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.

35. Chapter 35 30 Sept 3048

Chapter 35

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

30 Sept 3048

Dunianshire close orbit pirate point

Adept Lee Angeni was breathing very hard, as he and the dropship that was carrying him, made a high G burn from the pirate point to the target that was showing up on his tracking device. There were three dropships in the attack force that the Adept belong to. There was an aerodyne Condor with 18 light tanks and a dozen highly trained infantry platoons. The second dropship was an almost 9000 ton fully upgraded Triumph class Aerodyne dropship. The big hitter and Adepts Lee Angeni's command ship? It was a rare Fortress class dropship that had been upgraded with late Star League weapons, sometime before the fall of the old Star League. This was a lot of firepower, but one that was felt was merited for this mission. This was due to what higher command knew, what the target had done before to very capable assets that reported to ROM. This was not meant to be a fare fight. It was to be an execution of a group that had proven to be a little too troublesome for ComStar as a whole and ROM in particular.

The attack force was made up of all Com Guards personnel that had been assigned to ROM, both on the ground and in the air around the dropships. The equipment was all generic in make and model. They also were all painted in a pattern that was connected to a known local pirate group. The only real advantage his unit had over the locals? It was that each unit, be it a tank or mech. All had at least one late Star League era bit of weapons technology to use. The downside? It was that anyone that died on this mission, to teach this up and coming merchant company, would be known as nothing more than a bunch of pirates by the locals. The families back home would just get a message from ComStar, that their family member had died in the service of ComStar and some made up cover story about how they had died. It would not be the first time for this to happen to a member of this unit or one of the units like it spread out across the length and breadth of the Inner Sphere. The attack on NAIS, being also on this scale by a unit similar to today's operation.

Adept Angeni was looking at the trackers on his side mounted display. They were all located in one general area of the planet, but in two different locations. This location had been chosen for the attack, because all three dropships were known to land and to trade on this planet many times in the past. With the only two areas giving off location beacon signals, maybe only two of the targeted dropships had touched down on this planet. If they stuck to their updated SOP, that the ROM had paid to get a pair of copies of? It would be the command dropship and the Leopard CV as an escort, if only one ship was needed on a planet. Sometimes the full cargo ship would stay at the jump point. The last report did say that they were turning down any and all items for sale, so the cargo carrier could be still at the jump point filled with cargo.

That adherence to a predictable SOP would be there undoing. He had no idea what was planned for the Tramp class, that carried the troublemakers to this system, and he did not care. What he did not know, was that nothing was planned to happen to the Tramp class ship called the Styx. Higher command hoped that they would be able to track it easier, if the command team was cut down and the jumpship was left on its own.

A dozen hours after jumping into the system. All three attacking dropships were on the ground and troops were rushing off of them or had been dropped out of the mech doors before touching down. Now that they were closer, they could tell that one of the two target areas held two targets and not one. Adept Angeni had smiled when they were still an hour out and this new information had come in. He had quickly re-sent the primary battle plan to all of his officers. He would be able to take out all three of the threat dropships. That would be a nice boon for his career

The two prime targets were in a covered building like a warehouse, and the other larger target was in an open pit like area almost 2kms away. Adept Angeni thought that one pit must be hiding the Mule class dropship. The Leopard and newly acquired Union cargo ship must be behind the large sliding doors of the building ahead of the main attack force. This facility was just large enough to cover a ship of that size. That was why there were only two separate locations given back signals to his specialized equipment in his mech. The light tanks were deploying, to keep the local militia and corporate security troops from getting in the way of Blake's wrath.

Adept Angeni used the mech hands with three other members of his Level II, and the four of them ripped the doors of the warehouse open. The other two members of this level II were in a pair of HBK-4G's Hunchbacks. They rushed into the forced opening as soon as the opening was wide enough, their massive autocannons would be extremely deadly in the confined areas of the building. The two Hunchbacks stopped 20 feet into the building like they had hit a brick wall. They were joined by the rest of the command Level II mechs, as soon as they had let go of the massive hangar doors. The supporting heavy tanks were coming as quickly as they could behind the command unit.

As soon as the Adept had entered the warehouse/hangar, and his sensors were clear of the blocking caused by the metal of the building. He could feel something was wrong. There was a single dropship in the hangar. Instead of a well-maintained Leopard class CV with rounded lines? He saw a very battle damaged mech carrier that looked to have more holes than complete craft. That was not right for the target of the raid. And the second dropship was missing totally. He was still getting two alert areas on his system, one on each side of the massive building. Only there was nothing in those locations that his Mech could pick up.

