Chapter 16
By Cliff
Beta and Clean up: Not done
Reviewed by Hotpoint.
19 Dec 3046 Sunrise
The Dunianshire system
It was almost first light, when the first covered or high sided trucks pulled up to the Maru's fire safety line. At first, this caused both ships to go on full alert. That was not a great way to wake everyone up, thinking that an attack force was about to try to breach the ships. It did work to get everyone up and moving with some energy, during the earliest part of the morning. The alert was only stopped, when something came over the intercepted communications from the ROM team. They had said. That it looked like a shipment of food was going in, and the mystery talker asked if anyone else wanted to have some eggs for breakfast. The food delivery was about two hours early.
Robert, the Cargo Master, and the Maru's Captain greeted what had turned out to be food delivery trucks, as soon as the passenger hatch opened. The loads of food items were first inspected and then the power loader mech, that was piloted by Mike, moved the containers into the dropship's cargo bays. This time thanks to the dropship's Captain. The Cargo Master knew how much mass, and how it was coming into his ship. All before it was brought out to the landing pads.
While the food stuffs were being loaded. Lora showed up to the ships. She was very early for the 0900-morning meeting, but she did not make it to the briefing room. She was working with the Cargo Master, when the first load of nonmilitary vehicles showed up to the drop port on a short-trailered truck. The first set of vehicles where re-inspected. They were new built, and they passed the inspection by the mechanically adept personnel on site with ease. The first transporter off loaded some of the 1.5ton Luxury and family style wheeled sedans. They also unloaded some 2 and 2.5ton class of high-end sports cars.
Each of the vehicles was in their own cheap lightweight aluminum frame, which let any of the wheeled vehicles to be stacked one on top of each other without damage. This was to maximize the cargo area in a dropship's limited sized bay. It let them maximize the use of its total volume. The salesman left the day, a very happy person. His boss even wrote up a new office directive, that whenever a cargo dropship landed at any of the drop ports in the local area. A sales representative would make a face to face stop to that pad, to see what they might be interested in.
That was a change of company policy even before all the sales have been done for the day, at least for that one very energetic vender. Six more vehicles were sold that day to this group of visitors from the small car salesman. All of them small battery powered light pickup style trucks. All of them were also used, but they were in what would be called "good condition".
By the end of the day Captain Copeland, the Chief Cargo Master, and the Dropship Captains had transferred enough money to pay for two large intercity hover busses. Each one had massed almost 4tons each. They also picked up four of the odd looking five wheeled sedans, that looked nice and massed about 2.5tons each. Robert picked up six hover sedans that were still new with the plastic still covering the seats and floorboards.
All of those transports were pretty generic and used the same tools, which were easy to come by back home for any repairing that might be needed in the next few years. Most of the minor parts were being handmade already in small shops around the city, and in some of the larger outlying areas on New Circe. With New Circe now under a war footing? All of the major and most of the minor factories were making items to support the war effort. These new items that Robert was picking up would fill what was missing, but still had some use on the planet.
The City of McEvedys was the only major city on New Circe, and it had a well-developed road network. But once you left the city, it was less so. VTOLs were the preferred mode of travel for personnel. But there was a growing network of dirt roads for ground-based movement going all over the place, and to the outlying farms, mines, and fisheries. At least that was the case, until the Colonials landed. Now they had started building their own city a good distance away from anyone else. The Colonials were still working on their own transportation network. The downside was that they did not have anything to use or to make that network, without getting it from the City of McEvedy.
Captain Copeland was thinking, that now there might be a need for more and larger high-speed transporters, and he was willing to take a small risk on the busses. To date all of the support vehicles were wheeled or tracked, that the few factories on New Circe were making. The only things that were built with hover locomotion on New Circe, where some fast battle tanks and Heavy APCs. Wheeled and tracked locomotion were cheaper, used less resources to build, and maintain, and they could cover a more varied terrain types than your average hover craft could.
