submarine operating on Canceron.  This was one of the craft that had dropped off a full load of refined hydrocarbon fuel generated by the Ragnar Anchorage. 

It had been quickly found out that besides medical supplies, weapons, hard ammunition, and food.  The survivors of the Cylon occupation needed fuel to run everything from electrical generators, water pumps, ground and even light air transports.  That had been overlooked by the planners back on New Circe, and it was only by luck.  That the hydrocarbon recovery system on the anchorage had not been scrapped and replaced with living or more storage space.  Now those systems were earning their setup cost. 

[cawest]

There was no way that the crew on the Ogygia or the Ragnar Anchorage could supply everything that was needed by the survivors, but they were trying.  This run had two of the Raptors carrying nothing but fuel for the people on that planet to have some access to.  The other Raptor had been carrying food, medical supplies, a few weapons and a few boxes of anti Cylon ammunition that would fit on the floor of the craft.  The rest of the space had been filled with supplies that would fall under “general survival gear” by the public.  Ragnar Anchorage had a lot of stuff within its rusty hull, but more had come from New Circe.  It amounted to only a trickle, but it was a trickle that had not been there before. 

But the cargos were not just running one way around old Colonial space.  After the pocket Battlestar had stopped by each of the areas that had held survivors.  Raptors had started making runs to those locations that had wanted to join a larger cause.  It was a lot easier to hide a 50ton Raptor, than it was to hide a tens of thousands of tons of warship.  On each run of those small craft, volunteers would be pulled out.  Most of them were people who needed some kind of medical care that the local group could not provide.  It was hoped that this would change in the near future, but right now all that mattered was that Colonials were being pulled out from under the Cylon’s thumb. 

The exception to this rule had been Canceron.  They had been pulling out a half dozen healthy survivors per lift, until this mission.  On this one run, they had pulled out almost twenty people at one time.  The new Raptors had a longer jump range, and they did not have to cool down as long after a set of jumps compared to Old Number 6.  So, all of the recovered personnel were packed into the new pair of craft for the right out to Ragnar.  That that turn of events had left Old Number 6 to make her way back to Ragnar on her own in hostile space.  This was nothing new for her to do, and you got use to that kind of stress with enough exposure to it.  It was not that great for your health, even if you didn’t run into any Cylons or any other hazards. 

#############

Raider 45698 was leading a group of 6 other Raider class Cylon combat craft.  They were short 3 craft in being a full squadron of 10 combat vessels.  With the latest round of “upgrades”, it did not know that it should have had 3 more “normal” raiders or one more Raider and 2 Heavy Raiders assigned to this scouting mission.  By now it also didn’t know that the reason for this increase in firepower for a “patrol”, was due to the sudden increase in the number of scouting pair and single Cylon craft being lost to the humans. 

Raider 45698 was scanning the local area, and it just happened to be looking right were the old Raptor came back into normal space.  It sent a short-ranged burst of information for the rest of the unit to follow him to the strange craft.  The new craft did not match anything in its warbook, but the drive was not reading as a Cylon type drive.  So, the instruction built into its new “upgraded” support systems told it.  Any non Cylon engine was an enemy craft, and that it was okay to kill it. 

Raider 45698 quickly worked out the distance to the “new enemy”.  Raider 45698 had not been around for a long time, and its bag of tricks was not that deep.  But it had learned a thing or three while it had been “alive”.  One of those things that it knew was that humans could detect jump drives, if the Cylons were not careful.  With this information Raider 45698 used his twin large engines to push it closer to this new enemy. 

Soon it could “see” the craft centered between the points of its forward mounted almost C shaped wings.  Now all it needed to do was close in on the “humans” and kill it, without letting it escape.  The nice thing was that the Raider class craft was very fast, even if it didn’t need to use its jump engines.  It just needed to shut down all of its active systems, so that it could get closer to the target without being seen.  That was another trick it had learned while it had been trying to kill humans. 

###################

Connie (Con) Weber let her eyes scan over the read outs on the display around her.  The first large display she looked at, was to see if there was anything near her.  The next screen told her what the status of her jump drive might be.  Now that display made the corners of her lips drop.  She looked into the small mirror mounted high over her head.  It was perfect to see her EO.  Not for the first time, she thought that the old guys who had made this craft had known what they were doing.  “Toe, how long until we can hit the next jump.” 

Chris “Toe” Pusher had gotten his handle after a bad mix of laxatives, brownies, a shower stall, and his big toe.  He looked down at this screen at the glowing bar high into the red zone.  “We can jump in 4 minutes, but it would be better if you can push it to 10.” 

Con looked back out her view screen and did a soft sigh.  “Well, 10 minutes is not that bad.  Let me know when we are at 4 minutes, just in case.” 

Chris didn’t bother with a reply; he just went about the normal task for an EO.  At least this craft had been outfitted with the current generation of electronics.  It had not been that way when it had been first traded to the warship.  It had been a slow process, but as they were able to trade with a growing number of groups.  Newer parts were found, and then refitted into the hull of Old Number 6.  The systems didn’t fit perfectly, but they did the job.  Maybe that was why Toe did not pick up on the threat as soon as he should have. 

Toe’s eyes went wide as the data on his screen finally registered in his brain.  “Oh Frak!!!!  7 Raiders coming up on us from 87 down 45.  They have to have us on passive systems.  I have zero active emissions!” 

Con might have been dozing, but her hands were moving before her eyes were open.  “How long until we can jump!!” 

Toe was working his systems and sweat was pouring off of his face.  “2 minutes 30-seconds, and it is only going to be a short one!!!  They will be on us in less than 2!!  You need to do some of that Fraking pilot stuff.” 

Con was already putting more power to the twin engines that were low mounted on the aft part of her craft.  “Punch something in, then pass the Fraking button to me!!  Get on the stinger, and keep them off my fraking ass!! 

Toe was already moving to the back seat, as the pilot was speaking.  “I have a jump to Hera loaded, and then we can jump back to a spot deeper into the Ouranous belt.  That should keep them guessing where we went to.”  He finished his words as his butt hit the cushion of the tail gunner position. 

Con saw a red light turn green on a screen and she knew that Toe was in the seat.  Both of her hands, arms, and feet went into action at blinding speed.  Her craft when from slowly accelerating to moving in three dimensions all at once.  The craft spun and 3 anti-raider missiles left from under each wing on the old craft.  The seeking weapons were not the reason for the maneuver she had just performed. 

Con also had launched half a dozen decoys at the same second, that she had fired the homing weapons.  This generation of decoys had not worked that well at the start of this war.  They had been better than nothing, but they had not worked out nearly as well as they had been advertised.  That was because the systems didn’t have enough data to work against the improved Cylon systems.  They had worked very well against pirates, Colonials and 1st Cylon war systems, but they had not worked that great against the new generation of Cylon systems.  That now was not an issue, with so many years fighting the Cylons.  The Colonial decoys also were a lot better if they were used correctly and for specific missions and not out of desperation. 

#############

Raider 45698 processed the information that was coming into it.  It had wanted to get closer, but somehow the humans had detected them even in passive mode.  The first hint of this discovery had been when the odd craft had started to increase its base speed.  Just as his unit went active with its systems, the craft had gone from running away into attacking the Cylons.  His unit went from 7 Cylon units to 4, as his sister craft were plucked out of this universe.  That was not bad shooting, to lose 3 craft to 6 enemy missiles.  It was a lot better than the 14 missiles that his unit had launched at the one enemy craft.  Only to have them sucked onto the Colonial decoys, that the attacking enemy weapons had hidden the launching. 

The small missiles might have been decoyed by the Colonial weapons, but Raider 45698 had been able to keep track of the enemy craft despite the decoys.  Quickly the Raider used its amazing acceleration and top speed, to first pop its nose up and then it does a spinning push over dive.  Now it could start working on coming up behind what must be a type of Colonial Raptor.  At least that was what the “updated” systems were telling Raider 45698 that was what he was facing.  Even Cylons systems were not magical, it took them time to work out new things. 

Toe was working the controls on his rear mounted weapons systems, and for once the fact that he had not been in the Colonial military before the war was paying off.  He didn’t have all of the bad habits, that a “normal” EO would have to break to be good at this part of his job.  He was holding his fire, until the Cylons were as close as he thought that he could get them.  All the while he was practicing putting his “Crosshairs” where it needed to be to the nearest Cylon Raider.  He had been told in training, that as soon as he went active.  That the Cylons would start jamming his weapons systems, just like they had done in the last war.  Until that jamming kicked in, he was going to have the advantage over the Cylons. 

Raider 45698 “saw” that one of the other three Raiders fired another pair of missiles at the enemy craft.  It was not surprised when they were drawn off by a powerful jammer, that had not been used until the weapons were almost to the target.  Raider 45698 decided that it was not going to waste any more missiles, and it started to try to close within KEW range of the maneuvering target.  Seconds later, it was aware that it was in a Resurrection Unit. 

##########################

Toe had to smile as the Raider started to close in with him.  The twin KEW’s under his feet were the same type of weapon, that was still found on Vipers.  And it had been proven to be able to kill Raiders, a few hundred times.  The closing speed of the KEWs with the on-rushing Raiders, was going to make it a bad day to be a Cylon.  He pulled the trigger and aimed where the crosshairs said to, then he sprayed a line of rounds first back to his right and then hard to his left.  If the crosshairs were wrong, he would get at least the Raider following the leader.  It was something he had worked out to do in his limited gunnery training, that he had undergone between missions. 

