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.

59. Chapter 59 8 Sep 3050 Mission Three

Chapter 59

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

8 Sep 3050 Mission Three

The Bivouac system.

When the M/V Styx appeared into the Bivouac system at the same old jump point that it had used on its last visit to this star system, it was expected that most things would be the same. Only it was a very different system, then the last time Robert and his little convoy had stopped by here a few years ago, a lot different. About the only thing that had not changed was that this system still did not have an HPG, and that the leadership were on the huge recharge station at this jump point. The hidden HPG on the jumpship was not picking up the tell-tell energy signature, that screamed that an HPG system was here even if it was only in standby mode.

There was very little warning or information transfer from the Styx and this system, before the jumpship had "popped" into the system at the "prime" jump point listed in the navigation guide provided by ComStar. Bivouac was used to this lack of a long-ranged communication system, after so many years being without one at this end of human space. You didn't miss what you never had, or never had within your or even your grandparent's living memory. They just trained for this type of event, and they got to use that training in an increasing amount of surprise arrivals.

Jules and Robert both were looking at the display on that bridge of the jumpship, which was updating as fast as the speed of light would let them. The jumpship had been in system for three minutes and the energy collection sail was just starting the complex choreography movements needed to deploy, when the first message was sent to the massive Olympus class station guarding and supporting the jump point. There were a few back and forth messages that would be classified as "house" keeping messages passed between the two metal masses at the edge of this star. There would not be any of what would have been called "general mail or news" sent from this ship to the station. That just was not part of Robert's business plan and so that job was left for other jumpships to fill that need.

All the while that those messages were being sent, reviewed, and replied to, more and more items were being plotted on the different screens in the command center of the jumpship. The last time that Robert had been in this system, there had only been five major detectable manmade space objects in this system that held zero habitable planets. But a metric frak ton of rocks were going all over the place, and most were moving fast enough to make a McKenna class battleship cry for mercy if it was hit with just one of them. There had been a lot of smaller manmade objects, and then there were the ones that were built onto some of those moving rock bodies. Those would have only shown up if the looker knew exactly what to look for or had access to old Star League Navy Tech. These were two things that this crew had in spades, and they kept pulling in a huge amount of raw data for their operators to deal with.

"So, Jules. It would seem that it's not the same old backwater star system, that it was a few years ago. What have we been able to pick up and identify, that is new?" asked Robert.

Robert had been expecting, or more to the point hoping, that things had improved after his last visit here. Then again? He also knew that things could have gotten worse since their last visit just as easily as it could have improved. It was not like he could ask to many questions about this place and risk an ambush, or risk drawing to much attention to this system from all of the wrong people. It was a very fine line to walk, and it held more wrong options than it held "right" options for the value of right options.

If this little stop did not turn out as Robert expected? He would have to work harder to find what his people needed. More than likely it would also mean that they would have to move a lot deeper into the Inner Sphere, than the people back home had planned for Robert to do on this run. One part of his mind was okay with going deeper into the Inner Sphere, but it was also unfortunate that people in his food chain knew that he wanted to do so. He might be able to find what was needed at a major production world, but still that was not a given fact. If what he was looking for was that easy to find, then his people would have all of the ones that they needed already.

Jules was shaking his head as he walked around the bridge checking on the data coming into his ship's command center. He was checking a few command stations as he processed the data they were receiving before addressing the Convoy commander. "They have been busy little bees, and it has been noticed by others after all. At this jump point, we have two Merchant class jumpships packing almost a full load of cargo haulers. We are picking up a dozen small orbital factories close into the Olympus. There are several dozen small craft all over the local area, which have active engines or radars we are picking up on passive. We are picking up both habitats deeper in system, and what looks like at least eight more of the small factories satellites are near them. I think they took the idea of twining that you and Jess gave them, to heart."

Robert was impressed, and he was about to add something minor to the conversation. That was when a message was passed along that said, that this system's manager was on the radio wanting to talk to Robert by name. Robert shoots Jules a look that ended in a little grin before he activates the communications device on the arm rest of his chair. Robert had just won another little side bet with his longtime friend. If things kept going this way? Jules was going to be out a lot of pocket money when they got back home.

"Madam Wilson! It seems like things are going a lot better now. It looks like you and your people, have been very busy. I was hoping that we might be able to do some trading before we have to leave again." Robert pitched his voice to sound happy and as nonthreatening as he could. These were only the opening steps to a dance that could make everyone very happy.

Manager Wilson's strong female voice came back over the speaker mounted near Robert's chair. "It's good to see you again, Captain Copeland. Yes! We have been busy, and thanks to you. We are still here after all. I take it you would like to send a dropship or maybe two over, and then we will see if we can make a few deals for both of our benefits. You will find that we have a lot more flexibility in what we can offer, than the last time you were here."

Robert turned and shot a look to both Jess and Jules, but he kept the transmit button activated. "That sounds good to me. I would like to only bring my Union over to the Olympus. Do you mind if we launch a CAP to cover the Styx and my Union before we head over?" He did not need to bring up about the attack they had repulsed the last time they had been here. If Robert could get a little more mileage or points out of that battle, he would.

The voice was a little less strong and more stressed, that comes through the small speaker next. With a sly smile Robert knew that he had just scored some points that he could use in any negotiations that they were going to undertake. "I think we will not have a problem with that. That is one of the things that I'm hoping that you might be able to fix for me. See you in a few hours Captain. Oh, and this time? I will bring the drinks for our meeting. You still like that red wine from New Dawn? Please let traffic control know when you are ready to come over."

The last time that Robert and his crew had been here, the locals were not flush in anything to drink but water and the local moonshine. They had done the best that they could, with them on the verge of all becoming refugees at best and dead at worse. Still Robert made a mental note to bring over a bottle of something nice, if different for his host. It was both the right thing to do, and it would show respect to the woman in charge of this station.

Half an hour later, the Hobgoblin launched a pair of fighters to act as a CAP over the Styx, Hercules, and the little carrier that also was a jumpship in hiding. It would have shown a lack of confidence in the locals if they had launched to quickly after getting approval to do so. The White Rabbit 2 and a pair of Tomahawks acting as its CAP made the short trip to the million-ton station at a little less than 1g. They had started over after the CAP made its first full orbit around the jumpship and its attached triplets of dropships.

When the converted mech carrier flipped over to slow back down. Contact was made with the local traffic control. This time they were told that they were to go into a parking orbit around the station, because the other collars were occupied by other dropships. Those four dropships did not count the number of dropships on the two other jumpships in this system. This was evidence that this part of space was getting a lot of visitors.

Jess and Robert made notes on the number of ships and types currently in system. This data would go into a database with the ship's name, type, and anything else the Intel team can find out about them while they were here. Most of this was just data for data sake, but you never knew where the golden nugget was hidden until it was tripped over, or you were hit in the head with it. You could only hope that it was not your boss that hit you in the head with that nugget.

Luzena Wilson was waiting on the station at one of the many small craft docking point access ways, when Robert stepped or floated off the small craft that had carried him over to the huge station. The last time they had been on this station, it had an old feeling. It was almost like a ghost town kind of feeling to even those who didn't have the experience of a well healed spacer. That was the first thing that Robert had noticed that had changed on the inside of the station. He was sure that he would notice other changes as soon as his mind could divert the neurons to the topic.

#####

The star system's manager gave Robert, Jess, and their body guards a little guided tour as they pulled themselves down a corridor. She also took them into 2 of the 4 repair bays of the huge station. They were taken to first the larger one and then one of the "normal" sized repair bays. What they did not see in the massive Bay 5, was an old friend. That had been the one bay that had held the hulk of the Leopard CV that had been in there the last time. When Robert asked about the old dropship hulk that had been in the large repair bay. He was told by a man in a set of ship's overalls, that it had been replaced by this 120,000ton Merchant class jumpship that they were looking at.

The other repair bay they were taken to, held a pair of Mule class dropships in matching livery that were undergoing hull or engine repairs that might have been borderline major work. It was noted that both dropships would be picked up in around four months, when their owners returned with the last parts of their payments for the work and parts.

The last stop in the tour was the massive grav deck, which also just happened to hold the system manager's office. After floating around for a few hours, it was nice to feel the solid pull that the turning deck provided to those lucky enough to spend time in them. When each member of the group had a seat, and the power player for this system had an opened topped glass of very expensive wine in her hand. After a few seconds to get situated, and now the art of the deal could finally start. The armed and armored escort could only sit, watch, and keep her mouth shut. Oh, and not fall asleep while she waited like a bump on a log. That would have been very bad.

Robert made the first steps, now that they could talk without the whole station knowing and then other players in this part of space finding out at the speed of rumor. "Ms. Wilson, you have been busy. How have you been able to pull this off, in such a short amount of time?"

Luzena gave a smile, and she was ready to start bragging about what they had done over the last few years. "We have done a lot over the last few years, and it is almost all thanks to you. After you helped with the first small factories, we were able to get ahead of things around here pretty quickly. We were able to get the massive greenhouse going at full speed two months after you left. Oh! And we still have not heard from anyone from our old parent company to this date."

"Now we are a mostly independent system filed and protected under the laws of the MC. We were able to get word out slowly, at first. That we had stuff and skills for sale and the traders started to come. When those traders found out that we had spare parts for dropships, some jumpships parts, and open repair bays? Well let's just say that it was not a flood, but we have been able to keep everyone paid and alive at the same time. We have been able to do that just from the income the repair bays are bringing in."

"Then MMM sent out to us a very surprised contact team not so long after you had left. I think that they were the ones that "helped" the MC to decide. That we should be our own little company owned system, but with some leaning and protection given by the MC. We had one of their units stop by about 4 months ago to check on us. Sometimes they rotate quicker and sometimes it's longer between the military visits. But everyone knows that they do stop by with a lot of firepower." She gave Robert a little toast with her half full red wine glass to show that she had just finished with her little diatribe.

Jess was nodding her head as the older woman was talking. When she took a breath and sat back a little in her chair before she spoke. "That is impressive System Manager Wilson. If you can keep your repair bays filled most of the time with outside work? That will bring in a lot of income to your systems for the long-term, if it can be steady income. So, have your factories been able to supply you with enough extra parts to do all of that work or have you needed to import some of the parts?" Jess "knew" how much one of the small class orbital factories should be able to make in a month, thanks to her checking out this information after that first contact. But that was all book learning, and she had no clue if that would carry over into the real world.

"Oh yes! They have been able to supply all the items for local civilians and for a growing list of jobs around the system. We have been able to now keep most of the "normal" spare parts on hand that are useful for the repair bays. I took Captain Copelands advice, and we have been keeping what we can make in our expanding factories very close hold. Sometimes we even have to say that we don't have something currently on hand. We started doing that after the first year of increase traffic. That had been when someone had asked for a whole new jump core for their Invader class jumpship."

