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.

22. Chapter 22 19 may 3047

Chapter 22

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint.

19 May 3047

Return to Ltzehoe.

Robert was in his command chair as the wave of energy swept over them, and then just as quickly went away. There were very few people that could say that jumping did not bother them in some way. Robert made sure never to loan money to any who had made that statement, in public or in private meetings. Before he could ask, his question was answered. "Sir! We are in the Ltzehoe system, no alarms."

Robert smiled, but he did not undue his safety straps. "That is good to hear. Okay! Tell the engineering department to deploy the sail, whenever they are ready. Please contact local Traffic Control and let them know we are here. And that we will be taking one dropship, the White Rabbit to land at the main space port. I would also like to send a message to Duke Terry, and let her know that we are coming in."

Jules turned and looked at Robert. He leaned a little closer and spoke softly to his friend and commander. "Why just the Blockade Runner? I think it would be better to take all three ships, or maybe the same two vessels that you took last time we stopped by."

Robert looked at his second in command and friend. "You have a point. But with ComStar upset with us? I think our primary cargo hauler needs to be protected as best we can. We have spent a lot of time and effort getting her filled to the deck plates. She is even a little overloaded to make planetfall, with what we transferred over from the White Rabbit. You know if something goes south down there? You are in command. Our people need what we have collected."

He knew Jules did not like thinking about things like that. And he really did not like it, when Robert brought it up again. Robert knew this, about his friend. "Jules, I have planned on only taking one ship down when we got here. That is why I had the last of the autocannons and a few other items moved over to the Rabbit, a while ago. If we sell them, great! But if not? We will just leave them packed down for later."

Jules could see that Robert had put some thought into this move, and he was the commander. "Yes, Sir. Is Jess going with you again?"

Robert did not say anything, at first. He had not planned on taking his head of Intel down to a place they had visited before. It was not likely that they would find any new information, but then again. "Yes, I think that it's a good idea. I don't want someone from back home second guessing me, because of Duke Terry."

That was all the talking that needed to be done. Robert did make sure to visit all of the different shops or divisions on the jumpship. His last stop before boarding the White Rabbit, was the HPG section. That particular department in the jumpship had been working almost none stop. The only time someone was not working on the intercepted messages. It was when they were sleeping, or on a space station for some downtime. They would not know the payoff of their work, for a long time. Right now, all they did was read another person's mail. Robert had noticed that their morale was slipping lower over the last few weeks. There had not been any major breakthroughs after the codes used by MMM had been broken, and they were getting depressed with the lack of perceived progress.

By the time that Robert was settling into a small cabin on the dropship. They had been contacted with the landing clearance. Jess would be bunking in one of the Spartan passenger cabins, with two other women from other ships in the little fleet. Soon they were burning towards the planet at a steady 1 g, which was comfortable for crews and saved the engines from excessive damage. Robert like the feel of his normal weight returning, without needing to use the hamster wheel like gravity deck.

Five days later. The 3,200ton Blockade Runner dropship was descending threw the planet's atmosphere on a long pillar of red and orange plasma fire. As soon as it broke through the high clouds. The sensors told them that the drop port had changed since the last visit. It was not going to be the only dropship on the landing field this time.

A Union, Gazelle, and a small but battered Fury were spread out along the fire blasted landing field. The largest and most capable also looked to be the best maintained dropship in the area. Robert could not help but keep an eye on the Union. When these dropships were picked up on the White Rabbits systems, it had concerned Captain Copeland. That is until the transponders on the drop ships activated when the White Rabbit was still 60,000 feet in the air.

Robert had been remembering the warning that the Com Guards had space assets, when they picked up the first hint of the other dropships. These dropships were from mercenary units, which Copeland had found out were working for the MC a month before Bivouac. They had been all over the news sheets about the raids and counter piracy missions, which they had been conducting for almost a year now.

The Trojan Class dropship was still topping its fuel tanks off, when Duke Terry contacted them to set up a dinner with her that night. She also passed along word that she would like to have a business meeting with Captain Copeland, and up to two escorts. The first meeting was expected, but the last one was strange enough that both Jess and Robert were trying to work out what it might be about. It was just at 6 pm, when a very nonstandard sedan pulled up to the landing legs of the dropship. It was their ride to the dinner at Duke Terry's official residence.