Toe let the corner of his lips drop at what he saw.  The crosshairs had been right, and he had put the first 8 rounds right into the “face” of the closest Raider.  The spraying of KEW rounds only used up some of his limited ammunition, and he thought that he had just wasted a twelfth of his supply.  He let out a yell as the second Raider, that had been blocked by the targeted Raider also came apart under the hammering of the old Colonial weapons.  Now there were only 2 Raiders vs the one old Raptor, and he knew that he had not waisted his ammunition after all. 

This was a late 1st Cylon war craft, and it had a lot of odd little things that were a little different than the Raptors that had been around for the Cylon surprise attack.  One of them just showed the reason it was there in the first place.  Old Number 6 had two bays that were mounted facing towards the top of the craft.  Each of those two small bays could only hold one decoy and one “real” missile.  Each one of those weapons was mounted on a spring like device, that seemed to use a thick plug of metal to push them up and out of the craft before the rocket motors activated. 

With Colonial missiles in such short supply, but slowly growing in numbers, those bays had not been loaded with weapons of any kind.  But as a cue lined up on Con’s screen.  She knew that they were meant to be used by the tail gunner, to fire at targets that were outside of the range of his twin popguns.  Now all she had to do was live long enough to pass on this information to higher command.  After all, it was not like this craft had come with a user’s manual or dedicated training syllabus on how to leverage them effectively in combat. 

Con gave an evil smile as a half-remembered conversation popped into her head.  She knew of another way to take care of unwanted guest that were riding your butt.  She had picked up the idea after a short little hook up with a pirate a few stops before.  This was going to be the first time, that she was going to try what he had been talking about.  The old guy could drink, and she smiled, and he was still in good shape. 

With a friendlier smile she launched two more missiles, but these were only on passive mode when they left from under her crafts’ wings.  The missiles only did a short burn to clear the wing and launch bays before they did a radical pitch up.  Con over ran the “smoke trail” as the weapons went over her cockpit glass and were out of sight behind her.  The two weapons then pitched over to now be 180 degrees off of their launch path.  The old pirate had called it an over the shoulder launch, and now it made perfect sense to her why.  Now that the Colonial missiles had two larger targets in their attack envelope, they were ready to get to work. 

The two remaining Cylon Raiders didn’t notice the launch and the pitching up maneuver the two missiles performed.  They had only seen the weapons as they cleared the top of the Raptor, but they were not assessed as being a threat to them.  It was only when the kicker motor started firing back up, and the two Colonial missiles started coming towards them.  Then the Cylon craft knew that they were a threat, but by then it was too late to do anything about them.  Between the high speed of the attacking missiles and the forward speed of the attacking Raiders, it was over.  Even Cylons could only react so fast, and by the time the craft knew about the threat.  The weapons were only two human eye blinks away from hitting the Cylons 

Con looked at her screen to look for any signs of damage.  She only now noticed that they still needed to be in this area of space for 15 more seconds, before they could make the short jump.  “Toe, get back in your seat!  We are so Fraking out of here!!” 

###################

Notes

What were the combat units pulled out of the main base and small sally ports of Jess’s Toybox?  5 Chevaliers, 3 Korvins, 4 Bulldogs, 4 Royal Von Luckners, 6 Pollux ADA, 3 LT-MOBb Long Toms, 2 towed DAT/96 Sniper Cannons, 3 Turhams, 2 Fury command tanks, 2 Demons, 7 Magis, 6 Torrents, 2 Meteors, 3 Mosquitoes, 2 Tridents, 2 Hellcats II, a Hoplite, 4 Chameleons, 2 Mercuries, 6 Wasps, and 2 Ostroc (missing all legs).  Ritter APC used Chevaliers as base.  7 that mostly just need a re-conditioning and some parts.  4 more that need a major re-fit, a few more that might be salvageable.  The rest are fit only for stripping down for base metal and providing much of the spares needed for the first 7 APCs.  All of these items will need work before they can even be put into Cache sites.  Most of the tanks will be picked up by the Victorians or Colonials over the next few months.  The Chevaliers and Ritters will go to the SLDF ground units. 

Parts pulled from Jess’s Toybox.  100 mech bays, 100 heavy vehicle bays, 50 light Vehicle bays. NO aerospace fighter bays were recovered.  After those bays are refurbished, they will be repaired and be moved around the planet to the distributed hidden support bases.  The hulks of aviation assets were found in major repair shops.  200 tons of Star League tech weapons are all that are useable, 1000 tons FF armor, 500 tons standard armor plate, 500 tons of endo steel, 500 tons normal internal structure.  200 VOXX 25 fusion engines and 1,000 omni 10s fusion engines.  Tons and tons of scrap. 

Chevalier Light Tank (Royal) The Ritter by Maingunnery
Mass: 35 tons
Movement Type: Wheeled
Power Plant: 190 XL
Cruising Speed: 64.8 kph
Maximum Speed: 97.2 kph
Armor: Ferro-Fibrous
Armament:
     2 LRM 5
     1 ER Large Laser
Manufacturer: Unknown
     Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 2690
Cost: 2,637,679 C-bills
Type: Chevalier Light Tank
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Standard)
Movement Type: Wheeled
Tonnage: 35
Equipment                                          Mass
Internal Structure                                  3.5
Engine                        190 XL                  6
   Cruising MP: 6
   Flank MP: 9
Heat Sinks:                   12                      2
Control Equipment:                                  2.0
Power Amplifier:                                    0.0
Turret:                                             0.5
Armor Factor (Ferro)          107                     6                          Internal   Armor   
                          Structure  Value   
     Front                   4         26   
     R/L Side               4/4      20/20   
     Rear                    4         16   
     Turret                  4         25   
Weapons
and Ammo              Location    Tonnage     
2 LRM 5s               Front        4.0     
ER Large Laser         Turret       5.0     
LRM 5 Ammo (24)         Body        1.0     
Infantry                Body        5.0     

[Kyryst]

Well, it seems like the Comguards will be providing the Wolverines some insights into current ship design and some premium salvage (at least 2 hulks that are in majority single pieces). I hope that something can be done for the Pampanito, they were kind of dropped into the frying pan.

I am glad that there is a use for the items from Jess's Toybox, it would have sucked for them if it was unusable after all that effort.

It looks like things have gotten so much worse in the Twelve Colonies, hope those people can overcome. We shall see what happens.

[glitterboy2098]

didn't the converted recharge station have drydock facilities? perhaps it could be used to haul the wrecks of all three ships back.. i'm sure that there would be enough left of the two Dante's that they might be able to eventually Frankenstein up a complete one.
(honestly i'm, surprised the last ship didn't surrender when it realized it was so drastically outmatched.)

it'll also be interesting to see how the wolverines handle the Comstar POW's.. i'm sure they'll get a lot of interesting intel from them. while the upper officers probably won't talk (they'd be too fanatical and loyal), i suspect many of the lower officers, non-coms, and techs will be more than willing to talk about comstar and the state of the inner sphere if it gets them better conditions. it wouldn't reveal much in the way of the important secrets, but the wolverines ought to be able to cross reference all that and work out some interesting stuff.

[cawest]

didn't the converted recharge station have drydock facilities? perhaps it could be used to haul the wrecks of all three ships back.. i'm sure that there would be enough left of the two Dante's that they might be able to eventually Frankenstein up a complete one.
(honestly i'm, surprised the last ship didn't surrender when it realized it was so drastically outmatched.)

it'll also be interesting to see how the wolverines handle the Comstar POW's.. i'm sure they'll get a lot of interesting intel from them. while the upper officers probably won't talk (they'd be too fanatical and loyal), i suspect many of the lower officers, non-coms, and techs will be more than willing to talk about comstar and the state of the inner sphere if it gets them better conditions. it wouldn't reveal much in the way of the important secrets, but the wolverines ought to be able to cross reference all that and work out some interesting stuff.

 >:D >:D >:D >:D

[georgiaboy]

Interesting ship mod for the Wolverine and Colonials.


Is there a type of SuperMax style open frame freighter the Colonials may have left in the Colonies. It would make a good use for transiting ship and space station  Hulks around space.


or


Mod a Colonial ship with a reinforced repair bay so that large items can be transited in the repair bay.

[Kyryst]

You know, the Styx’s jump field was 100 meters short for a Potemkin, but was able to carry a whirlwind and a congress. I am sure that between Nike, Yukon, and Zephyr, they should be able to transport whatever they want out of the system. The only question is how to handle witnesses and the Pampanito. That will be the question cawest has to handle.

Thinking about fusion engines, I was going to say they could use the Omni 10s to charge the lasers on vipers, but that has already been solved. So the other possible uses, besides trucks and distribution of power, would be internal engines for superheavy powered armor, or portable fusion generators for small camps or cramped dig sites.  I could also see it used on motorcycles, trikes and ATVs used for scouting or power armor transport. .5 to 2 ton range. Who knows?