The Adept was frozen in this spot of ferro-concrete. Something was wrong, and the lack of first-hand combat experience showed when he did not react quicker to the changing situation. He was like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming high-speed hover cargo truck. He only reacted, when the motion alarm went off saying something was behind him. It was not an enemy unit, but his heavy tank support was about to enter the hangar.

That 30 second window of him watching his heavy tanks deploy into the hangar, was his death knell. Heavy weapons fire started coming in from three directions all at once. Laser, PPC, Autocannon, and missiles started impacting all around his mech and the rest of his command. His radio was screaming at him at the same time that the weapons fire impacted into his mech. The ComStar unit going after the nearby large subsurface launch pit was also taking a lot of heavy fire. He was already losing personnel by the heartbeat, and it was only going to get worse as time went on.

Adept Angeni tried to keep his voice calm, but it came over the air waves as forced, and that did not help with the situation. "All units pull back to the ships. We are blown. Tanks pull back 400 meters, and then provide cover for the mechs. Team two, pull back as best you can. When you're outside the pit? We will add your forces to commands and help with the leapfrogging back to our rides." It was a plan. But was it a good plan?

The Adept started using his Grand Dragon to fire at the weapons flashes to his front. He was slowly walking backwards as he tried to take out whoever was firing at him. By the time that the mechs had pulled out of the hangar? Both of the short-ranged modified Hunchbacks were down, and not moving. What he did not know, was that the real firepower? It was waiting for them outside of the hard to replace dropship construction and repair hangar. All of the MMM security was at the drop port tonight, and they were pouring fire into the now fully exposed attack force.

Adept Angeni had been in a simulation, almost exactly like this one during the training for this mission. It did not take him long to know what to do, to get his unit out of this debacle. The enemy he was facing, according to the data coming from the rest of the unit, was a mix force. They were mostly made up of 75ton Marauders and 55ton Shadow Hawks. Most of his unit was out massed and outgunned by the firepower coming at them. He needed speed to win this battle. "All units fall back to the dropship at your best speed, this is a trap!" Angeni had realized that a leapfrog retreat was only going to keep them exposed to enemy fire longer.

The ComStar commander was about to add some more direction, to maybe bring order out of chaos that his attack had fallen into. Then a twin pair of class ten autocannon rounds fired from a pair of hidden Urbamechs found his cockpit, before he could. He was dead before the mech hit the ground. Without any leadership the attack force fell back, as best they could. Retreat under fire, is one of the top five hardest maneuvers to live through. Without an experience leader to help with the rough spots? It was impossible.

When the Grand Dragon fell, it almost was like a signal had been sent out to this planet's defenders. A lance of ER PPC packing Clints came charging out of the landing pit backed up by two lances of SRM spraying Wasps. LTV-4's, Hezers, and Vedette tanks fell under their firepower or kicks from the speeding mechs. The Manticores and Bulldogs type heavy tanks were harder to bring down. The Shadow Hawks went to double rate fire and the heavy guns ran into the teeth of enemy fire. The Heavy mechs responded with PPC, ER PPC's, and double rate cannon fire. Now that the enemy was in the open, the defenders were less worried about damaging the infrastructure. They only had to ride the rising heat caused by their weapons, and the heat caused by the defender's weapons. Now ComStar knew how badly they were outnumbered by the local defenders.

The updated heavy mechs were taking out any mech that was in range of them. They also were to make sure any fast machine was slowed down enough for the slower mechs to handle later. The Shadow hawks would pore fire into the now slower light weight mechs until they stopped moving. That worked will with the light mechs like the Bugs and Jenners. The pair of Black Jacks took longer to bring down. The only speed bump had been the mixed lance of Warhammers and Thunderbolts. This heavy metal slowed the closing rate of the Security mechs onto the fleeing ComStar unit. This delay was used to the invaders advantage.

The enemy battle line looked to be holding when a demon rose out of one of the dropships support tunnels. The massive machine was behind the enemy battle line. The enemy machines were throwing bolts of purple plasma in the form of PPC blast at the planet's defenders. The great machine was not the stealthiest mech ever made. Its designer had wanted a mech that would intimidate anyone on the battlefield, and they had not cared about stealth or being sneaky.

