Chapter 7

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up By Nathan

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

16 Oct 3046

New Circe system

The mass of metal materialized at the jump point in a flash of energy. Moments later, a charm sounded from the communications console. Robert noted with satisfaction that automated systems around New Circe were already starting to ping his flotilla a few seconds after they entered the system.

The Colonial drive did not give that much of an "entrance wave" compared to a normal drive, but that did not mean that there was not something there. You just needed to know what to look for. That, and you had to be looking in the right direction. If all of the stars were aligned AND you were looking in the right direction AND you had the right equipment AND if you had the right software you would have about a thirty to forty-five second warning before a ship was in your teeth. It was better than nothing, but not but not by much. It also was a lot shorter than the Star League Navy was used to having to work with. It was also more time than the Colonials Navy was used to having at all.

With the electronic handshakes done, the jumpship had to endure a quick flyby of a pair of Visigoths and an armed Colonial Fleet Raptor jump fighter. They had been sent out to double check the Styx's identity as well as those of her consorts. It was only after the flybys were done that they were given permission to launch their dropships.

Captain Copeland was doubtful that the fighters or the crew on the transfer station had noticed that they had already cut the hulk of a jumpship loose from the Styx before the first flyby. He had taken the liberty because he had known he could be identified, and because the process would take long enough that the flyby would be over before the two Jumpships were able to fully detach.

The Styx kept an eye on the two fighters while the Merchant jumpship was slowly pushed towards the transfer Station by the tug. Robert watched them on the sensor plot, but found his eyes drawn to the response craft. There was something odd about the way the fighters were acting, but he could not put his figure on what was going on just yet.

Ten minutes after the jumpship had returned to New Circe, a second Raptor was seen leaving the modified hulk of a jumpship and jump away. Someone on the station near the planet must have thought that the Styx returning early was worth some bit of fuel to be used. Robert knew that it should have been at least a couple of hours between one of those craft should be approaching. Someone must be in a real hurry.

Even with a Raptor courier being sent, he had a few minutes. He busied himself working on the relief rotation that would allow his crew some down-time. Minutes later, a Raptor jumped in next to the transit station and transmitted a message to the jumpship on tight beam.

The unusual use of the courier had caught the crew's attention as well. A silence slowly fell over the bridge as everyone waited for the communication to transfer and decrypt. After a moment or two a chime once again sounded from the communications console.

"Sir," said the CommTech on duty. "We are picking a message coming from the new Raptor. It is addressed to you, by name, and the Navigation Sections. The message is complete. It was a text burst, only."

Robert frowned. This was not the normal way to do business. A classified order should have been marked to the attention of the captain of the ship, not to him by name. A strange message addressed to a specific person from command was unusual enough that it would spark the rumor mill among the crew. Such messages could be bad for discipline. Already he could feel the tension coming from his bridge crew.

He thought for a moment about how to handle such a thing. At the very least he would need to be clear who the message was actually from, lest the crew get the wrong impression. They might think such a message might from law enforcement. Worse yet, it might be a notification from an intelligence service. Robert though neither was likely, but speculation about either might cause trouble. After a moment, he made his decision. He turned to the XO.

"Review the message header, please" he said. "Who is it from?"

The XO started reading the message. He and Robert were close enough to have few secrets. Also, he was closely trusted by the crew. In trusting in him, Robert was also trusting in them. He could at least read the navigation message and choose whether or not to share it.

"Robert?" Said the XO, "I have orders signed from Admiral Franks. We are to park our salvage near the Transfer Station in a stable orbit within the next two hours. Then we are to re-dock all of our dropships and use the "standard" jump engine to go to a set of coordinates. We are cleared to move at your convenience and contact with traffic control had been cleared."

Jules continued reading, and his eye widened a bit as he reviewed the numbers contained within the message. He could not keep the wonder out of his voice as he kept talking. "Sir? I need to run the numbers, but I think these are for the L1 point."

Giving clearance and the coordinates to jump to the L1 pirate point was something, which was very rare, and never transmitted to another ship at one of the two main jump points. In the event that you were given clearance to that location you still were supposed to use your built-in computers to work out the coordinates for the current location of the L1. The fact that Admiral Franks was not even waiting for the Styx to do her own calculations was...odd.

New Circe's L1 point was highly restricted. Only SLDF WarShips were normally given clearance to transit the point. This was mostly because the L1 point was the closet place that a K-F drive could jump to the SLDFs only full-service Capital Shipyard . It would be hard to believe that those coordinates had been given to just a cargo carrying jumpship, even if it was a listed member of the active Navy.

