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.

15. Chapter 15 afternoon 18 Dec 3046

Chapter 15

After noon 18 Dec 3046

The Dunianshire system

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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