The clan only had so much production capabilities, and with the added inherent cost of hover craft? This also limited their utility to build new ones for missions, other than combat. The biggest gamble was the two hover racing cars Robert had just bought. Robert knew that there had to be a few viper or fighter jocks that wanted to see who was the fastest on the ground. It was just human nature for people like that.
Sometimes you had to take chances when you were trying to figure out what people might want to buy over a thousand light years, from where they were at the time of the guessing. All of the personnel transports were loaded and secured before dark. Robert was even able to send that message about picking up those dropship engines to Mr. McDonogh. Robert had carefully chosen the wording in that missive. This was going to be the last night on the planet. But no one, but the crews and Lora knew that fact.
Robert made sure that the account with the remainder of the funds raised by the sale of the Scout, would be available when they were not on this planet. This was done after doing a little paperwork, that Lora had to help Robert with. Now it would be available anywhere they might be going in the MC, which had an HPG and or a bank outlet from a list of over a dozen different banks. He would have preferred, to have the money physically with them. But just under ninety million C-bills in cash was not what someone normally carried around, not even by heavily armed dropships. The accounts were set up just like they had been done on the last four or five supply runs. When they left the Inner Sphere? The bank accounts would be closed or simply abandoned, no matter what the remaining balance might be. Sometimes the banks that had held those accounts had gotten a nice amount of digital money, after the allotted time had passed.
Robert gave Lora the list of planets that they would be visiting, to finish filling the cargo bays of the dropships. The list was not totally true, but it was over 90% right. He also let her know that the plan was, that they would be returning to Dunianshire, in about six months or less. The last stop would be to finish selling and completing any last-minute buying, of what they might need to finish this part of the planned mission. Jess and Robert told Lora that they were both looking forward to seeing her and her friend's café again, before going back home. Robert and Lora finished filling out the local required paperwork that ended part of their arrangement. But they officially kept her on as the local Factor for Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale. Robert and Lora made sure that she had the funds to do this job for some time to come, that is if she did not go on a wild spending spree.
The only fleet work that Robert had to do, was when the two dropship commanders forwarded a request for raising the amount of cargo space that each crewmember could use on this mission. When the trip had started, even he had thought that amount of cargo space was too low per person. Before they had been able to use the battle cruiser's massive cargo bays to hold any excess that all of the mission dropships could not carry. That was not an option on this run, and the number had been adjusted down accordingly by high command.
Most of the crewmembers of the cargo dropships would be able to exploit the additional space today. This was the last trip, that they would be able to make before curfew. The personnel were allowed to store only up to 200kg per person in one of the cargo bays. This did not count what they could store in the small living space, in each cabin on the four ships. Robert had no problem raising the personal storage amount. He wrote a message, that authorized the doubling of the weight going all the way up to 1ton per person. They would not get this increase all at once. The ships leadership would use this cargo increase as a reward, to be given out in small increments over the rest of the mission. Robert only increased the total by 25kg today.
The two ships stuck at the jump point had been able to shop at the jump point recharging station, or when they rotated to make landings on other planets. This was good and bad, for those crews stuck so far from a life supporting planet. The good part was that the supporting stations gave those crews some examples, of the trade goods that all crews were known to buy. So, they did not have to guess, too much, on what might sell very well back home.
The bad part was that it took a ship almost a week to make it out that far, and that meant more money to move those items to the point of sale. Whatever was bought out to the end of the line would cost a lot more. Then it did even at the planet side drop port, much less what was sold outside its gates. When the two cargo ships rejoined the jumpship and her escort. Any extra personal cargos would be moved over to them, due to there not being any extra-long-term storage on those two ships that had been stuck out in the black of space.
Each person in the dropship crew had two full eight-hour shifts, that they could spend out on the town enjoying themselves or shopping so far. A lot of the time they were doing both tasks at once, always in small groups. Tonight, would be the first time to partake on this planet some off time for very few people. Jess and Robert would be able to enjoy some free time and not be "on task". They planned to make the most of it. Jess and Robert stuck together as a team for the night. They were also joined by two other rather large crewmembers for the night. The large pair fell in beside them as soon as they were more than 100 meters from the dropship.
