Author Topic: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale complete  (Read 115574 times)

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #150 on: 11 January 2020, 13:32:35 »
Chapter 26

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

15 Oct 3047 the second run
New Circe

Robert was looking around the bridge of his ship.  He saw all of the old faces from the last trip.  On one side of his chair was Jules, the new ship’s commander and now holding the rank of Captain.  On Roberts other side was Jess, who was the head of the intelligence section and now officially the third in command of the convoy.  Not all of the mission’s crewmembers were returning for the second resupply run.  This was for two main reasons.  One was because of the advance age of some of those veterans, and the second was for money.  Then there was the laundry list of other reasons, which would support someone’s decision to decline volunteering for the mission.  All they “needed” to do was fail a protocol test, and then they would be off the mission.  The younger ones would not stay that much longer at home, not with a major war going on around them.  They just would be put in the replacement personnel pool, and soon they would be supporting the war effort in other ways.  It just would give them some more time off. 

Every crewmember had been making a basic salary, for the 9 months that they had been gone from New Circe.  That was a pretty nice nest egg to come back to, and then you could add on what they could have spent of their trip’s bonus money on items to bring back home.  That was enough funds, that it was leading to a good start on an early retirement.  The final kicker was the payout from the sale of the items from the general cargo.  On all of the other runs?  It had taken years to move all the items, without over saturating the market. 

It could also be years before anyone could get a share of the profits, after all the bills had been paid to support the resupply run.  This time it was “only” 10,000 tons of cargo, with a large number of people to split the cargo across the whole planet.  The final major sale had been done three weeks ago.  The lowest ranked person in the crew had gotten at least 150,000 SL script bonus, after taxes.  Some of the older crewmembers had decided to take the money and relax in style, for a few years.  They still would have to do any reserve and special training that they were called to do by the military.  But other than that?  Many would be spending time with children or grandchildren and fishing poles. 

The Merchant class JumpShip and a blockade runner going by the name of Rob Roy, it was carrying.  All were already attached to the underside of the Tramp class JumpShip SLS Styx.  The JumpShip was already carrying three dropships opposite of the attached unmanned JumpShip and her one egg shaped cargo.  To more than a few people, who saw the mass of metal, as they flew by in small spaceships.  It looked slightly obscene.  The heavy hitter in the convoy was still the Leopard CV class modified dropship, called the Hobgoblin.  It was carrying the same six fighters, which it had on the last trip to the Inner Sphere. 

The second most powerful ship in the fleet, was the Trojan Class Blockade Runner, White Rabbit.  This time it had been modified to take in lessons learned from the first trip to the Inner Sphere.  The first modification was that it had been outfitted with artificial gravity deck plating in her crew living quarters.  This would improve the health and morale of the crew on the almost year long trip.  The second modification had been the slight reduction in cargo space, to fit two squads worth of infantry bays within her freshly painted hull. 

The last major modification was a bit harder to notice, and it had taken the longest to accomplish of all of the major modifications.  Now every access point on the ship had been modified in some very unusual ways.  This was done to hopefully counter any future run-ins with anymore ComStar supplied or black-market Hacking Decks.  Each hatchway had been loaded with modified software, and a few new physical devices hidden from even a detailed inspection.  If anyone made it that far and still wanted to keep pressing their luck?  They would have a high-powered shock plate to get physically over.  The Navy staff had taken all of the AARs findings very seriously, and the input of those personnel involved in the mission.  Then a few of them had spent some brainstorming time at the main bar of Pirate Pete’s. 

The third and last dropship on this mission was the Mule class dropship called Lisbon Maru.  She also had been modified like the blockade runner, Carrier, and the JumpShip.  She also lost some cargo space to carry two squads of infantry or marines and the modified access control points, as well as gravity plates in the sleeping spaces. 

All of that work had not been cheap, and the work had been rated at the topmost priority for the whole fleet.  The modification had been a last-minute addition, as far as modifying spaceships went.  They had been moved to the top of the priority list, as soon as the second resupply run had been green lighted.  If not maybe just a little before and hidden from the budget people on the Station.  That the modifications could be done on the planet and did not need to use the limited space on the Station, helped conceal this work. 

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This time the supply run was not kept secret, from the rest of the planet.  This was better in some ways, and not so good in other ways.  At least this time?  They would not have to travel out to the “normal” jump points, before they started the run.  They would be starting the trip, right here at the L 1 point near the planet.  The downside was that he was getting about a dozen messages an hour, demanding that they make room for someone not on the approved list.  Clan Wolverine knew that the ships belong to the SLDF Navy, but most in the Colonies did not grasp this little bit of data.  It was not how the refugees from the Colonies of Kobal, were used to both doing business and reality.  That was how they saw it from their point of view. 

The new jump location was one of the changes, he had suggested.  That along with the addition of the gravity plating had been his ideas.  Higher command had not taken all of his ideas, as easily as those two.  They had not given in on getting one of the longer ranged DRADIS systems fitted into the JumpShip.  They also did not let him take one of the few Mammoth class dropships, much less the even larger but even fewer within the SLiE Behemoth class dropship.  The rumor mill had said that they were still looking at the idea for using the Mammoth in the future, but not near future. 

They could still bring back a little less than 10,000 tons of cargo, but that seemed like a lot of work for just one payout.  Robert was working on some ideas on how to improve both his defenses and cargo lifting power of the ships under his command.  In one of the last meetings, he had fielded a few more of those ideas to Commander Xi.  The reception had been positive, at least about the core of his ideas.  He had been given the green light to see what he could make happen on his own, and that he could keep off of the books until his next AAR. 

The one thing that had been Okayed, was the upgrading of the main weapons in the Tramp Class JumpShip to a front-line tech level.  A precedent had been set with the sending of first generation of the extended ranged weapons on the last mission.  The same rules would apply to the clan tech ER large laser.  They would only be able to be fired at “normal” first generation ER weapons range.  This would give him a nice hold card, if things went sideways.  In one of the books he had brought back on the last trip, it had showed that new Tramp Class ships were being built.  Not only were new ships of that class coming off of maybe two different production lines.  They were outfitted with Star League extended ranged large lasers and anti-missile systems.  At least that was the reason he was given for the upgrade.  He had no idea about the ship out of time and the possible future. 

Robert thought, that some of the readers of those reports might have had to be sent to the nearest hospital when they found out that the Inner Sphere also was beginning to outfit ships with Lithium-Fusion Battery systems in place of the cargo areas.  That was going to help with the cover story, on why the Styx could not carry the 3,000 tons of cargo she should be able to.  Now all they would have to do, was to keep the cover story intact. 

This got Robert to thinking about what he was carrying for trading or selling on this trip.  They had to sell the newly repaired Merchant class JumpShip M/V Altmark, which the Styx had recovered.  It along with the Trojan class dropship Rob Roy, would bring a huge capital advantage.  That is, if they could find someone to sell them to.  They also were carrying smaller items that would be easier to move, but they also would not bring as much in trade as one lump sum.  They had one hundred office computers in space safe boxes, along with 100 old late Star League ultra-class 5 auto cannons.  For the first time, they were also going to be carrying 50 late Star League tech extended range PPCs.  Every one of them had been made before the Exodus.  They were found in Cache sites or pulled off of the surviving machines from the time of them fleeing the rest of clan space.  Clan Wolverine had not made that type of weapon since around 2825. 

These autocannons were not as used, as the first set they had carried.  They still were well used by the SLDF ground, aero fighters, and dropships.  They were also going to try to sell the fighters the Hobgoblin carried.  Robert had pointed out, when they got back, that if they sold them all?  They would be almost defenseless.  This time?  Six additional heavy fighters that had been pulled out of the cache sites on the far side of the planet, were loaded as extra cargo on one of the dropships.  They would join the wrecked Vulcan fighter in a cargo bay, in stackable cradles copied from the ones used to transport trucks.  As the older fighters were sold or traded?  One of the stored fighter craft would be brought out and it would replace the sold craft on defense duty. 

The SLDF in Exiled supplied items, were not the only items packed down in the cargo bays on two of the dropships.  The Colonials had also added some items to trade.  Those had been cleared by the leadership in both camps, and they had agreed that they would not risk anyone finding out who they had come from.  A set of 100 over and under pistols and 100 of their marine rifles with 100 rounds of ammunition per weapon, were packed down in easily disposable shipping crates. 

It was not known how they would sell to the rest of the Inner Sphere, so only two tons of cargo space had been allocated to them.  If they sold well?  The rest of the old and removed from service Colonial projectile weapons would be sold to the Inner Sphere on any follow up runs.  Only a few would be kept back for research and possible placement in museums or private collections.  Few Colonials thought that they would still be useful as front line weapons in 5 to 6 years anyway.  At least this way, they would generate some income for the city state. 

These old weapons were joined by 100 new built Blazer rifles.  Each weapon had been checked by a SLDF armorer and cleared to be fully functional.  This had not gone over well with the Colonial in charge of the school, which had made them in the first place.  Then 10 of the heavy weapons had failed to work and had needed to be sent back to the school for repair.  The Colonial instructors had turned almost purple, and they had not said a word that Robert could hear.  Robert had no idea they could have that many Blazer rifles to trade, but that was what was loaded.  He was betting that more than one person in the Military of the Colonials was not happy about that large of a number of those things being sent off planet.  It was not his place to care.  Every laser weapon they sold, was one that was not in the hands of the Colonial military.  But it was more money to buy other things that the Colonial Military very badly needed. 

Having supplies from two different groups would make his and his limited staff’s job a lot harder.  Now he had to keep two complete sets of books on what was sold and what was bought.  The results of the sales of those items would be used to acquire items, which the Colonial government had listed out as things they wanted.  He also would have to make sure that the inventories would have to be watched very closely.  Then again, that was why each cargo capable ship under his command had a designated Cargo Master. 

Robert gave a slight snort as his mind played over what was on the shopping list on this run.  The one good thing going for the Colonials.  It was that Admiral Adama, was not a fool.  He knew they did not have much in the way of trade goods to buy stuff.  Bill, with Robert, had arranged for a private tour of the Styx not long after the impressively long list had been set to his office.  The Colonial had explained what was not in the memo that Robert had been given.  The Admiral had told Robert the priority for anything that the funds their items might make, were to be used on.  It was a lot shorter of a list than “The Official” list.  He had brought a digital copy of one of the books that Robert had brought back.  It took him a few minutes to fine the images that he was looking for.  He was not used to using a Star League type of computer interface. 

First on the list was a combat engineer vehicle, the book gave it a list price of around 460,000 C-bills.  Next on his wish list, was a Karnov UR VTOL Transport.  It was listed at 550,000 C-Bills coming new off the production lines.  He also asked about watercraft that could be good for light protection duties on rivers and maybe close ocean work.  Robert reminded the Colonial that both items were not that high tech of an item to acquire, and that they might be of limited combat utility.  Admiral Adama had not said a word, but he just looked over the rim of his glasses at Robert. 

After a few long seconds of quiet.  Bill Adama had started talking about the different types of books, that if he can find them.  They would like a copy of.  It was a broad range of books, which went from history, to religious, to technical manuals.  The Admiral made sure to point out.  That the books were a distant third on the list of things he wanted, and his people needed.  Anything after that was well down on the list of priorities.  When the Colonial military officer left the Styx?  Robert would write in his journal, about how impressed he was with the craggy faced man.  He understood why the Colonial Military had given him the command of a battleship and the rest of their fleet without batting an eye.  When his people recovered, and he was still viable.  He was going to be hell on the space ways, like something out of a holovid. 

The odd items that the Colonial had wanted, was added to the wish list, minus the books, to the overall list.  The list from Robert’s people was basically the same as he had been given on the first run, but all of the JumpShip parts had been removed.  It was felt that they did not need to add anymore to the story that the first run had started.  Their dossier should now be well established.  The parts they had brought back, and had not been used on the Merchant, had been modified to support other of the older SLDF support ships.  In place of those parts, was added what Robert, Jules and Jess all thought was really damn dangerous.  When he had brought this up to Commander Xi?  She had locked his heels and told him that it was needed.  He had no idea why Elizabeth Anne Ngo from Kowloon was so important, but he would do his best to “Find every scrap of data on her”. 

According to the information they now had from the books and consolidated into a formal brief by SLIC.  It was found out that maybe a clan unit called Wolf’s Dragoons, was in operation around the Inner Sphere.  That unit had seen major combat in the House Marik civil war, which had happened back in 3014.  Robert had been directed to try to buy one of the lost Wolf’s Dragoons mechs that might have been salvaged.  They did not just want any mech, that might have been bought somewhere in the Inner Sphere and used by that mercenary group.  They wanted only the ones from a list, which were known to be only used by Clans and lost to the great houses for over 100 years.  If he could find this small item, and then bring it back to the big brain types.  It would be taken apart and checked against known clan manufactory techniques and other marks and stamps.  Ones that Clan Wolverine had in data files and in some cases, examples were in storage.
 
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Robert looked out the massive armored windows of his ship.  The area around the L 1 was very quiet, compared to the space around the different orbits in the local space around the planet.  The main ships for both the Colonial Navy and the Star League in Exile’s Navy, were getting ready for a major movement of their own.  Rumor had it, that they were planning on a deep raid into Cylon controlled space.  Robert was not “in the know” but it looked like they were bringing the heavy hammer down on the thinking machines.  This attack force would be home before he and his people would be able to, unless they were dead. 

Robert saw one of the crewmember’s float threw the hatch and pulled herself down into a chair.  Robert now was back into the real world.  He was still wondering, if not outfitting the command and weapons areas with the Colonial made artificial gravity plating was a good idea or not.  With a shake of his head, he got his mind into the right head spacing.  “Okay, Jules.  What do you say?  Let’s get the wheel rolling one more time.” 

Robert pushed a button that activated the communication line to all of the crewed ships.  “To all crews, on all ships.  We are about to start our run.  All protocols are now fully enforced.  We have a job to do, and all of our people are counting on us.  We will not let them down.  The jump clock is set at two hours, before our first jump.” 

Robert cut the line and nodded to the new Captain of the modified JumpShip Styx.  Jules took the nod and gave his own commands.  In 2 hours and 10 seconds.  Over half a million tons of JumpShip, dropship, cargo, and crew were gone.  It happened when the newly checked out, but very old jump drive system that had been built into the 660m long JumpShip had ripped it out of one part of space and put it in another. 

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Felix looked out of the bridge of his new command.  The bridge of “his” ship was well forward of the massive aft mounted rotating ring.  He was watching the ugly, to his eyes, mass of metal as it winked out of this system.  Just as the ship so ugly only her captain could love her, had left this star system.  He reached down and scratched his new leg.  He still thinks that it is longer than his old one.  And it seemed to always tingle at the oddest of times. 

Felix Gaeta had taken over this ship, after her old master decided that he had enough of space and combat.  He had taken over and started working with the SLDF Navy Tug Wrench and another SLDF made and crewed cargo dropship.  All of the specialized personnel were living in the open cabins that this ship had, and at one time had held high paying customers. 

At first the other two working vessels, had just been “tied” to the outer hull of the Colonial made ship.  After their return with the first “found” wreck.  Three Dropship collars were attached to the port side outer hull.  There were now 4 collars, and the same two helper dropships were still working with her.  Felix had just signed off on the plan to extend that number to 8 SLiE style docking collars.  He was looking forward to taking on a different mission.  But only after they had removed the dangers of the Cylons from finding any “lost” technology, which could give them an advantage over the rest of the human race.  Soon his ship would start to have some teeth, but that was going to be a little further down the road.  Soon his ship would have weapons pulled off of some of the salvaged ships she was finding.  The more lost ships that his crew recovered.  The sooner his vessel would get some “real” weapons. 

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The first jump of the Styx was using the standard drive, as a final test of its last rebuilding cycle.  One hour, after arriving at the point safely.  All systems were charged, and the Colonial made drive was brought online.  With a quick goodbye transmitted to the nearby Magellan class JumpShip, the Styx was gone again.  With all of the engines tested.  They now were going 15 light years an hour.  At the end of a dozen hours of travel?  They had traveled almost 200 light years from their home star system.  As with before.  They spend the rest of the “day” at rest to give their people a break and to check out all the ships systems.   Before they would do it again the next day.  It did not take them long to get into a pattern of jumping for 12 hours and then standing fast for 12 hours in orbit around some star. 

The modified Leopard would be leading on the 4th day of traveling, and from then on.  On the last trip they were only traveling eight hours a day and going farther with each jump.  The math said they could make longer jumps, but Robert was not going to push the engines this early if he did not have to.  Due to better planning, or maybe it was just better luck.  The odd collection of moving metal did not run into any strangers, all the way to the split point. 

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Notes:

Mission focus.  This trip will be a more of a blend of Intel gathering as well as supply gathering.  Now that SLIC knows what questions to ask.  They can be more active in sending RFIs (request for information). 

Making the Blazer Rifles.  Most of the first few runs would not be useable for the field.  The instructors and students would both be learning at the same time.  The test is still in the early phases on whether to field these weapons to any Colonial personnel.  Right now, it is just another squirrel or shiny object for people to look at. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #151 on: 16 January 2020, 18:35:06 »
Chapter 27

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

2 Nov 3047 the second run
Split star system

The Styx and her luggage arrived in the system, which was now labeled as the Split system on SliE’s and Colonial navigation charts.  The timing for the arrival was set, so that it was still early on the ship’s clock.  As soon as the Colonial made jump engines were shut down on the Styx.  Crews started pouring out of the larger jumpship, like a disturbed beehive.  Some of the space suited personnel were not taking in the securing lines.  They were boarding the smaller Merchant class JumpShip, and the Blockade Runner she was carrying attached to her long thin spine. 

This time both conventional jump engines were already charged, when they got to this lonely star system.  The reason for the almost rush?  It was to throw off anyone, who might be looking for where Commander Copeland and his ships had gone.  SLIC was taking operational security very seriously.  The right or wrong people would know when the Styx had last left Ltzehoe, and they “knew” what a ship of that class could do.  They would assume certain numbers, and those numbers would be wrong, very wrong.  People were going to be spending years looking at travel times, jumps, and planets visited on the run that Copeland had done.  The new and unknown technology along with some subterfuge was going to make it harder to track the Styx, than it had been to track the Exodus of the old and original Star League military back in 2784. 

The engineers on both JumpShips were given an 8-hour shift to report any issues back to the convoy commander.  On the Styx.  Only one department was not tasked with helping in anyway with taking care of the huge number of thick cables, which were being pulled back into the Styx as fast as they could.  That would be the five person HPG team working in their special little room buried so deep within the Tramp’s hull, that they were next to the jump cores.  They had their specially modified HPG gear set first in passive mode, and the high-tech machine did its job.  The Styx was on what was called the HPG bubble, for four different worlds.  A target system was selected from those four possible candidates, and a message was slipped into the communications traffic by the highly skilled team. 

The message used the proper ComStar codes, but it had a fake originating code.  This new message was just one more bit of data in a still small but rapidly growing stream of the stuff.  No issues were reported to the Convoy commander, and at the end of that inspection time.  Both interstellar ships winked out of space within ten seconds of each other and reappeared at that same interval.  They did not come back into “normal” space in the same spot, just as they had planned.  Using the “normal” Inner Sphere designed interstellar drive.  The energy wave of the Styx was picked up even before the ship was out of the Split system.  It was picked up by traffic control of a world at the edge of what the local groups called the Periphery. 

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Jules looked up from his screens and turned to his boss.  “Commander!  We are in the Ltzehoe system.  All ships report secured from jump.” 

Robert let a smile creep onto his face.  “Thank you, Captain.  Please contact the local traffic control.  Let them know that we are here, and that we would like to land.” 

The bridge of the Styx was in Zero g and people were floating in and out of the space at seemingly random intervals.  The powerful Radio was the “only” way to send messages between the jump point and planet, and it could “only” move at the speed of light.  There was a clock mounted with a large display that was counting down to the earliest that a message would be able to make it back to them.  The numbers went to all zeros, and then started to climb as the seconds ticked by.  Robert was starting to wonder if something was wrong, when the large wall mounted timer hit pulse 20 minutes.  Then the static in the background provided by the built-in speakers changed, and you could see the people start to relax around the command center of the JumpShip. 

A female voice that was a lot younger than Duke Terry’s came over the old looking speakers.  “Merchant Vessel Styx, this is Ltzehoe traffic control.  Welcome back!  The Duke said that when you are settled in, and the paperwork is done.  That she owes you a dinner.  She welcomes and approves you, and your escort all the way to the drop port whenever you’re ready.  Please contact traffic control, when you reach orbit for final landing clearance.” 

Jules and Jess’s heads snapped up and over to look at Commander Copeland.  Something was wrong.  Duke Terry had known about the light carrier, which this mission had as an escort.  The last two times they had been here, they had not needed it.  The White Rabbit was never addressed as “escort”, it was just another cargo carrier to most people.  Robert made eye contact with each of his key staff members, and he gave a slight nod.  That was all that needed to be “said” to show that he understood their concern.  He held down the transmit button on his armrest. 

“Traffic Control.  We will be starting our burn in a few hours, with three dropships.  We will contact you when we are in high orbit.  Please pass along to the Duke.  That we are looking forward to working with her again.”  Robert released the radio transmit button, to cut the line. 

Jess, as the head of the intelligence section, was the first to speak.  “Sir?  Something must have happened.  Do you think that she had a falling out of some kind with the local ComStar staff?” 

Jules had his own ideas.  He had the disadvantage of having not met, must less spent any time with Duke Terry.  “It could be that.  Or someone wants to separate the Hobgoblin and her fighters, from covering the Styx.” 

Robert was listening to both of them, but he had his own ideas.  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Jules.  We have been able to get readings for the whole system.  There are no ships at the other jump points, or anywhere else in this system.  I think that your extended ranged large lasers and anti-missile systems should keep any unwanted guests away.  I do think that something is going on dirt side, and she is giving us a warning about it.” 

Robert stopped talking and started slowly rubbing his chin.  “I already said that we would be on our way.  But do we?  Or do we charge our drive, and move along?”  Robert did not say anything for almost a minute.  Jules was in command of the JumpShip, but he was in overall command of this mission.  It was going to be his call. 

“Okay Jules, you’re in charge out here.  I’m going to be taking all three dropships with me.  You know what to do, if things go sideways on us.”  He was the Fleet commander, and he had decided what the next move was going to be, and his orders were final. 

Robert did not wait for the Captain of the Styx to say anything.  Robert undid his safety straps and pushed off and up from this fix mounted command chair.  He was floating to the hatch and was almost out of the hatch and into the corridor, by the time Jess could start the same maneuver.  They were having to find a balance between the gravity plates and keeping up their 0g skills.  So far it had been a steep learning curve. 

In a little under 90 minutes, all three dropships were on their way to the life-giving world almost a week’s travel away.  The nice thing about the trip?  It was that the gravity deck plating could be turned off on all the ships, as they used their engine thrust to maintain one normal g level of gravity.  The only time they were in zero g?  It was for about two minutes that was needed to flip the ships end over end, so that they could now slow down and fall into orbit around the targeted planet. 

The three ships had just stopped 22,500 miles directly over the only permanent drop port on the planet.  From the geosynchronous orbit, every eye that was on duty was looking to see if there were any threats in the surrounding area.  Robert was about to call down for a second time about landing clearance, after they had been in that location for two hours.  He was surprised, that an encrypted data packet was sent up for his eyes only.  It would take a single key word to open the message.  It took Robert and Jess almost an hour before they worked it out.  They were just lucky that the message did not have an auto erase function if the wrong password was used. 

The password had turned out to be Jagermech, what Duke Terry had asked them to bring some spare parts for.  The message was still short, but very important.  In the message.  It told them that they might want to keep the Leopard CV in high orbit over the planet, and on alert.  She told him, that Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale was not very popular with ComStar and the groups that worked with them.  She did not know if they would try something.  But she wanted to warn them ahead of time, just in case. 

Jess took a copy of the message.  She would keep it with her files, for all the reports that had to be done as a requirement by higher command.  Robert ordered the Hobgoblin to launch and maintain combat air patrol day and night.  It would be made up of one fighter out and one ready to go.  He did not pass along the warning Duke Terry had sent them.  Too many transmissions or a very long transmission between the two ships, would have been picked up by certain ground stations.  That was still a risk, even using the whisker thin laser coms each ship was outfitted with. 

When ground side traffic control gave them permission to land, it was about 3 and a half hours after the three ships had made it into high orbit.  The trip from 22,500 miles up to ground level was only another half hour of traveling, thanks to the powerful plasma thrusters mounted on the bottom of two of the craft.  The two cargo dropships were directed to land at two open fire baked points next to each other.  Not one word was said about the smaller dropship staying in orbit.  The drop port was not empty.  It had another two dropships that looked like spots from high orbit.  One was another spheroid and the other was a more aerodynamic shaped ship. 

After the two new arrivals had cooled down and the great ships were refueled by large multi-wheeled tankers.  Robert was able to use the White Rabbit’s systems to check out the other two dropships on the space port’s ground.  One was a Mule class ship that just looked a little “to normal” to Robert’s well-trained eye.  The other ship was a burn marked, massive tank and infantry carrying Triumph class ship.  While he was watching what was going on at the rural drop port.  A radio message was sent to the Blockade Runner.  It was a message that said Duke Terry was on her way over to have a meeting with him and Jess.  Robert sent a reply that they would be ready to have a meeting on board the dropship.  Robert order the side arms broken out and the weapons turrets fully manned, as soon as he had sent the reply message. 

One hour later a very stylish hover car, that Robert had never seen before came into view from around a new built warehouse at the near edge of the drop port.  It was not moving that fast, and it was not because it could not cover the km’s very quickly.  The reason for the slow speed, was the pair of escorts for the sedan.  Trailing behind the hover car was a pair of walking combat machines.  It did not take but a heartbeat for Robert to identify them as a 65ton JagerMech model JM6-S and a 50ton Enforcer model ENF-4R.  Two machines that you would not expect to see in this part of space.  That did not mean, that they were not effective and very dangerous machines.  It was just that they were an odd pair to be see on this side of the MC. 

All of the weapons turrets, on all the ships, were manned and armed.  The pilots of the machines might not know that, all of the fire control systems were in passive mode.  Still they did stop at about the same mark, which Robert had called out before, when they had been here selling things on the last run as a “fire line”.  The nice-looking hover car continued the rest of the way to the open personnel hatch without an escort.  Robert was waiting on the ship’s side of the access ramp hatch.  He was not alone, Jess was there and two very large, and mean looking escorts.  The escorts were not failed out infantry.  On this trip only the best of a growing pool of trained and successful infantry were assigned to be the close ranged protectors of life and ships. 

Duke Terry was alone and had a sly smile on, when she saw the two escorts standing next to the older man.  She had popped out of her hover car like some kind of mutant jackrabbit, and she had almost jogged up the narrow loading ramp.  “Robert, what you don’t trust me!?  I’m hurt!  I thought we were friends?”  The tone was lighthearted and was matched with a gleaming smile. 

Robert held out his hand and he had his salesmen smile on bright.  “We are Duke, but I was not so sure about your little escort you brought along today.  I don’t know of many people who feel the need to have over a 100tons of heavy firepower as an escort, for a Sunday drive to see an old friend.  I think wars have been started over something a lot less.” 

Terry gave a bright beaming smile to both Robert and Jess.  “So, do you like them?  Don’t tell anyone.  But I never thought I would have one back in operation, much less both of them.” 

Robert did not say anything, he just pointed towards the briefing room.  You never knew if someone with a directional mic might be pointing it your way.  They only had to go up two levels to the modified briefing room.  As soon as they had their seats, and the cool air was starting to combat the heat that they had brought in on their bodies.  The meeting was ready to start.

Robert was at the head of the table and started talking.  It was an icebreaker, and the whole room knew it.  “So, Terry how have you been?  By the looks of your escorts, some things have changed while we were gone these last seven months.” 

Terry looked relaxed rocking back and forth in the overstuffed office chair.  “I used some of what I traded with you to get them up and running.  They proved a surprise, when we had our last pirate raid.  We think they were slavers, but we did not keep any of them alive to find out.  After my twin thumpers, out there, put down three bug mechs before you could say boo?  They pulled back, too fast for my pair of big boys to catch them before they lifted off.” 

Terry had a lost look in her eyes as she recounted the battle.  “My militia was able to ambush two companies of vehicles.  The two tanks you helped us make operational were able to take out a Saladin and a lucky mobility kill on a Pegasus hover tank.  When the rest of the unit pulled back from that ambush?  They left a Packrat, two wheeled APCs, a Swift Wind Scout car, and a Ferret scout VTOL that had engine issues.  Anything that could not keep up, was left on the field.  The rest were hover craft and again outran my people to their dropship.  I can tell you.  That they did not stick around to pick up anything that fell behind.  As you say.  Over a 100tons of mechs can make for a very impressive first, second, and third impression.” 

They were picked up by what we think was a Merchant class JumpShip.  We had no idea it was there, until what we think was a lightly loaded modified Union locked back onto it.”  She reached out and took a glass of water that was in front of her.  “If you had not brought those parts, or had those weapons we used or traded to get more parts?  My people would have been slaughtered.”  Her voice was cracking a little, and you could feel that she was still shaken about the event. 

Robert wanted to give her a brake, and to let Jess catch up on the magnitude of what had happen while they were gone.  “That is impressive.  It’s also impressive how you can support two mechs that are mainly Federated Sun machines, all the way out here.  I know that it took me months just to find those few tons of parts I traded to you.  Well parts that were not so over price, that I think they were drinking heatsink fluid when they told me the asking price.” 

Terry took another sip of water and made a face.  “Robert, the sun has gone over the yard arm somewhere.  Can we have something besides water?” 

Jess almost choked on her own water.  She had heard Colonel Tigh say exactly the same thing, but in an odd mix of Greek called Kobalian.  Robert just smiled and ordered beer and wine to be brought to the meeting room.  Both would be coming from his own limited stock, since they had not made any port calls to refill the ships general use stocks. 

While they waited, Terry started talking again.  “Robert the reason you had problems finding those types of parts.  It was that you don’t know who to ask, in the first place.  We are close enough to the Cappies, and it’s helpful if you know the right people.  The Cappies don’t like the Fed Rats one little bit.  But they lost so much to them over the last few decades?  Now, they have to use whatever they have on hand or can beg, borrow, or steal.  It is not politically correct, to rely on the old Federated Sun machines for defense against the FedSuns or now the FedCom.  So, they send them to the other edge of their space.  That is where they are just happy to have a few battlemechs, and it does not matter their pedigreed or the planet of manufacture.  That is where I was getting my parts, when I could afford it, and one of their ships would stop by.  Most of the time I would trade them Bug mech parts I could get from MMM or another supplier.  Everyone has bug mechs, and if you don’t tell the Cappies that they were from a FedSun’s factory.  They will be very willing to trade with you.  You just have to make sure the right places are acid washed.”  Terry gave another soft chuckle. 

She stopped making any sounds when someone knocked on the metal hatch, then opened.  It was the beer and wine.  Bottles and glasses were set out and poured, but only Terry took a long sip of a New Dawn sweet and ice-cold white wine.  Robert and Jess were sticking with plain water, they did not even have to explain that it was still early in their duty shift. 

Robert could tell that Terry was back in more control, after sucking down half a glass of the sweet white wine.  When she sat the glass down, Jess tried to get her talking again.  “That make sense, but now it sounds like you were able to get a good bit of salvage.  If it’s not a state secret.  What did you do with what the pirates left behind, after you planted your boot upside their heads?” 

Terry looked at Jess over the fine cut glass wine cup.  “I was able to temp hire a few more good techs from a mercenary unit, that was recovering between some long travel legs.  They were able to use most of the parts to get a pair of Wasps back in order.  It cost me what was left of the Stinger we brought down.  I was able to keep the engine, and a medium laser, but the mercenary techs got what was not needed to get the two Wasps up and running.” 

She now was beaming a tooth filled smile again.  “So, Robert.  I finally have my ground lance that I wanted.  It was a lot earlier, then I had thought I could get that job done.  I also was able to save the Saladin and the Pegasus.  I wanted to make sure that next time, someone would not be able to run so fast that we could not follow them.  I was able to use the funds from autocannon ammunition sales to repair the two track APC’s and the Swift Wind.  The Packrat and the Ferret were too far gone to repair.”  Her smile went evil, as she was talking.  “They did give up some spare parts, which have proven to be very useful for the militia.” 

Jess was covertly recording and taking notes like a mad woman.  She was looking down and then back up and took another step down the information highway.  “Well Duke Terry.  That puts you well on the way to having a full armored Battalion to support.  You also have a nice medium weight mech lance.”  She knew she had said something wrong, when both Robert and Terry had moved snake quick to look at her.  She did not know what she had said that had been wrong, but she was smart enough to close her mouth and wait. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #152 on: 16 January 2020, 18:44:57 »
Terry had pain in her eyes, again.  “Yes Jess, who uses the name Emma and a fat suit to send messages at the ComStar compound.  It only cost me thirty people dead, and another hundred hurt to one degree or another.  Yes, I would agree that we are well on the way for a nice little planetary defense force.”  The tone was beyond ice cold.  It was just this side of a nonverbal threat. 

Robert jumped into the situation that was looking like it could turn ugly.  He needed to help his fellow officer, who had not spent that much time with other combat leaders outside of her home planet.  “What Jess was referring to, Terry, was that you have done a lot to help protect your people in a very short amount of time.”  He shot a look at Jess that said for her to keep her Fraking mouth shut, for the rest of the meeting.  Jess turned a little pink and kept her mouth shut. 

Terry slowly turned back to face Robert, and her back visibly relaxed some.  “We have, and it is in no small part thanks to you and your people Robert.  After the attack.  I was able to force threw some short-term tax increases, which allowed me to quickly expand our ammunition manufacturing.  I am proud to say.  That my little planet can now supply LRM, SRM, machine gun, and general class 2, 5, 10 and 20 autocannon ammunitions.  We are the go-to resupply point, for almost 75 light years around us.  If you need expendable ordnance?  We are the place to come.” 

The smile was back, and she did a double rise of her eyebrows.  “We had to add two work shifts to the ammo factories just to keep up with the demand going off planet.  I know you are wanting to ask, but you are still working on how to get around to it.  No, the Com Guards did not come out to help us during that last pirate attack.  We still have been selling ammunition to them, and once to a returning Explorer Corps unit that was almost a full battalion.  We don’t know what they got into, but they had very low ammunition reserves when they came calling.” 

Robert now was concerned.  Did Terry blame them, as the reason that the Com Guards did not come to help them defend against the pirate attack?  “I’m sorry to hear that Terry.  I hope it was not something we had done, that has caused the issues?” 

Terry now was not smiling at Robert, but she also did not have a threatening look on her face.  It was more neutral, but not still.  “No, Robert.  You might have pushed it forward some, but it was always in the cards and I knew it.  Oh, by the way?  Our favorite ComStar Demi Percenter?  He was recalled about a month, after you left.  I don’t know if that was good or bad news.  His replacement is, well call it indifferent.  They have increased the number of ships and units coming through my system, by about fifty percent.  And I have been selling more and more ammunition, every week to them.  I don’t know how long that will last.  The reports of pirate raids have started to drop off.  They have a long way to go until they are back to the decade average, but it is getting there.  And as long as they are buying ammo?  I will keep taking their money and just keep planning for a rainy day.” 