She had to snort at her last statement that was matched by many in this room. Anyone in her line of work would know that spinning a jump core of any kind could only be done at a major shipyard, much less trying to do that for a ship the size of an Invader class ship. Then again it might be something that might be asked by someone, who was setting you up for an objective raid by someone with very deep pockets.

Luzena was swishing the warming red wine around in her glass and watched the wine slip down and off the sides back into the bowl. She was not going to go down the long list of items, which her and her staff had decided that they would not let out that they could make. With the increase in trade coming into them, they had found out about many of the small raids that were going on around them. The last thing any of the system's leadership wanted, was to draw attention for them to be raided. Even with MC support they could be raided, it was just the way things worked in the Inner Sphere. Wanting to avoid being raided was coming out of fear of being sent back to almost being a failed colony and a dead system again.

Robert picked up something in the way she had said the word "civilian". "Most of? And you kind of emphasized the word civilian, I think."

Ms. Wilson stopped moving the glass around and held it up in a kind of a salute to Robert with a twinkle in her eyes. "Good catch, Captain Copeland. We have not been able to make anything close to what most people would think was military related. It does not matter how old, and that includes heavy high-tech weapons. We know that the specs are in the computers, but they want some kind of access code to start making them. If a part that we want to be made is on the accepted list of civilian ships? They can do it, as long as we have the ores to make the object in the first place. We have been turning out ST-46's, S-7a's, and KR-61's by the gross for sale and our own use in this system. We are even thinking about making a hand full of K-1s drop shuttles. Well, that is? We are going to make them, but we cannot make the weapons to bring any of those types up to full specifications."

Her staff were hoping that this known fact about them not exporting weapons was another layer of security for this system. She thought it was a case of whistling in the wind, but most on the staff were of that mind.

Robert could feel the eyes of Jess on him like the targeting systems on the battleship Zug. Robert let a sly smile cross his salesmen's face. "So, you might need an engine for the Leo you were working on? That is, if you're still working on it? I didn't notice that it was on your little tour or on the systems on my ship."

Luzena nodded her head in agreement. "Sharp, very sharp Captain or as my last updated report said Commadore. This is just a reminder, that I should not underestimate you. To answer your question? No, we have finished working on her. And also, yes because we have a second Leopard class carrier we are working on. We could always use another whole Leopard class dropship plasma drive, even if we were not working on a second ship. But I wonder. What the cost of something like that would be, and can we afford it?"

Robert let his salesman's face slide down across his face again. "So…what do you think one of your orbital factories is worth?"

Luzena's jaw about hit her desktop and she almost dropped her half-filled wine glass on the floor. If they had not been in the huge hamster wheel of a deck, it might have floated away from her. After some time of silence, she raised an eyebrow and spoke in a soft voice. "Captain, is this a joke? Because I think you know full well, that one of those are appraised at over 335 million. Of course, that is if you could find one of them for sale or could find someone that would build one for you. I cannot think of any place in the whole sphere, that is making them for the open market at this time." The tone she used had come out a bit sharper than she wanted. She had been offered to "sell" a few of those items in her system, and they had not been friendly offers by the CC. That was why they had now taken to hiding anything new that was built from outsiders.

Robert didn't let her comment or tone sway him, or let it show on his face. With only a smile but without any other hint of what was going on behind those eyes. He dropped his hammer on the systems manager. "I have a leopard engine, new in the box and fresh from MMM's production lines. I will add six heavy aero fighters to the deal. They are, two Thunderbirds, and four Chippewa class fighters. All of them are fully functional and with full loads of ammunition for all of their weapons. As another kicker to that deal, just to show you that I am not joking. I have two particle projection cannons, four late Star League tech autocannons, and six antimissile systems that I can hand over to you. This is my top offer, and it's a take it or leave it deal. If you leave it, we still will be shopping in system for items to fill my cargo holds. So, it's no problem if you say no." That was not his top offer, but it was close to it. He could always tap some accounts and add a bunch of cash to buy the almost never to be found small factory satellites.

The head of the almost fully independent system was frozen in her chair. She was working threw a lot of different options at the speed of thought. What the merchant captain was offering was not the cash value, of what he wanted in return from her. But it was a lot, and it was all stuff that no one else had in the whole local stellar area for love, money, or blood. If she accepts this offer? Her system would have a new carrier in operation, fill some absent weapon points or be spares, and six more heavy fighters to defend this system. She had been fitting out her main station and other fighter bays with odds and ends that she could find. But all of them were light fighters like the Sabers MMM had traded to her for the Endo Steel she was shipping them. What Copeland was offering was a game changer, again.

"Commander Copeland that is a good offer, but a full operational orbital factory is not something you can find anywhere much less on this edge of space." She was playing for time, and she knew it. She gathered from the look on his face, Robert knew it also.

Robert let a smile cross his face, and then he pushed it away. "Okay, this one time. I will sweeten the pot one more time. I will give you two bits of information about what is going on around you, but I bet you don't know about. These two bits of intel could and should help you and help your people if you're willing to act on it."

Luzena puts her red wine glass down and locked eyes with the merchant captain. She was weighing what the Commander had done in the past, and what he had just offered today. After a few seconds of thought, she shrugged her shoulders. She owed this man a lot and decided at worse, she could call it even with everything he had done for her in the past. She could have a replacement factory of that size done in two or three months. It would slow the building of the 2,500ton Small Pressurized Yard hidden on one of the asteroids closer to the sun, until it was replaced. She was building it, so that she could move the Leopard to it, and freeing up a 50,000ton bay on this station for other projects permanently. Ones that could be income generators for the whole system and not slow down other projects in her system.

Then again, if she kept to the plans on building the yard as a high priority? It would also make it easier to begin working on a new 120,000ton Small Habitat and all of those new housing units it could hold. The systems population was slowly starting to grow again, and in a few years? They would need more housing space for those new mouths, but that would still be months down the road to even starting those projects at their current rate. They were still filling all of the rooms that had been left empty when things had looked bad. That small shipyard would also allow her to start some projects that she did not want any visitors to her star system seeing when they were in the Olympus. But if someone did see or hear something about it anyway? Having those 6 heavy fighters and another small Carrier would be a nice deterrent.

She could hear her voice say words, which her brain could not comprehend that she was saying. "Okay, deal. I will take a chance on the information you're offering without doing any digging." The other part of her mind was telling her that six heavy 90 and 100ton ranged fighters were better than a dozen light class anyway. Besides she needed those extra weapons almost as badly as she needed the heavy fighters. Then again there was that old saying that the right information could be worth more than a mech regiment.

Jess was very concerned about this meeting, but she kept her mouth firmly closed as Robert smiled and began to talk again. "Over on the FedCom and DC side of the Core. A new power player has come onto the scene, with a huge bang. No one knows who they are, but they have taken between 75 and 100 worlds, from both of those powers or smaller powers in that same area. This has caused those large powers, and others, to start buying up every weapon, spare part, and mech they can get their hands on. This also has caused an increase, in the number and size of raiding by the pirates in the local area. I think that some of the new groups are units that had bugged out and are trying to find a new life. What is the key, of why that this is important to you?"

Robert rocked slowly in his own overstuff chair, but he kept talking. "First, there has been a major increase of funds going into the expansion and updating of major weapons factories all over the place. Second, is that MMM also has increased the output in all of their own factories. Mainly this is focused on making Star league tech weapons to fill the needs in the local area to counter pirates and to sell to anyone with the money. This increase in output has driven an increase in the importation of certain types of ores for MMM and others, so that they can make those weapons in places like Canopus and others that might be important to you. Now for the part that I don't know. That is if you can increase your mining output, so that you might be able to trade more ores to MMM and others for weapons that you can't make. I don't know what your deal with them on endo steel might be. But I think that you are in a more powerful position, now than when you made that first deal. The problem I can foresee, is how you will be able to let MMM or maybe a few select others know about your increase in production without dropping the asking price for whatever it is your selling."

Robert sat a little more forward in his chair, and he had a sly smile. "So, System Manager. Is that worth the balance?"

Luzena didn't say anything at first. She just rose from her padded chair, walked around the room to the table against one wall. When she returned to that side of the room, she poured more expensive wine into Robert's and Jess's glass and then refilled her own large bell glass. She did not return to her chair but raised her glass to the two outsiders.

"I think that our deal is perfect Robert. I see why you brought that monster with you. May we have more trades than this between us!" She clicked each of the glasses after saying her toast. With a smile on her face, she took a long sip.

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After Jess and Robert had left her office on the huge 1km wide grav deck, Luzena was lost in thought. She was already thinking about how she was going to use the information that she had just been given. The next time the MMM rep came out and wanted another 100 or so tons of freshly made Endo Steel. They were going to pay a lot more than they had on the last few runs. If she would have known some of this information even four months ago? She would have been able to push a few different projects a lot harder than she had been able to. You know like buying a dozen more fighters or enough weapons to replace every worn-out heavy weapon in the whole star system, despite the markup she had now been explained about.

She was thinking about what she needed to shift around, but it should only be a few things, so that she could just have one factory making that high-tech steel full time. If MMM didn't want it, then maybe the FWL would want her production. While she was thinking about that endo metal and other exports, she was also thinking that it might be time to make another major push to increase the total production ability for her system.

She made a frown, as she thought about anything new that might be added, then she would have to defend whatever she had done. She was going to have to walk that fine line, again. She could make products to sell, or she could build up her infrastructure. She could do both, but that would limit the amounts in each category. With a snort, she realized that this was nothing she had not had to manage before a few dozen times. Before she left for her cabin, she sent new orders out to each of the factory satellite managers.

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The Styx and her collection of dropships had planned on needing to stay in system for at least ten days to get everything done that needed to be addressed. The first move was for the White Rabbit to complete. It was a tight fit, but they were able to drag the massive Leopard main engine out of the dropship's cargo bay and into the Zero g repair bay over on the huge station. It was the same repair bay that held the almost finished hull of the once wrecked pirate carrier years ago. Now it held other dropships being worked on and the old merchant jumpship. All of the work had to be stopped before the unloading of the huge Star League V84 engine could begin. It would have been quicker if the dropship could have docked onto one of the collars, or if there could have been enough spare room in one of the repair bays for the White Rabbit to fully dock in.

While the plasma engine was checked out, one of the nearby orbital station started pulling in its huge energy collection sail. On a jumpship, this operation should have only taken a half hour or an hour for the poorest trained of ship's crews to do. The small satellite crew had never practiced this maneuver, so it took them many hours and retries, to get the huge kilometer wide fragile material to be pulled into the station. It still would be many more hours to get it packed down correctly. At least while the sail was being packed down, others could finish cleaning out their cabins and other public areas of the factory satellite so that the new owners could have a somewhat clean factory.