The four of them, were the last of the crewmembers that made it back on board the two dropships that night. It was right at midnight local time, when the hatches were closed and locked. It took only thirty minutes to have a head count complete, and have it turned into each of the two ship's Captains. The duty shifts on each dropship kept an eye on the maybe ComStar Team, that they felt was watching them.
Through the night the ships were prepared for lift off, as last-minute items were packed down for the morning flight. Some were permanently packed down and would not be looked at again by their owners, till they got back to their home system. Nothing needed to be done on the outside of the ships, which was not different from what the ships had done every night, since they had landed on the planet. Fuel had been loaded on the first day, that they had landed. This was normal for all most all of the ships in this age of combat, raids, and wars that could start at any second you were at a drop port. You never wanted to be caught on the ground with dry fuel tanks, if something happened outside of the dropship's Captains' control.
When the sun rose and started to cast bright light beams, and shadows were starting to be cast by the giant ships all around the flat dropship landing field. Captain Copeland entered the bridge of the White Rabbit, and not the Lisbon Maru. The ship's Captain had been informed, when the mission commander had entered the ships not long after the sun had started to rise. This had been talked about before, so they were not surprise with his appearance on the ship or on the bridge. The commander would plan to land on a planet by riding on the Mule. But when it came to lifting off the planet, again? He would take command from the more expendable Blockade Runner.
Robert took a side seat, that had been set up for him days before. He did a few hand motions and he was safely strapped into the fixed chair. Now that he was ready. He had a set script, that he had to perform. "Captain, are both ships ready to lift?" Asked the senior officer, to the youngest of the ship's Captains.
The younger man turned to report to his boss. He had been in dropship command for almost ten years, but this was a command far from home. And that did not count, that this was a Resupply Mission to support all of his people. Plus, it would be written about in books, at least in a few years. "Sir, both ships report ready to lift at your command. What are your orders, sir?"
"Good, Captain. Please contact Traffic Control and let them know. That we would like to pay any remaining port fees and lift off, when they have open skies." Now it was a waiting game, and the security clock was ticking. Robert was also wondering how long it would take for the two groups, that they knew about, were watching them and found out about the change of plans.
The person at the communication station was sitting at their station. Then in a flash, he puts his hand to his right ear peace. He said something unintelligible by the rest of the bridge, and then he was shaking his head. He turned around to face his Captain with a bewildered look on his face. "Sir! Traffic Control said that all ground port and parking fees at the jump point have been paid in full, by MMM. They want to know if everything is okay. They have an open launch window for both of our dropships. It is for a 1g burn all the way to the jump point. It opens at 1030, if we want to take it. What should I tell them?" The communication person was eye locked on his Captain, but he was trying hard not to look at the convoy commander.
The dropship's Captain had no such qualms, and looked back at the commander "Sir, I think they like us. What should our reply be, about the time of launch?"
Robert just raised an eyebrow. The dropship's Captain had given Robert leave, to order one of his crewmembers directly. Then with a nod to the dropship's Captain. Robert turned a little so that he could see who he was about to give orders to, without interference.
"Comms, just tell them. That we have a good load, and we do not want to pick this place clean. We don't want to drive up the local prices, too much. Let them know that the 1030 launch time is great, and we will take it. Also tell them we look forward to doing business with them again, in the future." The Captain of the dropship looked back to Captain Copeland, who gave the other man a slight nod of approval. Now the younger man can carry on with the plan and use the information, that had been given to him by the convoy commander.
The communication station operator nodded and did as he had been instructed, by the mission commander. Not two minutes later, he was turning in his seat again, to face the senior officers. "Sir, they said have a safe trip. We are cleared to launch in 2 hours 56 minutes, and that if we need to abort the launch to let them know." This time the communications station crewman did not turn to face the most senior officer on the bridge. He was "only" looking at the dropship's commander.