She took a very small sip of her wine.  “I am going to make as much money as I can, while it last.  We have even grown in population.  It started just before your first visit by the way, but it has really picked up lately.  We now have about half a million people living under my authority.  We have some new mines working full time to support the new or expanded ammunition factories.  We have more farms in production to supply food to everyone.  I have opened more schools manned by only locals or people moving here from less prosperous systems.  ComStar does not like change or growth, unless it is their growth and they have a finger buried deep into the education system.” 

Terry stopped talking again and took a longer sip of wine.  “Robert?  Did you know that between the landing fees, items that we are selling to transient units, and our export ammunition sales?  That I am clearing almost a million c-bills a month, in pure profit on average?” 

Robert did not know any of this, because the SLDF in Exile did not send people all the time into the Inner Sphere without some very important reasons.  He decided to try to cover his lack of current knowledge of what was going on locally.  “I had heard that you were doing well, and I saw the new warehouse on the edge of the drop port.  What are you going to do, next?”  He had a feeling that Terry was not just content on letting things stay static, for too long. 

Terry did not say anything for a heartbeat.  “I changed the laws, and if anyone wants to buy heavy weapons of any kind out of their own pocket?  I’m okay with it, as long as they spend one weekend a month or more working with the militia with those heavy weapons.  I won’t even charge an import tax on those heavy weapons.  By the end of the month?  We will have four brand new LRM carriers, four Bulldog tanks, and two SRM carriers.  All NOT paid for out of my defense budget!!  I even have been able to retire those half assed gun trucks, that made up the militia’s light armored company from before I was born.“ 

The beaming smile was back on Terry’s face.  “I was hoping that you would come back.  I was putting a lot of the extra money away, sometimes using it as credit for others to keep it growing.  But only if I could be able to pull it out quickly in case, I needed it.  Do you still want to sell some of those Aero Fighters?” 

Robert and Jess smiled.  It was just as the pair of them had discussed about one of the reasons to stop here.  Now for the second reason, that she wanted the Hobgoblin closer.  Robert let his salesmen smile show on his face.  “Duke Terry!  Yes, we do.  What were you looking at?  I have a wide selection of fighters for sale.” 

Terry rocked back in her comfortable chair.  “That is a good question.  I was first thinking I would like something fast, like a light fighter to chase down raiders.  If you did not come back, after a while.  I was thinking about contacting MMM and picking up a lance of the Sabers that they make.  Then I got to thinking, one night.  What would they do if they caught those raiders?  I don’t think light fighters would do much against a medium sized raiding dropship, like that Union.  Do you still have those Vulcans for sale?” 

Robert was following every word she was saying, and she picked the craft that fit what he thought she would use best.  Besides it was the pair of craft he wanted to get rid of first, anyway.  “Yes, I do, Terry.  I have to remind you that the second Vulcan airframe, is not flight worthy.  I don’t even know if you could repair it, or not.  I have been showing it as just a parts donor craft.” 

Terry smiled and her white teeth showed.  “I remember.  So, what is it going to cost me for the pair?  We are talking about a bank transfer and not cash this time, I’m sorry to say.  It will be drawn off of The Bank of The Magistracy, so you should have no problem converting it.” 

Robert put his hand flat on the table.  “Okay Terry, I can deal with that.  We have been able to change a few of the rules that we were working under on our last visit.  I want five million for the operational fighter and three million for the second one, for a total of eight.” 

Terry’s face did not move one millimeter, and her voice was flat as glass.  “Not likely Robert.  Four for the one in orbit and two for the wreck, for a total of six million C-Bills.” 

Robert let his face go bland, but he was jumping up and down on the inside.  The bets back home, were that those two ancient 80ton fighters were only good for recycling for their base metals.  He knew one of Admiral Frank’s staff had said that if Robert got 100k for the pair?  He would be looking at charges of theft to be filed against him by the unfortunate locals.  Six million in almost SL script?  That was a lot more than 100k.  When they got back home, someone was going to be eating a member of the Rook family for dinner. 

“Okay Terry, you have a deal.  You can have the one crated frame, this afternoon.  I need to keep the other one, until we get ready to leave.  The day we lift?  I will have it land with a full load of ammunition, along with a Mark VII landing boat bringing down what we have left of spare parts.  I do know that we don’t have much left that will fit them.  Maybe a few tons that are Vulcan specific, but you will get everything we have.  I know it will not be enough to get the second frame ready to use, but it might help until you can find someone who has more parts that will fit them.” 

Terry held out her hand and shook both Robert’s and Jess’s hand, sealing the deal.  “Now, I would like to take you both to dinner tonight at my place.”  She already had four people’s names that had come to the top of her head that would work at putting butts in those cockpits.  It would take longer to find a person to supply them with parts, than it would to work out who would be behind those controls.  She was counting on the second craft being repairable.  She had just spent enough money to buy 4 new built Sabers with a small support package. 

She looked around and both nodded that they would like to have dinner with her.  Terry now sat taller in her office chair.  “Now back to work.  As the head of the local government.  Are you going to be offering any items for sale, while you’re on planet?  If so, can you give me a list and a starting price on the items you’re looking to move while you are here?” 

Now it was Jess who would have input into the meeting.  It would give her an opportunity to recover from putting her foot in her mouth, all the way to the hips.  She reached into a folder and passed over the thin plastic sheet.  “Duke Terry!  This is the list of items we are looking to move.  At the top of the list are the fighters, but you can let them know that the Vulcans are now not for sale.  Next, we have Star League KWI type cannons, new built Blazers rifles, and a dozen high end office computer systems.  We think they are about as powerful as the ones we sold on our last trip, but we cannot guarantee that.” 

What was not on this list were the second generation PPC’s.  Robert had pulled those off of this list for some reason.  Jess thought, that he was thinking about needing them for defense of the ships.  That would be a breach of written orders, but a fleet commander had historically been given a lot of leeway when they were away from the flagpole. 

Duke Terry sat up even taller in the chair and looked at the sheet of plastic.  She pulled out a pen from her jacket pocket and lined out the area that had the fighters she had just agreed to buy.  She had a slight grin on her face.  “I see the price listed.  Will I be able to do some trading like you did with me on the last visit?”  She went fishing on what the rules might be.  Besides it never hurt to ask.  What was the worst he could say… no? 

Robert let the corners on his mouth drop some.  “I’m sorry, Terry.  At this point and time.  We need capital or items from our list, that our clients want or need.”  On cue Jess passed over two additional sheets of printed plastic. 

Robert went into professional mode, as Terry took the pages and started looking at them.  “Duke, you may post this as you see fit.  You don’t have a centralized information network, but we will not be hiding what we are looking for.” 

Duke Terry was going down the list, line by line.  It was an extensive list, no matter how you looked at it.  As she was reading it?  She was going over in her mind over what she might have, that could fill those needs cheaply and for the most bang for her buck.  “Robert, I will post this at the drop port and make a public announcement.  I know that the two mercenary units will like access to the cannons, and I know a few other people who would not mind having more computing power at their fingertips.  I think you will be able to do some business while you are here.” 

The three talked for another hour, covering a lot of different topics.  She did go into detail about a strange Invader class JumpShip, which kept making stops in the system with a Mammoth class dropship attached.  After the first stop, it never had a full load of dropships, but it always had the one massive cargo ship.  It never made land fall, and none of the other dropships it carried from time to time made land fall while the JumpShip recharged its engine.  It just would pop in and radio to someone on the planet in a very complex coding system.  Sometimes they would not even contact Traffic Control to let them know they were in system.  When they did?  They did not use the same name or id number in the messages.  They would stay seven to eight days at the jump point.  It was just long enough to recharge their jump drive, and off they would go again.  It was very strange.  Before she left the White Rabbit.  Terry made sure to let them know that she would send a car and escort to pick them up at dusk for dinner.
 
##############################

Duke Terry was only gone for a few hours.  It was just long enough for Robert to complete and submit the proper paperwork to Traffic Control and the new position of Port Master.  That was when the first messages came in, to double check on what the two dropships were selling.  The dropship’s crew were told that they were on all of the “news” services about what they both might be selling, and what they might be looking at buying.  They just wanted to make sure of the facts. 

The fourth message went straight into the Lisbon Maru’s bridge.  It was an invitation to display some of their items that were on the market in the nearby warehouse.  It was scheduled to open at noon the next day.  Robert sent word that they would show some samples.  At the agreed-on location and time.  The two ships were not quiet, as they waited for the little show and tell. 

Off to one side of the Lisbon Maru.  A massive crate was pulled off of the egg-shaped ship by four massive loader mechs.  It was what was left of the Vulcan, which the Battlestar Pegasus had recovered so that the Cylons could not get their metal claws into it.  The massive flatbed that had picked up the load, had an escort made up of the Saladin and Pegasus scout tank.  The massive nose mounted class 20 autocannon looked very intimidating sticking out of the shipping crate on a hover skirt. 

Just as the sun was setting.  A hover car escorted by two 20ton Wasp class mechs approached the White Rabbit.  They announced that they were the ride for Jess and Robert.  They were in their nice dinner clothes and not ships suits for tonight’s event.  The ride to Duke Terry’s place was not long and they were followed all the way there by the two bug mechs.  While they were being escorted, Robert got a closer look at the two machines.  He could not see any signs that they were FrankenMechs.  They looked almost like factory fresh WSP-1A and a WSP-1L.  The techs Terry had hired must have known their trades.  Both machines had seemed to have no problem keeping up with the hover sedan moving at over 80 Kph.  This was a good baseline to know what the insides of those machines must look like, and it matched the outside. 

If the Duke’s house had been back home?  It would have been a huge palace.  Compared to the average Duke level home in the rest of the Inner Sphere?  It would have been call quaint or rustic, at best.  The dinner was just the three of them.  It was held in a small private dining room, and not the massive hall that was for showing off to the locals. 

The evening was not eventful and so was the trip back to the dropships around midnight.  Everything looked normal, and for the most part it was.  That is, except for the 3-person scout team that had just settled in.  They had started watching the two dropships from a well-hidden position.  They had been part of the local security detachment for the ComStar Compound.  They had moved into the pre-scouted location just after the local sun had gone down and it was truly dark. 

They were “only” leg infantry, so they did not have the special skills or equipment that a ROM team would have as standard issue to do something like this.  Their job was only to watch and report what was going on around the two newest arrivals to this planet.  They were a completely passive team by accident, more than plan.  This helped them stay alive and unnoticed, because they were not picked up on any of the two dropships systems. 

The two other dropships were also keeping an eye on things, and two of Duke Terry’s mechs were walking around the drop port at all times of the night.  Rumors were rampant about what other Lostech items might be held by those two cargo dropships.  They were the stuff of dreams, and life changing events.  That is, if you could live to take them from the new arrivals. 

The only thing that did happen, that was out of the ordinary.  It was that the HPG was sending out wave after wave of messages to all points of space around this star system.  It was acting like a super high-tech lighthouse, only it was announcing its place in a larger universe.  Each message burst was picked up by the Tramp class JumpShip sitting at the jump point.  They still could not read them, but thanks to the massive computer power used back on New Circe.  They had broken all of the codes that they knew of. 

The lighter weight computers on the JumpShip would take some time to run the counter code software.  But in around 24 hours or a little more for some of those intercepted messages?  They should be able to read them but making any sense out of some of them would take quite a bit longer.  The local ComStar site was sending word to everyone they could.  That the Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company were sighted again.  After dropping off the face of the universe almost four months ago, trouble had returned out of the deep dark to bedevil ComStar’s operations again. 

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

When the sun came up over the drop port the next morning.  The Cargo Masters on both ships started moving cargo out of the massive cargo bays and putting them outside on the fire baked ground.  Soon four cases, which each held one ultra-class autocannon was on the ground.  They were next to four desk top office computers, each in a space safe container.  Along with four containers that held ten new built Blazer rifles in each container.  Last to come out were ten aged looking wooden boxes that held the old Colonial supplied weapons.  Robert had decided, after the dinner with the Duke to add these weapons to the display.  It would give him an idea of the value of those weapons on the edge of human controlled space. 

Soon a large flatbed truck showed up and the power loaders from the two dropships uploaded the truck.  Those same loaders would walk beside the slow-moving truck.  They followed it all the way to the Warehouse, before they could start the unloading.  They were joined by a dozen people from the two dropships.  It did not take them long to workout, that this was not just a normal warehouse.  It was also a full-on showroom and military range.  Already on display, in the warehouse, were the full range of ammunition, which was made on the planet. 

The items from the Mule and Trojan were quickly set up, in an open area marked with the company’s name in glow in the dark paint.  It was not as nice as the permanent displays around them, but it would work for what was needed.  Robert, Jess, and the two Cargo Masters were the last to arrive from the dropship at the “Warehouse”.  Robert was making his rounds talking to all of his crewmembers that had been assigned to this task.  All were armed, today with weapons that were common around the Inner Sphere and some that were not.  Robert was not going to take any chances, and they were not the only ones packing a pistol and the occasional odd rifle in the building. 

Robert had only reviewed the document that had been sent the evening before about how things were supposed to work today.  He had assumed that anyone who wanted to buy what he had to offer would just come up one at a time to his area.  That was how they had done it in the past.  That was not how the Duke ran things, in this building.  It was noted that he could have up to a dozen armed escorts, to keep an eye on his samples.  Later he would call that last change a push, when it came right down to it. 

An odd bell sounded around the large warehouse, which brought the members sitting at the other displays to their feet.  Robert more felt the door open than saw it, as he quickly turned almost 180 degrees from watching the locals standing on their feet.  As he finished his turn.  He saw Duke Terry leading a very odd mix of personnel into the main open area of the warehouse. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #153 on: 16 January 2020, 18:51:26 »
Four of the strangers following the Duke were wearing street clothes, very nice clothes, but still just street clothes.  A group of about a dozen were wearing what looked to be modified military uniforms, in about four different core styles.  What grabbed both Robert’s and Jess’s eyes were the four people at the back of the group.  They were dressed in long, hot looking head to toe white robes with blue trim.  The pair knew without a doubt, they were from ComStar. 

The group led by Duke Terry stopped at the two nearest displays to the main door of the showroom.  They had some kind of short and fat missiles that Robert thought might be SRM’s of some kind.  As he was watching them.  He had to fight down a smile, because most of the group kept looking Robert’s way and not at what Terry was showing them.  They knew what they wanted to see, and it was not a local made short ranged Inferno jell filled missile. 

When Duke Terry finally walked the group to Robert’s first display, the group was all smiles.  After all it was what everyone had come to see in the first place.  Robert held out his hand toward the Duke.  They might be friends, but she was in her public mode, and she would not show “friendship”.  That was not the way she conducted business, and Robert was smart enough to know this information without being told.  “Duke, thank you for letting us display our few trinkets in your facility.”  He had his trading smile on, as they shook hands in public. 

Duke Terry was smiling, but it was one of her political smiles, and not like one of the ones she had on last night.  “No!!  Thank you, Captain Copeland, for coming by with so many hard to find items out this way.” 

She dropped his hand and did a half turn.  She started pointing at the group following her.  “I’m representing the Government of the planet.  We also have another member of our government, which controls the budget for the militia.  We have representatives from some of the visiting Mercenary units, and of course we have some representatives from our ComStar compound.”  She was pointing to different people as she was talking, so that Robert had an idea of who was who. 

Robert nodded as she was talking, and when she was done.  He was ready to go into full swing sales mode.  “Nice to meet you all.  As Duke Terry said, my name is Captain Copeland of Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale.”  He did a little bow to the group. 

He gave a salesmen’s smile, as he came back up to eye level.  “I had hoped to start at the other side and save these babies for last.  Looks like we will start with my big guns instead.  What you see before you are a Star League advanced autocannon in the Class 5 range.  Some of them are KWI made and others are not, but all are of the same capabilities.  Each one is used but it has been cleaned, and completely serviced.  They will take about any type of standard ammunition of that type.  So, if you have an Armstrong J11?  The ammunition will fit them.  It will just go through it twice as fast as your normal Class 5.  It turns a Class five into a Class 10 cannon in damage, but at almost twice the range of the heavier cannon.”  Robert stopped talking and let the cannons speak for themselves. 

The group took a few steps closer to the mass of metal, it was almost a surge but more controlled.  One of the Mercenaries in uniform looked up at Robert and then back down at the weapons on display.  After looking at two more of the weapons in the metal shipping containers.  He had an odd look on his face. 

“So, you only have four of these weapons for sale?  I was told that you might have more.”  The sound was a little on the whiney side, and a little dejected sounding to Robert’s ears. 

Robert was betting that the whiner was from the smaller or more cash strapped mercenary outfit.  “No, we have more.  As you all know, we are at the edge of civilized space.  We have a measure of trust with the local government, but it only goes so far.  We have set out these four weapons, to show that we are not joking, and we are not willing to play games.” 

Robert looked around to the group of armed strangers.  “The way I do business, is that we agree to a price.  Then you inspect the product.  You only take and pay for, what you agree are weapons that are up to your standards.  The price per weapon is 400,000 C-bills.  The number of weapons you buy is between you, me, and the local tax man.”  He turned and gave Duke Terry a sly smile.  He knew she was going to be getting a cut for the introduction and the sales tax.  Two paydays for not doing anything was nice, when you could get away with it. 

The whiney voiced man was blinking wide eyed at Robert.  Robert was betting that they all, but Terry, were thinking they were going to have to get into a bidding war for the few weapons on display.  Robert was still in full powered sales mode.  “Please see Jess.”  He pointed to her, and she held up her hand.  “She will set up an appointment for you to view and inspect the weapons.  She will also brief you on our rules when you come by to inspect our offering.  You will also need to make sure, that a representative from the local tax collector is present.  I will not pick up that bill.  I have enough to deal with already, and I do not have time to deal with that headache.” 

Robert let them look at the mech scale weapons for a few more minutes, and when he felt the time was right.  He moves ten feet away, to a different set of open top boxes.  When he was centered on the four boxes, he pitched is voice to carry the distance.  “Now down here?  These are the new Blazer over and under laser rifles.  They are new construction, and not rebuilt.  If you would like to test them?  You are welcome to use your own output testers.  You never know, I might be full of something best used on a rice field.”  This last bit of levity got everything from a grin to a soft chuckle from the group in front of him.  It was a very common sales trick to make people at ease around the salesmen that wanted to take as much of their money as he could. 

Now that Robert had an idea that he was not wasting oxygen, he got into the salesmanship game.  “We are set on 2,300 C-bills per unit.” 

The Blazer rifle was not light, but it was man portable.  Soon hands reached into the box and the 7kg weapon were put to shoulders and the action was worked.  The double-barreled weapons were passed around the group.  Sharp eyed crewman knew where every one of the weapons were at all times, till it was place back into the shipping box.  Robert was thinking that he should have asked for 3,000 a weapon, but that might have hurt sales with a 40 percent markup.  Even at the lower price, the Colonials were going to make some money off of each one.  They had a very low to almost no labor cost invested into each weapon. 

The next boxes were filled with the Colonial weapons.  “Now if you will look at these.  You will not find these for sale on any world.  Yes, I know that will make you worried about ammunition.  Each weapon will be sold with a supply, so that you can copy them or order them from any local supplier you might have an arrangement with.  I have no idea of when they were made, or by who.  I just know that they work, and they have a pretty good kick when you pull the trigger.  They have a punch, which you would not believe.  My partners and I think they might have been made for ether security or a special ops team that has been lost in time after the fall of the Star League.” 

Duke Terry and another civilian were looking closely at the over and under Colonial made pistols.  She looked up and made eye contact with Robert and straightened her back.  “Captain Copeland, can we test fire these weapons?  We have an indoor firing range.”  She was not just showing off for the crowd about her interest in the handheld weapon, but she wanted to show them all of the amenities her showroom offered. 

Robert used his chin to point to one of the standing guards.  He was rewarded with the almost two-meter-tall man reaching into two different boxes and pulling out a Colonial rifle and one of the over and under pistols.  A second person opened a small plastic box and pulled out some ammunition, which the weapons could use.  Having the rounds handy had been only because of a last-minute addition to the load.  One of the group unloading had sent someone running back to the dropship for it, after seeing the small range inside the Warehouse. 

Robert, the armed security guard, and the rest of Duke Terry’s group walked to the other side of the warehouse.  It was a very nice indoor range going all the way out to 300 meters.  The thick-walled area was like a dark cave, until recessed lights came on showing the firing lanes.  The correctly armed crewmen passed around hearing protection.  Then he took aim at the target, which was a full-sized person cut out in thick steel.  The metal silhouette was set at ten meters from the firing line.  It was close enough to the firing line that the on lookers could see that the target had some dents from other shooters. 

When the almost two-inch-thick low-grade steal was hit with the small caliber upper barrel of the pistol, it “only” blew two holes all the way through the metal.  The larger under barrel, blew the metal cutout head clean off at the neckline.  The automatic range system quickly brought the damaged steel target back to the firing line for display.  The whole group was impressed by the damage.  While they were looking at the damage.  A second target was hooked into the tracking rig by members of the warehouse range staff. 

A body armor set was put on a second target, and it was sent to the 100-meter zone.  Roberts escort used the rifle and put three rounds into the dead center of the body armored covered metal target as fast as he could pull the trigger.  When it was brought back to the shooting line?  The crowd was shown the holes blown threw the top plate of the body armor, metal target, and the Ballistic fabric armored back.  The fluff line holes were very noticeable by the entire group of on lookers. 

Back on New Circe there had been much debate, about these Colonial made weapons in public and in private.  Some had pushed, that if they were sold?  That they are not sold with “normal” military grade rounds.  A few ideas had been kicked around, that had been focused on the advanced propellant and the cutting-edge bullet shape and design.  The metallurgy of the bullet, sucked, compared to what SliE could make for their weapons.  After one of the debaters had asked what they were worried about.  Some House unit getting shot or maybe it would be good against the Clan infantry, if they came back.  That had ended any debate, and the weapons and ammunition were officially offered up as possible cargo to leave the planet without any complaint by the public. 

The hand-held weapons were just as useless against Mech armor, as the KEW’s the Vipers had carried when the two cultures had met some many years ago.  That was why the ammunition being sold, was right out of the Colonial’s Navy cache.  The City State was not making any new Colonial standard weapons anymore.  They were buying up as many laser rifles and pistols they could.  They still were making new ammunition to replace combat and training usage and being set aside as a backup.  It was generating enough income to make it worthwhile for them. 

Robert was keeping the salesman smile on his face, but he could hear what was being said in low voices around him.  He was thinking that he might need to put on the list, more ammunition and all of the Colonial surplus weapons they wanted to give up.  The walk back, Robert stayed three steps in front of the core of the local group.  It would give the buyers some private space to talk. 

When he got back to his display area.  He went to the computers next to the boxes holding the Colonial weapons.  The military uniformed people were now at the back of the group of on lookers.  It was only the suits and the robes looking at the boxes with the computers.  Robert put out the price per office computer, and it did not even get a raised eyebrow from this group of onlookers. 

Duke Terry was standing to one side and made a head motion for Robert to come over to her.  Robert stepped away from the display and Jess took over the display.  She had answered a few questions from the group already.  Terry had a wry smile and pitched her voice low to be masked by the back-ground noise, as Robert approached.  This was not her first rodeo. 

“Robert you are full of surprises today.  I think you are going to be soaking all the money out of this group.  Next time, can you bring just a few less expensive toys?”  She was grinning as she was talking to take the entire sting out of the words.  She was just as happy to get the taxes and consulting fees.  She also was betting that Robert knew that she was only joking. 

Robert just gave her a sly smile, while he was watching Jess.  He did not hear what Terry had said next, so he got and elbow in the ribs.  He then turned to look at the system leader.  “I said!  That I better get these boys moving, before they drool all over your merchandise.” 

Robert had a real smile on his face.  “I would not want that to happen!  Drool is so hard to clean off the weapons.  It rusts them up something awful.  Will we be seeing you later?” 

Terry had a little glint in her eyes.  “Yes, Robert.  I think you will.  Unless something comes up, that I can’t get out of.”  She did not need to say that it would have to be something damn big to make her change her plans. 

He reached out and held her hand a little longer, then he should have.  “I would like that.  I will have cold drinks set out or something stronger, if you want.” 

Before she could say more, one of her female aids came up on them.  She had to pass a reminder to Terry, that they were on a time schedule and that they needed to move on.  When Terry started gathering her flock of shoppers.  The aid turned back on Robert and she was not smiling at him, more the opposite.  She asked that Robert and his people stay in the Warehouse/Display House for another two hours.  A truck would be sent around, to help them transfer there displays back to their dropships.  When Robert gave the hatchet face woman a head nod, she quickly turned on her heals and followed the Duke. 

When the group left the warehouse.  Jess was reviewing her noteputor with some intensity.  She had a smile on her face, which would not help with sales, but it might get her a date.  They spent the next two hours in the Showroom.  Robert decided to check out the other displays, but he had two armed escorts as he walked around the open space.  He was let down, that there were not that many things that he or his people might need on display in the warehouse.  That might change in the near future, and he noted every item that was made on this planet. 

When Robert made it back to his people, they were already loading the local truck for the short trip back to the two dropships.  Robert was watching them work, when Jess slid over to his right side.  “Sir!  I don’t think you want to put the stuff back in the cargo bays when we get back.  I have people starting to come over in two and a half hours to do some shopping.” 

She passed over her thin computer, on the display was a list of times and names.  “I broke it down by time, group, and possible interest.  We have three groups coming before dark today, and another two groups coming over tomorrow.  I put ComStar down for noon tomorrow.  It was kind of mean.  I know that’s the hottest part of the day, and with those robes?  They will be cooking in their own juices.”  The look on her face was anything but apologetic. 

Robert went to the times listed, that she was talking about and he bites his lower lip.  He did not want to deal with those people again, but he had to admit she had a point.  He was still trying to fight back a laugh, as he was thinking about the ComStar personnel in their thick and ornate robes in the high heat of the day without much shade and spending money. 

“You did very well, and I think that time is perfect for them.  Too bad you could not have told them the second Tuesday of next week at noon.” 

Jess looked at Robert a little confused.  “But sir?  There are not two Tuesdays in a single week on this planet?” 

Now Robert could not hold it back, and he laughed.  “Yes, Jess you’re right.”  When it made it into Jess’s brain what he had meant.  She joined him in a good laugh.  When the truck was loaded?  The rest of the group walked back to the nearby dropship.  This was the first time that most of them noticed.  That the two landing pads holding their way home, were on the closest marked landing pads to the warehouse. 

Robert and the walking group were slower to make it to the dropship, and when Robert saw a loadermech take a box into the White Rabbit.  He had to grab his little radio out of his back pocket.  He advised, both Cargo Masters.  That they needed to prep a dozen more boxes of the displayed items, but not to bring them out until directed. 

Robert walked the rest of the way to the dropship Lisbon Maru, without saying a word to anyone after the radio message.  The items were on display by the time they arrived, but even in the shade.  It was hotter than in the Warehouse that they had just left.  Robert had someone set up inflatable field chairs and some portable shade put up over the displays, guards, and techs.  Most of the shoppers would just have to make do with the slowly moving shade of the dropship.  What could not be seen from the outside?  It was that there was a group of very large, armed, and armored infantry squads near the access hatch on the dropships ready to go. 

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

A little over two hours later.  A group of small cargo trucks and two sedans, with a pair of Goblin medium tanks as escort, made their way down the marked road toward the two dropships.  The Goblin was a medium class tank at 45tons.  It carried a good deal of armor along with a large laser and an infantry bay, which was a nasty surprise on a tank.  If one did not know that they were there.  They could add an unexpected attack avenue.  Still the pair of tanks were not a match to the weapons turrets, on the Blockade Runner. 

According to Jess.  This visitor was from the tank and infantry Mercenary unit from on the other side of the port.  They called the flame scarred Triumph home.  To Robert surprise, they were checking out the computers first.  They spent about ten or fifteen minutes checking them out, very closely.  Next, they then went to the boxes that held the Blazer Rifles.  That was when an older woman, who was maybe the head of the unit techs, checked out the offered weapons.  She ran test after test, on the weapons. 

From the double-barreled lasers.  They went to the other Colonial weapons.  Robert had directed his people to give the shoppers some space.  He was closer, and he overheard one of them talking about the range test to a fellow shopper.  They were thinking that if their primary plan did not work, whatever that was.  Then they could put these strange weapons as bailout weapons for the tank crews.  That was a good idea, and even the SLDF had thought about that use for the ex-Colonial made weapons.  That was until they were tested against the current made cut down Mauser.  The Colonial weapons had not done well against the lighter lasers. 

From the Colonial weapons, they went to the big dogs.  The massive mech scale autocannons.  Now more techs had hands in the shipping boxes.  It was an hour before it looked like they were ready, but before they could talk business.  They had to wait for a local government representative to come out to the dropships.  As it turned out.  This was in the form of Duke Terry and a 10-passenger wheeled van fitted out as a mobile office. 

Duke Terry and Robert had a pair of chairs set up in the shade while Jess, locals and mercenaries worked out what they wanted.  At least this time, they did not have to haggle about prices on any of the products.  Robert had put out the pricelist at the warehouse and Jess had a few extra copies.  They could take it or leave it.  Robert knew that he could get the listed prices on the other planets he planned on visiting. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #154 on: 16 January 2020, 18:57:23 »
Terry was watching the mercenaries closely as they moved around the heavy weapons.  She used her chin to point two out from the group.  “Robert, those two don’t look very happy.  What do you think happen?” 

Robert made a face but noticed that Jess was walking their way, and she was smiling.  “I don’t know, but I bet my partner in crime does.”  They waited until she was almost in the shade of the awning, after spending some time with the pair Terry had pointed out.  “So, Jess?  What were those two up-set about?”  He used his head to point to the pair in question. 

Jess tilted her head and did a slight turn, to see who he was talking about.  “Oh them?  The one on the left, is with the armored unit.  He wanted more of the ultras.  The heavy set one on the right is part of their supply department, and he is mad that we would not come down on the listed price for the Ultras.” 

The supply department on New Circe had spent a lot of computer time and brain power working out when they were going to have to drop the asking price down to 200,000 C-Bills on the KWIs.  The running best guess was that it would be not long after MMM started making their own weapons of that class.  That should be in less than five years from the first mission.  Robert had said that it would be a lot shorter timeline, than what the supply department thought. 

Duke Terry looked at Robert and then at Jess, so she was looking at the other woman when she started talking.  “So, how well did you do.” 

She saw the off worlders head go back and her back straighten.  It looked like she was going to balk at releasing that information to someone who was not part of her crew or company.  Terry launched a disarming attack first.  “Now, now Jess.  All I would have to do is go ask my tax collector for that information.  You are just saving me the time and energy of walking out in the hot sun to find out that information.” 

Jess looked at Robert, who gave her a slight nod.  Jess returned to make eye contact with the Duke.  “They picked up two of the ultras, a dozen Blazers, a dozen projectile rifles, twenty pistols and one of the computers.” 

Robert was a little surprised by the mix of equipment the mercenary unit had picked up, and it showed on his face.  “That is…..odd.  I would have thought they would have focused on only one type of items that we are selling.  I was betting on them wanting every Blazer that they could afford.  Having this many for sale and all of them being new builds?  That would have let them increase their heavy weapons or anti mech squads almost overnight.  Or they would get more of the mech scale heavy weapons and make them into a towed system, if they could not put them in their tanks right away.”  The confusion was even coming threw in his voice. 

Terry was having fun and wanted to get one more dig in.  “Now, now Robert.  You have never commanded a ground unit.  Your ships all have built in computers.  All to help you manage things or store data for some maybe future contracts.  Ground units don’t have access to that kind of support, that often.  Also, a unit out this way.  That has a million and a half c-bills in the bank?  That is hard to find.  If I was a betting woman?  I would bet that they are going to “only” use one of those Star League cannons and sell or more likely trade, the other one sometime down the road.  They had a lot to choose from.  They had to take a little of each, so that the overall unit is improved.  If they are doing something like that?  It makes them look better, when they start looking for their next contract.” 

Robert, Jess, and Terry watched the unit load their new pieces of equipment onto their own cargo trucks.  The sun was past noon and getting closer to midafternoon, when the next customer showed up almost an hour early.  It was the other major mercenary unit currently on the planet.  Robert would have bet, that they had seen the other unit getting ready to leave the area and had decided to come on over as soon as they had cleared the area.  Robert pressed some flesh, but Jess was going to be working the sales today.  The only distraction was when some of the Dropship’s crews left the ship, to go to town.  Robert could tell that these representatives where from the Battlemech unit without needing to be told.  They seemed to be a little let down, when they noticed that there was only one of the high-speed firing cannons left on display. 

Jess asked how many they were interested in.  It took a few minutes of talking, but finally they said they had been hoping to see two more of the cannons.  Jess radio to the cargo bay, and within ten minutes.  A pair of power loaders were bringing out another set of 9ton boxes.  Robert could see, from his seat that their eyes had grown into the size of saucers. 

This new group did not stay as long as the first, and when this non-escorted convoy also left the area around the pair of dropships.  They had taken three of the ultra-cannons.  They had not accepted one of the cannons, and a third fresh one had been brought out of the dropship.  They had also picked up a couple of Colonial rifles and ten of the twin barreled pistols. 

Robert was watching the van/office and the people inside seemed very happy after the second unit had left with their acquisitions.  This got Robert to thinking.  “You said earlier.  That you were getting a sales tax on this.  What exactly are you charging, for a sales tax on them?” 

Terry had been watching and drinking a cold, and lightly alcoholic drink.  She had been enjoying the setting and had been caught flat footed by the question, but she recovered quickly.  “We have different levels of sales tax.  If they bought weapons or other stuff from my people?  They are not charged a sales tax, at all.  If they buy weapons from a visiting merchant?  They are charged a 2 percent fee.”  She stopped talking and turned a little flush.  “I told them that with some preferred suppliers.  We only charge a one percent tax for those purchases.  We told them, that you were one of those preferred suppliers.” 

Robert kept his face still; this was new information.  “Thank you, Duke.  That was very nice of you.” 

Terry waved her hand in the air.  “It’s not that big of a deal.  This is your third stop at my planet.  All within less than a half a decade.  I can tell you that the numbers of other merchants that have done that, they are very small.  Maybe that will change in the future.  I sent a message to MMM the other day.  Letting them know that we would like to work with them on some side projects, that might be good for both of us.  Even if they just nibble on that, it will be a boost for my planet.” 

She gave a mild laugh that led to a sarcastic noise.  “I don’t know how many other little planets out here, have done something like that.  But what is the worst they can do to us, say no?  I was out just the cost of the HPG message.  I have made longer odd bets that have paid out, in the end.” 

Robert did not have a comeback and he just let it set.  The sun was now casting longer shadows and it was just starting to cool off.  Robert had someone from the bridge call the catering truck, to come out and feed his dropship’s crews.  The food truck was on the way to the dropships, when the third group headed out towards the grounded dropships, and everyone went on edge. 