The pilot of the machine could have fired the mech's weapons, but she wanted to do something that she had always wanted to do while she had been waiting in the showroom. The great death headed machine reached out with both hands. Faster than you could blink, the right arm and hand had pulled off the cockpit of the nearest Warhammer. While the right hand was starting to grip the enemy cockpit, the left hand reached out and grabbed the cockpit of a Thunderbolt. In a show of skill, the two cockpits were pulled up and off of their mounts. The left hand was just a little less skilled and the cockpit was smashed into the shoulder mounted long ranged missile launcher before coming off of the mount. When the remaining lance turned to see the two cockpits raised over the Atlas's head in its massive war fist. They broke like glass. Maybe it was the timely bolt of lightning back lighting the scene that helped, or it could have been the pilots cackling laugh coming out of speakers set to 11 that was the final push to get the other two mechs to run.

The three grounded dropships started providing fire support to what remained of the attack force. The single Long Tom was quickly run out of its limited supply of ready ammunition, and it did little to slow down the defender's counterattack. It was not the lightest and fastest of the combat force that had been dropped on the planet. This had given the defenders time to apply their heavy firepower. Not a mech, infantrymen, or heavy tank was among the group that made it under the protective fire of those three upgraded dropships. As quickly as they could, those survivors were loaded on whatever dropship was closest to the combat vehicle. Even before it was safe, the ships were lighting their fires to get away from this planet.

A dozen light and medium aero fighters were not a match for three alert dropships combined firepower. In a few minutes. The three dropships, now a lot lighter, were loaded and burning to orbit at the maximum setting that they could. The three dropships were attacked all along the way to the Invader jumpship, by a rotation of fighters coming up from the planet. But besides some minor to almost major armor damage done to the three heavy combat dropships? There was little doubt that the three dropships would make it to the second most numerous type of jumpship in the whole Inner Sphere. This was not unexpected, not when the heaviest weapon your fighter force is packing is some medium class lasers.

On the ground? They left bodies and wrecked war machines all over the drop port. The unknown attackers were not the only people, who died and left their broken bodies and wrecks around the attack site. Still over 500 dead invaders were left on the fire scored drop port. Whoever had planned this attack, had known down to the hour when to launch the attack. The jump and hard burn to the planet had been timed, so that the attack would have happened in the dead of night with the least amount of natural illumination. It should have worked better for the attackers. But if the defenders were ready? It played into their hands, just like it had done to night. By the time the sun rose over the drop port, all of the fires had been put out or were just smoking remains of the battle.

Mr. McDonogh, the head of MMM on Dunianshire was looking around the area that only a few hours ago was in conflict. He was still folding and unfolding the message in his hand as he looked around the battle-damaged area. The message had come in a few months ago. It had been encoded with MMM codes, and the codes groups that only one group had been given access to. At first? He had not believed it, but the more he thought about the information. The more he realized that he could not risk it being right. He had contacted the right people, but only the ones who he trusted not to talk too much about something very important. He stopped working the paper, when he saw the head of his security force and the head of the militia coming towards him. One part of his brain noticed that the two women did not look as angry as he felt.

McDonogh had made eye contact with the two women who had come-up with this detailed plan to react to the information in his hand. He took a breath and let some of it out, when they were only a few feet away from him. He was trying to read them, as they came up to him in the early morning sun beams. From what he was seeing around him as more bodies were put in body bags, it was not looking good. He knew that he was in an odd position, being male and in charge of women in the MC. Still he was the boss of the largest mech factory on the planet, and that let you be a little different as long as you were very good at your job.

"Ladies great work, but how bad was it? Do you know anything about what happened, yet?" He pointed around to some of the still smoking wrecks.

The head of the MMM Security looked at the other woman, but she was the first to speak. "The attack force was over a battalion in size. They were a mix force of Mech, infantry, light and heavy tanks. They went right to the areas that you said they would." There was a little sound of wonder in her voice, about how her boss was able to find out so much detail about a pending major attack.

Now the militia commander was nodding her head, and when the first statement was still in the air. That was when she can speak and, she would not interrupt. "Your information was spot on, but in two parts. We were not expecting them to be in this large of numbers, and the numbers of advance weapons they used. We paid for not having that information, when these pirates attack my people." The tone had a little bit of sting in it. You always want perfect intelligence, but that was not something the real world gave you outside of holovids and books. This didn't mean that an officer would not be mad that they didn't have it on hand when they made their battle plans.

