Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

by cliff.west

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

58. Chapter 58 31 July 3050 Mission Three

Chapter 58

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

31 July 3050 Mission Three

The Canopus system.

At the Zenith Jump point the jumpship Styx appeared not that long after an energy wave let the locals know that they had a large visitor coming from not that far away. At least not that far away, when you were talking about moving among the stars. Even without this warning given by the use of the jump drives by civilian ships of the Inner Sphere. This arrival was not a surprise, to the local traffic control, not with almost 3 whole minutes of warning. Captain Copeland had sent a message that they would be coming soon from the last planet that had a working HPG, and the MMM office had also sent word threw their channels to the main office from Dunianshire with an arrival date. The main office over all of the massive expanse of the company MMM had let the locals know the date, and to act accordingly to a great friend of that "little" company known as MMM.

This part of the trip had helped the convoy commander make some extra cash, by carrying cargo in what would have been empty space. It also would throw another rock into the pool of information on this company. The Capital of the MC was a busy place, with items coming in from all over its controlled space and even some stuff coming in from the other closer major Inner Sphere powers on a regular basis. Copeland had been able to line up almost 7,000 tons of cargo from their last stop to leave here. They had not stopped any place but Dunianshire, but they had used that travel time to do some more scouting. All of that scouting information and their other reports to date had been compressed and sent in draft format using the TacFax. The more polished and in some cases more complete reports would not be filed until they could send larger bulk data packets back home.

Jules had been asked to show this "new" charter service to help some of the possible plans that SLIC was kicking around. With the issues on Dunianshire, this had just moved this "charter service" forward by a few jumps. Still the line had been drawn and Copeland agreed at not allowing any travelers or what were called dead headers, on his ship. As on the run from Duke Terry's world to Dunianshire. Robert had his people checking out any other systems thanks to the Colonial made drive. The change was that this time they were under a fake IFF, and they were running in full passive mode if a system might have people living there. They did this all while they had killed time, so they would not arrive "to early" at Canopus. Still even with those delays of sightseeing. The Styx set a new record for traveling between Canopus and Dunianshire. Now something like that might have drawn some attention. But thanks to more and more Tramp class ships showing up, and even the FWL paying for stories to be passed along with key information. That they were making more and more of that class of ship that could double jump. So, showing up a few days early was not that groundbreaking in the realm of interstellar shipping.

With very little in the way of delays at the jump point, after contact had been made with the nearby local traffic control. The three dropships left the interstellar ship called Styx, to start their many days burn to the populated planet closer to the life-giving heat of the star. Robert had thought about leaving the small fighter carrier Hobgoblin at the jump point, but the MC had increased both the number and size of the local defense force at both of the "main" jump points this system had. That increase in number and firepower was not small either.

It only took half an hour for the computer systems on the jumpship to "see" a dozen aerospace fighters each in two different patrol patterns around the jump point. There also were three dropships that had IFF's saying they were with the MC military. That did not count the Recharge station, and much to the surprise of Robert. There was a second matching space station quickly being built at the other jump point. That data had been picked up on an open science entertainment broadcast for the locals. Canopus was moving up in the level of capital systems and closing in on the level of a major house capital world.

The three dropships of Robert's command did the burn in system at just one g, and in close formation. They also were covered by two fighters at all times coming out of the small carrier. The two Stukas or sleds were not allowed to be seen by anyone, yet. This did cause some manning issues on the many day burn towards the planet. Then again that was what auto pilot was for, and the ones built into these fighters was not the ones that your grandfather used in the 2nd SW. These updated systems would make minor changes so that it would not look like the pilot was asleep at the controls. In space it took a while for a battle to develop, so dozing at the controls was "okay" if not recommended by the manufacture or by SLiE SOP and training. That and a dollar would buy you a cup of coffee at your average drop port side café.

########

The three dropships were cleared to land, as a single group, to an area of the main port that Copeland and crew had used before. It was nice to have friends in high places, and that you had worked with before to everyone's benefit. It would seem to Robert that those powerful friends were still happy to deal with this company. Robert won another scrip note from Jules's payable with his return to the jumpship, at the VIP treatment that they were being given. Jules thought that the bean counters at the main headquarters would hold more of a grudge about the attack Robert had directed their way than Mike had. Jess was still worried that someone with a grudge might be able to pick them out, thanks to all of that VIP treatment. SLIC liked to blend into what was going on around them. The motto of "a nail that stands out is asking for a visit by the hammers" was often taught to them. Being treated like a VIP was a bad way to stand out in the local dropship crowd.

After the landing of the three dropships? The Cargo Master on the Mammoth had to notify the owners of the cargo that they had landed, and to let them know that they were ready to unload it. All of this was done without needing Robert to put his fingers into the mess. It was all managed by the cargo masters and their teams on two of the dropships, and they would not appreciate having their elbows jostled. While that was being taken care of? Robert, Jess and some of the other crewmembers left the ships to stretch their legs and to see what was going on locally. With the VIP treatment in the descent now over. It was like they were just another set of cargo dropships on any other major star system around the Inner Sphere.