[cawest]

Chapter 50

By Cliff
Beta and Clean up:  Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

25 Nov 3049
New Circe

In a flash of light and in a blur of movement, that was too fast for the human eye to really understand what was going on.  One of the ugliest moving objects ever created by the hand of man, just “popped” into existence at the L1 point near the only life sustaining planet in this system.  On that “ship” the crew went to work with a passion.  Robert turned and looked at his friend with a smile, they were back home.  Two seconds later two more ships arrived at what someone from the inner sphere would had said was impossibly close to another ship.  Each of the smaller newly arrived ships looked “normal”, and soon they were lost among the giants living in this system.  The larger ship was not so easily hidden. 

“Jules, would you please let the Station know, that we have arrived with the SLS Mustang and SLS Weasel ll.”  Now that they were back in the home system, the two carriers would now fall under traffic control and the SLDF Navy on what they were to do next.  Robert and Jules just had their own jobs to do with what was attached to the Styx.  The two Carriers would take commands from their “normal” command structure from now on. 

Jules smiled and did a little chin nod to a station only about 3 meters from where he was currently standing.  He still was not 100 percent used to having artificial gravity while he was in space, and he had not yet broken some of the lifetime of experience or habits of “Normal” space travel.  That little movement of his head was all he needed to do.  Soon messages were flying from the ship to the star system’s traffic control center.  A message had been sent from the Styx via the HPG she carried, a few hours before they had arrived at this location. 

The massive load of metal could “only” jump 17 light years at a charge.  And even then, they had to take between three and four hours between each jump.  Still sometimes, they had to take longer breaks in their interstellar travels to give the Colonial civilian grade jump engine time to cool down or be inspected for any damage.  To make up for the lost time.  After the third day on the road from Barbados, Robert had ordered and posted a note to the two liners for the passengers and crew to read.  This little convoy would not be stopping for any extended stay after each “normal” traveling day, like they had planned on before leaving New Circe. 

As expected, this had not gone over very well with the passengers on those two liners.  And after a full 24-hour day of maintaining this new schedule, the sharply pointed messages had started to show up in Jules and Roberts digital mailbox.  Thanks to the two warships covering the normal docking collars and forcing the liners to be dock to the wrecked warships.  The pair of officers didn’t have to worry about passengers physically trying to see them for the rest of the trip back home.  Not one of the complainers had brought a “space suit” with them, and the intervening warship hulls were not pressurized much less pressurized with a breathable atmosphere for some strange reason.  The last issue had not even been started by the officers in charge of this mission.  Someone on the maintenance team had made sure to vent the two warship hulks, before they left Barbados.  They even had put the note in the maintenance logs when they had done it. 

Within a single duty shift, after the overloaded Tramp class ship had arrived in this system.  The two passenger liners were on the ground, and the two damaged warships were free floating in the local space of this arrival point.  By now the crew in the local areas of this jump point had gotten used to having to handle, well let’s just call them over sized loads.  The offloading of the remaining stores from the jump carriers, Styx, and the dropships would be easier without the blocking damaged and recovered warships. 

The Station would take care of moving the warships and the wrecked Titan dropship with some tugs.  The only main issue was that they had been expecting only one warship to arrive with the Styx.  Somehow the news of the second warship and the battle damage dropship had not filtered down to the workers or lower level managers.  It would have been a lot larger vessel than the Congress or Whirlwind, but it would have only been one warship that they would have to deal with and not two and a damaged combat dropship.  It was early the next duty shift for the City of McEvedy, that Robert took a small craft down to the planet. 

##############

Robert and Jules would have three full days after landing, before they would see each other again.  Jules would have two meetings on that first day of their return to the planet’s surface.  The last one, was with is daughter and son-in-law, that had left Jules very happy about something.  The first meeting that both men had sat in together, was in the SLDF Navy Operation building’s main meeting room.  It was a meeting that both men were not looking forward to.  There had been some pointed remarks already, in digital messages, about why they had not brought the Egg Sac back with them.  Those were the only warnings about what the meeting was going to be about.  This lack of information set both men on edge, when they were able to finally see each other again while using the warehouse mess facilities. 

################

The meeting was small, and everyone was in full dress uniform.  Even the two gatekeepers on the hallway door were in full Clan Wolverine dress uniform complete with weapons.  As soon as Jules and Robert walked into the room, they kind of felt like they were in for a grilling of a lifetime.  On one side of the table were marked as the seats for Jules and Robert, and on the other side was Admiral Franks, Admiral Whitefield, and Admiral Xi.  They also were in full dress uniform, also complete with sidearms.  Robert noticed the addition of the weapons and he felt his heart start to race. 

Franks looked first down the line on his side of the table, and then he looked across to the two other men.  He kept his face as blank as possible.  “Well, this almost feels like a tribunal.  That was not the intent of this meeting Gentlemen.” 

He pointed to the two chairs, and the two men took their seats.  While the men were still moving to take their high-backed seats, he kept talking.  “The first order of business of this meeting.  It is to congratulate you all on the conclusion of a successful Pilgrimage.  Everyone in this room knows how stressful they can be.” 

Franks gave the two men a little smile, that went all the way to his eyes.  He had wanted to make sure that this pair of officers did not know that they were both being evaluated on this run to Barbados.  He didn’t know if it worked or not, but Franks did have the results of those “Tests”.  The other members on his side of the table had been in on the plan almost from the word go.  Each of them had their own reasons for playing along with Admiral Frank’s little game. 

“I have a dozen different official reports filed about the pair of you, and all of them are positive.  As you both know dealing with higher ranked people that are not in charge, is a major leadership challenge.  You both have passed this leadership test, and it will be put in both of your personnel records.  This was not a test that had a score to be achieved.  You either can do it?  Or you cannot do the job.  You both seem to have that skill set.  Congratulations.” 

He was not going to tell them about the negative reports and messages that he had also received about these two men’s jobs performance.  They had started coming to his staff within an hour of the return of the Styx to New Circe.  Even the lowest ranked member of Frank’s staff had quickly worked out, that they were coming from people that were just upset that they did not get their way on the trip.  And that was even after all of those passengers had been told, what the rules were for this short notice pilgrimage.  Even in Clan Wolverine, you had some people who thought that the rules did not fully apply to them. 

There were very few “leaderships” schools that the SLiE or even the SLDF Navy could use.  It normally was up to your next line commander, to help develop the younger officers above the rank of O3 or enlisted members above the rank of E5.  With the coming of the Colonials and the recalling of so many older generation officers, and the increase in the size and number of interstellar capable units?  This had caused some issues, which the SLDF Navy was still learning how to deal with.  They were trying a few different ideas to see what at least worked somewhat. 

The smile on Admiral Franks face fell, like all of the strings on a puppet being cut at once.  This group of senior officers had already read and reviewed all of the relevant reports that had come from this mission.  With the alert provided by the HPG messages, the key leader’s calendars had been cleared to support wrapping up this mission.  They had just given the attaboy to the two recalled officers.  Now it was time to find out more about one of the key decisions, which had been made on the mission.  Franks could feel the others leaned back in their chairs without even needing to look out of the corners of his eyes.  The pair of officers were ready for the point to be made.  They knew how the game was played, and they were ready for the painful part to start. 

“Now.  I would like to know, why you deviated from your mission on recovering the primary warship.”  Franks dropped his chin and he gave each man a strong but level look to match the tone in his voice. 

Franks was a bit old school, and he would not refer to the Egg Sac by the name that the warship had been given by her last owners.  He had issues with anything related to Clan Widowmaker, in general or in any finer points.  Rumor had it.  That he, his father, and his great grandfather all had gotten hammered drunk, when they received the report that all of Clan Widowmakers had been absorbed by another clan in 2834.  The information had only come, after a contact with a Dark Caste messenger that had passed along this information to the right member of the Jarnfolk.  That member of the Jarnfolk had ended up coming closer to Clan Wolverine’s space.  A lot of times you didn’t know what to ask, so you got what you got, when you got it.  This time the data that had been collected by the SLIC run ship was not that important to the Star League in Exile, but it had been well received news to some of the key leaders of the SLiE and their close friends. 

Robert knew this fact about the Franks family, and it didn’t help him one little bit in this given situation.  “Sir!  We tried half a dozen different locations to attached to the Potemkin.  And all of our tests showed that we could not get complete coverage on the larger ship with our jump field.  Jules has copies of the engineering teams briefing on the subject.  We could have brought her home, but she would have been short on the nose, or tail or just a bit shaved down on both ends.  I made the decision, that it was not acceptable to damage the asset.  And I approved an alternate course of action as the Mission Commander and senior officer on site.” 

Admiral Xi had a stone face, which did not give anything away as she spoke for the first time in this meeting.  “The engineering department has yours and that teams’ original reports, and we are waiting for a more detailed report to come from them.  They do not agree, when these new assessments that were brought up to them at my last meeting with them.  They did admit that they might not have run the jump space models with the known dropships that were attached to the warship’s outer hull or the reported 10,000tons of cargo still left in her bay.  My gut tells me that they will come to the same conclusion as your engineering team had, but it might take them a while to do it and publicly admit to making those errors.” 

Now it was back to the head of the Navy to find out something about the newly returned mission.  “Now why did you choose those two particular warships to bring back with you?”  Franks let one of his eyebrows raise just about a half inch to show his interest in what the answer might be, and he wanted to know the thought prosses of the other officers. 

