spinoff BSG crossover Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale complete

[cawest]

you will see    >:D

[Kwic]

Lol.  Write faster. 


Great story, looking forward to more.

[cawest]

Chapter 15
After noon 18 Dec 3046 
The Dunianshire system

They went back to Le Chiffre’s for some food to fuel their tired bodies.  It was in the middle of the lunch rush hour, when they arrived.  There was a line out the door and people sitting on side benches, all waiting to be seated inside to eat.  The group was given some strange looks by those waiting, when Captain Copeland and his group walked straight to the Hostess desk.  They were not given a number but taken right away into the main dining area without waiting, like the rest of the crowd had been doing.  This caused more hostile looks to be sent their way. 

The group of four were sat at Lora’s favorite table.  This time they told the wait staffs for the cook just to make whatever they like, and that would be fine with them.  It was an enjoyable meal, with a lot of jokes and small talk between quickly forming friends.  It was towards the end of the meal, that Captain Copeland returned the group back to the job at hand.  It was a nice break, but they had work to do.  It did not help, that now.  They had a truncated timeline to get all of that work done. 

Robert looked over at Lora, as the almost empty plates were being taken away and their drinks were refilled.  “Lora, you said that your mother had some stuff for us.  It looks like we are mostly done with the tasks planned out for the day.  So, if you don’t mind?  It would be nice to see what she collected for us over the years.” 

Robert was careful not to say what planet or group he was talking about.  This was a public place, and there were strangers literally sitting only a few feet away from them.  This was the first time Robert had seen the restaurant this full of patrons.  Robert remembered that Dawn had known, that Lora was closely associated with this place.  Robert did not think, that it would take long for that information to become more widely known to a long list of people.  Almost every sale they made was going to be on the public record, in between 24 and 48 hours.  And then there were the rumors, that should be flying around by now. 

Lora looked down and started working on her computer for a few seconds, and then started talking as she flipped digital pages with little taps on the screen.  “It looks like everything is clear and running on schedule.  I don’t see why we can’t.  It will take some time to get there.”  She shoots Jess a look, and then raised one eyebrow at Robert. 

“The warehouse is on land, which was my grandmothers for I have no idea how long.  It takes about thirty to forty-five minutes to get out there, from here.  That is, if we don’t run into any bad traffic or accidents along the way.  Coming back is faster because rush hour will be going the other way, until we hit the drop port traffic.  There are a couple of liners taking off today, and that always plays havoc with road and air traffic until they are gone.” 

Jess gave a slight nod of her head at what Lora and Robert had said, and then added her two cents in.  “Well, I for one think that it is a great idea.  We will still, have to make some arrangements to have it delivered to the drop port, after we check it out first.  I don’t think we need Mike for this, and they might need him at the Lisbon Maru, when all of those workmechs arrive.”  Jess liked Mike, but it made more sense, that he would be more useful back at the Drop port.  He was young, and he had been spending a lot of time with someone from “The Families”.  That could be a bad thing or a good thing.  If he decided to become one.  Then he would know what to expect.  The bad part was that the secret of the Families being in the Inner Sphere was very closely guarded.  Everyone in SLIC knew, that familiarity breeds contempt for secrecy. 

Robert looked at Jess, and he could see the cress fallen Mike out of the corner of his eye.  “That makes sense, so let’s go people.” 

They got up from the table and started to move towards the stairs going down to the main door.  Jess caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and that clicked on her alert reflexes to full power.  Someone was watching them.  It was a younger man, and he had been trying to hide a communication device from view of the walking group.  If he had just used the thing, and not try to hide it from them as they walked by?  Jess probably would not have taken notice of the movement.  When Jess tried to make eye contact with first the person trying to hide the device, and then the other male sitting at the same table.  Both of them would look away from her, with quick jerks of the head.  They acted like they were trying to protect their identity from her.  This was atypical behavior, much less typical behavior in a crowded restaurant. 

When they left the café, but before they had made it to the taxi.  Jess asked Lora if Le Chiffre had any security cameras in the dining area or in the other main traffic zones of the restaurant.  She was disappointed to find out that they did not.  The people who owned the café thought that security cameras in the dining area would be bad for business.  She was right, but that was not going to make Jess’s job easier on finding out who their tail might be, or who they might be working for.  The hover car was waiting for them at a nearby parking spot, and they were able to quickly get out of sight from the crowd that was milling around the outside of the cafe’. 

The group was almost to the drop port, when Robert’s comm buzzed for attention.  It was the Cargo Master from the Maru.  They needed Mike back, to help move all the machines that were being dropped off to be loaded on to the ships by MMM marked transports.  The Cargo Master seemed very relieved that the Captain was already almost back to the ships, when he had asked for help.  As the sedan was pulling into the drop port.  They were passed by a pair of empty mech haulers heading out with the massive MMM logo painted on the sides and on the tops of the empty flatbeds.  This keyed up a memory that Robert might have forgotten, and now it was something that might be important.  It took him awhile to work through it, by then they could see the two dropships. 

“Lora, did I ever take care of that sales offer for fifty medium class lasers?”  Robert could not remember if he had taken care of that order or not, and now he was mentally kicking himself.  He had gotten all wrapped up in the excitement of buying big ticket items. 

Lora and Jess both turned in their seats to look at the Captain.  Lora blinked before answering the question.  “I sent the payment to MMM, as soon as the funds were in the bank to cover their total cost.  They were set on the price, but we only paid what MMM is charged for the weapons, when they are billed from that manufacturing subsidiary.  They should be at the drop port today or early tomorrow.  I told the Cargo Master about it, so he would not be surprised when they show up.  I must have forgotten to tell you, sorry Robert.” 

“Not your fault, Lora.  You could have told me, and I simply forgot that you did so.  It’s not like we have not had a few long days, sense we landed on this planet.”  A round of light laughing followed the statement by the senior officer, from the rest of his attached group.  He was 68, but he looked to be in his mid-forties, and he was the oldest person in the sedan. 

When the sedan pulled around one side of the White Rabbit.  The group in the VIP transport could see bipedal machines standing all over the place.  They looked like great metal statues on a god sized chess board.  Robert counted six, to include the Wolfhound mech from his seat in the back of the hover sedan.  The last mech almost looked like it was standing watch on a herd of sheep.  The Cargo Master was walking towards the still moving sedan at the quick step.  When the driver came to a stop.  The drop ship crewman opened one of the doors and looked into the passenger compartment.  He was in a hurry and sweating out bucket loads of water from his head.  He was the image of a man in deep work distress.

The man looked into the compartment making eye contact with each person in the back of the sedan, before saying anything in a silent salute.  “Sir!  I’m glad your back.  That yard ape of a Power loader driver is okay, with that type of Machine.  Anything else?  And he is a danger to life and limb.  I’m not only talking about his life, but everyone in the whole drop port.  He tripped over his own mechs feet, when he was moving one of those Rock Hounds.” 

He could see that the Captain was about to get out of the sedan, to most likely check on the machine and pilot.  “Don’t worry sir.  He is okay.  He only got a little knock on the head, and that had come from the ship’s Captain when he gave it to the ape.  The machine lost some armor plate on the right side, but we will be able to fix it in a few hours.  I was able to get it back onto its walking pads with me at the controls and the Power Loader helping me get her off the ground again.  I know I’m not good enough to get it into the cargo bay.  Not without breaking it, or something important on the ship while I’m moving it.” 

Robert settled back into the deep car seat, he looked over at the now red-faced Mike.  “Well Mike?  Looks like you have your work cut out for you, for the rest of the day.  When you’re done?  How about teaching that klutz how to pilot something else besides the loader?  That way he can be something else, besides being only a halfway good pilot with a Power Loader.  You never know, when we might need two of you to get stuff done in a hurry.” 

The Captain was smiling at the younger man, who was already reaching for the handle to open the door on his side of the sedan.  “Cargo Master, how is it going?  I can’t stay.  We have some more cargos to look at.  Also, I want you to come up with a list of one or two people.  Ones you think that we can train up on industrial mech piloting, in a short amount of time.  It will not be in their personnel jacket, I already looked.” 

The Cargo Master sat on the open-door ledge of the sedan, to answer his boss.  “We are doing okay, so far.  The two Space Worthy containers of lasers came in.  Each one had twenty-five, 1ton lasers packed in it as it was supposed to.  We already have them inspected and we had them loaded onto the ship as soon as we could.”  He stopped talking for a second, and he had a questioning look on his face.  After a few seconds, he decided that it was okay to ask his question. 

“Sir, did you know that they are all new built weapons?  The ones I checked; all have date stamps of being built this year.”  The Cargo Master knew that this information must be passed along.  It might not seem like a lot, to most people from the Star League.  Then again, this was only one shipment.  That would mean that a large production run had been made, if these weapons were the extras.  This was something they had not expected to find, after reviewing all the information from the previous resupply runs.  The SLiE had been the ones selling weapons, used weapons at that.  Those weapons had been traded for top dollar.  Now to find that the locals had new built weapons, and enough of certain types to sell the excess off?  That was a major bit of new information. 

Jess looked at the Captain and the Cargo Master, and after making eye contact with each of them.  She threw a head motion towards the driver.  Robert did not show that he had seen it.  That is until he opened his mouth.  “That is a surprise, thank you Master.” 

Her glance toward the driver was the only hint that the Cargo Master needed to drop that line of talking, that second.  The Cargo Master caught the hint.  He bowed his head and pulled himself the rest of the way out of the sedan.  He closed the door behind him.  As he turned, he started yelling at his crew to get back to work.  As soon as the man was a safe distance from the sedan, it pulled away from the two dropships.  It took the driver some skill, to pull away.  Not with all of the expensive machines in the local area waiting to be taken care of and loaded into the huge cargo carriers. 

Mike was already moving one of the industrial mechs up the only loading ramp, which was open to the rest of the world.  After entering the ship.  He would move the massive machine to a lift system, that would take it to whatever cargo bay the Cargo Master wanted this machine stored in.  It would be up to Mike to maneuver the machine into the proper place in the cargo bay after the lift stopped.  Then some of the other crewmembers could secure the machine, so that it would not fall over before they got home. 

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

The other crew would tie it down, in such a way so that it was secure, even if the ship was pulling the maximum g’s it could with evasive actions thrown on top.  The cargo could not be allowed to move, even an inch.  You did not want any cargo moving around, without some adult supervision, at the best of times much less in an emergency.  That was how you lost ships.  That had been the case even before the first dropship had been built.  If something was moving fast enough, and had enough mass?  It would open the ship’s hull to space.  Or it might break something, which the ship needs to keep the soft bits alive inside the vessel in the unforgiving deep black. 


The route going out of the Drop port going to Lora’s mom’s warehouse took them on the major routes or traffic arteries of the largest city on the planet.  It was rated as a high-speed route, and it still took almost an hour to reach the location they needed or wanted to go to.  Soon they were outside the city into steadily growing open plots of undeveloped land.  They took an exit off the high-speed route that was only marked as number 135.  The property was a massive plot of land, for someone who was raised living on jumpships, dropships, or in a larger city.  This plot of land was made up of hundreds of acres of pasture, trees, and a few large barns.  It was about the size of a well to do hobby farm.  It was like a dozen other parcels of land that they had passed already. 

Lora directed the driver to one of the more central, of the Barns this property held.  She had the driver park in the shade provided by the building and a nearby bunch of native trees.  The three people exited the sedan, but the driver remained as always.  The cover story was that Lora was showing the two off worlders her family home.  It was supposed to be some kind of a friendly reward, for all the money she was making off of them.  The locals knew, that only the very rich could own land larger than a few hectares.  Lora took almost an hour showing Robert and Jess around the property.  It was enough time wasted, to make anyone trailing and spying on them go to sleep.  The third barn, that she took them to, was the “Warehouse”.  It did not look any different than the other half dozen barns on the property, from the outside. 

The Warehouse was large for a ranch building, but small for a warehouse.  That was good, because warehouses where known to get raided.  As a general rule barns did not get raided, all that often.  Normally it was only after the raiders found something else from somewhere else, which would lead them to a given barn to look at more closely and raid it. 

The barn had an open center area that formed a 9m tall alleyway going down the length of the barn.  On each side of this alley, were two decks or floors of protected storage areas above ground level.  There also was one level of storage, underground.  To get to the lower level, Lora’s mom had installed a lift to go from the ground level to all floors of the modified Barn.  It could carry personnel or heavy items to any of the levels.  The bottom level was where they started looking at all of the things that Lora’s mom had collected for the clan.  There was no way to “see” the underground level.  You had to find the stairs or see the heavy-duty industrial lift and know that it would go down one more level.  It was pretty good camouflage. 

Robert was looking around the dark room, when Lora flipped a switch and turned on the light bars that ran down both sides of the room.  The underground room was full of cloth and heavy plastic covered machines.  And that was about all Robert could tell from where he was walking.  “Lora do you have an inventory, by chance?”  It was over whelming looking at items, that for the life of him.  Robert had no idea what they did or could do. 

While Robert continued looking around the underground room.  Lora had picked up an old-style clip board with hard copy paper on it.  Lora’s mom had not trusted putting this information anywhere, that someone else might be able to access it remotely.  Lora was looking down at the neat hand-written notes on half a dozen yellowed pages, and a little tear was in the corner of her eye while she started reading down the list of items. 

“There are five of the 6m long horizontal metal cutting Lathes with four different cutting heads built into each of the lathes.  There are five complete CNC machines.  Each with a 6m square working area.  Each of the machines comes complete with a full set of cutting heads, whatever that means.  Two of the CNC’s are twenty-one axis machines, and the other three are marked as “only” being eighteen axis machines.  From what I could find out.  All five of the CNC’s were recovered from a flattened Battlemech factory in the FWL, from sometime back around the middle of the First SW.  They were cleaned, rebuilt and are fully operational, when mom picked them up.  I don’t’ think that any power or maintenance has been done on them since they were put down here.”  Lora looked back down at the yellowed paper again, before she started talking.  Her voice was starting to crack, just a little as she spoke about her mother’s life work. 

“There are two complete sets of computer-controlled optics grinders, for making lasing lenses.  According to the notes?  They have the software loaded to make lenses for anything from Blazer Rifles to the standard largest laser carried by mechs in the Inner Sphere.  There are metal bending machines, drill presses, myomer twisters and setters.” 

She had to take another breath before she continued.  She was fighting not to cry.  This was only the second time, that she had been down here, since her mother had died.  She had never completely gone down the list of items.  She just had a faint idea of who it was for, and that was it, when she had first looked at this list.  Now she was glad that she did not just start to sell it off, when she had first found out about what this building held. 

“Upstairs?  We have boxes of different types of machine tools and bits, or parts for them.  She has masses for each of the lots, which she marked down at the time of purchased.  She did not have a detailed inventory of them, and I did not know where to start on how to draw one up.  When I added the mass of each box up, which she had listed?”  She was tapping the clip board.  “She was able to get about sixty tons of parts in total, and that is only what is upstairs.”  Her voice was starting to crack again, and she just stopped talking.  She was looking at this mass of equipment with a new or fresh set of eyes.  This was going to help “her” people stay alive for another few years.  This was not done up by some crazy woman.  It was the work of almost a lifetime by a pair of patriots, and they had kept it quiet from everyone. 

Robert and Jess looked over at the other woman, but it was Jess that was closer to her.  She stepped over to the woman and put her arm around her.  Jess gave her a sideways hug by pulling in Lora’s shoulders into her chest.  With the local woman closer, she spoke softly into her ear. 

“Your mom and grandmother did a great job.  This is exactly the kind of stuff, that we need back home.  It must have been a long and tedious job to track down this stuff, buy it on the sly, and then be able to hide it here for all those years.  It would have taken a lot of luck, for us to find even half of this.”  Jess held the woman tightly for a few more seconds. 

The group used the lift to return to the ground floor and go out the smallest door of the building.  The rest of the tour was camouflaged to hide the millions of C-Bills worth of hard to replace equipment from any unwanted outside attention.  One time, while they were out of the line of sight of the sedan.  Robert stopped the group, so that they could finish the business they had come out here to do.  It had taken that long for the shock of what they had seen to ware off. 

Robert spun around quick as a snake and got in front of both women.  “Okay Lora.  How much is the stuff worth?  I’m not going to dicker with you.  Just tell me, so I can try to balance the debt owed to one of The Families by our people.”  Robert was looking right into the eyes of the woman in front of him, and he was waiting for her to say something.  He could tell that she was feverishly working her mind behind the red rimmed eyes. 

[cawest]

Lora was thinking about her mother, when the Captain had spun and stopped her from walking any further.  “Robert, Jess, I have no idea how much money my mother spent on that stuff over the years.  She just used what she had.  I have not found many bills of sales to base any real cost estimate on.  I do know, from a note.  That she budgeted about half of the profits, that she made with the dealings from her past to buy and ship that stuff out here.” 

Lora said as she pointed vaguely towards the hidden warehouse.  “She would go to businesses that were having going out of business sales, and she would try to pick up whatever she thought was worth it.  I tried to track what she spent on this stuff, after I found out about what she was doing.  I could only find about three million C-Bills in purchases, in the public records.  That was all I could track directly back to her.” 

She got a little choked up, then re-centered her mental gears.  “Why don’t you reimburse me that, and I will call it square.  I have made a bucket load of a commission over the last few days, so far.”  She gave Robert a sly smile, this was her first smile in a while.  “I will also need you to cover any shipping and packing cost, to get it out of the Warehouse and to your ships.  You do that?  And I would call that even.  Besides, I remember what three million C-Bills looks like in cash, from what you did to Don today.  And that was an amazing move, by the way.” 

Robert looked at Lora for what he thought was a few minutes, then made and odd facial expression.  He was not sure, that she had thought this all the way through.  And like Don, he did not want to take advantage of someone who was under duress.  He decided to give her as much information that he knew, as facts.  Besides she was a Family member, and it would not due to screw one of them over.  He wanted and needed her, to make a good decision.  The last thing he wanted was her to have regrets after they had left this system and poison the well. 

“Lora, are you sure you want to do this?  I’m not an expert on most of this type of equipment.  I command a JumpShip, not a machine shop.  I have managed one on a dropship and what was on my JumpShip.  Still, I would think that three million is a bit light.  I think that we could start up some low rate production of say four Blazer rifles a week, about a month after we get back home.  That is with the laser lens grinding equipment alone.”  He wanted her to have as many facts as he could.  He felt like he owed her.  After all the hard work she and her family had done, and for what they had lost being so far from home. 

Lora was looking off into the distance.  “Yes Robert, I am sure.  Mom would have loved to know that it will be put to good use.  Besides my commissions off of you is already at thirty million C-Bills, and it seems like it is growing every hour.  I will have the most disposable income of any single person on the planet, even after taxes for a few years.” 

She gave them a little smile, which went to a grin quickly. “I don’t need to be greedy, just yet.  That can wait, until your next trip.  I will have to get used, to having this amount of money sitting in the bank.”  She had a larger smile on her face this time.  “Just think about how this will help my reputation.  I will have clients on every other JumpShip that happens to stop by this mud ball, by the end of the year.  Robert you just made my career.  I might have to start turning away would be clients.”

She stopped talking, as an old memory popped into her head.  “Now I know how mom and her mother made their reputation when they were getting started.  It was a supply run from home!” 

Robert gave a deep bellied laugh.  The look on Lora’s face just could not be ignored.  It also seemed strange to kids to find out that their parents knew what they were doing, after all.  “I think you will get used to it, soon enough.  You have a complete copy of our little shopping list.  I don’t know if it will be a hundred percent accurate, the next time we will be seeing each other.  I think that most of the things you might be able to pick up, we will be willing to take off your hands.  We could leave an account, that you could draw on to acquire things for us.  Would that help you, or hurt you?  I believe your right about how they made their marks in life.  I was not in high or even a mid-level command position, when they were set up to come out here.  Beth and I last saw each other when we graduated from Finishing school.  I did not know that she and her mother were coming to this planet when she had asked to become a Family.” 

Both of the women were shocked by what Robert had just said.  It was Jess, not Lora who came out of the stun silence first.  “Sir, how much would you leave in this account?  We don’t know when we will be back to this planet.  It could be a waste of money, which we might need later on.”  The tone and look were not, in anyway, an attack on Roberts command style or leadership.  It was Jess playing the role of devil’s advocate. 

Robert had not really thought this idea all the way through.  The idea had just popped into his head.  Robert had always been very good at thinking on his feet, and he quickly came up with an explanation.  “Giving money to the Families, to be used to buy materials, which the clan could use?  Plus, having them hold on to those same materials for an unknowable length of time.  At least until someone could come back and get those materials?  That is not a waste.  If I remember right?  When a family was dropped off.  They were given, what they called seed money.  I have no idea how much it was.  There are things that you cannot tell even your closest friends.  I choose to look at it, as that we are just recharging that seed money fund.  Its good planning, if you ask me.  As for the amount?  I think about ten million C-Bills would be enough seed money, to go along with the eight million we are going to pay for what this family has put together with that first infusion of seed money.  I think Lora could make that stretch out and make this great cache seem like a second-hand thrift store. 

Robert turned a little more to one side, to face his Intel person.  It was time to give her a class in cargo ship operations and management.  “Jess we use Shipping Factors back home, all the time.  We will even use something like them on this trip, more than likely.  The only difference?  It is that this time?  It is that the Factor is a member of a Family, and not some temporary hire that we have never met before we showed up in that system. “ 

Robert made eye contact with Lora and held it, until she nodded her head in agreement.  “So, it’s settled.  Lora will be our official Factor, here.  I’m sure you have the paperwork somewhere, in your computer systems to make it all legal and above board.  When the packers come out, you will not be able to keep your part in our operations as quiet as they have been in the past.  You can just tell them that your mother had the stuff sitting around and we bought it.  And it will be true.”  Now Robert had an evil smile on his face.  “Speaking of computers?  We have one we can leave you, if you need an upgrade.  I understand that they are a lot more powerful, than you can normally find on the local market.” 

He gave a soft chuckle, and Jess turned white as a sheet.  “I would be careful who you let see it.  The last ComStar dirtbag, who saw it?  Let’s just say that he wanted to have its babies or something.  It should be helpful to you.  You will have to load whatever software you need, on them for your work.  They are completely wiped systems, but they do have some horsepower compared to what the locals have in their offices.” 

Lora thought about it for a quick second, and she tries to weigh all of the potential issues.  There were a lot of them, that had come up right off the top of her head.  All had work arounds with legal precedents on the books, which she knew of or had used in the past.  She also could use a new computer system.  Hers was old, but it still did the job that she needed for it to do.  If this new system was as powerful as Robert was saying?  Well, if not she could just use it as a prop in her office.  If it came down to that.  She could always sell it to MMM or another large business, if she needed to.  Having a few Lost Tech devices sitting around your office could be a powerful bargaining tool. 

“I could use a better home and office computer system.”  She held up her Noteputor and kind of waved it in the air.  “I was lucky and picked this up from a mercenary unit, which had just come in from the FWL for some vacation time with one of the circuses.  I don’t want to tell you how much it cost me, but it has made my job a lot easier.  And it is about three times as fast as the paperweight I currently have sitting in my office.” 

“Well now that this has been taken care of.  How about we go back to the drop port?  I’m beat, and Lora needs to make some arrangements for all of those tools and boxes that need to be moved.  While we are there?  We can load up one of the computer systems that we were hoping to sell, and she can take it back to her office.”  Robert gave Lora and Jess a little smile. 

“Lora, let me give you a little advice.  No matter how hard you my try to hide it?  ComStar will find out about it, sooner or later.  So, don’t hide it in the first place.”  Robert raised an eyebrow at Lora.  “I would suggest that when one of those robed crazies asks you about it?  You should just tell them you have it, and don’t lie to them.  You should just sell it to them for whatever you can get.  It will drive those guys’ nuts trying to figure out, who else we might have sold them to without them knowing about it.”  Robert had the evil grin plastered all over his face again, and this time Jess had a matching one to show that she agreed with the whole idea. 

The group walked back to the sedan and started the long drive back to the drop port.  While they were going down the smooth road, both Jess and Robert fell into a light sleep.  Lora was busy making some contacts for a work crew, trucks, shipping materials, and lifting equipment to clean out her hidden little warehouse.  Robert was going to have to pay extra for the short notice job.  In the end, a large crew would be coming out to her mom’s old place tonight.  They were to load up the equipment, and transport all of it back to the drop port as soon as a container was loaded.  Every one of them would be drawing double overtime, and Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale would be gladly picking up the tab.  This made a lot of people very happy, when those expanded paychecks hit the banks. 

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One of the nice things about being on Dunianshire?  It was that it had a drop port, that was active twenty-four hours a day.  It also was open every day of the year to help support both the local industry, and the whole Magistracy of Canopus as well.  The day shift was a little busier than the night shift, but it was not that much slower than the day shift. 

Lora had just finished her work, when the VIP hover vehicle pulled up to the dropship.  Both of the other passengers were still snoring lightly, when the sedan came to a complete stop.  Lora was looking forward to taking a nap soon, also.  But the idea of making so much money, in such a short amount of time was firing her engines into overdrive mode.  She would catch up on sleep, and maybe take some time off when Robert and his people had left the system.  As soon as the hover car stopped the two off worlders popped awake, like they had not been sleeping. 

The open area around both dropships was still a busy area, when the hover car pulled to a stop.  A mech hauler was unloading another of the Carbine industrial mechs near a closed dropship hatch.  There were still four other work machines waiting to be loaded into one of the dropships in different areas of the working space.  They were waiting along with a shipping container filled with something hidden inside their metal walls of protection. 

Jess went towards the passenger hatch, so that she could have the computer system loaded into the sedan.  While Jess was doing that.  Robert and Lora went to find the senior Cargo Master.  They had some bad or good news, to give him about another sixty + tons of equipment coming to be loaded.  The bad part?  That was that the sixty+ tons did not count the containers, which they would have to be loaded in.  The Containers were used so that cargo could be stacked better in the cargo holds.  They also would hold any padding needed to protect the items from being bumped around in the spaceflight, which they were planning on taking in the near future.  Packing something like that was an art form unto itself, and it took years of work to become good at. 

Lora was the one to let the Cargo Master know about the late delivery of over sixty tons of tools and equipment.  Robert was only a few paces behind her, to evaluate how she handled the task.  The Cargo Master was very concerned about the idea of that much lose cargo added to some other items that had arrived, that already was “loose” in the different cargo bays.  One of the things that they had not loaded, before they had left New Circe, had been empty shipping containers for any lose cargo.  It had not been policy to take empty cargo containers.  He was worried that this would get worse, as they picked up items at some of the less well traveled ports. 

Robert quickly authorized the Cargo Master to pick up a dozen empty containers, which were always available at the larger drop ports for a reasonable price.  He agreed that it would make things easier, when they stopped by planets that were not this developed.  The Cargo Master was happily surprised, when he was told that they would not need any of those new containers for supplies that Lora had just arranged to have dropped off.  The Cargo Master was very happy that they would come to him already to load, stack, locked down, and sealed when they got to the dropship.  He knew that they were getting short of time, and he was betting.  That he was going to be getting cargos up to the last hour, before they lit the fires under the dropships.  They could not afford to let anyone watching them, know that they were leaving earlier than announced. 