Terry stood up and smiled.  “I hope you don’t mind.  I told my people to come out at one time as soon as the last group had left.  I hope Jess does not mind.”  Terry had a sly grin on her face.  She knew that sometimes she played games a little too hard with some people. 

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

72 hours later the two dropships were getting ready to lift off again.  It would not be two dropships taking off, but three.  After Robert had contacted the Hobgoblin, sitting high overhead.  He had been given some bad news.  It was that some of the Vulcan parts were too big to fit out the personnel airlock of the small craft.  The Leopard class dropship did not normally have small boat bays to land craft larger than 100 tons.  The plan was quickly changed so that the modified Leopard would land at the drop port escorted by the one 80ton fighter. 

After the odd shaped carrier landed, taxied to the correct spot, and cooled down.  A loadermech and three small cargo trucks took the spare parts from an open fighter launching bay.  Instead of waiting, Robert send the trucks to the other side of the drop port to the largest “normal” landing field.  A few hours later an aircraft tow truck came over and slowly pulled the massive fighter to its new home.  The local crew seemed very happy to have a new addition to their defense force. 

Robert was not going to waste the time, so he had all of his power loaders crewed and deployed outside of the dropship.  They started to pull out shipping crates.  No one watching would know what was being off loaded from the Blockade Runner and publicly moved to the more combat-oriented dropship.  After one of the larger metal crates was loaded back into the carrier, and the launch bay closed.  The loaders went back the way that they had come.  The crates would return to the cargo dropship two shifts later, and then they had to put the now empty metal crates away.  One of the metal crates had went from massing almost 70 tons to only massing five tons, when it was removed from the Leopard back to the cargo ship.  It might have been better cargo management to just dump the empty metal box and let the locals recycle it.  Unfortunately, that would let unwanted eyes know something about what had been transferred to the fighter carrier. 

Before they lifted off, Robert was in the briefing room on the White Rabbit with Jess.  They were going over the sales that they had done on this planet.  It was a good time to make sure all of the books were balanced.  It was also a good way for them to get into a pattern that was most effective to do the job.  Robert was not exactly gloating about the stop over.  But he was looking forward to bringing up how well it had gone, when he got back home to Commander Xi.  That did not mean that he was gloating, he was just satisfied, like the cat who had just eaten the prize canary. 

“So, Jess?  I understand that Duke Terry split up her buys, into small bites.  Did she say why?” 

Jess had to look at her notes more closely, before she could answer.  “Yes, sir.  She wanted to keep items for personal use, non-military, and military use, all separate for bookkeeping reasons.”  Now that she remembered the issues and was working on their own books.  She could appreciate the effort to keep things like that clearly separated. 

Robert was looking at some information on his own noteputor.  “So, what was the breakdown for her and the robed religious nuts?” 

Jess was ready for this, now that she had her own “books” in front of her.  “She bought two ultras and two of the computers.  I think she is going to put one of the cannons on the Jagermech and then she is going to sell the other one.  The local militia picked up one ultra, but they also picked up a dozen Blazer rifles and matching number of Colonial rifles and pistols.  I was asked to sign a memo for record, in triplicate.  That said we were okay for them to try to make their own ammunition for the old Colonial weapons.  We sold four of the computers to the other suits.  I don’t know what they did for Duke Terry, but I would bet they are working for her in some way or the other.”  In the back of Jess’s mind, she could see one of the suits hooking up one of the computers in a new or expanding autocannon ammunition manufactory. 

Jess put her notes away.  “The ComStar people were a little mad at us, again.  They did buy our “last three” ultra-cannons.  This confirms what Terry had said that the local Com Guards did not have as much late Star League grade weapons, as they wanted everyone to think that they do.  What upset them, was that they wanted to buy all of the computers.  I told him that all we had left, where the ten that were on display.  I don’t think they bought it, not that we care.  I would suggest that we be more careful about being to open with the rest of them.” 

Robert was running the numbers.  He was thinking that they might should have tried to sell more items here, but he had the feeling that the locals were running out of money.  “We will just have to deal with them, like we did on the last trip.  If we take them back home?  That would not break Commander Xi’s heart.  Great job.  At our next stop, we will have to move those funds to a real bank.  Well what we don’t use at Dunianshire.” 

Jess was not surprised by the name of the planet he dropped.  “So, you’re still planning on going there?  Why not just start going straight to Canopus?”  She was still in training, so she felt that it was okay to ask why he had decided to make this move.  Besides the last time that they were in that system.  They had wasted time, and fuel to just get a lot of stone walling. 

Robert let out a little breath.  “Yes, but that is the only place that has one of the Families.  The only one that we know of in this area.  She is also the one that had time to look for someone who had the money to pick up our other JumpShip.  Anything after that?  That is just bacon on our eggs.” 

Jess nodded her head in agreement, and she did not say anything more.  She also was not going to say anything about when a certain person, had stayed over in Robert’s room overnight.  He was a grown man and Terry was above the age of consent.  He had not done anything that others had not done a time or two on the last supply run, and he had not broken any protocols. 

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

The lift off and the burn to the nadir jump point was noneventful.  Robert was quiet for the whole six-day trip to the jump point.  He had sent private messages back planet side a few times.  Jess as the head of the intelligence section, could and did read them without telling the convoy commander.  Just as Robert knew she would.  And he knew that she would only find approved types of communications in those messages.  Then again, he was the master of slipping things in a message that had double meanings. 

The three dropships docked with the larger Styx, and three hours later.  They had left the system to arrive in a lifeless star.  While they were traveling, the command group was briefed on what the HPG team had been able to pick up while in passive mode.  The reason for the stop was for two reasons.  One was to make it a little harder for them to be tracked by spotting reports that could have been sent out by “someone”.  The second reason.  It was that it took some time to fully decode some of the copied HPG messages.  They did give them some information that might be useful.  They were three days into the recharging cycle when the HPG team dropped the bombshell on the command staff. 

Jess was looking at Robert along with all of the other officers in the room.  This was a full command meeting of the small fleet.  After the briefer had sat back down.  He just shrugged his shoulders, at least he had some time to process what had been found by the reclusive team.  “Well we know that they were watching us, and they had done so on all the other missions.  Now we know that they want to find our people.  And now we know that they have not worked out that the other missions were also part of our people.  The way that they were screaming at the top of their lungs.  I think that they think.  That we were going to burn down their compound, because they tried to follow us a few months ago.  The question is, what do we do about it?” 

The Captain of the White Rabbit shakes his head side to side.  “We cannot go back home yet.  Even if we did not have to pick up the other crews, at Canopus.  We should drive on with collecting a full load of cargo, but we must stay on alert.” 

Robert nodded in agreement to what was said.  “Now what do we do, to protect ourselves?  I have to choose.  Do I keep the Hobgoblin with the Styx, or do I keep it close to the cargo ships?”  Robert stopped talking for a minute to let the others think for a while with the peace within their own skulls.  After almost one full minute of silence.  Robert felt that no one else had an idea of how to react to the information, which had just been dropped on them.  He was the fleet commander, and it was his job to take any action.  But sometimes you have to see what others were thinking, or you would not be a commander for very much longer. 

“Okay!!  This is what we will do.  On major worlds, like Dunianshire, that has a powerful defensive force at the jump points.  We will launch all three dropships towards the planet.  When we are on some of the more minor worlds?  I will keep Hobgoblin close to the Styx, with the Lisbon Maru still attached to her sides.  I will be on the White Rabbit on those runs.  We will just have to take care of ourselves, if things go sideways.  Those are my orders, and those are the ones that I will enter into the log under my name.” 

Jess looked at the other Captains.  “In the reports we intercepted.  It did not say anything, about organizing any attacks on us.  They were only trying to find out where we were getting all of the powerful computers, and the Late Star League aged weapons from.  There was only one reference to an attack.  It is now that we know it was two different ROM teams, which tried something on the last run.  One had tried a little breaking and entering on the last trip.  Do we think they might try something more aggressive on this run?” 

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru made a sour face.  “They were talking about the break in, but I would not put it past them to be the ones who paid for that pirate Leo to attack us.  Now that we sold the Vulcan, and don’t get me wrong.  It was a hunk of junk, and I am not talking about the hulk.  It could take out a light fighter with a single hit, and it would even give a smaller dropship a bite big enough to make them think about it before it did something dumb.” 

The Captain of the Hobgoblin had a little sly smile.  “If you don’t mind, Commander Copeland.  I will take this one.”  He turned now to face the Maru’s captain.  “Yes, we lost the pair of good hitters in the Vulcan and they were good hitters.  If any of them had lived, you could have asked that crew of the pirate leopard how good they were.  What we gained, is a second Ironsides.  So, we lose the two midsized autocannons and gained twin PPC’s with the same damage to target.  As we sell the other fighters?  We will pull out, up to three more Ironsides SD1s.  The now matched pair of Ironsides will start patrolling in a few hours.” 

This was new information for most of the Captains, but it was not new for Robert and Jess.  The news went over very well.  Robert made a note to review one of the plans that the head tech over on the Hobgoblin had sent up his chain of command.  He had a feeling that things might go sideways, quicker than the brain trust back on New Circe might have thought when they had left. 

Robert was hiding a smile from the others.  “Okay, so we have the concern about our fighter screen taken care of.  I want both security squads ready.  We will still have only one on duty at any time, but it will be backed up by ships crews.  We did this on the last trip, and we will do it again.” 

Robert looked around the room, and then they went to the next topic.  Robert ended the meeting an hour and a half later, when they started rehashing things for the third time.  He knew that each of the officers would be looking back threw the HPG logs, to see what else might be hidden in those lines of code. 

Five days after the meeting was over.  They were showing up at the Zenith jump point of the system that held the planet Dunianshire.  They were just about 20,000 miles from the massive space station standing guard at that lonely point in space.  It did not take them long to be welcomed into the star system.  The only problem had been when Robert told them that they would be taking three dropships, and not the normal two ships coming into land on the planet.  That delayed them getting the clearance to launch from the JumpShip, but only for a few hours.  Robert was thinking that most of that delay had been just sending a message to the planet to let them know about the change. 

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

Notes:

Sales tax on weapons.  One of the ways the Wolf’s Dragoons made money was acting as middlemen on any weapons sale being done on Outreach. 

Stripping mechs or tanks to get others back into working order.  This would be a skill that would have to developed and not just in this part of space.   

Why do the local Com Guards need to buy SL tech weapons?  There is a limit to even what Tera could support.  In the Module Tukayyid, on page 27.  You had to roll an 8 to get more level two gear.  I was thinking that if half to a third of the mechs and tanks in that battle were “3025”?  Then some place out in this area, so far from Terra would also be that way. 

Current Ltzehoe OB.  Jagermech, Enforcer, 2 Wasps. Saladin, Pegasus, 2 tracked APC’s, 4 LRM, 4 SRM, 4 bulldogs and one INF BN.  Backups and citizen soldiers are 4 LRM, 2 SRM, 4 bulldogs, Vedette, 2 INF BN.  ComStar OB is still the same. 

Captain to Commander.  Copeland was “frocked” to Commander and his XO was promoted to Captain.  This cleans up the chain of command.  Jess has position over rank compared to the other dropship’s Captains.  Her mission, after taking command would be to get the mission back to New Circe. 


Shadow_Wraith

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #155 on: 18 January 2020, 16:31:10 »
For this second resupply mission, will they go further into the inner sphere or stay near the borders of MC/FWL/CC?

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #156 on: 19 January 2020, 19:07:51 »
Chapter 28

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

27 Nov 3047 the second run
Dunianshire System

It took a few days to burn at 1g for the three dropships to go from the jump point to planetary orbit.  Robert used that time to contact Lora, and a few others on the ship’s mounted Radio.  They also sent a list of items for sale and what they were looking to buy, to the right people.  Unlike the last visit to this system.  The messages were returned by both Lora and Mr. McDonogh very quickly.  Mike McDonogh was the first to reply by about half an hour.  He wanted to set up a time to have dinner at the place that Robert was known to use.  The name was not mentioned but Robert knew exactly the place that was referenced. 

The landing at the drop port went without a hitch for the two dropships.  The Hobgoblin would remain in high orbit and stay within easy range of the drop port.  It was also in range of a Union CV class dropship, and an Avenger class assault dropship that were also in orbit.  Those 2 combat craft were not flying or advertising as being under the MC flag.  Any Leopard class carrier would have been dead meat, to that amount of firepower.  Robert and the other Captains did not have to request the information, to know that those ships belong to MMM or at least they belong to someone that owed them more than a few favors. 

The two cargo carrying dropships landed a few hours after noon local, at the main drop port.  By the time the ground was cool.  Commander Copeland had a dozen requests to look at their goods, which his paperwork had said was for sale.  They also had a growing list of sellers actively wanting some of Copeland’s money.  All of them thought that they might have items, which he was looking for and were not on any published list.  The plan was to spend five full days here, with a possible extension to stay on the ground for a total of seven days.  That was only if, things went well.  From the flood of messages, they had already received.  It seemed like this was going to be a very different stay, than on their last stop by this star. 

The two dropships and crews were well remembered, and soon a taxi service was set up to service the two crews very close to the dropships.  Robert and Jess had the first meeting, and it was not with Lora.  She was coming over after the dinner with Mike had been concluded.  She was tracking down a few recent rumors that could not wait. 

When Robert and Jess showed up for dinner at the Café’?  They were greeted with smiles and pats on the back when they checked in.  They even were jumping a line of about fifteen people still waiting for a table.  The pair were quickly taken to the second floor and a booth that was very familiar to them.  Robert made an offhand comment to Jess, that he could get use to this kind of service.  Robert and Jess were still on their first drink, when a familiar man in a very expensive looking suit was escorted to their booth by one of the restaurant’s staff. 

Mike McDonogh was still the head of all MMM assets in this whole star system.  He was dressed like he was heading into a major board meeting, and his face was well known planet wide.  He started talking as soon as his hand went out to shake Roberts.  Robert noticed that Mike had just a little dirt under one of his fingernails, but that was the only blemish on the man.  He had to fight to not jerk his head up when Mike started talking like a waterfall. 

“I’m sorry about your last visit, Captain Copeland.  The week before you jumped into our system.  ComStar had sent some very high ranked people out, and they used some basic strong-arm tactics on “US”.  When that did not work to the level, that they thought it should?  They even went all the way to blackmailing and bribery. They hit more than a few key members of my staff and a lot of the same at the main office on Canopus.  It took some time to get everything worked out, but it was worked out in the end.  I hope that we can work together again.” 

Mike had a thin-lipped look on his face.  He was sticking to the cover story that the Head Offices’ Legal department had drawn up.  It was mostly true, but not all the way true, and he knew it.  Everyone was hoping that Copeland did not have the resources in the local area to find out all of the truth.  Mike thought that the head office was making the wrong call.  He would stick with the plan, until he was sure that Copeland did not still hold a grudge. 

Robert let go of the hand and pointed for the man to have a seat.  “Sir, I understand.  I won’t say that we are happy, about how we were treated on our last visit.  We definitely lost some money on that stop; with the overhead I have to deal with.  But I understand why you needed to take that route.  And we found out early enough about it, so we could cut our losses.” 

Robert wanted to at least put out his side of the story, to this major power player.  From what Lora had told them, there were a huge number of rumors running around the system on what had happened.  And not one of them was even close to being true.  Lora thought that ROM might have been behind about half of the rumors.  “ComStar was not willing to understand.  That we are on a contract, and I do not break my word.  I hope we can do business again, but how about some good food first?”  Robert did want to do business with this man.  But if he could not?  He at least did not want him, or his company actively trying to block or blackball them. 

The MMM man had a salesman’s smile, but he quickly agreed to the offer of food.  They spent the rest of the time working out some details while they were eating.  Mike thought that he was doing good not to have been told thank you for the apology, and now please leave us alone.  Also make sure the door does not hit you on the ass when you leave. 

Robert made sure to let Mike know that they had noticed the change of attitude city wide while they were eating.  One let down was that Robert told the head of MMM, that he was not looking for lasers in the 1ton class on this trip.  In fact, he was told that they were not looking for what the average person would call the most normal weapons.  Robert was not even interested at buying them, at the friends and family discount rate Mike had offered.  It was to help make amends, for how Robert had been treated on his last stop on this planet.  He was happy to find out, that Robert was looking to get a few more dropship’s engines like he had picked up on his first run to this planet.  Mike knew that he could sell a few and it still would not affect the output of his dropship yards.  The added quick money on the other hand would be very useful.  Mike had so many projects working at one time, that he had very little in the way of liquid capital right now. 

Robert could tell that the other man had not enjoyed the news that Robert was not looking for another fifty or so medium lasers.  He wanted a way to change the subject, and he remembered the JumpShip he had sold the man.  He was betting that MMM had been keeping a few grosses of medium lasers in storage, just in case he came back. 

“How is that Scout, we sold to you working out?  You were talking about using it, to be a way to save you some money on shipping out your products to some of your noncapital world clients.” 

McDonogh almost choked on his drink at the sudden change of subject.  After he cleaned off his chin, he looked right at Robert.  “Well, it worked out in some ways better and worse, than I hoped that deal would turn out.  For one thing.  MMM does not own that vessel anymore.  It would seem, that someone wanted that vessel very badly right after you left.  They not only paid full price, but a little over retail list price for her.  On top of that, we got some “favors”.  It was only later.  That we found out that some of those “favors”, were going to cost a lot more than some of my staff and legal department had first thought.  I can tell you that it was a very unpleasant surprise unveiled to my staff and the Home Office.”  Mike was a very good actor, and his face did not move a millimeter that he did not want it to while he talked. 

Both Jess and Robert were looking levelly at the other man.  Robert was the first one of the pair to voice his thoughts, that had run through both of their minds at hearing this news.  “Really?  Who would do that?”  Robert already had an idea of who might do something like that.  He was just fishing for some kind of confirmation.  You never know.  A third party could have come out from the woodwork, like a certain clan combat unit in hiding. 

McDonogh returned the look with his own matching one.  He did not like it when people try to play the fool.  This one time he decided not to hold it against the Captain.  He had an idea of how much he had lost on the last run to this planet.  It was not just measured in the Fee’s that had been charged to his company. 

“Captain Copeland!  I think you know who would do something like that, and that have the resources to do it on short notice.  I would not worry too much about who that ship now belongs to.  I had some of my men at the jump point check out the craft.  I will say that whatever you did to the NavCom, was perfect. Then putting new hard drives in the primary and back up data storage bays?  There will be no way that anyone will be able to use that to back track your travels.  My people went ahead and replaced the primary data storage, with one that was… less than functional.”  Mike had a devilish grin on his face. 

Jess let out a soft giggle.  She had a mental image of a ComStar team doing their prayers and then pulling the device they had been talking about.  But it turns out to be basically only a hunk of useless ceramic.  When eyes turned to her she gave a slight shoulder shrug and used the attention to her advantage. 

“I bet they were not happy, when they found that out.  What else did they want?  If you don’t mind me asking?  And what were you able to get out of our robed friends?”  Jess was leaning forward on the table, and she was grinning like a schoolgirl.  The bad part?  It was that she was not faking the grin.  She was about to fall out of the booth laughing.  It was like your high school or work rival finally getting what they deserve, and not in a good way for them. 

McDonogh felt a true smile come to his face, as he understood the younger woman for the first time.  This group really did not like ComStar.  And they were happy, that maybe someone had been able to get some advantage over the communication and shadowy power player.  He had been worried that these people were going to be upset with his company and him, for what he had to do.  He decided to throw out the script that the head office’s legal department had given him. 

“We got double the “normal” price for one of those “real” KWI’s you sold us.  Besides all of the funds that they infused the company with the sale of the Scout and the recovered blackmail and bribery funds.  They also helped MMM fix some long-term issues, which we had with our Vlar 300 and Core Tech 275 fusion engine production lines.  They had already help get the Vlar line fixed on Canopus, to get our output back up to what our records say was close to what it was doing when the planet was hit the first time by the SLDF.  They were still working on the facility here, that makes the Core Tech line of engines when you came back.  They threatened to stop work and pull everyone off the job, if we had contact with you on the last run.  That would have shut down the whole Shadow Hawk line for years, and we would have been reduced to only being able to make spare parts for that line of mechs.  That was one of the “favors” that I think cost too much, but the Board of Directors overruled me.  They had seen what the increase in output of the Vlar line could mean to the whole company.  And they were thinking that they would get the same out of the Core Tech line.” 

He was not going to say that the head office might have been right about that call.  He had seen what had happened when two dozen Shadow Hawks with the updated cannons had done for his bottom line.  Mike stopped talking for a few seconds.  The other favor had been helping with a very secretive project that MMM had been working on for almost 80 years.  He gave a visible shoulder shrug and continued. 

“The other favor that they had threatened to pull out of, was a long-term project that was very close to my mother’s heart.  We have been working on adding a Clint 3T line to this planet’s production capability.  The Capellan Confederation has the lion’s share of what remains of that design.  It is seen as a possible major export opportunity for MMM, even if we can only make some spare parts and not the whole machine.  Currently no one is making even spare parts for that design in the whole Inner Sphere, after the destruction of the Bell facilities.” 

Robert had to hide a small smile.  He saw an opening and he quickly decided that he would see how far this “New openness” would go.  “Have those “Favors” started to pay off for you?”  Robert was glad that he had ordered two bottles of nice wine for the table at the start of the meal.  McDonogh was on his third glass of the stuff already.  Robert did not think that the wine was the cause of the openness, but it sure as hell did not hurt. 

Now the businessman had a huge smile on his face.  “Our MAD-3R line should be up to twelve machines a year average at the end of this month.  Even with that increase, we will be able to put half a dozen engines on the open market as replacement parts.  Normally we could only put one or maybe two extra engines on the market a year, as well as a few other spare parts.  There are high hopes that we will be able to get up to between 18 and 24 new Marauders coming off the line by the end of next year.  I have put a third more Shadow Hawks on the market this year already.  Not all of them were new builds, but we pulled in some of the hulks over from the trade in lot.  Next Year?  I am looking at making more Hawks than Locusts.  I might even be able to make more Hawks, than the whole output of Bristol SalvageWorks!”  Mike realized he had raised his voice just a little too loud and he shot a look around the room, but it seemed like no one had noticed his increase of speaking volume. 

“The new Clint line has not had enough time to really settle out all of the production issues and minor bugs.  With the help of ComStar to fix some issues, and to give us some of the right equipment.  We should be able to make about a dozen mechs or so a year.  I think we will be able to double that output in another year, if not more.  We have already made two full up machines.  We are using them for testing out some new ideas.  Mainly they were made just to make sure that all of the parts would fit just right.  We just finished a run of a half dozen gyros, and the Confederation already showed up with the money to take them all off of our hands.  Our copy of the Sloan 22 lockover is basically still being handmade. My plan is that we will not be making anymore full on machines for at least the next 6 to 8 months.  We are taking a page from the local hover car strippers.  We can make more money off of the spare parts market, than we can by selling whole machines.  At least for now.  When that market is more balanced, we will put whole machines back on the open market.” 

He was not going to tell these people that his company held the core data to do this, because of the MC support to Stefan Amaris and building up of “The Secret Army” all of those centuries ago.  That was something that he had only found out a decade ago, at his father’s deathbed.  Even after all of these years, that information could cause some significant public relations issues. 

“We have had buyers coming from as far away as the FWL.  All of them are sniffing around for a Hawk with one of your cannons fitted on them.  You have been a major boon for my company, Commander Copeland.  The doors those updated machines have opened just within the Magistracy is nothing short of amazing.  We now have a fully funded R and D lab on this planet, that has over half of its annual budget coming from the Government.”  McDonogh looked around the room again, and then leaned a little closer to Robert.  “That was just from the “favors and selling those Cannons.  I’m working on both updating the Leopard building facility and building a larger one, like a Union sized repair hangar larger one.  Did I also poison the well of the golden goose, which made all of this possible?”  He was hoping that Robert had not blackballed him from any sales.  Nothing had been said, but Mike wanted to ask as pointed of a question as he felt like he could. 

Robert looked at Jess and then back to the other man.  “No, you did not.  In fact.  One of the main reasons I wanted to have a meeting with you, on the last trip.  It was, that I think I might have found something that might be interesting for you and your company.  Tell me, have you heard of the Bivouac system?” 

McDonogh rocked back in his seat.  It was like he had just been hit in the face with a cream pie out of the blue.  It was good news, to know that the only near-term source of royal grade weapons, was not holding a grudge against him or MMM.  The shock was the name of the system that had just been dropped on him.  He had read a report last week about that very system.  “As a matter of fact, I have.  I understand that they have been offering repair services for anyone with the money and the time, for them to do the work on their dropships or JumpShips.  My staff thinks they are going to burn threw whatever spare parts they have left, within the year.  Why?” 

Jess gave a sly smile, and Robert gave her a hand wave for her to finish the line he had just opened.  “I would not bet; on that they will run out of parts anytime soon.  Or in the long term, for that matter.  We happen to know that they were able to reboot an old Star League small space factory.  The system manager had some big plans.  She shared some of them with us, after we helped with a little pirate problem that showed up.”  She was not going to say that the pirate had been there to attack her people.  MMM could find out that information, if they wanted to.  She had just wanted to let Mike know that they had a very good source for that information. 

Robert nodded and then picked up the line of thinking, which Jess had flawlessly followed.  “If you sent out a ship with some extra weapons out that way?  You might be able to talk them into making a run of Endo Steel for you.  What would a hundred tons of that stuff be worth to you?”  Robert ended his statement with raised eyebrows. 

McDonogh’s jaw was swinging open in the wind.  If he would have had this information a few months ago?  What could he have done with it?  He did not speak for a few seconds as his mind went down the path of possible lost opportunities.  “That could be an interesting opportunity.  What do you get out of it?” 

Robert could not help but laugh out loud.  “Nothing!  I think they are some good people, who got screwed.  If you do stop by?  Please let them know.  That we passed along the word that they had open repair bays on our other stops.  Besides I was thinking about those field modifications on the Shadow Hawks, ever since I told you about the idea.  Endo Steel on some of your machines would be an interesting addition to your product line.  That would help with the price of my MMM stock.  We have a few more cannons for sale, and we also have a very few surprises that you and your company might be interested in.” 

The part about the stock price and that he owned some had just jumped to Robert’s forebrain.  It was a good idea, and he knew what they were planning on selling to MMM and how that might affect the mech sales.  That might be a way to get some more C-bills for one Robert Copeland.  He would also have to pass that along to SLIC, but it was not likely that they would make him get rid of stock if it was setting in a bank account in the Inner Sphere. 

Robert passed over a sheet of paper, which he had in his ship suit’s pocket.  McDonogh did not pick it up right away.  With a few looks to each side of the table.  Finally, he reached over and picked it up.  This group had already given “surprises” that had gotten his company a few more surprises, that were not so nice or had some very large stingers attached.  With a sigh he reached for the pages.  As he read the few words, he had to fight to keep his face flat. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #157 on: 19 January 2020, 19:14:19 »

Robert smiled as he saw the other man’s face change slightly.  “I should warn you.  You have to be careful, with those things.  The heat output is 50 percent higher than the normal Hellstars you make for your MAD-3Rs.  If you just replace one of the Hellstars with one of these on your Marauders?  That would be a surprise for anyone.  If you get some of those Freezers the FedCom is making?  You might be able to mount a pair on each, and it would not roast the pilots when they fire both of them off.  But you will have to put enough of those Freezers on the damn things.  You also might be able to make an updated SHD-2K, that would out Kurita the Kuritas.” 

McDonogh now was sweating.  They spent the next hour talking about things that ranged across a boat load of different topics.  They also arranged for a VIP tour of the main manufacturing facility for Robert and his key staff.  They did not close any deals at the table.  They would wait until Lora could be there to help with any surprises, which were sure to show up. 

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

After Robert and Jess left the Le Chiffre’s.  They went back to the dropships without making any side trips.  Lora was due to meet up with them in less than an hour.  When they got out of the taxi, a hover car was parked in what was called the shaded side of the White Rabbit.  Robert was worried, because he could not recognize the craft.  Other than it was an expensive looking transport, it was an enigma to him.  Two of the massive infantry troopers, with sidearms and light body armor, were watching the car from the hatchway of the dropship.  That was where Robert saw that Lora was chatting up a third grunt, not far away inside the cargo main hatch.   

Lora saw the cute and tall trooper’s face go blank and this back went ramrod straight.  That was the only hint that she got, that said someone important was coming up behind her.  The sound of the drop port had easily drowned out the approach of the taxi.  Lora turned in time, to see Robert stepping threw the main cargo hatch.  Lora did not have to put a smile on her face, it just was there.  She was happy to see them, and not just the man that was leading the small group.  She was happy to see more of her people again. 

“Captain Copeland, so good to see you again!!  I hope we can do some more business together while you are on planet.”  She was staying in the story, just as she thought she should do in a situation like this.  Besides she had her reasons. 

Robert stopped walking and looked at the woman.  He knew that something was wrong.  It took him a minute for him to realize it was the tone of voice she had just used.  They were friends and that was not a friendly tone, but it was a working tone that he had heard her use before.  That was when he saw her tap the little noteputor she always had with her.  He had remembered that she had said it was as expensive as it was helpful to her work.  Robert’s eyes gave her his best “what the frak look” without saying a word. 

“Yes, Miss Noone.  We did very well together last time.  I hope that we can have a repeat of that performance on this trip.”  Robert was tap dancing and trying to play along with whatever game Lora was playing. 

Now Lora was rapidly tapping the thin device, but not touching it with her fingertip.  Jess noticed it, and she felt her heart race a little faster.  “Miss Noone, you know that we don’t let personal electronic devices into any of our meetings.  Why don’t you leave it with the hatch guard?  They will make sure that you retrieve it before you leave.”  Jess knew that this was not true, but she had also noticed that something was off with Lora tonight. 

Lora let out a little bit of breath and nodded her head up and down.  She still had a very fake smile on her face as she looked over to Jess.  “Oh!!  That’s right!!  I forgot about that.  I will just put it back in my car, I’ll be back in a few.”  She did a little hand wave and exited the dropship hatch heading to the hover car.  More than two sets of eyes watched as she went down the cargo ramp and headed for her grounded hover car. 

Robert and Jess were still waiting on the inside of the hatch, when Lora came back up the ramp.  They went the rest of the way to the meeting room without saying too much to anyone along the way.  When Robert took a seat in the briefing room, the Captain of the Blockade Runner was knocking on the hatch before his butt had put a dent into the leather pad of the comfortable chair.  “So much for letting me enjoy a little food coma.” 

“Sir!  We have picked up some new friends.  It looks to be two groups, again.  One group is in one of the warehouses not that far away, and the other one is in a type of hover enclosed cargo van.  Both groups are using Star League scouting equipment, not unlike what we saw the last time.  We think that we have one larger group, which has split up into two different locations.  We also think they are talking to each other while they wait.” 

Lora was nodding her head up and down, but she still had the frown on her face that she had been sporting after dropping off her data pad.  Her voice sounded a little tired when she spoke up.  “I’m not surprised.  I had some computer issues, and when I took it to a friend.  She freaked out.  Someone was bugging my little helper.  About the only thing she could tell me, was that they “owned” it.  I was just carrying it around with me because I did not know what else to do with the damn thing.  I only didn’t want whoever it was, knowing that I knew about the bug in the first place.  Besides I spent too much money on it, to just put it in the recycle bin.” 

Robert had a poker face on.  He looked from Lora back to the ship’s Captain.  “Okay, keep an eye on them and forward all information to the security squads.  Tell them if something happens?  I would like one of them alive and talking, but not at the risk of one of our people getting even a hangnail.  They are to shoot first, shoot second, shoot third, and then ask questions if anyone is still breathing.  Those are the orders of the day.”  The tone of his voice brought Lora’s head up to make eye contact with the man.  The tone was one she had heard a few times before, but not from this person.  It was more than a little frightening. 

Robert took the look and returned it levelly to the local member of the family.  She did not ask any questions.  He filled the empty air of the briefing room.  “Okay, first things first.  Lora, what have you got for us?  Did you get our HPG message marked Red 6?” 

Lora blinked twice and then she got her feet back under her.  “Yes, I did.  I had no idea that you were out by New Dawn, again?” 

Jess smiled and winked one eye at the other woman.  “We were not.  We were just testing a new toy, and you were the first chance we had to test it.  From your statement, I think that it worked as designed.  We want certain groups to think, that we were anywhere but where we were, when we sent that missive to you.” 

Lora had no idea what Jess was talking about, and she doubted that she would ever know.  In truth?  She did not really want to know.  If she did not know?  Then she could not tell anyone or let it slip where someone else might hear it, as her bugged device had shown her.  There were very few “safe” places for her to speak.  She gave herself a mental shake and focused back to business that needed to be done. 

“Well after the ComStar freaks, got me off the blackball list.  I was able to gather about 40 tons of tools that match what you needed on the last list that you gave me.  It comes up to just under two million, in cost.  I also found a local buyer, for the Cheetah.  She is offering 1.6, but only if it passes a third-party inspection.  The price is about what a new one cost, so I think it’s a good deal.” 

Lora was going off of her memory alone, over the last few months.  She had been going back to some old school skills her mother had taught her, with only a little bit of very high-tech mixed in.  “I know that I told you, that if you give me some time.  I could move higher ticket items.  The Cheetah sale was one that had come looking for me, after you left.  She was pretty let down, when she found out that she had missed you.  I checked with her again, when I got your message about you coming back this way.  She about kissed me, when I said you were coming back, and that you might have the fighter for sale.” 

Lora took a sip of the water from a glass on the table.  She was about to drop a bombshell on Robert and Jess, and she wanted to savor this moment.  “I was able to contact another “Family member”.  It took some time, but I got a reply to my first attempt to contact some of them.  They worked to line up a possible sale of the Merchant class ship, you warned me about.  I sent a recheck message, that it was a go and an estimated timeline.  It works out better for the sale that it went to Canopus.  They will be on Canopus in 60 to 70 days.  It would have taken longer for them to come all the way out here, but HPG’s are alot faster.” 

Jess pulled out her thin computer and did some numbers.  “Sir that would work.  That is about four days after “they” get there.  If they don’t have any issues, along the way.” 

Robert nodded his head to what Lora and Jess had said.  “Okay, that sounds good.  I also need to let you know that we will be opening and leaving open bank accounts from now on with major amounts.  High Command does not feel that sending a Mammoth or other larger dropship would be conducive to our people’s needs.”

Robert knew as soon as the words left his mouth, that he had not been able to bleach the contempt for that decision out of his voice.  He was still a little bent out of shape about not getting the larger dropship for this mission.  “So instead?  We will be using the Mule and making more trips between this part of space and home.  That means, that we will not be able to use all of the capital that selling the JumpShip and dropship should raise all in one shot.  With what we had left over from the last trip, and what we have raised so far on this trip.  That means that we have over 50 million C-bills in cash or bank transfer notes of different kinds, to work with already.  I want to put over half into the banking system, but I want to keep about 15m in cash like items in my ship’s safes.  We can use that between stops, that don’t have access to an HPG in a timely manner.  What do you think, Lora?”  Robert and his small staff had learned a few things on the last run, but he wanted to know if a second set of eyes and brains might have a different idea. 