Robert's first stop was to check in with the small crews of the two jumpships that had taken a different route to this location. He was surprised by not only finding one of the jumpship's crews, but both teams in the same area. They had found a buyer for the second ship, while Robert had been out of contact with them. The two teams did not have access to a TacFax, and even if they had, the use of it would have blown Copeland's cover. The same was true if anyone found out that the M/V Styx had a HPG berried in her guts, one that was not run by ComStar.

The MC's government had wanted to buy the jumpship, but they had backed down when MMM said they wanted one of them. And as with all things in any government, that the hand of man had set up. Once it stopped moving, it took almost an act of god or large-scale use of Nuclear weapons to get it moving forward again.

Well, it took a few weeks for word to reach the right ears that MMM had picked up only the Merchant class ship and not both of them. All that Robert needed to do was work out or confirm the price. The acting captain and senior person of the group on the ground had all of the contact information that Robert would need to do that. The senior captain had done most of the leg work, but he could not sign the contract to close the deal. The local government wanted someone a little higher in the food chain of this company to take their money. One part of Robert was surprised by this turn of events, and at the same time he just thought it was someone playing little power play games because they could. He had to fight down the urge to play like games. It was hard but he kept the vindictive side of his personality in check.

Robert took the data and after he started getting the two jumpship crews moving, so that they could take up residence in their new home on the Mammoth. Robert contacted the number, which he had been given by the leader of this splinter group that was supposed to be part of his company. He left a message that was short and to the point, after being passed around to half a dozen different people. This had done nothing to improve Robert's mood, not even after he had finally gotten through to someone in authority that had returned his call after the message had been left.

The representative for the MC's government had a fully manned office near the drop port, and they would send someone over that would see Robert in an hour. That was about as long as it would take Robert to make it to that side of the space port with the current traffic. It was just by luck, that Jess would be able to meet him there after leaving the hotel that held the other jumpship's crews. That still didn't mean that Robert was going to be allowed to go anywhere without an escort of some kind for this meeting.

By the time the sun was showing "high noon", Robert and Jess had sold the old single carrying armored jumpship to the MC for 390 million C-bills. The money was already transferred to bank accounts that Robert and his company held, by the time he left the briefing room on the other side of the drop port. It would seem, that the MC had only been waiting for Robert to land to finish the deal after all. That fell right into "playing power games" in Robert's mental book. It also seemed that he was being felt out, by some members in the local government.

With the "Normal" company bank accounts now fully recharged, and even the more well-hidden accounts flush with capital? It was time to go shopping in the local area and open the cargo holds for selling the weapons and other items, which they had brought to this star system. As with their last stop on a planet. The weapons were flying off the ship even at the slight markup the cargo masters were charging. The invasion going into the other side of the Inner Sphere, had even the old-style weapons selling very well and at top C-Bills. The Cargo Masters very well could not sell items at lower than what the locals were selling them for. They had to at least match any advertised price or even be a little higher if they wanted to keep their cover. When Robert was told about this mark up, he had a flash back about a story he had read a long time ago. It was about how the American companies sold second or even third line fighters as fast as they could be made to those fighting the Axis powers. The more things change the more they stay the same.

##########

By noon on the second day that they were on this planet, all of the available mech scale weapons had been sold to a long list of different buyers. The small arms were selling just as well as the heavier weapons. It was just that they had more of them to sell than the mech scale weapons and supplies like the "Freezers" class of heat sinks. Even the much maligned anti-missile systems were flying out of the cargo bays.

One of the reasons that the MC was willing to spend so much of its limited budget on a newly rebuilt jumpship, was that they knew they would be getting a lot of that money or something of equal value of it back. The Magistracy of Canopus might "only" be a Periphery state, but it was also a major Periphery state with a very active intelligence service. One that had a lot of fingers in different pies all over the not so local space. That small jumpship would help pull out data, which might be a little more on the dicey side when it came to recovery. Any group that thought that it was just another Scout class jumpship would have a rude awakening trying to stop it from leaving a given local star system. The only thing better would have been if it had been refitted with a Lithium-Fusion battery system. Then again, they might not have been able to afford it or keep it quiet after they had purchased the ship.

The Government of the MC also didn't care about where Copeland was getting the high-tech weapons, that he was selling. They just wanted to make sure that their military could get as many as they could, for as little money as they could spend. All to fill both their short term and long-term plans, and to cover some that just came up out of the blue…er black. Now if they were selling something like the Bear Slayers? Then some of the lower-level flunkies might have looked a little too closely at Copeland.

Still by now the government of the MC alone had spent hundreds of thousands of woman-hours looking into Copeland, and his odd little traveling company. Most of those hours had only started when they heard about his return to their area of controlled space on his second visit. Surprisingly MMM was not sharing what they knew about Copeland, but that didn't stop them from asking MIM for everything they had on Copeland supply, salvage, and resale. MMM was spending a lot of effort to keep what they knew about Copeland to as few people as possible, and that included working to stop any leaks that might come out of MIM.