Next the dropship Hercules took the place of one of the other dropships on the outside collar, which had just been vacated by what might have been a DroST II or DroST IIa. That move was only taken a few hours after the factory satellite had started packing down its energy collector sail. It had left the huge station to rejoin its jumpship preparing to leave this system a few hours ahead of schedule. They should be heading on a route that would take them to Canopus in a few months.

That dropship also just happened to be carrying a formal letter to the main MMM office using an address that Robert had on file. It was unknown if that letter would bear any fruit or not, and in the end, it was not his problem to have to worry about. He was only supplying the address, but having an additional supply of most civilian dropship's parts of any kind. Well, that alone would be helpful for both parties of any deal that was made. That didn't count the note that said this system would be increasing the ores it currently was putting on the open market within 14 days of the date on the note. And that MMM might want to send someone to act on their behalf on any new supplies that might fit their needs. Those needs were not spelled out in the letter, that could have been read by anyone with basic espionage skills.

As soon as the massive Hercules was docked to the port on one side of the huge space station and all checks complete. One of the oversized bay doors on the Mammoth opened on the huge dropship, and soon the space rated workmechs started pulling the first of six fighters into the nearby cargo bay. With the final part of Robert's payment delivered, the cargo master on the Hercules went about looking for items to fill some of the empty space on the million ton space station. They used the money from the sale of the jumpships and other things to buy tons and tons of refined ores, which this system had in abundance. Robert was still surprised by how fast the money flowed out of those accounts into the coffers of the locals. It would not take long before they had burned through what his staff had set up as the budget for this stop.

When the planned amount of money was used up in this system to buy needed products for New Circe. Over seventeen thousand tons of refined ingots of ores were loaded into the Mammoth by the time that it unlatched from the large station. The massive dropship slowly moved over to the now empty beer can cold small class factory. Then the locals started using the towing technique Robert had seen them use before. Four small craft slowly pushed or pulled the 2,500ton object into the bottommost massive open bay doors on the cargo dropship.

That last part of the movement was the way that this type of station was designed to be moved around star systems, or to be moved to a new star to support the development of the SLDF. It was supposed to be carried by a modified Mammoth or other large cargo carrier based on a compact jump core. They really should have used a dropship class tug to get the huge hunk of metal into the dropship, but there still was not one of those types of dropships in this system. Robert was betting that this would change in the near future, that is if he was guessing right about the leader of this group.

This little operation of loading and prejump inspecting the newest factory for the SLiE took two days to finish. It was not like anyone had done something like this before, on both sides of the deal to buy the factory. The crew of the Hercules needed almost another full day to get the huge object fully secured, and other cargo moved around within the massive ship for center of gravity and other balancing issues. Once all of that moving and tying down had been done. The two dropships under Robert's command completed something that even if others had been watching, would not have guessed what they were doing. It just looked like some kind of piloting testing taking place between the two cargo dropships. Maybe it was to see if the huge new object was fully ready to be jumped out of this system. That was not what they were doing.

The two dropships were checking each other for any tracking devices that someone might have tried to be smuggled onto them. And those devices were found in all of the three ships that had been connected to this system, both the dropships and the factory satellite were bugged. When one was taken apart, it was found that it was not as high tech as the ones that had been found on the last trip to the inner sphere. These spying devices were both larger and they were a lot easier to find than the ones that were thought to have come from ComStar. Every one of the spying devices was dumped out the airlock, as they were collected after the first one had been investigated by a tech team. The crews on all of the ships were very relaxed as they were getting ready to leave this system. All that changed when an alert was sent out by the massive space station.

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The alert went through the star system at the speed of light, and people started making their way to the weapons turrets, fighter bays, and damage control points across billions of kilometers. It did not matter who they were, they all were on alert. By the time that the station blasted out a warning to the rest of the jump point. Everyone was already running for their protective suits and to their weapons. Without an HPG in this system, there was no way to know if this new arrival was a friend or a foe coming to visit.

This was only a little more active of a reaction, than when the Styx had arrived or any of the other jumpships for that matter. With Robert's warning about increasing size of raids in the local area, and some pointed questions to senior leaders on the attached dropships and jumpships in the system. Wilson had quietly raised the alert status on all of the limited combat power under her command. It was not much, but it was all she could do. This was a good thing, because this little system was about to be center stage again and not in a good way.

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Colonel or Sang-Shao Braxton Breen was strapped into his command chair, making himself mentally ready for the next jump across the stars. Colonel/ Sang-Shao Breen was not a pirate, or a member of ComStar for that matter. He was a member of the Great Capellan Confederation military (CCAF), which was led by the celestial wisdom and the rightful leader of all of mankind. He and his ad hoc unit had been sent to this part of space for a very important reason. Every member of this team had been selected for a reason, and not all of it was related to what most would call marshal skills. Or as most people would say, it was just another Monday in the CCAF.

He had been brought to the head of the Ministry of Resources a few months ago for a highly classified briefing. He quickly realized that the briefing for this mission, most of the planning had been prepackaged and recently updated for him to act on. He could see the parts where they had just replaced the word satellite with dropship on many of the briefing documents. This type of mission was what was normally called an Objective Raid by those in the mercenary trade. What was different was that it was an Objective Raid on a merchant ship, and it was being paid for by a major Inner Sphere house. But it was a merchant ship that had somehow gotten their hands on a massive amount of Star League Tech. His job was to lead a unit and take that high tech cargo from them. All so that they could be used by the rightful people of the Confederation, and the one true heir to the throne of the Star League and mankind. House Liao was the rightful ruler of all of human space, and everyone else was in rebellion to them. Both the current head of House Liao and Colonel Braxton Breen were convinced that this was a fact of the universe.

Their spies had said that the Merchant ship they were looking for would be at the next system on a set date. The Capellan attack force should have been in that star system already, but they had a problem with the Lithium-Fusion battery and the K-F drive that had stopped the whole mission dead in its tracks. It had taken the crew of the jumpship over a week to fix the bleeding edge technology battery and jump engine interface. He had no idea how close they had come to being stranded in this dead star system. The leader of this ship and its engineer had kept that information very close to their chest. The last thing they wanted was for a bunch of combat trained and heavily armed passengers getting upset or otherwise losing control when they were told about their death sentence.

Now they were finally ready to move almost 26 light years to reach the system that their target was hoped to be waiting for them. The old Tramp class jumpship had been a closely held secret of the Confederation and was not risked lightly, or often over the last two hundred years. It had been decided that this was a worthwhile use of this almost lost treasure of the old Star League. With a flip of a few buttons the massive jumpdrive pulled power and started to shift the 660m long ship threw interstellar space.

What he and the Ministry of Resources did not know, was that they were being manipulated by some highly placed and powerful members of ROM within ComStar. ComStar wanted the Confederation to attack Copeland and his little convoy very badly. If it also hurt the MC, well that was a case of two birds and one stone. They used the Confederation need to get late Star League era weapons, to keep up with the rest of the Great Houses as the carrot in the "leaked" data. That it would only cost ComStar the price of a few dinners and a small handful of HPG messages? Well, that was also a plus in the working column for some of the key players in ComStar.

They also wanted and needed to keep the MC, a growing power in this region of space, in check. Many key leaders within ComStar had not like the way that "their" company was being treated by that small power. A powerful raid on a young addition to the MC's controlled space? That would be pointed out to key people as an example that the MC could not protect their own much less anyone else from attacks like this. And if the Cappies could raise tensions on this side of the Inner Sphere? It might help with ComStar's overall plans of helping the Clans on the other side of human space in their attacks on two of the great houses and the FRR. It was hoping that this effect would be achieved by diverting troops, money, and weapons away from the real war. ComStar always like to get as much blood out of a turnip as they could from one squeeze.

##########

The energy wave was almost twelve minutes ahead of the old jumpship, and those dozen minutes were put to good use by the defenders in that star system. By the time the strange ship had fully entered the system, all of the light fighters in the Bivouac system were manned, but they had not been launched into space. You never know, this might just be another merchant jumpship stopping by to trade or just using it as a way point on its routes. At worse it would be a good training event for the crews on getting to their craft in an acceptable amount of time.

The new Leopard CV had its new engine, but she did not have any crew nor even had it passed final testing for that newly installed engine. It would have been like putting a new motor in a car, and then expecting to drive across the state when you turn the key for the first time to start it up. The same was true of the six heavy fighters that had been dropped off. The one-time pirate light carrier was being held back closer to the sun for different reasons. It would take months to get the new fighters and the new pilots for those heavy craft ready for combat. And that was only if they could find pilots and support crew that had worked on those types of aerospace fighters before. The system manager and her staff had a lot of new balls to juggle and manage, to make sure of the long-term health of this star system.

The same was not true of Commander Copeland and his crews. Within two minutes, four modified Royal Ironsides class fighters were in space and the two modified Stuka's were ready to join them at the drop of a hat. The so-called Sleds were sitting in the bays along with the pair of fighters doing the same thing on the Union. Copeland didn't have to worry about offending another merchant ship with a show of force as soon as they arrived into this part of space. If they could not understand the need for a strong CAP, then they should not be doing business in this part of space.

When the new jumpship arrived at the system. It did not announce on radio anything, it just dumped a Union and a Condor class dropship into the black of space. All of these ships were military and if that was not enough, besides not calling on the Radio to the local traffic control. The Tramp class jumpship dumped the power from its LF battery into the jump drive. It was gone again, in less than 90 seconds. All of those actions would fall into the "not so nice" fields.

After ripping another hole in the fabric of space, only the two thrusting military dropships were left in this local space. This also did not go over well with the locals, and that was enough to say that this could only be an attack. The staff didn't wait for the speed of light radio message to make it back from those two speeding dropships before hitting the big red button that said "alert".

While the six light fighters were coming off the massive Olympus class station. The intruding Union showed its true colors and quickly had four, and then eight fighters, and then a dozen new radar returns were launched into the deep black. The pair of dropships kept coming along behind the screen of aerospace fighters at a steady 1g. Robert did not need to order the reserve fighters under his command to launch. Their local commanders could see what was going on and sent their own orders to launch every fighter that Copeland had under his command. Captain Sarah Logigs Defoe was controlling not only her dropship, the Hobgoblin, but the whole fighter battle that was going to develop in the next few minutes. All Robert had to do was work out their next move.

All of the dropships were still separated from the jumpship, and Robert needed to work out what to do next. It was better for his dropships to be anywhere but locked down on a nonmoving ship over half a kilometer long. The book said that he still needed a few days to recharge his jump drive, and even if he "quick charged" his drive. He would need at least another hour to get a charge, by the book. If it looked like he was about to lose the Styx? He could release all of the range and power restrictions on the ships under his command. If that didn't work to control the situation? Then he would recall all of his drop ships to the Styx and then use the Colonial drive and just set it up to look like a misjump.