Jules felt his back go straight in the high back chair, and he was about to fire off something that would at best be called off color to the other officers.  Just when he opened his mouth to fire that volley off, Robert used a level tone and addressed the issue.  “It was suggested, by the staff, that we could have brought back both of the Congress class warships at the cache.  The base idea was that the Station could take what was needed and repair one of the other vessels of that class from a parts donor vessel.  I did not think that this was a worthwhile idea.  I left the Hunter’s Pride and decided that we should take the one ship, that we can reflag as one that had fought under our flag.  I picked the Gray Wolf a Whirlwind class warship from Clan Wolf and the Hell’s Horse Mustang.  The Wolf’s ship had some, but light jump engine damage, and I thought that she might make a great replacement for the Weasel.  She was of the same class, and it has been a long-time since a vessel of the SLDF Navy had carried that name.  Did I make a poor choice?  Query affirmative?” 

Rear Admiral Xi could not hold it back any longer, and she felt a loud snort leave her mouth.  She saw her boss shoot her a look from down the table.  She didn’t even give him a look before talking.  “Even if you had brought both ships of the same class with you?  We most likely would not have put even one of them back into service for the SLDF Navy.” 

Admiral Whitefield kept his face just as still as when the meeting had started, but only for a second after Xi had stopped talking.  Then he smiled, a little and his voice had a sarcastic tone that dripped with every word he spoke.  “Even If you had gotten one of them back in fighting trim?  I would not have the manpower to get it out of this system.  I do like it, that we have more of our lost kits back home.  If nothing else, after they are checked out and the hulls are declared safe.  We might be able to use one or even both of them as schools to speed up the training for new classes of space warriors.  They don’t have to have working jump engines to teach general system repair, maintenance, or even shooting and crew drills.” 

Jules smiled a little, and now he had his temper under control.  “Well there not all back, but now that we have some updated information on a list of other ships.  What can we do about getting more of our “lost kits” back to our system?  Query Affirmative.” 

The leadership sitting on the other side of the table looked at each other, and Admiral Franks decided that it should be him to address this issue.  “We are looking into it, but it is something that we will not bring up for public discussion.  Now let’s talk about the next issues.  Did you really order a guard to be put outside the bridge of the Styx, and then outfitted them with stunners?  They were to use those devices on the next person, that wanted access to the bridge without being on the duty roster.  Query affirmative?” 

################

Robert was at an afterhours meeting at Admiral Whitefield’s home a few weeks after the return of the Styx.  It was “just” a family dinner.  But on New Circe, that was not a small event to attend or be invited to.  It was not long before the two officers retreated to a side room that was an office, library, and man cave retreat for the oldest male in the home.  With the door safely locked behind them, and a shared empathetic and knowing smile as the noise noticeably dropped in volume.  They sat down to talk a little shop….. off the record, away from any recording devices, and hopefully away from any bribable ears. 

David Whitefield looked over at his friend and he waited for Robert to take a sip of a drink slowly warming in his hands.  As soon as the glass was at the other man’s lips David struck, lightening quick.  “So, Robert.  When are you going to settle down?  Query affirmative.  You’re still young enough to have a few more kids.  We can always use more spacers or aerospace fighter jocks, with some of your genes.” 

Robert was ready for this opening line, and he finished slowly sipping his drink.  It was not the first time, that it had been used against him or something like this attempt at timing.  “You know I have four kids, and two of them have had their own kids now.  That is unless you are hinting at something else, and you are suddenly getting coy in your advancing years.” 

David knew this meeting was off the record, and all of the uniforms were safely in the closets.  That did not mean, that he could talk about just everything.  “Well, there has been talk.”  David let his voice slowly trail off and he raised his eyebrows. 

Robert smiled.  “Yes, I had a few messages generated to be sent to a few friends.  Some of them were going to our contacts, and a few were timed messages to be sent to another friend.  I am sure that has gotten some reviews, and that has gotten some busy bodies talking about Terry and me.  I had every message, which was not work related, reviewed.  I even sent a copy of all of my personal messages to the Intel section over in SLIC.  I also know that you had that grandson of yours watching me.  I bet he reported to you, when I sent those messages off to a friend on the Yukon’s Intel team.”  Robert had been on a role that the two glasses of wine had helped fuel. 

David didn’t try to hide a smile and the twinkle in his eyes.  “I know, but some others do not.  I will drop it, and I will offer good luck to you with your long-distance relationship.  From all of the reports I have read, she seems like a very nice lady.  I just hope you do not end up putting a lot of time into a useless endeavor, and you end up getting hurt in more than one way.  Query Affirmative.” 

Robert was now a little defensive with his longtime friend.  “It is my time, and it is my risk.  Query Negative.  And I will have to deal with all of the hoops, that I will have to jump through at any future possible turn of events.  Those events, that only one of the Colonial’s Oracles might be able to give cryptic hints about.” 

David held his hand up in a form of surrender to his longtime friend.  He could tell that his friend was ready to attack or defend himself as only he saw fit to do.  Having seen his friend like this only a time or two before.  He knew that his friend would fight to the hilt or even to the pummel, if he thought that he needed to.  “I know, I know, Robert.  It is just one more of the troubles you seem to have developed a taste for dropping into our laps.  Query affirmative.”  David let a smile and light tone try to defuse the conflict that he could feel brewing between them. 

Robert sat deeper into the high back and thickly padded chair, and after he got his breathing under control and worked to get his heartrate back to being close to normal.  He started to relook at what had been said to him by his friend.  He could tell there was something there, and he could feel that there was a reason.  That his friend so willingly walked into, what he had to know was a very sensitive minefield.  Out of the blue Robert knew that David wanted to talk to someone, about something, that was deeply bothering him. 

“Is there something bothering you David?  You know I only go where you or your boss sends me.  That last trip was not my idea.  I think you know, that I have been pushing for another run to the Inner Sphere.  And this time, I want to go as deep as I can into the Inner Sphere on this next run.  If nothing else?  We should pick up a data dump from the network I have been building.” 

David gave a slight nod to his friend, and he took another sip of his drink.  “That last part is not going to happen, Robert.  What do you know about the last part of Xi’s missions, and do not start by saying that you know nothing?  I know you to well, for you to try to play that kind of game with me.  Query Affirmative.  Besides even before you said it.  You knew that I knew, about your messages being passed to the Yukon’s Intel team.  You even knew that I looked at them before I talked to you about information that they contained.” 

[cawest]

Robert was blinking both of his eyes like he was about to cry or that he had been in a major dust storm.  That was an impressive list of and amounts of recovered combat equipment.  “And they still have areas to look through?  I hope Jess gets the credit for her find.  Query affirmative.  I also would bet they have not found the division’s main supply bunkers, yet.” 

David gave a knowing nod and smile back to his friend.  “That would be one of the reasons why they are sending a second mission back to Jess’s Toybox.  That and those two other surprises you dropped on command’s lap on your other runs.” 

David stopped talking, but all he got was a stone face look coming from Robert.  They were just looking at each other long enough, that each man was lost in his own thoughts.  It was David that broke the silence first.  “Robert it was the bomb shell about the clan moving around Barbados, that has everyone on the senior staff jumping at shadows.  We had been expecting to get a lot more tech data from out of our contacts with our “Friends”, before the Clans showed up again.  Between that and some detailed reports on what has been going on in the Clan systems.  We do not know when we will get that needed information from our contacts.  We will have to try to find one of the Jarnfolk clans and see if we can find our other “friends”.  We need to find out if the clans are starting to come after us, or are they going after Terra and the House Lords.  I do not think I have to tell you, that both of those scenarios are bad news for us.  Query Affirmative. 

Robert was nodding his head in understanding.  He had thought the same thing, and he had lost more than a few nights sleep over some of what his mind was dredging up.  “Well, I’m glad I brought those two warships back.” 

Before he could say more his longtime friend whose face was now speaking volumes about how tired he was.  “Robert, we needed that Potemkin.  They have one of the Colonial’s jump drive set aside just for her, if the new drives do not work out.  The lift of so many dropships by one of those classes of ships, would give us a leg up in any situation that might have us fighting a two-front war.  The good thing was that you have updated all of those other targets along the routes you were given.  Then you found more targets, so I will call that a push.  I think they are going with the idea of the Colonials leading a mission centered around the Kaga, to go collect as many jumpships and warships as they can physically handle.  That is outside of my wheelhouse, but I have been known to read the tea leaves correctly a time or three.” 

Robert felt his eyebrows climb into his hair line.  “That much Colonial tech, and that close to the Clan!!”  Robert felt like someone had just kicked him very low in the guts. 

Robert had to shake his head to clear his thoughts.  So many things were going on inside of his brain at one time, that it was like standing under a powerful waterfall.  Knowing that his people were willing to risk that much Colonial tech that close to Clan space, was all the proof he needed.  The Leadership of his people were scared that they were going to lose this war or the one that might be coming after dealing with the Cylons.  “What about the two light fighter designs and the Broadsword class mech carrier design I was able to bring back.” 

David gave his friend a level look, and he didn’t say anything for some time.  “That is well outside my wheelhouse, but I have heard some talk.  Right now, it is just data.  We just don’t have the production capacity to put any of those fighter designs into mass production.  They are looking at the Broadswords, but carrying 5 mechs is not our thing.  I heard that they might just convert the nose mech bay for more cargo space.  But doing something like this is going to take time, and people to make the changes.  Then they are going to need more people and other resources to do the required testing of a whole new dropship design.  If they need to replace any of the Leopards or Confederates, then they might make a few Broadswords in the future.  But I would not bet even then, that they will start up a whole line to do a mass replacement of our lance carriers.  Maybe it will help in any updating being done to the Leopards we already have in operation.” 