McDonogh could hear the tone in her voice. She was both proud of her people's performance and mad at each loss they had taken. He had not seen a battlefield, before today, even after all these years of selling war machines. His eyes went wide, as he understood some of the words the militia commander had said. Still it took him a few seconds to understand the words she had just used. "What do you mean, advanced weapons?"

His head of his company's security force was not smiling, but she had a thin-lipped look he had seen before. "We took fire from Gauss Rifles, Extended range Large bore lasers, pulse lasers of different types, and I picked up what I think are streak type of SRM's. When we start recovery? We will know more. I have ordered all of the equipment moved over to Hangar 6. From there we can figure out what is going on and get more of our and the militias machines back on duty."

H6 was the largest hangar on the drop port. It could hold the entire cargo load and dropships from 2 fully loaded Mammoth class dropships at the same time. It was the perfect place to be the gathering point for the wreckage and keep it out of public viewing. It also had the needed internal support systems to repair larger items.

The two military commanders were looking at the short game, in McDonogh's eyes. "Okay get everything into the Labs. NO have the labs send everyone over to H6. And by everyone? I mean everyone, and not just the ones they think they can spare!"

There was a reason, which the two units could identify that they had been going against weapons tech of that level. MMM had spent a lot of money in giving these two units those systems, which could help them fight against things like that. If the attack would have been in another month? Each one of his heavy or larger combat units would have at least one if not two extended ranged PPC fitted. At least all of the cannon armed mechs or tanks could pack a high-speed cannon. Not having enough second generation heatsinks had been a major issue. One that Mike was going to see how he could fix in the near future.

He turned and looked at the local military leader. "I know you have taken losses, and you would love to use some of the salvage to rebuild your unit. Send a detailed list to MMM, of your repair needs. We will make it good, plus a few percent on some special items. You have my word. I will make it right for your people."

He could see the militia commander getting ready to say something. The red face was a dead giveaway. He was not in the mood to have to deal with something like that, not with bodies still being recovered. "Before you say something, think about this Colonel. We, at MMM, have not been able to get much traction in making the weapons that can compete with the volume and the verity that has been coming out of the Great Houses for the last ten years. If we can get a few examples of some other advanced weapons? We might be able to change this downward trend. I will tell you both something. As far as I know, in the whole MC. There are only two next generation weapons that show promise to going into full rate production. Anything else, weapons wise? We are falling behind, and we have not been able to get any examples or workout how to make anything else. If we can use this as a starting point, we can make more."

Mike could see the stunned looked on the woman, and he let his voice get a little softer. "I'm not saying we could make them, by the hundreds. But what if we could make a few new weapons every month? You're our primary shield, so you would get some of what we can make, at least on this planet. Not many, but some to help your people keep their edge against any unwanted visitors. Like we have been doing over the last year, without charging market rates on those weapons." He gave the militia commander a level look. He knew when to play hardball, and he was betting that the Colonel knew were her bread and butter was coming from.

This stopped any of the building arguments, as they stood in silence. Mike used the silence and the three of them watched as the battlefield started to be cleaned up. As he watched a headless Warhammer that he thought was a Ronin made 7M, was being loaded. It was being put beside another headless mech that he knew was a Thunderbolt. He was thinking that at least those two mechs would be easy to get back into working order. It still was going to take some time to replace the 12 mechs and 18 tanks that had been wrecked. That did not count the damaged units on the ground and his space forces.

They stayed like this for a few minutes, as the group watched the medics and firefighters finished their job. They were done before the fleeing dropships had attached themselves to the jumpship at the nonstandard jump point. By the time that the jumpship was out of the system? The battle site had been cleared of the larger pieces of combat machines.

News of the attack was sent to the rest of the universe, before the inspection of the damage was done to the two facilities on the drop port was complete. It would take weeks to months for the Security and Militia to recover from the battle. It was noted that none of the enemy attackers had been taken alive. This was marked as strange, after all the Condor alone had carried over 300 infantry troopers. Some people in high command connected the dots on the high technology, and that there were no survivors. That alone had limited the number of possible candidates that could or would launch an attack like this one.

Xanthe III

Colonel Victor Crutchely was looking over the mech bay as the great doors closed behind the last of the investigators. They had come from the FWL, but it seemed that they were more from ComStar than any member of the central government. This group had spent the last two hours grilling him on his statements on the combat action, which had involved his unit and the other locals. Victor quickly worked out that they were just checking the boxes and making sure that this unit knew that the "gift" they had received last month, had a few strings attached.

