Chapter 2
3 Days later 25 July 3046
New Circe
By Cliff
Beta By Nathan
Reviewed by Hotpoint.
Robert had thought that he would be taking a standard Small Craft to his destination. He was thinking of something along the lines of an ST-46, KR-61, Mark VII or even maybe a one of the few Drop shuttles. Any of which were in operations around the system. They were the main way to access the orbital base.
That was not what he boarded at the City of McEvedy Space Port, for his first trip to his new office.
His trip had been on an alien craft. Well, it was human made, but still alien. It was not a ship design which had ever flown the skies of an Inner Sphere world. The two small attendants working on the craft were the first Colonials he had ever seen in person. They directed him to his seat with practiced ease.
Roberts's escort had said that it was called a Heavy Lifter when Robert had asked about the oddly shaped craft. It was filled over half full of boxes. There were seats for passengers, some of which were occupied. Then even more, if smaller, boxes were put into any empty seats that did not have a warm body occupying.
The flight up and out of the atmosphere had been smooth. It had been almost TOO smooth, as a matter of fact. He had been dreading the lift off for three days. For most of the first few minutes, of any fight out of the atmosphere you were under between two to three g's of accelerations. Here he had barely noticed gaining altitude after liftoff.
It did not click into his old brain that something was not quite right. Not until he noticed by looking out the window that they were in space. As he looked at the deep black of space he realized that he had not felt zero gravity, yet. As an old Spacer being released from the bonds of gravity was what told him he was really on his way.
It had to be the "Artificial Gravity" that these little people knew how to make. It was a true marvel. A technology even the Star League never new. Unfortunately, they did not know how it worked.
He had heard about it but he had not really believed that they were capable of doing something that. Artificial gravity without rotation or thrust was the realm of science fiction stories. Stories that he still read as often as new ones came out. He had always loved sci-fi tales. Now it appeared he was living in one.
The orbital traffic around New Circe was another shock for the veteran spacer to see through the ship's unusually large portholes. There had been a major news release the day before. It had been about how the Colonials had made it back from their surprise visit back to their home planets. The whole fleet of the Exiles and this new group of humans were all in one place. And they were all in close orbit around the planet.
He had read the news story about the size of the refugee fleet. But seeing over sixty-five interstellar space ships in one place? That had been very hard to believe. Seeing them together was something new entirely.
As he watched the crowded orbitals he realized that that number wasn't quite complete. The reported number of ships did not include the blocky medium sized fighter craft called Raptors, dart shaped Vipers and the fifteen or so Heavy Lifter cargo/passenger ships flying around in the orbital lanes.
The military also had released detailed, over-detailed if you would have asked him, reports about the huge space battle that had been between the Wolverines and Cylons. Outlined in those reports was the trap that the Colonials had laid for their robotic adversaries. Thirteen battleship-sized carries, known to the Colonials as "BaseStars" had been destroyed. With them had died thousands of enemy fighters. The human forces had barely been scratched.
"Barely" being a relative term. Humanity had lost some of its number during the battle. He knew that all too well. Robert barely felt the itch of a tear trickling down his cheek at his own loss from that battle.
As they neared the orbiting space station the traffic got denser, with smaller ships flying between bigger ones at what must have been break-neck speed. The pilot announced in his heavy accent that they would be flying by the Battlestar Galactica. He pointed out that she was just visible on his side of the craft. Robert had to crane his neck to see the massive warship as they went close by. He had looked up some information about her when he'd had some extra time.
Reading about her was one thing, but to see the almost 1500m long warship was amazing. She was not the biggest warship, or even civilian ship, which he had seen. Then again she came in at what must have been over a million tons. She was in the top three of the largest of all ships he had seen in his long career.
She was an amazing sight to see, but she had been wounded. He could clearly see the damaged on her hull, and he knew that she would be in one of the main Drydocks for some time to come. She had borne scars, but would be made whole.
The Station was the center of the SLD- in-Exile's interstellar fleet. It had been started by one of their last Warships, the Cruiser called Buccaneer. She had been stripped of any useful parts to help in the repairing the few other remaining Warships the Wolverines had had in service. Not wanting to waste anything, she had soon stared her new life as the first step in rebuilding the Wolverines' space manufacturing capabilities.