The meeting went on for another hour, as David and Robert talked about all of the ins and outs of the different plans each man had been making.  Then they started talking about the other things happening around the planet, and how the war was going against the Cylons.  They also talked about how the Colonials and Victorians were settling in with the rest of the planet’s population. Robert was surprised that the first group of recovered Cylons were about to be assigned to units.  They had to pull the first group of human form Cylons that had rebelled against the Number Ones off the POW Island. Soon 500 human form Cylons would be entering the military, and those who were not cleared for military service would be going into the workforce.  It was a mix bag of information that the two men compared notes on.  It didn’t take Robert long to realize that the news of the clan on the move had shaken the general and leadership population of the planet to its very core.  The concern for most of the planet’s population was focused in the Colonial and Clan area, with the Victorians being more worried about the Cylons. 

#############

Francis Callahan looked around the well-appointed but emptying board room.  He watched backs as some of the last expensively clothed persons left the room.  Francis had his hands tightly gripped below the lip of the hard wood desktop that dominated the room.  He was furious and it was taking every bit of his remaining self-control not to yell, scream, and throw things.  For the first time he was glad that this room had avoided the trend of having glass walls on the corridor side of the room.  Then again, not having the glass wall had caused him to be trapped in the first place.  He had been lured to this meeting, by a message that said the legal department had next year’s labor contracts ready for him to review. 

When the CEO/COO had entered the room, he had found it filled with the full board of directors for his company.  Over half of them had been his own family, and that had added to the power of the ambush and treason he felt.  The only person that was not in the meeting was who Francis knew, was the architect of this surprise assault on him.  Francis was thinking about that JumpShip captain so hard, that he was surprised when a younger man took a seat across from him. 

When he looked over the desktop, it was like looking into a mirror back in time.  The person was his son, who was looking levelly at his old man.  The Father didn’t say a word as he looked at this son across the table.  The son that should be in the middle of a month-long training exercise on the other side of the planet not sitting in this room.  Francis had no idea how the board of directors had been able to get him here and do it in such a way that he would not find out about it. 

Harry could tell by the tightness around this father’s eyes, that he was not going to be the one to speak first.  That is unless he wanted to just have a yelling match with the older Callahan.  “So, what do you think?” 

Francis knew himself well enough and his son well enough, to know that his son was trying to defuse things before the board came back from lunch.  “I think that it is a bad Fraking idea, but you do not.  Query affirmative.” 

Harry noticed the use of the Colonial word, and he also noticed that his father didn’t notice that he had used a word from a group he did not like.  “This Captain Copeland has been right before.  Rumor has it, that he was the one to point out to the Colonials about those man portable SRM launchers to kill Praetorians.  And it was him, which sent a note to our R&D department about the Torpedoes the recon unit and the Colonials are looking at needing a steady supply of.” 

The elder Callahan waved his hand in the air dismissively at what his son had just said, and his nose rose in the air like he smelled a fart.  “All that is chump change at best.  The real money is in making real weapons.  We have to build battlemechs!!” 

Harry had about enough of this line of thinking coming from his father.  He had been harping on building mechs as far back as he could remember.  One of the things he shared with his father was the temper and he let some of it out.  “That is a dropship load of crap and you know it!!!  The military is buying up any mech that they can get, but they are not investing in a new design or are willing to put out a mass order or long-term contract.  They want fighters and cheap machines that can fight mass wave attacks that the Cylons like to use.  You also know as well as I do.  That they have more than enough stocks of our second-generation head cappers in storage, to last for ten months of the current combat conditions.  The budget department thinks the SLDF will not put out a contract for more of those Gauss rifles for at least 6 more months.  We have a whole line just making spare parts, to pay for your Headhunter disaster.  That and the sales of the armored 4x4 have been the only things helping us keep up with the loan payments.  The only hard cash coming into the company?  It is coming from those manpads SRMs, and the low rate torpedoes manufactory going to the Colonial city state.  That is a very thin income line.  Query affirmative.” 

Francis was about to wave off his sons’ opinions with the contempt he felt.  But deep down, he knew that his son was right.  But his company made weapons!!!  And the only real weapons were battlemechs!!  Then his son started talking again, and the boom was lowered on him. 

“Do you know why I am on leave right now, instead of training with my unit?  Query Affirmative?  The Commander of all the Ground Forces in the SLDF knows how much of a razor’s edge this company is riding on.  I was put on leave, “to help get the legs back under my family’s company”.  I was told this point blank from General Dobrev’s own lips.  That is why I am in this office, instead of in my mech’s cockpit.  People high up within the SLDF think that this is more important than a mech pilot’s training in time of war.  Maybe you need to learn, that it is what the customer feels is important and not what you think that is important that matters.  Query Affirmative.” 

The elder Callahan visibly deflated as what his son had said sunk below the top layer of his old brain.  “So, you want me to listen to this navy arse.  Query Affirmative.” 

Harry knew that he had an opening, and he had to strike and strike hard while the opening was there.  If he waited too long it would evaporate like snowballs in hell.  “This Mr. Copeland has some good ideas, and they are not just good idea ferries being kicked around by some business news talk show trying to stir up ratings.  Buying the Blazer manufacturing machines is going to be pretty cheap, but moving it to the Victorian city state is going to be almost cost free for us.  They will take some time to get the people over there trained up to take over the building that the Victorians are willing to build.  If we get it set up and just add one percent of locals to the employment rolls every month, after we go into full rate production.  It could start noticeably cutting our overhead cost for the whole company.” 

The CEO of Callahan Munitions made a sour face, as he realized that he did not know the details of this deal.  “And the down sides for this little project?  Let’s put all of the cards on the table, shale we.  Query Affirmative.” 

Harry was on the subject like a Sea Fox on a good deal.  Unlike his father, he had been reading up on the details even while on deployment.  “The Victorians will take 2% of the monthly production in lieu of taxes or repaying the cost of the facility’s building and support areas.  That will drop to 1%, when half of the sites total payroll is made up of Victorian citizens.  Now who is going to be buying the ones that are not being traded to pay our taxes?  I am sure that the Victorians will be picking up some, for their own local defense force.  They are heavy, but I know that those farm kids are used to throwing hay bales all day long and seven days a week. 

When Harry saw his father get a little glint in his eye with the image he had just pitched.  Harry went on talking.  “The Colonials cannot make enough of them for their own forces and send some back to the Inner Sphere for items, that they can trade to the SLDF for things they cannot make to fight the Cylons.  I bet that our military is going to be snapping them up for front line infantry, and with the growing number of light power battle armor suits that are being made.  Well, Blazers are easy for them to carry even with an additional power pack.  The newer Centurions are getting harder and harder to kill with the Mausers we currently field.  I would also think that the Lord Protector’s people would pick up more to use as “safe” trade goods going to the Inner Sphere.  I do think that we will be able to sell every one of them, without marking them down or needing to give a bulk buy discount.  At least for the near future, and maybe not even in my lifetime.  And oh, by the way father.  It was Mr. Copeland who did all of the leg work and gave us this information.  It was reviewed by our people, and they whole heartily agree with his assessments.  That was why the rest of the family mobilized against you.” 

The CEO knew when he had lost a fight.  “Okay, I will support that one.  But what about the rest of his ideas?  He wants us just to be a parts supplier.  Query Affirmative.” 

His son tilted his head to one side, and he didn’t say anything for a few long seconds.  “And what is wrong with that, if that is where the money and growth is at?  Query Affirmative.  What is wrong with diversifying?  And if we can do it in a low risk high return way, which seems like a smart long term move.  Mr. Copeland is not only still buying up our stock.  He has been trying to help not just us, but our planet.  I thought that was one of our founding principles put down by great granddad.  Query Affirmative.  His idea on making replacement armor covers for the new Weasel battle armor, that look more like the original ComStar suits has merit.  My sources say that he is taking some of those suits back on his next supply run.  What if they send more and more of those suits back?  I think that is going to be a huge expense for very little output, but he has the idea of using it as a trade school for making and supporting those systems to defer overall cost of that project.  What will be at even a lower cost is also using the Victorians and Colonial funds to put up small production areas, to make Colonial grade medium and heavy weapons as well as a full range of ammunition.  We can charge what we want for them!  We will be the only ones making weapons, which are cleared to be lost to the Cylons and avoid the trading protocols.  We will keep it small and get away with it, because everyone knows that it is a niche and short-term market.  I do not know what this Copeland was smoking when he came up with that idea, but I want to get some, and force feed it to our Bids and Proposals Department!!” 

The father and son talked all the way through lunch.  One of the low-level assistance brought them open faced sandwiches, and the pair were still eating when the rest of the board of directors returned to this private meeting room.  When they started to trickle back in for an afternoon of frustration?  More than a few would have to re exit the room, to make sure they had returned to the right meeting.  Both of the Callahan’s were smiling, and the CFO made sure to mark this day down on her calendar due to its rarity.  With very little prodding from the rest of the leadership of this company, the senior Callahan signed off on the idea of buying and setting up a factory to make Blazer rifles, and Colonial design weapons that ranged from pistols to light crew served machine guns, as well as anti Cylon grade ammunition for them.  A new division, but short-term departments within that division were set up to manage these projects.  Francis even Okayed the idea of looking into setting up a boutique armor fabricator to make ComStar looking covers for the Weasel PA (L). 