Now that Lora was done, she said goodbye to Robert and walked back to the waiting sedan.  She needed to talk to the driver, before he tried to leave for the day.  Now Robert could do his job as the mission commander.  “So, Cargo Master how is it going?  Did things settle down, after we dropped Mike off?”  Robert asked, as he looked around at the cargo waiting to be loaded onto the two ships.  To his trained eye.  The stacks of cargo seemed to be growing faster, than they could get it loaded into the two dropships. 

The Cargo Master pulled a rag to wipe his forehead of sweat.  “It’s going about as well as it can, sir.  We had to delay loading some of the workmechs for a while after they first arrived.  Then we had to delay them again, when we had a load of flatbed cargo trucks come in.  It made more since to get them inside first, it is normally easier to load certain workmechs last.” 

The Cargo Master was looking at the field of stuff, that still needed to be loaded.  Normally, as in back home.  He would have a list of everything at once, and then he would adjust where he wanted the stuff and when it should show up to be loaded.  On a resupply mission?  He had forgotten what it was like to pack on the fly and have to do it quickly.  All before someone got froggy and made a jump at them on a drop port, or while they were still in close orbit of a planet. 

Robert looked at the younger man, but he was not that much younger than Robert was.  “Cargo Master.  The cargo holds belong to you, and you know best how to load the ships for a safe journey.  I will not second guess anything that has to do with the efficient use of the space and lift capability of these ships, when it comes to cargo.  Those decisions are for you and your Captain to make.  I will not second guess you, and I will not support anyone who would try and second guess the expert that was on the scene.  I will do my best to let you know what is coming.  In fact, you might know what is coming before I do sometimes.”  Robert gave the man a smile and a slap on the back.  He knew that they had an additional disadvantage on this run.  Before they could have used the massive cargo space on the Black Lion class Rickenbacker to cross load to get the maximum value for a given amount of cargo space that the dropships had. 

“Thank you, Sir.  It just would have been nice, if the venders would have stuck to the planned delivery schedule.  Even those Frakrs over at MMM, could not even keep to the plans that they sent over.  I would expect a better shipping department, from a company that size.”  The Cargo Master stopped talking and looked over Robert’s right shoulder and grimaced.  “Now I bet that we have a 70ton cargo truck, which only was supposed to have been here an hour ago coming in.” 

Robert turned around and saw that there was a massive recovery truck coming up behind him.  It was slowly coming up behind him.  It was not on a trailer, but a driver had brought it all the way over from the sales lot under its own power from across town.  On the back of the huge truck, was a smaller 50ton recovery vehicle strapped down on the open space behind the crew cabin.  As the massive truck turned, it showed the reason that the massive recovery vehicle was moving so slowly.  It was towing a pair of 50ton trucks behind it.  Robert had to fight not to laugh.  That was one way to cut down on the number of drivers, which they needed to pay for.  After all it was a recovery and transport vehicle, so why not use it as such and save the shipper some money. 

“Well, Cargo Master.  I will leave you to your work.  I will be in my cabin, if you need me for anything.”  Robert knew it was time to leave, before the other man had a heart attack.  He also had to bite his lower lip, from making a snappy comment.  It would have no doubt sounded funny to him, but not to the senior Cargo Master. 

Before Captain Copeland could move, the Cargo Master had one more thing to tell him.  “Sir, you might want to stop by the meeting room first.  A few hours ago, a delivery truck stopped and wanted you to personally sign for a small package.  They let me do it, but they had to drop off a paper wrapped package that was addressed to you and Jess.  To give the services credit.  He was doing his job, but he sat here for half an hour before I was able to put my name on the line for it.  I have got to be getting back to work, Sir.”  The man said and pointed to Jess.  She was overseeing a second person loading a box into the main passenger area of a sedan. 

Lora and Robert walked back towards the waiting car.  Robert pulled out another C-Bill, this time a fifty instead of the hundred, which he had given the day before.  Lora needed to get back to her mother’s place, as well as drop off the computer system that they had loaded into the sedan at her office.  She would be returning to the dropship in a few hours, to finish up some paperwork for the locals.  It was easier to do it at the drop port, in case she needed to get any signatures from the Captain that had “hired her”.  Then she would see what else might need to be done, that she could help with.  That was what she was thinking, anyway. 

The two people made their way into the massive ship after waving to Lora, as her transport pulled away.  Robert told Jess about the mystery package waiting for them in the meeting room.  He was rewarded with a pair of raised eyebrows.  This was a first, which they could remember.  And that was not normally what someone would call, a “good thing”. 

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

Jess and Robert looked at the wrapped package setting on the long table in front of them.  They had been talking about what it might be.  Jess had some worry, that it might be a bomb of some kind.  From what had happened with the attempted break in earlier?  That was not too far out of the ballpark, in Robert’s mind also.  It was not until Jess got up to walk around the table, and noticed a card taped to that offside of the thick package that things changed. 

Until then, they had been sitting as close to the main hatch as they could get.  Jess leaned over and pulled the card off from the back of the package and opened it.  She started to laugh, and then passed the small card over to Robert.  He was giving her a look, like she might need to see a doctor or have a white “I love me jacket” fitted for her.  Robert took the offered card, and soon started to snicker right along with Jess.  The card was a thank you card, from Dawn at the MMM showroom.  They both were now thankful that they had not brought anyone else into the room with “the package”. 

Jess had started to open the package on the desk while Robert was finishing reading the thank you card for a second time.  She was like a kid on Christmas, as the decretive paper flew around in small and odd shaped pieces of foil color.  It was a short stack of books, hidden under the two layers of wrapping paper.  The first one was an updated copy of the book, which had so enthralled the two of them at the Showroom.  The second and thinner book, was listed as a companion to the first book.  It would give a detailed combat review of a few selective units that used some of the machines from the first book.  Between the two books?  They had a detail list of over three hundred different war fighting machines or modifications of them, and notable units that used signature machines.  They were what was in use by all the powers of the Inner Sphere, and most of the major mercenary units. 

Those two books alone were going to drive the intelligence section back home, nuts being able to go over them.  The hard part would be keeping the books clean of drool from the SLIC agents.  What was still drawing Robert’s attention in the second book, was the list of new machines coming into service.  They had names like the Raven, Wolfhound, Cataphract, Hatamoto-Chi, and Daboku.  There were even a few more that were listed as being worked on for future deployment.  They were all machines that the Star League had never seen, much less produced.  He would have to wait until later to read the six-page section on the Wolf’s Dragoons. 

[cawest]

What Jess was most concerned was about the section covering the lower tech Star League machines, that were still being built or showing up in ever larger numbers.  What she was thinking about, was how long it might be.  Before all of those machines were rearmed, with what the SLDF regular army had to fight with so long ago.  Then how long would it be, before something equal to the Royal designs started marching off all of those production lines.  Jess was having a mental review of an old show, she had seen as a young adult.  It had been about the massive rearmament of the Wolverines, after they had founded New Circe in 2870.  The auto factories had been working overtime, with line after line of Royal Lancelots and an equal number of Royal Black Knights walking out of the factories as fast as they could be built.  Those two machines had first refilled, and then worked on expanding the fighting forces the Exiles had. 

New Circe might have the edge in the range and firepower per machine with their growing number of clan-based weapons, but the Inner Sphere had lots of combat machines.  If this kept up?  How long would it take before the house armies were the equal in base tech, with what most of Clan Wolverine reserve machines went to the field with?  How long would it take them to catch up to the rest of the Clans tech base?  Having lots of people?  Also meant having lots of minds, coming up with clever things to fight a war with.  That is, if they could keep from blowing themselves back to the near dark ages again?  How would the House Lord’s react, to finding the SLiE?  There were a lot of questions, and she had none of the answers. 

After a few minutes to quickly look over the books, both people started to get tired.  It had been a long few days.  They retired to their rooms for a nap, before they had to be back to work.  The stress of the possible bomb had drained them of their last energy reserves. 

Robert did not need his alarm clock to wake him up, from his long nap.  His stomach did that for him, no problem.  After getting the sleep out of his eyes, and after a quick look in the cabin mirror.  He put some water on his face.  Robert was now ready to be seen, by the crew of the ship.  He stopped by the small mess hall and got himself some food, to satisfy his stomach.  He also used the time to visit with several members of the crew, which he had not been able to do until that time.  After dropping his plate off, so that it could be cleaned for later use.  He made his way to the dropship’s bridge, this time he took the lift and not the stairs.  It was time to play the part of the mission commander, again. 

There were only a few people on duty, when Robert entered the command heart of the ship.  He was given a quick update on all of the ships and the crews under his command.  There were not any surprises waiting on him, so far.  With the update of the small fleet complete.  He left a message, to be passed along at shift change, with the senior person on the bridge. 

The message was that he would be in the ship’s main meeting/briefing room.  He planned on going over notes and doing paperwork, if anyone needed him.  As he was leaving the bridge.  He tried not to notice, that one of the duty crew was pushing a button on his control console.  It was most likely notifying the dropships commander, that he had stopped by.  That was one of the subtle signs of a good crew.  They could do the mission without supervision, but they would always let higher know when someone senior had stopped by. 

Robert was alone in the meeting room for some time.  He would alternate between reviewing some of the paperwork that running this small fleet required of him to do, and some more enjoyable research.  Nothing in any of the reports from the Styx said anything about, the HPG intercepts or the status of the decoding of the other messages it had intercepted.  He would have to wait, until he had re-docked to the larger ship to find out about those messages.  There was no need to take the chance that someone else might intercept their messages and find out about the capabilities, that a “normal” JumpShip should not have. 

He did have a report about the first incident of crime on this mission.  The device that was found, had been looked at.  It had turned out to be a very high-end hacking deck, which the attackers had used to breach the hatch of the White Rabbit the other day.  The device was so high tech?  That it was better than anything that the clan had taken into Exile with it, so long ago.  This was a very disturbing device to find in use on the outer edge of human space. 

Robert was sure that there was a long list of people, back home, who would love to take it apart, to see how it worked.  A different list of people he knew, would like to see the decoding software that the system was sure to have loaded within its memory storage areas.  All so the thing could work its magic on other electronic devices.  Just think what they might find deeper into the Inner Sphere, if this was an example of what the edge had access to. 

Now that the nightmare was locked up inside a hidden compartment of the senior Cargo Master on the Maru.  No one wanted to damage it, or it be found by an inspection team.  It was likely to have some sort of anti-tampering device loaded onto the mass of plastic and ceramics.  It would be better to wait till they got home where they had the time, more experience personnel, and better tools to do this kind of work. 

Robert signed off at the bottom of the report, so that it would be noted that he approved of the actions taken about the device.  He put it in the growing pile of hard copies.  Those would be locked into the ship’s main safe, when he was done for the day or when he left this room.  Whatever came first today, and who knew which that might be.  After this morning, there was room for the paperwork to fit into the safes.  He took the time to read two or three of the entries, from the books the Dawn had given him to take a break and refresh his mind. 

He had just returned to the mission paperwork waiting for him, when both of the ship’s Captains and their Cargo Masters entered the room threw the closed metal hatch.  Robert’s eyes were drawn to the opening hatch.  “That was good timing,” thought Robert. 

It might not look good to see the mission commander relaxing and reading, when there was work that needed to get done.  Robert looked up and then waved to the chairs on the sides of the table, which dominated the small metal room.  The four men waited until Robert had finished the report he was working on, before they would distract him with what they wanted to talk to him about.  Robert was wondering if it was going to be good news or bad news.  If it was really that important?  They would have not taken seats at the table. 

As Robert signed the last document, he made eye contact with the men.  “I would like to tell you both, that you have done an amazing job.”  Robert looked at the two Dropship’s Captains first.  “Your crews have behaved amazingly well, and I have authorized an additional amount of the cash funds to be turned over to both of you.  This information is for you to pass along to your crews.  Each Captain will decide the amount to be given to each crewperson, and when they will be given the cash.  Now, how are we doing on the resupply and any other cargos that we can find?” 

The Captain of the Maru was the first to speak.  “Sir, we have all the cargo you have paid for, loaded and secured in the bays.  The perishables supplies will start to be delivered around 0800, and those should only take an hour to load and tie down.  I contacted all of the ships at the jump point, and they have sent a list of types and amounts of food that would top off each ship.  I put the order in for everyone.  We will be able to cross load, once we are back on board the Styx.” 

The Captain of the Lisbon Maru pushed over a slip a paper with a number handwritten on it.  “I need to be able to give or transfer this amount as payment, when the food is delivered.  I did not want to use the cash, which we had on hand and prepay for it.  I like to be able to check stuff like that, before we load or pay for it.” 

The Captain shrugged his thin shoulders. “You know.  Just in case someone wants to play games and sell us rotten or nearly rotten food.”  He did not need to say the word “again”.  It had happened on almost every supply run that had been made.  It would be on some nowhere planet, and someone would try to sell them leftovers at fresh food prices. 

Robert screwed up his face.  The thought of paying for rotten food, and then having to be stuck with it until they could dump it into the emptiness of space.  It had happened before to him, once, while he had been in command of the Styx.  It would not happen again, if Robert had anything to say about it.  He was very pleased that the Mule’s captain had thought of a way and had implemented ways to mitigate that issue without being told or asked. 

“Again, good call Captain.  We will only transfer the funds via an electronic transfer.  But only when you’re satisfied with the food, and not a second before.  I would not like to have to explain, back home.  About how we lost a few thousand C-bills worth of food, when they check out the books back home.  Do you have any more leads come up on cargos, which we might be able to pick up?  You all know the ones we are looking for?”  Robert knew that there had been a few dozen contacts, and that did not count the list of the MMM ones, for different contract work.  Most had not taken “no” as an answer, and they had kept calling about charter loads.  The group of four had a good laugh about that one. 

This time it was the senior Cargo Master who spoke up.  “Sir, I was contacted by a personal transport vender.  He drove right out to us, while we were receiving and loading cargos from other sources.”  The Cargo Master gave his head a little shake thinking about the gutsy car salesman, that had shown up on their doorsteps. 

”He told me, that he had some transports.  One’s that matched what we had posted, that we wanted to buy.  I told him that you did not have the time to go check them out today.  I thought he just would leave.  Instead he came out with the idea that he could load up a few dozen auto transports, and he could bring them out for you to pick what we wanted right off of the transporters.  Before you say it, Sir.  I told him that there was no way we would buy that many.” 

The head shaking got more vigorous from the man in charge of loading and handling all of the cargos.  “I even told him that, I would not guarantee that we would buy even one of whatever he brought out to us.  That did not seem to bother him.  He just smiled and walked away.”  The Cargo Master had a somewhat flustered expression on his face.  He had never had to deal with something like that before, in all of his years in space.  Dealing with the changes, caused by outsiders was not the Head Cargo Master strong suit.  Not by a long shot. 

Captain Copeland almost let a smile cross his well-schooled face.  “Don’t worry about it, Cargo Master.  If he shows up again?  We will see what he has to offer.  Well, and we will just have to wait until tomorrow, to worry about it.  I think he was an owner and main operator of some small used truck or car lot.  He must have seen the information we posted and heard the rumors about our buying up certain types of cargos.”  Robert just hoped that the car salesman was not going to try to overcharge them if he did have something, they needed back home.  Robert gave a slight shrug.  You never know, if a small shop had enough drive?  They must both show up and have something that he thought might be worth buying. 

“That is about what I told him. Sir!”  This was said by the dropship Captain of the Lisbon Maru, as he looked at both men.  “Sorry sir.  I did not mean to jump in like that.”  After getting a nod from his Cargo Master that he was done.  He decided to take up the meeting. 

He looked at his notes and with the free air and started his brief.  “I was contacted by someone from the Aerospace Division of MMM.  They picked up a rumor.  That we might be interested in some large aerospace parts, that they had on hand.  When I asked what they might have for sale?  They told me that they have two complete, new built Leopard class ships engines that are still in the boxes.  They also have a factory rebuilt engine of the same class, which they would like to sell.  I think they heard about the Styx buying JumpShip parts, and with the Hobgoblin out there?  Someone over there went fishing.” 

The dropship Captain looked over to Robert.  “I sent the Chief Engineer over to check them out.  When she came back?  She said that they all look good.  She took some measurements, and they seem to be built to the same specifications that we use back home.  They are only across the drop port, so at worst.  It would only be a waste of an hour or so of her time, if they were junk.  I would have waited, but since they were so close to us.  I sent her, under my own orders.  The engine cores are already in shipping containers, so it could be a quick load up.  I checked with the Cargo Master, and we have space and the lift available, even if we pick up all three sets of dropship power units.” 

Robert was thinking, long and hard.  Dropship engines were not on the list of items to buy.  They could make all manner of drop ship engines back on New Circe.  They had to support their, not so small, dropship fleet for all of these years.  They could and had made brand new dropships in the past.  That did not mean that it was simple, quick, or cheap to do so.  With almost half a dozen Leopard class dropships in operation in the SLiE?  Then having an extra trio of engines would allow something else to be done, instead of making those parts needed for the Leopard Carriers power plants. 

“That is good enough for me, Captain.  If you both think that they are good?  We will try to see what I can do.  Do you know how much they are asking for them?” 

“Sir, these are all complete engines.  They told my Engineer, that they wanted twenty million C-Bills for each of them.  I think that is overpriced somewhat, for the new built engines.  It is very overpriced for the rebuilt one.  We have no idea how old it is.  Or even if it has had a complete factory rebuilt, as advertised.  We do know that they make that class of dropship completely, on this planet.  I don’t think they would try to pass something off as a new engine, which is not, into a local made new space frame.  Now, if we can get them all for a good price?  I know that it would make “The Station’s” maintenance crew very happy.  We can make them back home, but it would mean that we could do something else with the factory floor space.” 

The dropship’s Captain was looking down at his folded hands in his lap.  He had no idea that his commander had been thinking the same thing a few seconds before.  He knew, what he would like Captain Copeland to do.  Then again.  They were talking about a lot of money, which might be put to better uses down the road by the more experienced mission commander.  That did not even count the cargo space they would use. 

Robert let a little smile come to his face.  It was good that the younger dropship commander got a little taste of what it was like every hour for the mission commander.  “Captain!  This is one of those times, that I’m glad this port is open all night.  Contact them and forward a copy of the message down to me.  Tell them, that they are to contact me.  If they would still like to sell those plasma throwers?  We will see if I can get them here at least a few hours, before we lift off.” 

Robert looked down at his old watch “I want to light the fires, in 36 hours.”  Copeland looked around the table.  It seemed like that was all they wanted to talk about, but he needed to make sure.  “If that is all?  Then I will let you all get back to taking care of the ships.  I will be here for some time, if anyone needs me.  I will handle the call about those engines, from down here.” 

##########


The four men rose from the chairs and left the room to the small fleet commander.  A few minutes later, the wall mounted phone buzzed for his attention.  When Robert picked it up and identified himself to the bridge communication crewwoman.  She informed him that the salesperson was on the line referencing the dropship engines, which they were trying to sell.  Jess walked into the briefing room just as Robert was getting ready to do some horse trading over the phone. 

Robert waved Jess to sit down, so she could not interrupt him.  She sat down and started eating the food that she had brought in with her.  When his voice went up in volume, Jess’s head snapped up and looked at the Captain. 

“Look Jack!!  I know, I know!!  You said twenty million for each of the engine cores, when my people checked them out.  Let’s take this in two parts.  First the new built ones.  They list at 19.152 Million each on your company sales packet.  That is installed into one of the Leopard’s hulls that you build or more often than not older craft.  They are craft that you have rebuild, in this system.  I’m not having you install them, so that will cut down on the labor cost, which that number also represents.  I just happen to know, that it cost your company under six hundred thousand C-bills to make one of them.  So, that means you have a lot of room on the cost to sell them.  All still while you can turn a profit for your bookkeepers to be drooling over!!” 

Jess was watching Robert as he seemed to be listening to someone on the other end of the handheld device, for a little while.  She saw Robert look toward the metal ceiling and he rolled his eyes.  Jess started to feel sweat starting to build up under her armpits.  She could tell the Captain was not happy.  When he looked back down and noticed that Jess was watching him.  He made a fist then pointed one finger upwards and used it to draw small lazy horizontal circles in the air.  Jess started choking a little on her food, trying not to laugh out loud.  It would not have helped things, if the noise she had made would have been picked up by the phone. 

“Jack!!  How about instead of reading me the stats sheet, again.  Why don’t you just give me a realistic number, will you?”  Robert was quiet for a few seconds.  “Well that is better, but I was thinking more along the lines of about two million for each of the two new built engines.”  Robert had barely enough time to pull the speaker away from his ear, before the shockwave of noise started coming out of it.  Jess could not make out what was said, but it was loud and did not sound very happy to what Robert had just said. 

Robert put the speaker back to his ear, once it seemed safe from getting his ear drums popped.  “Now that we both have been obnoxious.  Maybe we can get down to some real business.”  There was a pause, before Robert started to talk again.  “So, Jack, exactly how long will it take for someone to come out to this part of space, and out of the blue.  They order three small dropships that those engines would fill.  Just so that you could get the nineteen million each, that you just said that you want for them?” 

Robert again had to wait for the person on the other end to stop talking.  “Jack I still will have to ship and hold them, until I find a buyer for each of them.  I think I can, but it will take some time to move all of them.  Because you and I know, that finding three Leopards.  That need engine replacements, is not going to just happen overnight or be in the same system.” 

Robert was again quiet and waited.  “Done deal!!  Ten million C-bills each, but I want my guys to check each one over, before we take control of them.  If they pass this last inspection?  You will have the money transferred before we move them into one of our cargo ships.  If you can have them here tonight?  You will have your money, when the banks open.  Now about that ancient engine someone traded you, for a few grand in a discount on a new built one.  By the way, how old is that engine in the first place?  You’re offering a warranty on it, right?” 

Jess was watching her commander at the last, but she saw Copeland pull the phone away from his ear.  He looked at the device, like it was a walking fish.  Then he put the phone to his ear again, and Jess could hear the change of tone.  “What am I going to do?  If I am all the way out, at say by Luthien?  What exactly will that warranty cover, and how would I be able to use it?  The way I see it?  It is that I’m taking all the risk, and you want to take all the money out of my pockets.”  Jess knew as well as Robert, that any warranty would never be exercised.  She did have to admit, that it was one heck of a negotiations tactic to use against someone. 

There was another pause, while Robert waited again.  “Okay I can do seven million for it, and the same rules apply to this one.  I want them all tomorrow morning, or tonight if we can.  Yes, I know I’m a hard ass.  But I know that you will have a new engine built before the next leopard leaves the company dock yard.  I also happen to know that will not happen in the next five months.  You just added a bunch of black ink to your company, a lot of that is coming out from what they paid me for that JumpShip.  This is a major win for your department and your whole company, for that matter.  I’m sure someone already told you that.” 

[cawest]

Robert waited for a second, and then there was a slight narrowing of his eyes and a slight smile crossed his face.  “Jack!  Thank you again for working with us.  Would you mind if I leave a message with Mr. McDonogh, about how hard of a bargain you drove for those engines?  No, it’s no problem at all.  He told me he liked to be involved, when large sums of money were changing hands.” 

Robert let a large smile cross his face, just before he rose from the table and returned the speaker to its recharging point on the wall.  Robert activated the noteputor and started working with it, as he walked back to the table that Jess was setting at.  When he returned to the desk, he needed a few more minutes to finish his little message.  He looked back at Jess, when he was done.  He smiled as he pulled over one of the books that Dawn had given him and started flipping through it. 

Jess was waiting for him to say something.  After seeing that Robert was playing his normal games.  She raised the stakes and started reading the other book.  She really was only flipping through the pages and eating, while she was waiting for Robert to tell her what happened.  Robert was reading but he was also covertly watching the young woman. 

When Robert was satisfied with Jess’s evaluation.  He went back to the communication speaker.  When the bridge picked up on the other end?  He told them to pass along a message to the Cargo Master, that they might be getting a few dropship engines delivered between now and sunrise.  He did not pass along.  That when they showed up, that they needed to inspect them.  Robert did let the bridge know that they needed to give him a call, when those engines showed up. 

When Robert returned to his seat, he looked at Jess.  “I was briefed in person, by High Command, before we left.  They wanted a whole Leopard CV, if we could find one out here.  Now, we will have a supply of replacement engines for almost half of the operational fleet of that class of ships.  Those small carriers have been getting a workout, now that they have those small jump engines in them.  I will just have to see, if command agrees with me.  The head of the local Aerospace Division for MMM had called over saying that they had three Leo engines.  I think, that he might have been ordered to make that call, but he really did not want to give up those engines.  I think they found out how much we were paid for the Scout and that some of the different Divisions are trying to get every cent back for his company.  What do you think, Jess?  Do you agree, that getting the three Leopard class main engines would be worth the cargo cubage?” 

Jess was looking at him, but she was thinking hard.  “I am the mission Intel person.  Why is he asking me for an opinion for something that is on the operation side of things?”  Then it hit her.  This was another test and a test of command, not her normal job. 

“I think, it is a good idea.  Picking up those three engines, that is.  You know, I’m more interested on if something will be useful.  Not whether it will make a profit for the mission books, when we get back home.  Do you really need to be on shift, if they bring the engines over tonight?  You have a competent dropship Captain, head Cargo Master, and a full engineer team.  Why don’t you let one of them handle it?”  She had no idea why not, so if this was a test for command?  Then she would like to know if she missed something, which might be so important.  That the convoy commander was keeping his eyes this close on something that was going on around them. 

“Your right Jess.  I could delegate it.”  Robert shook his head left to right.  “I’m supposed to be the fleet commander.  I have got to remember that.  That is why I have subordinates, which know their jobs.  I don’t know about why I did that, but I’m still tired.  I’m going to head back to the bridge, and then get some sleep or maybe I will check out the sale ads from my bunk.” 

Robert picked up the thin computer and headed out the door.  “That was a good question Jess.  The SLiE is growing and one of my other jobs, is to train her future officers.  You’re doing great, but you will have to keep it up.” 

Jess remained behind in the briefing room and was slowly flipping through the books on the table.  She took the complement her commander had given her and filed it away to the back of her brain.  She planned to be up for a few hours reading and doing her own reports.  She was now starting to see why her father had been so happy for her to get this mission.  She had wanted one of the premier slots on one of the larger warships.  She had been a little disappointed, on the insides with the change of her orders. 

Robert walked on to the bridge, just as the communication station was briefing the Maru’s Captain on the message that Robert had sent about the engines.  Robert could see that the dropship Captain was not happy, with what he had been told.  Robert waited for the ship’s Captain to be finished being briefed by his crew, before getting any closer to the man.  He was the Captain of this ship, after all.  Robert was only the commander of the Styx and the overall mission.  When the briefing had been completed.  The ship’s Captain walk towards his commander, and he did not have a pleasant expression on his face. 