MIM had looked at each place that Copeland and his group had stopped. They were going back as far as they could, but they had always had run into a data void. Teams of agents would then copy the list of items Robert and his people were looking for, and what the strangers were buying on both trips. It did not take them long to notice a few things about what Copeland was looking for, that fit with what you would expect from a company baring that name. Then MIM had spent some time on seeing how the MC could better get some of the funds that seemed to be flooding this company's many different bank accounts. Unlike most "people", MIM knew all about the hidden accounts that Copeland had access to.

It was noted that one of the key things that they seemed to want, was that they were looking for "odd" mechs. This was proven, when it was found out they had not only bought the Wolfhound in their space, but they had bought a Wolf's Dragoon connected Hoplite on the edge of the FWL. They also noticed that Copeland had bought bunches of water bound fighting ships, and the only large number of fighting machines they had bought were the little Savanna Masters. They had completely missed the food, tools and other luxury items that Copeland had also picked up. The number of cargo trucks was noticed, but no way could be found that they could exploit this information in the long term. MIM was caught in the loop of looking for somethings that were high value and smaller sized. Part of that was even true. Having to hide a few hundred cargo trucks was a lot harder to do than hiding one assault or heavy mech.

The intelligence agency of the MC had pulled moneys from a few select and very well-hidden accounts across the local space. Those funds were used to quietly acquire some items, but they were not able to act on this newly found information. At least not before Copeland had left going into the deep black of uncharted space again. 90 percent of Intel work is all about the timing, and sometimes yours is just off.

While Copeland was gone, MIM kept picking up a few items and putting them in a safe place for the next few years. If it turned out that this Copeland was not interested in what had been collected by them, or if he did not return in a reasonable amount of time? Then those items still could be of use to the MC's military in some fashion. That would protect MIM from any blowback of them buying those items in the first place.

When the first reports had reached the ears of the leadership of MIM that Copeland was back in their space? More than a few bets were settled, and some people got a little more sleep for those next few nights. But in the intel business those types of nights were very few and very far in between. Now all MIM had to do was find out how to approach this emblematic company, and at the same time not draw any unwanted attention to both themselves and to Copeland. That should have been a very hard nut to crack.

When word of the attempted armed robbery of Copeland's dropships while they were on Dunianshire had reached a few certain ears over at MIM? It was welcome news, and a few plans were dusted off. One of them was how to get this captain to come to the Capital planet of the MC. They were not going to risk trying a more complicated plan of planning an interception mission. Then news, from one of their best agents, pass the word to them via coded HPG message. That Copeland was now looking to increase his dropship ground-based security. Details were passed about the heavy lance Copeland had hired until they were ready to leave planet. All of that pointed to that Copeland supply might be even more interested in the right war machines, to round out their guard force and that matched the profile they had been reported to be using. Only time would tell if all of that guess work was anyway based in the real world or was it generated because of too much coffee and to little sleep.

A front company was set up and ready to go by the time that Copeland started shopping on the Capital world. All that needed to be done was working on how to set the hook just right on this prime catch of the year. Historically the area around the MC had been very short of mechs, much less high-end machines of any type before late 3047. With the increased output of mechs, and then the updated weapons they bought from Copeland and then the ones that MMM had started to make for the open market. They now had the right items that they could trade for other hard to find items in a huge volume of space. It was all in who you knew and knowing what they wanted. That was the bread and butter of the MC much less the MIM, and you only had to ask the members and attendees of any of the pleasures circuses to confirm this fact of life.

Ben Rich's Titanium Weapons and Metals was quick to respond to the notice posted on the planet's information grid by some of Copeland's people. The bait was now out there, and it was now only the matter of waiting to see if anyone would bite. What was thought of as the key leaders in this odd little company, were passively watched while they were outside of the dropships. This observation was mainly focused on Robert and Jess but also Jules would be watched, when he would leave the jumpship for a swing by the recharge station. They had no idea when the freshly opened warehouse was visited by a crewmember, which would report to Jess that it was worth the time to visit. It would not have been the first time that someone had contacted them saying one thing, but it was proven different when some of Copeland's people took the time to stop by.

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

Jess was sitting in a small café enjoying a cup of very good coffee. The whole group she was "shopping" with were spread out over 3 nearby small tables. They were sitting outside in the sun, just like any other spacer would do. It was not every day that a spacer could feel the warm sun on their face and a fresh breeze in their hair. There generally were more open-air places near a drop port than your traditional style of closed box eateries.

Jess felt someone pass to close to her. She tracked the person until they sat down at a table to her front and outside of the ring made by her people. Jess slowly put her cup down and tried to remain calm. She had just received the best brush pass in her life. As she watched the other woman settling into her seat. It took a few minutes for Jess to recognized Kimberly Jay in a wig, cheek pads and make up that changed her skin tone to be about 5 shades darker.

Jess kept up her game face and waited. While Kimberly Jay was placing her lunch order, Jess tapped one of the "escorts" to follow her to the restrooms. Not even on a capital planet would any Wolverine be allowed to go anywhere alone. While her female escort kept the door blocked so that they would not be disturbed. Jess pulled out the small folded flash paper. It was a very short message, but it took Jess three times to read it.