After some pushing from his son, Francis even approved for research to be done into what their company could make for export off planet.  Without Robert even being in the room, the company was moved along the path that he had envisioned.  They were even starting to move production into the other city-states outside of Clan oversight, and they were starting to seek out ways to diversify what they could produce.  The only deviation was that Francis asked that the market research department would see what mechs would better fit the SLDF current sets of missions.  He was not going to give up on his dream of being in what he thought was the top of the league of companies.  He wanted Made by Callahan Munitions on the data plate of a Battlemech. 

################################

A few days later Harry Callahan was adjusting his power tie.  Having to wear a tie was one of the reasons, that he like being a mech jock.  As he worked the tie to help with the blood flow to his brain, he thought back to why he needed to wear one in the first place.  He was trying to keep the word, which he had given his father.  He would be looking to see different ways to help keep the core of the family company active.  He had sent out contact messages to a long list of groups around the planet asking what they could do to better support the war effort.  Callahan Munitions was open to working more closely with any of them.  Most of the normal players had either not replied or messaged back, that they were reviewing their needs.  Harry was expected this and was not disappointed by his lack of a major response. 

The person that Harry was meeting in the next few minutes, was someone that had been the first to reply to his mass correspondence.  Harry was not surprised that this group was the first ones to jump on his mass request.  His father was not going to like it, because these people were not interested in buying or wanting to build a massive number of battlemechs.  What they were looking for?  He had no idea, and he had no idea why they wanted to use a holographic display for this first meeting.  From what he understood, the Colonials were not that comfortable with technology they had not developed themselves. 

Harry was back to the world when the meeting room glass door opens, and a dark-haired man in a Colonial cut suit entered the room.  At that instant, Harry knew that the projector or its technology was not going to be an issue.  He stood and extended his hand to the other man without needing to cross the far end of the desk.  “Mr. Tyrol, thank you for accepting my invitation to work together on fixing problems for the better defense of our planet.”  Harry made sure to use the phrase he had titled his communique with. 

The human form Cylon called Galen Tyrol took the offered hand, with a harried look on his face.  “The message made mention of working to fix problems.  And your company has been able to help the Colonial city state with shoulder launch missiles, and torpedoes we are using for the scouting mission of our old home worlds.  Besides word has already leaked, about your company buying the other set of Blazer tooling with the idea of setting up another production site.” 

While Tyrol was talking.  He released the hand and then pulled out and put into the projectors data port a disk in one smooth and flowing motion of his left hand and arm.  While the projector worked on retrieving the data from the portable device, Galen kept talking.  “We have been having some issues with one of our key Colonial weapons systems.” 

Harry turned and looked at the center of the table.  In a flash an image showed in the center of the room, which started to rotate and spin in space.  The larger main display image soon had 6 smaller images displayed on one side of the main image.  Harry knew that the main image, was of what was called the Slick version of the Colonial Raptor.  The other images were of different armed versions of that same craft. 

When Harry made eye contact with one of the final five Cylons.  “Mr. Tyrol, we do not build Raptors or any of the support systems that they use.  So, what can we do for your people? Query affirmative.” 

Tyrol gave a lopsided smile and reach to touch the bottom of the smaller images, and the projector took this to mean that it was to be the new main image.  “Yes, Mr. Callahan.  We over in Colonial Research and Sustainment know that.  You see when we first came to your planet, some things were done without the right amount of testing before they were rolled out to fight the Imperial Cylon’s forces.  This version of the Raptor is one that had caused us the most issues, which we have not been able to find an adequate fix.” 

Harry looked again at the image.  It still looked like it was a “slick” load out of the Colonial Raptor, but for a block attached to the bottom of the slab sided craft.  The bottom block was rounded on the back and had 4 barrels coming out of the bow or under the nose of the slab-sided craft.  “Are those the quad pack of Ultra LBX’s?  Query affirmative.” 

Tyrol smiled a full-on smile that he used when one of his old knuckle draggers worked out a problem on their own.  “Yes, they are.  The idea was that these new weapons would be able to sweep the skies of Cylon Raider and Heavy Raiders.  It was hoped that they would help even the odds in our counter fighter engagements as the SLDF like to call it.  The Hose of Death is an amazing weapon.  But it is not without some issues that now are making it harder to justify the use of them on Raptors.” 

[cawest]

Harry was more than a little surprised because this was the first time, which he was hearing about something like this.  “Really??  That is news to me.  What are some of the problems, which you are having?  Query Affirmative.” 

Now Galen took a seat and so did the younger man.  Soon the image on display adjusted, so that it was still at eye level to the two men in the room.  “I’m not surprised.  The HOD is an ammunition hog, and it generates a lot of heat that is hard for the Raptors to dump.  We could not cut a hole in the bottom of the Raptors, and ruin its pressure hull.  The ammunition and weapons are attached to the bottom of the craft in one large cassette like concoctions of pain for the support crews.  That also has caused some issues with the landing gear, and heat dumping from weapons fire.  The overheating of the cannons……..is a known problem.  The HOD is great.  That is until you run out of ammo, or it tries to kill you by blowing up under your…….feet.” 

Since Harry was a mech jock, he knew all about how heat generating weapons can kill the person pulling the triggers.  His first training mech not only had first generation heatsinks, it did not have enough of them to alpha strike without shutting down.  He lets a soft snort leave his lips.  “I can see were that might be an issue.” 

Galen felt a smile come to his face, which was not forced or measured.  “Yea, and those are not the only issues.  When a Raptor fires this quad pack off, the recoil is something that you should never have to experience outside of an amusement park.  After a while we noticed that after every mission, which a Raptor was packing one of these.  The ground crew would spend the next few days tightening down any and all the nuts and bolts on the airframe.  We think that we have lost at least 4 Raptors just to them being shaken apart because of them using the HOD weapons pack.  The Admiral had to put out a directive, that none of the Raptors are to carry the pack.  Unless it is one frakked up mission, and it is the only way to save it.” 

Harry was lost in thought as he looked at the spinning and twisting image displaying the modified Colonial small craft.  “Okay let’s look at the key issues.  One heat, two recoil, third is ammunition load, four is ground clearance, and fifth is landing gear clearance.  Is that all?  Query Affirmative.” 

When the younger man stopped talking for long seconds, Galen told him that he had missed one issue.  “Power is another concern; we have to deal with or come up with a way to manage.  Raptors are power hogs, so even fixing them up like what we did with those stripped-down medium lasers on the Vipers.  They still would have a problem getting more than a single blast out of them off every 90 seconds.  That is too long of a recharge time in a Raider battle.” 

The two men talked for the next hour about what the Raptor can and cannot do.  Harry supplied the information about what Age of War threw clan tech weapons could do and any limitations that were known to be issues.  Both men were surprised at the amount of information the other man possessed without needing to use any data retrieval device. 

Harry was taking a sip of a cold drink and he had a flash back of his father.  He almost choked on the drink, as those images flashed threw his mind.  He almost runs over to the table and stopped the image of the gun Raptor from moving.  “I think I might have an idea.  Our HeadCapper 2 Bravo is loaded by a quick release cassette of ready to fire rounds.  That design feature would also help with speeding up the reloading between missions.  You would not have to drop the whole weapon’s pod and replace it with one holding a fresh load of rounds.  If the Raptor cannot power the coils for the Gauss Rifle?  Maybe one of those Omni 10s could do the job.  That might cost you a ton of mass for engine, control runs, heat management and fuel to fit them on the Raptors.  Just run the power cable next to the information relay cable already being run through hatch 44K, to the quad pack or heavy missile launcher.” 

Galen and Harry worked for another hour and this caused Harry to miss his next meeting, but it was worth it.  The pair did not work out all of the issues, but they worked out enough for a joint team to be able to get a prototype of the weapons set up in record time.  In less than a month they were making test flights and test weapons fire in different atmospheric environments.  It was overkill to use against any known Raider and Heavy Raiders.  It also was not that great in a ground support role, unless they were going after Rhinos or Tinmen.  They could even damage a Basestar, but they could not kill one.  That last item would have removed this weapons options from the Raptors options list from the start.  But after the battle on Nike’s World?  The Colonial Navy now knew that the Cylons Fleet had smaller ships, like the Combat landing ships that they had used on that world.  For them a pair of high-speed slugs that the Gauss Rifles fired, would be very good about taking them out.  The new weapons did produce a recoil.  But a pair of these weapons firing at the same time was still a lot less recoil, than a pack of 4 of the high rate of fire mech scale shotguns going to town. 

###############################

Harry had a slight smile, as he read this latest report on his PADD.  It was an order from the Colonials city state.  It was an order for a lot of second-generation Gauss rifles to be delivered.  He knew that it was not going to be enough to please his father, but Harry knew that it would keep that production line open for a while longer.  The Colonials were even open to paying for the development of a new type of cassette that would hold two tons of ammunition, instead of the original single ton per cassette.  That all was good news for his family’s company. 

Harry puts the message pad down and turns to the desktop keyboard.  He knows that Callahan Munitions could have turned out this whole order in just a few months.  But that would leave the line dormant, and those workers would be without the jobs they were trained to do.  Besides the Colonials were short on cash, so a slow but steady production of the weapons would best suit both parties of this contract.  It also would help his family’s company get a little more funds out of the SLDF, and maybe a little more out of the Colonials for the development of the prototype Hyper assault Gauss rifle.  It was not much of a chance, but it was one that was worth the younger Callahan’s time to write up a few pages of a report to send to the right department within the SLDF. 