The Styx had used the Colonial drive for her final transit into the New Circe System, and had kept the K-F drive charged while they made their final set of jumps. Once they had done the proper calculations and safety checks, the ship disappeared from the system again, only to re-appear almost immediately.

When the Styx emerged she was immediately greeted by IFF queries, navigational beacons and, because of her proximity to the vital shipyard, warnings that various weapons systems were being brought to bear. Robert had a brief and terrifying though that those weapons systems might choose to open fire before the CommTech transmitted the Styx's credentials, but not disaster was forthcoming. Mere seconds after the ship's arrival Robert and his crew began receiving orders.

All of the dropship crews were allowed to land on the planet and take a much appreciated ten days of vacation once liberty was declared by those ships' captains. Robert thought it notable that both ships were being allowed to land, rather than having to ferry their liberty crews down by small craft. Higher Command knew it would need to give those crews some downtime before they could head out again. It seemed determined to have as fast a turnaround as possible.

The Styx need to have all her systems checked out, again. The nearly unprecedented series of jumps that she had undergone would have taken a regular JumpShip months, if not years to complete. There was a great deal to be learned from the logs, and a great deal of maintenance to be done, and it all had to be done quickly. Robert knew that they would be heading out on the mission they had all been training for before long.

The last part of the messages was for Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. It was passed along that they needed to meet Commander Xi at noon the next day. Both knew what the meeting would likely be regarding. Both knew that they would have even less liberty than their crews.

Captain Copeland ordered a complete bow to stern ship check out of his ship. He wanted both style of jump engines torn down again, with all inspection redone, before putting the back together. Things had gone well on the test runs, but the next trip would be the real deal.

The quartermaster of the jumpship was happy to be this close to the planet. It would cut down immensely on the time it would take to replace all the food, spare parts, and fuel that had been used up over the last month of operations. Every bit of time they could scrub from the turnaround phase would be useful.

The Styx had places to be.

17 Oct 3046

The Station in orbit over New Circe

This time the meeting was not in Commander Xi office, but one of the conference rooms of the main space support facility of the Station. It was not the largest briefing room on the Station, but it was very nice one. It was not over crowded with people, but it was over crowed by rank.

In fact, there were only five people present in the meeting room. Lord Proctor Jennifer Vaun, Admiral Franks, Commander Xi, Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. Each of the people, had in their power to veto the mission at any time. This would be the last meeting held to decide what the end state of this phase of the mission would be.

Commander XI would be in over-all command of this mission, but she was not the first one to speak about it. She was sitting with her hand crossed on the table top. Instead it was Admiral Franks who opened the meeting.

"The purpose of this meeting is to finalize the planning for a resupply run to the Inner Sphere," he said. "This run is planned to be different than any other of the runs. It is intended that this will be the first of many accelerated supply runs, made possible through the use of the new Colonial-style FTL drive. I want to underline that the procedures we have put in place to protect the League in Exile and New Circe in particular are more important than ever. I urge all of you to review those procedures before the departure of the Styx and her crew. This includes those of us that will not be departing on the trip itself."

The statement was necessary, but nearly redundant. Of the five in the room, all had been a party to the details of previous runs, and knew why the procedures were in place. Protocol dictated that these people be reminded of their obligations, but none had forgotten them.

"The jumpship that we have selected to make this run is the SLS Styx, a Tramp-class vessel. We have taken out the lithium-fusion battery system from the Styx, and we have replaced it with a Colonial tech jump drive. She will have the use of both types of jump drives for this mission. The standard tech jump drive was maintained so that she still has a perfectly conventional jump signature when she is operating in Inner Sphere space. This has reduced her cargo carrying capacity down to two hundred tons for the jumpship. That is far too small for a mission, which is this risky to be worthwhile." The Fleet Admiral made a show of flipping a page in front of him, before he started talking again. When no one asked a question, he started up again.

"The next ship that has been picked for this mission, is the Leopard CV Class dropship, Hobgoblin. This is the same ship Captain Copeland and his crew brought it back on their first shakedown cruise. She has been modified with a Colonial-style jump drive similar to others of her type in SLDF Naval Service."

He regarded Robert and Lt. Vaun directly.

"I want to underline to you that while this drive in functional, it was salvaged from a vessel that was not. Admiral Adama chose to downrate the vessel after it failed a spot inspection. Rather badly from what I have heard. We have checked over the drive to ensure that it is in working order, but I wanted you to know the drive's origin so that you will be careful with it."