Lora was thinking.  She was not used to being asked a question like this, but she had been around this type of market for 2 generations.  “If you keep a lot of cash on hand?  It will get out, to maybe the wrong ears.  That much money would draw a lot of attention, by some not so nice people.  All who would like to take it off of your hands, and they might not be too worried about leaving a lot of blood on your decks to get at it.  After all it’s not like you have a battalion or more of armed troops to keep them away.” 

Robert took in the information, as was his job.  “It they want to try something like that?  They will not enjoy the experience.  Have you been able to set up any other buys, yet?” 

Lora knew how to handle this.  “Yes, and they will start coming by around 0900.  I have already talked to the dropship’s Captains and Cargo Masters about it.  I have also passed along a list of businesses, that have items you wanted on your updated list.  You will have people heading to them tomorrow.  MMM put the word out, that they would be actively looking to work with you.  It was a few hours after I got your message about being headed this way after your last stop.  I think they had a premade press release ready to be sent out, as soon as they got the word.  That changed a lot of minds about working with you at the drop of the hat.  I know it was support from MMM, that helped me find some of those items you were looking for.” 

Robert was now all smiles.  “That is good work, Lora.  You’re earning your pay already.  Go ahead and make arrangements to have the items you have already picked up shipped to us.  I will make sure to let our contact over at MMM know, that we appreciate their help in getting all of us off the local blackball list.”  Lora already knew about the meeting with the President of the local office of MMM and Robert.  Still it would not hurt to let the word float around that Captain Copeland and MMM had truly patched things up. 

The meeting went on for some time, as the three worked out a few items.  Lora left just as the second moon rose in the night skies, and the second set of crewmembers was heading out to shop in the big city and have some fun.  Robert, Jess and escorts went out not long after Lora, spending time and money as they went to all of the local shops in the main shopping and tourist area of Londinium.  Jess was asking a lot of questions about how and what to buy.  When midnight sounded on the town’s massive clock, all of the crews had returned to the grounded dropships. 

While the crews of the dropships were settling in for their first night on a new planet, others were not settling in.  The two ROM teams of ComStar personnel were keeping an eye on these strangers, very closely.  They were collecting data, but bets were being made on when or if, they would be given the word to do something…more active against this group.  Both teams had been briefed on the past actions teams’ results, or more to the point.  The lack of results, that were positive on those last two actions.  Each of these two teams thought they would do better, and that somehow the other teams had somehow screwed up the operations.  While the ComStar team watched the dropships, the dropship’s crew were watching and listening to them. 

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

When the sun came up over the drop port.  It was a beehive of activity and the two newest dropships were just as active as everyone else.  Outside of the two egg-shaped ships, loaders exited hatches loaded down with cargos of all kinds.  Cannons, guns, and a few computers were off loaded and put on display.  It would not take long for word to spread, and even people who did not have the money or need would hear about what was going on.  They all would stop by to checkout, what everyone on the planet was talking about.  On this planet, they did not charge any sales taxes or other fees on weapons made by third parties.  In theory, anyone could have bought what was on display.  In Theory, that is. 

With a major manufacture of battlemechs and combat vehicles in the form of the Pike, Manticore, Po, APCs, and LRM and SRM carriers all on one planet.  The total production was not that much compared to New Circe.  But when you add that in with all of the skilled techs from around the system and on this planet.  It became a major hub of trade, in this part of space.  The Captains and the Cargo Masters would alternate closing deals around the two dropships.  Soon they were getting to buy some things, to spend the money that was coming in by the bucket loads. 

The first purchase was three trailer loads of Fuel Cell powered cars and light trucks.  As they were inspected, they were loaded into shipping containers that Robert had used on the last trip.  That is if they were not in them already.  MMM picked up another three dozen Ultra cannons, and on the side over a dozen H-class Extended Ranged PPCs were stealthily packed away.  A few different mercenary units were shopping, but they claimed that they could not afford the price being asked by Copeland’s people.  By now information about new Star League Tech weapons were in all of the news books, and word said that more and different types were coming out of the factories every month all over the Inner Sphere.  The price was just too rich for the units out on the edge of space.  That was looking to change soon, but not for right now.  The market was still limited, if Robert did not want to blow his cover.  He would have to keep the prices on the higher side, to just under insane levels.  After all, some units had already been able to scrape the money together. 

That afternoon Robert, Jess, and two escorts were given a VIP tour of the MMM Shadow Hawk plant.  MMM was very proud of what they could do in that now fully repaired facility.  At the edge of the Inner Sphere, it was an impressive site to be able to see in operation.  But Robert and Jess had seen the top of the line Star League plants, that the Star League in Exile used and could even reprogram to make different types of war machines as their need or technology changed over the years. 

In those types of facilities on New Circe.  All you had to do was load those tons of different ores, some of what Robert’s ships had brought back.  They just needed to be loaded into one end of one of those beasts, in the right openings.  Robots would automatically take what was needed to make whatever was planned or programed into the automated factory.  And out of the other side would pop out a finished product.  In less than a month all of the ores were used up, that Robert had brought back.  All to make more new weapons to fight the Cylons. 

Jess and Robert smiled and made the right noises, as they were shown around the ancient building.  It was during one of the dogs and ponies shows about the base defense, that Jess asked if they were keeping an eye on things going on around the drop port.  The briefer stopped her briefing midsentence and looked to one side of the room, at what Robert thought might have been the head of security.  Robert knew that Jess had just asked something off of the cuff, but it seemed to have struck a nerve somewhere. 

The board but tough looking woman let her eyes narrow as the question sunk in.  She was only kind of used to being in this type of show, and she had not been fully paying attention to the proceedings after the first two hours.  She knew that this group had been attacked, twice now.  “Not normally.  Why would you ask that?” 

Robert looked at Jess, but it was a valid question and it did not break any of the protocols.  He stepped in, to turn the focus to him.  “We picked up two teams of people that looked like they were keeping a close eye on us.  We had thought, that they might be your people.  From your face’s expression.  I would say that they are not your people after all.”  Robert had not thought that they were MMM, but he said so to cover up the fact that his people thought that they might be related to ComStar. 

The hard-looking woman looked at another suit. and then started to step away from the rest of the group.  Just before she exited the room, she called out over her right shoulder.  “I will have to send someone to check on that.”  She was gone out of sight a few seconds later.  She was about to kick over some rocks, and she knew right were to start. 

While the rest of the tour was wrapping up.  The tour guide was let down, that these VIP’s were not looking to buy any of the Mechs that she had been showing them for the last few hours.  That just did not seem right to her world.  She had been warned that these merchants were not the normal group, and they knew what they wanted.  More importantly, they would pay for whatever they wanted the second they saw it.  They also had things that very powerful people in MMM wanted from them, and they wanted to keep getting stuff from them.  She had played nice and done her song and dance, just like she had been asked to do on short notice.  Now she was sending them to “The Showroom”, via an armored convoy of four cars.  She would not think that much more about them by the time she had left for home. 

When Jess and Robert showed up to the now familiar looking building.  They were met by Dawn again, but this time she was in a lot more expensive dress suit.  Instead of the “Normal” show, that she would do for any of her normal clients.  She took them right to the items on their wish list or stuff that was close to it.  This time she was ready for them, and she was going to make sure that she did not waste anyone’s time. 

In less than two hours after getting out of the hover convoy.  The pair had bought another two-dozen industrial mechs from The Showroom.  They ranged from construction, farming, lifting, and moving types of machines.  It was not a record-breaking day.  But it now made Dawn the number one and number two for the top sells in any given day, as measured over the last century.  She was a very happy woman, when Robert and Jess had left the “Showroom”.  They were again, in the four armored cars supplied by MMM on a high-speed run to the drop port.  They cleared the main gate, just as the sun was going down.  It had been a very full day for the off-planet group. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #158 on: 19 January 2020, 19:21:56 »
It was a repeat of the last night, with small teams of crew going out shopping and doing what people do that have been kept to close together for too long.  As the night before, by local midnight.  All of the crews were back on the dropships and the ships where locked down for the night.  Robert was not sleeping at that time, but he was sitting on the bridge of the White Rabbit.  He was watching the two maybe ComStar groups, as they were watching his people.  At around 2am things changed, radically.  The two attack teams had been warned that they only had about 12 hours before security units from MMM would start looking for them. 

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With this warning in hand.  The local ROM and Com Guard commanders had decided to launch a raid on the smaller of the two dropships, earlier than they had originally planned.  That ship had been worked out as being the command ship, for this little group of troublemakers.  The plan was to sneak into the blockade runner, kill the command staff, and make it look like a theft of computers and weapons.  Then the team would return to the safe house, before they were to start the exfiltration process off of this planet. 

The attack was going to go in, led by the sneak suited first group of six personnel.  The heavy firepower was going to be provided by six P12 Tornado PA(L).  The second team had been able to justify breaking out those very high-tech weapons, after the now two failed attempts of ROM teams.  They were waiting for the final word to launch the attack, after the first warning that their cover had been blown.  Amazingly they still were not using codes of any kind.  Why should they?  It was not like anyone had accessed to late Star League tech spying or counter spying equipment. 

Robert was on the bridge of the White Rabbit.  From the outside, it looked like the dropship’s crew was asleep and in darkness.  That was far from the truth.  The bridges of both ships were fully manned.  People were awake, armed and armored.  Only the odd one or two of the security detachments were dozing, but even then.  Their hands were near weapons.  The Radio operator suddenly spins around in her chair, to face the command group. 

“The attack word has been given to the two ComStar groups!  They reported back that all six Tornados are fully operational, whatever that means.  Looks like we might have visitors coming by to do a panty raid tonight.” 

Robert turned to the Captain of the dropship.  “Please pass to the infantry squads on both ships.  They are to go to full alert status and deploy to counter the avenues of assault.  I want all secondary security personnel armed and armored, but they are to stay in standby locations with weapons locked and loaded.  Everyone else is to keep their weapons on safe.  This is for both ships, but let the Hobgoblin know that it looks like something is about to happen.” 

While the orders were given to the security commander on each ship.  Robert was checking out the raw data coming into the command center.  When the ship’s Captain returned to his side, near the center of the command center.  Robert was not that well versed in ground combat, but the dropship’s Captain had spent a lot of time training with his new crew additions.  “So, Captain.  Do you think you will be able to track them this time?”  Robert was not trying to pull at a scab, but he wanted to know what the other officer was thinking. 

The Captain of the White Rabbit was sporting an evil smile, and he was almost dancing on his toes in excitement.  “Yes Sir!!  Most of the time with radar, it is all about the power output.  We have had our “Air traffic and Ground traffic” systems on since we landed.  We have good data.  They are low output devices, but in this case.  It’s not about the power going out of the dish.  It’s more about the returned energy, and how you process it.  By now we have a very detailed radar map of the local area.  As soon as they start moving.  We will see them all the way in, as they disturb the existing radar map of the local area.” 

For the next twenty minutes.  All they could do was sit and wait, as a set of 12 people came slowly towards them.  Then a shout came from across the room.  “Movement!!!  We are picking up movement.  Threat count is 6, 8, 12…still climbing.  They are 100 feet and closing……slowly.” 

Robert was almost shocked silent, and then lightening quick.  He reacted to the new information being shouted across the room.  In a blink of an eye, he was moving and talking.  “We did not pick them up sooner?!  We did not pick up anything?’’ 

The voice from the radar operator was frantic.  He was almost to the point, that he was not getting across the information that he needed to for a few seconds.  “Sir!!!  It’s not Group 1 or 2.  This is a south side contact.  The ComStar groups were on the north side of our hull!!” 

Now the whole bridge was in action, focusing on the new threat.  Robert was looking at the updating data.  “Contact the Maru.  They are to keep an eye on Group 1 and 2.  Designate this one Group 3.  We are closer and will keep an eye on them.” 

Robert fully turned to the Rabbit’s captain.  “Captain, you look to be having some visitors.  It’s your ship.”  Robert took three steps to one side.  Clearing the view of the main display, for the other man to act or more react to the changing situation.  Robert was still close enough that he could keep an eye on the bigger picture.  He was surprised how fast things could get out of hand.  In space it was a lot harder for you to get a surprise that close to your hull. 

The Captain nodded and stepped forward, to show the bridge who was in command now.  “Okay, get the infantry squads moving.  Looks like they are focusing on personnel access hatch 2B.”  He stopped talking and looked at the display.  He did some math in his head.  “Let them know, that it looks like four light infantry squads are on that side of the ship.  They are to move their butts and shift that way.  Activate the backup squad.” 

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Jacob was moving slow and fast.  He was running from cover to cover in a burst of speed no more than five seconds long.  He was in first squad, which was also the lead squad for this mission.  Bossman had said that the Blockade Runner was carrying a few tens of millions of C-bills, in cash.  Their job was to take it tonight, and it didn’t matter who got in the way.  His crew was made up of 27 others.  All of them were specialized in breaking and entering or otherwise stealing valuables from others.  A dozen had been the largest crew that he had ever worked with, until tonight. 

Jacob was great at breaking into circuits and getting around alarms, and locks.  Most of the time.  They did not need the full team, but this target was too big and hard for just one team to be positive they could handle the job.  The ships were dark, and they should all be getting sleep in their bunks.  Drop ports were safe and merchant ships always shutdown for the night, to cut down on operational cost or let their people out to have a little fun on the town.  It should be pretty easy to take over this ship.  A Mule only had a crew count of about twenty and this ship was a little smaller.  That was eight less than this crew that was fully armed, trained, and people used to being able to get violent at the drop of a hat. 

Jacob made the last rush, and BANG.  He was against the side of the ship.  He had his hacking deck out and plugged into and outlet in two eye blinks.  The first port was dead, that was not a big surprise.  Ships that were up to a few hundred years old, sometimes could not keep all of their systems working like they were new.  This was a very good sign for Jacob.  He quickly went to the secondary port, in less than two seconds.  By that time, a second person had joined him against the metal side of the dropship.  He could careless, as he was working on popping the hatch. 

Jacob’s deck was not as high tech as the one used by ComStar.  He would not have known this, at all.  He had always assumed, that his device was the best there was in known space.  He spent a lot of time and money, to make sure it was the best.  Now he was working the device and he did not notice the rest of the world turning around him. 

As the time went along.  More of the B and E crew made their way to Jacob’s location at the side of the spacecraft.  Now, what Jacob’s device made up for in not being better than the ComStar supplied hardware?  It was that his was better in the software that he used to do this kind of job.  He used his system often and he had to modify it all the time.  Getting this hatch open?  He already knew that it was taking a lot longer, than it should have after finding that first dead port. 

A very large man slammed into the metal sided ship, but he did not make a sound with the impact.  He looked down at the smaller hacker.  “Come on little one!!  Get this egg open.”  This was said in a harsh whisper, which carried to a dozen different ears. 

Jacob did not move his eyes from his device, and his hands were still moving over the keypad.  “Don’t mess with me when I’m working, or I will tell the Bossman.” 

He stopped talking, and he bites is lower lip.  “This is some crazy stuff.  I have never seen or heard of some of these code commands, before.  It should not be this hard.  Ahh!!!  Here you go.”  Jacob did an exaggerated hand movement on the keypad, and with the last stroke making an audible click.  The sound of the click on the hacking deck was overwritten by a louder click coming from the nearby metal hatch.  He had no way to know that it had taken him 40 seconds longer to pop the hatch than the ROM team had needed. 

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James Olson was a massive man.  That was thanks to the genetic engineering done on him and his ancestors by his clan over the generations.  He was listed at six foot ten inches tall on his id card.  He had only been of average high, in his class at infantry school.  He had graduated as the very top person in his class, and he had been put on the list for possible assignment to the Nighthawk unit.  This also was a very plum assignment, and he would not be picked for it after all.  The change had been after he had been able to pass the test about keeping to a given story, even after a dozen strong drinks.  That had moved him into another plum assignment, that was a close rival to the Nighthawk unit. 

Now he was on a resupply mission to the Inner Sphere.  He had been waiting near the main cargo bay door.  He had also been the nearest security person that could shift to the new threat, that had surprised the command deck.  He had just set up near a corner with a good view and cover of the access way, which the bridge had said was now at threat.  He was wearing heavy body armor that was equal or maybe in some ways a little better.  Then what the old SLDF would have used on their average ground infantry unit.  It was not “Clan” standard, but it was very good.  Everything on his uniform had been based from items of that long-ago era, but two of the weapons he was carrying tonight. 

The weapons he was packing were of a Colonial designed and made, high powered counter Cylon rifle.  He would have preferred, to have one of the Mausers that a “normal” Wolverine trooper would have been packing.  But firing something like that inside a ship?  That might have broken something important and killed the whole crew, including one James Olson.  The Colonial rifles were firing the more powerful Cylon killing ammunition, and not the counter pirate rounds most of the Rag Tag fleet had access to.  He did have to magazines of those hollow point rounds on his gear, just in case.  He was expecting that his prey was going to be packing a hard shell, that the Colonial rounds were just made for breaking.  At least that was what the math said. 

The ammunition had a very high energy burn.  That gave the bullet end, an extremely high velocity when it left the muzzle.  It was almost double what anything made by the Star League was known to have done.  The bullet was also completely different, than anything seen before by most of the rest of the Inner Sphere’s militaries.  The metal was a little softer, than a modern one made by the “Great Houses” much less what the SLDF could make.  That was not the only difference between this, and the other human made weapons. 

The bullet, after leaving the barrel would “drop” a bit of itself to lower its mass in flight.  The lower mass still had all of the energy of a larger burn provided by the exotic propellant, but now it was lighter and a lot more aerodynamic.  It hit its target a lot harder, and then a second charge would activate.  The second charge was something that no one in the old Star League had thought to add to each round, that was fired from a rifle. 

Each round had a little bit of explosive not far behind the very aerodynamic tips.  The idea was that the sharp and fast-moving bullet would punch threw the outer layer of the Centurion type Cylon.  Then a microsecond after it had made it through the hard-outer layer?  The small explosive charge would detonate inside the machine’s hull.  It was found that when this type of ammunition was used against “normal” body armor.  It would punch threw the heaviest “normal” body armor front plate, and the explosive would go off inside the human body behind those protective plates.  It would also push the now tumbling bullet out the back of the body armor at a steep angle. 

James Olson was also packing the over and under Colonial pistol on his hip.  It was loaded with “normal” Colonial anti pirate rounds in the magazine, but the under barrel was loaded with what was almost a mini grenade to let a downed pilot take out a Cylon.  The last weapon was strapped to his back and it was also made by Colonial hands.  It was a Blazer rifle, that had been in a shipping crate only a day before.  You never know, when you might need some extra firepower.  All of those weapons would have overloaded a normal person, but James was not normal.  He could not carry this amount of weight forever.  He could do it for a few days, if he needed to.  And he had done something like that during his primary training, but not forever. 

When the hatch James was covering opened into the ship.  He planned on giving the person coming in three choices.  They could go left, right or straight, after entering the grounded dropship.  James found a good spot to cover the straight access way from the hatch.  He was the first one of the other crewmembers to make it to this threatened location.  He pushes his personnel locator, and then took a standing firing position behind partial cover provided by a ship’s bulkhead.  He did not have to wait long, maybe one minute and the chain of events gained speed. 

In a flash.  The hatched popped in and up into its overhead recess.  As soon as the hatch was opened.  People packing weapons and in black body armor started flooding into the ship.  James was watching, and he was impressed at the speed and skill of the attackers.  In what seemed like the space of a few heartbeats, a dozen attackers were threw the one hatch.  The number was growing almost between eyeblinks.  They started flowing down all three access ways as the numbers of intruders kept growing.  James sited down the weapon and slowly took the slack out of the trigger of his Colonial made rifle. 

Jacob was still connected to the ship’s computer, and he was trying to do a little data mining while the rest of the team entered the ship.  He about dropped his hacking deck, when shots started to echo out of the metal walled ship.  The rush into the dropship had gone down, just like it always had.  That is right up until, that odd sounding weapons started up in a thunder blast of sound.  Jacob knowingly risks his life, when he leaned over and try to see how things were going inside of the targeted ship.  He only saw bodies blown apart for a second or two, before a Colonial made bullet entered his ballistic helmet and popped his head like a dropped water balloon. 

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

This was the first battle that James had been in with him firing Colonial made weapons.  It however was not his first battle.  He had been trained and used laser-based weapons for over a dozen years.  He knew that they only fired once per trigger pull, like how he had this weapon set up.  He was firing one round with each pull of the trigger.  One part of his brain noted that he was only needing one or maybe two shots, to put down each of the attackers.  He was so focused on the fight going on at the end of his muzzle.  That he did not notice that fire was coming down the other access ways, or that someone was on the deck by his feet adding their firepower to blunt the attack.  He saw a head pop out at the edge of the hatch. 

James put a single round into the small exposed target that was standing on the outside of “his” dropship.  His weapon made an odd click when he pulled the trigger a second time.  That was the only sound to let him know that his weapon’s magazine was empty of rounds.  He could have reloaded very quickly from one of his ammo pouches, but he chose a different path.  He released the weapon and it retracted on its friction straps.  He did a motion with his hip and the Blazer rifle shifted from his back into his large hands.  He quickly had the heavy weapon up to his shoulder, and it was now in a good firing position. 

James pulled the trigger and the twin energy blast went down the access way.  In a flash of reaction to the focused light waves, it was turning whatever it touched into hot, expanding gasses.  A Blazer rifle was designed to damage mechs, tanks or heavy IFV’s.  The human body, even one covered in body armor had a different effect.  It did not stop a blast.  It did take some of the energy, but only enough to clear the path for the rest of the shot. 

It was only a bit of harmless light, that made it out the still open hatch way into the dark night of the drop port.  The six bodies between James and the hatch way had a nice double fist sized hole punched threw them all.  One part of James noticed that most of them were only covered in heavy leather clothes for protection.  Only the first few had “real” body armor of any value. 

While the bodies were still falling to the dropships deck plates, outside of the ship.  The man called Bossman noticed the flash of lights from his vantage point, coming out of the personnel hatch.  He was about 100 feet away from the dropship hatch.  Bossman knew that something was wrong, he could feel it.  He reached with one hand and pushed a button on his helmet near his ear.  “This is Bossman!  Pull back!  Everyone Pull Back!  This is blown!!  Pull back now!!” 

Bossman started putting his own orders, into action.  He started to put some distance between him and his would-be payday.  He made it to the half-hidden 8x8 van, which was the escape plan if things went wrong.  Bossman took a second to look over his shoulder, before he opened the long sliding door on one side of the large cargo van.  He could count six of his people that had exited the dropship, which had to have been a trap.  He made a mental pledge that he would find out who had set him up.  He already had a short list of people who could have pulled off an ambush like this on his people.  He would be going down that list as methodically as he could, later.  Now all he had to do was get all of the way out of the ambush. 

By the time that he had gotten the large wheeled van started, the rest of his team made it to the van.  One look out of the back window, showed him that there were only bodies on the ground after the sixth person had hopped into the box shaped 8x8 van.  He had started this job with 28 people, now it looked like he had seven left.  He was not going to stick around, and he started moving his van.  If anyone else made it out of the trap?  They would meetup at the safe house, later.  When the van started to slide around the building corner, he looked into the main cabin.  The wounds on three of the survivors were looking like they might not live out the next few hours.  That was both good and bad news, in Bossman’s mind.  Fewer survivors meant fewer people to challenge his side of the story, and fewer people to pay.   

#######################3

As the lightly armored van started to move to clear the warehouse.  It was blown apart, as it came into view of the taller dropships.  A pair of large lasers and fifteen rockets from a twenty pack LRM fired from the Trojan class ship went into the van.  They struck the still slowly moving and solid walled van, almost at the same time.  It just came apart under the hammer blows that would have staggered a battlemech.  Parts of van and bio matter were still landing, when the local law enforcement showed up to the site of all the action.  It did not take them long, to trace where the attacker had gone wrong.  They followed the evidence all the way back to their staging area of the would-be robbers.  It was filled with items that had been left behind, like food wrappers and human waste. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #159 on: 19 January 2020, 19:26:28 »
The woman in charge of the ComStar groups was only about two minutes away, from radioing back to her boss that they were about to launch the attack onto the dropships.  She had stopped dead in her tracks.  It had been when her point ground team stopped, after they also had picked up movement at the base of their target.  At first, she was mad that someone was poaching her target.  Then the gunfire started, and she was not that upset about the poaching. 

Both ComStar teams recorded what they could.  The only real facts that they had.  It was that a light infantry unit had attacked the dropship, and they had not come out the better for it.  When the heavy weapons had fired into a moving Van?  She had decided it was time to move out, but back towards their base in the ComStar compound. 

Her line of thinking was that it would not take long, for the MMM security people to find out about their planned attack.  Then it would be only a matter of minutes, before they passed along that information about them to the local law enforcement types.  They were on the road after they had finished “cleaning” their hiding areas.  When inspectors came to these areas looking for clues?  They found none, but a few scuff marks.  That had only led to more questions, and kept people looking to find out what really had been going on that night. 

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

This attack?  It was the first known “major” attack or attempted theft, in almost a decade.  It made the news both in the attack and the number of bodies that would have to be put in the ground by the local law enforcement agencies.  With it being a crime scene, and not an “attack” by some hostile forces.  The bodies had to be moved to the police-and custom’s-controlled area of the spaceport.  It was a little over filled, by the twenty mostly complete bodies, which they were trying to identify.  Robert was not even asked to stick around for any questions.  It was very obvious that he and his people where the would-be victims tonight.  When it was time for the landing and sale of the 25ton F-10 Cheetah?  They were still putting bodies in body bags around the dropship.  It would seem that the local law enforcement was not ready for a mass casualty event. 

Robert was outside when the first deliveries started to show up to the cargo ships.  Robert had no problem telling people what had happened, during the early hours of the morning.  He was using it as a warning, and he wanted to get the word out to the rest of the planet.  That if you mess with his people?  You had better bring your lunch and a whole lot of help.  At 0900.  The skies over the drop port were cut with a sonic boom.  It was the Cheetah coming in for a landing.  It would be parked nearby in the shadow of the Lisbon Maru, for now. 

The new would be owner and a set of four techs showed up around a half hour later.  Robert had wanted to be there, but he had to deal with a supplier.  One that had decided she wanted to play games with them, even after all of the warnings.  Jess was taking the lead with Lora as back up on the sale of the light fighter.  The inspection should have only taken a few hours, but Robert had his people open parts of the fighter craft to help to speed the inspection along before the group of techs had shown up. 

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

Rebeca was talking with the group of techs that she had hired to check out the light class fighter.  The oldest tech was using a lot of hand motions to “talk” to the rest of his team, but Rebeca could not hear most of what was being said at this distance.  She knew, what most of those hand motions meant.  She turned and walked back to Jess and Lora, and her head was shaking as she walked.  But she had a smile plastered on her face. 

Jess took a half step forward and to one side to be closer to the other woman.  “So?  I take it that the fighter is as described?” 

Rebeca let the smile get bigger on her narrow face.  “I’m just glad, that I locked in the price before you came back.  The tech I hired.  He wants to buy it instead of letting me have it.  They said that it’s the best maintained Cheetah that they have ever seen.  I’m ready to transfer the funds, whenever you’re ready.  I am just glad, that you did not want to delay the inspection after what happened last night.”  Rebeca had seen the morning news with her morning coffee, and she was hoping to see if she could pick up any good rumors. 

Jess was wondering about something herself.  Something was off, but she could not put her finger on it.  After what happened last night?  She felt it was okay to be a little rude, to the person that was about to hand over a million and a half C-bills. 

“I’m glad you like the fighter, and making money is kind of in our business model.  I was also wondering about something.  Why would you be actively seeking out a predominately FWL light fighter to buy?” 

Rebeca was a little taken aback by the question.  It was rather personal, but then again.  It was odd, even out here on the edge of mapped space.  She relented, after all she had just asked a shady question herself.  Maybe they were a little on edge, and after all.  She would have been a little on edge.  If a special forces platoon had just tried to take my ride home.  That was how she was reading between the lines of all of the reports, that she had read and seen before coming over. 

“I had mine blown out from under me, almost three years ago.  Now the why?  My sister and I are originally from the FWL.  She is still working on planet.  But in order to get a decent job?  You need to be a lance.  You can mix and match aero fighters, but it’s not a good idea for the long term.  Now, all I have to do is keep Kim from wanting to trade fighters on me.”  She was already picturing what the new paint job was going to look like on her new ride, and it looked awesome in her mind. 

Jess, who had three older siblings, and very much understood the last part.  “Good luck with that.  Here is our account number.” 

Jess passed over a number, and the mid-twenties maybe pilot took the slip of paper with very steady hands.  In less than a minute.  It was all done, and half an hour after that.  An aircraft tug was moving the light class fighter to its new home some dozen miles away.  The sale and the movement of the fighter was picked up by a few of the news crews, which had been drawn to the alert on the law enforcement network. 

The crews of the Styx, and Hobgoblin, would soon be very happy at the sale of the craft.  They were losing a 25ton third line, at best light fighter, for a rebuilt 65ton SLDF fighter.  It was a marked increase in armor and firepower for fleet defense, even if it was a lot slower than the light fighter had been.  The SLDF in Exile would also be very happy not to have to worry about supplying the one-off fighter with parts and pilot training, when they got back home again.  That alone would have value to the SLDF Navy, besides the sale price

The rest of the stay on planet was not eventful.  About the only thing that could be seen as having changed over the last day.  It was that now MMM or a Mercenary unit was always actively patrolling around the drop port in lance strength or larger.  What was not seen, by most people, were the dozens of new observation points armed and always manned.  It was just another day at a drop port, and it was business as usual on the outside. 

The last things to be loaded onto the pair of dropships, were the fresh food and the four dropship engines that had been purchased from MMM.  They would need the supplies for the next leg of this run.  Those two types of supplies were joined with over 2,000 tons of items that were needed back home, that were picked up by the various buyers.  Robert’s crew had done very well for themselves. 

Robert had a private meeting with Lora.  He outlined the orders he had been given about finding out information on someone.  It had taken her a day to work out what to do.  As it turned out there were groups of mercenaries that could do this type of work.  She would contact a cutout, and within two to three weeks.  That recruiter would hire a unit to start watching a certain Ngo connected to Kowloon.  It was not going to be cheap, and the contract was going to need to be renewed every year.  But Robert and SLIC had expected this, and at least one of them had planned accordingly. 

When the two dropships lifted off, again.  It was a well watched event, if not a newsworthy event.  This time Robert had put out, to anyone that asked.  That they were going to Canopus as their next major stop.  He also told anyone who asked, that they were not taking any hitchhikers.  And they were not posting their detailed flight plans between systems that would end at the MC capital.  Where they were going to be stopping next?  That was not of any importance to the people in this system.  That was how Robert addressed the questions, when asked time after time. 

When word made it back to the planet’s main MMM headquarters, where the next major stop was going to be for a certain JumpShip.  Quickly it was decided that some messages should be passed along, to warn their partners on the capital planet of the Magistracy of Canopus.  Detailed reports would be written up with a new set of double coded keys, before they were sent out on the HPG network.  Those messages would be sent out not long after the two cargo ships had left the atmosphere of the planet. 

MMM was not the only group watching the two dropships launching today.  The entire leadership of the local ComStar compound, was now interested in this group.  With the number of Star League tech weapons, the used weapons, were not of that much importance.  This bit of information had now been confirmed by their spies working within the local MMM facility.  They had thrown out one of the ROM assets, to find out where they were getting what they were selling.  It had been feared that somehow, Copeland had found an operational factory for the making of new ultra-cannons.  Now that was not an issue.  If they were selling used weapons?  Then they would run out of those weapons sooner or later.  ComStar like to train their people in thinking long term. 

The new rifles and pistols were strange, but of limited use in the bigger picture of the rest of the Inner Sphere.  They were even at a lower tech level than could be made out here, at the edge of the Inner Sphere.  That was making this brain trust still think, that this company had just found a lost colony that wanted to be left alone.  This world might be what had remained of a hidden Rim World.  It would be filled with refugees that did not want to be found, because of the history it might have.  This was something that ComStar had found before, and most of the puzzle pieces fit that data model.  They knew how to handle that data model. 

What was causing the issues?  It was that they had stood up to the great ComStar and the word of Blake, and those computers they kept showing up with.  On that first trip?  They had counted them selling over 75 of those powerful but small machines, to any barbarians that had a few coins to rub together.  Now they had more, and it looked like it might be as many as a few hundred of those powerful computers coming onto the market. 

In the bigger picture?  A few hundred new computers were not a showstopper, when it was spread out over the thousands of inhabited planets around the Inner Sphere.  It was just a tiny drop in the bucket.  They might last twenty to thirty years, before they would be just more junk sitting in a garbage pit somewhere.  ComStar was looking long term, to very long term as a rule.  They just needed to make sure, that those new systems did not somehow kick off any new innovations or add to the rate that the Helm’s core had already started.  They needed to know more information, and they needed it badly.  They also needed to make sure that no one found out about how this spec of paint had stood up to them. 

It was the main working idea that was causing some sleepless nights, for some high ranked members of that organization.  That they might have more of those computers, lots more and maybe ones that were more powerful than what had hit the market already.  Some that might be so powerful?  That ComStar could not compete against them on the open, or on the dark market of passing favors and the odd few trinkets. 

That idea was terrifying to higher leadership, as the news went higher up the food chain of ROM and getting closer to Terra with each passing of an updated report.  Word had been sent to ROM’s main office for the whole area, when Copeland and his people had entered this system.  Now they were sending a message that he was heading their way, via a route that was not published to even to Dunianshire’s traffic control.  It was now their responsibility, to handle this little group of troublemakers after they had left this star system. 

Wolfnet was interested also in Copeland and his traveling company, by the time that Robert had reach the jump point.  Mainly it was because Rom of ComStar seemed to have it in for them.  Anyone that ComStar might have a mad on about, was someone that the Wolf’s Dragoons might want to watch a little closer.  It was a very low priority report, which would not be seen on Outreach for months after this one domino had fallen. 

Even then?  The Dragoons were too busy rebuilding and updating their war-machines with the limited amounts of clan tech they had in storage, or that they could make more or less by hand.  They knew the Clans were returning, soon.  About the only note of interest, that made it to any high level of leadership?  It was that Copeland and company might be useful as a source of additional supply of Star League weapons.  Weapons that could be sent to some other units around the Sphere.  Ones that were friendly with them, but ones that they did not trust to work directly with the Wolf’s Dragoons people in shoulder to shoulder combat. 

They had their own factories making new items as fast as they could, for their own use in the coming war.  Maybe if Wolfnet had been a little less overworked for the last few years.  Those reports might have been looked at a little closer, but Wolfnet generated tens of thousands of reports every day.  The term is information overload, and it had been a problem for Intelligence people for centuries.  Sometimes you just missed the golden nugget, no matter how hard you were looking for it.  Then your boss would point it out to you, thanks to 20/20 hindsight. 

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

Notes:

Wolf’s Dragoons and weapons.  They were building as much clan tech as they could, and they still did not field enough for everyone.  They still had to make late Level 2 tech for their own mechs, fighters, and dropships.  Look at the light fusion engine (LFE).  They had to spend resources to develop the things, because they could not make enough Clan tech XLs. 