############################

On the edge of the old border of Colonial and Cylon space.

The Number 5 looked at the screen that displayed “his” Fleet, and a huge smile crossed his face that was the epitome of a bureaucrat.  The Ones had not been that happy with the steady draw of resources needed to be used in patrolling old Colonial space.  Ever since the Galactica had made her fast return to this part of space.  The losses the Cylons had been dealing with had been steadily going up.  It had not taken long for that loss rate to exceed those in the months following the renewed war with the humans.  Over the last months even that number had shot up like a viper going out its launch tube.  The plan had been for whole squadrons of Raiders and Heavy Raiders to be out looking for the remaining humans.  The plan had called for dozens of those squadrons to be spread out and constantly looking for the remaining humans.  Then they had to increase the numbers to cope with the rising threat.  It had not taken long for the number of Small Craft squadrons to reach over 90, just to patrol old Colonial space.  That had all changed with the current Tylium shortage, caused by attacks launched by Adama and his new friends.  90 squadrons of small craft jumping around every few hours was very draining on the fuel reserves. 

That was the reason that this 5 was here and commanding a new type of fleet for the Cylon Empire.  This fleet was not made up of Basestars or the new generation of heavy combat Basestars.  This fleet was designed for a whole new mission.  Before the Cylons were patrolling this area of space, but all that did was spread out the Cylon fleet assets thinly over a huge expanse of space.  This fleet was going to go fishing and lure the humans to their deaths.  It was thought that this was going to be the best use of the limited supply of fuel, by using this stealth attack. 

His flagship was an old Colonial warship left over from the first war with the humans.  She had needed a lot of work done to get her ready for combat against her former owners.  The Loki class heavy cruiser still had two landing bays, but this time she carried 20 Raiders and 4 Heavy Raiders.  The last 4 small craft were to board any human ship and fill its corridors with Centurions.  If things got close in?  The Loki still had her teeth.  She was not packing the old heavy cannons, which she had been built with.  Each of those old weapons turrets mounted on her alligator head now held a single capital missile launcher. 

His ship was the heavy hammer of the little fleet, if his other combat ships ran into something they could not handle.  The “attack force was made up of 4 recovered Janser Kerr MAC ships.  That class of MAC ship had started life out as a modified Astral Queen class ship.  These 840foot long ships held a crew of 73 Centurions with 2 human forms commanding the ship.  They also had 150 Centurions packed within the hull for using the mix of 8 Raptors or Heavy Raiders.  The teeth for those craft, were the 32 missile tubes evenly spread out around the ships covering every direction of need, but aft.  They even had a dozen ex Colonial made light KEWs for close in work and counter missiles. 

All of this firepower was supported by the 80 cargo holds on the Loki and a Colonial movers Tanker Variant.  With all of the fuel going to Basestars, that was all of the fuel that his mission would be “allowed” access to.  If he proved effective against the Colonials, then maybe the Ones would give him more resources like fuel.  After all the Cyrannus system had been scoured by the Cylon fleet a few times already.  The Ones thought that it was only a few very small human groups working the area.  The main question that the Ones wanted to be found out, is how they were able to now launch those attacks against the mighty Cylon Empire. 

The Number 5 could only frown as he gave the orders for the rest of his fleet to break up.  As he watched the modified Colonials ships wink out of space, he let a little smile come back to his face.  Every human form in this fleet was of the same line as him.  This was their chance to prove, that they could lead a fleet as well as the Ones or Twos.  Without needing to do anything, the Loki and the fuel tanker left this part of space for the area that he would be looking to catch a few humans. 

###############################

HH was reviewing some of the scattered reporting they were getting.  Very little of the Colonial fleet had survived the Cylons surprise attack.  So, most of the reports were coming in from Civilian survivors turned Cylon hunters.  Oh, and the odd pirate band, that also had decided that they should be killing Cylons and not working against their fellow Colonials.  He and Ragnar’s hidden support had helped many of those groups.  It had not taken long for the effect to stop the downward slides of most of the groups to being wiped-out, without the Cylons needing to find them. 

The Sands had started making her way to a certain gas giant.  Captain Mike Kay had not been told why it might be safer that way, but her master was not a fool.  The Sands was also acting as a halfway house for an impressive number of new populations.  Most of the time the transient population was picked up by the Ogygia or Raptors to be taken to a “new” home after a few weeks to a month of living on that collection of Colonial ships.  It was still going to take the slow ship a year to make it, but it was getting closer every day. 

Morton Deyo walked over to his captain and passed over a new PADD.  HH looked up and saw the concerned look on his XO’s face.  “What’s up Morton?”  HH was hoping that a few direct questions, would get a better result than reading who knows how many digital pages on the device. 

“The Raptor we sent looking for that missing converted Sewer scow, is late.”  His voice was flat and low so that it would not carry to far around the warship’s CIC. 

Boss Frazer had put HH’s crew on the sent with the last messages traded between them. One part of space had gotten suddenly more dangerous than other places.  A recently modified old sewer scow had been sent out looking for anything useful in that dangerous area, and it had gone missing.  The head of that little ex pirate band had asked HH to check it out.  Near as he could tell, it was that this scow was the third Colonial ship to go missing in that area, since they started tracking those kinds of things. 

HH now took up the data PADD and reads the finer details.  It didn’t take him that long, there just was not much more than what his XO had just old him.  They just used a lot more words to cover the same information.  “I think we need to check it out.  Do we have the planned route the Raptor was planning to use?” 

Morton gave his captain a sly grin, with a slight chin up head nod towards the PADD.  “It’s on the last page.” 

HH went to the last page of the report.  “Okay, we follow the same route, but we offset our jumps a little.  I don’t want to fall into any of the traps that might be set for anyone looking for our lost bird.”  With a reply of a head nod from his XO.  His orders were taken, and the old warship would start snooping around. 

The XO walked over to stand by one of the dozen station set up around the CIC of the old warship. “Hellen, what do we have up for IFF?”  Unlike most ships in Colonials space.  The Ogygia could and did modify her IFF, with ease.  Every so often they would switch from a list of civilian ships, which were near the same size as the old Orion. 

Hellen looked down at her screen, and then she moved to open a special file on one side of her screen.  She takes a few seconds to review the data.  “Sir, we have not used the merchant ship names of Arion, Hippocampuse, or Argus in a while.  We have not used Arion for 18 months.  What fits?” 

Morton looked over her shoulder and scanned the list on the screen.  “Okay let’s go with the Arion, I always liked horses.” 

His hand remained on Hellen’s shoulder for just a little longer than was proper for a crewmember.  That is if that crewmember was not all but the XO’s wife.  By the time Morton moved away from that station.  The IFF on his ship was now saying that she was the merchant ship Arion, but only when power was going to be applied.  A few minutes later the pocket Battlestar jumped away to start looking for her lost lamb. 

###############################

Helios Beta 
Near Planet Hera’s North Pole. 

The Number 5 smiled and took a sip of his drink.  While he sat the cup into its holder, he reflected on why he was in such a good mood.  He had been just sitting in space with his IFF and distress beacon screaming at full power.  They had been collecting a few Colonials that started not long after arriving in this part of space.  They had first collected an Intersun Colonial Heavy, then a pair of old grain ships, and after another week they had picked up a small compost ship.  No sooner had that ship’s expanding dust cloud had dissipated, from the three missiles it had taken the MACs tubes to dispatch the Colonials ship.  And a Raptor had come along into the trap.  The 5 was thinking that this might turn out to be a very nice place to “fish” for Colonials. 

The Janser Kerr class MAC ship carried a mix of 8 Heavy Raiders and Colonial made Raptors.  Those would not have been as effective in taking or making sure the Colonial Raptor could not escape.  Also heavy capital missiles were not that good at swatting a smaller craft, at least not without risking it getting away or using a lot of magazine space to ensure the kill.  So, the ship’s commander had come up with a different idea. 

The Number 5 had let the Colonial small craft attached to his “dead” ship.  The look on those two pilots’ faces had been priceless, when the Centurions had boarded the craft and pulled them out.  He had only asked a few questions to the crew, which they had not even replied to.  And seeing that they were not going to talk.  The Number 5 had the Centurions use their blades on the two humans.  He was looking forward to seeing what else would fall into his lap, before he would have to leave for the next spot he was to “fish” in. 

###############################

The Ogygia was in full stealth mode after the first jump looking for her lost Raptor.  She was moving along a zig zag path parallel to the Raptor’s planned route.  She was a shark on a blood trail as she moved through the darkness of space.  On the third jump the small warship picked up the first hint that something was off.  They were picking up a Colonial IFF from a ship right along the planned route the Raptor and the scow had taken.  That alone would have sent the mostly CI crew on edge.  The additional information of having an active distress beacon, was not needed. 

HH and Morton walked around the command table.  The Captain spoke first.  “Okay what do we know, and what do we think?” 

Morton had a deep frown on his face as he looked down at the table.  It was displaying all the data they had about the local area.  “The IFF and distress beacon says that she is an Intersun Heavy Transport, but the mass, IR, and Passive scans are all wrong for that class of ship.  She looks a lot like an Astral Queen type vessel to me.” 