Now the younger Dropship commander was in his element. He did not have to worry about his supervisor. This was old hat to him, and his crews. "Comm, forward the launching information to the Lisbon Maru. Then set the clock and start the flight countdown. We are out of here ladies and gentlemen."
The orders went out quickly and confidently to both SLDF in Exile dropships. Commander Copeland was watching and taking mental notes. They had not pulled the names for the crews, for these four ships out of a hat. They each were some of the best at their jobs, that the Star League in Exile had and could follow the rules set down for this mission. In no time, the countdown clock reached zero on the digital display. Then it was up to the launch computers on each of the dropships to do their jobs. Massive valves opened and cold fuel flowed into massive turbo pumps the size of a battlemech. Those would feed the fuel into the fusion engines at hundreds of gallons per second. The volatile fuel was put to the flame and it reacted as predicted.
Outside the egg-shaped ships, a pair of massive white clouds erupted, and it was quickly followed with red flames coming out of the massive engines. The ships started to move in a pre-planned arrangement, only a few seconds after the flame was visible to the outsiders. Each ship fired off their main engines and quickly went to full power from the "idle" power setting. They started to rise on the fusion powered flames and smoke, even before they were up to the full power mode. The pair of ships left the ground a few seconds apart, just the way that the computers had calculated. That was so that the disturbed atmosphere would not interfere with the other dropships, that were launching close by the pair of leaving ships. They rose higher and higher into the sky on a flame wand cast by the massive engine's nozzles on each of the two ships.
As the two dropships rose into the sky. They were being watched by many eyes, some happy, some sad, and some that were spitting mad. One group had just started packing up there hide site, without too much issue after seen the ships lift off. Since the target of their planned robbery had just moved out of range, for them to be relieved of whatever money and other valuables that they might have had. That was just part of the life as a high stakes' robbery crew. Sometimes you scored, and sometimes you missed. Those were just the breaks of the job, and that was why they had other high pay off targets working at the same time. The team had a few other projects that might give them a payday in a month or so, if they did not likewise slip away.
The other watching group had one person on the roof of the warehouse, and they were taking a less philosophical approach to the day's surprising events. The ROM agent was watching the two ships leave threw his mix of cyber enhanced vision, and a high-tech version of a Scout optics scope. The scope was one that someone from the old SLDF SAS would have recognized. You could almost hear him grinding his teeth, on the next floor of the building that he was standing on.
They had planned to snatch a group of the crewmembers, that very night at the café many of the crew like to visit. They would have preferred to have to take just one of the crewmembers, but they never moved in groups of smaller than two people. Most times those targeted groups were larger than that. Most were made up of up to a dozen people. There didn't seem like a reason to why some groups were smaller and that others were larger. The whole team was going to be pulled off the overwatch duty and help with the snatching of one of the groups.
"So much for that plan," thought the man with no name.
The plan had been to contact the senior officer and offer to trade the captured crewmembers back, for two of the computer systems that higher command was so hot about. The idea had been to see which dropship the computers would have been pulled off, to pay the supposed ransoms. It was thought that the computers were on the Mule class ship. They were not sure, because the Trojan class was listed as being open for a sales offer. It did not make since, to the ROM team. That they would store something that valuable on an asset they planned to sell off, if someone came up with enough money.
After the leadership group had left the dropships, to pay the ransom. The ROM direct action team would attack and take or destroy, the computers in the cargo bay of the targeted dropship. All they needed to have done was wait until it was dark, and then take the unlucky crewmembers. The crewmen would have been dead before the contact was first made to the dropships, but those were the breaks for a hostage. That had been the plan, anyway. It was a sound plan, and it was one that this team had used before. It had always gotten good, for the ROM team, results.