The "gift" had shown up after the second after action review had been closed. It had been with some fanfare that a 35ton Ostscout had been given to them. Colonel Victor Crutchely of Crutchely's Crackers was a mix battalion made up of one Mech Company and two tank companies. He had lost his scout lance, when this unit had been seized in their barracks by a "Pirate". The Pirates had been very well armed, better armed than any other unit in the whole FWL, and Victor knew it. Losing one third of his mech force had hurt his units badly.

Officially he had lost the whole lance in that action. Only one member of his scout unit had died, two others had been hurt badly and the other had escaped without a scratch. All four members of the lance had been reported as dead to the local authorities. They were the only ones that could give a firsthand account of the enemy's firepower and composition. He was hiding them among the different types of techs that worked for him. He had been looking at getting another contract within the FWL, and only vaguely looking elsewhere. Now he was actively looking elsewhere for his next paymaster, things within the FWL where changing in a way he did not like or trust.

He had to admit the bribe to keep quiet of the 35ton mech was nice. He could have wished for something bigger, but it was a scout lance he had lost. And the Ostscout was a very good scout machine. His people had recovered all of the machines of the gutted scout lance, and they had gotten two of the four battle damaged machines back into operations by cannibalizing parts. Funds from the Local government had allowed his techs to get a Locust back in operation. They still did not have pilots for them, officially. The Ostscout would bring his unit back to "normal" strength. That still did not make him happy. Even after the locals had "given" him one of the two recovered Dragonstars. His unit had taken a hit on their reputation, which could affect the next contract. That recovered small craft had been another bribe. The locals were the ones who had told him that the Overlord and Union, were a Com Guard connected unit just catching some ground time between jumps.

An enemy had gotten the drop on him and his unit. He had already fired the duty guards and replaced them with new hires, which would learn from the failures of others or be released. Victor's head came up when a voice came from behind him.

"Hey Boss! We got a box that has your name on it," the senior tech had not fully entered the room. He had only stuck his head in the open doorway. "Where you expecting any new parts, and you didn't let me know about it."

Victor now was fully back into the world. His unit, like most mercenary units, lived hand to mouth most of the time. He knew down to the MG round what he had spent money on over the last six months. He was not expecting anything for a few months. He doubted, that the T and T system for the Assassin had come in 4 months early. "No chief. I can't think of anything. Are you sure it's for us?"

The Chief Tech looked hurt. "It has your name on it. Do you want to check it out?"

Victor didn't even think that long about it. "Yea let's check it out. I need to get out of this office before I lose my mind."

The two-men walked to the end of the warehouse. They shared some small talk about the possible future of the unit. When they made the turn both men saw the crate. It was large enough to hold a medium sized mech. It was not a mech shipping crate, but it was close in size. When they made it to the front of the metal crate. It was easy to see that it was addressed to him and his unit. He gave a shrug of his shoulders, and the two men opened the crate. They quickly realized that the crate was new built or one that had not spent that much time exposed to the elements.

A power loader pulled one of three smaller crates exposed in the dark larger crate. The smaller crates were bland and without any outside markings. It didn't take long for the power loader to move the 7 tons of mass fully out of the crate. The reading of the power loader told them, that the mass of all three of them were the same. The third crate had an envelope attached to one side.

While Victor opened the envelope, his head tech opened one of the three now exposed crates. Victor had just gotten passed the shipping information, when his head shot up at the raised voice from his chief tech.

"GOOD GOD! Would you look at you, and aren't you a beautiful beast!"

Victor looked over the shoulder and down into the open crate. It was holding a weapon, an energy weapon, but that was about all he could tell of the object. "Chief, what is it?"

The chief engineer passed over a note he had found inside the case. "That Boss, is an Extended Ranged PPC. She is not new; you can see the carbon scoring on the end. I so cannot wait to get under her skirt!"

Victor opened the note. "Dear Victor Crutchely. I am sorry for the loss of your scout lance. It was their warning that helped us avoid a well laid trap. These weapons are a gift of thanks. It will not make up for your lost man, but I hope that it helps. Robert Copeland of Copeland Supply, Salvage and Resale."