First, he ordered the Hercules to go to max thrust. He wanted her to take cover behind the better armed and armored space station. He was betting that a thin-skinned mammoth would be so much dog meat to even a pair of light fighters despite her new skin and updated weapons. The White Rabbit 2 would make her way to support the jumpship, after all she was a combat dropship, even if she was converted into a trash hauler. The Rabbit's two fighters would fall under command of the Hobgoblin's Captain, as had been worked out before they had even left New Circe. Next, he officially released the Carrier and all fighters to her commander to work out what was the best way for her to fight. Every step he had taken had been by the book planned out and trained for, before they had left New Circe.

With all of the parts now moving to his command or the commands of the Captains under his command. Robert was free to just listen to the Radio transmissions moving around his command, as the ship's staff went about their jobs. Micromanaging was not an unknown affliction in the SLDF Navy, but Robert was not bitten by that bug. Robert was quiet as he was watching the data coming in and being processed by the crews, and he noticed something.

When he had ordered the cargo ship to hide behind the recharge station? He had expected the two attacking dropships and their dozen fighters to either split up or keep one solid fist of firepower going towards the next most valuable target. What he did not know, was what the attacker's mission might be. He had thought that one group would go after the outnumbered and outgunned Hobgoblin, and the other would go after "his" jumpship. Tramp class ships were rare, but then again so was any jumpship these days. If they took out the "only" carrier in this system, it would free the attackers up for more or less free rein over the whole star system. At least they would have free rein outside of the weapons range of the huge station, but only until some reinforcements showed up.

Instead, it looked like the whole attacking force was going after the Hercules, and only the fighters that were between the invading dropships and their target. Robert quickly got on a private line to the Carrier and explained what he thought that he was seeing. After getting some advice from the more experienced carrier combat commander. He then ordered the Hercules to change course and make a maximum rate burn back the way it had just come. The convoy supplied fighters would block the way first, and then the two combat dropships would start blocking after the 50,000ton dropship went past them. It was a risky move, but it was his command, and it would help that the carrier commander thought it was a good idea. Then again, she might have just wanted to get into combat one last time. The will and want to fight was not just in the realm of the four-legged wolverines, the two-legged ones were almost as bad.

########

The light fighters from the station were only average or regular rated pilots, but they had belly heat and they went in to attack the enemy fighters first. While they had still been trying to find each of their wingmen. Captain Defoe had contacted them threw their own CAG sitting on the station. She was allowed to give the faster craft some pointers, and she had "suggested"…..er directed them to only make a few slashing attacks on the enemy fighter craft and not try to dog fight them. Their job was to pull off the lightweight enemy fighters and get them away from the rest of the fighters, and as far away from the rest of the battle as they could. This would leave the rest of the "friendly" fighters outnumbered by one lance, but Defoe was willing to risk that.

First "her" fighters made a medium speed gun run through the now disturbed mob of attacking fighters. The attacking fighter pilots out of the Carrier mod Union were better than average, but the SLDF did not have many pilots that would score that low in the skills rating test. At least not get that low of a score, and still be in the SLDF in any shape or form for combat missions. One Transit, one Stingray, and both Transgressors were taken out of the fight after the first few runs by her fighters and the local light craft on the mob of cappies.

Her force didn't get away scot free with those attacks. One Tomahawk fighter and one of the Ironsides were also very badly damaged and out of the fight for the foreseeable future. Small Craft from the recharge station already were being vectored into recovering the craft from both sides and render any medical aid that they could. Space is a harsh mistress, and no one deserves to die in her cold embrace all alone. The three remaining Ironsides and single Tomahawk were able to adjust course and keep the enemy fighters in range of their few long shooters mounted on each craft. The enemy aerospace fighters were now out of play for the main battle between the few in number big boys, but so were most of the fighters defending this system. They still had a part to play in the rest of the battle, but the big boys were coming out to play.

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

Debra smiled as her 100ton modified Stuka left the surviving enemy craft to be dealt with by the lighter fighters in her group. She didn't need to turn her head to know that the enemy fighters were not trying to turn around and close on her slower craft from the aft quarter. She checked her systems and gave an evil smile that no one could see. She had taken three hits to her craft, one each from a large laser, a medium, and the last one read as an old style PPC. That should have put her craft out of action, if they had been able to concentrate that much fire onto one location, and if she was not riding in an updated tech craft. It had not, and she knew that she had killed one of the Transgressors. And she had gotten part of one of the Stingrays on her last run. She was not for sure how much of the second Stingray she had gotten, but she knew that the Stingray pilot knew that he had just been kissed. And not in a good way to brag about in the locker room back on the enemy carrier. None of that was now a concern for her, at least not until she could start the bragging back in the bunk rooms on the dropships about her own kills.

Now she and her wingman, were going after bigger targets. That was what a sled was designed to kill. Well to do that to dropships and to make warships cry in pain if they were used effectively. "This is going to be so much fun!"

She would find out later, that she had said this statement out loud. And now she would be forever called the SLDF Navy's own Starbuck, but not in a good way. Then she started to copy some of the stories connected to that Colonial, and that ladies and gentlemen is how you kill your chances at promotion in the SLDF. Being good let you get away with a lot, but not that much.

##########

Sang-Shao Breen was a very angry CCAF commander. There had been some very big lapses in the intelligence, which they or really him, had been provided about this mission. One was that this station had half a dozen light fighters, and that it looked like all of them were on full alert. And the other missed data point, was that the target had that many fighters all on their own, and that was on top of the fighters that the station was packing. Oh, and the little fact that all of the fighters protecting the target were of heavier designs and all of them had been heavily outfitted with high-tech weapons. These were not little things to be overlooked when you were planning a raid like this!

For his own command? The LF battery on the jumpship had been the only high-tech item, which was available for him to use on this mission. He did not have a freezer type heat sink between any of the craft under his command. Now he had two upgraded 100ton fighters closing in on his twin dropships, and it looked like they fully expected to be able to affect the outcome of this battle between combat dropships.

He was thinking that at least now his side would have the advantage of firepower. There was no way that a 100ton fighter ever made had the same fire power as his Union class Carrier. There was only so much room in an aerospace fighter's space frame, which had to be split up to do all things that needed to be done. His own Carrier might have skimped on cargo space to support the dozen assigned fighters, but they had not skimped on armor or weapons that his modified Union could carry. His dropship alone had 100 tons of armor.

######

Debra needed to use a little more left peddle to line up on her target than she had first thought at the start of her attack run. She had all of the weapons set on her secondary trigger, and she waited to unleash all of those 8cm lasers on her victim in one hammer blow. A clock on her heads-up display was counting down the seconds or meters, and when it reached zero. She pulled the secondary trigger along with her wingman only about half a second later.

A dozen large bore 8cm lasers and thirty long ranged missiles left the wings and nose mounted weapons bays on the two fighters like the calling card from hades. It was a long-ranged shot, but both of these pilots were highly trained, and both of them had seen a lot of combat over the last half decade. They also had the advantage of late Star League era fire control systems, and software that an old Star League engineer would have given up their first born to have had access to. There is no such thing as a fair fight, it is only fight and win or die. After that, then that kind of crap is up to people reading about the battles down the road in time and distance to argue over right, wrong, and fairness. Eight of the 8cm large laser class weapons and twenty-one missiles slammed into the nose of the 3,600-ton heavy carrier. They were so close together that it was almost like one huge hit.

Fire control systems try to time the arrival of light speed, near light speed weapons, autocannons and missiles so that they all arrive at the same time. In space this has some issues, that doing this kind of work in the atmosphere does not. One of the major issues in the delayed needed after firing the missiles before the light speed weapons left, was due to the shear distance the battles were taking place. That was why the training of aerospace fighter pilots takes so long, had such a high failure rate, and their fire control support was so massive and costly to make.

#########

Sang-Shao Breen had seen what was happening, but he truly understood only at the last minute. Now it was too late to try to use evasive actions to get out of the trouble that he had just led his command into. But he had long enough to fire the entire nose mounted weapons payload at the two attacking assault class fighters. This weapons fire sent a spike of heat threw out the ship, which quickly had Breen sweating like he was floating in front of a blast furnace or at the very gates of hell. The computer read outs said that he had damaged both of the attacking modified Stukas. Disturbingly it didn't look like his ship had done that much damage to the two smaller craft. Between what the dropships systems told him and what his experience said about what was going on around them. It was clear, that now his main target was attempting to make a getaway by heading to the jumpships. He needed to stop that, but he also needed to live long enough to stop it.

The plotting computer said that the huge dropship was pulling back towards the other side of the jump point from where they had arrived. Breen had to take and hold that cargo dropship, or his mission was a failure. At least he needed to hold onto that ship until their ride home could come back to this system, and after recharging her jump drive to start them on the long trip to get back under the protective graces of the celestial wisdom. With a few quick words both of the dropships under his command went to maximum thrust for the first time in many months.

When the two massive fighters flash passed the two dropships after their first exchange of weapons fire. They were quickly out of range of the weapons carried by both the fighters and the two enemy dropships. This might have been seen as a mistake, because now the heavy fighters could not get a second attack run at their targets as they passed or fire into the already damaged areas of their targets. That was not the case in this part of the battle. The massive station might have been very old, and they might not have been able to get as many heavy weapons in this system over the last decade as they wanted. That did not mean, that they did not have any heavy weapons in operation on her. This part of space was not at peace and no one wanted to be a defenseless target.

After the last time, that Copeland had been in this system and an attack had been launched at him and the locals. Wilson had made sure that her people trained as much as they could, with what they had or could get their hands on. She had been very embarrassed about the first attack, and she did not want to let this happen again on her watch. She had not been able to get as many weapons as she wanted, and in most cases. She had to choose to buy two lower tech weapons in place of only being able to have one higher tech weapon.

When the pair of attacking dropships came out from around the huge energy sail of the Recharge station, they were met by the right-side aft weapons bay that could reach that range. It was not much, but they did their best with what they had access to. It would have been better if this station was a "Battle", or a station designed for war. Instead, it was a station meant to support civilian jumpships moving cargo from one side of the sphere to the other. It could take out the odd pirate or keep a disgruntle jumpship commander at bay, but it was not a war waging station.

Long Ranged Missile launchers, PPC's, Class 5 autocannons and a pair of recently rebuilt 8cm Large bore lasers fired at the two dropships in one wave of destruction. It was long ranged even for those weapons. And the gunners were not that good at hitting high speed targets, much less fast-moving targets that had a small cross section to aim at. But some of the weapons did strike their intended targets, and those hits were made running from the nose to the tail on both of the enemy craft. Just not enough damage was done to take any of them out of the battle, yet. They were just paper cuts, but enough paper cuts can bring down an elephant.