Jess, Robert, and Terry were sitting at a private dinner. They started with small talk, but soon Jess was able to turn it around. She just could not help it. "So, Terry. How are your projects going, since we left?"

The planetary Duke put her fork down, and she was almost beaming at the question. She had been waiting for the right time to do a little bragging to her guest. "They are going well. I don't mind letting you know. That we are up and running on supplying ammunition, new and reloaded rounds for the class five type autocannon. We have been supplying it to the Com Guards for some time now. And now that word has gotten out to the bigger universe. We are a stopping off point for a lot of military units on this end of space, who need ammunition resupply. It has been bringing in more money, than I could have hoped for this time last year. Enough profit has come in so far. That I have been able to get the Militia's Tank Company fully repaired." She was very proud of what she had been able to do in the less than seven months, which had passed.

Robert was smiling. "That is good news, and I'm glad to hear it. How did the Armstrong's we sold you do? And what about that one that the farmer bought off of us. How did that one turn out?

Duke Terry was still smiling. "That deal worked out pretty good. I was able to sell the one, which I had split the price on, to a mech unit that landed a few weeks after you lifted off. I think your referring to the one cannon, which the rancher bought. It turns out, that he had an old 50ton Vedette tank in one of his barns. He got it fixed up, all on his own dime, and when he could get someone out there to work on it. I think the cannon was the last major piece that he needed. Then the crazy old coot drove it threw town, to show it off. It's back at his ranch, now. I will say, that he has been helping with alerts with that thing."

She gave a chuckle. "He has been buying ammunition from the factory, whenever he can afford a ton of it to be delivered out to his place. I think he is setting up his own little stockpile, or he is spending a lot of time on a private weapons range."

Jess noticed that Terry had left something out. She shot a look at Captain Copeland and made eye contact. Robert caught the look, but he did not want to put the local leader in a bind. Robert then raised his eyebrows. "And your little message, when we were getting ready to leave?"

Duke Terry looked around. She had not planned to talk about that right now, but it was not exactly a secret among the locals. In fact, some of her people had taken to calling it Terry's Folly. "It's coming along, slowly. It's hard to get mech parts this far out, on any kind of a regular schedule. The Armstrong was a great help."

Both Jess and Robert smiled a set of toothy grins. Robert bit his lip a little, but he had a little glint in his eyes. "I might be able to help, a little more. That type of project is not that easy of a hobby to find parts for. But over our travels the last few months. I have found some odds and ends, which might be helpful."

Terry was looking at Robert, but her face gave nothing away. She was happy about the mech parts, if she could get them at a good price. The opening was something, which she had hoped to happen. Only she was a little surprised, that it was happening this soon. There was something she wanted to know. Now seemed like a good time to push.

"You have been busy little bees. I will have to see if I can afford, what you were able to pick up. We have heard about some of your travels, out this way over the last few months. A friend of mine happened to be around a month or so ago. She said, that you were trying to raise the tech base for the entire Inner Sphere all by yourself. You were supposed to have been sprinkling real Star League grade cannons and high-end computers to anyone with the cash to get some of them."

She looked down her nose at him, but one corner of her mouth was turned up. "Robert it would have been nice, if you would have offered those to me instead of the older weapons." The tone was light, and she was waiting to hear what he had to say to her comment. She did not think that he had intentionally given her the shaft on that weapons sale.

Robert had been paying attention to not only what she was saying, but how she was saying it. If you did not catch the tone, those words might have sent him running for the door. He put his fork down and looked at the woman levelly in the eyes. "I didn't think you would have enough money, to buy them. I was hoping to get close to a million on each of those weapons, when we started this mission. As it turns out, we were dreaming. We were forced to start scattering out what we had found. If you put too much on the market at one time? The price goes way down, and they cost us a lot. If you're still interested? I do have one left and two of the older style cannons, which I am willing to sell. I wonder how my favorite ComStar crazy will take that bit of news?" He was not planning on telling her about the little visit/meeting with someone connected to that organization.

Terry could not stop a smile from showing on her face. "I was thinking as much, when I heard the second or third report about the Star League tech cannons hitting the local markets. And they were all connected somehow to you. I happen to agree, with you. I could have a few older style cannons or one maybe two of the newer ones, at the higher prices. It would have still been that way, even at the lower price that I heard you were able to pull down. That brings me to the reason for the meeting tomorrow. It would seem, that some of the local mercenary units have heard about you burning in, and what you have done around the MC. They contacted me, as fast as the Rumor Mill turns. Somehow, they found out that I might be able to set up a meeting for them. And that maybe I could put in a good word for them. They want to see if you had anything for sale, weapon wise. I don't think that they are looking for a logistical computer."