ComStar and Criminals.  Not only ComStar was looking to have a payday.  I think some might have forgotten about the first masterminds to do some B and E, but Copeland had left before they could make a plan much less execute one.  Yes, ComStar miss counted the number of Computers and other things that had been sold.  The B and E team overestimated the amount of cash on the dropships.  There is no such thing as perfect intelligence, unless you have a working crystal ball. 

There are many types of Mercenaries.  We know they have mercenary units that specialize in many different types of work.  Why not data miners and Intel people?  How to hire one?  The same way some small power hires a mech company to help rebel against an overlord or to set up a garrison contract, a third party.  And yes, there are risks doing something like that. 


EAGLE 7

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #160 on: 20 January 2020, 11:32:51 »
Not a BSG fan never really watched it, but loving these stories.
Thanks for sharing.
“ My Clan honor is bigger than your Dragon honor, and comes in 18 clan flavors.”

DOC_Agren

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #161 on: 20 January 2020, 20:12:52 »
Just want to say again
 :thumbsup:
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

mikecj

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #162 on: 20 January 2020, 20:58:05 »
Nicely written, I like the way the B&E crew got into the middle of ComStar's plan.  Real life is complicated :)
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
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Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #163 on: 25 January 2020, 12:15:04 »
Chapter 29

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

29 Feb 3048 the second run
Canopus System

Seven jumps, and 64 days later.  The Tramp class jumpship showed up at the Canopus system’s nadir jump point.  The Canopus system was the capital solar system for the entire MC.  It had a lot of traffic, for this part of space.  It also had one other item that helped a lot with the high level of trade coming into this system.  That was that it was also within only one full jump of the Free World’s League’s boarder.  This had been a good thing and a very bad thing over the years, before and after the fall of the Star League. 

In this system, Robert was taking all three of his dropships with him to the planet.  With all of the information they had been able to intercept, so far.  It was leading Robert to believe, that if something was going to happen to his dropships?  It was going to happen here.  Everyone in the whole fleet was on high alert. 

The rotation of fighters was made up of the two LTN-g15 Lightnings, the STU K5 Stuka, and one of the Ironsides.  The other two Ironsides would be held back as a surprise to any attackers.  It was well known, by now.  That the company had already sold the Vulcan and Cheetah before they made it this far.  That was only one of the tricks up his sleeve.  One part of Robert’s brain was berating himself for almost wishing that something would happen. 

On the five day burn to the planet called Canopus IV.  The head tech from the Hobgoblin asked for some face to face time for a special meeting.  It would have to be for a very important reason, that a request had been forwarded to him reference needing a face to face meeting while they were in transit to a planet.  The two dropships docked together, and they did a hull to hull passenger transfer.  It was not wise to risk someone being able to intercept the information about this meeting.  If they had a small craft?  They would have sent it over to pick up the needed personnel.  Robert hadn’t been happy, that this meeting had not been done while they were all still connected to the Styx.  He made sure something like this would not happen again. 

Robert looked around the room and let his eyes rest on one person.  “Okay tech.  We have about an hour before we have to separate, to start slowing down to make a zero/zero arrival.  What have you got for us?”  Robert had been given an encoded message that had hints to what was needing to be covered.  But they were only hints. 

The Tech was old, but she looked only to be in her low 60’s to those who did not know about the SLiE.  “You have all seen the plans for modifying the Stuka, which was passed around not long after leaving Dunianshire.  So far?  We have been able to do most of the pre-hard work, already.  We can pull all of the old heat sinks out of the Stuka.  We will replace them with high efficiency ones, out of our spare parts for the other craft.  I just need the word to start the modifications.  The sooner we start, the sooner the craft will be combat effective.” 

The Captain of the Hobgoblin looked over to Robert.  “The Stuka is a heat hog, and this would make it more effective in combat, but still only using the technology that is available to the Inner Sphere.”  It was not a surprise to anyone, that he had been one of the primary supporters of this non-Royal upgrade of a fighter. 

Robert was looking at the plans.  This was the third version of the modification that had crossed his desk since they had left New Circe.  He was walking a very thin line about having Royal designs to support his mission.  “30 second generation heatsinks is bit of an overkill.  Do we have enough replacement heat sinks to do this?” 

The tech looked at the commander and gave him a strange look.  “Sir, we have a block of 50 laid in as spares for all of the Ironsides we could put into use.  Unless we run into something that gives them some major damage?  We will still have enough replacements to completely replace the heatsinks for two whole ship’s heat exchange systems.  We think that doing a one for one exchange will keep the center of gravity of the craft manageable for the avionics, and it would be just simpler to do.  I would be surprised if the craft would use all of those in combat, but it would save us trying to adjust a lot of computer code.” 

Robert looked at the tech again, but he shot a short look over to the Carrier Captain.  “How long would it take to finish the modifications; from the time the word is given?  I need a best case and a worst-case timeline to make an informed decision.”  He could feel the eyes watching him from around the room.  He was the fleet commander, and it was his call.  And it would be his name alone, on the order forms on file.  He had only invited the other ship’s commanders, so that they were aware of the issue with the Stuka. 

The tech would have jumped up out of her chair, but they were in zero g.  “Sir!!  We could do this one modification in as little as four days, but we will maybe need seven days at the outside.  If we try to modify the software?  That could take weeks, if we ran into difficulties.  I have some good people, and I think that they can do that job also.” 

Robert looked around the room, but the truth was that this was his call, and his call alone.  He had to fight down a smile, as he saw the other looks around the room.  “Then do it.  I also want you to look at pulling the Holly four pack, and start looking for those large lasers that you wanted for plan you marked as 5 D.  I think this system will be our best bet to find them, for a while.  Start working on a software patch to make them work on that frame.  If you have any issues, put it back in and we will wait until we get back home to make the switch.  But I want you to keep working on it until then.”  He was thinking that the techs might as well use the time going to the planet effectively. 

The meeting would need to go on for a half hour more, as each of the Captains brought up whatever it was that needed to be worked out now, instead of using a radio for the later scheduled meeting.  When the two ships split up, after the meeting.  The massive engines fired and started slowing all of the ships, so that they could come into orbit above the life-giving planet. 

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

They had to stay in orbit for almost a full twenty-four hours waiting to land after reaching the planet. This time keeping the carrier in orbit was not an issue.  There was even a small satellite habitat that catered to support craft that did not want to land on the planet.  Robert used the time to contact the person that Lora said was supposed to be there.  As it turned out, they were there.  And as soon as they could, they would be at the drop port.  Robert also contacted the Rob Roy.  She was stationed at the capital’s main space port, just below the three craft under Robert’s command.  They replied with the correct codes, and now Robert could breathe a little easier.  He had been worried when they had not picked up the transponder codes coming from the right Merchant class jumpship. 

When the two dropships had been allowed to land.  They already had been subject to dozens of requests to attend the many different pleasure circuses, held around the planet year-round.  These were not targeted request for them to enjoy the shows.  They were more of a general advertisement to any ship that was even close to the planet.  Those contacts did not slow down, even after the dropships had landed.  This was the first time that anyone of Roberts’s people had landed on this planet since the last major supply run.  The first day was taken up by just doing some house cleaning and getting fresh air into the ships, and a little relaxing time for the crews. 

Things started happening at sunrise on the first full day that they were on the planet.  Robert had to deal with the local government types first.  They wanted to open every box in the cargo holds, “to see” what he was really bringing to their planet.  Robert was only willing to move half of the cargo that they had brought with them to this planet.  They had a long way to go, yet and he did not want to drive down the prices. 

His gut told him that these government types were trying to get a look at his whole inventory, and not just what he planned to put on the local market while he was breathing their air.  Robert ordered only a set number of items to be pulled out from the cargo bays.  He did pull out all of the Colonial made items.  He wanted to sell them, as quick as he could.  It would give him a better idea how many he could bring out on the next run, as he got deeper into “normal” House space.  This planet should be able to absorb this number of this type of weapon, and it not become over saturated.  At least that was what the numbers said. 

Jess and the dropship’s Captains were taking care of any would be shoppers.  Robert was dealing with bigger issues.  He was in the main meeting room in the Blockade Runner, when the closed hatch opened.  Robert looked up to the swinging motion.  He knows the man that entered, and he rose from his chair to hold out his hand. 

“David Sargent, good to see that you made it.  How did the trip go after the Split system?”  Robert was evaluating the man the second he walked into the room.  He had down checked a few points when the other man had not knocked before entering Robert’s office. 

David Sargent had been in command of the Merchant class jumpship and the Trojan she had carried on its back, after the two ships had gone their separate ways.  David and his small command had made their own way to this system.  It was hoped that they would be able to put the jumpship up for sale or maybe even get rid of the dropship, with enough lead time.  At least they could have them sold before Robert and the rest of the team made it to the capital.  That had been in the original plan, and it had been flushed out of the airlock well before Robert had made it all the way here. 

David was an up and coming commander within the SLDF Navy.  This little run was checking the box, for an independent command.  When he got back home?  He would be moved into a staff position, maybe within the main fleet ground staff or on a large space fleet unit.  If he did well in one of those two assignments?  Then he might get a large ship combat command of his own.  While he was a younger person, most of his crew, to include his second and third in command were old supply run people.  About a third had been on the last run under Robert’s command. 

David took a seat and smiled at the older man.  “It went good.  We had no issues.  I would call it a dull run, compared to all of the reports I have read before we left.  We kept to the uninhabited systems for the most part, just as we planned.  We only saw one other jumpship the whole way from Split to here.  That is until we got here.   It’s been an active pain, after that.  We have had a few bites on the sale of the dropship, but nothing on the Merchant.” 

Robert could feel the young lion’s emotions.  He did not like working for someone of Robert’s age, which was common in the world, both within the SLDF and the whole Inner Sphere in general.  Maybe it was even that way going all the way back to the dawn of time.  Robert understood that it was worse within “clan space”.  Now it was time to show the young one, why old lions lasted so long as the leaders in the wild.  Robert made sure that he had just the right look on his face, so that it would not aggravate the young lion.  An aggravated youth was not inclined to learn. 

“I have that covered.  I have a buyer stopping by, in about 30 minutes.  Did you list your people and ships under our operational cover name, when you arrived in system?” 

David looked at the commander, with a blank level gaze.  “Yes sir, I did.  I do not know why you wanted me to change on the agreed upon protocol.”  When they had left, the idea had been for the new ship to be listed as belonging to Evergreen Space lines.  David did not know that he had started to slip back into proper clan speak, but Robert did, and he would remember it. 

Robert hides a smile. It was time for lessen number one for a larger ship commander.  That lesson was to think about all the whys, that a senior commanders’ order might mean.  “David, we have been avoiding picking up and shifting other people’s cargo and personnel for going on now two missions.  After we sell these two ships.  How are you getting home?” 

David looked at the older man.  One that he thought was a failure, but he had no idea what the fleet commander was getting at.  He ate a member of the Rook family and asked for help.  “Sir?  I am not following.”  The words tasted like ash as the crow went down his throat. 

Robert was a little surprised, that the younger man did not get where he was coming from.  “David?  If we are not in the habit of giving others a charter or passenger service.  How will it look?  When we lift you and your crews off planet, when we leave or even being seen spending an extended length of time with them?  It’s going to draw a lot of attention from all over the place.  If you belong to “the company”, then it fits with our historic actions.  WE are only carrying more of our own crews, and not a bunch of strangers.  Then it is more likely that the information will just be filed away, and not actively investigated after we leave.” 

David blinked several times and let his mouth swing open.  He had not thought about that.  “Sir, that makes sense.  I had not thought about people asking, about why you changed your pattern of operations and why.  I guess I am more used to straight up combat, and not having to sneak around the edges.”  One thing that David strived for, was never making the same mistake twice.  And he would make sure that he remembers the lesson that he had just been given.  He would also remember how it had been given to him.  Teaching and showing was a valuable lesson for a future navy warship commander. 

Robert now let a slight smile slip onto his face.  “Good!  You also need to think about how to look at all of the angles, that will help you in straight up combat.  Fighting humans is different than fighting the current crop of Cylons.  Now I need a copy of all your reports.  Did you highlight who made contact, about buying the dropship?” 

David passed over a data storage device that would fit into Robert’s computer.  They spent some time going over each of the reports the younger man had put together.  David was getting another lesson on why the SLDF navy had sent him to learn from this Commander.  That stopped when Robert was notified that his next appointment was there. 

David was getting ready to leave, when Robert waved for him to stay seated.  By now David knew better than to ask why.  He thought that another lesson was in the works.  When the hatch opened again, four strangers walked into the room.  They made introductions by first name, but not by job or duty.  One part of David’s mind noted that they were an even mix of male and female.  After so many weeks on this planet, he knew that this was odd. 

Robert could see that David wanted to break for the door.  “David, Kimberly Jay is representing a shipping company that supports a good-sized slice of the MC and FWL border area.  They are looking to increase their lifting capabilities, if we can come to a successful conclusion on a price for the Merchant jumpship.”  Robert was rewarded with raised eyebrows from the younger man.  He had been beating the streets and vendors looking for buyers, and this man had one set up before his dropship’s engines had been allowed to cool down. 

What Robert did not say, was that Kimberly Jay was one of the members of the Families sent to the Inner Sphere many decades ago.  He would not have said that any way, because he did not know how the other three people with her were connected to her.  The older lion never gives up all of his hard-won secrets, at least not on the first, second or third meeting.  He also would not tell anyone in this room that Robert was named after Kimberly Jay’s grandfather.   

Robert turned back to face the woman.  “So, Miss Jay.  Now that we are all in system.  When would you like to inspect the ship?” 

Kimberly smiles, a disarming smile.  “Captain Copeland.  I wanted to thank you for letting us have the first look at your ship.  We have a certified inspection crew currently waiting at the jump point.  They could start as soon as they get the word that you are okay with the inspection.” 

Robert smiled a salesman’s smile and kept to the script, which had been used a hundred times already.  “I say the word, is given.  He picked up the phone and told the bridge to contact the correct traffic control, to let them know that an inspection team was cleared to a ship belonging to his company.  Kimberly used her own handheld device and sent a message to her office.  They were to radio to their people at the edge of the system, to leave as soon as they could.  It would take hours for the radio message to cross the distance between the planet and the jump point.  One inspection had been done when David had put the ship up for sale, just like Robert had done with the Scout.  This was more or less, a show of interest and to double check the first public findings. 

The deal was signed, and the money was put into escrow.  It would be put into Copeland’s local business accounts, if the inspectors accepted the ship.  It was all paperwork, smoke and mirrors, and both parties knew this for a fact.  Kimberly knew that the ship was in top shape.  Her people would not have risked the run, in a ship that was less than “good”.  Soon 380 million C-Bills would be shifted around in the digital world. 

While Robert was escorting the small group to an exit of the dropship.  Kimberly passed him a note, it was not done on the sly.  She was very public about the hand off.  It was her contact information for future operations.  Robert was betting that David did not catch it, he had been checking out the second woman who barely had said a word during the whole meeting.  Robert had noticed, but he had hoped that the interest was not due to the low-cut shirt the quiet woman had been wearing. 

While Robert was outside.  He was finishing glad handing the people, who had just spent over a third of a billion C-bills.  He was still doing that slimy job, when a well-maintained Trebuchet came striding up to the White Rabbit.  Seeing a mech walking around the drop port was not that surprising, but they normally tended to stay on the lanes marked for heavy mass traffic.  This one had left those lanes and was heading towards the two dropships. 


It was alone and once it reached the burn line, it had stopped moving without needing to be ordered by the alert crew on the ship’s bridge.  Everyone on the ground was watching, as the side hatch popped open on the head assembly of the medium class battlemech.  A chain ladder rolled out and a man in a cooling vest but not mech shorts, started to climb down the metal rungs. 

Normally in a mech you wore as little as possible, to help you combat the life stealing effects of the heat that one of these war machines produced in action.  This older man was in a normal combat field uniform, but he did have a coolant vest strapped over them.  Once he reached the massive metal feet of his war-machine.  The stranger removed the vest and straightened his uniform top, before starting closing on the group of onlookers.  He even kept the vest in his off hand, as he walked over to the gaggle of bystanders near the open hatch to the dropship. 

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #164 on: 25 January 2020, 12:19:52 »

The older man walked ramrod straight, and at a military pace of 60-inch steps and 120 steps to the minute.  When he was closer to the group, he started looking around them and talking.  “My name is Colonel Newton Ramilie.  The commander of Ramilie’s Raiders.  I’m looking for a Captain or Commander Copeland, to do some business.”  The voice was gruff.  It was like he had been gargling razor blades for the last few decades for breakfast. 

Robert nodded to Kimberly and her group, and then turned to the uniformed man.  “I’m Copeland, and Captain will due for my title.  What can I do for you Colonel?” 

The Colonel put a slight smile on his face and walked closer to Robert.  The escorts standing near the main hatch were starting to get worried, when they saw the hand come out in a greeting.  It moved a little too fast for them to be comfortable, but when they saw that it was empty.  They settled back down to just watching what was going on.  Very few people would notice that their fingers had slowly moved the weapons selector switch from fire to safe. 

“Good to meet you.  I was told, by some of my people and some others that I trust.  You might have some items for sale that I might be interested in.” 

Robert knew, from Lora, that his group had been the go-to unit for the hard jobs that the MC needed done for over a decade.  Four of his sub-units were rated Elite, in the Intel reports that Lora had given him.  Robert knew that something like that took a lot of work to reach that level of skill, even in the Inner Sphere.  “I think we might have something, of use to almost a Regiment of battlemechs.  We might have a few things that could be very useful to them.”  He points to the boxes and crates around the base of the dropship. 

The Colonel and the Regiment Commander walked around the items on display, but the Colonel seemed to just be going through the motion.  After one walk through, Robert turned to face the other military commander.  “So, Colonel.  What do you think?  Do we have something your unit could use on its current contract?  If you don’t mind me asking.  How have those Hawks MMM sent to you, with the updated cannons worked out?” 

The Colonel looked around the items on display.  “How do you know about them?  Oh, never mind.  You sold the cannons to MMM in the first place.  They have worked out very nicely, thank you for asking.  They are going to be the core of my new third Mech battalion.  Yes, you do have some items that I would like to have Commander Copeland.  But your prices are high.  People out this far don’t have that much money to spend, and we have to import so much to keep going as it is.”  Newton looked longingly over the display of weapons in front of him. 

Robert had heard this line, or a version of it, a hundred times already.  “Look Colonel.  I’m just a simple merchant that has partners to keep happy.  Ones that are also just trying to make a living.  Besides, you would not have come out here.  If you didn’t have your mind set on something.  So, just tell me what’s on your mind.  Then let’s get down to doing some business.”  Robert was smiling as he spoke, and his tone was light. 

The Colonel gave a big belly laugh that sounded odd to Robert’s ears, and he tried to speak as he laughed.  “What are you, a Stiener?  Look Commander.  I had to trade a good bit of stuff, when I got word you were coming out here.  I moved some of the very choice’s bits of salvage, which we have been able to collect and not use over the last few years.  I even had to get a bit of a short-term loan, from the government.” 

Robert did not say anything.  He just waited for the man to get to the point and stop using up oxygen.  He did learn that this man had some money to spend, and he might be willing to do some trading on the side that was not cash based.  Robert folded his arms and gave the military leader a level look, and kept his mouth shut, and continued to wait. 

The Colonel picked up on the look and gave in to the merchant.  He also had things to do, after he was done out here on the drop port.  “Okay Captain, what I’m looking for, is a way to increase my Sky Pirates Aero Fighter unit.  Before you ask, no they are not Pirates.  It’s just what they called themselves, even before we came out here to find a new home.  Before we talk money.  I would like to see that pair of Lightning’s you have listed for sale.” 

Robert had not thought the Colonel would go that way.  He had a mental bet going that he was going to try to do a mass buy of high-tech autocannons.  It seemed that this mercenary wanted to spend some very big money.  “Please give me a second, and I will see what I can do.” 

Robert went about ten steps off to one side and used the relay on the bridge to contact the Hobgoblin.  When he returned to the mercenary colonel.  He had news, but he did not know if it was good or bad news.  “Colonel, those two pilots were on crew rest, but I can have them down in two hours.  How long will it take to get your techs out here to inspect them?” 

Colonel Ramilie smiled at the other man.  He had hoped that they could take care of this today.  He had heard rumors that this Captain was a professional, and he like to get things done without having to do a lot of backslapping, red tape cutting, or other games that were commonly played in this type of market.  He also did not like to waste time or anyone else’s time by playing games.  “I can have them here when they land.” 

Ramilie put out his hand and again.  After a firm handshake shared by the two men, he went back up into his battlemech.  Robert had to assume that he had radioed back to his base, after he got back into the cockpit, but he had no way to know.  Robert decided that he would stick around outside, helping Jess and the escorts keep an eye on things.  About 90 minutes later, a small truck, maybe a 1-ton cargo type pulled up.  In what look like a clown car event.  People kept coming out of the small truck’s four doors.  All of them had tools and greasy uniforms.  They screamed Tech, without needing to say a word. 

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

Colonel Ramilie exited his mech for the second time and talked to the newcomers, before joining Robert again.  This time Robert was under a shade providing tent.  If he was going to do some business?  He was going to be as comfortable as he could get away with.  He was of a half a mind to just let the Cargo Master handle this, but part of his mind was itching about having access to the best unit in the MC’s military.  Robert had let his mind wonder about how to ask the right questions, and he did not notice the military officer until he was in speaking distance. 

“Captain Copeland, my aero fighter techs are here.  About how long till the fighters land?”  The tone the Colonel had used was the same as he would use with any other member of his senior staff. 

Just as he stopped talking.  A loud boom went by overhead, and Robert gave the other man a sly smile.  “I would bet that they will be on the ground, as soon as the traffic control tower gives them clearance to land.  Why don’t you have a seat?  Would you like to go inside, or stay outside so that you can keep an eye on your people?”  Robert knew that this was going to take a while to complete. 

The Colonel looked around, and it did not take long to make a decision.  “Well, Captain?  If you have some iced tea?  I would prefer to stay out here with my people.” 

Robert asked one of the crew to bring some cold drinks out, and he offered a seat to the other military man.  Robert and Jess sat with the Colonel as they sipped their cold drinks, but nothing much was said between them.  Every question was answered with either a noncommittal or one-word reply.  That is until they saw the two fighters being towed toward them.  As soon as the towing tugs were disconnected, and almost before the pilots could get out of their craft.  The pair of craft were swarmed by a mob of strange techs.  The Cargo Master quickly took charge of the situation, before it could get out of control.  They sent the two pilots to go inside the Lisbon Maru to wait for further orders. 

Now that the 2 fighter craft were on the ground and the techs were going over the machines in a well-orchestrated dance.  Robert looked up from his computer, after letting the crew of local techs work.  He was guessing that the inspection should be about halfway done.  “Okay Colonel.  Let’s talk about price for these two 50ton LTN-g15 Lightning class fighters.” 

The Colonel was a hard negotiator and drove the price down.  When his people showed up with their report on the inspection?  Robert could then retaliate and raise the asking price back up some.  The Colonel was a little crest fallen, about the rise in price.  He fought back as hard as he could, but the product was just too good and both parties knew it. 

“Well Captain, looks like you have a deal at 4.8 million.  I was hoping to get you down to a lower price point, so that I could get a few of those new type of cannons.  You’re stuck on 400k for them, aren’t you?” 

Robert nodded his head up and down.  “Colonel you know that they are worth it, and just think what you will be able to do when you hit a pirate base.  You will be able to rain damage on them from a good bit of range, without that much heat.  I have a long list of things to pick up, for my partners, and to be frank.  I have to get every C-bill that I can out of what we have to sell.“ 

The Colonel looked like someone had just kicked his dog.  “I know what you’re saying Captain, but I can only get one of those things with what I have left in the bank.”  He had really needed those big hitters in his unit.  He needs big hitters, and those Lightnings were packing the massive autocannon that were perfect for his unit.  There were only so many mission types, that the smaller Sabers could handle.  Sometimes you just needed a big hammer, and only light fighters were made in the MC. 

Robert was reaching over to shake hands to close the deal, and then stopped before they could touch hands.  The Mercenary Colonel also stopped mid-movement and his eyebrow’s shot up.  He was worried about what might have changed, and that was what it looked like had just happened.  He was worried that he had just lost the deal of the year.  Robert gave himself a shake that the other man saw.  Robert put his hand back out to grasp the other man’s hands, before the other man could recoil and pull the offered hand out of reach. 

“Sorry, Colonel lets close this deal.  But I had, what I think might be a good idea.”   The two men shake on the deal to sell the two 50ton fighters.  Jess saw that the money was transferred.  The tower was notified, so that the two craft could be towed to the area of the base that the Raiders used.  It would not take long for word to spread “in the market” about the sale of a lance of medium weight fighters. 

When all of the paperwork was done.  Ramilie looked at the merchant.  He was trying to work out what was going on behind those blue eyes and still face.  He had seen the admittedly thin intelligence files on this man.  But one of the key notes, was that this was a very shrewd man.  “Okay Captain.  What is on your mind?” 

Robert shot a look over to Jess, but she was not following were Robert was about to go.  She looked just as confused as the mercenary was.  “When we were closing that deal.  I remembered you saying something about choice salvage you might have on hand.  That always is kind of a soft spot for me.  Now you know we have a Stuka, on our carrier.  We are short some items to support her, if we run into any major problems.  I was thinking that maybe you might have a few Exostar Large Lasers or something that will work in their place, left in your caches of salvaged equipment.  If you do?  We might be able to do some more business.  I decided that I did not want to tie what we had already done to a maybe, and risk losing both deals.  I wanted also to keep this deal on the quiet side, so that it’s not talked about in the local bars tonight.”  Everything he had just said was true, just not in the way that the mercenary leader was thinking that it was. 

Colonel Ramili picked up a small radio, and put an ear bug in.  This was going to be a short-ranged transmission, and he did not want this merchant to be able to use anything he might overhear against him.  He asked the question to his head tech, and with a poker face took the answer.  He was working behind the power ball, and he knew it.  He was willing to risk it, for a chance to get one of those Star League level high speed cannons. 

“Okay Captain.  We have some Exostars or knockoffs of that brand that we are not using right now.  They are earmarked as being held for combat replacements at our main support base.” 

Robert also had his poker face on, and then put a sly smile on his face.  He was about to change the rules of the universe.  “Okay Colonel.  This is a onetime deal.  The going rate for those types of weapons is 100k, but at the factory.  If you can get four of them here, and they pass inspection by one of my people?  I will trade one of my ultra-cannons to you, for four of them.  Are you game?” 

The Mercenary let the confusion show fully on his face.  Was this merchant going to trade a Star League era weapon, for four old and used large laser class weapons?  Having four of those weapons at once was not uncommon, but it was not that common either.  He could get four replacement large lasers faster than he could get an ultra-class weapon any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

“I think we have a deal, Captain Copeland.”  It was a simple statement, and after it was done.  He made another radio call to have four of the weapons dropped off at his location.  The two newly acquired double fire cannons would be picked up by the dropping off flatbed truck, which had been carrying the four large bore lasers. 

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

The Colonel was watching the uploading of the old Star League weapons, from the foot of his beloved machine.  He also was watching the strange merchant captain finish up a deal for some computers and Blazer rifles from someone he did not recognize.  When that deal was done, the Captain was heading his way.  Something clicked in his head, as the merchant closed in on the stationary mech.  The Colonel had a smile so large on his face, that it was starting to hurt.  The Colonel put his hand out one more time to thank the merchant captain.  He liked working with the government of the MC, but it was always a good idea to have some backup sources of support.  He had learned that the hard way when he had to flee with his unit out from under the thumb of the Cappies. 

“Captain!  I want to let you know that I will remember what you have done for me today.”  He pulled Robert in a lot closer than ether man would normally feel comfortable with, and the mercenary pitched his voice very low.  “Be careful with that ComStar spook going by the name of Igarashi Miya, while you are here in the MC.  He offered me a job some time ago.  He wanted me to take out your Mule dropship, and I would get a bonus for any other ship we could bag.  I’m glad he low balled the compensation package when he offered me the deal.  As far as I know, he is now looking for a medium to heavy squadron of fighters to go after you.” 

The mercenary released Robert’s hand, and they put a little more distance between the two.  Robert nodded his head, but he was careful to keep his face under control.  He never would have thought a Merc would willingly give up a meal ticket, and then warn him about a contract that had been put out on him.  All for no cost.  Robert had only treated the man, like he would anyone else.  Now it looked like it had come back in a payoff, in a surprising way.  Robert made a note to remember the good turn this man had just given his people. 

“Thank you, Colonel.  I will keep that in mind and thank you for the heads up.  I hope that we can do some business again in the future.”  Robert was not just saying words.  He was making a mental promise to see if he could help this Colonel down the road. 

The mercenary nodded and then quick, for his age, went back up the chain ladder showing all of those decades of experience.  Robert walked back to the shady side of the dropship while the battlemech was powered up, and soon it was moving.  With that sell done.  Robert passed a message that he was calling a meeting of the Dropship’s Captains. 

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

The meeting was short and held on the Mule.  Robert passed along the information.  It was not confirmed, but the Merc did not have a reason to lie.  He did have a reason not to say anything at all, but he had.  Some in the meeting thought that it was bad form for a merc to let a target know, that they were being targeted.  Robert did not think so.  It would have made the meeting go easier, if the Colonel had sold him the information instead of just given it to them for free. 

After the meeting.  Robert, Jess, and the Cargo Masters went looking for the medical and some other hard to find equipment that they needed back home.  The MC capital was well known to have the best medical equipment around the whole Inner Sphere.  The Star League in Exile could make the very high-end items it needed.  But the MC could have a lot of medical stuff, which would fill a lot of specialized needs and the more general medical needs of the planet.  This was not the normal lower tech items, but this planet had items that were as good or even in some ways better.  Then what the old Star League could have or did make in its heyday. 

Robert was surprised when he was contacted by a member of the MC government while he was out working with some of the local suppliers.  It was less than 48 hours after the Mercenary Colonel, had left with his new weapons.  They were looking at picking up the Rob Roy, if it passed inspection by a certified government representative.  It kind of made since that a major rim power would want this type of ship.  It was called a Blockade Runner, after all.  This class of dropship was first built not far from this nation state.  Being known as a Blockade Runner might not endear the design to the SLDF.  But out on the edge of space?  It was a badge of honor. 

Robert would bet, that the Colonel had been a test run of some kind on Copeland.  It was a good bet that he told people, that Copeland was a straight shooter along with a few other hints about the man and company.  Or it could have been another one of the local shoppers, which might have been working for MC intelligence on the side.  In the end it did not matter, to Robert and his crews.  The inspections on the Rob Roy had been done weeks ago, and a copy of the results had been filed for public viewing not long after David had made landfall.  Those had only been done, because of what Robert had learned while working with Lora. 

The meeting was held in the Maru.  They thought that they had Robert over a barrel, because of the sale of the JumpShip already.  What was he going to do?  Leave the dropship behind.  He was able to counter the banter; with a statement, that he had already checked with the new owners of the JumpShip.  They were so happy with the deal.  That they had offered to carry the Trojan to their home system, so that it would be closer to the center of trade with the rest of the Inner sphere for free.  The MC Representative caved in soon after, and soon another 200 million C-Bills were transferred to the growing accounts of Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale Company.  The government might not have been that happy with that turn of events today.  But the local banks were very happy with the turn of events. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #165 on: 25 January 2020, 12:23:08 »
It was good timing for the sale.  The other two dropships were working on settling in the skeleton crew of the dozen personnel that had come from the dropship.  Three hours after the dropship was sold?  The eight members of the Merchant class jumpship landed at the space port on some rented seats on a landing boat.  Thanks to good planning before they had left New Circe.  The space had been already set aside for them to use for the rest of the trip.  The crews would be split between the two dropships.  Those additional crew also would add some personnel for defense or battle damage repair, if needed.  The only major player on this planet that did not stop by or even contact Robert, or his staff.  They were the people over at MMM. 

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

There was a hard knock on the open hatch.  Robert looked up and waved for the two women to enter his office.  He was surprised when he had been told that his next appointment had arrived at the base of the dropship, but it was not a single person.  It was a pair that were coming up to see him.  This turn of events had intrigued him, and he was wondering what was about to happen. 

The two women took seats closer to Robert than the open hatch.  He shot a look first at Kimberly and then to the other woman.  Kimberly saw the look and she had a good guess on why it had been first directed at her. 

Kim let a smile come to her face.  She was about to enjoy this.  “Congratulations on your promotion to Commander.  I know Dad will be very happy to hear about it.”  She pulled a data storage device out of her jacket and passed it over to Robert.  “He wanted me to pass this to you, if I saw you.  I know that he is not expecting a letter from you.” 

Robert slowly reached out and took the device.  He did not pull it from sight, but it now was closer to him.  “Thank you, Kim.  I was glad to find out that Lora was able to get ahold of you.  But I am wondering about your co-worker.” 

Kim was now beaming with a smile.  “Oh!!  This is Sophie Scholl; her family had been found by dad some time ago.”  Kim stopped talking and waited. 

Robert was going down the list of names in his mind, but he could not connect a Family and Scholl.  He was starting to see that the daughter and her father had a few annoying traits in common.  After not saying anything for a few seconds.  He gave his one-word reply.  “Really?”  This was his way of letting her know he was not going to play games, and that she was on thin ice. 

Kimberly caught the tone and let the smile fall.  “Sir, she is family.  Her family was one of the first to come back.  They fell out of contact when their handler died, when we lost Socrates.  They have been sticking to the work ever since.” 

Robert’s eyes went wide.  The Socrates had been the first JumpShip lost by the SLiE while making supply runs, after raiding the slave pens of the Draconis Combine.  Robert knew that Kim’s dad had been trying to find lost members of the family for as long as he could remember.  Robert was not smiling, but he was intrigued by this revelation.  “It is always good to make contact with a once lost family,” was his flat reply to this news. 

Kimberly went into business mode, now that it was time to end the games.  “After Dad retired, I took his place within SAFE.  My main job is tracking weapons sells between the FWL and any of the outlying states.  I have about a dozen part time agents under my command.  Dad had hoped that Sophie would be able to move higher than any of us, but that has not worked out.  She is stuck doing analytical work.  She is on the shit list, after breaking her bosses’ hand.  He had put it someplace that his wife would not have approved of.” 

Now Robert connected all the dots.  He had been hoping that Kim was following along in her father’s footsteps.  Now he might be able to hand off a very thorny issue.  “That is good to know.  I do have a file to pass to your father, which is personal.”  He reached over and he released a data stick that he had been hiding in his palm.  Then he reached over and pulled a note pad over. 

“We will be coming back more often, but in smaller numbers to pick up items that are needed.  We need to have some way to control the amount of surprises we have been running into.  This is a list of names that I don’t know if your father has.  I want both of you to work with Lora.  She does not have the training that the pair of you do, but she is smart and has an impressive amount of contacts.  How you run things will be up to you all to work out, but she controls the purse strings.  These are some of the issues that I know need to be looked at.” 