Robert held up his hand to stop any comments, which the Captain might make and later regret.  This would also let the other man know, that his commander had something important he wanted to say to the Captain.  Robert was rewarded by a mouth snapping shut, and a raised eyebrow.  “Pardon me Captain, for interrupting your update brief.  I need to ask if you can cover for me tonight.  I had planned to be available, when the dropship engines showed up.  But something came up at the last minute.  I have all the codes on this.“  Robert held up the thin computer he was carrying. 

“I was hoping that you would take care of making the payment transfer, if they pass the inspections performed by your staff.  It makes sense for more than one person to be doing this, and after all.  She is your ship.  I might be in command of this little fleet, but the Maru is yours.” 

Robert gave a soft little smile to let the other man know, that the Fleet commander had faith in him to do a good job.  It also let his crew know.  That the mission commander respected and trusted the dropship captain.  If one of those facts were overlooked by a crewmember?  It would cause serious issues, down the road, when things got tight and the weapons fire was flying. 

“No problem, Sir!  I will take care of it.  Will we see you at the morning meeting?”  The other officer was surprised.  He was thinking about having a private meeting with Captain Copeland later, in reference to this last set of orders.  Now it looked like the mission commander had come to the same conclusion, that he had and was now adjusting himself.  He was not about to say or do anything but accept the change of orders given by the mission commander.  If the mission commander went backwards again?  He would address the issue, then. 

Robert had maintained eye contact with the other officer.  Robert could see the wheels turning in his head but noted, he did not say anything.  Robert decided to finish the statement he had planned out in the ship’s lift.  “Yes, I hope that this will be the final full day on this planet.  I think we have gotten what we can or have plans to have it done, soon.  I am looking forward to seeing what else might have changed, since the last resupply mission into this area.  Captain, if you need anything from me.  Please feel free to stop by my cabin, any time that you like.  Also, would you please pass along to the other key staff that tomorrow will be our last full day on this planet” 

Both men nodded to each other, and Robert passed over the data pad.  Robert turned and left the command bridge to its rightful commander.  He went to his cabin, and he would stay there until the meeting the next day.

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


 During the night, but less than two hours after Captain Copeland had left the bridge of the Maru.  The three dropship engines were brought over by a massive Galaport Ground Tug tracked system.  The massive machine is mostly known simply as GGT’s to people who spent a lot of time on drop ports around the Sphere.  Every drop port, of any size, in the whole Inner Sphere would have a few of them around to support the massive facilities.  The larger the drop port the more of the monsters would be moving around the area. 

All three engines were thoroughly inspected by the chief engineer, and not to surprising.  They passed, to her satisfaction.  After the Captain of the dropship transferred the funds, to pay for them. The massive pieces of equipment were off loaded onto the ground near the dropship.  Then the odd shaped transport pulled away into the night, leaving the massive metal shipping boxes and engine combinations on the ground.  The three blocks of metal now were no longer their problem. 

Each of the huge engines and shipping container massed almost six hundred tons each.  Mike was on duty and had the power loader to help with the moving of the engines.  But six hundred tons of dead weight?  That was way over the lifting capabilities for that solitary machine.  Even with the other four loaders brought down, it did not help.  It was just too much mass for them to handle.  The Cargo Master was still trying to figure out how to load the massive pieces of cargo, when a representative from MMM stepped out of a Jeep that had pulled up next to the dropship. 

She walked up to the side of one of the engine containers that the Cargo Master was standing beside.  She had been watching from the little ATV for some time while safely hidden in the dark.  She opened a side panel on the container.  And after punching a few buttons?  The container started to move without any outside effort being applied.  When the stunned Cargo Master asked how she got it to move?  The Engineer was showed and told by the visiting woman.  That each of the shipping containers had an independent auxiliary propulsion unit or IPU that was run by batteries.  It was not a power unit that you could power something, other than the metal box.  It could only move the massive metal boxes, for a few thousand feet, before it ran out of stored energy.  She also showed the visitor were to hook up ships power to recharge those same batteries. 

As it turned out, the IPU could not do all of the work efficiently.  Mike was still needed to help, when the boxes had to be pushed up the steepest incline part of the loading ramps.  The IPU could have handled the job.  That is if they wanted to wait at the snail pace the box was reduced to.  But Mikes and his loader mech available, to help.  This did have the added effect to speed up the process of taking care of those massive blocks of metal.  After all they had three of the beasts to load, and the night was only getting shorter. 

###########

As luck would have it.  Those three engines were the last delivery of goods to the two dropships for the night.  After the massive engines were secured inside the dropships.  And the MMM rep had left to go back, to whatever job she had been doing before being called out to help at the Maru.  That had been done by someone, that had been watching the antics of them trying to load the engines from a nearby security point.  Both of the dropships were closed up, and all of the hatches were locked.  All the access points to the two ships from the outside world were now sealed, as if they were in the deep black of space. 

In the dark and trying very hard not to be seen, were people watching the two ships very closely.  One group was there, because they had heard that one of the two ships was flush with hard currency from a major sale.  The money was supposed to have come from the largest defense manufacture in the entire MC.  This group had to pay off several people in both the planetary traffic control center and law enforcement, to find out when the two ships had planned to leave.  It still had taken some time to get the information they wanted.  They had been told, that the ships would not be blasting off of the planet for about another week. 

This was very good news, for the criminal gang.  They had only taken the time to set up a stakeout, so that they could plan better.  They would wait until when the time was right, to rob whichever ship had the cash on it.  One of the reasons for the stakeout was to find out what dropship to target.  They had heard that a different group had already made a play for the payday, and they somehow had blown it.  Two of the major crime lords on the planet had put a bounty on the head of whoever had made that first try against this newest piggy bank and had failed.  It was an open-ended bounty.  No one seemed to know how many people had been evolved, but the crime bosses wanted to make a point and take them all out as an example. 

The pair of crime lords were not mad about the failure, or the first try.  Only that the team had not let one of them know it was happening, in the first place.  They felt that they had been stiffed.  And that they would have not gotten their fair share of the cut for an operation that was being pulled off on their turf.  The scar faced leader of this group had not made that mistake.  He was hoping for two paydays on this deal.  One payday would be from the safe on the dropships.  The one other payday would be when he found out who had made the first play on this mark.  Sometimes you could get more than double the reward, if you could just play your cards right and spent the time watching your target before you made your first move. 

A second group was watching the two dropships, also.  This group was not interested in the money, that was reported to be in one of the two dropships.  They were after something more important, at least in their minds.  It was more important than a double-digit millions of C-Bills payday.  They had been informed that these Lost-tech prospectors, had found a good-sized cache of powerful computers.  These systems were more powerful, than any other computer seen or made in the Inner Sphere since the fall of the Star League.  At least that was what the first few reports were saying about them. 

They had been directed by the head of ROM in the MC, in person, to retrieve or destroy all of those computers.  The area head of ROM had received a report of these systems being sold by an almost close friend of his.  The reporter of this information was being disciplined for an undisclosed infraction against someone in the higher levels of ComStar.  To make amends, he had been exiled to an Explorer Corps support base outside of the Inner Sphere.  ROM just happened to have a training mission working up on Dunianshire to use this new information. 

This ROM team was a freshly formed new team.  One that had been working with a more experienced team, until they pass their last exam to make them listed as being fully operational.  After that exam?  Then they would be available to be used anywhere in the Inner Sphere.  The original idea had them planning to try to do a little industrial espionage.  Or maybe a light raid, on one of the outlying MMM manufacture facilities on this planet.  This was something, that was standard practice for ROM teams ever since the Holy Shroud operations had started.  That final exam had not gone, the way the new team had planned for it to. 

They had taken the Lost Tech Prospectors under observation, and they just seemed like any other merchants on the edge of civilized space.  The training team went in using the normal combination stealth suits, which have worked so well on other missions of this type for a few generations.  They had not worked this time, or something else and unanticipated had gone wrong.  Everything had gone to the briefed plan, right up until the first of the training team had entered the dropship called M/V White Rabbit. 

It seemed like every light on the two dropships went on at once, and then active weapons tracking systems started up on both ships.  Both ROM Teams had been told, that these were only a pair of dilapidated trash haulers on the edge of known space.  When the weapons systems went active?  Everyone at the space port had found out, differently.  The first target had turned out to be a Trojan class blockade runner, and not some run of the mill cargo carrier.  The fire control system on the Mule had not been a problem.  The tell tells on the Combo suit told the operators, that they were not stealthy anymore thanks to the Trojan dropship’s fire control systems. 

The young ROM team leader had shown great situational awareness and courage, when he had seen the plan turn south so fast.  He had the foresight to have an exfiltration route planned out, in case the main plan had fallen apart.  His quick thinking and pre-planning had saved the team from being arrested.  And weather the other team knew it or not.  The escape plan had saved the lives of all of the young ROM Team.  It would have been the prime ROM team who would have gone into the detention facility and killed each of the captured young ROM team members.  Still the blown mission had been a black mark on both teams. 

The training team will be slowly and covertly pulled off planet, over the next few weeks.  They would be forced to go back to one of the main ROM training bases.  Then they must go through a lot of retraining, before they were allowed off planet again.  The sneak suits had passed both a pre-mission and post mission inspection with flying colors.  That left it up to it being a team issue for the failure of the mission.  They must have done something majorly wrong to have blown the mission like that. 

This also had made the prime team look bad, because they did not see what had blown the final exam mission.  It was there job to train this team to be a valuable asset for ComStar’s ROM.  Not being able to find out how a training team had blown their missions, on a fourth rate drop port in the back of beyond.  That was not a good sign of their skills, as trainers and mentors to the action teams for the secretive ROM department. 

The no-named man was not happy, but they still needed to find out how the first mission was blown.  And now they needed to finish the job that the first team should have done.  He was grinding his teeth, as he watched the two dropships from the second floor of a nearby warehouse.  If he could just have tracked or had found any kind of information trail that led to the Dragoons.  Or if he could find a trail that might have led to these prospectors, to show that they might have contacts with the Draconis Combine?  It would have changed the situation, a lot.  He might have been able to justify for his team in breaking out the Tornado suits.  DEST were not something to be sneezed at, even by ROM.  And they were well known to have used combination sneak suits just like the ROM Team had been using.  DEST must have developed a way to counter them, if they had so much experience making and then using them against their neighbors. 

ROM had some of those Power Armored (light) suits in storage for high risk missions, and as a rule could only be used against a major Inner Sphere power.  If he could find anyway to write the report, that would somehow lead his higher command into thinking that a DEST team might be on board one of the dropships?  It that had been true?  He might have been even able to use the six Nighthawk suits.  They were in a storage cell buried deep underground at the main ComStar compound on Canopus.  It would take some time to get those shipped out, but he still had the Tornado suits close at hand.  He just needed to find the “right” information. 

He really loved using both types of those suits.  The downside was that his superiors knew that he like breaking them out, either one of them out, whenever he got half a chance.  They had plenty of time to plan.  Their support team on the local ComStar compound, had just briefed the prime team on all of the updated information they had on the target.  The prime team had almost a week, before the dropships were going to leave this planet.  This time they would take their time and watch, until the time for the attack was just right. 

Then they would break into the ships and steal the computers from these animals.  One or two would be set up as a trophy back at their main housing area, and maybe they would send one to Terra for the main ROM office.  It would fit nicely with the rest of ROMs’ trophies.  The no named man knew that Blake’s Will was fickle, but surely the blessed one would want them to be successful.  What they did not know, was that they were not hiding well enough.  The more experienced ROM team had fallen into the trap called “Target Fixation.” 

The criminal team was being closely watched by two full security teams, from MMM.  Those two teams knew that someone high in MMM wanted to make sure that nothing happened to upset this group of merchants.  Both MMM security teams would stay hidden.  That is unless the group they were watching made a move against the dropships, which they seemed to be very interested in.  The two security teams had no idea that there was another team watching the dropship. 

[cawest]

Since both these different groups were behind the ComStar group?  The higher tech group had no idea that something could go wrong, behind them.  They were very focused on their target, in front of them.  It was very bad trade craft, and the prime ROM team should have known better.  Also, the ROM agents were used to having the highest tech in operations which anyone had ever seen or used in the history of mankind.  The group in the White Rabbit and the Maru, however, had equipment that this ROM group had never even heard of, much less use before. 

Every time the ROM team pushed their communication device, to do something as mundane as ask for a cup of coffee.  The two dropships would pick it up like a light house on a starless night.  This was all thanks to some almost clan-built equipment hidden inside the hulls of the ship.  The ROM team were not even bothering with encrypting their internal radio communications.  They were just happy using the frequency hopping function, that their radio equipment had been built with.  Their communication discipline was so bad.  That each of the different bridge crews, were placing bets on who of the watching group was going to be the one who order out for food first.  It was a great way to pass the night and keep everyone awake, in the command center of both visiting dropships.  The only thing that the dropships did not know, was that the team they were picking up was a ROM team. 


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

Notes:

Interception of HPG message:  After the HPG became the prime way of talking between the Stars.  SLIC would have started working on ways to know what was being said in those messages.  More than likely?  They would come up with a few different ways to do that job over the years. 

The Bomb: You’re not paranoid if people really are out to kill you.  It is a question if you are being paranoid enough. 

Food issues:  Selling rotten or contaminated food has been an issue with ships going all the way back to the beginning of the age of Sail.  I would bet that it would still be an issue in the future. 

Pushy or less than fully honest car salesmen:  Most of us have had to deal with one of these types of people.  It might not have been on a car lot, but in some other venue. 

Cargo Master:  Think of it as the Load master on a military cargo plane.  The SLDF was a military organization, so some of the job titles might have carried over. 

Why buy dropship engines, when you can build your own? The SLiE has a limited production base.  Can they build new dropships?  Yes, they can.  But if they build some new dropships?  What do they have to do without? 

Lora Noone:  The e is silent.  I saw the name in a random name generator one day and I kept it in my writing notes.  It was to good not to use here as Lora No One.  Just because I was asked about her name in a PM. 

[glitterboy2098]

as cray likes to remind people, HPG's basically just use a KF system to 'jump' a radio signal. output on the receiving end is just radio and can be picked up by anyone in the system that is listening. (makes encryption, codes, and the like very important for security)
presumably the signal could be picked up at the transmission end if you knew how to filter out the EM signals of the KF system itself.

[ckosacranoid]

mice updates to this and the poor bastards trying to run the dropships....they are so screwed.

[cawest]

Chapter 16

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

19 Dec 3046 Sunrise
The Dunianshire system

It was almost first light, when the first covered or high sided trucks pulled up to the Maru’s fire safety line.  At first, this caused both ships to go on full alert.  That was not a great way to wake everyone up, thinking that an attack force was about to try to breach the ships.  It did work to get everyone up and moving with some energy, during the earliest part of the morning.  The alert was only stopped, when something came over the intercepted communications from the ROM team.  They had said.  That it looked like a shipment of food was going in, and the mystery talker asked if anyone else wanted to have some eggs for breakfast.  The food delivery was about two hours early. 

Robert, the Cargo Master, and the Maru’s Captain greeted what had turned out to be food delivery trucks, as soon as the passenger hatch opened.  The loads of food items were first inspected and then the power loader mech, that was piloted by Mike, moved the containers into the dropship’s cargo bays.  This time thanks to the dropship’s Captain.  The Cargo Master knew how much mass, and how it was coming into his ship.  All before it was brought out to the landing pads. 

While the food stuffs were being loaded.  Lora showed up to the ships.  She was very early for the 0900-morning meeting, but she did not make it to the briefing room.  She was working with the Cargo Master, when the first load of nonmilitary vehicles showed up to the drop port on a short-trailered truck.  The first set of vehicles where re-inspected.  They were new built, and they passed the inspection by the mechanically adept personnel on site with ease.  The first transporter off loaded some of the 1.5ton Luxury and family style wheeled sedans.  They also unloaded some 2 and 2.5ton class of high-end sports cars. 

Each of the vehicles was in their own cheap lightweight aluminum frame, which let any of the wheeled vehicles to be stacked one on top of each other without damage.  This was to maximize the cargo area in a dropship’s limited sized bay.  It let them maximize the use of its total volume.  The salesman left the day, a very happy person.  His boss even wrote up a new office directive, that whenever a cargo dropship landed at any of the drop ports in the local area.  A sales representative would make a face to face stop to that pad, to see what they might be interested in. 

That was a change of company policy even before all the sales have been done for the day, at least for that one very energetic vender.  Six more vehicles were sold that day to this group of visitors from the small car salesman.  All of them small battery powered light pickup style trucks.  All of them were also used, but they were in what would be called “good condition”. 

By the end of the day Captain Copeland, the Chief Cargo Master, and the Dropship Captains had transferred enough money to pay for two large intercity hover busses.  Each one had massed almost 4tons each.  They also picked up four of the odd looking five wheeled sedans, that looked nice and massed about 2.5tons each.  Robert picked up six hover sedans that were still new with the plastic still covering the seats and floorboards. 

All of those transports were pretty generic and used the same tools, which were easy to come by back home for any repairing that might be needed in the next few years.  Most of the minor parts were being handmade already in small shops around the city, and in some of the larger outlying areas on New Circe.  With New Circe now under a war footing?  All of the major and most of the minor factories were making items to support the war effort.  These new items that Robert was picking up would fill what was missing, but still had some use on the planet. 

The City of McEvedys was the only major city on New Circe, and it had a well-developed road network.  But once you left the city, it was less so.  VTOLs were the preferred mode of travel for personnel.  But there was a growing network of dirt roads for ground-based movement going all over the place, and to the outlying farms, mines, and fisheries.  At least that was the case, until the Colonials landed.  Now they had started building their own city a good distance away from anyone else.  The Colonials were still working on their own transportation network.  The downside was that they did not have anything to use or to make that network, without getting it from the City of McEvedy. 

Captain Copeland was thinking, that now there might be a need for more and larger high-speed transporters, and he was willing to take a small risk on the busses.  To date all of the support vehicles were wheeled or tracked, that the few factories on New Circe were making.  The only things that were built with hover locomotion on New Circe, where some fast battle tanks and Heavy APCs.  Wheeled and tracked locomotion were cheaper, used less resources to build, and maintain, and they could cover a more varied terrain types than your average hover craft could. 

The clan only had so much production capabilities, and with the added inherent cost of hover craft?  This also limited their utility to build new ones for missions, other than combat.  The biggest gamble was the two hover racing cars Robert had just bought.  Robert knew that there had to be a few viper or fighter jocks that wanted to see who was the fastest on the ground.  It was just human nature for people like that.


############ 

Sometimes you had to take chances when you were trying to figure out what people might want to buy over a thousand light years, from where they were at the time of the guessing.  All of the personnel transports were loaded and secured before dark.  Robert was even able to send that message about picking up those dropship engines to Mr. McDonogh.  Robert had carefully chosen the wording in that missive.  This was going to be the last night on the planet.  But no one, but the crews and Lora knew that fact. 


Robert made sure that the account with the remainder of the funds raised by the sale of the Scout, would be available when they were not on this planet.  This was done after doing a little paperwork, that Lora had to help Robert with.  Now it would be available anywhere they might be going in the MC, which had an HPG and or a bank outlet from a list of over a dozen different banks.  He would have preferred, to have the money physically with them.  But just under ninety million C-bills in cash was not what someone normally carried around, not even by heavily armed dropships.  The accounts were set up just like they had been done on the last four or five supply runs.  When they left the Inner Sphere?  The bank accounts would be closed or simply abandoned, no matter what the remaining balance might be.  Sometimes the banks that had held those accounts had gotten a nice amount of digital money, after the allotted time had passed. 

Robert gave Lora the list of planets that they would be visiting, to finish filling the cargo bays of the dropships.  The list was not totally true, but it was over 90% right.  He also let her know that the plan was, that they would be returning to Dunianshire, in about six months or less.  The last stop would be to finish selling and completing any last-minute buying, of what they might need to finish this part of the planned mission.  Jess and Robert told Lora that they were both looking forward to seeing her and her friend’s café again, before going back home.  Robert and Lora finished filling out the local required paperwork that ended part of their arrangement.  But they officially kept her on as the local Factor for Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale.  Robert and Lora made sure that she had the funds to do this job for some time to come, that is if she did not go on a wild spending spree. 

The only fleet work that Robert had to do, was when the two dropship commanders forwarded a request for raising the amount of cargo space that each crewmember could use on this mission.  When the trip had started, even he had thought that amount of cargo space was too low per person.  Before they had been able to use the battle cruiser’s massive cargo bays to hold any excess that all of the mission dropships could not carry.  That was not an option on this run, and the number had been adjusted down accordingly by high command. 

Most of the crewmembers of the cargo dropships would be able to exploit the additional space today.  This was the last trip, that they would be able to make before curfew.  The personnel were allowed to store only up to 200kg per person in one of the cargo bays.  This did not count what they could store in the small living space, in each cabin on the four ships.  Robert had no problem raising the personal storage amount.  He wrote a message, that authorized the doubling of the weight going all the way up to 1ton per person.  They would not get this increase all at once.  The ships leadership would use this cargo increase as a reward, to be given out in small increments over the rest of the mission.  Robert only increased the total by 25kg today. 

The two ships stuck at the jump point had been able to shop at the jump point recharging station, or when they rotated to make landings on other planets.  This was good and bad, for those crews stuck so far from a life supporting planet.  The good part was that the supporting stations gave those crews some examples, of the trade goods that all crews were known to buy.  So, they did not have to guess, too much, on what might sell very well back home. 

The bad part was that it took a ship almost a week to make it out that far, and that meant more money to move those items to the point of sale.  Whatever was bought out to the end of the line would cost a lot more.  Then it did even at the planet side drop port, much less what was sold outside its gates.  When the two cargo ships rejoined the JumpShip and her escort.  Any extra personal cargos would be moved over to them, due to there not being any extra-long-term storage on those two ships that had been stuck out in the black of space. 

Each person in the dropship crew had two full eight-hour shifts, that they could spend out on the town enjoying themselves or shopping so far.  A lot of the time they were doing both tasks at once, always in small groups.  Tonight, would be the first time to partake on this planet some off time for very few people.  Jess and Robert would be able to enjoy some free time and not be “on task”.  They planned to make the most of it.  Jess and Robert stuck together as a team for the night.  They were also joined by two other rather large crewmembers for the night.  The large pair fell in beside them as soon as they were more than 100 meters from the dropship. 

The four of them, were the last of the crewmembers that made it back on board the two dropships that night.  It was right at midnight local time, when the hatches were closed and locked.  It took only thirty minutes to have a head count complete, and have it turned into each of the two ship’s Captains.  The duty shifts on each dropship kept an eye on the maybe ComStar Team, that they felt was watching them. 

Through the night the ships were prepared for lift off, as last-minute items were packed down for the morning flight.  Some were permanently packed down and would not be looked at again by their owners, till they got back to their home system.  Nothing needed to be done on the outside of the ships, which was not different from what the ships had done every night, since they had landed on the planet.  Fuel had been loaded on the first day, that they had landed.  This was normal for all most all of the ships in this age of combat, raids, and wars that could start at any second you were at a drop port.  You never wanted to be caught on the ground with dry fuel tanks, if something happened outside of the dropship’s Captains’ control. 

When the sun rose and started to cast bright light beams, and shadows were starting to be cast by the giant ships all around the flat dropship landing field.  Captain Copeland entered the bridge of the White Rabbit, and not the Lisbon Maru.  The ship’s Captain had been informed, when the mission commander had entered the ships not long after the sun had started to rise.  This had been talked about before, so they were not surprise with his appearance on the ship or on the bridge.  The commander would plan to land on a planet by riding on the Mule.  But when it came to lifting off the planet, again?  He would take command from the more expendable Blockade Runner. 

Robert took a side seat, that had been set up for him days before.  He did a few hand motions and he was safely strapped into the fixed chair.  Now that he was ready.  He had a set script, that he had to perform.  “Captain, are both ships ready to lift?”  Asked the senior officer, to the youngest of the ship’s Captains. 

The younger man turned to report to his boss.  He had been in dropship command for almost ten years, but this was a command far from home.  And that did not count, that this was a Resupply Mission to support all of his people.  Plus, it would be written about in books, at least in a few years.  “Sir, both ships report ready to lift at your command.  What are your orders, sir?” 

“Good, Captain.  Please contact Traffic Control and let them know.  That we would like to pay any remaining port fees and lift off, when they have open skies.”  Now it was a waiting game, and the security clock was ticking.  Robert was also wondering how long it would take for the two groups, that they knew about, were watching them and found out about the change of plans. 

The person at the communication station was sitting at their station.  Then in a flash, he puts his hand to his right ear peace.  He said something unintelligible by the rest of the bridge, and then he was shaking his head.  He turned around to face his Captain with a bewildered look on his face.  “Sir!  Traffic Control said that all ground port and parking fees at the jump point have been paid in full, by MMM.  They want to know if everything is okay.  They have an open launch window for both of our dropships.  It is for a 1g burn all the way to the jump point.  It opens at 1030, if we want to take it.  What should I tell them?”  The communication person was eye locked on his Captain, but he was trying hard not to look at the convoy commander. 

The dropship’s Captain had no such qualms, and looked back at the commander “Sir, I think they like us.  What should our reply be, about the time of launch?” 

Robert just raised an eyebrow.  The dropship’s Captain had given Robert leave, to order one of his crewmembers directly.  Then with a nod to the dropship’s Captain.  Robert turned a little so that he could see who he was about to give orders to, without interference. 

“Comms, just tell them.  That we have a good load, and we do not want to pick this place clean.  We don’t want to drive up the local prices, too much.  Let them know that the 1030 launch time is great, and we will take it.  Also tell them we look forward to doing business with them again, in the future.”  The Captain of the dropship looked back to Captain Copeland, who gave the other man a slight nod of approval.  Now the younger man can carry on with the plan and use the information, that had been given to him by the convoy commander. 

The communication station operator nodded and did as he had been instructed, by the mission commander.  Not two minutes later, he was turning in his seat again, to face the senior officers.  “Sir, they said have a safe trip.  We are cleared to launch in 2 hours 56 minutes, and that if we need to abort the launch to let them know.”  This time the communications station crewman did not turn to face the most senior officer on the bridge.  He was “only” looking at the dropship’s commander. 

Now the younger Dropship commander was in his element.  He did not have to worry about his supervisor.  This was old hat to him, and his crews.  “Comm, forward the launching information to the Lisbon Maru.  Then set the clock and start the flight countdown.  We are out of here ladies and gentlemen.” 

The orders went out quickly and confidently to both SLDF in Exile dropships.  Commander Copeland was watching and taking mental notes.  They had not pulled the names for the crews, for these four ships out of a hat.  They each were some of the best at their jobs, that the Star League in Exile had and could follow the rules set down for this mission.  In no time, the countdown clock reached zero on the digital display.  Then it was up to the launch computers on each of the dropships to do their jobs.  Massive valves opened and cold fuel flowed into massive turbo pumps the size of a battlemech.  Those would feed the fuel into the fusion engines at hundreds of gallons per second.  The volatile fuel was put to the flame and it reacted as predicted.