She gave a soft chuckle. "I told them, that you might not have anything to sell to them. I get a fee from each of them, just for setting up the meeting. I hope you don't mind." She raised an eyebrow at the man.

Jess snorted loudly, and when all of the eyes at the table turned to her. "That was smart, very smart. You get a little something, even if we did not have what they were hoping that we had. Where you able to tell them, how we like to do transactions?"

Terry looked towards Jess and nodded up and down, but she quickly was back looking at Robert. "I did, but they are short on cash. They do have Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission prepaid cards. Those things are backed by ComStar, so they are as good as cash. As for our favorite pain of a ComStar Demi-Precentor? He has been hiding in his compound since word was sent, that you were back in system. I think he was a little surprised, upset, and maybe a little scared for some reason to find out you had showed up at the jump point." Terry shot a look at Robert and Jess. She was fishing, but she had very good bait.

Jess's mind leaped back to the attack by that pirate dropship. Robert's mind went to the first problem they had run into on this trip. That was the attempted break in, of one of their ships. Robert could see, that Terry had picked up something that was caused by her comment. He did not want Terry to start actively fishing. "We had some issues, on our trip. It was nothing that we couldn't handle, but. I think my good Demi might have been behind most of it, if not all of it. One of these days. I'm going to have to show him, how much we truly appreciate him." Robert could feel the heat in his own tone, but he had meant every word, and then some. He would dearly love to meet up with a certain ComStar man near a dark alley.

The rest of the evening was nice with small talk and news passed between them. Jess was keeping as detailed mental notes as she could, because of the report she was going to write up. Robert knew the rules, about getting what seemed like too close to someone from off planet. It was around midnight, when they were able to make it back to the grounded dropships.

The last thing was to arrange a change of the meeting location. The original meeting area, which Terry had set up was going to be held in one of the meeting rooms at the drop port. Now the meeting would be held at the foot of the White Rabbit, but at the same time. Duke Terry would make sure that everyone would know about the change of location, and that Captain Copeland had three weapons systems for inspection and sale to anyone with the funds.

At noon the next day, a group of a dozen people arrived in a mix bag of transports. About the only thing the transports had in common, was that they all were military grade. The Captain of the White Rabbit and his Cargo Master were handling this sale. The prices were well known by what was reported on some of the industry sheets, about what they had sold other weapons for on the different worlds. Robert was surprised how accurate some of those information sheets were. Granted they were between one and four months old, and they only covered the major world's weapon sales.

The price was set, and after inspection. The Major that was from the Union picked up the KWI ultra, and one each of the Armstrong's went to the two other dropships. Robert and Terry were sitting on some field chairs talking and having some local made cold drinks. Then the Alarms went off all around the drop port, and in the nearby militia buildings. It was not a nice way to interrupt a relaxing day.

Duke Terry's personal communication device started beeping, at almost the same second that the alarms started screaming around them. Robert was lucky the device was on speaker mode, so he could hear what was going on. His people were going to alert status as the military cargo trucks stop loading, and their commanders reached for handheld radios.

A young voice came over the speaker. "Duke Terry! This is Traffic Control. We have a large jumpship coming in on the zenith point! It's still 180 seconds out. All we know is that it's big, carrying a lot of dropships, and it did a good-sized jump before coming here. We do not have a schedule due-in to the Zenith. The next due-in is 24 days out, at best. Even then, she is a merchant class jumper coming in at the Nadir point."

Terry looked up at Robert, and then pushed her button to talk. "Stay on the line and let me know when you have more information. As the worst case? We will use this as a drill for our defense forces."

Robert looked around the drop port, but he did not see anything taking off. His digital tablet was displaying about the same information, which he had heard from port traffic control being giving to the Duke. It was a long three minutes, while they waited for the new visitor to fully arrive. When the voice came back over Terry's device, it was confused.

"Duke, the ComStar people are refusing to leave their compound to go into Plan Able's defensive positions. I now read the jumper, as an Invader class ship. It's going to be a while, before we can have a radio reply. I sent the greeting on auto, as soon as we detected a craft coming into that area. I had it sent as soon as we detected the emergence wave."