Victor looked up in time to see the lid of the third small crate come flying open. Victor and the Tech looked down at 3 H class weapons. That was enough firepower to make a major addition to his unit. It would take a lot of planning on how to best use this windfall. He always could sell the weapons and the small craft to buy another mech. It would be a good medium class one. But having three upgraded mechs? that would make almost one third of his mechs updated. Then he could ask for more money on the next contract.

Two nights later, Victor was having after dinner drinks with his head tech. "You know Victor, besides Winkels dying. This has not been that bad of a tour. We got paid on time and we even got a bonus. We were able to keep all of our machines and tanks working. Beside "the issue", we came out on top." Tom put down his glass and looked at his boss very closely. The term "the issue" had been used after the first meeting with the investigators.

Victor nodded his head. "Winkels was a good boot, green, but he was turning into a good scout. After "the issue", I didn't have one kind word to say about him getting all of the scouts taken out. What I had to say about this Copeland and company was not safe for civil company to hear. As soon as we are away from here, and we can knock the rust off the three surviving scouts. We will be okay. That OTT-7J is better than the Stinger we couldn't get back into the field. She still gave us some good parts we can use later. Then this Commander Copeland sends us those three weapons. He could have sent us three standard PPC's and they would have been a great boon for us."

The tech now had a toothy smile. "Yea, I was thinking about that. You noticed that they said "man" not men. It seems like they found out that the other three scouts are alive and well. And they put that information on something that was not hackable or seen by our local communication company. It was like they knew that we did not want some other group to know they were alive. So, what are you going to do?"

Victor gave a smile. "I sent them a thank you note, and I will just keep an eye out for them. We did them a good turn. They did us one back, and then they raised it with a little bag of gold. You know that you have to beware of gifts from strangers."

Ragnar Anchorage

One month after arrival

Captain Phipps was reviewing reports. He was not in the nice office on board his ship. He was sitting in what had been a small medical supply closet on the Anchorage. Now it was his office or would be someone else's office space in the near future. All of the supplies that the Boreas had carried had been off loaded and either used or put into storage. In the original idea, that the ship had been launched under. They were to start on C deck of the Anchorage, and they would work first down and then up towards A Deck. As they were fixing, they also would be getting the station ready for the mission of being the Head Quarters for all long-term operations in Colonial space.

That had changed, now they were starting at the "top" near the main docking port. That had been after working on the base of the great rust bucket of a space station. Each deck had a dedicated fusion engine to power that area. The Main power was now supplied by 3 old assault mech engines in the light weight 300 class. Only one was "on" at any one time, and the other two were backups in case of damage or when energy weapons were ever added to the station. The hydrocarbon and Tylium burning generators had been pulled out. They were now sitting in a cargo hold of the Boreas, waiting to be taken back to New Circe.

The now freed up room was slowly being turned into some "real" engineering space to support the station in that section. What was left of the old jump engines? They were being slowly cataloged and removed from their housing at the bottom of the station. They were being stored in a recently cleared out massive Number 1 bay of section 6 of Deck C. There were 6 major bays in each of the 6 sections that made up each of A, B, and C deck.

After getting the logistics computer put back into operation, and this new information source had caused a radical change of plans. It had been after a LandRam, of all things, had been found while they were cleaning out an area to hold the old spare power generators. He had no idea how it got there, or why. All they did know was that it was not on the inventory list they could access. That was a little disturbing.

After they got the one bay straighten out and properly inventoried. After that find, they had started on A Deck. They were going through every little box and putting it someplace that anyone could find it again later. They had already found some stripped down 1st Cylon War Raptors, some old EVA suits that had not been on the inventory computer. Those might prove useful, if they make any landfall that was still hot from the Cylon nuclear weapons. Oh, and they had found 3 more LandRams. Who would put something like that on a station that was to support Battlestars fighting Basestars?

Peter had to shake his head and get back to the business at hand. Things were moving along about as planned, if a little behind what had been some of the more optimistic timelines. Now he needed to start looking at the next phase of this operation. This was going to be a nice hidden base close to Colonial space. But it was not going to be the main base of operations. A hidden base needed to be kept hidden. All so that you had a fallback position, when the main base drew too much attention from the bad guys. That was where Phase Two came in, now that Ragnar was working up nicely. It was time to see what was going on around them. With a note sent to one of the launch bays, and soon a Raptor would be leaving his ship to start the next phase.