All it said was "MIN following you and key leaders. Low threat but be on guard. J"

Jess refolded the paper and then wet her fingers on her left hand with the spit in her mouth. When those damp fingers touched the paper, it went up in a flash of light and no smoke. Even before the flash was gone, she was talking. "When we get back to our tables, have everyone finish their meals and pay the tabs. Keep calm but we are Alpha 4. No more shopping for today."

The huge woman only nodded, and the pair went back to the table. Kimberly was still seated, and Jess could tell that she was watching her. Jess took her own seat and took a sip of her coffee and placed it on the opposite side of her plate, and then she risked a look at the SAFE spy. The two women made eye contact for maybe a full second before each broke eye contact without making major head movements.

In less than 3 minutes the group of SLiE personnel were on their way back to the drop port. 30 seconds after Jess had entered the White Rabbit 2, all of their people were on their way back to the drop ships. They would stay more or less locked down for the rest of the day.

Robert made a change for the next day of operations in the local area. Only Squad sized groups would be allowed to leave without special orders from him or Jess, and every member would both be packing hidden coms, visible weapons, and hidden weapons that would have made the local law enforcement nervous if they found out about them.

####

MIM knew that Robert, Jess, and a group of 4 others when they left the drop port, but they still were surprised when the group made a sudden turn. It only took them about a minute to work out that they were headed right towards Ben Rich's Titanium Weapons and Metals. When the pair of hover vans stopped? More than a few members of MIM would remark that it looked more like a practice run at breaching a room, than a group out shopping. The only thing the visitors were missing were the explosives, flash bangs, heavy weapons, and body armor. MIM had no idea how wrong they were, because each person on that team had body armor, combat coms, and weapons that would make a PA (L) trooper hurt. While Robert and two others worked with the head salesperson, the rest of the team had silently secured the huge one room showroom.

Now getting new built updated machines or a field refitted one always demanded a markup, no matter where they might be sold in the Inner Sphere. This didn't have to be explained to anyone in this group, and Robert ended up paying 65 million C-bills for three battlemechs. There had "only" been 8 mechs in the showroom at the time, and not one of them was made in the MC.

Robert might not have "known" that the people in this company knew how deep his pockets might be, but he did have a fat bank account to work with. It didn't take him long for him to start mentally drawing it down by a good margin as they walked around the open spaces. Robert took his time and he had Jess and Mike do their things that they did every time Robert went shopping for big stompy robots of any kind. When they were done the whole team left much the same way that they had arrived, in a quick military manner for a hostile training event.

By lunch time on the next day. A 65ton AXM-1N Axman, 80ton AWS-9M Awesome and a very odd heavily modified 80ton CGR-3K Charger were on mech transports waiting outside of the two cargo dropships. Robert did not need three mechs, but each one of those machines had tech that was not based off of what the SLDF had traded to MMM or other groups in this part of space. Also, they were very powerful machines in their own rights.

That was how MIM was able to get money that the MC government and MMM had paid to Robert, and now it was flowing into the black bank accounts of MIM. All of that money was not being watched by the oversight bodies within the government of the MC, because they had no idea it was there in the first place. The other benefit the operation brought out was that by the time Copeland had left the planet. Ben Rich's Titanium Weapons and Metals had sold another two mechs, both lights, and many kilotons of other metals to people who were not part of Copeland's little group. What had been intended to be a short-term mission, had turned into a great way for MIM to get rid of certain items on the open market. All without drawing a lot of attention, and in the process, it was funneling a huge amount of income into the black programs of that intelligence agency. Funds that would go a long way in advancing the ideas of the core MC government.

Those three mechs Robert had purchased were soon joined in the massive, but quickly filling cargo bays, with two full company's worth of the 5ton hover craft called Savanna Masters. Jess had been pointed to this group of hover craft by one of the family contacts that was keeping a low profile and would not meet any of the key leaders of the supply run. The idea was that the Colonials would like them for a cheap recon craft, or maybe some old Viper jocks might want to sample the old life without having to pass a full flight physical. Robert had to point out to Jess that the market for those craft would quickly be saturated.

By the end of the third day that Robert was on this planet. Two 100ton Neptune submarines that were still in their original shipping containers, were being stacked into the second bay on the huge dropship. These two craft had come "from the back room" of Ben Rich's Titanium Weapons and Metals. Copeland and Jess now were thinking that there was a lot more to that company than was meeting the eyes. By this time Jess and Robert had identified 8 people who looked to be trailing Jess and Robert whenever they left the dropship. A quick message to MMM had them told that it was part of the local government making sure that nothing happened to Copeland and his people after the issues on Dunianshire.

With a more or less clean bill of health about threats, the whole team went about more shopping. A dozen hover busses were packed down along with a pair of Federated Boeing FB-335 Long Haul fixed wings aircraft that were the last to be pulled aboard the two cargo dropships. The really big-ticket item also came from the shadowy part of the MC's government. It was only another of the hard to find Behemoth Class dropships. This 600 million C-Bills ship also was not in that great of shape and it would only attract the kind of buyer that was looking at just the metal in her old hull. Then again it was in better shape than the last ship Copeland had bought in this class. Robert ended up spending another 150 million C-Bills, which he did not know went right back into the MC's black bank accounts. This was spent on the more normal items he was asked to look for.