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


Outside the egg-shaped ships, a pair of massive white clouds erupted, and it was quickly followed with red flames coming out of the massive engines.  The ships started to move in a pre-planned arrangement, only a few seconds after the flame was visible to the outsiders.  Each ship fired off their main engines and quickly went to full power from the “idle” power setting.  They started to rise on the fusion powered flames and smoke, even before they were up to the full power mode.  The pair of ships left the ground a few seconds apart, just the way that the computers had calculated.  That was so that the disturbed atmosphere would not interfere with the other dropships, that were launching close by the pair of leaving ships.  They rose higher and higher into the sky on a flame wand cast by the massive engine’s nozzles on each of the two ships. 

As the two dropships rose into the sky.  They were being watched by many eyes, some happy, some sad, and some that were spitting mad.  One group had just started packing up there hide site, without too much issue after seen the ships lift off.  Since the target of their planned robbery had just moved out of range, for them to be relieved of whatever money and other valuables that they might have had.  That was just part of the life as a high stakes’ robbery crew.  Sometimes you scored, and sometimes you missed.  Those were just the breaks of the job, and that was why they had other high pay off targets working at the same time.  The team had a few other projects that might give them a payday in a month or so, if they did not likewise slip away. 

The other watching group had one person on the roof of the warehouse, and they were taking a less philosophical approach to the day’s surprising events.  The ROM agent was watching the two ships leave threw his mix of cyber enhanced vision, and a high-tech version of a Scout optics scope.  The scope was one that someone from the old SLDF SAS would have recognized.  You could almost hear him grinding his teeth, on the next floor of the building that he was standing on. 

They had planned to snatch a group of the crewmembers, that very night at the café many of the crew like to visit.  They would have preferred to have to take just one of the crewmembers, but they never moved in groups of smaller than two people.  Most times those targeted groups were larger than that.  Most were made up of up to a dozen people.  There didn’t seem like a reason to why some groups were smaller and that others were larger.  The whole team was going to be pulled off the overwatch duty and help with the snatching of one of the groups. 

“So much for that plan,” thought the man with no name. 

The plan had been to contact the senior officer and offer to trade the captured crewmembers back, for two of the computer systems that higher command was so hot about.  The idea had been to see which dropship the computers would have been pulled off, to pay the supposed ransoms.  It was thought that the computers were on the Mule class ship.  They were not sure, because the Trojan class was listed as being open for a sales offer.  It did not make since, to the ROM team.  That they would store something that valuable on an asset they planned to sell off, if someone came up with enough money. 

After the leadership group had left the dropships, to pay the ransom.  The ROM direct action team would attack and take or destroy, the computers in the cargo bay of the targeted dropship.  All they needed to have done was wait until it was dark, and then take the unlucky crewmembers.  The crewmen would have been dead before the contact was first made to the dropships, but those were the breaks for a hostage.  That had been the plan, anyway.  It was a sound plan, and it was one that this team had used before.  It had always gotten good, for the ROM team, results. 

[cawest]

As the two ships moved out of visual range, even with the high-tech equipment.  The ROM agent was still watching his escaping targets.  Captain Robert Copeland did not know it, but he now had two enemies within ComStar.  One of them was still in Ltzehoe and had only the power to report back to higher members within ComStar.  He kind of knew about or would have expected, to have that one.  Robert also had helped that one in his career, by proving that Copeland Supply salvage and Resale was not a small threat to some of ComStar’s operations. 

Now a ROM Special Forces agent did not like him, and the whole team would very much like to end Robert’s life.  This was only the second planet, that they had landed on so far.  And now SLiE had two enemies, granted they were in the same organization.  It was not a good start to the resupply mission, and they did not know half of it yet.  What you do not know about, can kill you. 

The heads of both of the MMM security teams were watching the dropship rise, and the criminal team packing up their things.  They were as surprised as the others, when the dropships had fired up their engines.  They also had “known” that the dropships were not leaving for a few more days.  The leader of one of the MMM teams was thinking that maybe the short notice launch, was not so short notice for the dropship’s crew.  The two security teams were just happy, that nothing had happened.  They had gotten a lot of overtime, and everyone was going home to their families safe, sound, and no hospital stays.  What more could a law enforcement team wish for? 

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

Later that night the ROM agent was writing the report, which was going to have to go back to the head of ComStar operation in the entire MC.  He was currently living on Canopus.  All of the files and all of the raw data that they had collected would be “boxed” up and sent back to higher command.  It was not going to do his career any good, no matter how he tried to spin it or what wordsmithing he used to make his team look better.  There was something off about these Lost Tech Prospectors, but he could not put his finger on it just yet.  They were too good, and because he did not believe in good luck for the infidels.  That made part of his mind itch.  By Blake’s Blood he needed to find out what was going on with them.  His mind went over why, they were not the normal trash haulers. 

First, they had detected the first attempt to breach their ships.  And now they had done this short notice launch, back to the safety of deep space.  The Agent did not believe it could have happened this way.  Something or someone had to have interfered in his mission.  He swore on Blake’s Beard.  He would find out what had happened. 

“I will find these merchants, and I will get even with them.” He swore to himself and to Blake again.  The head of the ROM special action team had a long list of old and new contacts, and he was going to use them. 

He was subconsciously going down a list of mercenaries and just plain Pirates, which might do the job that he needed them to do for him.  Paying them would be a problem.  He was pretty sure that he could phrase it in such a way.  That his boss would cover any startup, operational, and post mission expense.  Even if he did not?  There were other ways to pay for something like this, that he knew about.  There were other factions within ComStar, that might cover any cost he might incurred.  That is, if he phrased it just right.  He would also need the backing of a few key people, that could whisper into the right ears back on Terra. 

##########


The two dropships pulled away from the busy planet on the long pillars of plasma flames produced from their massive engines.  They could have accelerated faster, but it would have stressed the crew and ships for no reason.  Running hotter would have also shortened the length of time between needing an overhaul for those engines, and they were a long way from home.  It was a many day trip back out to the jump point.  They had to first work on accelerating and then decelerating, to come to a stop at the jump point without distressing the crew or ships. 

The time was used by the crews of both ships to search through each piece of cargo, that had been loaded onto each ship.  This was to see if anything had been loaded onto the ship, that should not have been loaded.  This had not always been the standard operational procedures for supply runs.  It had started after a tracker had been found hidden amongst the new cargo, by accident.  That had been three supply runs ago, and it caused some issues back home when it was found by an unloading crew.  It was later assessed that the tracker had come from ComStar.  They did not have any proof, but that made the most sense to the SLIC. 

Now, after the ships had left a planet or other cargo center.  A second dropship or JumpShip would use their passive systems to detect any unwanted transmitters, or other tracking devices emissions that might be coming from the other ships.  During the run to this jump point, two items were found on the Maru.  One was in the food, and another one had been hidden in a body panel on one of the hover sedans. 

Only one device was found on the White Rabbit.  This was such a surprise?  That they ran the search twice more, before accepting the first results.  That one device had been hidden in a package, that one of the crewmembers had bought to take home with him.  All of the devices were crushed and dumped out of an airlock after the ships had done the flip to decelerate, but while they were still in Zero G.  The pair of ships had yet to start slowing down for their rondevu with the JumpShip for the ride out of this system. 

Those hunks of metal and other stuff would beat the two dropships to the jump point, by days.  The only difference was that the dropships would come to a stop at the jump point.  Those hunks of expensive electronics would keep on going, with all the speed, that they had picked up from the free ride provided by the two visiting dropships.  While the two ships were slowing down to dock with the JumpShip Styx.  The JumpShip was getting the last of the cargo, that the larger ship had paid for.  They just did not have the areas to store anything for long term or for longer than a week.  The two dropships slowed and then docked on the two open collars with almost military precision. 

Over the next day cargo had to be moved around to the two cargo carriers and inspected by many different sets of eyes.  It was a lot of hard work, but it was done without a complaint by a single crewmember.  About eight hours, after that cargo transfer had been completed.  The SLS Styx started to pull in and refold her huge solar sail.  After it was pulled in and secured within the larger ship?  She was ready for the jump to another solar system. 

On the long JumpShip, the command crew was finishing the last few items that needed to be done.  The Convoy commander was back on the bridge of his ship.  The Styx had not played any games with the Traffic Control Center.  They just had given an update after the dropships had cleared the planet’s orbital areas. 

“Communications, please contact the Recharging Station and let them know we are ready to jump.  Tell them that we would like to start a two hour count down, as soon as possible.”  Directed Captain Copeland.  It was time to make the next stop on this mission.  He was thinking that this next one would be fun. 

The JumpShip's communication station did as she was told, but quickly had to update the Captain.  “Sir!  They set an information request.  They would like to know where our next stop is going to be.  They said it’s for their records.  They also say that it’s for safety, in case we miss-jump or something like that.”  This was called out by the communication station operator currently on shift. 

Jules looked over at Robert and waited to see what the other man would say.  They could play this several ways.  Jules had a bet, with himself, on what path the fleet commander might take.  Robert chose the easiest path, and it happened to also be the truth.  Jules lost this mental bet and all he could do, was to give a slight smile. 

“Tell them that we are going to Cate’s Hold to sight see and take some time off.”  That was true.  In the past, when they had been asked by traffic control.  They would be told one thing, but the SLDF ship would jump somewhere else and change their names.  If the Styx received a reputation of telling a Traffic Control where they were going?  It would be that much of a shock, when they changed up their pattern. 

The Enlisted communication operator gave out a soft chuckle, before giving the reply from Captain Copeland to the large space station.  She was stills smiling when she was done.  “Sir, they say.  That we are good to go, for a two hour count down.  All dropships and JumpShips are clear of our jump field.  They report that there are no new JumpShips due in for another three days, but another dropship is due at the jump point in four hours.  They want an update, if we abort the jump due to the arriving dropship into the danger area.  They also say good luck, make sure we look for the old Star League base while we are there.  And not to buy any old Star League maps, once we get in system.” 

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

Notes:

TRO Vehicle Annex Revised.  Yes, I had just bought that TRO when I first wrote this.  Does that give you an idea of how long I have been thinking about this? 

Blake’s Wrath/Light of Mankind or Delta/Epsilon.  They are a heavy hitter group.  You should not want to make them notice you.  That is unless you have a lot of firepower and highly trained people that know how to use it. 

Not telling Lora everything:  SLIC would still be very careful about operational security or opsec.  Lora cannot tell anyone, what she does not know in the first place. 

The Trackers:  I just thought they would be fun to think about, and then find a way to find them on dropships and JumpShips.  I thought about how to get rid of them and saw a show where they put a bug in a glass of water.  The story just kind of jump out at me, and I wrote it down. 

Why so little action? I like building things up.  You have to make someone very mad at you, if they are going to risk a few million dollars of equipment to hurt you.  That is the price for a low-end lance.  How mad do they have to be at you, if they want to risk a JumpShip or even a small dropship?  That risk would quickly jump to half a billion C-bills at risk.  Half a billion might not seem that much to ComStar or a major house, but it would take a mover and a shaker to risk that kind of capital out of their discretionary budget.  Or they will have to be very mad at you.  Like Wayne Waco mad. 

[cklammer]

I for myself like your plot pacing: I think that you are doing it just right ...  :)

[cawest]

I for myself like your plot pacing: I think that you are doing it just right ...  :)

Thank you.  I have gotten a few pms from here and fanficnet.  I just wanted to let others know why I am writing this the way I am.  :)

[DOC_Agren]

on to R&R   :thumbsup:

[ckosacranoid]

I like where this is going and comstar just got very pissed off to track the clan down and kick some ass after this little stunt to say the least. hope the clan can keep things quite and come home in good shape.

[cawest]

Chapter 17 

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

3 Jan 3047
A new system 28.03 Ly jump:
Cate’s Hold

One second the Tramp class jumpship was there, with three dropships clamped down to the sides.  And in the next second?  It was gone.  The only hint that something had been there, was an expanding ring or bubble of energy.  It was destroying all of the small bits of dust and detritus that had drifted into the jump zone, since the last jump into this section of the null gravity point.  In only a few seconds even this wave was gone, leaving only an empty spot in space to mark where over a quarter of a million tons of ship used to be. 

28 light years distance, in another star system, an Emergence wave announced that an interstellar visitor was coming into that star system.  If someone did not have some special equipment?  Then you did not have any warning, that several hundred thousand tons of spaceship was incoming.  Even at the height of the most damaging secession war, this information and these skill sets had been kept on almost all of the major inhabited planets. 

When the massive ship fully entered this new star system.  It sent a message planet side, because just like Ltzehoe.  This star system did not have any recharging stations or cargo hub in the area, to act as a jump point traffic control.  It did at one point have two of the massive Olympic class stations in this system.  They had put one at each of the two main jump points.  The wars that had ravaged this area had destroyed both of them, long before the 1st SW had started to heat up.  By now, even the wreckage had drifted so far away from the jump points.  That nothing could be found on the jumpship’s powerful radar system.  It was like they had never been there.  This information was not new to Captain Copeland and his command staff.  It was just surprising to see what could happen to a million tons of high technology. 

As the Styx was unfurling the recharging sail.  All three dropships that the ship was carrying, were releasing themselves from the long ship.  The little fleet would quickly adjust their formation and had started the long trip to the surface of Cate’s Hold.  They would need to stay in system for a minimum of one hundred and eighty hours or almost eight days, for the old jump engine to store enough power for the next jump.  It would take that long for the sail to do its job and recharge the jump engine, from energy supplied from a star that was so far away. 

Cate’s Hold had fallen onto hard times.  It was just like most of the planets in the area of space, that was call the Periphery.  Unlike most worlds?  It had started a comeback a few decades ago.  One that had been started and noticed, before the last resupply mission.  It was centered on the discovery of a large amount of radioactive, and other minerals in the planets crust.  These minerals were the same ones, that are needed to support most high-tech industrial development post information age. 

Up until then, the planet was known for a few other things.  It was known for entertainment of all kinds, to include gambling.  It was also a hot spot for Lostech prospectors, that would come from all across the Inner Sphere to try their own luck.  That was due to a rumor that the old SLDF had a base on this planet, at one time.  That base was supposed to help keep the MC under the thumb of the Star League.  It had even been able to do that, at least until the fall of that organization.  No one on the planet or off of it, knew what had happened to it during or right after the Amaris Coup. 

On every resupply mission that the Star League in Exile made, at least one ship on the mission would stop here.  Many times, more than one of the smaller splinter groups would stop by.  These visitors knew something, which the locals did not know about the rumors of the Star League base.  They knew that there were ground bases, not a base, that had supported many different SLDF missions in this whole region for decades.  There also was a well-hidden main base.  And there were a number of smaller support bases that had been emplaced around the planet, but they also all had been hidden by DoME. 

They had been hidden by DoME, so well.  That the exact locations of any of the bases had been lost, even to the Star League army that had left the inner sphere all those years ago.  The SLiE were able to eliminate two or three of the possible locations, on every trip to the planet.  Now they were down to only five possible locations, left on the whole planet.  Nothing had been found for the last few trips, and quietly SLIC was getting nervous.  After those last few possible sites were investigated.  It would get interesting on where they would send people to look next. 

After being picked to come on this mission, and not getting a slot on a major warship?  Jess had been studying all of the data, that they had on the old SLDF bases and past missions.  By now, she knew most of the data, by heart.  She had the fever to find the location of the base, and the unknown treasures it might still hold after all of these years.  She had her own ideas on where she wanted to look for the old base.  She still would have to check at least one of the other areas, that SLIC wanted someone to look at. 

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

The crew picked for this resupply mission was older.  In fact, there were more often than not married couples that made up the majority of the crews.  This would mean that some of the “normal” activities, that were the norm for most dropship crews.  Those would not be of interest to the majority of the crews on these four ships.  Once on the ground, each of the three dropships would go on a minimum manning level by SLiE regulations. 

This planet was so insignificant, that it did not even have an HPG or even a ComStar compound of any kind.  This was going to an R and R area for this crew.  But not all would be relaxing on the camping grounds, horseback, or there analog riding.  They still had a shopping list to fill, and they would need to sell some items for working capital.  And they needed to make room in the cargo holds on two of the ships. 

Jess and three other crewmembers, two of them were part of the security team for the little fleet, rented a four passenger off road truck that had a covered 5ton cargo box on its back bed.  It was overkill for all there camping equipment.  But it had the best off-road capabilities of anything, that the only transport rental company had left on the rental lot.  That was more important to Jess.  Comfort and cost were well down on the list, of what she was looking for in renting some transportation. 

While her and the rest of the off-duty crews were enjoying a little rest, normal gravity, and breathing unfiltered air.  Robert was reviewing the reports from the HPG team on the Styx, from his sleeping cabin.  That specialized team was doing a job, that did not need to stop between star systems or under anything except combat alerts.  He was looking forward to seeing what new scraps of data they will have uncovered from more of those intercepted messages, when they returned to the jump point. 

For two days on the planet, Robert was reading those reports and writing more than a few of his own.  This left the ship’s Captains to run their crews, without having to worry about the mission commander looking over their shoulders.  The HPG team had been decrypting as many of the intercepted messages, as they could.  They had broken many of the encrypting keys, for the ComStar HPG messages.  It had turned out that those messages were masked by a general traffic code. 

It had not taken long for that teamed to find out that ComStar had what they were thinking, was two different internal message codes systems.  Ones that had not been broken, yet.  As the spy team worked, they were getting better or faster about breaking the coded messages.  Robert was thinking, that by the end of the mission.  They would be able to read most of the messages as fast as they were transmitted from any star system, they were in. 

Just because they had broken the coding on the transmitting wrapper.  It did not mean that they could read all of the messages.  Some of the messages seem to have had an internal codes encryption, and that was on top of what ComStar was using in the first place.  It would seem.  That not everyone trusted ComStar to not read, what it was being paid to send across the stars.  It had taken longer to fully decode those types of messages, and without an idea on who was sending what.  There was not any context to some of those messages to fully understand them. 

All of the messages had to be run threw a second decoding run.  Any of the messages that did not make sense, when it was read by a real person.  Then those messages would be rerun threw the decoding software, again.  It was not a perfect process, but it was working good enough for now.  They had also found, identified, and cracked one of the MC military code groups.  The HPG Team had also found and cracked one of the MMM intercompany messages codes, in all of the messages that they had picked up.  Robert had to admit that it was a good start. 

This was the one message Robert had set aside, for later, when he had found it the first time in the stack of decoded messages the interception team had printed out for him.  He wanted to take his time, when he was reading that one.  It was the end of the day, and Robert was supposed to be picked up by Jess in a about six hours.  He wanted to get some time out in the green fields and open air.  Now that he had some open time, he pulled the MMM internal message forward to read.  In the message there were not too many surprises.  It was between McDonogh and the senior board members of the company on Canopus V.  It was mostly about him and the Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale Company. 

The general idea of the report was that they, Copeland’s people, had found a cache of some kind and at an unknown distance from MC controlled space.  It was noted that it might be up to a year travel time away.  It had seemed like they were people of their word, and that they should be treated with respect.  It also said that Copeland might have access to more Star league era equipment.  If they could get more?  That would help MMM keep up with the rest of the House armies, in there rearming to Star League Regular army level of technology.  It was viewed by McDonogh.  That it would be easier to work with Robert and his crew to access this type of tech, instead of trying to take it by making a raid on the FWL or the Capellan Confederation.  The message also made reference to an updated Warhammer that was about to start coming off the lines by Ronin Inc.  He wanted an update on how negotiations were going for a licensing agreement on that machine. 

That made sense to Robert as well.  Because if someone made a raid against one of those two major powers?  It would be ugly.  If it was found out by them, who had been behind the objective raids to steal Star League tech.  Both of those powers were known for being willing to retaliate against those kinds of games with a lot more forces, than even a major periphery power had access to.  Robert had just finished the report and was making some notes.  He was hoping that he might be able to exploit this information, later on in their travels.  When he was interrupted by the attention signal?  The type of signal, was telling him that the bridge wanted to talk to him and it was important. 

As soon as the phone hit his ears, a voice was talking. “Robert, we have a message from Jess.  She sent the codes, that said that.  They think they might have found something.  They would like to know if you might be able to come out this afternoon, instead of early tomorrow morning?”  Robert could tell that Jules was excited about the news.  Both men knew why she had selected that one area, as her “camp site” for the last two nights.  This caused Roberts heart to skip a beat. 

“Tell them, that I will pick up a rental truck.  I will meet them out at the tree, instead of them coming all the way back to pick me up.  I should be able to wrap this up, and be on the road in about an hour.  I wonder what they found.  I hope it’s not another dry hole, where someone has already beaten us to anything useful.”  Jules made a noncommittal grunt in agreement, before disconnecting. 

It was the rare time where the clan would find an old SLDF base that had not already been looted, sometime in the centuries after the fall of the Star League or to support the Exodus.  He could not count the number of times they had found a vault or old base.  Only to finally break in and find that it had already been emptied.  It could have been by the Exodus forces or someone else before or after that time.  No one would be able to know, and the Exiles were out a lot of time and expense looking for another empty return.  They were not always empty, but all most all of them were.  The SLiE had even stopped stripping the armor off the walls in the finds after 3000, unless there was a lot of empty cargo space available. 

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


Robert picked up a Jeep analog and headed out to the wilds, from a rental outlet office at the drop port’s only exit.  This trip had been planned, but not getting another rental had been thought about.  All of Roberts camping supplies had been packed and ready to go for him, when he was ready to leave.  He had hoped to spend the last three days of their planned stay on planet, away from any drop port or major buildings.  He had the bridge staff call and let Jess know that he was on his way out to her, when he pulled off the rental lot.  As he drove, he was of two minds about the change of plans.  He had wanted some time off.  But what if she had found something?  That was going to cause him a lot of stress, and possibly a massive amount of paperwork.  But if she found something, it might be worth a dropship’s weight of paperwork. 

It was a four hour drive out to where he would meet up with Jess, or with one of her crew.  When he reached the meeting point, Jess was waiting for him.  She was alone and setting at the base of some kind of very large local tree, with a laser rifle laid across her lap.  Robert did not see another truck nearby, so he waved to her and opened the passenger door.  She gets into the small SUV, almost before the metal door was all of the way open. 

As soon as her butt was in the seat, and the rental SUV door closed.  She was talking at the speed of a JumpShip, as soon as the door had shut.  “Captain Copeland!!  I was right!!  We found part of the base!!  It is not the main base, but we found two entrances into what I think was called Lobes or Sally bases.”  She was so excited.  That she seems more like a preteen kid, than a highly trained intelligence officer. 

Robert had to hold up one hand to get her to stop talking.  “Well let’s go see what you’ve found, Jess.”  Robert had seen this to many times, to show if he was excited or board.  He had been looking forward to having a few days off the clock after all. 

Robert started the jeep moving, and followed the directions steadily coming from Jess.  Soon they were off the road.  She got more excited, as they moved along the rough path through the woods that the small vehicle was occasionally bottoming out on.  As they drove down the now dirt trail, periodically Jess would point out areas of disturbed ground off to the left and right.  She would tell Robert that those were the sites that past crews had been looking for the old SLDF Base.  Sometimes she even knew what team had done, what damage to the ground.  Robert was impressed with the amount of information she had memorized about this planet. 

Jess told Robert to turn right off of the dirt trail, and they started going up a narrow active creek bed.  It was still an active water course, but it currently only had a few inches of water moving down the main central channel.  Sometimes Robert could see spots where a larger vehicle had made this same trip, ripping into the creek bed with its larger tires.  When they made a 45 degree turn in the creek bed?  Robert could see the larger off-road truck off to his left on the creek bank.  It had been parked parallel to the higher rock bluff overlooking the creek.  The bluff looked to mark the flood level of this creek during the rainy season. 

Robert had to put his foot firmly on the accelerator to make it up the first part of the creek bank.  When Jess hopped out of the still moving jeep.  Robert pulled up farther onto the flatter area out of the creek.  He parked by the larger truck, before exiting the jeep and following Jess at a more leisurely pace.  She had gone between the large truck and part of the rock bluff, that the high sided truck was blocking the view of from the creek bed. 

When Robert made the turn to go between the truck and bluff?  He could see a massive rusted and pitted metal hatch, that should lead into some kind of an opening into the bluff side.  It was a little darker between the two tall obstructions provided by the bluff and truck.  The area was covered from anyone looking down at them by a tent canvas, it even had a few yard chairs not under cover to give it the look of a sleep space.  Jess started into briefing mode, as soon as she saw Robert was there and he could see the open metal hatch. 

“We found the first tunnel, on our very first night.  It was larger than this one.  I think that it was a supply or maybe a tank company sally port, due to the low ceilings.  It went in about a hundred meters before the tunnel was closed off from the rest, by a cave in.  We spent a few hours digging into the mess caused by the cave in but called it off.  We think you will need some heavy equipment, and lots of manpower to clear it any deeper.  I know that we don’t have ether items to spare right now, so we started looking for a mech entrance.  One that should have been near to the support provided by the tank sally port.  This is what we found instead.” 

She pointed to the hatch over one of her shoulders.  “As you can see a mech, not even a Wasp, would fit threw that hatch.  Not even if they tried to craw one of them in.  It goes farther inside, but stops about three hundred meters before it also stops, because of another cave in.  The cave in was right behind a dropped blast door.  We did not find the cave in until we had cut through the fraking thing.  That was a letdown, after doing all that work of cutting the battle steel.  In the end?  We were able to cut through the blast door, but it is packed with rocks, and I don’t think we will be able to make it deeper into the base this way either.” 

When Jess finished her little overview.  She walked deeper under the tent overhang and went towards the hatch and now open tunnel.  On closer inspection of the area, by Robert.  The hatch was only about 2.5m tall and 2m wide on the outside.  It looked more like a hatch for infantry to exit from an APC during combat, and not a massive door needed for a support base to function.  The hatch still could be moved but it was not easy.  Robert was able to move it a little just by using a lot of muscle power.  They were waiting for one of Jess’s team to finish laying out a power line for something farther in the dark tunnel, before they could step over the threshold and enter the dark tunnel. 

Once he had moved out of the way, Jess and then Robert entered the tunnel.  As they went down the tunnel, Robert saw Jess’s team working on another hatch with some portable cutting tools.  They passed three doors or hatches on both sides of the tunnel breaking both left and right from the pair, as they walked deeper into the hill side.  These hatches were open, but Robert did not have time to look into them, because Jess was walking quickly going farther into the musty smelling tunnel.  Jess had turned on a handheld light as well as a point light, which was on an elastic band that went around her forehead.  If she had walked much farther away, it was going to leave Robert in the dark.  It was not like the old SLDF put sky lights in places like this, a few centuries ago. 

This was Jess’s mission, and Robert was letting her run it her way.  For now, he was just going to keep his mouth shut and wait.  He followed her all the way to the large thickly armored hatch blocking the tunnel, that had been recently cut and pulled open.  When Jess stopped and pointed the light behind the heat scar and jaggedly cut hatch.  When Robert walked over.  He could see that the tunnel behind the partially opened hatch was completely filled with rock and massive boulders, but surprisingly very little dirt and not one drop of water. 