As the two enemy dropships headed towards the front of the station, and the retreating SLS Hercules. The other weapons bays on the station came online to fire on the intruders as they came into range. They took their turns firing and mostly missing at the two racing enemy dropships. That is until the forward side twin, twenty tube missile launchers were able to put almost all forty of their missiles right into the nose of the modified Union. The warheads rippled impacted and exploded around the nose of the egg-shaped craft, but they were not alone in impacting the enemy carrier. Those missiles were soon joined by a class 5 auto cannon strike. Those two different types of weapon strikes blasted away two fighter launching bay doors, a weapons turret, and a whole sheets of cracked armor plate in less time than it took to blink an eye. The results were left behind the attacking craft like paper blowing in the strong wind. Thanks to space, well…..being space. The delta V of that wreckage keeps going away from the more or less stationary space station.

The two attacking dropships did not expect the weapons fire coming from the ancient station. The reports had said that what weapons it had on hand had been degraded. They had been only used for show for the last decade. It was only after the first weapons hit, did the two ships start trying to evade any of the incoming fire from that direction. This evasive maneuvering of the two dropships gave the two Stuka's a chance to flip around and close in on the now slower targets. In less than a blink of the eyes, the two sleds were able to fire their FCS modified fifteen tube LRM systems into the weaker armed and armored aft sections of both of the now damaged dropships.

########

Debra had ordered the splitting of the missile fire into the two dropships, in the hopes to damage the drive units of both dropships in one quick attack. All she did was pit the armor in those locations with her split fire and it also lowered the damage potential on each of the targets. As the two fighters closed the distance on the distracted dropships. They were red lining their old but very well-maintained GM 300ATF engines that made up the heart of these craft.

After about half a minute, the pair of fighters were able to bring their mass batteries of old tech large lasers into play against the Union's weak and weakened aft armor. This time they would not split their fire between the two enemy dropships. There was only one target good enough for all of those 8cm gamma lasers, and Debra was not going to waste her shot after what happened to her LRMs. She had become to use to fighting Cylons and should have kept to one tactic or the other. If she split her fire the first time, then by the book she should have done the same thing with the second volley. Then again, even a broken clock is right twice a day. It just sucks the rest of the time.

###########

Captain Defoe had on a tight lip smile as the reports came in from all of the fighters under her command. Things were going about like she had hoped. She just needed the two Sleds to get the Union CV's attention, just one more time. She sent a coded burst radio transmission to the two 100ton fighters, even before the missiles had struck the two enemy ships that had been launched from the two fighters. She was betting that the two Sled drivers were going to have a problem fulfilling her orders, even if they reached the two pilots fast enough. Range can be a very harsh mistress in a space battle that limits you to speed of light communications.

Captain Defoe still wished that she was on the stick of one of the old fighters, but she was about to do something just as good. That was killing a military dropship by units under her command, and they were not a bunch of skeet or eggs armed with sledgehammers that the Cylons like to make. The only thing better, would have been if they had been the latest generation of Cylon capital or Clan combat ships. She could feel something on the wind, but she didn't know what it was. It was still well above her pay grade, but she now knew that clan ships were back in the Inner Sphere. She was betting, that if she waited long enough? Then she would get a chance to kill some of those clannerbasterds with her own hands or by the commands that she would give to those under her authority. That was something that Wolverine officers could have only dreamed about over the last few hundred years of their exile.

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

Debra reads the message as it ran across her helmet display, and she grinned a death heads grin. She had just been ordered to do what she had planned on doing in the first place. She had no idea that it was better to be lucky than good any day of the week. She didn't even pass the orders to her wingman, not after she had already given him the necessary orders to have them carried out in the first place. Yea, she had just scored the lottery on making a command decision.

She was having to move her fighter to the left and then she made a very sharp cut to the right in two sharp jerks. It was to make sure her and her wingman were not fried by the enemy's defensive fire. This last sudden movement of both craft was also needed to avoid the massive plasma flare of the engines on both enemy dropships. But it also slowed them down a little on over taking the target. Still, it did not take her long to line up the shot that she wanted, not with both the speed and maneuvering advantage that her fighters had over the larger dropships. Now all she had to do was follow the orders of her boss. This she did with a single pull of her trigger.

###########

Sang-Shao Breen was slammed around his command chair when the hammer of the gods he did not believe in struck the bottom of his feet. He did a quick scan of the screens that took maybe ten seconds, mainly because his eyes were having a problem focusing on anything beyond his eyelids. The whole aft part of his beautiful ship was now outlined in an evil looking red glow on those flat displays high mounted in his command center. All of the dropship's aft weapons were gone, and most of the armor was also. He didn't need to look harder at the screen after his eyes cleared of salt water. His ship was dying, and it was because of "only" two fighters. He could think of only one thing that he could do to save his ship.

"Flip the ship! Flip the ship, now!" The words were out of his mouth before he knew that his mouth was moving. That didn't mean that it was the wrong orders, but it also did not mean that they were the right ones either.

The massive ship started moving, so that its damaged nose could point towards the pair of tormentors that had just bitten it in the butt like a Nile crocodile on a wildebeest. The move was done so fast, and without letting his supporting craft know what was going on. That would be called…..a bad thing in space combat. Now the Condor class ship had pulled ahead of the Union, before it could shut down its engine to let the coasting combat carrier catch up on its now quiet engine. The pair were just coming through the mid-range box off the nose of the long station from their built-up delta V, before they were side by side again. Something like this should not have happened, but they had not spent enough time training together for it NOT to happen.

######

The SLDF Navy had spent the time, effort, and money to update and upgrade the weapons and cooling systems of all the ships making the latest supply runs to the Inner Sphere. They had proven that it was needed, and that these smaller runs were worthwhile enough to be supported by this kind of investment and risk. This was done mostly "only" as updating them with Star League era tech, but they used a lot of it and the software was a lot better than that. Even the cargo ship Hercules had updated weapons and fire control systems, just not as many as was normal for a combat dropship to be carrying. Still every one of those newish weapons was adding firepower that could now be used if the need or opportunity arose, like it just had.

Nine sets of twenty tube missile launchers, all helped by an updated Artemis fire control system, were joined in firing by five reduced output Long Ranged PPCs, three gauss rounds, and six extended ranged large bore 8cm lasers. All of them fired on those two enemy dropships at what would have been very long range for Age of war weapons. These weapons were joined by every weapon that covered the nose arc of the recharge station firing again out of pure chance.

This was all of the weapon's fire that was needed. The two enemy ships were soon shedding parts into small balls of rapidly expanding clouds of hot gases, metal and other things, with their commander looking the wrong way. The incoming weapons fire struck both ships, and they caused in impressive amount of damage in less time than it took to feel the shock of the first hits. Then again, military dropships were tough by design or they would not have lasted for a few hundred years of very hard use by all of the powers within the Inner Sphere.

The Union had already taken damage to its now exposed engines. Now they were permanently shut down, by a bunch of missiles impacting it until the safety systems activated to stop the engine from doing an imitation of a small star with a bad case of the hiccups. The winged Condor took strikes all along its nose and its bridge was open to space with a flash of fire and a rush of escaping air. The nose of the craft had only just started to flip to match the orientation of the Union and flagship when it was hit by this wave of destruction.

Normally if a dropship cut its engines off in the middle of a battle? That was a sign of surrender to the people who were firing at it, but these ships had kept right on firing even after the engines had been powered down or blown apart. That made them still active combatants no matter what a court might look at the events later might say. The battle damage also had an effect on the courses of the dropships. It was a physics type of thing, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The now tumbling craft only were fired on a few more times before they were out of range of anything that was worth their time to fire at, for now. You just do not fire something like an AC 2 at something the size of a dropship. It would have been a waste of time, money, and barrel wear.

The enemy dropships were coasting at what was a very low speed, towards the center of the star system. Having two armed enemy dropships near so much of what the locals had built or rebuilt over the last few years? That was not something that they liked and would not stand for. The fighters this enemy unit had brought into this system had been an issue, but now all of them were out of the picture and not a threat to the locals. The locals took the lead in now stopping the mostly wrecked dropships from being a threat to deeper in system.

#######

It took fifteen minutes for Wilson to get security personnel, who had volunteered, into some of her small craft attached to small ports along all sides of her station. She was also asking for help providing combat personnel, from any visiting dropships and jumpships to board the attacking large craft. Robert was the only one to respond to this request in a positive way. It was not like most merchant ships had enough combat troops to give up what few they had on hand for someone else to use.

Robert "only" had the four squads on the two cargo ships, but he was willing to deploy all eight Tornado suits and another platoon of what he was calling armed "volunteers" to help out. Miss Wilson could field a lot more troops, and most of them were armed with Colonial made or styled sidearms and rifles. They also had an advantage that they had grown up in a low gravity or zero g lifestyle. What they had for body armor was less uniform than their weapons. The enemy Condor class dropship carried up to four infantry platoons alone. How many were combat ready? How were they armed and armored? Now that was anyone's guess.

The locals would be taking on that nut, and Robert was more than a little thankful they had more or less demanded that was the craft that they wanted to take. They would be supported by all eight of the light fighters coming in from deeper in system and four-armed small craft that were under her command from the recharge station. The unarmed, but fully armored small craft, would land her security personnel on the enemy craft. That number of small crafts attaching to the dropship would spread any defenders thinly across the whole dropship. At least that was the plan, and it looked good on paper. The small craft would be the only ones that knew where they were going to breach and when. That was two advantages that would be hard, but not impossible to beat by the dropship's crew and passengers.

Robert's team of volunteers were going to take over the heavily damaged Union CV. The active clearing of the ship would be done by the "infantry "and armor suits that reported to Robert. The rest of the "Platoon" of volunteers would be used to hold the key rooms, and anyone who gave up when the boarding started. When the boarding did start, it would be led, more or less, by the powered armor packing almost mech scale weapons.

As it turned out? The locals were the first ones to be able to board their small ships onto one of the enemy dropships. Whatever training the local flight crews might have missed with weapons, the turret crews on the space station, or with the aero fighter's gunnery skills? They made up for it in the training of their small craft pilots.

#########

Main Fighter battle

Jax was slammed into the side of her cockpit despite the crash straps cutting into different parts of her body, as she tried to make her modified Royal Ironsides harder to hit much less kill. So far, her craft's systems had told her that she had not killed anything yet. She knew that she had gotten a part of one of the two Eagles that the enemy had brought here in the early parts of the battle. It was very hard to hit someone that was trying very hard not to be hit.