The head of SLDF Navy looked around, and he had a sour look on his face. "Intelligence thinks he knew that this ship's Captain had been falsifying records for some time now. We think it was to keep drawing money from his government as an active vessel, and it went right into the ship commander's pocket. The "failure" might have been a punishment and an announcement to the rest of the fleet's ship commanders that still have active vessels. Intelligence thinks that he wanted to make a point, and so publicly sold the engine for us to use. It was rather a nice bit of publicity for them, I must say"

Admiral Franks had a sly smile on his face and the sour looked was gone like a puff of smoke in the wind. "I might have to add, that bit of punishment to my own playbook."

He shook his head, then returned to the subject at hand.

"Outwardly the engines do not change the looks of the Hobgoblin. She looks a little fatter, but well within the variation caused by patchwork repairs similar to those found in the Inner Sphere. The weapons, armor, and layout are all the same as a stock Leopard CV. Despite that, we would prefer that no one get too close a look at her, just in case."

"She is going to be the escort for this mission. She will be carrying the same fighters she was found with by Captain Copeland. We were able to refurbish them. This has the effect that it will lower the startup cost of this mission. It only cost us a few spare parts, and some fuel to train up the pilots and support crews on how to use those ancient machines." Again, the Admiral stopped talking and waited for questions. It also gave time for the recorders to do their jobs in other rooms.

"All have been fully repaired, so that will give you the 25ton F-10 Cheetah, a lance of 50ton LTN-g15 Lighting, and your heavy hitter will be a 100ton STU K5 Stuka. A lot of the parts had to be handmade, but we had the manpower and the money to do the job in time. We were happy not to have to risk using fighters not known within the Inner Sphere, but you may be short on spares for them."

"They are now up to the tech level and appearance that we saw being used by the House Militaries on our last visit. The 65ton IRN-SD1 Ironsides has also been repaired to the same weapons tech level as the rest of squadron. Some in the Fleet, wanted to keep the hull for deployment in the fleet. That is after we took the time and budget hit in upgrading it to IRN-SD1b." This statement was for the recorders and for anyone who reviewed the public record of this meeting.

Franks gives a slight chuckle, which was very heartfelt. "The Fleet Quartemaster vetoed that plan. It was deemed that it would be too expensive to keep a one-off fighter in serviceable condition for any length of time. So, she is going with you. Your 6th fighter is an 80ton Vulcan VLC-5N. It is one of the two combat craft that we bought off of some refugees. They were the ones that the Pegasus picked up last month. The other Vulcan they had is going to be part of your cargo to sell. If you dump both of those fighters before you get back? It would save a lot of trouble for the fleet in the long term."

Franks shot a side look at Commander Xi. "No one wants to be assigned to fly anything that might be connected to Pirates or the Usurper. The threat of doing assigning someone to one of those craft has caused two incidents already. And those are just the ones that I know of. I have had to put out official statement about the use of those two craft."

A round of soft laughter went around the room. Pilots were superstitious creatures, and ones with long memories. The Vulcan had been the backbone of the Rim Worlds military that had shattered the Star League so long ago. It was seen as a symbol of evil, and no pilot of the SLDF Navy would set out to pilot one. Most would prefer to be disposessed. Some would rather die.

"If you will look at the Annex A, you will see a list of dropships available for this mission. Any ship that is selected must be acceptable to all the people in the room." "Now this is where it was going to be interesting," thought Admiral Franks.

Franks had already come up with who and what should be going on the mission, only one selection of vessels could match the mission's end goals. He and Commander XI had spent hours working on this problem, but he had to let the others at least look at it.

The odds were that any craft he and she had picked out would be the ones going on the mission. Then again surprises had happened in the past. That was one of the reasons that they had to have this meeting in the first place.

Captain Copeland looked down at the list of ships that could fall under his command in the very near future. It was a very impressive list of assets to have to go through. it contained every dropship that was in the System, and a few that weren't but could be retrieved by the Navy in time to participate. There were even marked if they were fully operational, partial operational or in need of repair yard time.

Robert kept his face like stone. "Talk about having the pick of the litter," he thought to himself.

The ships listed were not just fleet ships, but every dropship that even just might be flight worthy. Captain Copeland noticed something right off the bat and spoke for the first time to table full of power players.