As they had slowly stripped her to keep the other four Warship ships in fighting trim, she had slowly grown into something else. Things were added to the long hull. It was already outfitted with grav decks, life support systems, cargo holds, and docking ports.
For the first major addition they had added two old Invader-class merchant JumpShips. These would never ply the space ways again due to age, damage, or just bad timing. Higher command had determined that that they were no longer worth the effort in being repaired. They had more than enough JumpShips to support the limited inter stellar trade the Wolverines could manage. They had been towed from their final jump points and brought in to form the station.
Nor would they be the last vessels to give up their trade to become parts of the SDLF-In-Exile's naval headquarters The Wolverines added three old Mammoth-class cargo DropShips about fifty years after the two JumpShips had been added to the cruiser hull. These expanded the station still further.
Those three dropships had a proud history within the Wolverine Navy. They had been instrumental in the Clan's ability to escape being wiped out, by the other Clans. The DropShips had been emptied of cargo once the last personnel had moved out. They had gone to help set up a colony on the other side of human-controlled space from the madness of the other Clans. Once that colony had been established the Mammoths were no longer necessary for the SLDF-in-Exile's transport needs, and they had been re-used to expand the station.
The now empty space was refitted to house offices, crew housing, and a good-sized chunk of the Wolverines' space-based manufacturing. Almost all of this effort was to support the two larger dry docks and the two small dropship repair areas. Theoretically its production was send down to the planet as well, but Robert wasn't certain how much actually made it there. Some said that only about thirty-five percent of what was produced on the station was sent down the gravity well.
Supporting the Navy was, after all, the station's primary function. It was to help prepare against the time when the other Clans found them again and tried to wipe them out. It was more space-based industry than a planet with less than a million people on it should ever need, but the SLDF-in-Exile built it anyway. They had fought hard to keep it up and in working order, no matter how much blood it might cost. Their pursuers might find them at any time, and they needed to be ready.
Now all of it was being put into full use for the first time in decades. This was much to the joy of the people who worked on the beast for their whole life time. Their pursuers had never dome, and the expense of maintaining such a station had started to look frivolous. Now, with the arrival of the Colonials and THEIR pursuers production was running at full tilt.
Just as the shuttle was docking to one of the old dropship's hulls Robert was just able to get a glimpse of the Cradle. The Cradle was a new idea brought by the Colonials. In a short time it was made real by the SLDF-in-Exile's Navy. It was a building area that looked more like a spider web than a building slip or dry dock. It resembled an upside-down child's cradle floating space. It had one of the few repair ships that had made it all the way from the Colonial home words setting on top of the mess of metal braces.
In this Cradle there was a DropShip under construction. It was probably one of the New Olympus-class jump carriers which the news had been talking so much about. The Cradle was much smaller than either of the two dry docks that were part of The Station. The thinking behind its use was that the Cradle, and any more like her class would handle the construction or refitting of DropShips that would normally had need a full dry dock in hears past. Now those could concentrate on maintaining the Wolverines' WarShips. Or start construction of new WarShips.
Smaller classes of dropships were being built and/or repaired at the main planeside space port. This was done at one of the main repair bases which had been expanded from its original mission into a more important role for the SLDF. The Colonials might have only been about 50,000 people when they had first found the SLDF, but they were helping to expand the fighting and support ability of Robert's people greatly. Far more than any other group of the same size should have been able to do.
The Heavy Lifter was too large to dock inside a small craft bay. Instead, it had to dock to an escape hatch. One that had been seeing a lot more traffic than it had ever been designed for. The bottleneck of the escape hatch made the unloading of the heavy lifter a slow and laborious process.
Robert had to wait for the other passengers to grab their day bags before he could exit the craft himself. He turned to talk to some of the Colonials that were waiting to unload the cargo. He knew they wanted to practice their English skills, and he was curious about them. He reached into his inner coat pocket and withdrew his copy of a Caprican-to-English dictionary. One of the smaller Colonial looked at him and beat him to the punch.
"Sir, if you do not mind. I would prefer to speak in English," he said. "It will help me with traffic control. The sooner I can past the vocabulary test, the sooner that I can start picking up cargo jobs where they do not have translators on shift. "
He continued. "Now it looks to me that you might have a question or two for me." The Colonial put his hand on the low-slung, holstered sidearm. Robert tensed for a moment, but decided it was not meant to be a threatening move. It was more of a place to put a hand in a more comfortable position. Robert took it as a sign that this man had seen some combat.