Robert stopped talking and writing at the same time.  After he made eye contact with both women, he passed the pad over.  The two women took the pad and started studying the information.  Thanks to their training, they would not take the pad out of the office.  The meeting would go on for another hour, and it would only have one addition to this meeting.  Robert wanted Jess to talk to these two.  Bye the end of the meeting both sets of participants were happy with the outcome of the meeting.  It was not going to be an easy mission, which had just been given out. 

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

Jess was able to have another meeting with Kimberly and Sophie, before they had lifted off.  It had been requested by the two local women.  They had been able to come up with some answers that Commander Copeland had been looking for.  They had found out why MMM on this planet had not made contact with them.  As it turned out.  Most of the local members of that company had not believed that it was worthwhile to contact them, even after Mike’s reports.  They thought that Copeland was not worth the risk to do business directly with. 

That was both surprising to Robert and not.  MMM was a major company, and like anything that big you had clicks you had to deal with.  This had not stopped Robert and his crews from finding a lot of the items that they needed to buy or sell.  In short, if this part of MMM did not want to work with Robert.  There were a lot of others that would gladly step in and take their place. 

At first, they had feared that the attack would happen in this system.  Now, being here and seeing that the locals were actively patrolling at a very high force level.  Robert and his staff had worked out, that it would be a bad idea to do something aggressive in this location.  At least if they were not connected to the local government, and after what the Mercenary Colonel told them.  That did not seem likely.  It was a risk that Robert knew he was running, but he felt it was worth it. 

Robert and the two dropships under his command lifted off right on the hour that they had planned and published.  They met up with their escort, the Hobgoblin, in high orbit over the planet.  Supplies were transferred between the three different dropships, in orbit.  It could have waited until they got to the JumpShip, but Robert was betting that they were on short time. 

Among the cargos that were moved over to the Carrier in orbit, were two more of the crated fighters.  They were transferred while they were in the shadow provided by the Carrier.  They were to replace the two 50ton fighters that had been sold, with a pair of more powerful 65ton craft.  The Exostars were sent over also by a rented MK VII.  And soon the Stuka was going to be turned into a true laser boat from Hades.  The techs would only have about a week to get the whole job done.  But they were not caught flat footed, and a lot of work had been done while the weapons were still stuck ground side.  The Techs were using the open area to their advantage, in every way that the dropship’s captain would let them. 

The cargo space on both ships were quickly filling up, but they still had over a third of their capability still in an empty mass condition.  They still had half of the ultras and computers to sell, and almost half of the advanced PPCs were still sitting in their freshly made shipping boxes.  Robert had been letting only one to three of each of the high-tech weapons out, at a time.  Almost all of the Blazers were gone, as well as were most of the other Colonial made weapons.  The rate of sales on the computers had been a pleasant surprise.  Now all Robert and his crew needed to do was find what was on the shopping list. 

Still Robert was betting that they only would have enough stuff to sell to two or three more systems.  He would rather have more Blazers to sell on the next trip, if they were going only to hit major worlds.  The known weapons were selling better than an unknown weapon.  It was not like he could start a sphere wide publicity campaign centered on the Colonial made projectile weapons.  Still he could only bring what they could on the next trip.  It was not like they would have another JumpShip to sell on the next trip.  Not unless something major changed back home.  Then again?  He knew that stranger things had happened, and he was only a Captain in a large Navy.  He did have a major balance in the bank after selling of the dropship and JumpShip.  That would go along with what they had before and had not used up yet. 

The trip to the jump point was uneventful, and it did not take long for the three ships to dock onto the Tramp class ship.  Robert had an itch in the center of his back.  He felt like someone was watching him and his crews, as they went about their jobs near the jump point.  He could not prove anything, but it was a strong feeling.  He was both happy and dreading, leaving this highly populated system.  It would be some time before they were in a system like this again, with so many would be witnesses just floating around.  They were leaving the system four hours after all three dropships had docked. 


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

Notes:

30 Double heatsinks.  Yes, it would make the sled a zombie.  But I was more worried about center of gravity on the craft and making any needed software changes.  While in the field, you just do not let your services unit make their own changes to your software in the fire control system on an M1 or AH64.  I had been planning on updating the Stuka with DHS and more Large Lasers from the start of this story. 

The Favor Trade.  A lot of combat units track who pulled who’s butt out of the fire last.  It is not uncommon if you’re nice to someone, they will be nice back in combat.  In the case of the Mercenary unit.  He was letting someone know, that they had someone looking to get them.  If he or a close friend had taken the mission?  He would not have let the mission out of the bag.  That would have been bad for business and friendships in that line of work. 

How to conduct a meeting without using radios, and you do not have small craft?  This had started as a mental exercise, and then I had a last-minute meeting pop up at work.  That got me to wondering about how something like that would be done, in the setting I have been working in.  The command staff was so worried about “an attack” that they forgot about the normal mission stuff, and it came back to bite them in the butt. 

How do you modify any of your aero fighters while on a deployment?  I just wanted to touch on what might need to be done, outside of game rules. 


mikecj

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #166 on: 25 January 2020, 18:59:34 »
Nice thanks. 
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
"Solve a man's problems with violence, help him for a day. Teach a man to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime." - Belkar Bitterleaf
Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

cklammer

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #167 on: 26 January 2020, 04:37:34 »
I am enjoying this tale very much  :)

DOC_Agren

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #168 on: 26 January 2020, 16:56:56 »
Will we see the stats for the Stuka from Hades?

And was the Tech lost in Techville that he didn't think about getting the Boss okay before they got in system?  Because I have met tech guys like that
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #169 on: 28 January 2020, 18:59:06 »
Chapter 30

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

30 April 3048 the second run
Xanthe III on the way to Lopez. 

The time spent traveling and trading after leaving the Canopus system had been uneventful for the little convoy.  The time had been well used to get the pilots use to their newer and heavier rides, all without being seen by any unwanted eyes and ears.  The learning curve was not that bad, for most of the pilots.  Each of the pilots had been fully qualified on this type of craft, before they had left the hidden system. 

The trick was to make sure that no one saw that the Hobgoblin was packing more than just one Ironsides with its lone Stuka, that they had needed to buy more spare parts for.  It was good training had by the flight crews, and the gunners on the dropships and JumpShip who were using the fighters for simulated target practice with their clan grade weapons.  That was almost as important, as the cargos they were getting, when they stopped in a system that had a trading station or the rare worthwhile planet to land on. 

The stop in Xanthe III was not expected to gain much in the way of cargos.  It was hoped that the ice ball of a planet might have some strains of extreme cold tolerant food plants.  They also did have a nice semiconductor industry, which might have some extra supplies on hand for trade with anyone with enough money.  Robert stuck to the plan that he had briefed the others on, and only the White Rabbit would make the run planet side in this hole in the wall system. 

As it turned out Robert had lucked out, and the planet was only a three day burn at one g from the jump point.  Robert would use the time to talk to the people dirt side, before they landed.  They were close to the Capellan border.  Robert was not surprised, that there was a mixed mercenary battalion on the mostly ice-covered planet.  It was a warning from that unit, that let them know something was up. 

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

The White Rabbit was just about to flip and start slowing down to achieve orbit, when a frantic young voice came over the speakers plugged into the ships main radio.  “White Rabbit!!  Pull back!!!  It’s a Trap!!  They are waiting for you!!” 

That was it, and static filled the now open channel.  Every eye on the bridge of the dropship was looking at the speaker with wide eyes.  The message cut off, as quick as it had started, and the bridge’s duty crew were looking at each other with huge eyes.  They did not know what to do.  Jess was on the bridge as the duty officer, and she gave the order before alerting the rest of the ship.  She had already learned a lot, from the different Captains that she had worked with on this mission. 

“Flip us, now!  Put power to the engines!  Sound the Alert!!”  The last statement was the only part that she said in any real volume.  That did not mean that the other words were not filled with stress and strain. 

The ship was still at one g thrust, so when the ship flipped?  It was in unexpected zero g condition for about 20 seconds, before they again felt the pull towards the deck plates by the massive plasma engines.  When the Captain of the Dropship made it on to the bridge.  He was followed on his heals by a bleary-eyed Robert.  The Captain was not happy with Jess. 

“What the Frak are you doing!”  He did not even realize that he broke the speaking protocol, by his statement. 

Jess looked around him and saw the Commander not ten feet behind the dropship’s Captain.  “Sir, we picked up a single transmission coming from the planet.  It was a warning of a trap, waiting for us, by name.  I ordered the ship flipped and started to slow her down.” 

Now that she had a few minutes to think about it.  Jess was starting to second guess her reaction to the warnings.  “We are at one g, so that if it does turn out to be false.  We will not blow our orbit, to badly.  We have not been able to raise anyone planet side, yet.  Traffic control has not replied to all attempts to contact them after the warning was received.  It’s like someone cut all long-ranged communications to the planet with a knife.” 

The Captain turned and looked at the Commander, and Robert took command of the situation.  “Keep trying to raise dirtside.  If we don’t hear from them in another five minutes?”  He turned to be face to face with the other officers.  “Captain increase the deceleration burn to 1.2gs and plot a course back to the jump point.  Let the Styx and the other dropships know what happened and put them on full alert.” 

The Captain of the White Rabbit nodded and went about his business.  They were not going to slow down that much faster with only a .2 g’s harder burn, but it would build up the longer it was used.  When they had gone an hour and still there was no contact with the planet?  Robert had the dropship go to the maximum safe thrust of 1.5 g’s.  It was now that they really started to slow down the 3,000ton dropship.  It also made the engine pointed at the planet a lot hotter, and thus more visible to them about what the ship was doing.  They were three hours into the higher energy burn, when the radio came back on.  It was not from the still quiet planet.  They still were falling towards the planet, but every minute at this rating was hanging the math for an orbital insertion.  Thanks to the power of the plasma engines, they still could make land fall.  It just would take a lot longer. 

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

“Robert, this is Jules.  You might be getting some company soon.  You might want to step on it.  I can have three or four eggs ready for dinner, if you want.” 

The message was sent encrypted, but it had an underlying code just in case.  The eggs were not about any chickens.  It also did not mean dropships.  He was saying that he could launch three or four fighters and send them his way.  Robert did not have to look around the bridge, to know what they were thinking. 

“Captain please bring the ship up to full power.  Give it all to her, as soon as you can.  Then tell the Styx that she might need all the eggs, that she can get and not us.” 

1.5g’s is hard on the body.  But with training?  It can be endured for a long time.  2.5gs?  Now that was just ugly, and it was hard on the ship.  It was almost as hard on the ship, as it was hard on the crew inside of her.  They were still closing on the planet, as the engine went to full power.  The abused of the people inside the ship had started at the same time it worked harder to slow down.  It would take another four hours of this abuse, before the dropship stopped closing with the planet, and it had started to move back towards the jump point. 

It was going to be a long four hours.  Everyone that could was ordered to be in their beds as much as possible.  That would help, a little, and it will keep them almost combat ready.  Whoever was on shift when the engines went to full power, were going to stay on shift until the engines were throttled back.  This was why everyone in the SLDF Navy had to have a full-blown medical exam every year, or upon the return of a major mission.  This kind of g loading could kill a person, if they were not very medically fit.  Warships were expected to do twice this g loading for days if not weeks on end, and it was why Robert had been down check from serving on them. 

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

Igarashi Miya was upset, but he was not showing it on his face.  He was sitting planet side on Xanthe III.  He was so upset, that he should have had steam visibly blowing out of his ears.  After so many miss-steps?  He had taken over control of this mission, personally.  That did not stop all of the problems from coming up and slapping him in the face.  He had been advised to be more hands on with ROM’s dealings with this one problem. 

That had been after the ComStar tracking ship had lost this strange company and JumpShip, that seemed to have come out of nowhere after not being seen for decades.  ROM had still kept looking for them, but it had become the butt of a few jokes at some high-level meetings within and outside of ROM.  That is until Copeland had showed up selling Star League weapons tech and computers again.  Them showing up had started some large balls rolling. 

A deep data search had pulled up some odd facts, that were not looking good for ComStar.  When Copeland had disappeared off the edge of the map, things had settled out some.  But word had already started to spread about, how they had stood up to the massiveness that was ComStar.  That could not be allowed to stand.  One of the great houses had already done it, and it had been able to get away with it.  Now this small “company” was back, again, and they were up to their same old tricks.  ROM could not allow this to continue unchecked. 

Igarashi was sitting in his grounded Command version of the Overlord class dropship.  When word had gotten back to him, and the others within the upper layers of ComStar.  That this Captain Copeland had been seen again, it had kicked over a hornet’s nest of activity.  He had already been given clearance to capture them.  That is as long as it did not point back to closely, to ComStar as a whole or part.  He was told to handle them and find out where the rest of their people were.  ROM was keeping that last information firmly within its own ranks.  Sometimes it was better that ComStar kept secrets from the rest of ComStar. 

Igarashi was starting to believe in the demon Murphy.  The head of ROM had run into the first issue, when early on into this planning.  He had approached the main high-end mercenary unit in his area.  He had thought that the offer he had made to Newton Ramilli was fair.  If the Raiders could capture Copeland and his people?  The Mercenaries would get all of their damaged units repaired, and ROM would turn over two rebuilt 45ton VND-1R Vindicators.  Igarashi had pointed out that they would have to give up all salvage, that might be collected on the mission.  It was to pay for the Raiders transportation to any ambush point that ROM wanted.  They would look at selling anything but the Mule to the mercenaries, at list price and as is after the battle.  The target only had six fighters, with a known break down of types.  So, there was not that much risk involved to them.  He had been truly shocked with the mercenary unit, that they had not only said no.  But had basically thrown him out of their small offices on Canopus. 

That rejection had not stopped the Head of ROM in the MC.  It had only added fuel to his fire to take care of this issue.  After all the Merc would not have said no to ComStar, if this Copeland had not shown that it was possible to do so and survive.  That was one of the reasons that the head of ROM in the MC was on an ice world on the FWL and Confederation border, and not in a nice warm office.  It had not taken long to find a unit that matched his need, after he had put his mind to it full time. 

After some modifications, he had a workable plan.  The “Pirate unit” had been a down on its luck mercenary unit before it had started working for a different department within ComStar.  It had been providing security around some well-kept secrets, not far from his area of operations.  With all the parts in play?  All it needed was for the parts to get pushed closer together, and then the magic would happen. 

Igarashi had gotten the first bit of data from a loose lipped crewmember off of one of the dropships he was targeting.  It was a very detailed plan of their travels, for the next few months.  This information was confirmed by a very deep buried spy connected to MIM.  With this head’s up.  ROM’s agents got the set pieces moving in the right direction. 

The first part of the plan had been when a few Level IIs, had landed on Xanthe III.  ComStar had its hooks deeper into the FWL, then in any of the other great houses.  The dropship had been on the ground for a few days, watching and acting empty to the locals.  When the time was right, and the Tramp Class had left its last point.  A Magellan class ship had sent an HPG message to him.  This Command Overlord had been his command post for the exercise, that he had planned out.  He had sent a few Level IIs of battlemechs to take control of the local fighting units.  He had been assured, that the Guards had everyone under control within a few hours.  When the M/V Styx showed up in this system.  That was where things had gone wrong, first. 

Igarashi looked at his screens for the hundredth time.  Why had they chosen to come in at the zenith point?  They had been using the nadir point for all of their last five jumps and most of the other reported jumps, had all been at the Nadir points.  So why the change this time?  That put the first kink in the great ambush plan he had put together.  It took some quick math and an equally quick message to have the attack happen at a different pirate point.  Then a scout group of locals had been able to get away from one of the “overlooking” mercenary units.  He had not been that worried about a few light mechs, when the first report had come into his command ship. 

Copeland’s dropships were not going to be allowed to land on this planet.  Unless they crashed into the ground, due to battle damage that is.  He had been out of the field a long time, and out of a battlemech for even longer.  He had forgotten that one of the escaped mechs, had a very long ranged radio built in to is machines human like hull.  That pilot had been able to get a warning off, before a nearby Guard mech could activate its Guardian ECM and cut off the transmission. 

With his target aware that something was wrong?  It had flipped and started to decelerate an hour early.  It was now cutting the massive amount of speed, that it had picked up on the way in.  If he did not do something quickly?  They were going to get away, again.  He quickly sent a message to the HPG class B station on this planet and he had ordered a message sent.  The message was not going to a planet or even a star system.  It was just an empty spot in space.  The ship there was able to pick up the message up out of the back-ground noise, on its secret mobile HPG station.  It would still take a few hours to get ready for the jump, but that was nothing that had not been planned for, one way or the other. 

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

The White Rabbit did not have the specialized equipment to detect the energy wave that preceded a jumpship’s arrival into this local area.  The first warning was when the long JumpShip was picked up on the Blockade Runners light speed sensors.  Only the largest military dropships had the equipment and crew to detect something like that.  The bridge crew of the dropship was strapped into the thick padded seats.  Now they were very thankful for every millimeter of the thick padding, even if it was hard to keep clean.  It was hard to think while you’re were pulling Gs like that, but the crew was sharp and well trained.  The White Rabbit was just crossing the line in space, where they had been when the warning had been first sent out to them. 

“Sir!!  JumpShip on Radar!!!   She must have come in at a pirate point.  Plotting the information now.”  It took three times as long to get those words out, compared to normal.  It was very hard to yell, when you were mainly fighting just to breathe, much less trying to talk. 

The g loading was so high, that no one was walking around the bridge much less the rest of the ship.  They could get viewed data on some smaller screens near them, without having to move too much.  Robert was looking at the screen as it now showed a red dot to show it was a threat.  It was almost on top of the green line on the same display.  That had been the line that the dropship had been taking, before it changed its’ mind after the warning. 

Jess saw the information, and her command training kicked in.  “Good god!!  It would have jumped right on top of us!!” 

Robert had to clinch his teeth to speak clearly.  He was getting to old for this kind of thing.  “Not really.  Look at the scale of your display, but it would have been close.  Real damn close!” 

Before he could add more. To make sure that Jess did not say anything more, that would distract the bridge crew another report came in.  “Sir, she is an Invader class JumpShip.  I am picking up two heat blooms, that combat launched off of her.  Looks like a Monarch and Leopard CV class dropper are burning hard off her back.” 

The person giving the report stopped talking.  Maybe it was to catch their breath, because the gravity load or stress loads that they were working under.  They were not quiet for long.  “Picking up smaller targets separating from both dropships.  I have four, now six craft pulling away from the larger contacts.” 

Again, it was quiet for a few seconds.  “Sir, I have a count of ten targets moving away from the dropships.  The dropships are heading our way, and we are counting two Corsairs, two Samurais, and two maybe TR-13 Transgressors.  Calling it Group One, Group Two looks to be four Dragonstar class 150ton small craft by their electronic emissions.  I would bet that they are Assault model ships.  Group Three and the slowest group is the pair of dropships.  They are still making a burn towards us, at high Gs.” 

Robert looked over very slowly to face the captain of the White Rabbit.  He had been less sure of Robert’s hunch, than any of the other officers about the warning they had been given on Canopus.  “Medium to Heavy fighter squadron.  Now it looks like they added some ground troops or marines to board us with.” 

Robert had to stop talking to catch his breath.  “I think you might want to let your counter boarding people know.  It is your ship captain, but a stern chase is a long one.  I am just glad, that they are starting from Zero speed after the jump.  We have some of the same distance that they will have to cross, and we will be running to keep the range as open as we can.” 

Jules picked up the arrival of the JumpShip before it had appeared in system, by about three minutes.  With the maybe second jaw of the trap sprung on them.  It was time to let the attackers know how badly they miscalculated the prey.  They were going to try to take the White Rabbit, and maybe even jump out of the system with her.  This left the Styx open to affect the overall battle.  Jules made a mental note that this was very 2D thinking. 

Jules launched the Hobgoblin toward the Blockade Runner, and soon it was putting its brood of fighters into the deep black.  Soon five Star League era fighters massing 65tons each was burning to help their fleet commander.  It was followed by the 100ton Stuka.  The odds were still not in Commander Copelands favor, but it was a lot closer to even now.  What would be the telling factor, would be the weapons on the craft and training of all of the crews that were about to be in combat. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #170 on: 28 January 2020, 19:03:28 »

It had taken the White Rabbit over a day of traveling, to get where it had been.  It would take even the slowest unit, the Stuka, only a few hours to cover that same distance.  During all of that time.  The Dropship was doing all it could to meet up with its smaller on rushing friends.  All the while, the enemy fighters were trying to catch the other dropship, before that happened.  They had only been expecting to face a single lance of fighters and not a full squadron. 

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

David Klod was not a name found on any of the Clans rosters of blood names.  His family had been rescued as slaves decades ago.  He had stayed in the active duty military after his draft service had ended, so that he could save other slaves and to kill any slave takers he happened to run across.  He tested out with having very good aero pilot skills at a young age, and he had been a Sled driver for more than a decade.  He had just been down checked from front line units, before the Colonials appeared over his planet. 

Even in war?  He had not been able to get one of the new jump fighters.  To be a good Sled driver?  You did not need to be the best pilot or even a “good” pilot.  David would have only rated as Regular skills in the piloting skills department within the Inners Sphere.  What you needed to be a good Sled driver was to be a good shot, and David was a very good shot.  Sleds or Lead Sleds were the slang terms for a 100ton fighters or flying weapons battery. 

When the wave of six fighters of the SLDF Navy in Exile was about 300 miles from the White Rabbit.  They could tell that they were going to win the race to make it to the fleeing dropship.  With the help of the fire control systems of the White Rabbit.  Quickly targets were given out to each of the onrushing SLDF pilots.  This first attack was going to be a classic slashing attack.  It would start at Long-medium range, and then they would close into knife fighting range less than 30 seconds later.  All before they would pass each other. 

David settled a little deeper into his armored cockpit and let his targeting systems feed him information about his primary and secondary targets.  David went over all of his craft systems one more time, while he waited for the short but very violent combat to start.  Most people did not know it, but he had been the one pushing for the upgrades to his craft. 

At first, they had just pulled the old heatsinks out and replaced them one for one with second generation ones.  It was not too much work, and it was quick.  Then they had gotten the word about the exostars the Commander had found.  To make room in the nose of his sled for those weapons.  The Short range four pack and ammunition had to be ripped out.  That was still not enough mass, so they had taken out seven of the high efficiency heatsinks they had just put in.  This was leaving him with “only” 23 of them to handle the heat of his weapons or engine.  Now his Sled was a little hotter of a ride, but he now had six large bore lasers firing forward to go along, with a twenty rack of long-range missiles. It was for those days, that you needed a bigger hammer and the six pack of gamma beams was just not enough.  He was a real heavy hitter now. 

David was looking at the information on his HUD, and he did not like what he saw.  He pushed his controls stick a little more to the right and he watched the data change.  His firing control systems did not like the adjustment, but he did not care.  The Transgressor had three of the same type of lasers as the larger Stuka was now packing, but it was not the gunner that David was.  And that was what he was counting on. 

When it was the right time, the computer told him it was time to fire.  His trigger pull was about a half second behind the rest of his lighter group as they unleased their paired PPC’s.  They had just fired at the edge of medium and long range.  Most pilots would not have wanted to waste the shots or risk the heat buildup with the low probability shots they had just taken against targets moving that fast.  That all changed when the “pirate” ships were fired on.  No one likes to just sit there and just take maybe death causing weapons fire.  The on-rushing enemy fired back.  Too bad that it was a bit rushed and Copeland’s people were not rushed in the least when they had pulled the triggers. 

David did not feel the first and only hit from the three large bore lasers from the enemy fighter on his craft.  It hit him flat on the very well armored nose of his Stuka.  He had fired all six exostars and the 20-tube launcher with two quick pulls of the trigger.  The heat had hit him like a sun exploding in his face.  It would have made him cook in his own juices, but for his cooling vest and his updated heatsinks spread out around his assault class fighter.  He was still too hot to fire that much again, as the two groups passed.  This time he “only” fired three of the exostars.  He was still hot, but not too hot to affect his fire control or other sensitive systems of his craft……… that much. 

David’s first strike was impressive.  All six of the large bores struck, and then eighteen long range missiles struck the same Transgressor as the slower weapons followed the speed of light ones.  The speed of light energy blast started hitting on the nose of the Transgressor and they worked back towards the high thin tail of the craft.  The hammer blows blew massive holes into the thick armored skin, of the 75ton fighter.  Most of the time the armor kept the assault out of the sensitive parts of the craft, and other times something breakable was touched by the energy blast.  The slower solid fueled rockets came next and eighteen of them spread their damage over the nose and left and right wings.  The missiles not only had the warhead they were packing to do damage to the Transgressor.  The speed they had generated in flight and the speed that the enemy craft had generated, also helped the missiles do some damage to the hull. 

A shower of armor fragments was blown off and they fell behind the on rushing enemy fighter.  Over half of the armor on the nose and body was gone within a few eye blinks, and they were still closing toward each other.  A smarter pilot might have broken off contact to assess his craft’s health, before continuing combat with an enemy that out massed you by a quarter.  This pilot did not, he just pushed to go after the target they had been paid to take out.  He had taken everything that the Stuka could dish out.  To be packing that much firepower, the Stuka had to be almost dead of heat stroke or have only very thin armor.  Those were two things that the TR-13’s pilot thought that he could exploit and win the battle. 

As the weapons on both ships cycled to recharge, they closed on each other.  Each pilot moved their craft to make it a harder target for any additional fire that might be coming their way.  The term was called “helping to generate a miss.”  They were just about to pass each other, and David’s craft was hit again.  His system was telling him about the hits.  But it was a single medium laser hit, that had his undivided attention for a few seconds.  It had hit and damaged his craft, but thankfully it did not punch all the way through the hardened armored glass of his cockpit.  His cockpit had a nice chunk taken out by the laser, but it was only a mild distraction.  It made David madder then unnerved at the close call with death. 

He kept his head, thankful for the new triple layering now required by the SLDF Navy for new spacesuits of all kinds.  The first or inner layer was the full cooling suit that dated back to the time just before the fall of the Star League.  Then you had a full Colonial spec spacesuit, and the outer covering was the normal spacesuit that Clan Aero Pilots wore for the last few hundred years.  The new middle layer was added to protect in case the outer suit was breached.  This new layer had helped save numerous lives after it had been added. 

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

At the last second, before they passed each other in a blur, David fired.  It was too close for the lower heat but very powerful and ammunition limited 20 tubed missile launchers to add its firepower.  David pulled his second trigger and fired “only” three large lasers.  The heatsinks had been able to vent most, but not all of the heat from his massive alpha strike.  He just fired what would keep his craft “only a little warm”, but not enough to be damaging to his electronic support equipment.  This fire was a lot more than the targeted craft had expected. 

Only two of the exostars hit, but again it was the nose and main body that took the hits.  Now that the two craft were separated, David took time to try to workout first his status.  That turned out to be okay and combat ready.  Then he looked for his target or another target that was worth his attention.  He found it first on radar and it was not looking good, for the Transgressor.  It seemed it was out of the fight, for now.  The radar said that it was tumbling in space, and maybe in an out of control situation or worse. 

Now David hit the play back button on one screen, so he could try to work out the damage or threat it might be later in the battle.  The replay showed that one of the big bore laser hits had struck the cockpit square on.  That craft was dead, and David was thinking that they might be able to recover it.  That was when nature stepped in and took the future out of his hands. 

The Transgressor was 25 tons lighter, than the Stuka.  It was only a little faster than the Sled, but it could not take the amount of damage the larger fighter could have taken.  As the hits had come in, the armor had cracked more and more.  Through these cracks, the laser energy had been able to touch more and more of the fragile parts under that hard-outer shell.  The enemy craft had taken damage to heatsinks, avionics, life support, and its engine had been damaged twice.  All before the second round of laser firing had taken place.  The lighter craft was done.  It was just that the pilot of the Transgressor did not know it yet.  Shock is your bodies way of saying you really don’t want to remember what was about to happen. 

The second strike of laser fire had, in hindsight, not been necessary.  The one laser blast had burned right through the damaged cockpit and turned the pilot to ash, suit and all.  The second laser blast had punched into the massive power plant and caused a fuel line to be kinked by a fuel pump.  Less than one minute, after the last strike the 75ton craft blew itself apart.  It went from a damage mass into bits no bigger than a young boy’s fist, in a blink of an eye. 

David was not the squadron commander.  He was more of just a heavy gun.  Now that his assigned target was down.  He needed to see what other threats were around his local space.  He flipped his craft over, so that his nose and its heavy weapons were pointed at the tails of the fleeing enemy craft.  They were out of range of any weapon, all but maybe clan made Extended Range Large Laser, Long Ranged PPC or Gauss Rifles.  All of those weapons were not allowed this close to the Inner Sphere, so he would never find out if he could have scored a hit.  He could count that all of his unit was still in the fight, and that was not true of the enemy formation.  He noticed that the enemy flights were short the two Samurais’ along with the Transgressor, that David had taken down. 

When they had launched the plan had been to take out both heavy hitters, the two suspected TR-13’s.  Unlike the other Clans.  The Star League in Exile had no plan to fight one on one.  Not if they didn’t have to, so the other Transgressor would have been dog meat.  The plan had changed, when Jules told them that they needed to buy time for the White Rabbit.  That meant taking out the fastest of the enemy fighters first, the two 50ton SL-25’s.  David still had been given one of the Transgressors to remove from the battlespace. 

It looked like damage had been done to one of the Corsairs, and the last of the Transgressors.  That was not the only damage, his systems were telling him about.  One of the Ironsides was not acting right, and just as he was about to start putting power to his engines and work on catching up to his wingmen.  His radio broke silence in his ear.  One part of his mind knew that he was about to hear bad news.  Each of their craft had suicide charges outfitted, but that did not mean he was eager to use it or have one of his unit need to use theirs. 

“Iron 3, this is Iron 1.  I can see the damage to your engine.  Fall back to the Sled.  Sled this is Iron 1.  I want you to try to work over the small assault ships.  If you can take a few of them out.  Even if they make it to the White Rabbit, if you can pop one or force them to delay.  it will help the grunts on the security teams.  Do you copy?” 

David touched his microphone button twice, and then used his controls to flip his craft again to point it the way he had come.  He only had to turn his head to the side a little, to see that Ironsides Three was facing the same way.  He knew that Dede was not a happy camper, right about then.  The odds were not with the lance of damaged fighters.  They were outnumbered two to one in craft, but both fighters only massed a total of 165 tons.  While each of the closing small craft each massed 150 tons, and there were four of them.  Long odds, no matter how you looked at it. 

David had to rely on his computers to plot out an intercept course on his new targets.  He had worked out one, and it was not good.  The one the computer came up with, was even less good.  They were going to have to flip again and fire up their engines to full power.  This would let them sideslip, as they built up speed on a totally new vector.  The attacking small craft had a top speed that was about equal to the Stuka, and they were only a little slower than the now damage Ironsides.  If they could catch the Dragonstars out of mutual supporting position.  The heavy firepower of the fighters might let them nibble on them. 

####################3

Robert watched his fighters sideslip up on the powerful radar mounted on the aft of the Blockade Runner.  The bridge crew also saw the four Ironsides flying up the tail pipes of the attacking fighters, but it was a stern chase.  The advantage was that the two lances of Ironsides had a pair of long shooters on each craft.  With the faster enemy fighters now dead, it was going to be an even longer chase to reach the now fleeing Blockade Runner.  The second Transgressor had been the first to fall to the closing Ironsides, but it had taken out one of the Ironsides before it had died in the cold of deep space. 

The last two enemy fighters, the lance of Corsairs, were getting ready to make an attack run against the engines of the Blockade Runner.  It would seem that the attackers did not realize they were not going after a merchant ship, but a Blockade Runner.  It was as close to being a wolf in sheep’s clothing as could be.  When the enemy fighters were in the right spot, and still out of range of their weapons.  The captain of the White Rabbit flipped his ship, and now all of that recent training with the fighters was going to pay off.  The massive craft flipped a lot faster, than any dropship had the right to being able to move. 

Instead of facing two medium sized lasers mounted in the thin armored covered aft.  The attacking fighters were facing two LRM 20s in the nose and a set of two LRM 20s and a larger bore laser mounted on the left and right sides of the craft.  That firepower when combined with the three remaining 65ton Ironsides coming up behind them?  This turned the two fighters into expanding balls of short-lived fire, when the weapons fire from the two different directions hit their targets.  Just like that, the attacking squadron was now no longer an issue for anything but a navigation hazard. 

The mood on the dropship’s bridge rose and then fell as the data came in from the rest of the local space.  The team of David and Dede were only able to take out one of the small craft and damage another of the Dragonstars.  Before they were out of play on Group Two, now with engine damage to both fighters.  The SLDF just lost one third of its firepower for the next part of the battle. 

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Notes

Fighters in this battle.  I used the Mercenaries Tables to come up with the attack force.  I just picked a heavier battle line. 

Shift change at more than 1.5gs?  I have pulled 6 Gs at Huntsville, once.  It……sucked.  Trying walking around with half of your body weight on your back…for a dozen hours.  That is 1.5.  It goes downhill from there. 

ComStar’s ROM.  Right now, it is not Copeland vs ComStar.  It is Copeland vs ROM.  In some ways this is worse than just facing ComStar. 

Fighter battle.  I was trying a different way to handle this battle and getting it into a readable forum.  Still not happy with it, and I will see how it finally turns out. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #171 on: 02 February 2020, 12:19:21 »
Chapter 31

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

1 Mar 3048 Dragonstar battle
Xanthe III on the way to Lopez. 

David was trying to line up on the targets, when they broke apart like a flower in the wind.  Each of the four small craft was putting distance between each of themselves in what had to be an often-practiced maneuver.  It was a risky move by their commander.  Now each of the small craft was out of mutually supporting position, of their sisters.  It also meant that the two fighters could only take out one craft at a time, as the rest of them closed in on the White Rabbit.  David had finally been able to get a shot at the wildly moving small craft, but the pilot of the small craft was doing his level best not to give him a clear shot. 

He had been able to score hits on the 150ton craft, but for the longest time.  He could not convert any of the strikes to solid hits, which would stop the craft.  The damage he was causing was all over the place, and not concentrated.  He had hit it a few times on the aft, the right side and left side.  He had even hit the nose of the craft, when the pilot had flipped the craft and unloaded the nose bays on him, when he got to close. 

He had been able to reply to that attack with four large lasers and a larger number of long ranged missiles.  David was quickly getting frustrated with the situation.  He was about to risk another alfa strike and try to finish off the target.  When his systems told him, that the last of the enemy fighters had been taken out by the White Rabbit and the rest of the Ironsides.  This information made him smile.  With the aero fighters gone, it was going to take longer for the assault craft to catch up to the fleeing dropship. 

With a thin smile on his face.  He fired his last ammunition for his LRM 20 and his wing mounted lasers.  David had not aimed directly at the small craft.  He thought that the pilot was going to do something, so he had aimed just off to one side of the enemy small craft.  Just as David pulled the triggers, the small craft shifted course and flew right into the incoming fire from the Sled.  This time the hits showed immediate results.  Massive slabs of armor and other structure parts came flying off the target wherever the weapons manage to hit. 