"As much as I would like to have the extra firepower. I think any mech or other fighter carrier should not go on the mission. We want to look like traders, not a raiding force. I also think we should take off both remaining mission-capable Mammoth class heavy cargo ships, at least for the first run. They are too big, and I think that they would draw to much unwanted attention to us. For what it is worth, I doubt we would be able to completely fill them anyway."

Robert had been thinking about this mission while doing the shakedown cruisers. By now he had determined what he thought he needed to pull this mission off. His eye did linger on the Richard III a "Recovered" CargoKing class ship. And skipped right over it.

Even as Captain Copeland was speaking, lines started to appear on each of the member's briefing tablets, as ships were eliminated from the list. They all had agreed with him, and now the list was only about one third as long, as it was at the start. Those were the easy ships to cut off the master list.

Lt Vaun was he next to say something, to the group. "With a trip this short I think we can eliminate the Passenger Liners, like the Buccaneer class and her near sisters. They also do have a good deal of cargo space, for the size. But they are too thin on armor and weapons for this type of mission, and we are not needing that many extra personnel. We might get shot at. They might get damaged. They may be needed later, if the threat level is lower than we think it will be. For now we should play it safe."

Commander Xi looked at the list and she had a look like she had eaten some bad fish when her eyes went lower on the list. It was all an act, but few would know this. "We have two Trojan-class ships, counting the one you just brought in with you. It could be repaired in a few weeks, but that would only give you about 3,000 tons of cargo per ship. They have above average weapons and armor for the time, but they are very weak in lift capacity. As it is, the one Trojan we have on hand is rarely used, since we pulled it off one of the four ComStar ships we have collected. It is also quite unpopular with crews."

A few nods went around the table. Similar to the Vulcan, the Trojan was known primarily in opposition to the Star League, rather than in its defense. Giving such a vessel the honor of this mission would be distasteful to many.

Captain Copeland scratched at his chin idly. Something he had thought about during the first stage of the Styx's testing occurred to him. The Trojan might not be popular, but it might just be what this trip needed. The vessel had been built as a disguised combat ship, intended for blockade running. On this trip such a thing might come in handy.

"If we took two of our Mules it would give us a lot of lift, but again they are very light on self-defense. How about we take one of the Trojans, and one of the Mules?"

He continued, thinking out loud. "I'd like to keep the crews of the White Skies and the Hard Hat, if possible. Both crews are familiar with the Styx and her capabilities at this point, and both performed admirably under stressful conditions. Both the Mule and the Trojan and spheroid, so neither crew should require much time to adjust."

No one said anything for a moment. Robert seemed not to notice. Another thought struck him, and he turned to the others.

"Speaking of cargo lifting capability. Do we have a shopping list compiled yet?" Robert looked around the room and he could feel Jules start to straighten his back some.

"We have." Everyone turned to look at the Lord Protector and waited for her to finish her statement. She was the Lord Protector, and the leader of their people. It was not normal for her to have a speaking role in this, but these were new times.

"With the war production fully on in all of our factories, we are running out of or wearing out a lot of things, Captain. Agriculture for one is starting to suffer. We need you to find any type of Industrialmechs, large and small machine tools, construction, and farming equipment of almost any type. The last can be wheeled, tracked, or even hover, for all I care. We have been or will be helping in the feeding of 50,000 extra people for a year, at least. And that it has drained or long-term storage food at an alarming rate. We also would like to improve the genetic diversity in our food animals."

She passed a piece of paper with that was filled from top to bottom with hand written notes towards Captain Copeland. There was a more, a lot more detailed list that would be put into a digital from. This note was something she or her staff had been working on for a while.

"These are the specifics of what is needed. It is a more varied list than normal for a supply run." Normally the SLDF wanted to be very standardized when it went looking to acquire, so that it would make there logistic easier in the long term.

Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun both looked at the list for the very first time. Commander Xi picked up where the Lord Proctor left off after only about half a minute. While the two man reviewed the list that she had both seen and help draw up over what seemed like a year ago.

"We can also use any consumer goods, any kind of civilian vehicles, and any spare fusion engines you can find. Any one of those things you bring in is one we do not have to take the time to build on our own. Any military DropShip hull would be appreciated. We can use more large cargo carriers, even with the extra ships the Colonials have. They do not need to have working engines or engines at all. Even hulks will do. We can refit existing vessels but at the moment we cannot build new hulls. If they cannot be refit, they can be repurposed to support space-based industry."

"We can also use more of the 1ton medium class laser systems. We would prefer the Martell or Magna styles, but any will work for what we need. We would like to have another hundred or so in storage, and for combat replacements." She could tell that this was causing some confusion with the last statement, so she went into more detail after a few seconds lull of dead air.