"Well, his English is a lot better than my Greek," thought Robert.
"As a matter of fact. I do, if you have the time? I promise they are not personnel questions." He said with a grin. He knew it would help set people at ease. He was a very successful trader.
"Well, we have nothing but Frakking time," replied the stocky Colonial. "It's going to take a while for everyone to exit out the escape hatch on this slug. I'm game. Ask away." He returned a nod to Robert's smile.
"Okay. First, why did we board your ship at the space port and not one of our local short ranged hoppers?" Robert could see the back of the man started to straighten up some, starting to take offense.
"I am not complaining about your skills as a pilot." He clarified. "It was the fastest and easiest trip to the Station that I can remember ever having, in my life. I'm just curious."
Robert gave a disarming smile. He was used to zero-g, but sometimes having your feet planted made for an easier conversation. Also, it was a lot easier being nice without microgravity induced nausea.
"I am going to take over as a JumpShip's captain soon," he said. And I like to ask questions, when I see new things. How did you pick up this job?"
The pilot's eyes got a little larger at the mention of rank. He snapped a little hand salute.
"Sir. I work for the Colonial Government, for now. This little hopper was pulled out of orbit by Admiral Adama when he went back home on that raid. The Colonial Government signed a contract with the spaceport for some extra hard currency. Those funds go to help in the building of our Colony."
"I've been driving one of these things since before the Cylons bombed us out, though only as a second seat. I am waiting for a flight slot to open up in the regular fleet. I was hoping for a Viper seat or maybe one of the new Avars when they come out. "
He grimaced. "I did not make the selections for anything like that. They are very hard spots to get, much less for someone my age. At least I will be getting to learn about Raptors in the next year or so."
The pilot waved his head around to point to his craft. He had cocky smile on his face. "This pays the bills and lets me keep up my required flight hours."
He noticed Robert about to say something. "Before you ask. Yes, I have rehearsed those lines a few times."
The Colonial continued on. "I take it you're being recalled to be a ship's Captain. You said some about a jumping ship? I don't know what that means. I know you Wolverines have different names and titles for what ships do than we do. What does a jumping ship do?"
"It is a JumpShip," Robert corrected. "Two words together without a space. It is how the Star League in Exile transports things through interstellar space."
"We will not be doing anything major, just running a supply ship for the fleet. Or running from base to base outside of our little hidden solar system. You cannot fight a war without beans and bullets, or so they say."
He had no intentions of letting this stranger know which ship he was going to be taking over. OPSEC was ingrained into his soul. Who knew what his peril his mission really might in be if he were to risk a work being leaked out.
"Well just my luck," said the Colonial. "Too bad you are not picking up command on one of the warships. I was going to maybe try talking you into giving me some stick time on of those big fighters you all like to fly around. Oh well. But if you have any cargo that need to be moved let me know. I can bid on the job and fly it the same day. We are always looking for a new way to pay the bills, if you know what I mean."
The talkative pilot passed Robert a small calling card with clipped corners and a Raptor logo in the center.
"Sir," he said, "it looks like the line is almost done. Please be careful when you exit our craft. Sometimes there are floating blobs of liquid in the corridor. You do not want to go through one of those face first."
Robert started to push past to exit the ship. The pilot held a hand to stop him. "Speaking of that, have you heard when they are going to start putting artificial gravity plates on this thing?"
Robert felt a flash of irritation at the abrupt halt. These Colonials did not show much in the way of decorum. He shrugged. "From what I have heard they are stripping some of the stuff off of Colonial ships in the worst condition. I saw a report about it, on the news. I hear that the Star League Warships are getting a lot of grav plates off the ships that Admiral Adama brought back with him on his raid. They'll keep some for research, of course."
"It is just a guess, but I suspect that the Station won't get many of them if at all. That is until they can start making them in real job lots."
Clearly this Colonial planned to keep up this friendly interrogation. If it went on for a lot longer, Robert was concerned that the man would begin to question what brought a "merchant" captain on to a supply run to The Station. Too many questions, and things might get awkward. It was time to depart, and Robert knew something that would end of the conversation.