The engines on the Dragonstar went to maximum power, and then some.  The engines were eating themselves in a spat of mechanical rage.  Soon the thrust was not uniform, and the craft started spinning faster and faster along its main axis.  Right in front of David’s eyes.  The 150ton craft quickly was spinning at a rate that was well over 5 Gs.  And still it was spinning faster and faster, each passing second.  David knew in his gut, that the crewmembers and passengers of the small craft were already dead.  David now was free to look for his second target.  His heart stopped.  Two of the small craft had already attached themselves to the side of the ship, which was carrying the Convoy commander. He had been so focused on taking out the second craft of today’s battle, that he had lost his situational awareness. 

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Dede was a very angry pilot.  She and her wing man had targeted the second Transgressor.  The reason for the anger?  That was that not only had she not been able to take out the heavy fighter, but it had been able to hit her craft…..hard.  She had been ordered to hang back and go after the larger and slower small craft class assault ships.  She felt that the small craft were not “real” targets, like the other fighters were. 

Still she had done as she had been ordered, even if she really didn’t want to.  The damage to her engine was not that bad.  But she had a line of damage that went from just forward of the wing, and it went all the way down that right side of her Ironsides going into the underside to almost to the engine exhaust.  She was faster than the Sled, but she was a lot slower than the rest of her wingmen.  She was still having to mother her engine, to keep it functional.  First going faster and then slowing down to keep her engine from going nova on her.  It was not the best way to be in a firefight in the deep of space, and between a planet and a jump point. 

The pilot of the craft she was targeting was just as good, as the one that David was trying to kill, and Dede was thinking that they might be facing some elite level crews.  The Dragonstar’s pilot was able to keep her from getting close enough to launch the avalanche of short-range weapons she carried to find and exploit the holes that her twin PPC’s had been trying to make.  She was getting good hits with her paired PPCs, but it was taking a long time to work through the thick armor the larger craft was wrapped in. 

Dede was now so focused on her target.  That she did not notice that another Ironsides had joined her in targeting the same damaged small craft.  She only stopped firing when she saw the life pods start launching from the sides of the craft between weapons runs.  She might have stopped firing, but the other Ironsides had not.  In a blink of an eye it was an expanding ball of flames and flying metal, and she had a very front row seat to the fireball.  When she rolled away and the flash blindness had started to abate.  She could see the two other small craft as they attached to the side of the command ship. 

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Igarashi Miya was reading the incoming data of the battle going on above his head.  He was getting the information from the two mercenary units involved.  The Sundogs were not just some group of “pirates”.  They were an Elite level Aero Fighter unit, which also were devout followers of Blake’s Word and from the world of Jardine.  The Sundogs were working with the White Hand.  They were an Elite level unit of small craft operators supported by their modified liner.  The ground unit supporting him on this mission were only little better than pirates with Regular Star League grade military equipment, and only had a hand full of people that were veterans.  Now the group in space?  They were a different type of animal all together. 

The White Hand were the best at boarding action outside of the atmosphere.  They tended to go through boarding troops and targeted crews quickly.  Even the command crews of their small craft were top shelf.  Still Igarashi did not like what he was seeing on the screens of his command ship.  He had not been that upset when the Sundogs lost their first fighter.  The Sundogs were very good, but like 99.95 percent of the rest of the Inner Sphere units.  It was not using any upgraded weapons on their six fighters. 

ComStar had planned around the idea that this was going to change, in the near future.  Soon they would be armed better than any house unit larger than a Battalion.  There was only so much that the Factories could do, in such a short time.  There was an upper limit to what ComStar had in storage and the rebuilding and slowly de-mothballing factories could make.  Other units that were closer to the public side, had to have the right dressing for many reasons. 

As Igarashi watched the line schematics on each of the fighters.  He could see the mounting damage, and he bet that it was going to happen faster as there were fewer fighters to spread the damage around.  As more and more reports came, and the damage kept rising, until the last of the Sundog’s fighters were shot down.  All that Igarashi could do was frown at the six red outlined fighter shapes on a 1.5m wide screen. 

Igarashi was worried that even with the reputation of the Sundogs and the White Hands that they would pull back from the battle.  He almost smiles when he sees that the carrier dropship had kept going towards the fleeing Blockade Runner.  When the last two surviving Dragonstars attached themselves to the target dropship, he was now finally happy.  Copeland’s people had lost one fighter completely, and the others were showing signs of varying degrees of damage.  ComStar had picked up on that Captain Copeland took the Trojan when they stopped at smaller planets some time ago.  They still had the odd reports that the overall commander, would also take the Mule class dropship called the Lisbon Maru randomly when they made planet fall. 

Igarashi wanted this Captain Copeland.  He had a few people who like causing pain, which wanted to see him for some personal time.  That thought made him smile more as time went on, and this distracted him.  That distraction made him miss when the modified Monarch flipped and started to slow down.  The Sundog’s crewed Leopard was still burning towards the other Leopard class ship.  The Sundog ship was going to provide cover, so that the boarding crew could do their job of taking over the dropship from its merchant crews. 

“Why has the liner started slowing down?”  The Head of ROM spoke aloud to the room filled with other ComStar people.  Something was wrong.  After so much had gone wrong, he was worried about the plan going sideways. 

A very low-level systems operator manning the radio waited a few seconds, before speaking.  “Sir?  They are reporting that they are under attack.” 

Igarashi’s head came up in a flash to look closer at the data.  He voiced what his mind was trying to work out.  “That’s impossible!” 

He had to look harder at the screens and count the green dots on it.  One was missing and by the codes, it was the Stuka.  “How did that happen?”  The way it should have worked, is that all of Copeland’s fighters should have attacked the enemy fighter carrier.  That was what the books said about how it should be done. 

Igarashi was not a large-scale military commander, but he had been to a ComStar school to tell him how it was done.  He just was better at the spying, intimidation, and the manipulation business.  He still remembered his old school lessens.  He also had another skill.  He could tell when it looked like things were going too far sideways to win, or for that matter live threw the event.  That little voice was screaming in the back of his mind. 

“Alert all ground teams.  They are to leave the “right” evidence and start pulling back.  We will need to be ready to lift off in a few hours.”  His own brain was surprised at the words as they fell out of his mouth.  He still thought that he could “get” the ship called White Rabbit.  He was thinking that he was NOT going to be able to get the Styx or the other ships that belonged to his company. 

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

David was trying to close on the blips on his screen.  The enemy Leopard was going to be his target.  His six large bores would be able to work through the armor.  The problem was that the 1,900ton ship was faster than his Stuka.  Then the Captain of the Styx gave him a different target, while he was doing his best to get a line onto the other enemy carrier.  David did some math, and let an evil smile cross his face. 

“This was going to be perfect!!   It’s not a real military dropship, but it did launch all of those assault craft.  That makes you a carrier in my logbook, buddy.”  He quickly flipped his craft and fired his engines for three full minutes at full power, and then he shut them off.  He gave a thanks to the Colonials gods that his engines had not gone nova.  Soon he became just another moving rock in this part of space.  He was letting his target come towards him as he hides in space using only passive systems and receiving transmitted data coming from the larger ships. 

David watched the target come towards him, on his passive systems.  He was comparing what he was “seeing” to the data that was coming threw his systems.  The target was 169 meters long and massed around 5,000 tons.  It looked like a flat arrow or leaf pointed spear head.  It could make only about half the thrust of what the lighter Leopard could do until its fuel tanks ran dry.  It just had not been designed as a warship.  It had started out as something that should stay far from the warfront as it could get.  David was thinking that maybe the craft’s captain should have remembered what the craft had been first designed for, and a carrier was not it. 

David had no idea where this one had been built, but sometime in his past life it had undergone a radical change.  It had been modified, a lot and by people who had some skill in making those modifications to the spaceframe.  The Monarch design was a space going passenger liner, but now this one had been modified with what looked like six small craft bays.  The six bays were split evenly down both sides of the thicker spine of the dropships with exits over the leaf shaped wings.  David could not tell much more, if any other modifications had been done to the old girl. 

As the ranged dropped.  David had to fire his engines, or he was going to miss the dropship all together.  Having a massive fusion flame fire off, were one had not been before?  Now that was a little attention grabbing, even if you were not looking for it.  The White Hand had been taking over dropships and JumpShips for a few decades now.  They knew the odds, and they knew when it was time to run.  Having a 100ton fighter “show” up almost in weapons range of there civilian skinned liner.  Might have been on the top of that list of odds changing events. 

They started screaming for help and flipped the liner, so that it could start slowing down.  They were to have done a high-speed burn to the jump point.  The Stuka changed those plans.  They knew that they had landed two small craft on the target, and now a full platoon would soon be capturing the dropship. They would take the bridge and start moving the newly captured dropship toward their JumpShip, and the massive payday they had been promised.  Without her assault craft, she had little to nothing to add to this fight.  The liner could not add anything to help with capture, so it seemed like this was a good time to put some space between it and any firefight. 

David came charging in from above the dropship.  This had the advantage of giving him a huge target to hit with his weapons.  The downside?  It was that it gave him a lot of area for his firepower to be split across.  The Monarch had an armor layout not much different than the 60 tons Stingray class fighter.  That was not going to stand up long against a 100ton fighter, much less one that had just been under the upgrade scalpel.  What would buy them some time?  It was that David’s big hitter and the one weapon, that was his longest ranged weapon was out of ammunition. 

David fired all of his forward mounted lasers and he was able to hit with them all.  At this range his weapons fire was spread over the broad flat top of the craft, instead of hitting as one fist of angry energy waves.  The larger bore lasers hit the nose, left and right wings.  The most telling hit was the last one of the six pack.  The single hit blasted almost all the way into the massive exhaust bell of the aft mounted engine.  He was below the craft coasting away on a cold engine and glowing on any infrared detector that was looking his way, a few eye blinks later.  David did not want to give any enemy gunners a nicer brighter target, and he waited for a few seconds before firing off his powerful GM 300 power plant. 

No weapons fire followed David, as he pulled away from his attack run on the small craft carrier.  He was watching and when no weapons fire followed him.  He gave an evil smile, some people might not like attacking a defenseless liner.  Not David.  They had launched an attack on the ship that was carrying the Convoy commander.  They had done it from this very ship.  You should not fight a battle if you did not have a way to defend yourself with, after you launched your attack. 

David flipped his craft and slowed down, and then started to chase the liner down for another gun run.  As soon as the small craft carrier was in anything like real weapons range.  David would start firing his large lasers.  He was over thrusting his engines as often has he dared.  He did not want to overheat, so he was for now “only” firing two or three of his nose mounted weapons and riding the heat bubble.  Most of his laser bolts missed, but as the minutes wore on more and more strikes were made all over the converted passenger liner.  When the range was lower?  He would add one or two more weapons to his trigger pulls. 

20,000 miles from the Invader class JumpShip.  The White Hand started to shed life pods and lifeboats.  It did not take long for all 30 of the emergency craft, to be blasted away from the stricken vessel.  This is the point that separated David and the Star League in Exile, from the run of the mill pirates or even some house units.  He did not fire into the unarmored and unarmed life preserving craft as they came off of the helpless ship.  They would slowly make their way to the nearest jump point, their dumb computers working out that it was the best place for the pods to be recovered.  He was betting that all thirty of those craft did not have personnel on it, or if they did?  There were very few heartbeats on each one. 

David would not make an attack run against the over 500meter long JumpShip.  That was because setting only about 100km’s from the interstellar craft, was a massive Overlord class dropship.  It was just sitting in a covering position, which was just perfect for blocking any attack against the JumpShip.  David flipped his craft around and slowed until he was standing still, relative to the JumpShip and over watching the 9,000ton war craft.  It did not take long for David to start to wonder, what was going on back on the White Rabbit.  They had been off the air, with all orders coming from the Styx.  So far, they had not been doing a lot of chatting on different topics. 

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

On the White Rabbit.  The bridge crew was tracking everything going on around them.  They were getting closer and closer to the help offered by the on-rushing Hobgoblin.  As each of the enemy craft was destroyed or taken out of play.  And now the two small craft that David and Dede had pulled out of the main area of the battle space, the crew started to have hope.  Robert was watching the two closing assault ships, when they were committed.  Robert put the hat on of the Commander of the convoy. 

“Captain, I think it’s time to cut the thrust and let our people get ready for some unwanted guest.”  Cutting the thrust would cut the time down on when the enemy craft could close the distance, but by now that was a moot point. 

The Captain of the dropship thought about it for a long second.  He was thinking that it would be better to keep pushing as hard as they could to the jump point.  After a second, he could do the math in his head.  He could keep running, and then the attacking craft would still be able to attach to his ship before they reached the jump point.  Then his crews would only have what they now had at hand to defend themselves and the ship with.  Or he could cut power now.  That would give his people a chance to blunt the attack and be more ready for combat. 

The dropship captain chose to cut his engine power.  He knew it was the better move, even if he still thought they should just keep running.  The Captain gave the order and thrust went from 2.5g to “only” 1.22.  Everyone was warned when this was going to happen, and why.  As soon as the power was cut down.  Everyone went around getting weapons, additional power packs, loaded magazines, and putting body armor on.  They had 15 minutes before the two trailing craft were close. 

That was when the Captain of the dropship flipped his ship and cut the power all the way off.  The heavy weapons in the nose of the craft started firing as fast as they could reload or recharge.  It was not much, but between it and a few attack runs by the fighters.  It was a pair of now very damaged Dragonstars, that were able to attach to the dropship’s sides.   The crews on those small craft would have to take this ship, or they were not going to be going anywhere. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #172 on: 02 February 2020, 12:26:14 »
The two Dragonstars were on different sides of the ship.  This was done to spread out any target’s crewmembers that might resist this soon to start incursion.  It was felt that the White Hands had been short boarding crews.  ComStar, or more to the point ROM had added two Level IIs of Tornado PA(L)s to the mission.  That was why these two craft were the one’s “chosen” to continue the attack, and the other two had drawn away the attacking fighters.  They still had a full load of combat troops, but they did not have any “big guns”.  That left the last 3 squads of marines on the White Hand, when it had come apart. 

The first six people threw the hatch from each of the small craft would be those suits of high-tech protection.  Each ship should have been able to force almost 60 troopers threw the two hatches they breached into the dropship.  Battle damage had cut that number down, to some degree.  Even when every person who could carry a weapon was marked to assault into the White Rabbit.  Still they had fewer than that optimal number.  The only attacking units at full strength.  They were the two six men teams in armor that had protected them from combat damage, that had leaked threw the assault crafts armored skin. 

The ROM teams were very happy to get out of the tin cans of the Dragonstars.  At least now, they can have some effect on the world instead of just sitting and taking it on the head like they had been doing.  It felt like they had been abused for days now.  They had some mad to take out, so it was with relish that they were going to be the first ones onto the enemy ship.  Facing them were only two full time squads of defenders.  They were very large people, who also were very angry.  And they were waiting for the attackers over gun sights. 

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

Jenifer was one of the tallest women that most Inner Sphere people had seen in person.  She was not just tall.  She was also called “door wide” and she had the normal temperament of a bear with a tooth ache.  That was on her best days.  Today was not even close to her calling it a good day, for her.  She was also very sore as she took up a defensive position.  She had over done it during a combat training event, just before they had entered this system and she had not fully recovered. 

With the heavy thrusting of the dropship?  She had been restricted to her bed, by doctors’ orders when word was passed that they were going to 1.5g of thrust.  That was more like handcuffing a lion to a hospital bed, than a crewman.  Being forced to be in bed while she watched the rest of the crew slowly moving around had not been a salve for her ego.  Seeing smaller and less muscular crewmembers not seeming to be bothered by the heavy G loading they were under, made her feel useless.  Every time one of them walked by her bed, she would just fume more and more. 

Now she was up and moving around the ship again.  She had that strong feeling that she not only wanted to break something.  She needed to break somethings, and the sooner the better for her people or anyone else around her.  Some of it must have shown on her face, because none of the “normal” ship’s crew came within sight much less arms reach of the large, wide and very angry woman packing enough weapons to start a war. 

She was set up in a defense position looking right at the hatch, which the small craft had locked onto about 90 seconds ago.  She had on a smile that a shark would have loved to have been able to emulate.  The hatch wheel started to spin, and the hatch started to open.  Unlike the last attack.  They did not rush into the narrow metal access ways.  It would seem that someone might have read about the last people who had made that play against this ship. 

Jenifer “call me Jen and I will break your knees” eyes went wide.  It was not a person in body armor looking out of the connecting hatch.  Jenifer had to fight to keep her voice level and soft. The head was looking around seemingly to make sure the coast was clear.   “Okay people Hatch 5J is opening.  They are scouting this time and not bum rushing, but the first person is wearing something that kind of looks like a Nighthawk suit.  I am arming the traps, including the EMP.  Everyone keep a heads up when it blows!” 

She let go of the transmit button, then turned off all her non-hardened electronic equipment with a few simple finger movements that were very well practiced. “Well you wanted to break something, and you were worried that they would not put up a real fight after attaching to the hull.  Looks like you do not have to worry about that now.” 

As Jenifer watched from her hiding spot off to one side of the corridor.  The Nighthawk like suit called a Tornado suit, stepped fully into the ships access way.  The Tornado suit, just like the Nighthawk it was based on, did not have a built-in weapon system.  It was fitted with armored gloves, which allowed the wearer to carry heavier weapons for a longer amount of time than a nonsuited trooper could.  It also would protect the trooper wearing it from most rifle sized rounds, but not heavy weapons fire and a few other hazards that they might bump into.  The first suit entered the access way, and then took three steps towards Jenifer.  It was followed by two more suited personnel that looked to be planning on taking the other two access ways from the hatch. 

On an external pick-up mic.  Jenifer could hear voices yelling at the suits to move faster.  It seemed that those voices were coming from deeper within the airlock.  The rest of the team seemed to think that faster was better. 

Jenifer was still smiling as the suit took another step towards her.  The metal foot stepped forward, but the suit operator did not notice a little mechanical switch that the foot depressed as the deck took his weight.  The simple switch opened up a power line overhead.  At the speed of light, a bolt of raw power, which could fry a Cylon Centurion, found the shortest route to ground.  The energy bolt “jumped” from the open port overhead, to the box like head.  Then it went through the machine and out the right foot of the 400 kg Krupp made suit.  The end point was a catch plate, which took the energy bolt and feeds it back into the ships power grid.  One thing that a dropship had, was an abundance of high voltage. 

The intruder shook as the power went through the suit and the organics that controlled it.  Circuit breakers built into the suit popped to protect the sensitive electronics, but that didn’t help the human heart or brain incased in the conductive metal.  By the time the power surge had stopped.  The human brain was only so much cooked meat, and it was dead as any hamburger coming off a grill in your local greasy spoon. 

The sound and flash of the blast of electricity stopped everyone in their path.  There were now four suits in the access way, but one was now falling face forward to the metal deck, like a stone statue.  Before the suit had completely fallen to the dropship’s deck.  A second modification built into the Blockade Runner activated.  This time the modification was triggered by Jennifer in her hide site.  It was a very focused EMP mine and it detonated. 

The EMP was an area limited mine, which would only affect the area in the access ways on this deck.  The other edge of the zone of effect was from Jenifer’s location going all the way to the open hatch.  Now all four enemy battle suits were out of commission.  The Star League in Exile had worked with and trained against the Nighthawk suits for a few centuries, and now they had a lot of experience fighting the Cylons.  So, they knew how to fight against things like power armor.  They had more than a few tricks in their playbook to counter battle armor.  They knew that the Clan used even heavier combat suits, and the weapons and tactics had been first worked out to counter them. 

When the EMP mine went off, it did not give a flash or blast of noise to announce what had just happened.  It was just a hidden attack, and then an effect on the battlefield.  When the invisible wave of energy swept over the targeted area.  It was picked up on the systems of the people still on the other side of the hatch, it was a very energetic event.  As soon as the energy wave passed, and it was “only” moving at the speed of light.  The rest of the team still on the small craft rushed into the metal access ways like a human tidal wave.  The last two suits were faster of the bunch. 

Jennifer had dropped prone on the deck after hitting the button for the mine, and she pulled the Blazer rifle closer into her armored covered shoulder.  The two small craft had spread out all of the defenders, but the “hidden” two squads were going to take a lot of the attackers by surprise.  Jennifer pulled the trigger and put a full power blast into the Nighthawk like armor dead center in the chest.  It fell to the ground, before it could get up to anything like full speed. 

The falling PA(L) suit tripped up and delayed the follow on and final armored suit in this group.  This gave Jennifer time to be able to fire a second full power shot into the attackers.  The second suit was her target and it took the twin laser blasts at the groin level of the two-legged weapons system.  It was now out of the fight. 

The rushing people behind the heavy body armor surged forward.  Jennifer knew that the Blazer was not going to recharge in time to fire again, so she did not even try.  She reached forward to the waiting Colonial automatic battle rifle.  That was when she was struck by the first three rounds.  They had come from a Federal Rifle and hit her on the left shoulder pad armor like a hammer. 

The heavy cored round punched through the armored pad and into Jennifer’s body, only stopping after breaking the shoulder blade to blead off the last of the energy.  Jennifer was still able to fire a full magazine down the narrow access way.  It did not stop the human wave attack.  She would end up shot four times, in the back.  She was even stabbed with a vibro bayonet in her center back.  It would just miss her spine.  There was so much blood on the deck, that the follow-on enemy borders just left her unmoving body in its firing position. 

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

The man with no name slowly made his way down the access way.  The deck plans downloaded into his Tornado suit said this way was to the main cargo bay.  He was, as far as he knew the last of the ROM team, which had been seconded to the White Hands to add some firepower to their attack.  He knew why this ship had been attacked.  He had seen a lot of the reports on this target.  He had paid close attention to the report about the failed light infantry assault of almost a platoon sized unit of criminals. 

When he and his team had first exited their Dragonstar.  They had walked right into the same trap that had taken out the other team of battle armor, just without the EMP mine.  The only reason he was still alive?  It was that he had been the last person out of the hatch, and that the point man had been farther ahead of the rest of the team when they rushed the defenders.  Only a dozen of his team had made it past the sole defensive point near the hatch. 

As his people advanced, he could hear weapons fire behind them.  He had never stopped to look, but he felt that the numbers of “his” people were dropping due to fire from this demon mad crew.  That should not have been happening.  The members of his team had been falling one after the other, and they were still on the same deck that the transport had attached to.  Even then, he had not been able to make it this far without heavy damage to his armor.  The front and back of his suit looked like someone had fired shotgun blast after massive shotgun blast into it from five meters. 

None of his suit’s pick-ups told him anything, but that he was alone.  Well that and that the hatch in front of him, should lead him to an access way to the bridge and control center of the vessel.  He was determined by Blake’s beard.  That he was going to reach that target and kill anyone there, or anyone that got in his way to get to that location.  When he reached the hatch, he had to spin the wheel to get the hatch to unlock on manual and give it a hard push to start it to swing open. 

As the hatch moves away from him.  He stuck his back to the side of the access way, so that any incoming fire would sail down the corridor without hitting him.  Not doing this?  It had cost him his last wing man, when what must have been a dozen laser blast had come their way after opening a closed hatch way.  A mini grenade had been an effective reply to those laser burst, and they had taken the room.  When this hatch was fully opened, and no weapons fire had come his way.  He slowly entered the half empty cargo bay.  He had not reached the ripe old age of 27 in ROM without being a little careful, when he needed to be. 

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

Mike was sitting in his Power Loader mech.  He was a tech and a fully qualified mech warrior, not some grunt.  He knew that he would have been less than useless in the battle of the access ways of the ship.  He had reported to the cargo bay as soon as the engines had reduced power.  The Bridge knew where he was going and that he would be powering up his Fuel Cell engine power loader.  It had no weapons and almost nothing for armor, but it was a weapon that he knew how to use very well. 

He closed and dogged all of the hatches to the cargo bay, just as the engines fired up to over 1G of thrust.  He contacted the bridge with what he had done, and what he was planning on.  He was not told, not to do it.  He took it as it was okay, to stick with his “plan”.  He moved his Power Loader to one side of the large open area, which was the cargo bay.  The hatch that was the nearest to him, was the most likely way that the attackers would try to access this area.  All he could do was wait to find out if he was right or not. 

Mike pulled out a sheet of paper and made notes, as information came over the radio on the possible location of the enemy.  He put the pen and paper away, when he saw the hatch wheel start to slowly spin.  Mike almost moved when the hatch started to open, but something stopped him, before he let his muscles move more than a few millimeters.  The hatch was opening very slowly under manual control, and without making any noise.  Whoever was on the other side, was not going to rush into him.  Mike waited, and when he saw a shadow start to move, he was ready.  The super quiet fuel cell powered mech’s arm shifted a little in one dimension.  Mike was making sure that he moved as slowly as he could, but still not be jerky.

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

The ComStar made suit cleared the hatch, and the operator started scanning the area around him.  He could see items and equipment all over the area, but he did not pick up on the sound coming from above his head.  The suits external microphone had been damaged in the battle already, and he did not know that it had finally decided that it did not want to work anymore.  It was an oversite, which he would not live to understand.  Or maybe he would?  It can take a long time to die.  When you were screaming?  It makes it seem like time has stopped, as you scream yourself horse. 

A few meters over the hatch lip, a forked ended and off yellow mech arm started falling toward the deck floor.  The Mech’s arm from shoulder to the end of the lifting forks massed just under ten tons, without carrying anything.  The White Rabbit was still under power and trying to make it to the “safety” of the JumpShip at the jump point.  The almost nine tons of metal was falling faster under the 1.2Gs that the massive dropship engines were pushing.  The falling arm hit the newer built knockoff Nighthawk suit, just behind the “head”.  The falling arm pushed the top half of the heavy suit slightly forward as it came down.  If the ROM agent had been half a step farther into the cargo bay?  He might have “only” gotten off with more damage to his suit, and a very bad headache.  It would have been doubtful that the suit would have been operational, but it would have been better for the ROM agent inside the metal can of a suit. 

That was not the case now.  The hips and legs of the man and suit could not be pushed out of the way fast enough.  The massive weight started crushing the expensive suit.  When the heavy lifting arm stopped moving, it was almost touching the metal ship’s deck.  What was stopping the arm from reaching the deck, was a lot thinner set of metal covered legs.  The suit was not moving, and a growing area of red liquid was spreading out away from the site of the collision. 

Mike looked out of his covered and thinly armored cockpit, at the mess below him.  What he could not see, was that the falling mass had crushed the human pelvis and all the bones below it into jelly.  The suit’s pilot was screaming as loud as he could, but no one could hear him or care if they did.  In three minutes, he would be dead due to the open veins and arteries below his belt line.  The crew would spend weeks cleaning up the mess.  Every time the ship would go to zero g, a few flakes of dried blood would be found floating in this cargo bay. 

Mike had time to get back in position, when bullets and laser blast started coming out of the hatch.  The suit had only thought he was alone.  The last of the boarders on this level had only been delayed, by the last ambush.  They had not seen what had happened to the PA(L) that had been running point for them.  They could only see it lying on the deck in the open hatch way.  Their responses to the image, was to fire out the hatch to push anyone back that had attacked one of them. 

When the three people in medium body armor, and riot shields exited the hatch?  They were greeted with a hip high leg stomp delivered by Mike and his loadermech.  More blood was now on the deck.  Soon it would be covering the whole deck from hatch to hatch and metal wall to metal wall and everywhere in between.  It would be a painful and tedious procedure to clean it all up to the satisfaction of the Cargo Master and the senior ship’s enlisted member.  He would not be very happy with the one time failed out mech warrior.  The word crunchy was semiofficially band in the ships mess hall for that time forward. 

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

It would take about another ten minutes for it to be worked out that the boarding action was done, and it had failed.  The Cargo Master looked up from his screens.  He was too old and not trained for this type of fighting to be of any use.  If they had breached the bridge?  He would have been able to put his sidearm to good use, but he had other duties that better fit his skills.  Like watching all of the new security cameras and microphones

“Sir!  Internal security is not picking up any more weapons fire.  Do we want to start trying to sweep towards the compromised hatches?”  This had been directed to the Dropships captain, and not the convoy commander sitting to his right side. 

The Captain of the White Rabbit was looking at the displays, and he agreed with his cargo master.  “Yes.  Please contact all teams.  Have them start sweeping.  Make sure they know not to shoot our own people, or I will make them regret it.”  Blue on Blue was not uncommon, and it was more than just an embarrassment when it happened under your command. 

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

It was slow going and there were many close calls, but there were not any reported cases of Blue on Blue, once the clearing of the dropship had started.  The counter clearing started in the Cargo bay right at Mikes Power Loaders mechs feet.  The battle armor suit was the center of attention, and it took some effort to get everyone focus on the upcoming task.  It took some foot to ass, to get into some of them that this was not over yet. 

The clearing team was a mix of what was left of the two infantry squads, and secondary security personnel.  They even were augmented with barely weapons trained crewmembers of the dropship to help.  They had to go foot by foot, down all of the access ways of the dropship.  They would find wounded, both theirs and the enemies every few meters of corridor that they cleared.  They also found dead bodies from both sides of the battle.  They cleared all the way to the small craft attached to the outer hull.  They were both completely empty, all the crews had joined in on the assault and had chosen their own fates. 

Robert was still seated in his command chair taking in all of the information as it was coming in, but he was not hovering over people on the bridge.  That was not his job or place.  Still it was killing him being on the side lines, but he was not going to get in the way of the Dropship’s Captain.  When he felt the time was right, he enters the picture. 


cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #173 on: 02 February 2020, 12:27:25 »
“Okay Captain, what have we got?  Would it give us an advantage, if we had the Lisbon Maru start coming out this way?” 

The Captain of the Blockade Runner was thinking about what was going on, and what the Convoy commander had asked him.  With a nod more to himself than to anyone on the bridge.  He was ready to address the Commander. 

“Sir, we have six dead, a dozen hurt or wounded to a number of different degrees.  We will need some help soon, or we are going to lose some of them.  We have captured eight pirates, all of them are wounded, but alive for now.  The attached Dragonstars are empty, and I want to cut them off my hull.  They are reported to be pretty badly shot up, with many dead bodies on board.  It would seem that our fighters took a bigger bite out of them, than we first thought.” 

There was a slight tone of disbelief in his words about the effectiveness of the fighters.  He had expected Navy trained pilots to have cleaned the skies of enemy and pirate craft with little problem.  He had been deeply shaken that his people had not done so against only the technology that they had seen on those space craft. 

The Captain looked at a few different screens, as he checked a few more details.  “We are space worthy and my crew can do their jobs.  We will need some downtime to fix all the damage caused by the weapons fire, but nothing looks that bad from up here.  If we don’t get some of it taken care of quickly?  That could change amazingly fast.  We can make the jump point, if the Hobgoblin can take care of that other Leo or at least keep it off of us the rest of the way.  I don’t think that the Overlord is interested in coming for us.  But as of right now?  I don’t know if we could even handle the six pack they can carry.  Even if they were all kits in light fighters.”  The Captain was referring to the six aero fighters an Overlord class dropship could carry as designed. 

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

Notes:

ComStar crew skills in the battles so far.  The Dragonstars, fighters, and marines were all Elite.  All of Copeland crews are Vet rated. 


DOC_Agren

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #174 on: 03 February 2020, 15:35:41 »
Probe harder Comstar
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #175 on: 03 February 2020, 16:31:08 »
Probe harder Comstar

becareful what you wish for.... you might get it.   >:D

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #176 on: 09 February 2020, 10:39:19 »
Chapter 32

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

1 Mar 3048 Leo vs Leo
Xanthe III on the way to Lopez. 

The clearing of the boarders from the corridors of the White Rabbit had ended another chapter of the battle, but it was not the only battle going on in this star system.  The last part of the overall battle was playing out in the deep cold and dark of space.  It was far away from any planet or other natural space object.  Battles in locations like this had not been seen that often in the Inner Sphere.  At least not after the middle of the 2nd SW. 

The enemy Leopard had pulled out all the stops, when it looked like at least one of the boarding ships would make it to the small cargo ship.  It quickly had left the modified space passenger liner behind, like it was standing still.  It kept going at maximum thrust when the last of the fighters that the Carrier had carried and was its long-ranged attack force, had died.  The loss of those fighters did not mean that the dropship, did not have its own teeth.  It was why this class of ship was thought of as the perfect raider around all corners of human space before and after the 2nd Succession War. 

The enemy dropship passed the target Blockade Runner and moved to intercept its near sister.  It needed to buy time for the boarding crews, to do their jobs and take control of the cargo ship.  Now that it was where it needed to be, and she blocked the other ship.  The pirate leopard cut the power back just to keep the distance the same between it and the contested dropship.  It also means that it was getting closer to the jump point every second. 

Before the enemy dropship could engage the Hobgoblin.  It first was attacked by the three remaining Ironsides fighters.  The three ex Star League fighters fought as one craft and tried to focus the damage they could put against the target on one location.  Six PPCs could make even a dropship like the Leopard take any attack very seriously.  It was during the second mass attack by the three fighters, that the SLiE were surprised.  Right up until then, the SLiE thought that they had the technical edge in this battle. 

The three fighters had pulled out of the attack and overflew the nose of the fighter carrier.  The formation had loosened up, and the weaving had stopped.  Now that they were out of range of the dropship, it was a waste of time and fuel to keep doing such maneuvers.  That was when Gwen took two PPC blast to her engines and she died before she knew that she was going to die. 

This unit had been in the Draconis Combine not too long ago.  The leader of the whole Draconis Combine might still have the “Death to Mercenary” command in public, but other leaders and warlords knew that they needed them.  The attacking unit commander had been able to get the local Warlord that had hired them, to “give” them some of the “new” Star League grade extended range Particle Projection Cannons.  It had been part of a larger plan put into place by ROM, but it would now be used to good effect on this mission.  The other two weapons were on their way back to a testing facility.  ROM wanted to see it they could be tracked back to equipment “traded” to the Combine before the 3039 war, or if they were connected to the data coming out of the Helm’s core. 

Two of the 7ton weapons had been installed in the nose of the dropship.  They had replaced the older style PPCs, which had been there only four months before.  This generation of ER PPC did not hit any harder than the older weapons, but they reached out further to touch a target.  To get that range?  They were very hot weapons, and this ship had not been able to get an upgraded heat control system to handle the additional heat.  That was part of this ”contract”.  ComStar was going to update everything on the ship up to Star League levels in every way possible.  It was to be the rewards for years of faithful service to that interstellar corporation.  It also would be a test for an upcoming design to be fielded to the Com Guards.  The crew was firing these new weapons as fast as they could recharge, along with every other weapon the dropship possessed.  This tactic had worked with the older style of weapons, and why change when something worked. 

The enemy dropship also did not have any upgraded targeting systems software or even much experience working with the weapons.  That meant they were not the best, at putting them to the best use as designed.  Soon the fighters and even the Hobgoblin were picking up the climbing heat level, that the overuse of those weapons was causing on the other carrier.  The two remaining 65ton fighters were just flies compared to the 1,600ton ship.  Still they did the job that was needing to be done.  That was to keep the enemy dropship looking at them, and not looking at the White Rabbit.  The job had only gotten a little more dangerous.  Now that the surprise was exposed, it would be harder for the enemy craft to get any more major results. 