"We have sold our existing stock to the Colonials for their Viper MK VII upgrades. Our newer tech lasers of that class saved weight by removing a lot of the integral energy storage. This provided a better energy surge into those weapons than the older style weapons. The current generation of Colonial Vipers just cannot support the energy budget for the newer tech weapons. It has been decided at the strategic level that it's not worth building or modifying an existing factory to make a few dozen a month, at best, of this weapon. We will buy what we need to refit existing craft, then focus on fixing the power problem."

"As always. If you see any war machines that look interesting please do your best to pick them up, or get as much detailed information as you can about them. We noticed on the last run that the technological collapse may have slowed down, but we need to know more. We would like to know why the slide has stopped, and if it has, if it started to climb back up again."

"We picked up rumors that a Star League Library Core might have been found on Helm in Marik space. We need to find out if it is true that secrets of the League may be held by mercenaries." This last was said with a sneer. The word "mercenaries' might simply have been "scum".

She continued. "Also, on the list are some Jumpship parts. We would like you to make a big show of looking for the jumpship parts, we have listed on the master list. It will be very useful in maintaining your cover story, and we could always use them down the road."

Robert was stunned. This was an extensive list, and a very detailed one at that. When he had made the last run the list had been nothing like this. He assumed that as before he would be given some discretion to look for other things not on the list. The face that the list was so extensive made him doubt that.

One thought that keep ringing in his head as Lord Protector Vaun kept going and going. Finally, he had to ask.

"This is a hell of a list of cargos and finding 10,000 tons of it is going to cost a lot. I thought we were going to take some of the Tomahawks, Tridents, or maybe some Sabers that they found on the Kaga."

Robert shot a look over to Jules and Commander Xi while he was talking. "But, I read just before I came over that the other day. It was decided that all of them were staying on the books and assigned primary pilots. And the fleet wanted more of them built, not have the numbers thinned down. Also, why do you want wheeled or tracked framing equipment? I would think that we would want to use the more efficient farming mechs with all of the new land that is being prepared? All of that now is going to cost. So now I must ask. What am I going to use for resources to fund this little shopping trip?" He was just starting to rethink about wanting one of the Mammoths.

Commander Xi looked at both Robert and Jules. She could not wait until she told then what they were going to carrying. So, with only what would be called an evil grin, she let the cat out of the bag for the first time to a larger audience. The sell list had been one of the closest guarded secrets within the Star League in Exile. Most of the time it would not be released to the general population, until well after the fleet had left the system. That way had been found to work the best and cause the least amount of issue both publicly and in the political rings.

"The reason we need the normal and very low tech wheeled and tracked farm equipment, is that the Colonials need a lot of it to get them off of the algae vat food. At least they are going to need it if they want to grow their own food in the near future. You are right that industrial scale farming mechs are more efficient on large and medium scale operations. But the average Colonial tends to freak out around anything that even remotely looks like a biped metal Cylon. That is why we would like you to pick them up. It is for trade to the munchkins, when they start asking from them in larger numbers."

Commander XI had a slight smile on her face. "Now, as for what you will be trading? For the first mission. We are going to load a hundred ultra-class 5 auto cannons and a few dozen tons of ammunition for them. They are mainly Kawabata Weapons Industries, or as you might know them, KWI built. We identified a few other manufactures from before the Exodus, but they are almost identical. It would be nice if there were more."

She noticed that Robert was about to raise an objection, and held up a hand to forestall him.

"I know, Captain. The production of the Class 5 Ultra LBXs, or HODs, is going full bore. But it still has not meet the demand for them for the deployed forces. Only about five percent of the monthly output is going to replacing the older Ultra 5s used by ground units. The rest is being put on to Warships, upgrading dropships, and then they are going into the aerofighters."

Commander Xi shot the Lord Protector a look. "The Quartermaster Department has directed that for every two ultras still in the field, one must be kept in storage, as a potential replacement in case of combat loss or some other issue. As more HODs make it to the ground forces, more Ultras will be available for this mission for you to trade. The ones we are loading now are the oldest and most worn out of the whole lot. Some may date as far back as the fall of the Star League, and that should help you sell them. We are keeping the best weapons in case something goes wrong with the new ones still in the field. Some of the ones you're taking might not even be able to fire at the maximum rate without jamming."