"I'm sure the new AI WarShp will get assigned quite a few."
Colonials had a blind spot when it came to anything related to artificial intelligence. A blind spot that the Wolverines did not have. Robert supposed that was to be expected. The Colonials, after all, had lost their worlds to the menace that was the Cylons. The Star League had used AI to defend their most important worlds. And when the SLDF's implementation of AI came into contact with the Cylons, the outcome had not ever been in doubt
The technology of the Star League proved superior. And the Colonials had to live with the fact that AI had both destroyed their way of life, and saved their people. Most of them weren't happy with the idea.
Robert saw the easy grin of the Colonial pilot freeze, and then sour.
"Welcome to the Station," said the Colonial, finally moving aside.
Robert walked past. "Thank you," he said.
He stepped through the transport vessel's hatch. He took a moment to re-familiarize himself with the lack of gravity in the corridor, then floated off in the direction of his destination. He kept a wary eye out for uncontrolled masses of liquid as he went.
He had been told ground side that any checked luggage would be dropped off at his cabin when he had checked in at the space port. Normally he would have expected to get his bags upon disembarking the transport. Now he understood why there had been a change in procedure. The hatch could either unload people or cargo, but it could not both things at the same time. To tell the truth. He did not want to wait for his two bags, before he continued with his other tasks for the day.
The transition between shuttle and space station was as strange for him as it was for those people in front of him. Normally the transit from the surface to the station gave him time to get used to microgravity. Even moving between a grav-deck and the rest of a ship had the transition of motion. This was like stepping off an airliner straight into zero-g. It took him a few minutes to get his space legs under him.
He had started floating down the metal hallways of the old dropship. He did see a couple of crew members cleaning up floating liquid. He pulled himself down the corridor on the provided handholds. The smell from the floating blobs was all he needed to motivate him to move a bit faster than was normal. He didn't want to think about where those blobs might have originated.
He knew where he had to go and how to get there. He had checked the schematics for the station on his noteputer while waiting to dock. He wanted to know if the office needed to visit had moved. He was a bit surprised to find that it had indeed moved since his last visit. He had last been there years ago when he had to come here to get his last payments for a job competed. He had lucked out because with all the changes going on the office had only moved by about six hatchways down the same corridor. He made it there in plenty of time, and he was even early for his appointment.
His next surprise was a little more enjoyable. The office had been outfitted with Colonial artificial gravity plates on the floor. A 'look out for gravity' sign was posted outside of the office door. He used one hand to press himself towards the floor before entering. He stopped in front of the door marked "Commander XI: Head External Supply Office" and knocked on the metal door three hard times and waited.
"Enter!" was the response given by a strong voiced woman from inside the room. That voice had no problem penetrating the pressure proof hatch.
Robert entered the room. It was the same small office you came to expect in space. Space inside the hull was valuable, and not to be wasted.
"Commander Xi! Captain Copeland reports!" Robert said, performing as close to a military-perfect salute as he could.
There might be a half a dozen ways the next few minutes might go. Robert didn't know how this would go down, but he wasn't going to let a lack of protocol start things off of the wrong foot.
"Captain Copeland you are early. Good." Commander Xi's voice showed no mirth, and only the barest hint of approval.
The navy Commander was a harsh faced woman who would never be called pretty. She was married to man that Robert had met just before he was let out of the navy. He had never understood what the man had seen in her. Perhaps she wasn't quite so dour at home. Or perhaps it was just that there was someone out there for everyone. They even had three children together.
"Some things never change, Query-Affirmative?" she asked.
"I try Commander," he responded. He saw a disapproving wrinkle appear on her brow. It took him a moment for him to realize his response had been off.
These two would never be friends. She was hardcore discipline, through-and-through. Protocol had never been all that interesting to him. They both respected each other, and that was enough for both of them.
She had been the person in charge all of the "civilian" JumpShips on the last supply run to the Inner Sphere. It was a task force made up of six JumpShips and the Battle Cruiser Rickenbacker. That mission had been a complete success in getting much needed supplies for the SLDF-In-Exile. Indeed, Higher Command had provided them with a wish-list that the expedition had not only manage to fill, but to exceed. No one in the Inner Sphere had been the wiser on who they really were when they returned to their hidden home nebula.