This jumpship was on the other side of the system, from the Styx at the Nadir point. Soon all six fighters would be launching into space, if Robert knew Jules at all. "Terry? You don't have any aero fighters, do you?"

Terry, the planetary leader had a look that was a little crest fallen. "No. I'm planning on getting a pair of them. It was going to be as soon as I can afford to have a medium weight mech lance in the field. I just don't have the funds to buy both lances, yet"

Robert could tell that she was frustrated. He reached over and patted her arm. "I know what you mean. I have listed the White Rabbit for sale since day one, but no one had the capital to buy it. Money on that scale, is tight. I know that I almost tapped you, by just selling those few cannons. I hope those parts we traded for, will help you out with your JagerMech." He gave a smile, which was just a bit off. "I know that I will not be able to use that stuff at my next stop."

Terry snorted at Roberts comment. "Robert, 40 tons of meat and 40 tons mix of near cotton and wool to get 20 tons of mixed mech parts? That is a hell of a deal. For me, that is. I saw a life-support system, and a left foot in the crate. Both of those, I know I can use." She also thought that she saw some plates of preformed armor, but she was not going to bring that up.

Robert did not say anything, and he took a fake sip of his drink. He was saved from a social mistake as Terry's speaker started going off again. "Duke, this is Traffic Control. We have an invader class jumpship going by the name of Dawn's Tears. They say that they are just passing through our system, on a mission for the MC government. They will be leaving, as soon as they have charged up there jump drive again. We are not detecting any dropship launches. Would you like me to send the stand down order for our defenses?"

Robert made a sour face. He remembered that there had been a strange Invader with only one dropship that had showed up at Dunianshire. It was strange to have a three-seater only carrying a single dropship, to the locally major shipping center. Terry noticed the face Robert had made, and that was enough for her to decide how she was going to get an answer to that question.

"No but change the alert status to a drill. Also have the military commander make sure that he has a full load of ammunition on his assets. Let me know, if anything changes. But keep a close eye on them. If they launch a dropship? I want to know about it, before we send out the planet wide alert again." She cut the line and tilted her head. "You know something, Robert?" She could read the man, as long as he was not putting on his salesmen persona.

Robert was holding his tongue, then changed his mind. "I was thinking. We had an Invader class jumpship near us at Dunianshire. When we left, after closing our dealings with MMM. They were still charging their drives. I just find it odd, that a ship that large, would just show up here. And so, soon after we got here ourselves. I think we might need to be moving sooner than I had planned, just to be on the safe side." Robert found that he was not looking forward to leaving early.

Terry did not say anything at first. She was surprised at how much she did not want this man to leave. She had not felt like this, in a long time. Her voice cracked a little, when she finally did say something. "I understand. You have to look after your people. Do you know when you might be back out this way?" Terry's heart did a little flutter, again. She had to fight to put a clamp on that. She was the leader of this system. She could not just have a relationship, not after the last three had fallen apart so publicly.

Robert heard her voice crack and he felt something to, but he did not know what it was. Right now, he could not afford to act on it. After all, you did not fall for someone while you were on a secret mission for what was left of the Star League. That was only something you saw in a holovid. "I have no idea. I have to take care of this cargo. I can tell you, that I would like to come back. But I can't promise it, if the cargos don't line up that way." He was falling back onto his cover story, as an interstellar merchant. And the words tasted like ashes, in his mouth.

Terry was about to cross the line, when her aid came walking up to them. "Duke we have a problem, and they need you back at the house."

Terry nodded and rose from the folded chairs. Then she leaned down and planted one right on the lips of Robert. "I hope you come back this way, sailor." She made her voice a little sultry and gave Robert a wink.

Robert watched her walking away, a little weak in the knees. Jess joined him at the field table, and they both watched the autocannons being moved to their new homes. They had stopped rushing around, after the alert was downgraded to a drill. About an hour later. Robert's crew used two large cargo movers, to help load up the two cargo containers. They were from Duke Terry as her payments for the spare parts, which Robert had collected for her out of his own pocket.