She had taken a couple of 5cm laser hits in return, but it was not that bad. Their job was not to kill all of the enemy fighters all at once, but to draw them off from the mainly dropship battle. If her people could just think about the few enemy dropships? Then her people could focus all the firepower and heat buildup they would cause in one or maybe two directions at once. Where most dropships got into trouble in a battle? It was when they had to spend their energy fighting in many directions all at once. That fact of battle had caused the death of many Star League warships much less dropships in wars past. The SLDF could not afford to NOT learn from the mistakes of the past.

Jax had blown threw the enemy fighter screen, and she now was trying to find out where to go next when command sent her data that showed up on her HUD as a green arrow pointing to her left. She reacted without thinking and started to follow the green arrow or the bouncing ball as it was called when it shifted around her HUD. It moved in a dance that had made more than one fighter pilot trainee lose their lunch in their early days of flight school. She took the time in her flying to see that the 4 light weight Thrush class fighters were going after the mix bag of light fighters the locals had launched in the early part of this battle.

The locals might have outnumbered the attacking light fighters, but the skill was definitely with the attacking aerospace fighters today. She had no idea if the locals were going to make it to land back on their base, and all of them were reading as damaged at some level. That was not her problem, but when a corkscrewing Cheetah came nearby with a Thrush hot on its tail. Jax saw the range read outs and squeezed the trigger for her twin PPCs to fire. Two of those weapons should have removed the enemy fighter from her part of the sky with ease, even at this range.

Nothing happened and she pulled the trigger for a second time, and then she backed off the controls so that she could keep the enemy light fighter in her HUD. It took a third pull on the triggers before she started to curse. The enemy was in range of her LR PPCs, but her weapons had not fired, and now she understood why her weapons had not discharged. The reason for her venting was that before they had left New Circe. A software patch had been installed on "her" fighter that limited the power and range of her LR PPCs to only what an H class ER PPC could do. She had been so in the zone that she had forgotten about that briefing. After all there were not any H class or any other old style ER PPC class weapons on any SLiE war machines.

There were only two ways to get that newly installed patch removed. One was to have the ground or the bay crew to physically connect to the fire control system and have it removed. That was the way it was supposed to happen. But Robert had fought to have a second way to bring the weapons back to full power. He had argued that if things went sideways, he would need a way to untie the arms of his fighters and dropships in the middle of a battle. So, if one of the command staff sent out a coded message in the middle of a mission. It would release all of the weapons like the IER or LR PPC s to be allowed to use their full power and range.

With another grunt and some mumbled words that even her cockpit recorder would not make out. She hauled away on her controls, and she started to work around to take on the forward swept wings of a Stingray that command had assigned her to deal with. Her target seemed to be acting as a wingman to the also alone Transit class fighter. It also looked like those two were trying to take out the lighter Tomahawk that had lost its wingman earlier in the battle. Jax was not going to let that happen, not if she could help it.

With a flip of her wrists and her fighter turned sideways. If she had been in an atmosphere? This maneuver would have been called a slide slip, at least at first. Then it would have been called a flat spin, if she had not done something about the maneuver. In space the fighter just turned its nose to one side. The engine kept up thrusting now 90 degrees from its one-time direction of travel for about 1.7 seconds, before it was shut down by the pilot.

While her nose is pointed off of her main line of travel, she fires both energy weapons at her assigned target. Her upgraded heat management system handles the heat generated by the firing of the two heavy energy weapons like they had not been fired at all. The weapons were mounted on the two projections that gave this craft the look of a flying trident. The man-made lightening was moving at near the speed of light, and they crossed the distance between the two craft before the other pilot knew that it was under attack.

The two heavy energy bolts hit the craft that had been captured by the CC from the FWL along with its wingman sometime during the 2nd SW. Both had been easily repaired and they had been put back into service for their new owners. That wingman now was floating somewhere out in this local area, if she had lived through the destruction of her craft. It was a possibility, after all it was not like she had been flying one of those death trap Lucifers the LACF liked so much.

The enemy pilot had no idea that the weapons that had hit him had been down rated in power and range. The first bolt hit the back of the craft just behind the cockpit, and the second hit was on the top of the port forward swept wing. Both hits had only blown off armor plate, but they did little more than that. Oh, and it let the startled pilot know that someone wanted very badly to kill him today. The Stingray's nose and side lights up in an odd glow as thrusters fired, and the craft turned to face its tormentor.

Under her heavy helmet, Jax smiled and fired her 260 Rated extra light power plant to full power. It was now up to the Tomahawk's pilot to stay out of the way of the huge but short ranged Tomodzuru autocannon the 50ton fighter was packing. The Stingray was 5 tons lighter than the updated Ironsides, but both craft had about the same top speed in atmosphere and about the same acceleration while in space. The modified Ironsides had a pair of high tech PPCs backed up by a pair of 5cm lasers and 5 sets of fat short ranged missile launchers.

The Stingray had a single nose mounted PPC, an 8cm laser mounted on each of its wings, that also had a pair of 5cm lasers that rounded out the weapons. That was a lot of long ranged firepower mounted on the Stingray. It was just too bad that the Stingray didn't have enough heatsinks to use all of that firepower effectively. It was a bracket fighter, or it was a sauna trying its best to kill the pilot that overused his heavy weapons.

##########

Sao-Wei Ivan Kozhedub had no idea what the craft was, that had fired at him while he was trying to cover the Sao-Shao after losing his wingman and leader. It took his craft beeping at him in steadily louder tones to get him to look down at the left most MFD. The FWL made system and software was able to tell that this craft was, an Ironsides, and that this design had been made on Carver V. That was a system that had been fought over many times between the FWL and CC after the fall of the old Star League. Ivan thought that it was poetic, that two FWL made or designed fighters were about to try to kill each other.

Thanks to Jax's more high-tech pilot's suit, she was able to keep at a higher g loading than the Stingray's pilot. She used this advantage ruthlessly to keep the battle at longer ranges. Her armor was good. But if she got to close, and the enemy fighter landed an Alpha strike on her it might kill her craft and possibly her. Her two main weapons had longer range, so it should give her another advantage in this dog fight.

The battle started with a long ranged slashing attack that had both pilots missing their shots. Jax had fired both her down checked PPCs and Ivan fired both wing mounted 8cm lasers and the nose mounted PPC. This caused a huge heat spike that overloaded the heat management systems on the Stingray until it could be dumped into space. Even after the dumping of the heat, that was now near enough of a level to be toxic for the pilot, that he would still have to be more careful with his next firing order.

Both craft worked to get an advantage over the other, but the craft were closely matched, and it would be up to when the first pilot made a mistake. Another hard power turn had allowed each craft to chance another volley of weapon's fire very quickly. Ivan still had heat issues and the range was very long, so he only fired his left and right wing 8cm lasers on this exchange. This still caused a heat spike that Jax's systems picked up, and he missed again with both of those energy weapons.

Jax had a better range and fired both of her PPCs, and this time she had gotten a hit on the high and thin dorsal fin. The damage was too much for the atmospheric control device and it had snapped off the F-90. Because this was a space battle, that was not a big deal for the Stingray F-90 pilot to deal with. The loss of a few RCS thrusters would be harder to deal with, but it was not that much of an issue unless the pilot was green. This pilot was not green, but a veteran of many battles.

When Jax "saw" the chunk of the spaceframe being blown off, she tried to capitalize on it and cut into unleash her many powerful short ranged missiles along with her energy weapons. All she did was get a hit in the left wing by an enemy 8cm laser and a PPC. The heavy damage on one side of her craft caused all her massive volley of SRMs to miss. If her craft had been outfitted with the Streak 6 packs instead of these old age of war launchers? She would have hit with everything, or her missiles would not have fired without a hard lock. End state was that she missed with almost a ton of ammunition, got a lot of heat to deal with, and damage to her wing that now made one wing about 1m shorter than the other one.

####

Ivan felt like he was sitting in a plastic wrapped pool of hot water. In his mind's eye, he could see the sweat running down his back and chest all to be collected in the seat of his space suit. If he had been in a hot tub back home, this might have been a nice, relaxing, or even a fun situation. Sitting in a cockpit of a fighter, that was routinely pulling between 6g positive and negative 4 g. That was not so much fun. Not even for a dyed in the wool fighter jock like himself.

Maybe it was the water moving around between his knee and stomach distracting him, but he made his own mistake next. When he had lost his tail fin? He had thought that the enemy craft would try to close the range and finish him off. What he had not expected was the cloud of over 20 hard-hitting short-range missiles come racing his way, to match the twin ER PPCs that had been trying to pick him apart all battle. The analytical part of his brain told him that for a space frame to move like this one had, and been packing and using so much fire power, without glowing on his infrared detector like a small sun. Then this craft had to have paper for armor, all he needed to do was get one or two more solid hits, and this battle would be over.

He had not gone for a full alpha strike, but he had fired all three of his heavy weapons. His visual and heat scans had showed part of the wing come off the craft near the huge U-shaped structure, that went around the craft and protected the enemy's cockpit on two sides. With his own evil grin, he turned tighter into his enemy and firewalled his throttles, and he fought the grey tunnel vision closing in on him with all the skill he had at his command. He needed to get close enough just for one more exchange of heavy weapons fire. He had faith in the armor that remained on his craft, and that his enemy was an egg armed with sledgehammers. The holy quad of firepower, heatsinks, speed, and armor was well known to pilots of aero fighters. He had no idea how much that holy quad had changed for the pilot in that other craft.

The two craft were charging at each other at both of their ship's maximum thrust rating. Jax was moving her craft up, down, left and right as she closed for a frontal attack on the CCAF fighter. The other guy was not, and that was not a good move. His craft was still running too hot to do many maneuvers that the book said he should have been doing. Both craft fired within two or three seconds of each other, and Ivan pulled the trigger first. If he had waited for just a second or so longer, he could have added his wing mounted 5cm weapons fire into his volley of heavy weapons. That might have been enough to keep the battle even. It also might have shut down his craft due to extreme heat overloading.

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Jax didn't show any emotion as three heavy weapons hit her craft despite the maneuvering she was doing. The PPC hit her craft just under the nose about halfway down towards her cockpit from the forward tip. That hit took almost a ton of armor off of the underside of her fuselage before it ran out of destructive energy. Even with the maneuvering, her craft was hit with both of the 8cm lasers. But at least they were spread out, with a hit going into each of her wings. Her craft was hurt, but it was still in the fight, and before her eyes reads all of the damage she had taken. Her finger pulled the trigger, and she launched a full Alfa strike on the enemy craft. She knew that there was no way that her craft would be able to fight, until all of the heat was dumped into space. It was a good bet that all of her craft computers, which might include the life support systems could shut down. If the heat overload was bad enough, all of them would need to be rebooted in the middle of a not small local space battle. That also fell into the "not good" column.