"Will you have a seat, Captain query-affirmative?" She said, as she pointed to a pair of chairs with a side table between them along one wall of the cabin.
As she said that, she was rising from the chair behind her metal desk. More lavish commanders would have replaced it by now, at least with something that had a wooden top. To Xi such extravagance was unbecoming of an officer of the Star League, In-Exile or no.
Robert took the seat, and made a face. "Affirmative Commander, but I am still working on passing the language test. I would appreciate it if you would go light on the query-affirmatives and query-negatives. Teaching an old dog new language tricks takes a while."
The Commander gave a slight head nod at the request. The furrow in her brow deepened a bit, but she made no rejoinder. She took the nearer of the two chairs and passed a noteputer over to her newest subordinate. Robert started review the text on the screen.
She spoke as he read. "The Styx came out of the repair slip yesterday. She was ready before then, but apparently the yard hands do not like letting their toys go early. At least not if they can help it. It also did not help things that she was replaced in her slip by a functioning,, crazy, and battle damaged Caspar drone, of all things. You would be amazed at the stories they used to keep her in the slip."
She sighed and continued. "Let us start on slide one and work through this Captain. Please stop me if I hit something odd to you. Or you have a suggested change."
She looked at Robert, who only nodded his head to let her know that he was listing to her. "Good. You know that the Styx is a Tramp Class JumpShip. She has had some changes since the last time you walked her decks. I do not know if you knew that. I know I did not before my briefing yesterday. She was built by Clan Snow Raven just before we had to leave Clan space. Her lithium-fusion battery and supporting systems were removed and no, you will not be getting them back."
Commander Xi waited for Copeland to say something, and was mildly surprised when all she got was a slight shoulder shrug.
"They needed one for some tests they are running with Colonial jump drives. The space and mass have been replaced by a Colonial jump drive from the Civilian ship called the Cloud 9. She was approximately the same size as your ship, so the refitting went very quickly. That drive has already been inspected and overhauled by both Colonials and our people before they shoehorned it to the Styx. The original plan had us using that drive on the Star Lord Class JumpShip Old Tom because she can carry more dropships.
Commander XI tapped her screen and the imaged changed. "Then they found out the modifications necessary for her to carry a Munchkin would have hurt her ability to hide her identity. Quite badly. A blind man could have tracked her, or so I am told."
"The refit would also have taken too long," she continued. "She would have been in the slips for about three times as long as was hoped for. So we went back to the idea of using the Styx, and I think this will work better."
The imaged changed again, this time to a list of named. "The assigned crews for the ships are all old hands from the other supply runs, but you can review them. If you want any changes to the roster please let me know as soon as you can and we will see what we can do. All of their personnel files are on the secure noteputer I gave you."
She stopped talking when she saw that Robert was studying the notes about the modification of the ship he was going to command on his own computer. He had disabled the connection she had been using for her presentation. When he moved to a different slide she re-enabled the connection and started talking again.
"This is going to be different mission than any other supply runs we have done before. The Styx will be the only mainline Navy ship that is going with you. She has had some of her armaments changed to fit this mission. New barrel sleeves were added to conceal her ER large lasers so that they will just look to be standard old tech large bore weapons. Just please try not to show the longer range abilities unless absolutely necessary. Her point defense systems are old-style, and look like heavy Gatling machine guns. Those should not draw any extra attention. It was decided not to upgrade them with a laser system because they would too hard to keep hidden. We have mostly removed ballistic antimissile systems from main line service, so there were plenty of systems available for you, and the ammunition to feed them."
Robert looked up from the little handheld computer and his face was like it was cut from stone. "Commander. First question, please? Why only send one JumpShip as the interstellar transport for this supply run?"
Robert did not like what he was hearing. He had quickly put his best poker face on as soon as he had read the first slide. He understood that they might not have a WarShip as an escort, this time, but sending a single JumpShip on this supply run that was going to be this long was risky.
Commander XI had been expecting this question. In fact, she had asked the same question herself when the idea had been first presented to her. This also meant that she had more time to find the answer.
"We do not have the extra ships," she said, simply. She had not liked the answer, but it was best to lead with the truth.
"That is not the only change from how we used to run these missions," she said. She leaned forward so that she could make this next part less formal than normal. She needed to have Captain Copeland fully on board to take this mission.