She gave a soft chuckle at her last comment and gave a slight shrug. She did not care if the weapon blew up in their next use. At least, not as long as it was not her people who got hurt when those weapons went critical while firing.

"We are still working on ideas on how you can demo the weapons safely. We are looking at setting up a towed system of some kind to carry and firing one of the weapons, similar to an infantry field gun. This is all new ground for all of us, also. We have never traded Star League level weapons tech to anyone before. We knew on the last run that all of the Age of War weapons were used. Looks like you will have another first to put in your private log book, Captain."

Robert pulled out his personal Noteputer and started working on the screen. He searched within his files for a few moments, not realizing that the rest of the meeting had turned to look at him.. It was just long enough for every powerful person in the room to notice what he was doing. Just before something was said, he found what he was looking for.

"Here we go! That is what I was looking for."

Robert looked up and realized, that what he had been doing had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the meeting. He turned a little red at being notice, by his boss, and his bosses' boss.

He smiled sheepishly "I have a little hobby. I like taking images of weapons of war, no matter how old or who built them. On my last visit to the City of McEvedy. I stopped by the Rusty yard. I don't know if you all know about it, but there are eighteen of the Rustys left that have not been fully recycled yet. When the ultra-autocannon were brought up I remembered this."

Robert passed around his personnel noteputer with an image of a mech on the flat, low-glare screen. "Rustys" were mechs that the Star League in Exile had captured from various groups over the years while they had been in hiding. Those groups were often using such outdated equipment that they did not have much use to the Wolverine's defense force. They were left to rust in a common yard, until someone came up with an idea of what to do with one of them. Then one would be pulled out, and the idea tried out on what had been a useless hunk of metal. At one time, there had been enough wrecked "Rusties" to fill an entire whole reinforced Mech Battalion.

On the screen was a battle damaged STN-3K Sentinel. It was missing its arm mounted cannon and had defiantly seen better days, even before it had been captured by the SLDF. "I was thinking instead of using up resources to make a one-off weapons carriage that we would have to tow around every time we needed to do a show and tell. Why don't we just fix this one? I don't think it will need to be rebuilt into anything like combat worthy machine. We should be able to get away with it only being able to walk, aim, and shoot the one weapon in the right general direction. I think it would fit better with the story of finding a small lost Star League depot. Which was marked as a key part of the cover story on the other missions."

Commander Xi looked at the image and scratched one side of her nose. It was a tell few people knew that showed when she was in deep thought. She took a few moments, and then spoke without looking around the room. She only passed the computer pad to the next person that sat at the briefing table after she started to speak.

"I do not know if it well be cheaper, but it will be quicker. I agree it will fit better with the cover story we have used in the past. On the other mission, we had carried whole machines and parts of other mechs as trade items. It would not be a break in the protocols. "

All the other participants of the meeting nodded their heads in agreement with her statement. Xi accepted the endorsements.

"Okay," she said. "I will cut the orders and have it added to the cargo list. I will make sure it is shipped up when it is done. I will also make sure they know it is a rush job. The Repair crews will probably have to farm out the work to one of the hobby shops in the city. It will cost more, but those type of places work faster than most repair and support units on a one-off machine. Besides, it will be historically accurate if it is inspected by someone." Now Xi looked around the table and she was given the okay to make her suggestion into an approved order.

Xi returned to her little computer. "You also will be taking the last ten of the junk Class 5 autocannons we still have in storage. Those are the last of those ancient weapons on planet, by the way."

Xi stopped talking and let her head tilt to one side and she looked levelly at Robert. "Well, that does not count the five or six, which are being used in the R&D labs."

Franks had to fight down a snicker. "I saw their latest work a few days ago. If they can get those glitches work out, and can get the specialty rounds to work it might be a surprise to anyone we hit with them. The idea of an armor piercing rounds or precision guided rounds is almost too good to be true. Right now it is nowhere close to true."

Xi waited for her boss to stopped talking, then resumed. "We also have crates and crates of computers that are outdated here. They should be high end systems to those Barbarians on the Periphery. I cannot believe I forgot about those. I will have to order a re-inventory of all depots, which we have scattered around, to see what else they might be holding that has fallen off the inventory list."

Lt Vaun was looking at his notes, punching some number keys on his own device and he was not happy. It was showing on his face. And Robert was wondering if he was going to give voice to what was bothering him. He did.

"Even with the markup for the lostech items that is still not going to be that much capital to pick up the things, we need on the list we have been given. At least not in any quantity or getting anywhere near the numbers that we need. Much less trying to get some of the big ticket or capital items."