As the two ships moved out of visual range, even with the high-tech equipment. The ROM agent was still watching his escaping targets. Captain Robert Copeland did not know it, but he now had two enemies within ComStar. One of them was still in Ltzehoe and had only the power to report back to higher members within ComStar. He kind of knew about or would have expected, to have that one. Robert also had helped that one in his career, by proving that Copeland Supply salvage and Resale was not a small threat to some of ComStar's operations.
Now a ROM Special Forces agent did not like him, and the whole team would very much like to end Robert's life. This was only the second planet, that they had landed on so far. And now SLiE had two enemies, granted they were in the same organization. It was not a good start to the resupply mission, and they did not know half of it yet. What you do not know about, can kill you.
The heads of both of the MMM security teams were watching the dropship rise, and the criminal team packing up their things. They were as surprised as the others, when the dropships had fired up their engines. They also had "known" that the dropships were not leaving for a few more days. The leader of one of the MMM teams was thinking that maybe the short notice launch, was not so short notice for the dropship's crew. The two security teams were just happy, that nothing had happened. They had gotten a lot of overtime, and everyone was going home to their families safe, sound, and no hospital stays. What more could a law enforcement team wish for?
Later that night the ROM agent was writing the report, which was going to have to go back to the head of ComStar operation in the entire MC. He was currently living on Canopus. All of the files and all of the raw data that they had collected would be "boxed" up and sent back to higher command. It was not going to do his career any good, no matter how he tried to spin it or what wordsmithing he used to make his team look better. There was something off about these Lost Tech Prospectors, but he could not put his finger on it just yet. They were too good, and because he did not believe in good luck for the infidels. That made part of his mind itch. By Blake's Blood he needed to find out what was going on with them. His mind went over why, they were not the normal trash haulers.
First, they had detected the first attempt to breach their ships. And now they had done this short notice launch, back to the safety of deep space. The Agent did not believe it could have happened this way. Something or someone had to have interfered in his mission. He swore on Blake's Beard. He would find out what had happened.
"I will find these merchants, and I will get even with them." He swore to himself and to Blake again. The head of the ROM special action team had a long list of old and new contacts, and he was going to use them.
He was subconsciously going down a list of mercenaries and just plain Pirates, which might do the job that he needed them to do for him. Paying them would be a problem. He was pretty sure that he could phrase it in such a way. That his boss would cover any startup, operational, and post mission expense. Even if he did not? There were other ways to pay for something like this, that he knew about. There were other factions within ComStar, that might cover any cost he might incurred. That is, if he phrased it just right. He would also need the backing of a few key people, that could whisper into the right ears back on Terra.
The two dropships pulled away from the busy planet on the long pillars of plasma flames produced from their massive engines. They could have accelerated faster, but it would have stressed the crew and ships for no reason. Running hotter would have also shortened the length of time between needing an overhaul for those engines, and they were a long way from home. It was a many day trip back out to the jump point. They had to first work on accelerating and then decelerating, to come to a stop at the jump point without distressing the crew or ships.
The time was used by the crews of both ships to search through each piece of cargo, that had been loaded onto each ship. This was to see if anything had been loaded onto the ship, that should not have been loaded. This had not always been the standard operational procedures for supply runs. It had started after a tracker had been found hidden amongst the new cargo, by accident. That had been three supply runs ago, and it caused some issues back home when it was found by an unloading crew. It was later assessed that the tracker had come from ComStar. They did not have any proof, but that made the most sense to the SLIC.
Now, after the ships had left a planet or other cargo center. A second dropship or jumpship would use their passive systems to detect any unwanted transmitters, or other tracking devices emissions that might be coming from the other ships. During the run to this jump point, two items were found on the Maru. One was in the food, and another one had been hidden in a body panel on one of the hover sedans.
Only one device was found on the White Rabbit. This was such a surprise? That they ran the search twice more, before accepting the first results. That one device had been hidden in a package, that one of the crewmembers had bought to take home with him. All of the devices were crushed and dumped out of an airlock after the ships had done the flip to decelerate, but while they were still in Zero G. The pair of ships had yet to start slowing down for their rondevu with the jumpship for the ride out of this system.