[cawest]

Jess was right.  It would take trained miners or highly skilled combat engineers, to go any deeper into this complex.  If the other entrance, that jess had found already, was like this one?  It would take a major pre-planning of the needed manpower and equipment for the next trip out this way.  It did look like there was a lot more to this area than what they had found, so far.  Jess would have a line in the remembrance for this discovery, for sure.  How many people could say they found not one but two entrances to a hidden and lost old Star League depot, in less than a week?  None that Robert could remember, even if this pair of tunnels were dry holes so far.  It was amazing work, even if the hatch and tunnel armor turned out to just be BAR rated junk. 

Robert pulled his head back and gave her a slight nod of approval at her find.  “There is no way we are going to be able to go through that, not with what we have on the ships.  I don’t think the Dig Lord would fit in this low tunnel.  Even if we had someone who knew how to use it.  Not without killing themselves in another cave in, this one of their own making.  When we get back to base?”  He was not going to let slip about New Circe.  “We will kick it up to higher.  Maybe they will outfit a special mission just to dig these two tunnels out, and see where they go.” 

“Sir, I don’t know if we have time to wait.  There are a few other groups, that are digging all around us already.  They could find this base any day now.  I don’t think we would want to be here, when they do find something.  Whoever finds the main chamber?  They will not be able to keep it quiet for even a few hours.  That will mean a lot of attention, which our people have been trying to avoid for a few hundred years now.” 

What Jess was saying was all true, but they were talking about a SLDF Depot?  Who knew what could be inside?  Someone else higher in the food chain would have to decide what to do with this discovery.  Robert felt that it was over his paygrade.  He would need to find out everything he could, to make a good decision.  That meant finding out what information these exposed rooms might be able to give him, on what might be behind the cave in. 

“You said earlier, that this might be a Lobe base to a Depot.  What makes you think that?”  Ask the mission commander to the head of his Intel section. 

Jess turned and pointed back up the tunnel they had walked down.  “We found four doors close to the main hatch.  The one that is farthest from the exit hatch, was a bunk room with 34 bunks and lockers in the room behind a thin hatch.  They were all empty of anything useful.  I think that even any leftover clothes had rotted to dust, before we got here.  The second room was a massive latrine/shower/gym combination area.  That is when I called you, to let you know we found something that might be big.  I was thinking that this was a standalone or independent part of the base, if it did not have the blocked tunnel behind that hatch.  While you were on your way out here.  We were able to cut open the third door, and it’s only a kitchen and dining area.” 

Jess started to almost vibrate in her boots.  “If I’m right?  The last door will be the armory for the infantry platoon, that was stationed out here.  If it is?  It will most likely be empty, but a full load out for a SLDF Infantry Platoon would be nice.  Even if it’s mostly empty, it still will be a nice find.  The Colonials are short on any weapons, that have any real damage capabilities against Cylons.  Besides shooting Cylons or some standard infantry?  There weapons are not that great against harder targets, like we might have to face in the future.” 

What she did not need to tell Captain Copeland, was that even the Cylons were fielding harder and harder to kill warfighting machines every few months.  Still the Cylons were not even up to early age of war hard to kill level, but they were getting there quick.  Then there were the Clans to worry about.  The information coming to them about the Elemental style powered battle armor, was scary.  Some in SLIC thought that it might be exaggerated, but those were the minority in that organization.  Most thought that they would be even more deadly. 

As they passed each door off of the tunnel, they would stop.  Robert and Jess would enter and look around each of the opened rooms.  They would open each inner door and see if they could find anything, as one final check of that space.  Just as Jess had said, everything that was made of cloth had rotted, but nothing metal had rusted.  It looked like the seals had held on both of the hatches, so water had not entered this area of the base.  If that was true in the other rooms off of this tunnel?  Then it was a good chance, that any weapons left behind, might be at least repairable.  Finding a working weapon right off of the rack after so many years was a fantasy, in Roberts mind. 

They were at the last of the doors.  They were waiting as two crewmen worked on cutting the door open.  It was easily apparent that it was a lot heavier made, than any of the other hatches coming off of the tunnel.  That is except for the two hatches on the main tunnel, which Robert had just seen already.  Jess and Robert thought that this was a good sign.  The cables that the men had been running down the tunnel, when Robert had arrived, were for the lights and to run some of the powerful cutting equipment Jess had the foresight to bring with them. 

The sun had gone down and those small light stands were the only lights, beside the shower of sparks coming off the cutters.  Jess passed her boss a set of colored glasses to protect his eyes from the glare of the cutting tools, when they came to a stop and it seem that he did not want to wait outside.  That had not surprised her.  She also did not want to wait outside while they were cutting.  The pair of them were just standing and bracing the opposite wall of the tunnel.  That was when they all heard and felt a loud THUNK, come from the object of all of their attention.  The hatch had not moved, but you could tell that the sound had come from it. 

Both of the men cutting and trying to open the door, stopped what they were doing and looked at each other for a second.  Then each of them grabbed small pen lights and started to look down the glowing hot lines, that they had cut in the door so far.  The taller of the two started looking closely into the hole and lines, cut into the top of the metal wall like hatch.  The shorter man started doing the same a little lower.  The taller man made a loud series of curses, then the second man did the same thing but on a different cut line. 

A dozen thick alloy rods had deployed from the center of the hatch into slots in the hatch frame, tightly locking the hatch in place.  This event was both good and bad news for Jess and Robert.  The bad part was now it was going to take a lot more work, to get into the next room.  The good part was that this was indeed a security hatch, and those devices were not put just anywhere in a SLDF base.  They were not cheap, even for the old SLDF to emplace.  They were only used on certain areas that needed extra security, like command centers, power rooms, life support, and armories.  The other good thing was that someone had thought to leave this security system activated, when they left this place the last time.  Robert just hoped that it was left active for a reason.  Other than someone had the time and wanted to make life difficult, for anyone who showed up after this base had been shut down.  Soldiers threw out history, always had an odd idea on what was funny and what was not.  Most of the time it would depend on who was the victim, and who was the instigator. 

The cutting crew stopped working for a while, to have a hot meal and to take a break from the work.  This is when Robert found out that the missing fourth person had been on guard duty outside.  He was told it was so that no one could sneak up on them, while they were blindly working in the strange dark tunnel.  After the sun had set.  The person outside had started up the campfire, and he had set out some camp food out to begin warming for the rest of them.  For the group it was not being tired that caused them to stop working, but their stomachs telling them it was time for a break.  One of the metal cutters had to stay outside for the next shift of guard duty. 

When the four people went back into the tunnel, Robert picked up a cutter from the missing man.  He was not as fast or as neat with his cutting as the missing man had been, but it was better than nothing.  And he was physically fresh, not having been wiped out from a long day of physical labor.  Everyone in the group wanted to see what was in this last room, even if it was empty. 

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


By midnight the bottom of the hatch had been completely cut threw, to include the locking bars that had deployed while Robert had been watching.  It had been done by the better trained primary cutter.  Robert had only the right-side locking rods cut.  With the bottom cut, Robert moved out of the way of the better and faster metal cutter.  Robert had cut on three of the side rods, when the second cutter made it back down the tunnel.  It was his sleep time, but he said that he was way too excited to get any sleep.  He thought he would come back down and see if he could help.  Robert was not going to complain, it would speed things back up with a more experienced cutter on the job. 

Now with the two more experienced cutters working on the job, it only took two hours to finish cutting the hatch open.  They knew when the final cut was complete.  It was when the heavy hatch snapped the last bit of hot metal.  The hatch fell into the 2inch gap, that had been cut between the bottom of the hatch and the outer frame.  It went with a loud metal clank, which caused everyone in the tunnel to whence in pain at the loud sound.  The sound caused only a short delay, as four heavy metal prybars were shoved into the sides and top gaps that had been cut into the thick hatch.  The four all had huge grins on their faces, as they slammed the prybars into the cut lines. 

With a lot of sweat, some colorful words, and not a little grunting.  The heavy metal hatch fell forward, into the exit tunnel.  It had barely missed four sets of toes.  The hatch did not lay flat on the floor, when it had fallen off of the side of the tunnel it was hiding.  The top edge was only about half a meter off the floor of the main tunnel.  It had fallen at a slight angle.  It was just enough of an angle that it was going to make your footing unsure, and still be a trip hazard on the other end.  It was however, not enough to block access to the room for the fivesome.  It only made access a step up, then take another step, that was at a slight angle going down to the hatch.  Once past the still hot, cut hatch lip there was a step down to the original level of the floor on the other side of the hatch frame.  The group did not even notice the little dance steps they needed to do, to access the new room. 

The four flashlight beams played across the now opened room.  It was not empty.  The small but powerful lights played across filled weapons racks and closed and locked storage lockers.  This was not an entrance to another tunnel.  It was something that was worth putting a security hatch in.  First one light stopped and then another light followed, until all four lights had stopped on a crest painted on the back wall of the hard to get into room.  To either side of the odd shaped Cameron star were the well-known patches used by the SAS. 

The 331st had been a Royal Battle Mech Division.  The unit had dozens of stories, about working with these elite units from before the Star League had fallen into the dust bin of history.  It was using some of that knowledge and experience gained by working with those units, when Clan Wolverine came back to the Inner sphere that had paid dividends.  They had been fleeing the abomination, that had become the Clans thanks to the General’s Son.  They were able to find over two hundred sets of Nighthawk PA(L) armor systems that they were still using to this day.  That alone, had been directly thanks to notes and stories about working with the old SAS. 

Robert was stunned, like the rest of them.  But he was older, and he came back to his senses first.  He was also the first to speak of the group.  “Well Jess.  I think you hit the jackpot.  This might get us a return trip out this way a lot faster, than anyone of us might have thought possible.  We need to get an inventory done, but if I’m not mistaken.” 

Robert played his hand-held light against one wall, that had oddly folded and unidentifiable equipment stacked along it.  The odd folded equipment went almost to the ceiling of the vault in several tall stacks.  “Those are Nighthawk systems, all along that wall and stacked to the ceiling.” 

“If this turned out to be a SAS platoon support base?  High command was going to lose their minds,” thought Robert.  “Jess, I really hope you have an imaging system with lots of storage space with you.  I want as many detailed images as you can get of this room, before we move anything.  We need to know what was here and were it was, when we get back home.  The Archivist Department will have our hides, if we cannot articulate the most minute details about this find of yours to them.” 

Robert smiled at the younger woman. “I bet she has not thought about, how this might be received when they got back home,” Robert thought to himself.  “That is why I get paid the big bills.” He did not know it, but a sly little grin had crept onto his face that the others could see.  It did not, for some reason make them feel easy about anything.  The Captain only smiled like that, when you had stepped into something smelly up to your hips. 

Robert grabbed the two cutters/bodyguards and left the room for Jess to do her tasks.  He took the two other men to the last room, the one that would have been the bunk room.  They went over every inch of the room, with a fine-tooth comb.  It was through many hard-learned lessons, during their time in hiding.  That now, they were also looking for any hidden rooms that might be in the exposed area.  None were found, but you had to take the time and look for those items, when you dealt with special forces hideaways.  The group of three, were also looking for anything that might be worth taking back to their home planet for testing or use. 

After a little over an hour of looking at every little seam in the opened rooms.  They were getting tired.  They had only found a few items of personal or military equipment that might be of value, after it had gone through a lot of detailed cleaning.  It seemed, that whoever had lived in these rooms?  They had packed up everything they wanted, before leaving.  In one of the two rooms off of the main bunk room.  They had found, that one only had a single bed and a long dead computer on a small desk.  They carefully picked the computer up and carried it to Roberts rented small truck.  Robert made sure that it was packed down and protected.  The two cutters had pulled out there sleeping beds, while Robert went back down the tunnel to check on Jess.  The two cutters were running on empty, now that most of the excitement was over.  They know knew what was in the last locked room, and it was a major find no matter how you looked at it. 

Jess was still in the armory, when Robert found her.  She had hopped up onto a worktable and used her backpack as a hard and lumpy pillow.  She already was deep asleep, and Robert would bet.  That she would start to snore any second now.  Robert left her there and went back out to his rental truck and pulled out his sleeping bag, with his thick pillow and sleeping pad.  He was too old to “like” sleeping on the hard and lumpy ground.  He was a JumpShip commander after all, and not a ground pounder or tank driver. 

Robert woke himself up early.  The sun was just starting to rise, and you could just barely tell the difference between a white thread and a black one at arm’s length.  Any more sunlight, and it would have spot lighted him out in the open on the exposed side of the truck and tent combination.  He relieved the current guard, so he could get some sleep and be useful later by Jess with her mission.  Robert drew some water from a large container and started heating it up, by the open and still burning campfire.  He added some more ready firewood to increase the heat production, for the water and soon to be needed warm food. 

Robert did not need the night vision device, which the last guard had been using for his watch.  Robert just had to keep a look out with his own eyes, but he also had a set of cheap locally unmanned sensors that had been placed around the camp by this team.  These devices were to help alert them; in case anyone might come near them while they were working.  Besides it had more scouting skills than any of the duty guards.  It would have been different if one or two of them had been first trained as Infantry or scouts.  It was around eight in the morning local time, when the rest of the prospecting team joined Robert around the fire.  Even Jess came stumbling out of the tunnel, not long after the other two had taken seats around the nicely burning fire. 

After a quick meal, Jess and Robert went back into the tunnel.  They would be working alone for at least a few hours, before they would be joined by anyone else.  That was okay with Robert, because this next part was not the most fun for anyone to have to do.  That would come later, but this had to be done. 

Jess and Robert were able to complete the detailed search of the latrine and the kitchen, before they were joined by a third person.  The Latrine and gym were of no use to anyone, but a scrap dealer.  The equipment was not worth the effort to move, and the lockers had been cleaned out already.  Even the extra bath towels seemed to be gone.  They had not rotted into dust, but they had been removed from their holders.  Maybe by the unit that had been here, and had left for the last time.  This was noted by Jess and Robert, to be added to their post mission reports.  They did find what was left of the small washcloths, as a pile of dirt in the marked holder. 

What the three had found in the kitchen, had cause the three to talk and do some on the spot brainstorming.  Everything had been removed from the kitchen.  It was almost like someone had packed up all of the food and had moved it out of the facility.  The only thing that had remained behind, had been the odd stack of flatware and plates left in bare cupboards.  These were just the generic types and not the unit embossed items, that had been found before in sites like this.  It was odd that these had been taken, and there was little doubt that they had been taken.  There was a marked area in the shelves for them, that was very empty of anything but a thin layer of dust. 

The only thing that they had found of interest, was a plastic map mounted on one of the walls.  It showed some of what might be beyond the cave in.  It looked like there was at least another four rooms down the line from the location of the cave in.  The little map did not have that much information about what those rooms might be, only that they had firefighting and air filtration equipment for emergency use.  You would just have to dig threw an unknown number of tons of rock and dirt, to get to them. 

Robert and Jess knew that the first room from the cave in, should be the main ammunition supply point (ASP) for the platoon.  Then you would have a land vehicle maintenance area, another barracks, and then a small hospital or medical bay.  After that?  They had no information, unless they found something in the arms room near the exit hatch.  The map did prove that there was more to this tunnel that might be of value, besides what they had found already. 

Jess was showing Robert the images that she had taken of the arms room.  With her intelligence background, she knew how to quickly and expertly record what had been in the arms room.  When there third person showed back up, from a latrine break.  He had his own noteputor, and that brought the number to three in that room.  Each one of them had at least two different camera settings that could be used.  They went about the business of going into each locker and drawer in the arms room.  As they were going around the room.  They could see that some of the weapons were missing.  It was by the open slots in the different weapons racks, as they passed the cameras viewfinders over them in a steady sweep. 

When Robert made it to the location where the crews served weapons were placed, the only ones that were present were the tripod only mountable weapons.  All of the weapons that were modified to be mounted on a vehicle of any kind were also missing.  There should have been half a dozen of them, according to the empty slots in the racks.  But all of those spots that should have held the heavy weapons were empty.  It was possible that they never had been there in the first place, but Robert did not think so.  If the SAS needed or just wanted something?  They would have gotten it, one way or the other.  Most of the time they would get three or four of them, according to rumor. 

##########


Robert had them load up first the jeep, that he had rented, with some of the items from the treasure chest.  It only had about a 250kg cargo capacity, according to the manual.  They also could not put anything in the small SUV.  That someone passing him might notice, that he was carrying something odd or SLDF in origin.  That meant that most of the space in the seating area was not used, no matter how much they might want to.  Robert had to get back to the dropships.  He needed to plan out a way to clean out this find.  It was going to have to be done quietly, and above all it would need to be done secretly. 

The group of four loaded a mix of armorer’s tools, small weapons, and whatever else would fit around the complete computer system already loaded in the small truck.  They used some of Robert’s camping gear to pad and conceal the items.  Those last two operations took longer than loading the vehicle had taken in the first place. 

Robert drove slowly and carefully down the creek bed and dirt trails.  He kept the speed down all the way back to the hardtop road, that would lead him back to the drop port.  He did keep his side arm within easy reach of his firing hand during, the entire trip back to the ships.  He was carrying treasure, and it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. 

[cawest]

Robert continued taking his time on the drive, even after he got into higher traffic capable roads.  He was using the time to try to work out a plan in his head, on how to empty their find without drawing any unwanted attention by locals or anyone else.  There was not an HPG on the planet, but there were ships leaving this system at least every other week or so.  He hoped to be able to leverage the find, in such a way.  That they might be able to come back and find out what else might be hidden in the facility.  He thought that they had only scratched the surface of Jess’s find.  When Robert passed a wide field that had been filled with beef cattle, which were waiting to go to one of the local slaughterhouses?  That was when a new idea started to form in his mind.  Now all he had to do, was fill in the holes of the base plan or idea. 

When he was closer to the drop port.  He called ahead and made sure that the large main loading ramp was down and locked, on the Maru.  He drove the rented jeep right onto the drop port without having to be inspected by the half-asleep guard, and then right up the loading ramp of the massive Mule class dropship.  He pulled the jeep off to the side of the open hatch, so that it was not visible from the outside no matter what angle they might have on the open dropship hatch.  Waiting for him was the dropship commander and the Cargo Master.  Both people had a very concern look on their face, when Robert exited the mud-covered off-road SUV.  He had not showered, shaved, or changed clothes since he had come on shift early the day before.  This was very out of character for the mission commander. 

Robert waved to the two other men to come over.  Robert put on his poker face, when he saw that they were walking over to their commander with odd looks on their faces.  Robert used the time to open the back of the small cargo compartment.  He only had to wait for a few minutes till they joined him, there at the open back of the rented small SUV.  He was playing dirty pool, but sometimes you had to do what you needed to do as a commander.  Him having fun was just an added benefit. 

“Gentlemen!  It would seem, that Jess has been right all along.  She has found two entrances to an underground bunker or bunkers, while she was out in the woods.  Now both were blocked a few hundred meters into the underground areas.  The second one had a few rooms that we were able to check out, before the tunnels were blocked by cave-ins.  But at least one was not a dry hole.” 

With the last words, Robert pulled off a tarp, that had been used to cover what had been hidden underneath it.  What was now on display, were a pair of old laser pistols with clearly visible SLDF markings on the grips.  “I want this truck emptied, and everything put in shipping containers.  I want those containers separated from anything else on board.  Command will want to make sure we do not contaminate or lose any of it, before we can get back home.  I also want it under a guard with a concealed weapon.  And I want everyone watching what is going around the ships from now on, just in case until we leave this system.” 

Robert said the last with a slight smile on his face.  “The area that the bunkers are in, might be one of the hot spots for others looking for the old SLDF depot.  We are going to have to recover what we can.  All without letting anyone else know what we are doing, or that we had found there.  I have a plan and it starts with the red meat shipment, that is due to be delivered to us in the morning.” 

Over the next few minutes, Robert gave a rundown of what he was planning to two of his senior staff.  It did not go over well, but neither of the other two men could come up with a better plan on such short notice.  They would just have to make do with what they had, or what their commander had pulled out the place he had been sitting on while he had been driving back to the drop port. 

###########


Notes:

Cate’s Hold:  I did not know about this planet, until I had been working on this project for a while.  I just could not have the SLiE not stop by this place, after I found out about it.  It also would make sense that they would have also been looking for the old base on the other supply runs. 

Lostech prospecting: How do you keep what you are doing quiet from those around you?  How do you balance risk vs reward?  I was thinking it was a lot like the old gold rush days with claim jumping.  I had a run in with someone looking for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine while on a trail ride in the Superstition Mountains.  Let’s just say that it almost got ugly, and all I was doing was looking to make a cat hole. 

Data on old SLDF:  It is very hard to find any canon information on Brain Cache, so I just kind of made it up. 

[Shadow_Wraith]

Nice update!

[glitterboy2098]

.  Then there were the Clans to worry about.  The information coming to them about the Elemental style powered battle armor, was scary.  Some in SLIC thought that it might be exaggerated

I thought the wolverines had no intel on the clans, which was why their learning about the Dragoon's has spooked them so?

Elementals didn't show up till 2868, so it is possible the wolverines had encountered a predecessor system before their exodus, but this makes it sound like they had current homeworld intel

[Hotpoint]

I thought the wolverines had no intel on the clans, which was why their learning about the Dragoon's has spooked them so?

Elementals didn't show up till 2868, so it is possible the wolverines had encountered a predecessor system before their exodus, but this makes it sound like they had current homeworld intel

I can field this one.   ;D

The New Circe Wolverines do have intel on the clans post their "annihilation" but it is far from being current. It tends to take decades for information to wind its way all the way down to them.

If you ever wondered how the Wolverines in Hunted Tribes are able to field the Kirghiz, Visigoth and later the Avar omnifighter it's because they're all older designs by Clan standards and Clan Burrock only thinks it's the Dark Caste being played in their relationship!

If you're wondering as to the actual means of communication... let's just say that the clans encountering the Jarnfolk in their part of space decades before the clan invasion wasn't exactly the first time those Scandinavian types had ventured up that way.  ;)

[glitterboy2098]

the problem i have there is that unless the delay on intel is more than half a century, they should already know about the Dragoon's. the Dragoons Compromise was not exactly secret to clan society, and involved so many people in the creation, training, and equipping of basically a full galaxy of troops that you literally could not have hid it. nor was their intended goal hidden from clan society either. the wolverines might not have known about what happened after the dragoons left the homeworlds, but they'd still know it existed. and the fact that a clan recon expedition is running around as mercs within the inner sphere is the kind of thing that you can bet would be included in the intel briefing for the officers in charge of supply runs into the IS.

i know that you kinda got stuck with the clan hardware due to this being based off someone else's story, but the combo of having current clan tech (and thus extensive intel sources within the homeworlds) and not knowing about one of the bigger projects the homeworlds have done, which involved multiple clans and tens of thousands of people, is just a really hard to believe combo.

[Hotpoint]

i know that you kinda got stuck with the clan hardware due to this being based off someone else's story, but the combo of having current clan tech (and thus extensive intel sources within the homeworlds) and not knowing about one of the bigger projects the homeworlds have done, which involved multiple clans and tens of thousands of people, is just a really hard to believe combo.

Current Clan Tech?

The Visigoth dates from 2948 (it's a century old design by the time this story is set) whereas the Avar is even older (introduced 2899) and the Kirghiz goes all the way back to 2874.

Wolverine intel on the Homeworlds really is decades out of date, it's just not centuries out of date!

[cawest]

Chapter 18 

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

9 Jan 3047
Before sunrise Day 3 on planet Cate’s Hold

Early the next morning, right after the ship’s crews had finished the morning meal.  A local supply factor showed up with the order of processed cattle, that had been prepared for shipment across the stars.  The Cargo Master and a crew went out to inspect the food, before they would load the delivery of the meat and make payment.  This had already been agreed on, when the request had been made and accepted by the two different groups. 

After a few minutes, a loud ship wide announcement was made on the dropship.  It said that Captain Copeland was needed on the loading ramp.  Robert left the cargo bay, that he just happened to be working in, and headed to the outside of the ship.  There were a lot of witnesses to his location, to include some of the locals.  They had been checking out a computer system that was for sale.  It was all very staged.  But it was so well staged, that no one could tell that it was staged.  Not even most of the crewmembers on the dropships knew that it was staged. 

When he made it down the loading ramp?  Robert was joined by the Cargo Master, the dropship’s captain, and one of the cargo master’s helpers.  They also had the meat factor, truck driver, and someone in uniform.  The last one might have been police or some other kind of local law enforcement.  When Robert was within speaking, without shouting, distance.  He announced his presence.  The three crewmembers turned to face Robert, as he finished his approach to the group.  He made sure to have just the right look on his face. 

Robert looked around the group of individuals in the shade of the Mule class dropship.  On the ground were three plastic covered frozen cow halves, that had been pulled out of the shipping container.  He could not identify, why he had been called out, by what he saw going on around him.  That is unless he had a crystal ball, or he already knew what was going on before he had exited the cargo ship. 

“So, what is going on gentleman and ladies?”  Robert made sure to give a slight head bow to the females standing to his front. 

The meat factor was a woman, and on this planet she more or less acted as one of the systems key leaders.  In the MC women were in most of the positions of power or authority, in this small interstellar nation.  This would be one of the few times, that he had to deal with a person in this senior of a position.  Captain Copeland’s people always tried to keep a lower profile on these resupply runs.  The meeting with so high ranked a person in MMM on this run, had been a first, for Robert.  And it still makes Robert somewhat uncomfortable, thinking about being that visible.  Robert had no problem sticking it to ComStar, but meeting planetary leaders still made him a little uncomfortable.  That had been the job of the more senior leaders on a supply run. 

The Cargo Master was the first to speak of the group, to Robert.  “Sir, the meat failed our spot inspections.”  His delivery was soft, flat, and to the point.  It started everyone on the other side of him, to raise their voices to get their own point across.  All to counter what the dropship’s Cargo Master had just thrown into the air. 

Robert just picked up the handheld testing device, that was sitting on the edge of the container.  This device was old tech, and as a matter of fact.  This little handheld testing lab had been made in the MC, this year.  But it was very innovative and worthwhile to bring a few back home.  The Cargo Master had picked up a few of the handheld testing devices, before they left the last system.  The MC had a very large and advanced, for the Inner sphere, medical skills and anything that related to health and health care.  He walked over to one of the laid-out meat carcasses.  He opened the airtight closing device, that the meat was in, and pushed the end of the tester against the frozen meat.  The device beeped and showed a red light.  That was all it needs to do, to say that it had come up contaminated.  So, Robert re-ran the test on the other two animal halves. 

All three of them came up bad, according to the tester in Robert’s hands.  Robert looked at the others and showed them the red light, that said the meat was not safe to eat.  The woman looked like she had eaten a lemon.  Robert ran the self-test on the device and waited a few seconds, for it to complete.  He showed it was green.  Then he re-ran the test on all three hunks of frozen meat, again.  He would show the results each time he tested the beef to the group.  When he had completed the last tests?  He came back to the group.  He handed the tester back to his Cargo Master, before saying anything to the group of locals. 