He made on odd, "I ate a very bad lemon" face. Being the father of the Lord Protector, he a very broad access to information.

"We cannot take any more weapons, because we need them. All of our production capacity is focused on the war effort. So, we do not have much to trade with on such a short notice supply run. By my numbers, we are at just under a thousand tons of cargo going out system."

On the last mission they had spent months making older tech weapons to take to the Inner Sphere for trading. That was something they had not been able to do for this mission. The Wolverines were on a war footing, and there was no desire to stop making weapons for defense to instead make them for trade.

Admiral Franks had a look on his face like he wanted to space tape the Lt's mouth shut.

"Do not worry Lt." he said, nearly clipping his words. "We have thought of that, even before you were asked to take the Styx on her first shakedown run. Back on the supply run in 2995 the fleet took the last Scout Class jumpship the Navy had with them. It was sold for funds. Those funds were what they used on different planets to acquire the needed supplies. We know what it brought then, and JumpShips have not gotten less rare in that time."

Now the Fleet commander gave his own sly smile. "We have been repairing the Scout that you recovered since you have been gone. All the repairs should be done in another week or so. When it is done? It will be towed out to the Styx from the one of the slips. You will take it under tow and move it out system. You will jump it close to Magistracy of Canopus. Then a skeleton crew will man the Scout until you contact one of the Families. They can act as an intermediary for the sale for the hunk of junk. That should give you enough capital to buy whatever you can or is one both the open and grey market."

He made a face, like you would give to a teenager asking a dumb question. "Why do you think we changed the name?"

Robert had been about to inform Vaun of the intention to sell the Scout when Franks had begun talking. At the new information both Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun raised their voices and had a look like a goat eating AstroTurf on their faces. They spoke at the same down and in perfect sync with each of the other men. "What change of name?"

Commander Xi looked down the table to Admiral Frank a little embarrassed. "Sir, we have not released that information to anybody, yet."

She looked back across the table to the mission commander. "Captain Copeland, if you would look at slide 15. You will see that we have renamed the Scout as part of the cover story we have used before."

Robert and Jules did as they were asked and read the very slight change to the story they knew by heart. Both he and his XO laughed out loud, when the saw the information. Robert turned and looked at the fleet Admiral. "Well, now that makes a lot of sense. So, after we return with the first load of cargo we will then pick up that Merchant we dragged back. And start all over again right? Is this going to be a case of Rinse, Lather, and Repeat?" asked Robert.

Jules was looking at the metal clad ceiling. "If I remember right, a Scout class jumpship in working order is something like 200 or 300 million SL bills. Now that would be some capital to buy a few local trinkets." Jules had a funny little grin on his face. He was not thinking about moving the Merchant class ship. He knew that he would have time for that later.

Admiral Franks was red faced, from his neck to his forehead. It was not often he put his foot in his mouth, and he hated himself every time it happened. "I am sorry Captain Copeland and Lt Vaun. "

He looked at each man in turn and gave a slight nod of his head. "I had thought you had already been brought in on all pieces of information related to this mission. Yes, you are right about the second run. Assuming things go well, we will proceed with a mission to sell the other JumpShip after you return. That is also why the list of jumpship parts you will look for are for a Merchant Class. It we can find another jumpship out here we will make a third run and dump it also. We will keep our eyes and ears open. There are doubtless dozens of other hulks out there that we can salvage. Be especially vigilant looking for Cylons."

Commander Xi tries to divert the subject away from the Admiral. "Speaking of pay, let us keep going. If we look on slide 22? This is the breakdown of the rules for the bonus system which has been approved by SLDF and civilian legal."

It was dangerous work being on the resupply fleet for years far from home. A bonus system had been drawn up after only a few missions. It was done as a means, to keep people volunteering for the dangerous work. The numbers normally were on the massive side. This time they were still larger.

"As you both know, there is no danger pay in the SLDF. But after all cost of the mission has been covered any profit will be split on the Share system, which is published to the people in the resupply fleet. This information is listed as sensitive." Commander Xi stopped to take a drink for a glass of water on the table in front of her. Robert found himself oddly fixated on it.

Having a real glass on in space was still a new thing for everyone to live with. To Robert's eyes. It still was very strange to see in real life. It used to be that you could only drink from plastic squeeze bulbs. They just made everything taste a bit off. You would get used to it after time in space, but every time you came back it made things different.

"Ahhh, the joys of new tech." Commander XI thought as she put the open topped glass back down on the desk top.