In about three months, a jumpship would be dropping the old dropship off at the zenith jump point of Duke Terry's controlled system. It would be left to free float in that little used system after a good strong push by the emergency ejection systems built into the jumpships collars. By the time Robert had completed that charter and made sure he had in place assurances that the mission would be done as he had ordered. He and his people were ready to leave this world. The MC had gotten almost all of the money, which they had spent on the small jumpship back directly or by secondary sources from Robert and his company. That did not count the sales tax, trade taxes, or half a dozen other ways the government made money off of a business.

######

The only other issue had been when Robert had to deal with Jess, and what was accepted as her long-distance boyfriend. It happened early on the last full day that they were scheduled to be on Canopus. Jess asked if Robert would have a private meeting with her. The contact had been in a very formal sounding digital message she had sent addressed to "The Convoy Commander". This was odd, but she was the head of his intelligence department and part of his command staff, and she could be given quite a bit of leeway in her normal duties. Robert set up the time and confirmed the appointment then quickly forgot about it.

When Jess knocked on the hatch door and entered the briefing room? Robert could tell that something was wrong. But it was a different type of wrong, then he was used to having to deal with from her department. After she took a seat without speaking a greeting back to him, he now focused on her with his undivided attention. He was trying to find out what was causing the distress in his third in command without being told.

After a few seconds he gave up. "Okay, Jess. What's wrong?"

She would not look up to face Robert eye to eye after she had taken her seat, and after being asked about the reason for this meeting. Her head went to the legs of the desk of Roberts working area. "Sir, I have a personal problem. You know I have been keeping in contact with Don. He was the man in the wheelchair, which we bought the Wolfhound from on that first run."

Robert sat back in his chair and rocked a little to the left and right. He didn't say anything for a while, and he started to mentally connect dots for a dozen different ways this could go down. He had been keeping track on what was going on between her and Don for some time now. He quickly decided that he was going to play this one a little on the coy side. That might be the way he got the most…bang for the buck he had just been given.

"I remember him, and that you were keeping in contact with him. As I recall, I brought him up when we picked up that first group of Savanna Masters. But from the tone of your voice. He is, or is closely related to the problem you're having?"

Robert let his head tilt to one side, and he tried to make his face look more fatherly. His face might have been fatherly, but his voice was hydrogen ice cold. "Do we need to arrange for him to have an accident?" This would not have been the first time something like this needed to happen on a supply run. It was not that common, but it had happened a few times on the other larger resupply missions before Robert had taken command of these lone ship missions.

Jess's head shot up and she made eye contact for the first time with Robert, and her face went white and then to bright red before turning almost purple. "No! It's nothing like that! It's just that we have gotten really…..close. You know that he wanted to open a workmech school closer to the core star systems? Now with the invasion and some other issues that have come up. That has not worked out as well as he had planned. On the last trip? He asked if he could sign on as crew on our ships. He even offered to let us use his workmechs for free, if we would just sign him on as a crewmember. He offered the idea as a way that we could spend more time together. I don't think it was just as a way to get off of Canopus. He is doing a lot better after the surgery, and he could make a go of it here. He already knows that I will not leave you and this mission. And no, he didn't ask me to. I also think that he knew that it was a nonstarter."

The words were now falling out of her mouth like a waterfall. "I told him that it was against our policy. I checked on his background on the last trip, just to make sure it was not a game being played from ComStar or one of the other players around the Inner Sphere. He does not have any family or attachments or any connections to them. He asked again to join us on this trip. With the invasion, and yes, he knows about that. But he does not know who they are any more than the rest of the local governments. Sir, I think it would be a worthwhile risk. I think, but I don't know. I just don't trust myself right now." She was looking at Robert and her eyes were wet looking as if she was about to cry. She hated crying and she had not done something like that after her first bad break up. She was determined not to do it in front of her boss.

Now she was looking down at her hands that were rubbing each other like they were in major joint or cold pain. She could not look at her boss. "I was so worried about you and Terry. That I walked right into what I was worried you were doing."

Robert was not that surprised, about what had happened to Jess. That was one of the reasons that command tried to only send married crews or long-term couples, on the supply runs like this. Even then? It still was not unheard of, that this kind of thing might happen to the members on those long running missions. Humans were Humans after all. That was how most of the first set of Families were set up in the first place so many decades ago.

Robert looked down at Jess and kept a close watch on her face as he spoke. "Don asked me before, also to sign on when we first landed on this run. He seemed okay with living the life of a traveling spacer, even after I tried to talk him out of it."

Now he gave Jess a sly smile. "I have one of the Families assets keeping an eye on him, before we headed home last time. I made sure that you were kept in the dark about it. As a matter of fact? I just finished reading their reports on him. That was the nice thing about the delay between these last two runs. They were able to dig real deep into him and his life."

Robert went to his little noteputor off to one side of his over full desk, and he looked for the file he was looking for. "They say, pretty much, the same thing you have. They even add that he is not in steady contact with his old unit, anymore. They had turned him down after his surgery to be in their support unit with his workmech. That caused some bad blood between them, which led to more than one public display of anger and spleen. Not all of those displays were started by him."