"With the newtech coming into service we will not be doing just one large mission at a time. The new Colonial-style jump drive will make the round trip a lot faster than before. The plan is that you will be making multiple trips for supplies and trading. Your ships will use the normal K-F system while in close to the Inner Sphere. You will use the Colonial system mixed with our computer tech to cut down the round trip travel time to the Inner Sphere."
"The Colonial jump system is a civilian version, so it is not built to withstand the rigors of combat. If it were, we would likely have assigned it to a WarShip. The experts think you will be able to make one twenty light year jump every hour, but recommend only one jump every three to four hours for normal operation. A complete tech report is loaded on your noteputer for you to read later. If you can come up with a reason that this is not workable then I need to know ASAP."
She smiled in a way that was not entirely cheerful "Then I will have you give a detailed briefing on those issues to some very high brass."
Robert was stunned. Of course, he had read up on the Colonials tech. He had even been able to access a few military reports about their capabilities. But he really had not believed that these people had jump drives that could recharge so quickly. He made a note to review all the classified files that he could on their technology now that he was back in the Navy full time. He needed to know what he would be able to do before he might have to do it in an emergency.
His new boss, or should he say his renewed boss, kept talking.
"We have two shakedown cruise missions planned out for you. We need you to do them both before we throw you into the very deep end of the pool."
For the first mission are having you clean up loose items around the local stellar areas. We don't want the Cylons to be able to acquire and reverse engineer our tech. So we have been sending out scouts to look around the nearby stars. This is the first re-survey we have done in about a hundred and fifty years. Not surprisingly, some things were missed or may have changed since the last visit we did to those areas. Now you might remember system LGR 2345?"
Robert did not say anything for a few long seconds as he thought about the question. When he found the information buried deep in his memory, he replied.
"Yes, Commander. That was where we found that loaded Scout-class JumpShip around a GV6 star. It was a dead system with a few gas giants, but nothing of real use to us, if I remember right. We did a quick inspection in-system. We could have taken the dropship, but the JumpShip's drive was dead and it would have requires too much work to retrieve. Also, if I remember right we thought it was a Pirate ship that had broken down and died there. No one wanted a dropship that might have the stigma of being a Pirate vessel, so we just left them there at the jump point."
His voice sounded a bit bitter, and with reason. Robert had been one of the strongest advocates of the Navy to build a mobile Yard ship, and he had been that way for decades. Some thought that his vocal support of his idea was why he had been retired from active service at such a young age. A yard ship would have made recovery of a "lost" JumpShip a hundred times easier than any current method. That still did not mean that recovery of a damaged JumpShip or WarShip with a bad jump drive would be easy, but it would have brought it at least into the realm of possibility. LGR 2345 would have been the perfect testing ground for such a vessel.
Commander XI let another smile come to her face. This was much friendlier. "I had almost forgotten that you had such a good memory. Yes, that is the one. Yes she was a Pirate, there is no doubt now. She had been going by the name of Blood Eye when we found her, but she had apparently been a supply vessel for the Star League at one point. How she ended up working for scum we do not know, or frankly care at this point and time."
Command XI kept the smile on her face. She knew Copeland could be a handful, but he could be scary smart at the same time. "The dropship she is carrying is a Leopard CV Class dropship called Hobgoblin. We have four of those same type of Leos, currently in service with the Navy. Thanks to Colonial technology, we have already changed them all into jump capable light carriers. So far all of the reviews on those modified craft had been very positive, so the value of that system has gone up. We can use that ship in this current war no matter what stigma it might have hung on it."
Xi watched as Copeland nodded his head in agreement. He had uncoupled his computer from hers again, and was poring over the crew manifest.
"If you go to the next slide, you will see that K-F drives and Colonial drives can co-exist without interference between them. A ship equipped with a Colonial jump drive can be in contact with or even carry a vessel with a K-F drive without issue."
The Robert was trying to process that she had said, but it wasn't quite tracking with him yet. A drive equipped ship carrying another drive equipped ship? That meant…
"If you will go to the next slide, please?" asked Commander Xi. She again waited.
What Robert saw slightly modified Titan-class Dropship doing something unnatural to a Triumph-class dropship that had been strapped to the bottom of the arrow-shaped fighter carrier. Robert spent some time looking at the image before he commented on it. There were only about four short paragraphs of data to explain the image.