“There bad, send the whole load back.  What is the issue Cargo Master?  You know the rules.  They fail?  Then they go back.”  He looked around the group of locals and tilted his head a little to one side.  He now needed to test his acting skills.  “What’s the problem?” 

The woman was sputtering, and her voice went to almost to a shake your bones level.  “The meat is safe!!!  I have never had a load refused before!!” 

Robert tilted his head again but to the other side, like he was thinking about what the woman had said.  Then he locked eyes with the tall and muscular woman.  “Well, there is a first time for anything.  Don’t you think?  We have a policy, that we will not take a delivery for any food that fails a safety check.  And we will not use that factor, again.  If we sell bad food to another planet?  It will be us that will get in all kinds of trouble, not you.  I will not risk getting anything from fined, jail time, to having one, or all of my ships seized by some local government flunky.  All due to someone else selling us bad supplies, and we did not check them.” 

Robert looked back to one of his crew.   “Contact any of the other local meatpackers and let them know what we are looking for, and when we need it by.  Officer?”  Robert turned to the uniformed woman off to one side.  She had been the only one who had not said a word, since he had arrived on the scene.  “I think we are done.  Would you please escort the factor, and her goods away from my ships?  I have to make arrangements for a few trucks and loaders.” 

Robert did not wait for the officer to acknowledge his orders.  He turned and walked back into the cooler air of his ship.  As he was walking into the ship.  He thought to himself, that he had just played dirty pool, and it could ruin this factor.  It would not take long for the information about the “bad meat” to get around the planet and then off.  When that word got around, that she had tried to pass off bad food supplies to him.  It would make others very shy about using her, as a supplier.  No one would want to risk that the same thing might happen to them.  They would just quietly shift their business to someone else.  It would not take long, for her to have her position as one of the key leaders of this planet threatened. 

The tester was new, but somehow it had been broken.  The Cargo Master had decided he wanted to keep it, for some reason known only to him.  Whenever you ran the self-test?  It would come up green, but one of the test strips would stay in place.  That meant when you tested something?  It would read the test strip, and not the food you were testing.  Whatever it tested, would come up with the failed test indicators light.  It sure had come in handy today, and Robert was glad he remembered that little device while he had been driving.  That just goes to show you, that you should be careful what you discard.  It may be useful later. 

Robert already had a list of contact numbers set out, when the meat failed.  They were on a tight timeline, and he did not want to waste any more time than he has to.  By his third contact?  He had a heavy-duty cargo truck with a storage container rated for frozen food, and two local loader exoskeletons ready to roll.  The Exoskeletons were very basic gear.  It would turn a single person into a good-sized all terrain forklift, that also was in a small package.  The hard part had been convincing the rental agency, that he did not need operators for the Exoskeletons. 

His next call was to a meatpacking plant that was along the right road, near where Jess had found her little find.  He gave them a ring and set up a time, in a few hours, for his people to come out.  They would check out what the local had in stock, on such short notice.  At this point it did not matter what the local had or the cost.  His location was the most important thing to Robert. 

Robert’s SUV, heavy truck, two loaders, cold container, and six additional personnel left to go to the first facility before local noon that very day.  All of the people in the two trucks, where crewmembers from the two cargo dropships under his command.  Robert was not going to let any of the locals anywhere near this mission.  The first stop for the trucks, was not at any meat packing plant.  It was at an isolated stretch of road, out in the middle of nowhere.  The larger truck had quickly pulled off the main road and found the smaller off-road truck, that Jess had been using.  The larger truck backed up its cargo bed, so that the two trucks were tail to tail.  When they were almost touching, the back of the cold truck, opened up.  Now it could let a loader suit leave and walk into the covered area of the other truck. 

The rest of the ground crew started to move folded up heavy duty shipping crates, from the larger truck into the smaller one.  Each of these hard-plastic crates, when it was unfolded and locked, would be 1.2m long x 1.0m wide and the same tall.  They each were rated to hold 100kg of load, without warping or collapsing.  As each person carried arm loads of those flat boxes to the other truck.  They would pick up a load of weapons, tools, and other things from the smaller truck.  They would be hidden in the cold truck, until it could be off loaded in to one of the two dropships. 

Jess and her team had loaded as much as they could, by hand.  But they were limited by only being able to move, what the three people could move by themselves.  Then there was the limited amount of time they had to make the long walking trips.  After these items had been transferred, the back of the off-road truck was covered for the trip out to the main road. 

The now empty off-road 5ton cargo truck left the area.  It was taking two new people, to help load the off-road truck with one of the loader suits tied down in the back.  The cold truck, with its hidden cargo, the remaining loader, and the second four door SUV commanded by the Cargo Master continued down the main road.  They needed to “see” the beef, that they needed to conceal their plan with. 

The truck made it to the first meat packing facility and met the manager of the facility at the main office.  The locals were more than happy to show this new customer, what they had for sale.  They were going to sell the meat for almost the same price, as what the factor would have sold it to these outsiders.  And the facility would not have to pay the travel cost or fees charged by the factor to complete this sale.  That was a lot more, than they would have sold it to the factor for.  But the outsiders should and would not know that little bit of information.  All of the frozen beef and beef analog were tested, and after it had past the testing.  The heavy loader Exo-suit, manned by one of Copeland’s people, would put the meat inside the cold shipping container. 

This did not go quickly, because Copeland had ordered that each package was to be checked a second time before it was loaded.  It was advertised that the visitors just wanted to be on the safe side.  This was expected by anyone watching.  Because the story had gotten around already about the tainted meat, that someone had tried to sell to them earlier in the day.  A dark covering had been hung from the inside top of the truck.  This helped to make sure that no one could see deep into the truck.  The thick narrow rectangle hung plastic, that was normal for a cold truck finished the camouflage, cover and concealment of the old Star League items at the very front of the cold container. 

As the rented trucks pulled out of the meat packing plant, a message was forwarded to them from the dropships.  It simply was telling them.  That Jess was not ready for a second pick up, yet.  Not even with the delay they had made at this meat packing plant.  That was a wrinkle they would have to work through.  The Cargo Master decided that they would not change the plan.  He would just have his team wait for a while at the point, until the smaller cargo truck showed up. 

When it did finally show up at the hidden location.  They were able to quickly off load almost two tons of the old SLDF stuff off of the smaller truck and hide it behind the frozen meat in the larger truck.  Jess’s truck pulled away and went down another low traffic road and returned for another load to be brought out of the tunnel. 

The two trucks made it back to the space port, just as the local sun was setting.  A mech sized power loader was waiting for them to return outside of the dropships.  It would lift and take the whole climate-controlled container off the truck and carry it into the dropship.  The two rented trucks would stay outside and visible to anyone watching.  They were safe under the guns and missile launchers of the three dropships on this drop port. 

The cargo hauling mech slowly carried the partially filled cargo container into the lowest cargo bay of the Mule dropship.  The hull access ramp was pulled up and the hatch had been closed behind the haulermech, so that no one could see into the ship.  As soon as the power loader had finished setting it down.  One of the deck crew was plugging it into the larger ships power supply, to run the cooling systems. 

The container was opened and crews under the watch full eyes of the senior Cargo Master, the Ship’s Captain, and Captain Copeland went into three different areas in the container.  Each of those senior leaders, would look at each load of the found SLDF equipment, as it was pulled out of the steal box by the armload.  The Cargo Master would give directions to each of the emerging crewmembers, on were to store the priceless things coming out of the cold shipping container. 

When the last piece of equipment was removed.  Captain Copeland ordered the cooks to select some of the meat freshly brought in and serve everyone a nice steak dinner on all three ships mess halls.  With the coming of the Colonials, the fresh beef supply had been stretched very thin back home.  It had already gotten to the point.  That it was now too expensive for the average person to have a fresh cut, thick steak more than once or twice a month. 

The meal tonight would have a quality of beef that few had ever had in their lives, counting before the Colonials had arrived.  It was a way to reward the crews as part of the historic find, that Jess and her crew had found.  It went over very well with the crews of all three ships, as pounds and pounds of fine red meat were cooked, cut, and eaten with gusto. 

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

While one crew was enjoying a massive steak dinner, another part of the crew was having a camping meal around an open fire.  This fire was under the open skies, and they were not breathing recycled air while they were eating.  The two additional personnel, that had come in when the off-road truck had returned after dropping off the first load.  Had quickly unloaded the loader Exo-suit that was there to help move the 400kg scout suits towards the exit.  It took some time to move the metal hatch that was blocking the way for this limited mobility machine, but the Exo-suit had proven useful at this task as well.  The heavy hatch was moved to the back of the tunnel and out of the way, even if it fell over while a team was moving in the rest of the tunnel. 

It was getting late in the afternoon, when the first of the folded-up Nighthawk suits was loaded onto the back of the off-road truck.  It had upset Jess, that they would not be able to have as much cargo ready to transfer to the other truck as they had planned.  The delay in moving the cut hatch, was caused by having only one suit to work with.  It would have worked faster to have both suits, but Robert could only find two of the loading suits for rent on such short notice.  It would have looked odd if one was not “seen” by the outside world.  Keeping one back on the dropships could explain only one being seen while the Cargo Master was out looking at meat. 

When he had transmitted this plan?  It was hoped that Jess would have two of the suits, to help move the heavy equipment.  It took some work getting the timing right, but once the loader suit had left the arms room.  The rest of the crew would reenter the room to load the folding plastic crates, that had been sent to them with the loose equipment found there.  They hit a good rhythm pretty quickly, and they had ten folded up Nighthawk PA(L) suits and a few of the boxes filled and loaded into the off-road truck.  Before they knew it, they ran into an issue. 

They had to stop loading the off-road cargo truck, and actually unload some of the plastic packing crates.  They had overloaded the suspension of the truck without even noticing it, until after the fact.  They were able to fix the problem, and the second load left the area.  They learned the lesson of the overloading and they were quickly able to get another load done and get settled in for the rest of the night.  They were tired enough, that sleep was not a problem.  Keeping an alert guard, was not as easy to maintain after a hard afternoon of work and a large meal.  Most of the group had loaded the small truck three times today, and even the two new people had helped load it twice.  That was a lot of work, no matter how you looked at it. 

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


Early the next morning the two trucks pulled away from the dropships, so they could go to a second meat packing plant and “view” the offerings.  The new location for meeting up with Jess was sent via a coded message, on the radios that they had taken with them.  The combined groups off loaded the small truck into the emptied cold truck, faster than they had loaded the off-road cargo truck the night before.  Then it returned to get another load from the camp site 

The next meat packing facility that the rented cold truck stopped at had more time to plan for the upcoming sale.  They had more weight, and more varieties of meats ready for the off worlders to see.  It still did not even come close to filling up the over large container the truck carried.  Having to deal with all of those varieties had caused a huge delay in finishing the loading, which caused a delay in the cold truck meeting with the off-road truck.  It was during this delay, that traffic started to increase on the road that the cold truck was taking.  It was not like Robert knew the high traffic times, on any of this planet’s roads. 

The cold truck was not able to take the turn off that they needed to, without a high chance of being seen by the locals.  With security not guaranteed.  The Cargo Master canceled the second pickup of the day and told them to go for the backup plan.  The off-road truck would pull onto the main road, about an hour after the cold truck had passed the turn off.  It would make a “supply pick up” for the camp from the dropships, before returning to the camp site Jess had set up.  This was riskier, but the lax security of the drop port was risked, and it was not that uncommon of an event.  It just would give the camp site less time to refill their truck for the next day. 

The cold truck made it back to the dropships without drawing much attention to themselves, it was only a rental cold truck after all.  The only people who really noticed the two trucks returning, was the meat factor.  She was watching from her office in the drop port main building, and near the large vehicle side of the entrance.  She was still reviewing the reports from her informants. They had told her what these off worlders had been buying and how much, so far.  She had an almost complete list, of what was in the cold shipping container on the truck.  The one that had just passed her building, heading towards the three grounded ships. 

The large truck and the smaller one, which was acting as an escort, were met outside of the dropship by a waiting loader mech.  The Factor watched as the cargo container was lifted off the truck and carried into the Mule class dropship.  What she could not see, was that the shipping container was being unloaded inside the dropship.  By now a second freezer shipping container had been purchased and hooked up into the power system of the dropship.  It had its own power supply that was rated to power the unit for weeks, but it was considered just as an emergency use item. 

[cawest]

All the meat was moved to its new container, that would stay in the dropship until it was off loaded on New Circe.  Then the cargo handling equipment moved the ten scout suits and filled plastic crates to where they would stay until they made it back home.  That had been from the morning pick up from the camp site.  All of this was done without anyone that lived on this planet knowing, what was really being moved around inside the egg-shaped ship. 

The evening was quiet for the three dropships crew, but after there last stop.  They were at what other dropships would have said, was a heavy crew watch for the three dropships.  When the camper’s truck showed up?  It was driven straight into the lowest cargo bay.  It was also quickly unloaded, and then reloaded with fresh and now unfrozen steaks.  They were already to be fire grilled, back at the camp/loading site.  Robert would have loved to have sent more personnel, but he did not know how to get them back without being noticed by the locals.  Jess would be taking Robert’s rented SUV out with her to help with the transport of the additional bodies, that were already under her command. 

The third day was a repeat of the Day 2’s events.  This time they were able to do two cargo transfers between the two large trucks, without any surprises or other issues because of the locals.  They were able to also stop at two different meat suppliers, and filled the areas covering the weapons in the cargo carrier nicely.  While the meat carrying truck was going back to the space port, it was not drawing any unusual attention.  The off-road truck and camp were not so lucky.  Anyone who was seen as an off planet “looker” was watched, just in case they found “something” on this planet. 

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


The off-road truck was followed, from a distance, by an old four passenger off road capable wheeled transport that had seen better days.  It did not go unnoticed by the big wheeled truck, as it made its way back to the camp site.  The camp went on alert, but they did not stop working for long.  The work was too important to come to a complete stop to many times, and they had been expecting to be found by the locals.  While the last of the equipment was loaded into the cargo truck, an alarm would periodically go off as the outlying sensors were tripped by someone in the evening and night. 

Every time this happened.  The loading would have to stop, while two armed personnel would leave the camp to check out what had happened as stealthily as they could.  Repeatedly one of the pair would see someone running from the area, on their hand-held night vision systems.  After the third time this had happened.  Jess had to notify Captain Copeland, that they might have been noticed by someone or some group of locals.  Once was an accident, twice was an incident, the third time was enemy action.  When you were dealing with millions of C-Bills worth of equipment?  You had to be prepared. 

Finally, the last of the equipment was loaded onto the off-road truck.  It was a little overweight, but it only had to make it down the trail one more time.  And besides, it was only a rental.  After everything was loaded, in the dark.  Jess and her team used the truck’s blocking position to cover their acts of re-sealing the exit hatch and resetting the camouflage that had kept this place hidden for so many years.  Jess was now thankful, that she had been careful about the removal of that camouflage.  By the time the camp settled in for some sleep, the hatch into the bluff was as invisible as it had been before Jess had found it. 

The only marks would be the campfire hole, rib and other meat bones, and some truck tires prints or ruts.  Jess was not happy.  She was hoping that instead of covering their tracks, in the night.  They could have used the rented loader suit to move some of the cave in and go a bit deeper into the tunnels.  She was sure, that they could have gotten a hole big enough.  Then she could slip through and gotten deeper into the rest of the SLDF facility. 

As the campfire burned.  She had to keep reminding herself of the old saying.  It was about one bird in the hand versus two in the bush.  Every time she said it in her mind, it still made her mouth taste like old shoes.  Even with a huge steak dinner sitting in her stomach, and all of the hard work.  She did not sleep well, for the rest of the night.  Every time she closed her eyes.  She had visions of row after row of SLDF equipment waiting for her and her people to claim, and then be used in the battles with the Cylons or those clanbasterds. 

Before the local sun had risen, the rented truck left the creek side campsite for the drop port.  The seats and small cargo area in the cab, had been needed by Jess and her team to get out here.  Now it was not necessary, and it would be helpful to keep the weight down.  The driver had volunteered to do it alone.  Jess and the rest of the team would be following in the small SUV, that she had driven out.  The drive back had everyone on pins and needles.  They had eyes out and looking for anything.  Sometimes they saw something, but mostly it was just their minds playing tricks on them. 

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


While Robert was completing some reports, in the meeting room.  He was contacted by the bridge.  He was needed at the main loading ramp on the Mule.  He was told that there was a delegation of locals who wanted to talk to him, and one of them was in a Police or other type of uniform.  It was noted that the uniform person was armed. 

“Well this could be bad,” thought Robert as he left the room.  He made sure to grab his thin computer, just in case he needed it.  It had a copy of “his books” for as good as a copy could be, that was only vaguely correct.  They were called The Book of Lies for many centuries, before the Star League failed.  And they were still called that, in certain circles. 

Instead of going downstairs, he went up, so that he could stop by the bridge of the ship.  Now he could see who was waiting for him outside on the ship’s sensors.  When he displayed the security image on one of the bridge screen units.  He could see the Cargo Master, one of his assistants, the meat Factor, a person in uniform, and another person standing by a large coffin like crate in a rumpled ship’s suit.  Robert relaxed, just a little but not much. 

“It was time to get my acting chops on.”  He thought and grimaced.  He thought something like this might happen, before they were able to break atmosphere.  He went back down to his cabin and checked his uniform.  He also took time and reviewed his notes, before he had to take the stage.  He went over about a dozen different lines and thought about each one.  All before coming up with three other lines that he might use as he walked the ship’s corridors.  He did that, just as he hit the top of the exit ramp off the dropship. 

Robert walked down the loading ramp and kept going until he was beside the large rented cold truck.  The rental company was not due to pick it up till around noon, today.  It was just sitting and waiting for them to complete the agreement, it had already been paid for.  The Cargo Master and the Factor were just starting to get to the point of using loud and outside voices, when Robert closed the final distance to the group. 

Robert had his game face on and fixed firmly in place, but there was not a hint of a smile on his face.  He had not liked using the Factor like he had, but the mission had required it.  He had, and he would have done it again, for just one of those Nighthawk suits.  Now he had a need to see what cards she had to play, how smart she was, or maybe how smart she thought she was.  Robert took the bull by the horns and spoke up to cut through the yelling. 

“Factor, what can I do for you?”  Robert made a show of looking around at each of the people, which included his own personnel.  “I hope you don’t want to sell supplies to us.  We have a set, and published policy.  That if you fail a safety test once.  We will not use that company again.  I understand that it is a normal policy, in this part of space.” 

The Cargo Master threw both of his arms up to the air.  “Sir!!  That is what I have been trying to tell them, for almost an hour now.”  An exasperated Cargo Master said throwing his arms in the air again and turning around as he spoke.  He was now facing Robert.  It was a very good bit of acting on display, and Robert made a note to himself not to play cards with this man.  The Cargo Master was fraking good at this kind of game. 

It was the uniformed female officer, that spoke in a very even tone in reply to Robert.  “Sir.  We just would like you to retest this load, if you have the time.  Failing a health safety inspection, is a major problem.  We want to cover all the bases, before we close the investigation on this issue.  That is what we have been trying to convey to your……. man.’’  The officer could not help but put a little bit of discuss in her voice as she said the last word. 

The Factor had not said a word, but Robert could tell that it was killing her not to be the one leading this charge.  She had locked eyes on Robert, as soon as he had opened his mouth.  She had a target lock like a Cylon missile, and it was not going to let up.  Robert still needed to play his part in the game today.  If he did not?  The whole thing would fall apart, and the old SLDF base might be also lost to his people. 

“Cargo Master.  Is this code the same, as what came in a few days ago?”  He was pointing at the coffin like freezer, that now he could see held some kind of red beef like meat in a standard shipping wrap for that kind of product. 

The Cargo Master assistant pulled a scanner out of a pocket of his ships coveralls and ran it over the light metal tag on the meat.  He took the readout, and then checked it against the list of numbers from the first delivery of meat those few days ago.  The younger man did not know about the games, that the Captain and the Cargo Master had been playing.  As far as he was concerned, the meat had truly failed the health test they had run on it.  He knew something was up, but he did not know what.  He did know about the SLDF bunker, but not why the failed meat had a role to play in letting them recover the prize. 

“Sir, the numbers match.  But there is no way to tell if they are exactly the same animal, or not.  It is just that the numbers on the shipping cover match the lots that we saw from the other day.”  He just raised his eyebrows at his commander and waited for word to be given to escort the locals away from the dropships. 

Robert nodded to the younger man, and then pulled the handheld test lab from the hook on the Cargo Master’s waist belt with an easy motion.  He ran the self-test on the device, and then touched the exposed red and white marbled meat.  When it processed and displayed the results?  He turned the device to show the crowd, that it had returned an unsafe result.  Just like the device had done a few days ago. 

This time the Factor could not hold it in any longer.  “Captain Copeland!  These are exactly the same animals, that we were dealing with the other day.  I made sure that they were not mixed with other packages, just in case it was contaminated!  I asked Captain Stanton to run tests on this delivery using the same labs that are used for her crime scene work, as well as the full health department rig at the hospital.  They come back safe!  Every test has come back that they are clean and safe to eat!  You could eat them raw!  And it still would be safe!!” 

“Factor!  I don’t know anything about the labs you used.  The MC shipping standards say to use this type of tester.  That is if you want to be listed as a 1A grade shipper.” 

Robert held up the handheld lab, to show what he was talking about.  Robert let his arm drop, and then he walked over to the large cargo truck.  A second handheld tester was within easy reach, so he pulled it down.  He returned to the group and ran the self-test on both devices.  Both returned a green light showing that each had passed and were safe to use.  He reached down and tested the meat again, with both test devices.  The results were not the same, just as he knew it would be.  Robert had the Cargo Master leave a “good” portable tester in the truck and another one near an airlock, just in case. 

“Well, that is not good.”  Robert tried to twist his arm a little, to show them the results.  He then tested each of the three large packages of meat in the shipping coffin.  Robert was looking at the green and red lights on the devices, with a deep frown on his face. 

“Jacob go get another tester out of the cargo bay and make it quick.”  The way he delivered the statement.  It was intended to show some anger, but not too much, just a touch to add to his display.  Robert hoped that he was not over playing it, but you had to push it sometimes.  The crewmember returned to the group and passed the asked for device to his boss.  The man was visibly out of breath from running the entire way to the dropship and back.  With his long legs, that had been a very fast trip for the “twenty” something man. 

Each of the three machines were used, again on the three exposed carcasses.  The results were that two of the handheld labs showed that the meat was safe to eat, and the other showed that it was not safe.  Robert had a deep frown on his face, as he walked from the cold case of meat to the Cargo Master.  Robert passed the “Bad” device to the man, like someone might pass an old-style football to the chest of a running back with a dull thump. 

Robert returned to the Factor, as the Cargo Master walked back to the dropship with his toy in his hands and a well-hidden smile.  Robert looked at the two women.  Robert was working out how exactly to pull this off, he was betting the fines would be high.  But even one Royal class mech could be worth several to almost ten million C-Bills.  He had hoped, that they would be on the burn going out of the system before this came up.  But the Factor showing up now was not a showstopper for him.  That is, as long as he did not go to jail or something like that. 

Robert picked one of the three options that they had worked out, when they had war gamed this plan.  Robert looked right into the eyes of one of the women.  “Officer.  There has been a slander committed against the Factor, and I am at fault.  It seems that our two-month-old lab tester, was defective.  I can show you the sells receipt, but how do we fix this?” 

Officer Stanton stiffened, as the words the man said sank into her head.  Slander was a legal term and he had just admitted guilt in the crime, in front of witnesses.  She was about to say something, but the man was not finished with what he wanted to say.  She just kept her mouth shut, for now.  Like most law enforcement personnel.  She preferred it, when other people talked.  That way she could try to pick out the smallest of lies, in what they were saying.  She knew that the more they talked.  The harder it was to keep a lie hidden, from someone that was looking to find those lies. 

Robert turned to match eye contact with another of the women.  “Factor.  I have bought a little over 40,000 MC dollars in products from other venders, that we should have been buying from you.  I would think a fine is in order, to make reparations and compensation.  It is also for the expenses, that are going to be incurred repairing the damage to your reputation after we are gone.” 

Robert now turned his head, so that he was looking at the officer of the law again.  “I think 400,000 MC dollars should cover any fines.  Don’t you think Officer?”  That was a lot of money.  But it would clean his soul for the Frame job, that he had worked to put the Factor in.  Right now, they had money to spend.  It was time to make it right.  Besides, it looked like they were going to be coming back this way, in the not too distant future.  He knew that higher command would send someone back, to work in what Jess had found. 

Both the Factor and the Officer were at first stunned by the amount the man was offering, to settle this dispute with.  Normally it was only a thousand MC dollars in fines and a week in jail, for something like this.  That was a lot of money for most people to come up with, on the spot, to pay for a fine.  The Factor was being offered full reimbursement for lost sales, and an almost 10 to 1 in fines.  That was a lot of money.  Even if the Factor lost the next three or four shipments, to the bad press she had received.  She still would be able to show a profit for the year, and the next year, no problem.  That alone, should be enough for her to keep her job and position of influence. 

The officer looked over at the Factor and was about to say something, when she noticed the Factor giving this man an odd look.  She did not really know how to take the look and the feeling, she was getting, from the powerful meat factor.  If this had been a criminal action?  She would have known what to do.  She had only agreed to come along, in case this conflict got physical. 

“Factor?  It seems like a fare offer of compensation has been made by the Captain.  Does it meet with your agreement?  I will have to write and post a report, to the effect that the good Commander was fined.  All because he had faulty testing equipment.  That would clear you of any suspicion of wrongdoing, Factor.”  The Officer was splitting her time between looking at Captain Copeland, and the locally powerful planetary Meat Factor. 

The Factor was studying the man in front of her.  Her gut was telling her something was off.  She could not put her finger on it, yet.  But something was off with this man.  The man was being very generous, and she did not know why.  Maybe there was still some meat on this bone?  Now, to try to find out what his game was. 

“Captain Copeland, that is very nice of you.  That is something that is rare enough to find out this way.  And it is enough to raise some warning flags.”  She wanted to start digging.  She needed to scratch the itch at the base of her neck about this whole situation.  Part of her mind told her it was a risk, to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Robert grinned at the woman and went with the “Answer C” in his mind.  “Factor?  Well let’s just call it, a matter of Honor.  One of my Cargo Master’s duties is to make sure everything we use to checkout any cargo, works properly.  He failed in that task, and I didn’t catch it.  Don’t worry about the money.  I’m going to dock some of his pay, to cover some of it.  I’m also going to take his conflict pay bonuses, for the next two years or so to make up for some of it.  It’s nothing too bad, but enough.  So that he and his subordinates will double check each piece of equipment twice, before it’s used again.  I will pay, to get some of that preparedness.” 