"His business is doing well, but he has not been able to jump all the way to having his own accredited workmech school, yet. Before you get defensive on me, I have an idea. There is a recall code for the Families, and I don't see why we could not add a few of the right people to that list. I will bring that up with command, and then with Don when we get back. If nothing comes up after I have my little talk with command, and any required background checks. They will demand that those will need to be done or in Don's case redone. I think he might be a good addition to our crew and people as a whole. I will except that you and I will be doing a lot of reports about him in the not too distant future."

Jess's jaw was swinging open in the air so bad she could have swallowed the half dollar sized Tharkad horse fly. This was the first that she had heard about a recall code for anyone, and about the spying being done on her "boyfriend". After she got herself under control, she had to ask something. "Are you sure? So, we are coming back after this run?" She was betting that with the clans now proven to be invading the Inner Sphere. That any and all future runs would have been canceled, and the SLiE pulling back all of their missions so that the Clans would not find them.

Robert again gave a sly smile, and he spent the next few hours bringing her in on his most up to date plans. After she got her mental feet back under her, she was fully into the game Robert was planning. It felt good to have a second brain, to help Robert flush out what was turning out to be very complicated and hundreds of pages and growing thick plans and notes. They spent the rest of the day refining what he had already started. They kept on it all the way to the jump point. The only time they stopped was to sleep and eat. Before they lifted off from the capital drop port. Jess had one more visit with her boyfriend in her cabin along with a night of dinner and dancing. The trip out to the jump point was boring, and not one of the crew complained.

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

Outreach

4 Aug 3050

Pampanito II

Maureen felt the wave of nausea hit and leave her just as quickly as it had started to be felt by her. That was all she needed to know that the jump was complete, and it was a good chance that nothing had gone wrong. As she looked around her bridge, the crew didn't seem to be agitated. That was another clue that the jump had gone as planned. As her eyes kept moving around the room until she stopped them on her XO. They locked eyes for a second before he started to speak to the jumpship's captain.

In a softish voice. "Captain, we are jump complete. Everything looks right, and we should be in the zenith point of the Outreach system."

Captain Farren loosened her safety belt and floated over to the "XO", but he was really Captain Mark Artemev of SLIC. "Thank you, Mark. After we check in with traffic control, have the Sail deployed and recharge the batteries and the main drive. I don't think MMM will want the extra cost we charged them if we have to make a fast run out of here."

When MMM, the MC, or others with the right pedigree and with the right amount of money in the bank would hire them to make high speed runs, this ship would set records on trade routes. The ability to do double jumps cut the travel time in half, and maybe just a little more without damage to the interstellar craft. And all of that was before they use the on-board fusion engine to charge the battery or jump drive. For that speed ability, the Pampanito charged a very large mark up over what most shipping companies would call "standard rates".

This was one of those high-speed runs, but she was only covering part of it. She had no idea who was paying for this rush shipment, but the only way to have gotten it any faster to this location. It would have been to have a command circuit set up at least part of the way. As it was, this ship had only been carrying the 3 dropships for "only" the last 120 light years of the journey. Still the payday was going to be huge for this ship's bank accounts. How their ship just happened to be "available" for this last part of the run was not something to be looked at that closely.

When Farren had first started this new life. She had many reservations about working with her new partners, but she had to admit that it had worked out very well. Mark had only needed to divert them once, that had not been covered by a cargo mission or the vagaries of shipping lanes. All she had to do was look at the dropping timeline until she would own this ship to get her to not bring up that one time. Other than that, very little had changed for her besides that working with one other person on planning out their travel plans.

Mark worked very hard, and he had quickly learned his job as XO of this ship. Her bank accounts were well padded and "her" jumpship was well maintained, so what more could a captain ask for. Even the occasional passenger, was not that strange in her line of work. She made sure all of the funds were reported and the required taxes paid "to the right people". If anything, she would say that her life had gotten a whole lot simpler after losing her old Pampanito. This Tramp class ship was a lot better than her old merchant class ship, and all she had to do was look for cargos to fill the three dropship collars. It was just too bad that they would have to head back to the Combine after this run. The life of a mostly independent star ship captain was the life for her.

##########

It was only a few minutes later that the local traffic control had passed along their orders to the Tramp. The three dropships were cleared to make a run towards the planet, but they were told to take a very exacting course. It only took someone that had passed the basic navigation course to know that the flight plan they had been given was not the most expedient or even the most fuel efficient to make. In fact, it was about as a contrived flight plan that anyone had seen, and it was exactly as they had been warned it would be.

Before the dropships were allowed to land, they would have to be inspected first at a growing orbital base near the planet. The Pampanito was also going to get an inspection check of her own. That made most of the crew of the Tramp class ship more than a little nervous. It was not because they were committing a crime, well other than spying on the Dragoons and anyone else that might be in the general area. Again, they had been warned of this inspection and measures were taken to protect the SLIC mission.