That one strike was made up of two 5 cm lasers, 2 down checked LR PPC's, and the better part of a ton of SRM missiles that had left her craft. Her cockpit went dark before even the last of the SRMs had left her wing mounted launchers. All she could do now was wait and see what happened next. She had no idea that both her PPCs and a 5cm laser had hit their target by the time that 18 of the SRMs found the Stingray. It was almost all over towards the end of the missile wave, and by then they were only hitting parts of the one-time FWL aerospace fighter. Jax saw the flash of the death of her target threw the clear cockpit, before she was slammed from behind like a Cylon made Centurion had just tried to punt her out of the cockpit.

The Transit she had lost track of had just swung around and put the huge class 20 autocannon round right into the aft of her fighter. It was both an easy shot and a textbook shot, due to her craft now flying without engine or even power to warn the biological sitting in the cockpit of the closing enemy attack craft. Jax was punching out of her craft before she knew that her craft was dead. She was just lucky that her systems had recovered enough to get her out of the craft, before its abused engine tried its best to imitate a good copy of a solar flare.

The Transit didn't last much longer in this battle. The pilot had been concentrating on the easy kill so hard. That it had forgotten that it had been trying to kill another Star League fighter before it had decided to try for bigger game. The 45ton Tomahawk royal fired its own pair of down checked LR PPCs into the aft of the 50ton fighter just as it had crossed the line between long and medium range. With that enemy craft now out of the battle, the old modified 45ton Star League fighter did a course change that was only possible in space combat and went to see who it could fire at next. There was a Thrush that had his name written all over it, and it was very close by.

The Colonial technology mixed with all of the years of working on the best that the Star League could make, still did not help Jax know what was going on around her. She had been close enough to see what she thought was another fighter of some kind take a hard hit. She thought it might be a mission kill, but after it moved off under the Delta V that it had generated before someone had hit it with what might have been PPC fire. She had lost track of the small star that should have been an aerospace fighter of some kind. It was only a few seconds longer before it was like she was the only one alive in the whole star system.

"Well so much for going after one of those lighter Thrush fighters to run up my score by picking on the little guys." Jax said to herself.

After a few missed tries, she activated her tracking beacon that was part of her Star League grade kit. The readout on the built-in screen on her helmet showed that it was activated and at full power. She took the time to look every way she could, without using up any of her limited fuel for her built in RCS. In less than 5 minutes after being ejected from her damaged craft, she had a post battle crash. With nothing to do, she did like most combat vets do with a little down time. She went to sleep in the deep dark of space. It was Star league Navy SOP for an ejected pilot to try to conserve their limited air supply. The best way to do that was to reduce the stress, and sleep was the best way to do that. And it just also happened that it lowered the pilot's heart rate.

Without her Ironsides, Jax could not see as the last of the enemy fighters died or were effectively rendered non-combat capable. The enemy fighters were out of the battle right along with what was left of the light fighter squadron the locals had launched. It had been a bloody battle, but the small fry had finished their part of this battle. The only thing left was to wait to see who had a home to land on or be recovered by. At least this attack force didn't have the firepower to take out a million ton space station, unless someone was packing a pocket nuk and had not used it yet.

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Back to the battle of the big fish, or what are thought of as big fish in the Inner Sphere before the Clans arrived.

Captain Defoe was impressed, as she watched the small craft pilots do their job, and due it under combat conditions. She even made a note, in the official records of her ship. That if they were able to come back to the Inner Sphere. It would be worthwhile to bring some extra small craft combat crews with them to train with these people for a few months. She was that impressed with the skill of those dozen people that were the crews of those small craft. For a field grade officer in the SLiE to think that about anyone outside of the SLDF, was as rare as hens' teeth.

The locals had even taken over the SAR mission. A small fleet of small craft seemed to be coming out from behind or from inside a huge number of rocks in this system. The first or fastest of those craft went to pick up the Flying Dutchmen pilots, and then they went after any of the pilots that were stuck in wrecked fighters floating around in the local area.

The fighters that could make it back to their own launch bays did so as best that they could. Any craft that was not able to do so on their own power were given a lift by one of the small craft. The same was even true of the enemy fighters, only this time they were not brought into a bay, but they were kept in a group with an extra life support pack attached to their hulls. After all of the "living" were taken care of, a dozen different types of small craft kept looking and collecting anything from the expanding cloud of debris. A few hundred kilograms of wreckage moving at these speeds would be a hazard for anyone. It also was nice, just in case they missed a pilot that might have a damage suit beacon or other issues that kept them from being picked up already.

Without having enough or in some cases any dropships around in this system for most of two generations of the locals. They had to do some huge amounts of out of the box thinking to get the job done or just to stay alive in this part of space. Life on a shoestring is the true mother of invention, and a strong case of Darwin thrown in could only help. All of that skill was on full display for not only Copeland and his people to see, but anyone else that happened to be around.

The four landing boats that were crewed by the SLDF Navy in hiding did the job, but they did not have the same finesse as the locals had in attaching the small craft to the targeted dropship. It proved to be a nice measuring stick for the skill used by both groups.

The White Rabbit 2 was a Union class ship, and the carrier was of the same base class, just carrying a dozen fighters in place of the dozen battlemechs or the cargo of the White Rabbit. The first two Mk VII landing boats made contact onto the battered and flame scarred hull. And they flooded the enemy Union with troopers, that had been board for a very long time in Copeland's ships. Now none of the assaulting team was board and many were thinking that maybe boredom was better than someone trying very hard to kill you.

The SLDF landing boats had taken a few hits on their final approach to the carrier. But soon the supporting fighters and the few weapons mounts on the small craft took care of any of the still active weapon's turrets on the battered enemy carrier. The weapons fire also confirmed that this was going to be a contested boarding and not a rescue and recovery one. That was enough to get the juices flowing for the teams, that were about to take an enemy spaceship away from its former crew.

The attack on the carrier was led by the two squads of infantry, which called the White Rabbit 2 and Hercules home after leaving New Circe. Each of those squads were led by one of the new built, but odd and old looking Tornado class suits. The second set of armor suits and twin squads of Marines had come from the other dropships, were slower to attach to the wildly moving hull of the carrier. Still, soon they also were starting to take control of the targeted dropship. The first two team's knowledge of the layout, because they had to defend a member of this class of dropship, had helped a lot in their assault on the ship. It was not all of the time, that you got to spend months training on what was the near sister of what you were just assigned to take over.

The Union class dropship is a military dropship, but this one had been modified to be a large carrier. Now it was not meant to have to do a ground combat mission or be anywhere close to combat of any kind that didn't involve space combat. It was now listed as a "Naval" support craft, but still a military craft in the Inner Sphere. So, it still had the other armor and weapons that added combat to the name combat dropship. This just means that the crewmembers were armed with mainly pistol type side arms, at best. It would turn out that there were only a dozen laser rifles for the 42 people that called the ship home or crew. Most of them were not charged, could not take a full charge, or were otherwise not ready for issue.

A normal Union's crewmember would have had some sharp words to say to any captain or officer, that would ship out to land mechs on a planet so lightly armed with personal weapons. That did not mean that the crew on this dropship didn't fight, it was just that they were massively out gunned by the borders. They would have been way out gunned, even if PA (L)s had not been in the boarding forces today. Those 400kg suits just made it more of a lop-sided battle after they had started moving down the zero g corridors pumping out weapons fire at any threat they found.

Not one of the crewmembers, which Robert sent over was killed during this action. But five of them were wounded in the engagement on the modified Union. Only eight of the total crewmembers of the carrier modified Union were taken alive or had lived long enough to make it to a medical support area. None of those survivors were command crewmembers or other leadership personnel in the officer corps. The defenders just didn't want to give up, even after the powered armor cut them down like so much wheat.

The boarding crew had found that even the computers had been wiped of all data before the key access points were taken by Robert's people. It was almost like they were working for ComStar, and that was exactly what Robert had been thinking, when he was told about the dropship's electronics situation. He had to talk to Jess, and they look to find out if any records showed that they fought like these people had. ComStar was the only thing that made since to him.

That is until they found all of the Cappie uniforms, in all of the crewmember's cabins after the fighting was over. They even had found personal letters sent from known worlds of the Confederation and food only found in the CC. Very few nonnative Confederation citizens like the major brands of CC beer, not when they could get better and cheaper stuff. Then there was the ton of small stuff that all pointed to the Confederation and it not being a false flag operation, what was the favored fodder for tri-vids for centuries.

From the time that the first small craft from Robert's ships had attached to the Union, until it had been cleared, had been 58 minutes. An hour of combat can both feel like an eternity, and at the same time it can seem like it is over in a blink of an eye. Thousands of books and tens of thousands of people with many letters after their names have debated why this was. When asked, most combat vets just would give the MI salute. That was a set of shoulder shrugs and walk away from the person having diarrhea of the mouth, before the demon Murphy decided to stop by and try to explain it to them in his normal bloody way.

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The Condor was taking longer to be subdued, and Miss Wilson asked for help after the first half hour of combat had taken place within the ship's corridors. This Condor was packing a full dozen platoons of armed and armored infantry, and they were not happy about the situation. They had been that way even before they had become stuck on the damaged dropship. After that? They just got….more agitated, the more the dropship had been knocked about. They also had been trained in how to attack and hold enemy dropships and space stations. So, they were spoiling for a fight, heavily armed, heavily armored, and trained for this kind of combat. All of those things that the crewmembers of the Union were not.

Wilson's people had to pop all the weapons mounts off of one wing of the dropship, so that they could land her troops safely before they could fire more than once or twice. Without any centralized fire control, the firing was more wishful thinking than any real threat to the small craft. It was a risky way to make a boarding, but it was better than risking the thinly armored landing boats and their passengers to that enemy fire.

It was of no surprise to Wilson's troops that they were outnumbered, but they had a few things going for them that the enemy did not know about. One was that the Cappies were expecting to be fighting in space. In short, the CC troopers were only packing gyro jet side arms, fairly low powered laser rifles, and blade weapons of every kind that a warped mind could come up with. The CC infantry didn't have any rocket launchers, crew served heavy weapons, or other items a ground fighting unit normally might be placing at choke points around a grounded ship to keep an enemy from taking it from them.

The other item that was working for Wilson's people, was that even though the body armor was about the same effectiveness as the stuff that the enemy was using. These CC troopers had the best that the Confederation could make, beg, borrow, or steal. Wilson's people were outfitted with Colonial made weapons and over half of them were shooting Colonial made or designed ammunition out of them. These weapons and ammunition they were using was cutting through the enemy troop's body armor whenever a clear shot was given to the locals by the dropship personnel. They even were shooting threw more than a few inner walls to suppress the defending CC troopers.

Still the locals were not making that much headway against the more numerous enemies on the dropship. When a set of unarmed small craft had taken the now empty Union dropship under tow, Wilson's troopers were joined by all of Robert's remaining manpower from his own small craft. That was the straw that broke the camel's back on the Condor. There was no way for the defenders to expect or even train to be able to fight powered armor within the corridors of a dropship much less in Zero g.