HH had heard every word his XO had said.  HH was working on trying to understand what he was seeing.  “She’s cold and rotating along her longitudinal axis.  But she is not moving that fast in any direction.  We are getting some light gravity wave energy coming off of her.”  HH bites his lower lip and his eyes go a little hooded.  “Okay let’s come in slow, and start powering up the IFF, but only to the first setting.  We will just be a merchant ship looking at a fellow civvy that might be in trouble.” 

The pocket Battlestar could have jumped closer to the oddly acting ship, but HH was a spy at heart.  He was more than willing to take things as slowly as they needed to be, as long as he protected his ship, her crew, and the mission.  The one item not in short supply for a mission like this, was time.  Who knows how time passes if you are dead? 

###############################

The Number 5 was looking at the screen, as a slight cloud of mist exited his mouth and floated off his nose.  The temperature in the command center had been slowly dropping.  He had ordered the power cut to all systems, but weapons, passive sensors, and the gravity deck plating.  All as soon as the modified Cylon systems had picked up a faint jump at the very edge of what those Basestars grade systems could handle.  The human form Cylons could handle a temperature range that would quickly kill a Colonial. 

The cool down had started three days ago.  It was only just now that the “normal” systems the 5’s ship had been built with had picked up the new ship. The Cylons had already picked up on the low powered IFF on the other ship.  The Cylons knew that the only way to “turn off” a Civilian IFF, was to cut the physical power lines.  Even when it was “turned off” by an order from the ship’s bridge, it still had a low power signature.  Soon he was going to have the super transport Arion under his weapons.  He still was deciding if he wanted to use his heavy missiles or send over his now 9 Raptors and Heavy Raiders to lift over all of his Centurions and take over the other ship.  The Cylon fleet didn’t need another freighter, but maybe he could find out if this ship knew anything about any other hiding Colonials.  A ship that large should have been found by the ships of the Cylon Empire by now. 

###############################

[cawest]

HH was looking at the data coming in, and he looked over to his XO.  “It’s a MAC ship, and I bet you she is why we lost the Raptor.” 

Morton looked around and lowered his voice to match his captains.  “What do we do about it?”  That was the million cubit question. 

HH had a wild-eyed look, and a dangerous tone colored his voice.  “We kill it!  We keep coming in, like we are just a dumb merchantman.  And when we think they might get a return that will spook them?  We will blow them out of space.” 

Morton nodded his head at his commander and friends cold fire laced words.  They had already popped half a dozen Cylon Transports, and over a hundred and fifty Cylon Raiders and Heavy Raiders.  That didn’t count the Cylons that had been taken down by the groups, that she had been helping supply for the last few months.  But taking out this Cylon ship might have different issues then they had been used to having to deal with, so far. 

“What if they have humans on that ship?”  Morton was doing his job as the warship’s XO to play devil’s advocate. 

HH made a sour flat lipped look and he looked over at an image of the slowly rotating enemy ship.  “If we had to face a court of inquiry?  Then yes, I would risk taking her.  But any Cylon we kill, will come back.  We need to hit them before they find out too much about us.  I think that they will try to capture us.  If they killed Raptor 3, then I will bet that they have Raiders and Heavy Raiders as well as some capital weapons.  Have our birds ready for a counter Raider strike and prep the reloads of Ajax missiles.  I don’t think we will need the big boys but have the two nuclear weapons ready to go in the reload magazine.” 

HH looked up and around the command center.  “Drop speed by a third!  We have the time, and the longer we drag this out.  The more likely someone over there is going to make a mistake we can take advantage of.”  HH was counting on his crew’s combat experience and training, that they had endured to not be the ones to make the mistakes first. 

##################

The Number 5 was freezing even under the extra clothes layers he had added over the last few hours.  He knew his body well enough, to know he was slowly dying.  He was not worrying about the dying part.  There was a resurrection tank within range to give him a new body.  But that would leave his ship without a commander, until it reached the flagship, or he could catch a Raptor to come back out this way.  All of that time away would impact the mission he was on, and also affect the overall missions the Number 5 line was trying to accomplish. 

The 5 felt his hand start to shake and a white cloud left his nose, as his nose hair felt like they were breaking off when he took in another breath.  He had enough as he noticed that the target was slowing down for the third time.  “Launch the boarding party.  They are close enough, and I want that ship!!”  It only took 90 seconds for his order to be acted on, and all of the small craft on the MAC ship were leaving.  They were filled with most of the 150 of what the One’s called second line Centurions and even older Model 0005s Centurions.  They might be older model Cylons, but they were still very effective in boarding operations of Colonial ships. 

##############################

All HH could do was smile, as a small group of small craft came from out of the launch bay on the Q ship.  Even as he noticed them, the power levels were shooting up on the enemy combat ship.  It was still not slowing its rotation, as the Colonial warship picked up Cylon grade weapons and support systems coming fully online.  HH didn’t need to give any orders for this situation.  As soon as the Cylon unveiled itself, his already given orders were acted on.  That was one way to cut down on the lag between orders and action. 

A full squadron of 20 Vipers, a mix of older V’s and new VIIs went down the launch tubes.  While they were leaving the still hidden warship?  A dozen anti-ship heavy guns that were a mirror copy of what the Battlestar Galactica packed, open fire with HE rounds on the Cylon crewed almost warship.  By the time the last Viper had left the tubes, four Nike-Ajax missiles were flying out of the armored box launcher. 

The Cylon Q ship was not just waiting around, after it had picked up the launch of so many Colonial attack craft.  On the command section of the Colonial warship, they watched and counted the Cylons reaction to them.  “Missile launch from target!  We have 8 inbound capital missiles.  Target is still rotating 16 weapons now in bound, wait make that 24.  That thing is packing 8 tubes preside.  They are stacking their broadsides with that rotation thing they are doing!” 

The battle was out of HH’s hands, and he just listen to the information coming from his crew of the CIC.  But one trick was still up his sleeve, was that the reason they called this class a ship a pocket Battlestar.  It was due to the number of close in weapons she was packing.  The extended wave of Cylon missiles crossed the distance between the two ships like pencils of death.  The only difference was that the Cylons were not expecting to have to defend against Vipers, much less attacking Colonial missiles.  Also, the Colonials had time to plan for this attack in extreme detail. 

Unlike the Cylons, the Colonials at least had a base idea about what the other ship might be.  So, the cannons shells being fired by her huge Capital grade cannons were all high explosive.  Normally they would have fired a mix of HE and AP with the odd Flak round ready to go if they were needed.  The AP shells would have over penetrated this civilian grade hull and done little damage besides punching holes all the way through her.  Having Flak rounds ready to go would have slowed down her rate a fire slightly, but measurably.  All of that was not needed for this mission. 

The 5 had been looking forward for the heat to kick back on, but now he was wishing it was a lot cooler on the bridge of his ship.  Only about 8 of the first 10 shells, which would have made a Basestar hurt, had hit his Q ship.  But they were followed up with a steady stream of impacts of those heavy high explosive rounds.  His own close in weapons had been slow to intercept the few Colonial missiles, and the round forward part of his ship was hit with two of the missiles.  That had started a fire burning inside that part of his ship.  He lived long enough to see the last of this craft carrying the boarding team be blown out of space, by more Vipers than a cargo ship should have been able to pack.  At least have them and be packing that many Battlestar scale cannons. 

HH and Morton smiled as the last Cylon piloted craft had the cockpit blown open by one of his Vipers.  He looked over and saw more heavy rounds hit the now out of control enemy ship.  As they were watching, more HE shells hit the ship in the dead center of the converted transport.  The rounds quickly went from striking the center of the ship and going all the way back to the main engine block.  Even before the last rounds had hit the MAC ship.  It had started to split in half going down it’s long axis starting from the round forward part of the ship and going through the engine block. 

HH looked over to his XO.  “Morton have some recovery teams go over and see what they can find on her.  Make sure they are armed and let them know, that we will be leaving here in one hour.”  He looked over to a wall mounted clock.  “From the top of this hour.  We have a window, but it is going to be closing quickly.”  HH lowered his voice.  “I want to know if this was a lone wolf or only part of a larger plan by some overly smart Cylon.” 

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Notes:

Colonial ships:  I used the Colonial warbook IIe 2010 by Kendal “limerickcot” Leask for the idea and info on some of the ships used by the Colonials. 

Helios Beta Planet Hera:  She is a gas giant with 29 moons.  Iris and Eubora are the largest moons for the gas giant.
 
Cylon Q-ships fleet:  The 4 Cylon Q ships are the center of the mission.  The flagship is a Loki class heavy cruiser captured during the 1st CW.  She has 2 landing bays (20 Raiders, 4 heavy raiders that are for landing centurions on human ships.  She has a Tri-hull design and massive dome on the dorsal side, with a Alligator Head that holds the 35 missile tubes.  She has 9 sublight engines and two modified Colonial jump drive generators.  It has 81 cargo holds to support operations of the other Q ships along with a Colonial Movers Tanker Variant.  4 Janser Kerr (MAC Ship) modified Astral Queen (840x321x200feet) crew 75, passengers 150, and 8 Raptors/Heavy Raiders.  12 light KEWs (colonial) 8 capital missile tubes on all sides but aft. 8 Port, Starboard, ventral, dorsal, and nose.