"When you return, all of the cargo will be off loaded and inspected. The military and the government will have first pick on anything brought back by your mission. A far price will be assessed and credited to the balance on the cost of setting up and running the supply mission to date. If the senior officer of the convoy does not agree with the assessed value of a given cargo he may appeal to the court system, up to thirty days after their assessment is given. Everything else will be collected, inventoried, and placed on the "Gbids network" at the total discretion of my office. From there, anyone and everyone can bid on what is returned. All proceeds will be put to the cost of the mission or paid to the crews using the share system after the mission goes into the black." When they had been only doing one large mission this had been a steady source of income for many of the crew members and their families for a few years afterwards.

"To add a little extra punch for the crew the Senior Officer on each jumpship also will have a budget equal to 10,000 SL-script in various denominations, which will be his petty cash for the mission. Sums of these funds can be given to the crew as rewards, at the senior officer's discretion."

Robert nodded. This money was for use by the crew, and why most of them deployed in the first place. Shares might be what made a fortune for anyone who crewed a supply mission, but petty cash would be how they lived from day to day while in the Inner Sphere.

Admiral Franks looked around the table before he spoke. "We need to have a recorded vote on this to be added to the official record."

Every person in the meeting agreed to the rules, and the Lord Protector signed off on the official vote. It was now legal and was binding to the Government, by the crews. After the meeting broke up. Robert and Jules walked/floated around Station. It was going to be the last visit to the space station, for a length of time that was not even discussed in the meeting. The mission would return when they were ready or for about a dozen listed reasons in their orders.

They both wanted to see the Caspar that was calling herself Nike. They wanted to see if it was a she, or just a machine. When they made it to the area that they had been told was her dock, the Caspar was not there. They were told that the massive warship had changed location. She had been moved now that the trial had been completed.

The person at the desk had been amazed she had won the trial. She was now in dock slip Number One again. So, the two men made their way all the way around the station to a viewing area that over looked Drydock 1. Robert found himself irritated that Nike had been moved to a slip closer to the meeting that he had just been in. He might have been spared the trip.

She was big, but at 680,000 tons she was the third smallest ship in the active fleet of the Star League in Exile. The Fleet was the largest it had been since Clan Wolverine stopped running, after they had fled clan space all those years ago. The fleet could now deploy four Battleship class ships, two of those being Colonial made.

The Navy also had one Battle Cruiser, one Destroyer-sized Caspar (The Nike herself), one Destroyer/Light Carrier and a Fleet Carrier. The carrier should be battle ready in a few months. This was aside from the DropShips that had been made jump-capable with the new Colonial technology. The SLDF fleet still would not be large enough to take on one of the clan fleets head-to head. But it was a start, and the fleet was bigger than any single planet could claim for a defense force since the last days of the Star League on Terra.

As the two officers were watching the massive warship, the scarred section of the armor shell was being removed. It looked like the crews had started at the bow and were working their way aft. They looked to be removing all of the old and damaged armor plate that protected the old ship. There was not that much of the original armor plate had been left before they had started working on her. That was enough to show them, that she had not been hiding on the edges of explored space. After all of these years without access to a dockyard and fights that she had been through. It had added to the damage she showed with her battered hull. It marked her as a fighter, and Robert and Jules could relate to that.

As they were watching a second, smaller crane pulled out a large multi ton missile, and as they watched more were being removed from the warship. At this distance, they could not tell what class those missiles coming off their ship were. It was normal to remove explosive ordnance for SLDF warships, when they were going under a major refit or some along those line was about to start. The Nike dated back to the Star League, and those missiles likely did as well. From the way the crew was handling them, they were probably nuclear tipped anti-warship weapons. Robert shuddered at the destructive power any of those missiles contained.

The two men were not alone in the observation area. There were six very large armed clan Wolverine infantry soldiers that looked to be guarding one woman at the other end of the room. It was the woman that was watching the work on the self-aware warship, which drew the two men's attention after half an hour of watching the Station's crew work on the warship. The soldiers were there to protect her. The chains were there to protect everyone else, but from what?

Robert tried not look at the woman in chains. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen outside of an entertainment show. When he and Jules left the viewing area it came to him, about who the woman might be. She must have been one of the Cylon prisoners. That was the only way to explain the guard force. Why would a machine watch a machine being worked on? It was strange, very strange indeed. He would come back to his scene in his mind many times over the next few years. It would be the hallmark image of the world he now lived in being strange.