By midnight they were lifting off from the drop port, right on time for their announced updated departure time. All of the R and R teams had returned, after reporting tails. Nothing happened to any of the groups, as they walked or road around the town outside of the drop port. But it made the R and R teams uncomfortable, so they had returned. It was kind of hard to rest and relax, if you were being closely watched by strangers.

They were three hours off planet, when Duke Terry sent a highly detailed image of the Invader sitting at the other jump point. You could clearly see that it had a Mammoth class dropship, along with a Union and an Intruder class of dropships on her collars. It was a very detailed image, which showed what looked like three new built ships out of four that were sitting at the jump point. That many new built dropships, was a very rare thing to see this deep into the Periphery. The only thing that would have stood out more, would have been if they were carrying an Overlord or a Vengeance. Then again, a Mammoth was very rare to see out here.

Robert did not send the image to the Styx, via a highly encrypted radio transmission the dropship could. He would wait and give a physical higher resolution copy to the brain team, when he docked in a few days. It was one more piece in a lot larger puzzle, he could feel it. Robert and Jess stayed off of the bridge of the dropship, for the rest of the run back out to the nadir jump point. They had a lot of reports to write, and they wanted to do it while the information was still fresh in their minds.

As soon as the smaller ship had docked to the larger one. The bridge notified Copeland and Jess that they were needed on the jumpship's command center, as soon as they could. This was odd enough that the two went straight to the command center, without taking care of their personal things. As soon as the hatch to the bridge of the Styx opened up. Robert floated in with Jess at his feet, coming as rapidly as she could. Jules's head had snapped around towards the movement of the airtight hatch, as it had started to move.

Robert saw the head snap, toward him. That was odd enough to cause Robert to note and speak, before he was in the deck mounted slippers or his chair. "Okay, XO. I'm here! What's going on?" Robert was breathing heavier than he should, and he made a note to spend more time on the gym in the jumpship.

Jules let out a little breath and floated toward the command chair, which belonged to Captain Copeland. "Sir, it's that jumpship at the Zenith point. We were keeping an eye on it, but it would take a week to get a fighter down there, to put any eyes on them. All we could do was listen to their radio and other transmissions, but that is when things went sideways. We picked up an HPG transmission coming from the jumpship!"

Robert kept floating and he coasted to his chair. "A ship mounted HPG. Besides, our people, and the clans. That leaves only ComStar with that kind of technology. Could one of the Houses have recovered it?"

Robert was playing a little devil's advocate. As soon as his friend had said HPG. His mind went straight to ComStar. They had recovered an HPG on one of two ComStar run Magellan's his people had captured. It would not take long for SLIC to work out the Electronic Signature, from the data the Styx had been able to collect. Robert would bet his next paycheck, that the signature would match the one on file for the Pheidippiles.

Jess was just sliding into a set of deck slippers, beside the commander's chair. This was as much news to her, as it was to the convoy commander. She was just standing opened mouth. Jules made eye contact with her and kept talking to Robert. "I thought of that. And the decoding room said it looks like the same coding system, which they picked up at Dunianshire. It was used by the ComStar station there. They are 90 percent sure of this fact, by looking at the raw data."

Jess looked slowly left and right at the two senior officers. "Dunianshire? The code was there, an Invader class was there. Sir, did you get a good look at the Invader before we left? Does this one look familiar?" Jess passed over the dozen page sized images that Duke Terry had sent them while they had been in transit, but still very close to the planet.

Jules furrowed his brow and look closely at each of the images. He quickly flipped through the images over and over again. "Good images. They must have a nice bit of glass down there, to get something like these. The Invader looks the same, but a lot of them do. She was not sporting any livery that we could see."

He stopped talking and looked at one image, and then passed that one image over to Captain Copeland. "Robert, would you look at this. The Mammoth is in the same location, as it was when we saw it in the last system. Look at where it is on the spine? It would be better for when they deploy the jump sail, if it was on the middle collar not on the aft. You always want to put your smallest dropship on the aft most collar. In an Invader? You would put the smallest dropship on the forward one, because of the hydroponics pods. Then the next smallest dropship would be put on the aft one. That is jumpship operation 101. I remember that the other Invader had the Mammoth on the aft collar, just like this one is doing."

Robert looked around the group, and he could see the shoulders of the people around the bridge. Things had just gone sideways. "Okay. It looks like the robed nuts want to try to follow us home. What is the status of both jump engines?" This was not the first time or even the dozenth time that someone had tried to follow a supply run back to New Circe.