Mark floated in the main corridor of the jumpship, and he looked board. He was anything but board, as he watched what he knew was an elemental genome person moved down some very tight access points. This ship had been modified, so that it would take breaking into "Black Boxes" or Line replaceable units (LRUs) to find the HPG, TacFax, or any of the modified surveillance gear this ship was packing under her skin. He was not worried that anyone would find them. If the SLIC inspectors could not find them, even knowing to look for it? Then these clowns had no chance in hades.

Still, it gave him a chance to watch a group connected to the long hated Clans. He was viewing this part of his job as "know thyine enemy".

######

Jack "Rock" was one of the first of his kind to come out of the Iron Wombs. Most people tended to think that if you were large of body and larger of muscles, that you were weak in brains. That was not Jack. In fact, he was a little smaller than the average Elemental coming of age this year. He also was smart enough to use that assumption against others. He was used to being the tallest and most massive person in the room or ship that he was sent to inspect. This caused others to act in certain predictable ways. It had not taken him long to realized that this jumpship's XO was not acting "normal". He made his own mental notes about what else this otherwise "normal" jumpship held. He was more or less looking forward to writing up this report that might make it all the way to Wolf Net. If something was not normal, then it could be a threat.

#####

Staff Sargent Mark Smith, and no that was not his real name, floated through the access hatch out of his cargo carrier small craft into the recharge station. While they were in this system, it had been decided that it was a good place to top off the jumpship's water tanks. Water was a key part of keeping jumpships plying the space ways more so than a jump drive. Water was not just used to drink or to clean your bodies. It was used for radiation shielding and after electricity was pumped threw it at the right setting. It gave you something to breathe and the fuel for the reactor so that you had lights and heat. It also would fuel all of the station keeping drives spread over the almost kilometer long ship. This mission was just one of those that a ship needed to do, and it would let some of the crew look around a system that SLIC had not been in since before the SLDF left for deep space.

There was not much that "Smith" could do while the locals on this recharge station slowly, it was 0g after all, filled his craft's tank fixed mounted in the cargo bay with liquid water. This caused Mark to snort, the SLiE had gone over to just shifting ice for missions like this centuries ago. Then they would just pumped waste heat into the ice mass to get it where they needed and when they needed it. He thought that it was way more efficient.

While the rest of the crew looked after the loading craft, Mark followed the signs to something called the Zocalo. He was almost surprised to find out that it was the name of the trading area on this recharge station. Mark made a note that the Dragoons seemed to have broken with the Clans, at least when it came to setting up small businesses. Mark's eye was drawn to the sign that seem to hint that they sold "real" Terran gifts.

This Zocalo was on the space station's largest hamster wheel gravity deck, so Mark was able to walk around the shop just like he was back mud side. He stopped by the 1kg packages of Koa and Sumatra coffee beans and then the bars of German and Swiss chocolate. He moved on after a brief survey of each item. He kept slowly angling towards the back wall full of bottles of something. He was pleased to see that it was a wall filled with adult beverages. He shoots a look around the room and sees two people behind a counter and someone else looking at boxes of candied fruit. Other than that, the little shop was empty of foot traffic.

Mark was let down to find that the prices were just this side of shocking for the bottles mounted on the wall and in the stands that made up the travel ways around the shop. The only area that he could afford was the discount basket he found in the middle of the walkway. It was filled with a mix of little one- and two-ounce bottles. After a closer inspection, he found that they were all covered in something sticky and with an odd odor. The odor was not bad, just… odd to his nose that was used to living in a jumpship.

Mark dug deep into the hip high basket and he quickly got a good sense of what was for sale in this container. After covering up the hole he had made in the container with his looking and rummaging around. He walked up to the counter. "What is the deal with the discount barrel in the back?"

A very board looking old man that looked to have seen more combat than any 5 others gives Mark a shrug. "We had a shipment come in that was under a leaking container of bulk Arcadia corn syrup. You can't fully read most of the labels, so we can't charge full price for them."

He looked over the top of his glasses at the tall younger man. "I might be able to come down off the price, if you want to make a bulk buy. Say a C-bill per bottle?"

Mark might have been born at night, but it was not last night. "More like a C-bill per 4 bottles. How about we talk kilograms instead of per bottle?"

Now the old man was interested. This was a real sale, and he needed the floor space. He was not going to tell this young man that he had been able to get the shippers to cover the cost of that lost product, and everything left in that barrel was going to be pure profit. He was not going to give away the store, besides this was the best part of his job. Separating money from those that were younger and that he felt were not ready for the real world.

When Mark had the older man down to 1 C-bill per Kilo? He asked how many kilos the old man had on hand. Mark didn't blink an eye when the old man said about 120kg. "Well Bargained. Are we done?" Mark reached into the top pocket of his ship's coverall and passed 6 of the twenty C-bill notes he had been carrying and placed them on the metal top counter.

The old man stepped back, and he lets his grandson take care of the money and arrangements needed to ship the 4 shipping barrels to the right air lock to be loaded on the young man's small craft. When the man named Mark walked out of the little shop. The man by the candied fruit walked over to the counter and the two people exchanged a look before their eyes went back towards the now empty door to the rest of the shopping area.