"I have heard about this, but will it work when Styx tries it with the Scout?"
Robert's eyes were wide and wild. The prospect of the two drives working together was like opening a gift.
"That is what you were thinking about, right? You said that Colonial and Star League K-F jump drives can work together without blowing both ships apart. You have already said that the Styx had one fitted in place of the double jump system. Who tested that little trick? Also what about two K-Fs that are close together? Why not just scrap the Scout in system, snag the dropship and the drive, and be done with it? Why bring it all the way back here?"
Commander Xi's smile turned sly. He had jumped right at the time she had predicted, that he would. "Captain, please go to the next slide. I think that will answer your first question. And for the second, we are not scrapping the Scout. We are going to repair it, and then you are going to sell it on your supply run to the Inner Sphere."
She raised one eyebrow and waited. Once the slide loaded the fireworks started in earnest.
"Oh MY God!" Roberts said, nearly shouting. "Is that the Caspar being carried by a Colonial battleship? So that's how they got it all the way out here!" He looked up to make eye contact with the Commander.
"Well, if they can do it with a 680,000 ton warship we should be able to do with a Scout-class JumpShip," she said. Robert was thinking as fast as he could. He took a deep breath to start asking questions.
Commander Xi held up a hand to stop him.
"I cannot go into all of what makes the SLS Nike special, at this time," she said. "I will say that they ran and reran some tests. I have heard it is somehow connected to the "Bright Star" Auto Scout project. What that is I do not know, yet. The Colonial drive can somehow put out a subatomic field that no had ever thought of. That effect somehow insulates normal jump cores from each other."
"In any event, that is your first shakedown mission. It is the recovery and successful return to this system of both of those craft."
She paused, waiting for him to acknowledge. After a moment Robert nodded, still stunned by the information he had just been given.
"The next mission," she said, "is to a system nine hundred light years from us. It has been designated PHX 3345. This system has three rocks, four gas giants, and an old Merchant class JumpShip. It is older than the Scout, but not significantly so. We have no idea what happened to her, but we want you to grab her. While you are there you are to also pick up the two drop ships connected to her. They are what we think is a Trojan and what is left of a Mule class."
Commander XI sat back deeper in her chair. "After that we will review all of your reports, finish refit of the Styx, and then you can start Phase 2. This all needs to be kept quiet. If some of the more religious of the Colonials find out that we are sending a ship to the Inner Sphere there could be trouble. You will be closer to Earth than any other ship in the fleet. We might say something later, but for right now all information is on a need to know bases, only. Higher Command wants it handled as sensitively as knowledge of us given to someone in the Inner Sphere."
She stopped talking and waited for a reply from the Captain. She would not go farther until he acknowledged her orders.
Robert stopped looking at the image on the handheld computer and made eye contact with his boss. His poker face had long since disappeared, and genuine joy showed on his face.
"Can do!" he said. "It should not be a problem. The old hands should know how to keep their traps shut. Any new people my people can manage. How long do I have to work up my ship and crew before the first shakedown mission?"
Commander Xi stood, straightening her uniform from sitting in the comfortable chair too long. "If you are not ready in twenty one days from today, I will need to know why. We do not want the Cylons finding either of those assets, Captain. If something is wrong with your command, we will have to go with our Plan B. That is to take care of it with firepower. It would be viewed as a waste which we could have avoided. Do not make me look bad, Captain."
Taking the rising Commander as a hint that this meeting is over, the Captain stood up from his chair and started to turn his head towards the door.
"I guess I had better get started," he said. "Commander, you know me. I will succeed if it is at all possible."
He paused for one last question, thinking about his ride to the station.
"Are there any other changes to the rules on small craft rides to outlying ships that I need to know about?"
"No," she replied. "The rules on small craft usage are the same as always."
She seemed puzzled at the question, but seeing that Robert had no further comment she continued.
"Captain Copeland, please message me in fourteen days with an update. Your XO has a training plan already laid out."
She made a motion towards the door. She was a very busy woman with a lot that she had to get done before this mission was allowed to leave the Nebula.
Robert left her office with a speed just below reckless. He had a lot to do too. This was going to be fun.
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