Those hunks of metal and other stuff would beat the two dropships to the jump point, by days. The only difference was that the dropships would come to a stop at the jump point. Those hunks of expensive electronics would keep on going, with all the speed, that they had picked up from the free ride provided by the two visiting dropships. While the two ships were slowing down to dock with the jumpship Styx. The jumpship was getting the last of the cargo, that the larger ship had paid for. They just did not have the areas to store anything for long term or for longer than a week. The two dropships slowed and then docked on the two open collars with almost military precision.
Over the next day cargo had to be moved around to the two cargo carriers and inspected by many different sets of eyes. It was a lot of hard work, but it was done without a complaint by a single crewmember. About eight hours, after that cargo transfer had been completed. The SLS Styx started to pull in and refold her huge solar sail. After it was pulled in and secured within the larger ship? She was ready for the jump to another solar system.
On the long jumpship, the command crew was finishing the last few items that needed to be done. The Convoy commander was back on the bridge of his ship. The Styx had not played any games with the Traffic Control Center. They just had given an update after the dropships had cleared the planet's orbital areas.
"Communications, please contact the Recharging Station and let them know we are ready to jump. Tell them that we would like to start a two hour count down, as soon as possible." Directed Captain Copeland. It was time to make the next stop on this mission. He was thinking that this next one would be fun.
The jumpships communication station did as she was told, but quickly had to update the Captain. "Sir! They set an information request. They would like to know where our next stop is going to be. They said it's for their records. They also say that it's for safety, in case we miss-jump or something like that." This was called out by the communication station operator currently on shift.
Jules looked over at Robert and waited to see what the other man would say. They could play this several ways. Jules had a bet, with himself, on what path the fleet commander might take. Robert chose the easiest path, and it happened to also be the truth. Jules lost this mental bet and all he could do, was to give a slight smile.
"Tell them that we are going to Cate's Hold to sight see and take some time off." That was true. In the past, when they had been asked by traffic control. They would be told one thing, but the SLDF ship would jump somewhere else and change their names. If the Styx received a reputation of telling a Traffic Control where they were going? It would be that much of a shock, when they changed up their pattern.
The Enlisted communication operator gave out a soft chuckle, before giving the reply from Captain Copeland to the large space station. She was stills smiling when she was done. "Sir, they say. That we are good to go, for a two hour count down. All dropships and jumpships are clear of our jump field. They report that there are no new jumpships due in for another three days, but another dropship is due at the jump point in four hours. They want an update, if we abort the jump due to the arriving dropship into the danger area. They also say good luck, make sure we look for the old Star League base while we are there. And not to buy any old Star League maps, once we get in system."
Notes:
TRO Vehicle Annex Revised. Yes, I had just bought that TRO when I first wrote this. Does that give you an idea of how long I have been thinking about this?
Blake's Wrath/Light of Mankind or Delta/Epsilon. They are a heavy hitter group. You should not want to make them notice you. That is unless you have a lot of firepower and highly trained people that know how to use it.
Not telling Lora everything: SLIC would still be very careful about operational security or opsec. Lora cannot tell anyone, what she does not know in the first place.
The Trackers: I just thought they would be fun to think about, and then find a way to find them on dropships and jumpships. I thought about how to get rid of them and saw a show where they put a bug in a glass of water. The story just kind of jump out at me, and I wrote it down.
Why so little action? I like building things up. You have to make someone very mad at you, if they are going to risk a few million dollars of equipment to hurt you. That is the price for a low-end lance. How mad do they have to be at you, if they want to risk a jumpship or even a small dropship? That risk would quickly jump to half a billion C-bills at risk. Half a billion might not seem that much to ComStar or a major house, but it would take a mover and a shaker to risk that kind of capital out of their discretionary budget. Or they will have to be very mad at you. Like Wayne Waco mad.