The newly arrived small craft could have attached to already cleared access ways on the Condor, but then the reinforcements would have been attacking prepared defensive points the dropship's crew had set up. As before, the Tornado suits led the breach on the enemy dropship. But this time it was six suits and four squads of armed and armored support that forced their way into the Condor in a single wave of metal death.

As soon as the access way was breached into the second dropship, the powered suits took incoming fire. That lightweight weapons fire did exactly nothing to these new attackers in body armor, which was like nothing the defenders had ever seen before. The two teams cleared two different corridors on the dropship that was about 50 meters long in less than five minutes. They just started walking/floating down the metal corridors and bulldozed their way forward threw whatever the dropship's defenders could come up with.

In those five minutes, twenty Cappies ground or dropship troopers were killed by people from New Circe. The reinforcements also wounded fifteen of the invading fighters into this star system. The shock of seeing their weapons fire bounce off the miniature battlemechs did more to break the stalemate, than the Star League era Mauser rifles or Colonial made weapons. Each time the Tornado suits leads an attack against the CC infantry. They would blow through the defensive point, only to have to stop, so that the follow-on forces could clean up the mess after them. Then the follow-on personnel would start patching wounds and sometimes the holes recently blown into the ship's hull. The suits were great, but they were not magic wands that could just be waived in the air, and the enemy would disappear or give up without trying to kill some of the locals.

One hour after the reinforcements had started boarding of the Condor. Two bullet and laser scarred Tornado suits breached the engine room of the dropship. By then both Wilson's troopers and Roberts, had joined forces near the center line of the ship. It took some more time, but thirty-three enemy troopers and crewmembers were pulled off that one dropship. Only about a dozen of them were not sporting visible wounds of some kind or the other. Each one of the prisoners was tied up, three ways from Sunday before they were moved off that battle scarred wreck of a dropship. By the time that the last group had been sent over to the main space station? There had been seven attempts to escape by those invaders, after they had given up to the locals. The fight was very much not out of some of them.

Robert was glad he was not going to have to deal with them. He did have six more people hurt in taking or in helping to take the last of those two dropships. That was including two of his people, which had been in the new built Tornado suits. They were still coming up with the total numbers of dead and hurt in the fighter battle. The suits were tough, but they could be breached after enough impacts were made by high powered weapons in one location.

All six of the suits were still functional, but they all would need to be fixed or replaced when Robert got back home. Those armored suits did cause some quiet conversations by the locals. But word had already gotten around, about some of the attackers and pirates that Robert and his crews have had to fight off in their widespread travels. Still Robert had refused to let any of the locals get a close look at the inside workings of those armored suits. But he didn't raise even an eyebrow at the images that were being taken by the locals of those suits. He had to almost tie Jess down when she saw some of the locals taking images of themselves standing beside one of the battered armored suits like it was a long-lost Cameron.

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Captain Copeland could have ordered an immediate exodus, from this system after the attack had been beaten off. After all, this was the second time that they had been attacked in this location. It would have been the acceptable thing to do, but he had four people who were in critical condition due to wounds they had received in helping take those two dropships. This system might have been a backwater, but the medical facilities they had access to where a lot better than what was on any of the SLDF ships in this system.

Robert made the command decision to stay in this star system, at least until his wounded were safe for the long trip to the next system. One that had better medical care available than they currently had access to. He made a note in his log that this medical oversite needed to be addressed when they returned home. He knew that a full blown SLDF MASH truck or its clan modified, or updated version only massed 20 tons. He might not need all of that capability, but he made a note to see if he could get one anyway. What was the worse they could do at high command, say no?

The decision to stay was not well like by the dropship's commanders, but no one could come up with a better idea that would not raise the body count. Jules had not come down on either side of the discussion, because it had been his idea in the first place. He had been the one to pitch the idea of waiting for the wounded to recover to Robert, but Robert's name was on the blame line. The other three high ranking officers had talked among themselves while they waited, but they did not bring the issue up to the convoy commander after the first time.

The rest of the crewmembers on the convoy ships were treated like heroes by the locals, for helping defend the system from pirates one more time. Everyone was allowed some time to walk around the space station. If Robert had not allowed it, it would have stood out as being very odd. It was one of the reasons that the Recharge station was the size it was, to support a massive grav deck for visiting spacers to fill the needed gravity time to keep them healthy. Being shown appreciation by the locals, now that had its upsides also for all of them so far from home. Jess even came around to the idea after she had been given a tour of some of the more restricted areas of the star system.

Word was sent out on one of the other jumpships that had left this system about the attack. They were to pass along all the data they had on the raid to someone, or anyone in a leadership role for the MC. The limited interrogation preformed in system on the survivors, were quickly able to turn up a few bits of information after the messenger jumpship had left. That the attackers had been Confederation troops, was now proven without a doubt not to be a false flag operation. The interrogators were even able to work out that they were here to take something from this system, but the survivors had no idea what it might be beyond some vague hints.

The leaders on the bridge of the Condor and the Union carrier were the only ones that held that kind of information. But some ideas were given out due to special training a lot of the troopers had undergone and how they had been equipped. Then there was the amount of aerospace fighters they had carried for this operation. They had the fighter support that should have been for any 2 of the most top of the line Battalions in the CC. Most full-sized regiments would have loved to have that amount of firepower on their beck and call.

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The heart stopping information, was found when one of the survivors remembered something and made an offhand comment over a bland meal and too much very high proof local moonshine provided by the onetime amusement park. It turned out, that they had captured a Sao-wei or Subcommander that was from a highly placed family. He had said that their ride home would be coming back for them, and then the cargo they were supposed to put into the Condor and anything else they could steal while they were in system. After another few rounds of drinks…..er questioning. It was assumed that they also were to take the largest dropship they could in this system with them. That was not unheard of or even a rare occurrence in the pirate trade on jump points or even raids on a drop port. That was just how far things had fallen in the Inner Sphere.

The return was going to be seven days after the launch of the attack, and they would jump back out using the special batteries that might have once been used for the SLDF navy. The now very drunk motor mouth seemed very pleased that the "great leader" had given them the use of such technology. This was found out after Copeland had decided to stick around this system. For maybe an hour after Robert had been told this new information. He had thought about leaving this system as fast as he could, just pull his people out of the station's sickbay and damn the risk.

Then he decided that he needed to send a message to the key leadership within the CC. That message would be. "If you go after his company? You better be ready to lose anything you send on that mission." In this part of space? You were prey or you were predator. The great houses and other would-be power players trying to move up the ladder, would hound a weak target if they thought it was worth the time and equipment loss. If Robert didn't put up a large enough stop sign now? They would only lose more people down the road, or the risk would become too great. Then his higher command would pull the plug on any more runs to the inner sphere.

Robert, Luzena, the head of security for this system, and the senior person for Robert's security and infantry units had a group meeting on the space station. This small group had three days to work up a plan, which everyone could agree to. Luzena and everyone else in this system, were tired of being used and abused by outside power players. Luzena wanted to take that Tramp Class jumpship. A ship of that type should only have a crew of fewer than 35 personnel of all types and skills. That is, if they were not carrying any additional dropships to plus up those numbers that had already been used to attack this system. That could be anywhere from bad, to very bad on the prospects of taking the jumpship intact or intact enough to be quickly repaired.

The only thing that they thought they knew. It was that a Tramp class jumpship should be in this system within a set 24-hour window and at which jump point it was going to use. Those were two key bits of information to have for a little bit of piracy, or more to the point of having a very good chance at a successful bit of piracy. The court was still out on if this was going to be enough information for an enormously successful bit of grand theft jumpship. No one brought up how she was going to find 35 people loyal to her, and that could run a jumpship of that class.

From that small window overlooking one of the small repair bays that the old Recharging Station had been built with. A dozen armed small craft could be seen, mostly Landing Boats were being fueled and loaded with armed and armored personnel. Robert was supplying what was left of four infantry squads and four people in the fully operational Tornado powered armor suits. He was tapping his personnel very heavy, but he still was holding some people back incase things went sideways in a bad way. As far as the public knew those were the only suits that were still functional.

If Robert helped in taking the jumpship? Wilson would trade another small factory for the damaged Union, Roberts' half interest in the Condor, and his part of the Tramp that his help would facilitate capturing. To sweeten the deal, she had added a thousand tons of industrial ores and a thousand tons of high-end industrial tools for what was left of the enemy aerospace fighters. The last part was basically the heart and soul of another orbital factory, if it just was without the hard outer shell and life support systems.

This was too good of a deal for Robert to pass up. Especially if this turned out to be the last mission, which they were going to be able to run to the Inner Sphere in the next 3 to 5 decades. Also making the deal would push what high command might think of as acceptable risk. If he was able to come back? He was now sure that he could get at least one more of those satellites. All he needed to do, was to have the right kind of bait to go along with the good will he now had in the local bank. That good will was better than bars of gold.

This system would get in trade two damaged but repairable dropships. Those would go with the Leopard CV that was almost ready for combat missions thanks to Robert selling them an engine and a squadron of heavy fighters. That all would be nice to go along with the other Leopard CV the locals had in operation. It was an impressive exchange for this out of the way place in the middle of the 31st century. All of the items that the locals have given up to Copeland on this stop. They could replace in less than six months, less if they pushed pause on some other planned products. It was a high stakes game, but it had a large prize in the pot.

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Notes

Fighter battle: 6 lights from station that are a mix of all generic lights. There are a total of 18 lights in the system with 6 being new Sabers. The CC attack with 12 fighters 4 Thrush TR-7s, 2 Transgressor, 2 Transit, 2 Stingray, 2 Eagles. One Transit, one Stingray, and both Transgressors from union carrier killed in two runs. One Tomahawk fighter and one of the Ironsides were also very badly damaged and out of the fight. Copeland is down one Tomahawk and 2 Ironsides by the end of the battle. All the rest of his fighters are damaged.

The attack of the CCAF on Bivouac. The original plan was for the CCAF to take one or more of the small factories. It was updated when they worked out that Robert was heading there and someone in the CC wanted what Copeland had.

Why the local made small factories cannot make weapons? This was just a mining and light support base for the SLDF Navy. When they reset the computers? It would seem that they reactivated a security setting that Copeland's team might or might not have known about. They can make most parts and armor but not weapons for mechs, fighters, small craft, dropships, space stations and jumpships. With them being space based, I let them make Endo steel, just to give them something to trade.

Why so little trade with MMM. The locals have not been putting out notices on how much they can make. That might make them more of a target before they are strong enough to defend themselves. Downside is that this cuts down on what they can afford to import, and this slows the buildup of weapons to defend themselves. The information Robert gives them, allows them to send a targeted message out.

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