Jules went into briefing mode. "We are ready to jump, as soon as the White Rabbit reports ready to jump and the K-F boom is locked down. The Colonial engine has not been spun up. Our orders say not to use it, when it might be noticed."

Robert looked at his XO, but he did not put any bite into his next words. "Yes, Jules. I just need to know what my options are. How long would it take, after were clear of this system, to have it ready to use again. I also need to know how long, until Mr. Invader is ready to jump again." Robert's mind was working overtime, as he came up with a few ideas on how to ditch this tail.

Jules nodded and turned red a little. He had crossed a line, but it was his job to make sure the orders from higher were carried out. "I think we could have the Colonial engine checked out and ready to go, in five or six hours. That is, if we don't run into any issues that might need to be fixed. The Invader would need another day or two to charge up his K and F, unless he tries a quick charge. There is no way to know if they had done that, are not. The heat plumes are about the only thing that we can look for, to see if they are running their reactor hard to quick charge. We have not seen that, but I would not bet against it one way or the other."

Robert nodded then pitched his voice lower, so that it would not carry. "Okay Jules. This is what we are going to do." Robert talked for a few minutes, and Jules face was white as a sheet when he floated out of the bridge.

Six hours after the blockade runner docked with the Tramp Class jumpship. The Jumpship was gone from this system. It reappeared at a system that was just three stars without any planets going around it. It was a lonely area of space, which was 28 light years from the system Duke Terry was in control of. No humans had called this place home, and only rarely had human eyes seen it from one of its jump points. It was a very quick and ugly seven hours that followed.

The jump sails were not let out. But the crew found a dozen spy devices, and they were dumped into space. The massive fusion engine mounted on the aft part of the jump ship, was brought up to full power. It was going to supply the ship with life sustaining power, and power to the jump engine in what was called a fast charge. While the normal jump engine was being charged. The Colonial built engine was slowly spun up and checked out, by their specialized support staff. It passed all checks, but the last test was to actually use it to move the ship many light years at one time.

7 hours and 22 minutes after the Styx had arrived into this lonely part of space, it was ready. That was 84 hours faster, than it should have been able to leave. It was gone again on another jump across interstellar space. This one jump was exactly 30 light years in distance. When it popped into "normal" space again? It was not near a star, but it was in the deep black of space that was lost between the stars.

Fast charging a jump engine was not something to be taken lightly. All of the Engineer Department on the Jumpship had objected to the order, but they had followed it in the end. Now that they were out of sight from unwanted eyes, the K-F drive was powered down and put into storage mode. The Colonial drive activated two hours after coming into this location in the space between the stars, and the Styx was moved 15 light years again in the blink of an eye.

When the Styx appeared in space again? She was at the Zenith point of a G5 star that was too close to a Brown dwarf, to have any life-giving planets. Again, this system had not one living being, to see what had come to visit them. The Styx would spend the next dozen hours here. This was to let the engineer teams have a chance to check on both types of engines for any damage, that the last day of traveling had given them. If the Colonial drive is cleared for more operations? They will plot out two more jumps, to close out the day's travel plans. If they were not safe? They would stay in this system and work on them. As it turned out? They did not need to fix anything.

They would have covered more distance, before they would need to let the engine cool down for a few hours. They had already moved a longer distance than a jumpship should have been able to do in a day. They had beat the record, by a factor of four times the travel distance. If anyone was following them? They would have to have some technology that the SLDF or the Clans had never heard of, or could find a reference to. It would be even harder for anyone to follow them, after the second day of traveling using just the Colonial made drive.

Notes:

The speed of rumor. Even without using an HPG to spread the word. News of someone selling a cache of high tech or Lostech weapons would spread. It might not even be true, and it still would fly around the whole stellar group.

Industry sheets. Think of them being like Jane's defense Weekly, Airforce Monthly, or Defensionem-The WarBible. There are dozens of them.

Entrance wave, Or E-wave. This Emergence Signature always comes first. It is determined by the total mass of the Jumpship and all attached Dropships. The EMP is detectable over billions of KMs, and I pulled it out of one of the books.

Mercenary board pre-paid cards. Why did the Scout not use them? They are backed by ComStar, just like the review board. The Scout's Captain did not want to leave any breadcrumbs pointing back to ComStar. It was just something I made up.