He said the last part with a sly grin on his face.  “This could have turned out a lot worse, than it did.  What could have happened?  If that tester lab had tested something as clean, and that something was not?  Someone could have got sick, or even maybe have died from that error.  Besides, we may be back this way again.  Having one of the major Factors on the planet upset with me?  Well that could be bad, for someone in my kind of business.” 

The Factor was still looking at him, trying to weigh, if this was all on the level or not.  Finally, she just gave up on it for now.  Like he had said.  It was a learning experience, and no one had been hurt by the failure.  He also was right, that if she had seen them again, and this problem had not been resolved?  She would have held a grudge for a very long time. 

“Okay, I can see that.  But why didn’t you wait to see what the fines might have been, before offering that sum of money?”  She was a money person, as far as she was concerned.  Everything came down to money sooner, or later. 

This was a pointed question, and the truth of it was.  He had not wanted or liked, to have almost ruin someone’s livelihood.  All just so that he could maybe complete a mission, that had not been sanctioned by his government or even higher military command. 

[cawest]

“It was an honor thing, but it also is the limit of my cash reserve.  I probably should not have told the Officer that, but I don’t think the officer will jump the “fines” on me after I made a public offer.”  Robert was giving both women a sly smile, that he knew most females thought it went between nice to sexy.  That had been what his now dead wife had told him, many times before. 

The Factor gave a slight nod of her head.  That was all making sense, and it fit some pieces together nicely about the behavior of this person.  “I’m going to have an uphill battle, to fight the bad press caused by that faulty hand lab of yours.  A little bird told me, the other day.  That the Captain of the White Rabbit sold a very high-end computer system, to someone who wants to keep it very quiet.  Some people, I know, have said it was a Lostech level system.  A second one was sold to the local defense supply and intelligence unit, for about 10,000 C-Bills.  If you had another one of that type of computer system lying around?  My company could use something like that.”  She gave the man a look, that was almost coy looking.  If she was not well known to be the most cast-iron witch in a thirty light year range, it might have worked. 

“As a matter of fact.  Factor I have one more of those systems we found, for sale.  And no one has shown any interest in it.”  Robert tilted his head down a little.  “You know as well, as anyone.  That they have value, more than just a sale cost.  They also have a very high-status symbol value.  If you want the last one?  I am willing to sell it to you, but at the same price I sold it to the government and military representative.  If any of the pair found out that I just gave one away.  Let’s just say, they might be just a little upset with me.  I don’t want to have a supply Factor upset with me, if I can help it.  I’m okay with that, if it means that lots of people with access to battlmechs and aerofighters are still happy with me.  Sometimes people like that can develop a shoot first, shoot second, and then ask questions about who they were shooting at in the first place.  Those people, are the type you do not want to have a mad on for you.”  Robert had a grin on his face as he finished his line of thinking, which was said out loud.  He had thought of that line on the trip out to deal with the Factor, but these two women did not need to know that. 

Both women gave a soft chuckle of understanding where the man was coming from, and in most ways.  They agreed with his line of thought.  The Factor took two steps forward and stuck her right hand out towards the man from off world.  “Done deal.  When would you like to transfer the funds?” 

She was referring to both the money sent to her as compensation, and the C-Bills she was going to pass over along with a request for a receipt for what she was going to pay for the new computer.  She would be able to get a tax write off on the buy, and recoup some of the cost of the device at the end of the year.  This deal was turning out to be a boon, instead of a bust the way it looked the other day.  Besides the fines were not taxable. 

Robert reached behind and underneath his ships jacket and pulled out his noteputor.  “We can do it now and have it all taken care of before anymore rumors start.  Besides the officer can be a witness, to us settling things.”  Robert was kind of waving the little computer in his hands back and forth.  Like a fisherman uses a lure to catch a prize bass. 

The Factors face changed, at the sight of the noteputor waving in the air.  She looked like she had bit into an apple and found half a worm.  “Captain, I am afraid that our planet does not have the infrastructure to transfer funds wirelessly.  We will need to go back to my office and use a hard line to complete the transfer.  The withdrawal will be done next week, when a chartered mail ship is due to come into our system.  I do have a car, if you don’t mind riding back with the Police officer and I.”  She was pointing off to one side, towards a strange long box on a set of bright blue balloon skirts. 

Robert smile was full and toothy.  “I think as long as you ladies will bring me back to my ships, silver bracelets are not involved, and my accountant can come with us?  I think that will be okay.”  The five people entered the four-door hover car, that Robert would have bet the title to the Maru.  That it belonged to the Factor herself, and not the company she worked for.  It was too nice to have been a cheap company car.  He had seen a few of those around and they all were… dull. 

The transfer of funds went without any major issues, after they arrived at the Factor’s office.  Lora had set up a company account with the Bank of MC.  It had turned out that every planet in the MC, had at least one branch for the primary bank of the country.  The Factor had and account that the funds could be sent to.  The officer had assured Captain Copeland.  That the funds should be sent directly to the Factors account because a crime had not been committed, so it was all legal.  The Factor did not want to transfer funds to Robert’s account, because she “thought” an audit might make it look like there was a kick back involved.  She paid for the computer system that was on the way over, in cash. 

After the work had been completed.  The Factor took them all to Maxine’s Steaks for lunch.  The meal had a rule set down by the Factor, before they walked through the door.  It was that no one was allowed to talk about work, as long as there was food on the table.  Robert enjoyed the last full day on planet before having to return to the Dropships and finishing all the work, that was required for the launch back into space. 

###########


Robert and the captain of the Lisbon Maru, who had been the delivery person for the computer, had returned to the dropships before Jess and her team had returned from wrapping up the camp site.  To find out, that the Camp site team was not back yet caused some concerns.  Robert was concerned enough, to radio the two trucks to see if everything was okay.  They reported that they were only about 10km from the space port, and that so far everything was okay.  They were only being slowed down by traffic.  That update did not last.  It was only a few minutes later, and Jess called him back on her portable radio. 

They reported, that they were now convinced that they were being followed.  Robert cut the line, and then called the Maru to pass along a few messages.  He put all three of his dropships on full alert.  This was just in case things went badly.  Next, he also contacted the Officer he had just had lunch with.  She was able to raise the alert level of the whole drop port.  He was surprised, how easy it was to get her moving to the limit of her authority.  She had no problem telling him, exactly what that limit was.  And what she would do to him, if he exceeded his.  Robert found out that the officer had an impressive turn of phrase, that could make a part of your anatomy try to crawl up into your lower stomach. 

These changes were not much, but it was better than nothing.  If someone tried to highjack Jess’s trucks.  The response team from the Drop port that would have been available normally, would be that much quicker in responding.  If things did get bad for Jess and her team?  They would be quick off the mark.  It also gives Robert an excuse, to arm up some of the dropships crew and activate the fire control systems on the three dropships.  He could not launch any of his aerofighters, just yet.  They were ready, and if he had to pay a fine if he launched them.  He would pay them at a drop of a hat, it that was what was needed to protect his people. 

When Jess and her two-truck convoy entered the drop port.  The car that was following them was stopped at the entry point by the very awake security guards.  It did not have a pass to enter the area, and it was turned away by a very alert set of gate guards.  Ones that had doubled in number, less than a half hour ago.  The officer was able to get some images of the six people in that vehicle, that had been behind the last of the rental trucks.  They had not been very happy, that they were not allowed on the drop port landing zone. 

The dropship’s crew and the campers had the two trucks emptied, before the Officer could make it back to the dropships to update Robert on what had happened at the gate.  Robert called the Rental Company and asked them to please pick up their trucks as soon as possible.  Jess was supposed to have dropped hers off at the rental office.  Robert was willing to pay an extra fee, for them to come pick it up at a common area near the Drop port exit.  The same was true of the other vehicles they had been using.  Robert wanted them parked away from his ships, so that they could light the plasma engines and not destroy them. 

He was worried that whoever had been following them might have tried a little kidnapping, if they caught even a few someone’s out and away from anyone else.  It just was not worth it, to lose someone this close to lifting out of the atmosphere.  Robert asked the police officer, that checked in with him.  If they could keep an eye out and gave her an idea of why.  He told the Officers that he had a feeling, that they were being targeted for a highjacking or something.  The truth was?  Robert did not know if they had been a group of Lostech hunters, that was trying to see if we found something.  Or maybe they were a ComStar team, that had followed them here after all.  He had to many unanswered questions. 

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


Robert had Jess and her whole team in the meeting room for dinner with the three dropship’s Captains.  It gave the commanding officers a quiet place to have a nice meal, but still talk shop without disturbing the rest of the crew and feeding the rumor mill to heavily.  After one of the crewmen had topped off all the drink glasses one last time and had left the room. 

Robert looked around to mentally check off each person at the table.  He waited for Jess to look up, so that she would know that she was going to have to speak soon.  When she put her fork down?  Robert thought, that she might be ready to get the meeting started.  No one wanted to waste food.  So, in place of the normal flow of speak, eat, and then speak some more.  It was eat, small talk, eat, then start all of the briefings.  It was now time to brief and the real reason for this little get together. 

“Okay Jess.  We all know that you just got back in from the field site, and there is no way for you to have come up with a complete report yet.  But can you give us an overview of your little impromptu mission?” 

A round of soft laughter went around the table, that included Jess and her team.  The looks that each of the leaders gave the younger woman was of admiration, and not animosity.  She had done an amazing job so far from, just what little each one of them had seen being packed down.  The rumors were a lot harder to believe. 

“Well Sir, we did a rough inventory of the items as we went.  None of my team was an expert in weapons, so some of it.  We just had to make a guess, on some of the items.  We did take more images of everything, and I mean everything that we pulled out of the find.  We can have a backup made for the egg heads back home to look at, in a few hours.” 

She looked down at her noteputor and made some adjustments to it, before she finished.  “We found thirty Nighthawk suits.  We have no idea if all of them will end up being serviceable, or not.  A normal unit should have had two extra suits per squad.  That would mean that six suits are not accounted for, to support a full 28 persons SLDF Platoon.  Whoever had set the security on the arms room might have thought they were coming back.  I think, that it was set for a long-term storage program and not something else more drastic. 

Jess looked around.  “As far as we can tell.  All the O2 and humidity had been pumped out of the room, when it was last locked down.  The arms room still had a slight positive pressure from extra nitrogen that had been pumped into the room, to help maintain the weapons.  The safety measure of the locking bars should have activated, when we cut the first hole in the inner armor of the hatch.  But for some reason, they did not deploy at that time.  After being left alone for so many years.  Most of the safety and protection measures failed to activate, and even the anti-theft locking bolts had a major delayed in deployment.  We have no idea which measure we tripped, and we may never know what had them activate on us.  If we had more, even a little more time on site?  I would have liked to have taken the cut hatch with us, but it was too heavy.  That would have taken one truck load just by itself, to get it out on those trails.” 

Jess looked back down at her notes.  “We found empty spots in some of the weapons racks.  We think, that when the unit left last.  They loaded up with whatever they thought they might need, and they took it with them and left the rest.  We loaded twenty of the Mauser 960 systems.  Again, we were not able to test them in any way, before they were packed back down.  All of the ready ammunition, for the grenade launcher was missing.  As a matter of fact, we did not find one round of any type of ammunition in the arms room at all.  We should have found hundreds of rounds of ready ammunition loaded in magazines for the QRF, if nothing else.  They must have taken it all with them, along with all most all of the clothes, bedding, and other field items.  Even all of the food was missing.  We did not find any residue of food, so it was not left behind and then rotted away. 

Jess put her hands flat on the table.  “What I think happened, was that the unit packed up.  It might have been, when the recall for the Exodus was sent out.  They wanted to blend in.  They took only the weapons that the locals or any of the local house units would have access to, and then hit the road.  All of the crew served weapons, that had vehicle mounts were also gone.  They did leave behind all of the tripod weapons.  They also left behind about 30 pistol type sidearms of different makes, models, and calibers.  We also loaded up 20 laser or ballistic rifles, that look to be maybe of four different types when we put them in crates.” 

Jess took a sip of water and flipped to a new screen on her thin computer screen, and then started talking again.  “They did leave less than a dozen Blazer Laser Rifles, and another four support weapons.  They are two Heavy Support Pulse Laser type weapons and two Self-Propelled Support Particle Cannons with the ground mounts for them.  We found six of the Mk. 2 Man-Portable AA Missile Weapon Launcher systems, but without missiles of course.  None of my crew knew what they were.  But when we lifted one out of the locking cradle?  It had a data plate identifying what they were.  I made sure they each were marked with an ink marker, I happened to have, to note what they were.  We found in one weapon’s locker, a four set of heavy SRM Launchers in it.  Again, they were without any rockets for them, and the self-test batteries were dead.  I have had some time to read up on them, when we had some down time after the truck was loaded.  The version we found.  They have a built in HUD, laser range finding, and a night vision system on the launch stick.” 

She looked up from her computer and made eye contact with Captain Copeland.  He was the most well versed in weapons that she knew, beside herself.  When he did not make a comment, she kept on talking after a few seconds break.  “I don’t know if we have any of those last two types of weapons, back home.  The Colonials, I think, will absolutely flip if they can start making these heavy SRM launchers.  A few of their ground troopers, or maybe a squad armed with those things?  They could take down one of the new Praetorian combat machines, we were warned about.“ 

She was holding the last bit of information, until the end.  She wanted to get the most bang for it, so she took her time.  She was faking, that she was reviewing her notes again.  She had been told about the Cargo Master and Roberts, little display of acting as a briefing technique.  She wanted to see if she could match it. 

“The rest of the room had support and maintenance tools for the weapons, that were stored in the room.  We also think we found tools and kits, to fit and refit the suits to new personnel.  We kept those tools together and loaded on the off roader, for the last load of stuff that we pulled out.  They were in two large metal lockers, one on each side of the Nighthawk racks.  We just locked and loaded both of the lockers, so nothing would get misplaced.” 

If she was right, and she really thought that she was.  What they had found?  It would mean that the whole Star League in Exile now would have exactly five complete suit fitting kits, for the light battle armor.  It would take almost a full day to refit a suit of the armor so that it would fit a new person, or if the original person had a major change in weight or body shape.  It was a well-known issue with the Nighthawk suits.  This one part of the find alone, could cut down the time to refit the PA(L) suit units by 20% alone. 

No one had found another fitting kit, in over 200 years of not just looking but hard looking for another one.  Only one other site that had hidden suits, had a needed fitting kit with them.  The other two kits had been made by studying the one fitting kit for a few years of very hard and focused work.  They wanted to make more, but the time, money, and complexity of the equipment had kept pushing it to the backburner.  They were only supporting 200 Nighthawk suits and they were not able to make more of those, yet.  It had always been hoped, that one day.  They might be able to start production of those high-tech suits.  Maybe soon?  That would change with the additional bodies, the Colonials had brought to New Circe.  Then they would also have to make more of the fitting equipment to support the increasing number of suits. 

“That is about all I have, right now.  I can have a more complete report later, to make a more complete brief.”  Jess was again looking down at her noteputor to see if there was anything else, she might need to bring up at this meeting.  She also looked around the room, and no one else seemed to have been that excited about her last statement.  That was distressing. 

Robert was wearing a poker face, but it was hard to maintain. That was an impressive hall to have collected in only a few short days.  “That’s okay Jess.  Let’s wait until we get back to the Styx.  That is unless something comes up, and you need to give us a mission critical update.  Now, I would give an update on a few things, before we go back to our normal jobs.”  This was taken, by the leadership to now show what they thought of Jess’s find.  All of the senior people started to give her a slow clap for about 30 seconds, before stopping. 

Robert looked over at one of the Dropships Captains.  “Do we have information on that computer, we pulled out of the SLDF base?” 

The Captain of the White Rabbit, whose crewmen had been working on the device, looked around the table before he said anything.  He really did not want to say anything, because he really did not have anything major to report.  He only had a few hunches, that they were working on.  He was very short of any facts.  After all of the good news that Jess had just revealed, that was going to be a hard act to follow. 

“Sir!  My guys went through the system backwards and forwards.  They did not find anything of value.  They think that someone set a Wipe Date program on it.  When I asked what that was?  They told me.  That sometimes the old SLDF would set up some of their computers, with a delay action program.  If no one, with the right codes, had logged onto the system by a certain date?  Then the program would activate and wipe the computer’s hard drives, and then overwrite the empty space on any data storage areas with ones and zeros.  It leaves the base line software alone, but any added files or programs?  They are completely or as good as anyone that has been looking at with our tools, gone.  Near as they can tell.  The program was set to run in 600 days, because that was what it was set to when they got power back to the system.  They shut it down, now that we know that it works for the most part.  I ordered them to pack it back up and move it down with the rest of the materials they pulled from Jess’s Toy Box.” 

Robert let a smile crack his face at the last, of the dropships captain’s last comments.  “Jess’s Toy Box?  I like that.  Now I know how to write up my reports to higher command.”  Robert looked back to Jess, who had a quizzical expression on her face.  “So, Jess.  Are you okay with the name?  It’s what we will be code naming your find.  It’s your last chance to let me know if you have any issues with it, before it becomes official in any reports.” 

“Sir?  Are you sure that back home will be okay with that name, and not something more covert or something?” 

Jess was a little embarrassed, but at the same time.  She was also very pleased, that her name might be added to the site for all future mentioning of it.  Only the best finds were given names instead of the encoded locations coordinates of a find.  She just gave a positive nod of her head. 

Robert looked back at the White Rabbit’s commander.  He had not known if the other man was done when he jumped in, now it was time to find out.  “Sorry about the interruption, Captain.  But did the reviewing team of the computer, have any ideas about the unit that had been stationed on this planet?” 

[cawest]

The youngest of the dropship captains was pleased.  That the senior officer was showing him the respect of apologizing, for the interruption before he continued with his report.  “Sir, my forensic team reported about that information just before we started this meeting.  They think that sometime around 2784 or 85.  A SAS unit of platoon size from the 24 SOG, left the base and did not expect to return to the area for around two years.  What happened to them after that?  They do not have any information, on that bit of detail.  They did suggest, that the computer be turned over to the Lore Master as soon as we can.  That is all we have, Sir.” 

“Thank you.  Can you please have a formal copy of your reports ready to be turned in with our logs, when we get home?  I also would like a copy of them for my notes, as soon as you can.”  Robert was giving the other man a level look. 

Now it was Captain Copelands turn to give some information to the group.  “I have a preliminary report from the local police chief.  The crew or group, that was following Jess and her team, were a group of Lostech prospectors looking for the SLDF base.  They think, that Jess might have found something, or that she might be able to help them find the base.  The local police department do not think that they were looking at a kidnapping, or not at first.  Maybe a job offer and then it might have gotten ugly, when she said no.”  Robert shot Jess a knowing look, before he continued. 

“They were not ready to do a snatch, when they were picked up at a restaurant outside of the drop port.  I told them, to let those men know.  That Jess and her team were only out there camping in the open air.  I wanted it passed along, that it was something a lot of spacers like doing after spending so much time in steel cans.  She said that they would pass that along, both she, and I do not believe they will like the comment.  So, all shore leave has been canceled.  These prospectors are an odd lot, and more than a little bit crazy.”  This did not go over well with the group, and it would go over even less well to the rest of the crew when they found out. 

Robert let them make the needed noises and let them get it out of their systems.  “I want the notice posted, as soon as we have finished this meeting.  I don’t want someone outside the drop port, to get any ideas, about picking up a few of our people to see what they might know about a lost SLDF base.  I have moved up our launch time to 12 hours, from the top of this hour.” 

The Commander of the mission looked around the table.  “I think it’s time to leave while we are ahead of the game, for this round.  If anyone has an issue?  Please let me know.” 

Each person in the room looked at the commander of the mission.  They nodded that said, that they agreed that it was time to leave.  They were only leaving a half a day early, so there would be few issues with the crew.  The Commander knew this, and it was why he had done it.  A dozen hours, or the chance to lose some of his crewmembers to kidnapping or murder?  It made more sense, to him, to get moving a few hours early. 

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


The three dropships lifted off without any issues from the local government or Traffic Control.  The trip back to the jump point was normal, in every way.  Since this star system did not have any support infrastructure at the jump point.  The dropships did not have to make any more contact with the locals, after the ships had left the orbit of the planet.  The smaller ships attached themselves to the larger jumpship as soon as they arrived.  Within a few hours of the dropships arriving at the jump point.  The space was empty of any metal or life in a flash of jump energy. 

It was not until a few weeks later.  And only because some visiting outsider had asked, that it was noticed that the four ships did not file a travel plan with Traffic Control.  Nothing was noted or passed along.  Because it really was not against the law, to not file a travel plan with the next destination listed.  It was only for safety, in case something happened to the ship between jumps that this information was logged.  Sometimes people just did not want others to know, where they were going.  It was not unheard of out on the edge of human space, for that to happen.  Besides the local traffic control had not asked for one.  They had gotten very use to dealing with Lostech prospectors, and they were a type that like to keep everything close hold.  That included any of their travel plans. 

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

Notes:

Banking, economy, and buying large ticket items.  I always wonder how they set up a banking system in Battletech.  And how you would do something like that, on a planet without an HPG. 

How do you keep a lostech find quiet on a planet?  Now add how to do it when one of the main draws is looking for Lostech on the planet. 

Jess’s Toy Box:  It is not like you could call it “The Cate’s Hold find”.  That would be just a little odd.  I did not want them to find anything major on the first try, but they would have more information than the average prospector.  That information should have a payoff of some kind. 

[mikecj]

Nice few chapters, thanks for sharing.

[cawest]

Chapter 19 

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

4 April 3047
A short tour around space
Bivouac system

Over the next three months.  The ships moved through space stopping and trading at various planets and space stations.  Sometimes they would sell one of the computer systems, and sometimes they would sell one or two of the ultra-class cannons.  They were spreading spots of high technology items all threw out the MC, going all the way threw to the outer edge of the FWL.  They were working down the shopping list that they had been given, but Robert was also looking for other bigger ticket items that were not on the approved list. 

They tried to sell the fighters, and the White Rabbit at every stop.  But so far none of the planets they stopped at, had the funds to cover the price of those expensive machines.  At least not on such short notices, the little convoy could spend at one location.  Captain Copeland used mainly the funds from the sale of the high-tech gear to facilitate the purchases as they went.  Whenever they stopped by a planet with a working HPG?  He would tap more of the funds from the core account a few hours, before they would launch back to the jump point. 

With the Mule class cargo ship now almost full of supplies, to the top of the cargo bays.  Robert decided that it was time to make their way back to their home system.  What they did not know, was that someone was tracking their movements.  And they had predicted were Robert’s next stop might be.  Every time Robert accessed the funds, it would leave another bread crumb.  It was public knowledge of how much cargo space those classes of ships had, at least down to the ton.  It also was general information about what had been purchased by the little convoy.  After that?  It was only a math problem, and it was not a hard one at that.  One of the groups tracking them were unhappy with Copeland and his people.  And they were making plans to make life hard on the crews, if not kill them outright. 

This star system was a low population outpost.  The system did not even have a habitable planet that orbiting one of the twin stars.  It was just a mining outpost set up to harvest the wealth found in the systems massive and numerous asteroid belts.  The total population was housed in small or medium sized space stations, and the one massive recharging and cargo transfer station at the jump point.  This massive structure was at the Zenith jump point, and it had been there for a very long time.  It was thought, that it had predated the beginning of the Reunification War. 

Captain Copeland was hoping, that they would be able to sell or trade one of the obsolete fighters they were still carrying for tons of strategic ores the miners should have in an abundance.  Those hard to find ores could be used to augment, what was produced back on their home planet.  During one of the daily meetings, Jess asked about why they were stopping here to buy those items.  The planet called New Circe was hidden in a nebula, and they had access to plenty of mining sites a lot closer to home. 

Robert explained, that yes.  They did, but it took time to pull the ores out of the ground and then pre-process them.  All before they could be used in making anything.  If they could pick up a few tons of the hardest to find ores?  Then that was a few tons.  That would be ready to go straight to the factories, that were waiting to use them.  Now that SLiE had these new engines.  It was almost cheaper and safer to get them here, and then take them home.  Then it was for someone in the home system to do all the work with their limited refining capabilities.  Besides they were just topping off their cargo holds in the Mule, not taking on a full load of the ores. 

The M/V Styx had fully deployed it’s jump sail to recharge the Tramps “normal” jump engine.  It had easily locked into place and was working as designed.  On this trip.  Robert had noticed that there were fewer jumpship's listed as being down for repairs, than at any other time that he could remember. He had just brought that up with Jess before this jump.  She was looking into this information. 

Robert had just started negotiating with one of the deputy leaders of the system at her headquarters, over at the over one-million-ton space station.  It was just another stop on the trade route, that Robert had worked out before they had started this run.  As far as he could find out.  This system had not been visited by a supply run, ever. 

A very battered Leopard class CV activated it’s massive engines and burned around the huge space station at full thrust.  The bulk of the massive station was blocking the light fighter carrier from being viewed, and therefor blocked the targeting system of the Tramp Class JumpShip.  Once the Leopard class CV was clear of the blocking station?  It was visible to the JumpShip, and it also started to launch all six of the fighters that could be carried by that class of ship.  They went into deep space in one massive wave of death and plasma plumes. 

The bridge of the Styx was not a Warship, like one of the one’s they had left behind to defend their planet from the Cylons.  But the Styx was not exactly like a normal merchant ship or crew, ether.  By now, most JumpShips, that were still in operation.  They were not like the ones, that had been in operations before the 1SW.  When the strange ship came out from cover, provided by the sensor shadow offered by the massive Olympus Class station.  They reacted, just like the well trained and motivated crew that they were.  The crew of the Styx and the dropships, she was carrying, reacted with speed that was uncommon in the Inner Sphere. 

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

“Sir!!  Scanners are picking up a targeting system!!  They are coming out from behind the radar shadow of the Station.”  The scanner operator paused for a second reviewing the changing information on their screens. 

“Status change on Target 1.  She is a Leopard Class carrier!!  We have six fighter sized target separating from the dropship at speed.  Traffic Control is ordering them to wave off, but they are not responding!” 

The operator’s hand was pushing the General Quarters alarm, even as he was talking.  This was sending all ship’s crews to battle stations, to defend their ships.  From first detection, to the GQ alarm?  It was only eight seconds between the two events.  The Styx was not the only command area picking up the bogie.  The alert from the flagship, was just the icing on the cake, and proof about what the smaller craft had picked up. 

Robert was still strapped into his seat on a video conference, with the space station.  He flipped off the connection and started giving orders, without saying good-bye.  “Communication!!  Signal all captains, defend themselves and keep to the proscribed range limits!  We know that SLDF weapons tech has been showing up, but that does not void our orders.  Hobgoblin is to launch all her fighters, and they are to focus on those other fighters.  Hobgoblin and the White Rabbit are to close and engage the other dropship.  They have to keep it off of the Styx, and the Lisbon Maru.  They have to want to disable our ride home.”  Some of this information was not needed, but Robert was on a roll.  Besides, this was the first attack on his command, and he was a little excited. 