When the Hobgoblin started getting close.  The other leopard took up the challenge and the two dropships started trying to kill each other.  The pair of dropships soon were acting more like two fighters, than almost 2,000ton carriers.  While the whales were firing at each other?  The flies were also able to attack, with some cover provided by the Hobgoblin.  This was spreading out the weapons fire and rapidly overheating the enemy ship, as it tried to defend against two and sometimes three different sides at the same time.  During the fight some telling blows were made on the engine by a massive wave of short ranged missiles launched from the wings of the two remaining fighters. 

The dropship had thick armor and the paper cuts of the fighters were still cuts, which could draw some blood.  On this attack run, the two fighters pushed into knife fighting range and fired a full spread of the fat short ranged missiles into the aft of the craft.  The last run had damaged the dropship and took out the aft mounted large bore laser.  With the loss of this long-ranged weapon, the two craft decided it was time to push in very close to the enemy vessel.  The missiles were short ranged, but they packed a large warhead.  One that was almost twice as heavy as what a longer ranged version did.  The wave of explosions started at the very aft of the ship, and then it started to slowly move toward the nose of the ship as the fighter carried weapons went to work. 

The missile strikes were felt by all of the 21-member crew of the dropship.  It was just a set of rumblings, that is until something broke.  The massive 400ton engines shook when a pair of missiles slipped through a hole in the armored skin.  The sudden loss of efficiency was felt as the thrust dropped off by a very measurable amount.  That was the first hint that something was wrong, and it was not the last indication that the Sundog was in trouble. 

The ship started an un-commanded hard loop soon after, as one of the avionics bays started to burn in great white arcs of power.  The damage control personnel would not get to the fire fast enough, because of damage done to the bay of nearby heatsinks.  They were already spraying the area with hot and toxic fluid, which kills some of them in a few hours.  This was the paper cut that would cause the horse to be lost.  For the want of a horse, the battle was lost. 

On the outside the dropship still looked normal, and maybe the sudden maneuver was to throw off incoming fire or to offer fresh armor plate to a threatened side.  If they had been a “fighter” from the twenty or twenty-first century, a tell-tell sign of damage would have been smoke coming out of the engine.  That would have been a sign to everyone, about the damage done to the drive system.  After all it was that way in all of the entertainment shows that had air or space battles. 

It would take a long few minutes for the sensors on the convoy ships to pick up on the change in the dropship’s plasma drive plume.  This would be marked as the beginning of the end for the enemy dropship in all the records made of this battle.  As each weapon was fired by the hiding Star League Navy ships.  More and more systems would start to first fail and then fry on the pirate ship.  Between the loss of systems and loss of crew, the effectiveness of the enemy Leopard kept dropping. 

The enemy warship would not go down easily, but it was going to lose.  The Hobgoblin picked up a radio transmission, in the open, between the last two small craft and the enemy dropship as more and more of the dropship was falling off due to weapons fire.  “They were doing a “full” attack, and they would know in twenty minutes if they “took” the ship.” 

No one on the Hobgoblin knew what this might mean, but they did know that the White Rabbit was on her own.  They figured out that it was some kind of code, because nineteen and a half minutes later.  The very badly damaged Leopard tried to disengage from the remaining fighters, and the Hobgoblin.  It looked like a panic run for safety of the Overlord, and for the Invader class JumpShip to take them all away from this battlefield. 

The commander of the enemy dropship made his first big mistake, when he did that.  It’s very hard to pull away from an attacker mid battle.  Most of the times you just die, with a sword or gunshot to the back.  When it exposed its weaker armor and armed aft, the SLDF Navy went to town.  The armor and weapons were already damaged from the attacks from what the Ironsides had done, when they had tried to take out the engines. 

The Hobgoblin fell in and lined up on the exposed aft of the enemy dropship and fired.  The wing and nose mounted 20 tube long ranged rockets left 60 fire trails in space, as they raced to close the distance to their target.  They were joined by another 60 flame trails, which was the last of the ammunition ready to use by the old pirate ship that now was in a real navy.  Still it would be the pair of large bore lasers in each wing and the pair of PPC’s in the nose, which would be the bringers of death for the rest of the fight against the ComStar funded ship. 

The enemy ship had not been giving quarter in any of its battles, and it was not expecting to be getting quarter in this one.  They were a mercenary unit, but one that was not known much less well known.  Plus let’s just say.  That most of the jobs it took were more than a little on the grey side, or all the way into criminal or pirate.  Most other mercenary units and even local leaders would just have thrown them out of the nearest airlock.  The pirate fought until the chief engineer lost the fight to control the massive fusion plasma drives and the growing number of fires within her hull.  The almost 400 tons of abused mix of metals and ceramics turned into a fireball, which was about three hundred meters in diameter at its widest point.  The engine was now more like a short-lived sun, than something built by the hands of man. 

The flash of energy was so bright, that even the auto shield built into the massive armored glass on the Hobgoblin was not up to the task of fully dampening the effect.  Everyone knew what had happened.  For a few of them, it was not the first time they had seen a ship’s engine have its own lunch or something that was equally energetic.  The Captain of the Hobgoblin did not need to be told what happened.  She was one of the few that had seen this happen before, and from a lot closer point of view. 

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

“Okay give me an update on that Overlord and the White Rabbit.  CAG land our birds and see how many are safe to re-launch.  Let’s start looking for anything that we might easily salvage.  We are a salvage and resale company after all.”  This last part got a round of chuckles from a very over stressed bridge crew of the carrier.  She was looking at the screens hoping that she could find two locator beacons out there among the cold of space. 

The last craft to land on the carrier was the Stuka.  It was the slowest, and it took almost two hours to make it back to its mother ship from his location near the enemy dropship and JumpShip.  By that time.  Things had been worked out enough, to figure out what had happened out in this part of the deep black.  The only items that might have been worth saving floating in the local space, were the two Dragonstars.  That is until the head of engineering of the White Rabbit found “the crack”.  It went all the way through the hulls of both ships to a varying degree. 

The engineering team had dumped the computers to some removable data storage devices, for exploitation later.  Then they cut the parasites off of the hull of the blockade runner.  They would keep speeding out into deep space between the stars.  In a few weeks the pair of hulks would not even be a risk to navigation, at least within this star system.  The fleet of two dropships started boosting again towards the Tramp waiting at the jump point, but at a safer rate of thrust. 

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

Commander Copeland was reviewing the data coming into the bridge of the dropship.  It was not that good; besides that, at least they were in one piece.  Robert was reviewing some intercepted radio transmissions, then he felt an itch.  The longer he spent reading those reports, the more powerful the itch became. 

“Communication!  Please point a narrow beam transmission right at the Overlord.  Make sure that the auto encoding is offline.  I want them to have no problem picking this up and understanding me.  The message is.  Let Igarashi Miya of ComStar know.  Good try, but we are still not going to give up who we are on contract with.  We hope they gave you a good support package for this job.  Looks like you are going to need it.  Message Ends.”  Robert could not help but smile as he spoke. 

Jess was also smiling.  She was thinking that whoever was on that Overlord, was behind this attack on them.  As soon as Robert had said the name.  All the parts fell into place out of the blue, and she agreed that ComStar was the most likely group behind this attack.  She also liked that her boss was letting the other side know what he thought of them.  It might be poking the lion, but sometimes you just had to do it with a big pocking wrench. 

The trip back to the jump point only took another five hours.  This was a lot shorter, than the planned burn towards the planet.  No one was able to sleep or rest for those hours, even at only 1G of thrust.  There was way too much to do, on both of the dropships.  As soon as the two dropships arrived at the jump point.  They docked to the larger JumpShip.  The now active artificial gravity plating was an asset to the crews.  It would make it easier to help the wounded from the attack, if nothing else. 

The Styx “was not ready” to do its next jump.  It should take another two days to recharge the drives.  They could “fast” charge the drive, but that was risky, and you did not want to blow your jump drive.  At least not in a system, which you had just been attacked in.  And Robert wanted to show the “Other Guys” that he was not in a rush to leave.  It was another poke at the Lion.  Besides they could use the time to make more repairs. 

While they waited to charge their drive.  Robert called a meeting of the senior staff.  Everyone was tired.  Still this was a good time to bring everyone up to speed on what had happened in other areas, and what they had done afterword’s.  Robert looked around at the group, and everyone had large dark bags drooping from under their eyes.  This was displaying evidence of the lack of sleep and stress they had been under. 

Robert decided right then, to be the one to break the ice.  “We knew that someone was tracking us, and that they were hiring mercenaries or pirates to do the dirty work.  We will be leaving this system in a dozen hours, unless someone has information that dictates a delay or a rush.  During your updates, give me a go or no go for jump.”  He was just as tired as the rest of the crew, but he was forcing his voice to stay upbeat. 

He looked around the table and the heads were nodding, but they were not talking.  “Okay next bit of news.  The Overlord did not launch any fighters, or any other space support craft for that matter.  “We” think it might have been a command version of that class.  The second item?  It is that the Invader JumpShip must have fast charged or hot loaded its jump engines.  As soon as the two small craft launched from the JumpShip, they collected the life pods with the help of those two other Dragonstars from the Monarch.  We think that they were left behind at the start of the mission to be some sort of cover or escort for the JumpShip.  The JumpShip took the Overlord and a Union that lifted from the planet, when they jumped out.  That was half an hour ago.” 

The rest of the room perked up at the news.  The smaller dropships did not have the equipment or personnel that the 660meter long JumpShip carried.  The numbers of dropships and the number of collars were not adding up.  Everyone in the room could do the math.  There was another enemy JumpShip out there somewhere. 

Robert let the quiet of the room stretch out.  “We have been contacted by the planet.  In fact, we have been contacted by two different groups from the planet.  One contact was from the Class B HPG ComStar compound on the planet.  They are saying they were “attacked” by a pirate unit, and they have suffered damage to their major systems and cannot currently transmit messages out of this system.  They want us to carry word of the “attack”, so that the FWL and ComStar can send help this way.” 

This drew a round of rolling eyes and out right dagger looks, from around the room.  “The second group is saying that they are from the local government and defense force.  They said that whoever attacked them?  They did not do that much damage, but that they now have pulled out.  They did report.  That the mercenary scout lance, who seemed to be the ones that warned us of the trap.  All of them had been wiped out by some very high tech mercenary or pirate unit, that landed on a Union class vessel.” 

This information was met with a slight rumbling from around the metal walled room.  “This mercenary/pirate unit said, and they had documents, which said they were hired by the FWL when they landed.  They were also told that the HPG is down, and they also would like us to carry word out about the attack.  I have agreed to their request.  I almost authorized a hidden message to be sent out by our HPG, to warn of a pending attack in the local area.  I just can’t find a way for it to get out, that does not cause us more issues down the road.  I also have thought about sending down the Rabbit, but the risk is too high.”  He didn’t need to tell the group, that he had not replied to the information request that had been passed up by ComStar to them. 

Robert looked around the table.  “That is all the information and updates we have gotten from the Styx.  The Captain of the White Rabbit is next and will be followed by the Hobgoblin.” 

The Captain of the Blockade Runner let out a little breath and then straightens up in his chair.  “We are shipshape and operational.  We are still repairing some of the weapons fire damage to one deck.  The hull and engines of my ship are sound.  We have not lost any more people, now that we have the medical equipment from the Styx to support us.  We also have not lost any of the “passengers”.  We have them stripped to their undergarments, and in one of the larger rooms…….without gravity.  They are not going anywhere but they are not talking, yet.  My crew will need up to ten days to fix all of the visible damage from the action inside of my vessel.  We have the entire electronic data and anything else we could pull out of the Dragonstars.  It was not much, but we got it all.  We collected all of the uniforms and weapons and put them in storage.” 

The Captain turned to look at the fleet commander.  “The item that is driving me crazy, is the dozen of the PA(L) suits that led the boarding action.  We are still checking what is left of them out.  I have made sure that those items are not going to be found, by any future inspection teams.  I will say that they are some kind of knockoff of the Nighthawk.  Nothing like this is known to be in production, before the Star League fell.  This is a game changing weapons system, and one that Higher Command will want to see.  I can have a team working on it, in their free time, but right now they are still patching up holes and dents in my ship.  When they find out anything more?  I will pass it along, but it’s going to be a while.  From all of the reports I have seen, so far that is.”  The Captain stopped talking for a few seconds as the rest of the room made a soft rumbling sound. 

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #177 on: 09 February 2020, 10:42:23 »

When he was not asked to stop, he started talking again.  “The traps, Blazer rifles, and Colonial tech auto rifles worked even better than my security people had hoped.  The only area we are short in, is good body armor.  What we have is the best we can have under the protocols, but standing up to battle suits?  Well, it is going to be ugly.  That is in anything, other than a fixed defensive point.”  The news of the battle suits had already gotten around to all of the attached ships on the Styx.  To have it confirmed….was a distraction. 

The Captain of the Hobgoblin was the first to come around.  “A Command Version of the Overlord, new style of Battle Armor, and a Leopard CV that was packing Star League grade PPC’s that looked to be knockoffs or very closely related to the Blankenburg line.  The Inner Sphere is getting to be a very dangerous place!“ 

Now all the eyes were on him instead of the White Rabbit.  The White Rabbit’s Captain nodded to let the other Captains know that he was done with his part, and the other man could start his briefing.  “I didn’t mean to jump in like that, sir.  We were able to recover four fighters.  Currently we have been able to get one Ironsides and the Stuka on CAP.  We have another Ironsides ready to launch if something nasty happens.  They are not fully repaired, but they can fly.  The third Ironside is in bad shape.  The techs don’t know if they have the parts to fully repair it.  They are in fact thinking that they might have to use it as a parts supply for the other two craft of that type.  We did get two confirmed anti Cylon charges going off, on the two craft we lost.” 

It was not long after the Colonials had made contact with the SLDF in Exile that a modification had been made to all space craft.  It the Cylons got their hands on the inner sphere weapons or clan technology?  They might be able to turn the tide on the human race.  To stop this?  It was decided that if it looked like the Cylons might capture a ship?  It would be blown apart by a suicide charge.  It would blow up the crews and the ship, all in one shot, leaving nothing recoverable by any side.  The two explosions that had been picked up by the Hobgoblin might have been set off by the fighter pilots.  Or it could have happened by enemy weapons fire.  In the end?  It did not matter; the secrets were kept from any outsiders just the same. 

The Hobgoblin’s Captain was not done.  “I have been given a list of items, which the techs need to restock our supplies.  The only items that they are not critically short on, is Star League level tech items.  I think we will be able to find what we need on Andurien or a planet like it.” 

When the Captain stopped talking for almost a minute.  Robert took control of the meeting.  “I’m sorry for your loss, Captain.  Make sure a copy of your supply lists are given to all three cargo masters.  This is the reason we have cash on hand.”  Finding parts was going to be a lot easier than dealing with the lost pilots. 

He looked around to the other Captains.  “Make sure we have a complete list of all needed parts and supplies given to all Cargo Masters.  I will also need a copy of those lists.  You can bet SLIC and High Command are going to be picking at scabs like this when we get back.  I want all items topped off as soon as we can, but I don’t want anyone to know how short of supplies we are.  The last thing I want is for someone to think, that we can’t defend ourselves and they force the issue.  I also want detailed reports, on all advanced technology that each of you all have seen used against us.  I want as much ammunition on hand as I can get, when we get back home.  So that we can bring bigger hammers to defend ourselves with, next time.  If the techs think they can use them?  I want enough of the ER PPC’s removed from storage and put on the surviving Ironsides.  If that is it?” 

Robert looked around the room and no one indicated that they had more to say.  “Okay!  Jules let’s keep to the plan and jump to Lopez.  Thank you all for coming and we will meet again after Lopez.”  Robert had already prepared another mission for Kimberly and Lora to work on.  He wanted to reward whoever had warned them.  He was going to authorize some kind of reward, after he found out what had happened.
 
###############

Exactly at the time that Robert had given in the meeting.  The modified Tramp class ship left this system, and it arrived at the Lopez systems jump point.  As soon as the Styx was safe.  Jules transmitted the information from the government/military contact on Xanthe III.  The official message from ComStar was “lost” before the Styx arrived in the Lopez system.  It was like someone had kicked over a hornet’s nest, four hours later.  It must have taken that long for the information to be passed from a radio techs hands, to someone in higher command. 

Robert was lucky because he, and the other three dropships were already on the way dirtside when the nest started moving.  Jules and the Styx were getting a friendly visit from the commander of the nearby recharge station.  Robert would have a matching meeting, once they were on the ground on Lopez.  The locals were surprised when they asked for proof of the last attack.  So, Robert turned over the 6 surviving captured personnel still in their undergarments to a very shocked investigator. 

Less than 4 hours after he had turned over the “Pirates”.  Things started happening on the drop port of the small hot world that had two suns.  One was that the local garrison commander, had opened his supply caches to Copeland’s cargo masters and pocketbooks.  They were able to pick up all of the armor plate, electronics, ammunition and hundreds of other spare parts that they needed, at the cost that the FWL paid for them. 

There used to be a major aerospace manufacture on this planet, and according to local lore it had been destroyed by the Cappies.  It had happened in one of the many times that this planet had changed hands between those two great houses.  That history was working for Robert, and his people this time.  The Cargo Masters were able to pick up some normally very hard to find items, to make flight certified aero fighter parts for New Circe.  Those items were not cheap to acquire, even with the good will the locals currently had for Copeland’s people.  The specialized equipment looked like they only needed a good cleaning, before being put back into a factory. 

They were able to trade the last of the Colonial weapons, and all of the Blazer rifles on this planet.  At least the ones that were not now issued to the crews of the dropships, for counter boarding operations.  They also sold computers to both the locals and tourist, who had come to see or ride the flying Dragons on this planet.  It was a very productive five days for Robert’s people.  They were supposed to have lifted after the fourth day, but the last critical case was not released from the main planetary hospital for another day. 

It was worth it, to have Jennifer not needed to be rolled out of a van in a wheelchair.  She would walk under her own power up the loading ramp, if very slowly.  She limped up the personnel access ramp into the White Rabbit with her chin held high.  One item that Robert had been able to gather was not on his shopping list or RFI.  He was able to watch the loading and launching of an almost regiment of Battlemechs and tanks from the local drop port.  They were on the way to find out what had happened on Xanthe III. 

He also was told a few of the rumors that were going around the drop port.  One was that MMM had an Ultra class cannon factory in operation somewhere within MC space.  They also were selling upgraded Marauders and Shadow Hawks using those same “new” cannons.  They were supposed to be selling the new cannons to any one on friendly terms with the MC.  The final major rumor and it was one that was going into the logbook.  It was that MMM was going to be the center of recovered Star League weapons technology for this whole part of space. 

On the burn to the jump point.  Commander Copeland was contacted by traffic control and asked if they would delay their jump to the regional capital, for another 24-36 hours.  Two other JumpShips were going that way.  They were a Merchant class and a Star Lord class, all with a full load of civilian dropships.  It was hoped that the armed Tramp and Leopard class Carrier would be helpful.  Copeland’s people were doubling the firepower of the group.  Robert was okay with it, because after this last attack.  He wanted more witnesses, when things went sideways again. 

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

Notes:

The loss of the two Ironside’s pilots.  They might have lived, but Gwen’s charge went off due to weapons fire, and the other might have been able to punch out.  That would have risked being captured, and the Wolverines had a policy for that. 

Styx waiting.  They are down one third of their fighters.  They would be just a little gun shy for at least a few jumps. 

Specialized aero fighter equipment.  New Circe needs all of the fighter production it can get. 


mikecj

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #178 on: 09 February 2020, 12:06:36 »
A convoy coming in will surprise ComStar...
There are no fish in my pond.
"First, one brief announcement. I just want to mention, for those who have asked, that absolutely nothing what so ever happened today in sector 83x9x12. I repeat, nothing happened. Please remain calm." Susan Ivanova
"Solve a man's problems with violence, help him for a day. Teach a man to solve his problems with violence, help him for a lifetime." - Belkar Bitterleaf
Romo Lampkin could have gotten Stefan Amaris off with a warning.

cawest

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Re: spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale
« Reply #179 on: 10 February 2020, 22:19:53 »
Chapter 33

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

20 April 3048 the second run
Andurien System. 

It had taken the Styx two jumps to make it only 16 light years of distance, and it was closer to 30 days to make that run.  That was due to the need of the other two jumpships to trade, as they went along the route.  Robert and his ships were not cleared to land, right off the bat on arrival in the capital system.  They were held at the jump point of what most of the locals called the capital of the Duchy of Andurien for a full week.  This system was filled with space stations, JumpShips, dropships, small craft and fighters of all kinds.  This delay worked out well for Robert and his people, and it paid off when the engineering staff asked for a full command meeting.  The reason for the meeting was that the Engineers had reached the end of what they might be able to learn using shipboard references and resources, about the recovered battle suits. 

The head of the techs on the Styx, and the ones on the other dropships for that matter, was looking around the table at the other leaders of the mission.  “Thank you all for coming.  My team as completed as detailed of an examination of this new type of Powered Battle Armor, as they can, with the limited resources we have on hand to work with.  Yes, I said new type of battle armor.  It might look like a Nighthawk suit, but it’s not.” 

The head tech looked down at her notes, and then looked back up.  “First!  The armor mass is the same as a Nighthawk and offers the same level of protection for weight of that powered armor.  It is also the same mass as the suits we are used to seeing.  It even uses a clone of the same armored glove systems, as we are used to working with.  What is different, is the type of armor that covers the thing from head to toe.  The Nighthawk has what I would call standard stealth, for the purposes of this meeting.  This suit, we think are called Tornadoes, by stamps we found on the software.  They have a lower grade of stealth armor, which I will refer to as basic stealth for this meeting.  None of my people have worked on suits, but a few of the security people have studied some of the literature.  We are more or less making it up as we go.” 

She stopped talking for a second and an image of the Tornado suit was put on display.  “It’s still very good, as stealth systems go.  It’s just not as advanced as what a Nighthawk is supposed to be able to do.  This suit makes up for the lower tech stealth system, by caring a powerful, almost freaky powerful, ECM set up.  The other item that is different between these two suits, is that this suit does not have built in jump jets.  I know that this is confusing information, but the reason I felt that we needed this meeting.  It is, that I think.  Well sir!  We need to get home as soon as possible!” 

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru was looking around the room, but the face was a dead giveaway to what he was thinking.  He was not sure why this was being asked of the command group.  He put his hands flat on the metal desktop and decided to find out the why.  He was a captain of a dropship within the SLDF, that should give him some leeway to ask a few questions. 

“Why the rush?  We have been attacked, but we are not that far under strength.  Not when you add in the crew from the merchant class and Rob Roy, that we picked up after the sale of those vessels on Canopus.” 

The briefer gave a smile that put Robert on edge.  It looked like someone was about to be sent out to look for a can of rotor wash or a lefthanded torque wrench.  “Sir?  It’s not the personnel losses or the loss of effectiveness of our ships due to combat damage.  It’s the suits we are now carrying.  What has stopped us from making a major production runs of more Nighthawk suits, back home?  It has been because of two major components that are key to the Nighthawks utility.  One is that we could not make large batches of the stealth embedded armor.  The other one is the small but very powerful jump jets the Nighthawk has.”  The only reason that the best tech in the SLS Styx engineer department knew this type of information, was that she had been helping with the hand making of the micro jump engines before being reactivated. 

The tech looked around the room, and after wetting her lips.  She kept talking.  “I think with the eight fully functional or mostly functional suits, that we were able to put together from the dozen in the attack.  We might give our people enough material to make more of this type of suits.  It might not be possible, right now.  I will tell you, that I think that they might be able to duplicate this suit in the hundreds or thousands per run.  They will not be a match for the Nighthawks, in all ways.  We still could save lives by improving the ground pounder and marine’s ability to withstand battle damage and carry more powerful weapons.  Think of the lives we could save?  Even if we can only make enough of them to outfit our scouts and a few of our counter boarding teams?”  Her tone went lower as she finished her line of thought.  Most of the people around this table knew that she had lost her youngest daughter to a small Cylon boarding of the Zug on the last mission to old Colonial space. 

Robert knew this and he could feel the pain coming off the woman.  “That is some news, senior tech.  I think that it’s a good idea to plan on taking the shortest route home, when we leave here.  That is, if we can do so with a full cargo load.  We have a mission statement and requirements, which we must try to meet, and our command is expecting us to meet them.” 

He held his hands up to stop the woman from talking.  “I agree.  That we should not stop at just any place, and we will take the shortest track to get us back home.  This is a regional capital, so it should have some of the more, hard to find items we have been looking for.” 

The meeting broke up soon after.  Questions were asked, and some answers were given, but most of it was simply that they did not know that much at this time.  They were limited with the amount and types of testing equipment they had on the ships of this convoy.  Ten hours after the meeting had been closed.  Commander Copeland was given clearance to land all of his dropships, at the main drop port outside of Jojoken. 

It was a ten day burn to the planet, and for once.  They were not told to hold in orbit, but to make a least time approach to the drop port at a very specific angle.  This was the busiest drop port that Robert and his ships had stopped at, so far to date.  It was even bigger and busier than the drop port on Canopus, by a few orders of magnitude.  Before they even had landed.  The White Rabbit and the Lisbon Maru were being contacted by groups on the ground. 

Unlike almost all of the other planets that they had stopped at, on both trips.  On this planet?  There were people and groups, which had high ticket items for sale, or you could buy.  Those same types of high-ticket items that might not come up on or be advertised on the “normal” markets.  When new ships or trading companies paid a visit?  It was news, and they would be looked at. 

Word of what Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale had been trading for the past year, had gotten around already to a lot of different ears in this whole sector of space.  It did not take Robert long to figure out that they were going to need more than the planned five days of trading and both cargo masters.  It was going to take dozens of man hours just to look at the sale and want ads. 

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

They had only been on the ground 24 hours, and all of the remaining ultra-autocannons and computers were sold are set aside for viewing by interested buyers.  The half dozen second generation PPCs were also moved out of the cargo bays.  They could have moved the last ER PPCs, but Robert had stopped that.  He had a plan for those last few energy weapons.  His orders were questioned with only a raised eyebrow from the cargo masters.  They knew that Copeland did not want to take any “normal’ cargo back home with them. 

Robert had learned from the first mission, when to let the reigns lose on his people.  While the dropship’s Captains and Cargo Masters were doing their jobs.  Robert and Jess went about seeing what might be of use back home that no one had thought of yet.  It was fun, if you did not have to have four armed and big escorts with you every step of the way. 

The first item to look at, had come from an advertisement that said someone was selling a Hoplite type battlemech.  They claimed that it dated back to the FWL civil war.  Jess and Robert set a meeting time and the location given was strange, but they went anyway.  A car and driver had been “donated” by the local FWL garrison commander, as a measure of thanks for “helping” out when one of their worlds had been attacked by “scumbag pirates”.  Then again, it could have been the ER PPCs they bought earlier in the day.  The FWL had always been short of that type of weapon, much less having access to a second generation one.  When they had given the address to the driver for the day.  He had laughed, but he had refused any questions on why he had given that response to the written down address. 

The driver took Robert, Jess, Mike, and the escorts to the location on the notecard.  It turned out to be a large strip mall on the edge of town.  In a center park like area of the shopping area, was the mech in question.  The lightly armored hover passenger transport came to a stop, right at the opening in a white painted knee-high fence.  It was going around the machine of war standing in a green space.  It did not take long for Robert to figure out what was going on.  The current owner had painted the Hoplite in Wolf’s Dragoons colors and was selling tickets, for people to climb on and around the 55ton machines or take images with it. 

The large black painted hover transport had quickly drawn the attention of the ticket seller, whose picture had been on the posted sales announcement.  Robert stepped away from the transport and intercepted the balding overweight man heading their way.  “Tomas Davis?  I’m Robert Copeland.  You were told that we would like to check out your machine, to see if my partners and I would like to purchase it.” 

The sweating man with a receding hairline met Roberts open hand with a sweaty one and gave a bad breath and brown toothed smile.  “Yes!  Thank you for coming.  Just give me a few minutes to clear out the last of the ticket buyers.” 

It took only a few minutes to clear out the fenced offed area around the mech.  While Mike was checking out the war machine, Jess was going through the digital books or logs.  That left Robert trying to stay away from Mr. Sweaty Palms.  He was able to stay away from the seller by simply moving around the area “looking” at the battlemech from different angles.  Mike and Jess did not have to track Robert down, when they were ready.  They just radioed him any of the information, that was relevant for what Robert needed to do his part of the job.  The bad part?  Was now Robert was going to have to deal with Mr. Davis up close and personal. 

Robert walked up to the ticket selling stand, were Tomas was waiting with his arms crossed over his big belly.  Robert did not offer his hand this time, he was in professional buyer’s mode.  “Tomas let’s talk some business.  What do you want for your display?” 

Tomas rose from his stool and gave a huge smile.  He was thinking his payday was finally here.  “Ten million C-bills, and you take care of shipping.”  This was his well-rehearsed demand. 

Robert was a little taken aback.  That was nowhere near what he had expected to hear, as the sale price.  It had come so far out of left field, that his poker face fell for a full second.  “Tomas!  This is not a joke.  How much are you asking for your mech?” 

Now it was the turn of Tomas to let his face fall.  He had been expecting to get that number for his fully functional mech.  “It’s a documented Wolf’s Dragoons machine, in full working order, and so ten million C-bills is a fair price.” 

Now Robert knew what he was dealing with.  This man was not a mech jock or a tech, both of those types of people would have led off with that comment about it being in full working order.  This guy was out of his depth and Robert could work with that.  “Tomas, what you have is a 55ton war machine that is very quickly going to be only useful for a backwoods garrison militia.  In by soon?  I would say in ten to fifteen years, if that.” 

Tomas turned white and then started sputtering.  “But it was used by the Wolf’s Dragoons!!”  He was holding onto that saying, like it was some kind of magic spell. 

Robert had to fight a smile down.  “Yes, it was used by the Wolf’s Dragoons.  And you even painted it to look like it had been in the Black Widow’s company.  I think both of us know that his machine never was used by her or anyone in her company.  What I want to ask you is this?  How many enemies has the Wolf’s Dragoons made over the years?  Whoever is piloting this machine?  They are going to draw them to it, like a moth to a fire.  The other idea is that anyone who wants to brag about taking down a Wolf’s Dragoon mech?  They will fire first at this machine, even if they are not mad at the Dragoon’s.  I’m kind of surprised that the Seventh Kommandos had not paid you a visit already.  So, now that we have the facts on your mech out in the open.  What do you want to get out of it?” 

Tomas was still set, but his voice was getting weaker.  “It’s a Dragoons mech and it is fully operational, except for ammunition!  Seven million?”  The last part was delivered as a question and not a statement.  He had not realized how much he had over played his hand, until just now. 

Robert was back in salesman’s mode, now that the other man was off of his high horse.  “Seven Million?  I could not find a price for the last time one of these machines was sold on the open market for.  I did find were something like this should be worth 4.4 million.” 

Tomas’s jaw swung open at the number that Robert had given him.  “No way!!  I can make that much in ticket sales and rentals in that timeline.” 

Robert let a smile cross his face, which was not friendly.  “A few years?  I’m surprised that some of those Combine boys have not come over and blown it up on you, yet.  You know after Misery?  I don’t think those crazy samurai were happy with the outcome.” 

Tomas was again doing the dead fish thing with his mouth.  Robert had reviewed all the books that they had picked up on the last trip.  He had been interested in any information about the Wolf’s Dragoons that he could find.  That was why he really wanted this machine as much as SLIC.  There had been a dozen articles about the Dragoons using mechs that had not been seen in the Inner Sphere for a hundred or more years. 

The Hoplite had been pointed out in more than a few of those reports that were on the open market.  The last Hoplite, before 3005, had been seen in around 2835.  The digital logs on this machine only went back to 3005, when the Dragoons first showed up in the Inner Sphere.  This could be what higher command had wanted.  It was not an Imp, but it was as close as he thought likely he would be able to get on this run.  That is unless he went to Outreach and tried to pick one up from them, personally. 

Robert thought it was now time to drop his hammer and jump the bid.  “Five million is my top bid.  That is 600k above capability price.  What do you think Tomas?  Do I need to wave and have my people leave in our rental?  Or do we transfer the money, right now?” 

Tomas did not know where he went wrong.  He had turned down that much money before, but that had been over two years ago.  What this off worlder had said, made sense.  Too much sense, and Tomas was now wondering if he should have gotten out of this business a long time ago.  He was seeing enemies at every turn of his head.  Five million would barely cover the loan he had taken out, when he had first bought this hunk of junk.  It would pay the loan off and leave him a few dozen k’s in the bank.  Then again, he had done a lot of ticket sales over the years.  It was not the payday he had thought that he was going to get.  Without knowing it, his hand went out to shake on the deal. 

Robert took the hand and shook it.  Jess was nearby, and just out of earshot.  When she saw the hand shoot out?  She knew the deal was done.  She quickly had her noteputor up, and had Tomas signing that he had agreed to sell his machine.  Jess was surprised at the final sales price.  Mechs were always a Sellers’ market, but this was a regional capital.  She thought that Commander Copeland could have gotten a better deal on the display.  She would ask about it later.  The deal was done, and they had just picked up one of the key items, that they had been asked almost by name to get on this run.  When the last document was signed.  She turned to her captain. 

“Sir, I will contact a local moving company and see when they can pick up the mech for us.” 

Robert nodded looking around the long strip of shops.  “Good, Jess.  Make sure to tell them that we will pay extra, if they can get it to the drop port before midnight tonight.  While we’re here, why don’t we all get some shopping done?” 

Robert turned back to look at Tomas.  “I don’t mind if you keep selling tickets, but any damage done to my machine will come out of your pocket.” 

He turned and pointed to the shopping area, and the group started walking that way with sly smiles on their faces.  Robert had already upped the personnel cargo space that each person could have for items.  Stopping here was going to fill their ship’s allowance.  Jess nodded and in less than an hour.  She had arranged to have the Hoplite picked up and dropped off back at the Lisbon Maru. 

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The strip mall was a full retail set up.  The volume per item was normally very small, but they did have a wide selection of items.  Robert made a mental note to pass this updated location to his crews.  The prices were a lot lower, than the shops that were closer to the drop port.  It was during one of these stops that Robert saw a 3D image playing on one wall.  There was half a dozen like screens all around the mall playing a different round of advertisements. 

Every third set of images was an advertisement for S.L. Lewis Incorporated.  They were talking up the new Savannah Master, which was now being sold with new built Edasich made Omni 25 fusion engines.  They had been using the supply of Omni 25s that the company founder had found years ago.  While Robert was watching the images.  Mike and Jess walked up to either side of him.  The displays were now cutting between battle ROM and other images showing off the little 5ton hovercraft in combat. 

Robert looked first left and then right, as they watched the flashing images.  Then his eyes were drawn back to the flashing images.  “I was thinking.  Did either one of you, see that big report the news did on that one pilot?”  He was not going to use words like Colonial, Viper, or anything close to that.  Not at least till they were out of the Inner Sphere zone.