"Nah, couldn't be." The newcomer said as their eyes lingered in the direction the stranger had walked.

The older man looked over to the Home Guard's Major in security. "Fred, have fun writing up that report. Do you want a copy of the security tape?"

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

Mark walked into the Captain's office on the hamster wheel. "The last Dragoon inspection team left without finding anything that we didn't want them to find. Smith is back with a load of water and some side cargo he picked up. He said that he has some small bottles of that wine you like after dinner. He said that he got a smoking deal over on the recharge station from someone who had no idea what he was selling in a scratch and dent store."

Maureen took a sip of her cold drink and looked over to an MFD mounted on her desk. She was not on duty, but only a dumb jumpship's Captain would drink alcohol while they were on a mission. That was not to say that some did drink and drink to excess on top of that while on duty. Maureen was not one of those, she would not be accused of a Hazelwood. "Do we need to have Miss Whot have another engine issue?"

It had not happened often, but when they had stops in systems that Mark had wanted to take just a little longer to look around. Mark or Farren would have a talk with Chief Engineer Whot to come up with a way to delay leaving that system by a few days. They would cover this spying by reporting that the jump drive had some issues, but it would be ready to activate in a short amount of time. After the first couple of times, Whot had even given up asking why. She would just use those few days to do some needed or soon to be needed maintenance. That delay would give enough time for other crewmembers to gather more data or whatever Mark has his people doing.

Mark didn't say anything for a few seconds, but over the last few hours. He had been getting the feeling that he was being watched as much as he was watching. "I don't think that would be a good idea. As soon as we can pick up some droppers? Then we should go, just in case we have drawn a little too much attention. I would like to head back towards MC space, but not in a rush. Do you have any issues avoiding the DC?"

Maureen took another sip of her sugar filled drink. "I think that would be a good idea. Come up with a flight plan but post a notice that we are looking for droppers looking to leave." Her voice got just a little softer. "I don't think I have to tell you what area I want to avoid?" She was rewarded with a slight nod of the tall man's head.

##########

Legally Maureen could not leave this star system until all three dropships had arrived at a planet side drop port. It was standard boiler plate on all contracts that MMM wrote. That didn't mean that a delivering jumpship couldn't line up another set of droppers to take out of the system while she waited. The three dropships heading towards a landing on Outreach belong to different groups.

One was carrying replacement mechs, aerospace fighters, tanks and spare parts that would be cross loaded to dropships heading to different parts of the FedCom. All of that load had been paid for by the FedCom ministry of defense or some other part of that government. The second dropship was for a mercenary unit that was stopping by Outreach for some R and R, and then to start looking for a new paymaster.

The third and smallest dropship was "just" a high-speed cargo hauler. And if you believe that? Maureen had some beach front property in Kansas for you to buy. Mark had not been surprised, when it was Maureen who said that it was a Dragoon connected ship. He had just smiled at her to let her know that he had agreed with her guess.

It took four more days for the jump drive to recharge along with the huge battery that would allow a second jump between the stars. A mech company in a union, medium weight tank battalion in a Triumph, and a small passenger liner Monarch were lined up to dock on the Jumpship when it was ready to leave. All of them wanted to be dropped off at Atreus. Captain Farren had no idea why they all wanted to go that way, but part of her mind laid a mental bet that they were running from the invasion. She didn't care, as long as they were willing to pay for the ride. She also knew that Mark would not mind if we just happened to stop by the capital of the FWL, and then his people would have an excuse to get another look at the shipyards in that system.

In a flash of light, a huge release of energy, they were gone again. And they were off to do some more spying for SLIC. It would not take long, after they had left this star systems to work out that the Wolf's Dragoons were hiding something…. lots of some things in this star system from the rest of the Inner Sphere. This was something that SLIC needed to know. The only question was if the SLiE were going to be able to act on it.

#########

Notes:

Questions from last chapter. To help with writer's block and keeping the story close to Battletech. I rolled the OPFOR using the books. After checking my notes, I rolled 1 Heavy and 3 mediums to make up the lance. I had thought about a company, that way the INF could take the cargo while the mechs pinned down the QRF. But both rolls said lance, and so I went with it to get the story moving again. I think next time, I just might force threw my ideas anyway when the dice gods mess with me.

I also think I used the word Heavier too much, and I will work on that to cut off any confusion at the get go. The only thing I changed was when I rolled up a Blackjack mech, and I changed it for a Crab. I thought that I remembered that the Crab had "claws" that could be used to carry things and protect the heavy lasers. The Battle was rolled out at a friend's house. I had planned that Mike would lose the Hoplite and the dropships take more damage. It just did not work out that way. The head shot on the Crab and Mike taking out the Archer changed that plan. Then I could not kill the Centurion as it dodged like a champ until he failed a piloting roll due to two engine hits and heat sink damage, but I just could not kill that one. Somewhat Evil gave me an idea, next time I will ask a third party for input on a better Enemy order of battle.

MIM watching. MIM had no intentions of doing anything but watching the leaders of the company. Robert had no idea of this and reacted under the rules of his SOP.