“Captain!!  The targeting system has been able to identify the fighter classes.”  The operator continued without waiting for permission to speak.  “They are reading as all light fighter classes.  We have two Centurions, two Sparrow Hawks, and two Cheetahs burning fast right towards us!” 

Robert looked over to his friend and second in command, and he raised his eyebrows.  “Jules!  They will be wanting to get in as close as they can, as fast as they can.  It’s a pure interceptor type mission.  This is going to be a knife fight.  The longest ranged weapon they have, is going to be medium class lasers.” 

Both Robert and Jules were thinking that all those training missions before making this run, were the Cylon Raiders were the listed enemy.  That was about to pay off, big time.  Neither man has said a word, about what they were thinking.  Basically, they had been friends so long?  They just thought the same way, in combat.  The attackers had a good plan, if they were going after the JumpShip.  If you were attacking a JumpShip?  You wanted the speed that light fighters were designed with.  To get to you.  They needed to get as close, as quickly as they could.  JumpShips had few weapons and even fewer ships had any armor, but the Tramp class was a different animal.  And a Wolverine run Tramp class?  She was a way different animal, than these people were used to hunting. 

A second crewmember sounded off, without turning to look at the commanding officers behind them.  “The Hobgoblin and White Rabbit have separated from the collars.  All weapon stations report manned and operational.  The two Lightnings on ready alert, have launched.  They are vectoring to be in an intercept position against the fighters.” 

“Sir!!  We have new fire control systems activating!!  The station is active!  It looks like they are targeting the fighters.”  There was a space of dead air on the bridge.  “The station is firing on the fighters.” 

The crewman paused for a few seconds.  “Sir!  They fired some lasers at the fighters as they passed, but they missed with every shot.  I think they might have burst a few of their lasing barrels, when they fired them up.  I picked up a few flashes on the hull of the station, as they fired.  Looks like they were not that great at maintaining their defensive weapons.  They did not even try to fire at the Leo, when it when by them.” 

Robert nodded his head.  He knew that this station was old.  “At least they tried.  Make the station as a neutral on all IFF’s.  We will find out what they are about, later.” 

It was a long two minutes, as the group of SLDF in Exile watched the super-fast fighters charging ahead of the slower fighter carrier.  Numbers on their screens showed several countdowns.  One was the time, until the fighters were in range.  The more important countdown was the one about, when the SLiE would be able to fire their weapons at the attackers.   

“Sir!!  Hobgoblin reports all six fighters are launched and moving to blocking positions, and they will wait for them at.”  The crewman checked his screen, before passing the information to the officer’s screens at their knees. “Point 54.  The Leo is still coming behind the light fighters, strong.  We are picking up unburned fuel in the exhaust of the Leopard.  Its acting like it might have some unrepaired battle damage, in the engine area.  I’m waiting on an image to process, to see if maybe they have some hull damage we can exploit.  It might be a while before we get any useful visual data.” 

Robert was reviewing all the reports and some of the raw information, as it was coming into the bridge.  “Let me know when you have a good image and pass along to the Hobgoblin your assessment of the dropship.  Jules, this has the feel of a pirate raid to me.  Keep an eye on the station.  If they jump in on the leopard side?  Then we see, if we can put enough holes in that hunk of junk to change their minds.” 

Jules looked at his commander.  He was only five feet from his command chair, so he did not have to raise his voice to be heard.  “Do we fast charge the engine and jump out of here?  Or do we stay, and fight it out with the dropship?” 

Robert looked over to his friend, and an evil grin came to his face.  “We stay and fight.  This is a fight that is in our favor, we have the advantage in the weight of firepower.  That is unless, the station jumps in and helps these pirates.  If it was a bigger attack?  We would jump out, and then wait a few days.  Before we came back, to pick up our chicks.  I do think we need to cut the sail, just in case those faster fighters break through or go around our heavier fighters.  We always have our Colonial drive, but that is not an ideal plan.” 

If they used the colonial jump drive, in an emergency?  It was hoped that it would have the look, like a miss-jump to people who did not know about them.  They would have to be “dead”.  None of the ships and the crews inside those ships would be able to come back to the Inner Sphere, ever.  It also would make the SLDF Navy, and the leadership of their Clan, very upset with Robert and his command staff.  It would not matter how many goodies, that they brought back with them.  None of them would be able to leave their hidden planet again, for the rest of their lives.  That was if everything worked out in Robert’s favor, with his leadership. 

Jules nodded and gave the order, to cut the recharging sail.  Outside the over 600meter long JumpShip.  The kilometer-wide dark sail with its supporting lines, were disconnected from the larger ship.  The term was “cut”.  But after the battle?  The Jumpship’s commander would want to recover the thing.  Just a few massive connectors were undone, and the sail and the lines drifted away from the long metal can.  The sail would drift away from the parent JumpShips and start to collapse, making it a harder target for enemy fire. 

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

Meanwhile out in the dark of space, that was the jump point.  Gwen (Dude) Paul was strapped tightly into her 50ton Lightning aerofighter.  She and her wingman had been sitting in their craft on alert status, when they had been catapulted out of the dropship Hobgoblin.  It had been as soon as the red light and audio alarm of the GQ alarm had started to blast threw the dropship.  They were the first defensive craft to get out of the fighter bays. 

Gwen had been a very young pilot, on an earlier resupply run to the Inner Sphere.  She had been good enough, to pass the test for one of those coveted positions for those multiyear missions.  That last mission had been a long time ago.  She had been given her handle of “Dude”, on that run.  The trading dropship, that she had been assigned to provide cover for, had stopped on some forgotten planet on the edge of nowhere. 

Late one evening.  A group of the local fighter jocks and the crew of the dropship, that she had been flying off of had some drinks in a local watering hole.  When one of the locals had explained, in front of everyone.  That she had a dude’s first name, for her last name.  From then on, her new call sign had been Dude.  It had stuck all threw her long flying career.  She thought her call sign most likely would be put on her gravestone, weather she wanted it or not.  That was just one of the oddities of being a fighter pilot, and it did not just affect the SLiE. 

She had been on the downhill slide of her career, and she had known it for years.  She had tested down from the front-line units, over five years before the Colonial’s had shown up.  She had maintained her flight time, in second or even third line units.  She would do anything, so that she could fly a few more hours, and it did not matter what craft she could get stick time in.  This unwittily, had helped her later in life, with such a variety of craft under her belt.  She was not only qualified but rated highly skilled in all of those different airframes.  When they had offered her a position on this resupply run?  She had jumped at the chance. 

She knew that they would be able to take only fighters, that would blend in with the locals.  She had tested at the top of the group.  This meant that she had first pick from all the different aerofighters, that higher command said was going on the mission.  She like the 50ton fighter, that she had picked as her primary ride.  The massive auto cannon would be great in the anti-dropship attack roll.  If she could get close in?  It could take smaller fighters out in one hit, even if the 200mm cannon was old tech.  It still had a massive bite, but you had to get someone in range of it.  Now it was time to see if she was still as good on a stick, has she had been on the last trip. 

The six enemy fighters were coming towards her and her wing man, at an incredible speed.  The rest of the fighters were still coming up behind the pair of Lightnings.  For now, it will only be her two fighters, against all six of the enemy light fighters.  If they failed?  She would die.  There was no way, that she would be taken alive.  That was something ingrained into the survivors of the Wolverines.  It had been that way even before they had found those prison camps, when they first returned to the Inner Sphere. 

Dude had time on the way out to her position, to study the mob coming her way.  She selected the targets, that she wanted to focus on and passed the information to her wing man.  She and her wing man started a pre-programed set of evasion maneuvers, with the engines facing the enemy fighters.  Mainly it was to cut her forward speed, and it also put Dude where she wanted to be when the time was right.  Thanks to the computer threat warbooks, and powerful systems on the military ships.  She knew what those craft were packing, better than the pilots did.  She still could get surprised, but it was not very likely. 

The largest weapons that the group of attacking fighters had, was only medium class lasers.  Just like what Dude and her wingman, had for secondary weapons on their pair of fighters.  She was still waiting, when her radar systems told her that she was almost in range.  Dude pulled the straps a little tighter, and she hunched down deeper into the cockpit.  It was almost game time, and she could hear the blood pumping in her ears. 

Gwen was looking in her cockpit.  This type of flying was sometimes called “eyes in”.  This was opposite of how you would fight, if you were flying in an atmosphere.  That was where you had to fly eyes out, or you died.  That was keeping your eyes looking around the skies, trying to see if your enemy was trying to surprise you.  In space?  That was not a good way to fight.  In space, your speeds were a lot higher and without a star or sun to cause glinting on an attacker. 

This was where the radar and other electronic systems, became your best friend.  Even with the HUD and the powerful radar. It was as much luck as skill sometimes, when you started a fight in the deep black.  When she thought the time was right?  She used the joystick in her right hand and pulled it backwards, hard.  This caused her 50ton fighter to flip over, within its own length.  Now the massive maul of a cannon was pointing in the general direction of the enemy attack force closing to attack their ride home. 

Gwen and her wing man targeted and pulled the triggers, to fire every weapon they had at their assigned targets within seconds of each other.  Then they both activated the main maneuvering thruster and flipped their ships 180 degrees again.  Now they were waiting for their massive cannons to reload.  Multitasking was the bread and butter of a fighter jock.  It was time to pour on the fuel, while the cannons cycled, and the lasers recharged for the next round of fighting. 

If you could not do at least three things at once?  You failed out of pilot school and would do something easier.  Something like being a tank crewman or maybe something like a mech driver.  So even before her ship had completed its flip.  Gwen was checking her system to check the damaged done to her fighter, by the invisible incoming laser fire.  If the enemy is in range, then so are you.  The attacking enemy ships also only had one chance to fire on her and her wingman, before they screamed passed the two “blocking” fighter’s way too fast for human eyes to track.  This type of combat was different than any other warfare, in the history of man. 

[cawest]

Only five enemy fighters flew past the pair of Lightning’s.  That and one expanding ball of debris that had been a Centurion fighter only a few seconds before.  The ball of gas was still moving thanks to the laws of physics, but now it was not a threat.  When the two fighters had completed their flip?  Each fired the massive nose cannon again, and a single pair of medium class lasers at the slightly smaller group.  Her wing man rushed his shot, and only hit the last Centurion with only one of his medium lasers.  That was only a 33 percent hit rate, and that was not going to get him any good marks in the post mission debrief.  The single hit was in the aft section of the 30ton fighter, but it only burned a little armor plate in that location.  All of that bad shooting had spiked the heat in the 50ton fighters, like they were sitting in a blast furnace. 

Gwen “Dude” Paul was a better pilot, and a lot better shot with her craft.  She was able to put the massive class 20 autocannon shell right up the center of the engine thrust bell of her target.  She even hit with both of her lasers.  All of her shots when into the aft section of the other fleeing Centurion.  The combined damaged caused the second Centurion to explode, joining the other Centurion as an expanding ball of fragments and various hot gasses.  It was that quick and two lives were lost, and over three million C Bills of equipment was destroyed in the cold of deep space. 

Gwen did not keep engaging her main engine to pursue the other four enemy fighters.  They were too fast for her heavier fighter to catch up to them, and they were now out of range of any of her weapons.  Not for the first time, did she wish that they could have replaced the auto cannon with a great gauss rifle like in the 15b.  It did not have the raw stopping power of the larger auto cannon per shot, but it had a lot longer range.  It also had a lot lower heat generation potential per shot, than the older weapon had.  One part of her brain knew that she could have gotten three or even four good high probability shots with that type of weapon.  She made sure to check if the computers agreed, before she had to sit down for her post mission brief. 

With this part of the battle over.  Now Gwen had time to plan the next part of the battle with the battle management system in her craft.  She was mentally writing up her report, while she waited.  If the management system agreed?  Then her wingman would be able to paint a half fighter silhouette on his craft.  This was not like fighting skeet, but a kill was a kill.  Gwen would be able to claim a half credit for the one fighter, and a full credit from the second Centurion.  She did some quick math in her head, and then decided what the best next move might be. 

The two fighters activated a set of thrusters and changed course, again.  They now were going to be the first line of defense against the larger target provided by the enemy carrier, that was still burning towards them.  That was what the massive cannon was designed to punch holes into after all, and it just happened.  That there was one nearby, that needed that kind of attention.  Besides they had just even the odds, number wise, for the other two lances. 

The remaining deployed fighters of the Star League in Exile escorts did not have the time to get in an as good intercept position on the faster, but lighter fighters.  The lighter fighters were able to use their higher speed to control the fight and avoid most of the weapons fire coming from the other Wolverine craft.  Still only two of the enemy fighters were able to get past the heavier fighters intact, or otherwise combat capable.  They might have been pirates.  But that did not mean that they were not good pilots, or that they didn’t know their business.  Each one of them had years of combat experience, of one kind or another before today’s battle. 

One Cheetah and one Sparrow Hawk made it passed the SLiE heavy fighters.  The two fighters were able to use the higher power to mass ratio, skill, and more than a little luck to avoid the two dropships that were following the angry heavy fighters.  This delayed them, a little.  Before they had started to again start to close in on the JumpShip, that they had been told to make sure did not try to leave this system. 

Both of the surviving attacking pilots were not happy.  This was just supposed to be a show of force, to scare the JumpShip into giving up to their carrier.  They had done this type of job a half a dozen times, this year.  All without any issues, worth worrying about.  You know?  Issues like not only having returning fire, but effective returning fire.  Effective fire which already had cut their fighter force by two thirds, before they even had gotten to the target.  That was just not right!!  Merchant ships and crews should just give up, and not fight.  “It just was not fair,” were the thoughts coming from those two surviving enemy fighters. 

They were about to find out how unfair the universe can be, when they found out that their target was an armed JumpShip.  It was not the two pop guns, that an Invader class used to pop the odd rock that got in the way.  They were about to run into a lot more weapons.  Ones that were helped with a lot better fire control computers and better trained gunnery crews than any other JumpShip within a thousand light years of this system. 

The SLDF Cheetah had been the last to launch off of the Hobgoblin, due to an issue with the ancient catapult.  Now that it was out in space, it went after the pirate Cheetah.  It was trying to remove his twin from the universe.  Very quickly the other fighter took him up on the challenge, to do the same to him.  It was going to be an even match, to see who was removed first.  The one enemy Sparrow Hawk shoved its engine to the max, and started an attack run on the huge JumpShip.  His radar said that he had a clear shot at the primary. 

What the young pilot did not know, was that this JumpShip was unlike the similarly sized Star Lord.  It was armed to the teeth, and it even had an armored hull for protection.  The light fighter hit the thick, well thick for what a JumpShips normally carried, armor by a set of twin medium lasers.  They did little more than ruin the paint job on that part of the long JumpShip.  Those pair of hits should have opened the jumpship’s hull like an egg hit by a hammer. 

The four extended ranged large lasers that returned fire, for the pair of mediums that had been fired at the JumpShip.  The quad gamma beams hit the small fighter and did more damage to the 20ton fighter.  The small craft lost its nose all the way back to the aft firewall of the cockpit, to the incoming weapons fire in a flash of energy.  Then the light fighter was out of the artificially reduced firing range, as only a closely flying debris field.  These four hits killed the pilot first, and then later the engine exploded due to the overloading damage.  The last had ended up destroying the light fighter totally.  It was now just a bit of metal dust and the odd dinner plate sized chunk of hot, but quickly cooling metal and ceramics. 

The five heavy fighters piloted by the SLDF in Exile led the attack against the enemy dropship, next.  The locals on the space station were still trying to contact the dropship, but the dropship was refusing any contact from them or the Styx.  There was no way this was an accident.  It was all out war.  The Leopard commander was going to take it, all the way to the hilt.  Attacking a JumpShip was something that just was not done.  Now it looked like not only had he attacked a JumpShip.  He also had failed in his mission of attacking the JumpShip.  That was a double failure, and that was one more failure than he could live threw. 

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The space station was finally starting to flush its mobile defense force, to join the battle.  Soon six heavy fighters and four Tigress class close patrol ships were in space and were closing as fast as they could to the action.  They had deployed late from the massive station.  They all also were slower than the attacking light fighters, and the Leopard had some good legs under her by the time they were launched out of their bays.  There was no way that they would be able to arrive, before the three dropships engaged each other in combat. 

The pirate Leopard should have just powered down his engines and weapons, after it had lost its strike force.  But it had not.  It just kept on charging towards the Styx, like a dog on a three-legged cat.  The question is, who the dog was and who was the three-legged cat.  The pirate Leopard was matched by Robert’s Leopard, but it was not alone in the coming battle.  It was supported by five of its fighters and the blockade runner’s own weapons. 

Gwen “Dude” made the first flyby of the enemy dropship, at some distance.  Her report and the information that had been transmitted back to the Styx, showed a battle-damaged dropship.  It was exactly what you would expect, on the Periphery of explored space.  A combat unit on its last legs, then pushed over the edge and went pirate.  Out here?  There were very few people, that could stand against them.  It was a lot of firepower in a small package. 

If that dropship had ever touched down on a major planet, even one out here at the end of nowhere.  The local port authority would have grounded it, as a hazard to navigation to other ships and a danger to the crew the hunk of junk carried.  That did not mean, that it didn’t have teeth.  It was far from being toothless.  It might have lost its long-ranged attack force made up of its fast fighters, but it still had enough weapons.  That it could take out any civilian jumpship, ever made. 

“Dude’s” images showed that the pirate dropship had both shallow and deep craters blasted into the armored hull on all of its exposed surfaces.  At this close range, even the ancient systems on the Lightning could not be spoofed, by paint or most common ECM tricks.  Even the aft area, which all civilian dropship’s captains tried to protect at all cost, had some damage.  Damage that seemed to be affecting the engines of the almost 2,000ton ship.  After her close flyby of the attacking dropship, she pushed a little closer for her next pass.  This next pass was not going to be a “looksy”.  It was going to be a “shootsy” close encounter.  She had been staying outside of her and the Leo’s weapons range on the first pass. 

Dude led the first attack run on the wildly maneuvering ship.  The high-speed attack was mainly just meant to see what weapons were operational on the flying wreck.  If she got a good solid hit on the craft on this pass?  That was just gravy.  The speed of the attack limited the exposure of the fighter to the counter fire coming from the enemy ship.  It helped some, and the pair of fighters live to make a close pass of the pirate carrier. 

This time both of the pilot scored hits with the large nose mounted auto cannon on the port side of the craft.  They did not appear to do any real damage, because the dropship kept on going towards the jump point without slowing down.  The attack run did generate some positive information.  The pirate ship might look like a wreck, but it now showed that it indeed was armed to the teeth with functional weapons.  This pass also showed that the weapons were better maintained then the local space stations had been.  That was an interesting data point. 

When Dude and her wing man had finished the attack run and pulled back out of range of the enemy carrier.  The pair of fighters had not been hit by any of the returning fire.  That might have been due to the piloting skills of the pair, or to the poor gunnery skill of the dropship’s crew.  They did receive a few close calls, but nothing that so much as blistered the paint on the two fighters.  While they were checking their fighter’s systems and letting the old heat sinks work down the load they had been put under during the attack. 

They were joined by the rest of the convoy’s heavy fighters.  It was time for another high-speed attack run on the pirate.  On this attack run, they were not as lucky in avoiding the enemy fire.  The Vulcan took a PPC hit to the heavily armored left wing.  Gwen’s craft took some Long-ranged missile hits across both wings and the nose of her craft, but the armor protected her from any real threat.  In return?  The carrier was peppered with SRM, medium and heavy cannon shots, as well as a few laser hits.  What was the key to winning this phase of the battle?  It was heat management and putting in as many papercuts as the fighters could into the larger ship. 

Now the five fighters were behind the large ship, and the distance was growing very quickly.  A quick flip, and they were pointing there nose back toward the enemy ship.  They all went to maximum thrust, as soon as they were lined back up on the target.  This caused all of the pilots to feel the heat, down to their bones.  They all were closed to the red line, but soon the heat sinks were bleeding the excess heat off that had mainly been generated by the weapons.  The heat from the weapons was bleeding out now, that the weapons were not being fired anymore to add to the heat load the craft were working with.  The max thrust setting on the engines was generating a lot of heat, but the birds were made to handle something like that. 

It did not take them long to come to a stop in space, and for then to start the long stern chase to retarget the enemy dropship.  Soon they were closing the range for an attack on the exposed engines of the larger vessel.  While they were still out of range of the dropship.  Dude had a complete tech readout of the design specs on this class of dropship to review, and then she could compare it with what her systems had been able to collect. 

The Vulcan with its pair of far shooting class 10 autocannons, the super heavy Stuka’s large box LRM’s launcher and its four Large Lasers, and the Ironsides packing paired PPCs.  These three craft were the first shooters of the attacking fighters on the wildly evading craft.  The lighter and shorter ranged Lightnings were not going to play a part.  One of the fighters would close to long range, and then fire their longest ranged weapons at the fighter carrier.  Then they were to fall back to vent the heat generated by firing all of those weapons, as the dropship opened the range and pulled away again.  Then the next craft would enter range of its weapons and fire their heavy weapons.  They would keep rotating the fire point, as long as the dropship kept heading towards the jumpship. 

The Leopard CV was built with only one large laser class weapon and a few medium class weapons to cover the engines, and the whole aft area of the dropships.  Dude and her group were taking advantage of this knowledge, to target the enemy vessel.  From there current attack location.  They would only be facing one large laser weapon, that could return fire at this range.  The Lightnings had more fire power, but they would have to get very close to use it effectively.  They needed to try to make the pirate Leo react to them and keep the jumpship safe.  The plan on how to do that?  it was to keep hitting the now empty carrier and make its Captain lose his focus on attacking the Styx. 

The five fighters were not able to hit, with every weapon.  That was due to the range they were choosing to fire from.  And the target was doing whatever it could, so that the attacking craft would miss with those weapons shots.  The Vulcan was the first fighter to score a telling hit on the larger craft.  That was when the large laser turret was blown off the dropship.  The large turret, with the laser weapon still attach.  All went flying off into space as the larger part of the ship was still under acceleration, and the turret…..was not.  The five craft did not transmit a word at seeing the weapon come off.  They were five sharks, and blood was just thrown into the water. 

The five attacking craft went blazing past the weapons turret, and Gwen was even able to get some images of the hunk of junk go flashing by.  The Vulcan pilot would swear later that it almost clipped his cockpit, when the weapons went streaking past.  Up until this time?  The enemy dropship captain had been content on maneuvering, and letting the weapons take care of the Nits attacking behind him.  With the aft area of the dropships only longer ranged weapon out of the equation?  The nits had also proven that they had teeth, and they knew how to use them.  It just showed that the Commander of this craft was not that skilled in fighting a near peer threat. 

Now the five fighters could press in closer to the dropship, before firing their weapons.  Gwen was the first person, that saw the thrusters on and near the nose of the dropship start to fire.  She was just able to warn the other fighters, that the ship was about to flip.  Maybe it was to bring its heavy nose guns and wing weapons into play against them. 

By the time that the nose was facing towards Gwen, and her compatriots.  They had moved out of range of those weapons.  The fighters were just nimbler, and with that little warning Dude had given them?  That was enough for the group, to avoid getting killed by a sudden appearance of many powerful and long ranged weapons.  Mostly it was a case of thrust management for the smaller fighters to pull out of range of the long-ranged weapons. 

With the nose of the dropship pointing at the fighters.  It was not adding speed for the attack run on the Styx.  This gave more time for the White Rabbit and the Hobgoblin to close on the enemy dropship.  This let them start the engagement farther from the more fragile jumpship.  That move, was what Gwen had been trying to get the Leo to do from the first attack.  The attacking commander was now reacting, instead of Acting.  Now all he needed to do was show some smarts, and totally break off the attack on the jumpship. 

After a few pointless volleys of weapons fire from the nose mounted weapons bays, at the distant and wildly evading fighter sized targets.  The enemy dropship fired its nose thruster again, and this time when it stopped.  It was not aimed at the Tramp Class jumpship, but at an empty point in space that made it clear that it was not going to be targeting the long vessel. 

It was just outside of the “normal” jump point area, but it was still safe from the gravity effects of the local star.  If someone knew what they were doing, it would be safe for a jumpship to use.  It was still close enough to the recharge station to be “safe” to use.  When the dropship was still in flipping motion.  It fired its massive rear mounted engines, and they went into overthrust mode straight from the idle setting.  She was putting her crew under almost three g’s of loading from 0g, in just a few heartbeats. 

The Stuka driver was quick off the mark and was closest to the enemy dropship.  He was able to throttle up and lined up for a long-ranged snapshot.  It was on the weakened aft of the dropship, that filled his targeting reticle.  It was the broad side of a barn target.  The Stuka fired the huge 20 tube long ranged missile battery, and all four of its big bore lasers in one big Alfa strike. 

This action put the 100ton fighter in a severe heat issue, as soon as the weapons cycled after firing.  This quickly overloaded the heat management system and caused the fighter to auto shut down its Fusion engine in a blink of an eye.  At least until it could vent the massive amount of heat caused by all of that weapons fire, and the over thrusting of the engine.  If it had not shut down?  There was a good chance that the attacking fighter might have an ammunition explosion or an engine breach of some kind.  Both would be listed as a not a good thing, to happen for the pilot. 

Three of the large lasers hit the target, as well as over half of the long-range missiles.  The weapons fire was impacting along both of the left and right wings, as well as the already damaged aft section of the fighter carrier.  To the people in the targeted dropship.  It felt like someone had hit the outside of the Leopard with a series of hammer blows, some stronger or larger than others.  This was not the first combat mission for most of the crew, but it still was distressing to the members of the carrier to be hit so hard.  Then things sounded different, and not in a good way. 

The dropship gave a visible shutter, after all of the damage the Stuka had done to it.  It was clear, to the whole universe that the dropship was in trouble.  Then a massive explosion wracked the dropship.  There was a massive infer-red energy spike that had started at about the midship line.  The little dropship split into two parts like it had been pulled apart by the hands of the gods.  The aft part was made up of the high tail stabilizer, what was left of the engines, and part of each of the aft most two fighter launch bays on the ship. 

The forward section of the dropship was blasted off and at an angle, away from the two approaching dropships that had launched from the Styx.  Both parts of the once high-tech dropship, now were adrift in space with the last bit of thrust provided by the explosions sending them on at least a dozen different course headings.  Both of the large parts were still going out into interstellar space, at a very impressive turn of speed relative to the nearby space station. 

The Hobgoblin increased its thrust to the maximum, that the little for a dropship could safely maintain.  The Captain of the fighter carrying dropship, intended to destroy whatever was left of the enemy dropship.  That was how SLiE handled attacks from pirates in the past, and that was how he was going to handle them now.  It was something ingrained into the Wolverine’s DNA.  There would be no attempt to board the wreck of the dropship.  High Command had never thought to bring along marines, on this smaller mission.  The Captain of the carrier would use the ship mounted heavy energy weapons, to take care of any hazards to navigation.  At least that was the plan of the command crew of that ship, anyway.