Lips had been getting bored patrolling. First, they had mapped the open area that held the station and then they had helped map the outside of the Anchorage. They were keeping an eye out to make sure that no Cylon or their devices activated after the first few scans. Then they had made run after rundown the Tunnel, and a few hundred meters on either side of the tunnel. That had been… hair raising, but nothing had been found. That had taken a week, before the Raptors could fly out and around the local area, but never going FTL on the mission to scout the area.

Now it looked like they could do some real scouting. It was just luck that Lips and Crank were the next duty team, when the orders to start the Phase Two scouting missions had come in. They had been briefed on this, before this mission had even left New Circe. They all knew what they were to look for and where. With a huge smile on her face, she went out the vent like launch bay at full combat launching speed. They were being sent out to find the forward staging point for missions into the rest of the Cyrannus system.

Over the planet Troy

The Raptor "popped" into real space like the scout she had been designed to be. They were about 3 days away, at her current speed to fall into high orbit over the small planet named Troy. They could have jump closer, but they needed updated data on the local space. If they jumped right into high orbit? They would have been very easily detected by any Cylons that might happened to be around. After all that was how the Cylons had surprised the Colonials to start the new war. They had jumped into high orbit, and then rain death on any humans around them. Admiral Adama was not going to fall into that trap. If the enemy can do it? Then there is a good chance that they are looking for you to try something along the same lines.

The systems on the Raptor were in passive mode, and they collected everything that they could within their reach. If they went active? They could have gotten the needed data faster. If they went active, they also would have announced to anyone within a huge volume of space that they were there. That was not something Lips wanted to do. This was called a scouting mission, not a suicide mission. Lips didn't mind dying, but she wanted to do it on her own terms.

When they had enough data, Crank reached over and tapped the pilot on the head. She had not noticed the green light. It was time to get a closer look at Troy. She double checked the numbers that her EO had inputted into the jump computer. It looked okay, but there was only one real way to find out. She forced herself to relax, and with a push of a button. She activated the jump drive.

In a flash it went from a black and star filled vision wherever the pilot might look out of the transparent cockpit. Now she had a wall of flames and then the open skies of a planet. It was not a livable planet, but it was a planet. She had just pulled off an Adama maneuver and jumped from space into a planet's atmosphere.

The Raptor was falling, and it took Lips a few seconds to get her craft back under control. She pulled out of the dive with her Raptor only a few hundred meters above the ground. Luckily this area was mostly flat. That had been one of the reasons that this location had been selected for her target with her maneuver. While she was trying to keep from crashing, her EO was bringing the scout systems back online.

Crank was not watching the approaching ground. There were some things that you just did not want to know. As his systems picked up enough data, it was displayed on the screens around him. Just as the nose of the craft pulled up, the crash warning had stopped bellowing in his ears. "We are looking for small domes, right?"

Lips let out a little breath as her heart rate slowed down. "Yep, they think that the Cylons would have popped the larger domes during the start of the war. We just need something to be a forward base to support a few Raptors." She looked around the view out of her cockpit at a much-reduced horizon. "Where are we?"

Crank looked at a different screen. "We are coming up on the south side of Hades 1. I'm picking up some Cylon transmissions on the sideband, but not enough to make anything out. Recorders are up and running, maybe HQ can use it."

Lips felt her heart skip a beat. "Hades 1" was not the real name of that area. It had been the site of a major catastrophe that had killed thousands before the start of the new war with the Cylons. Hades 1 had been what the press had called the area after the mining Dome had failed. That area had been a massive mining area, which had been a major lost to the economy of the whole Cyrannus system. That had not been the only mine on this planet, it had only been the largest at that time.

Lips dropped her craft lower to the ground and started flying nap of the earth. This type of flying took more out of the pilot, but it was safer unless you just happened to over fly an enemy gun battery. That would have been just bad luck, but the Wolverines had an idea called the Golden Beebe. Lips was a convert to this idea. And she kept her head on a swivel, as her craft first jumped and then fell as she kept it about 15m off the deck at just over the speed of local sound. The EO was the one looking for any domes or other areas that might be useful as the staging point for a major recon mission. He also was looking out for any signs of Cylons that might be a threat.

Crank's voice came through Lips's helmet mounted speakers. "Picking up more chatter on the sidebands. It's getting stronger, but I still can't get a back bearing on it."

The maps said that an ancient super volcano caldera was ahead, that had at one time been mostly covered by the dome of Hades 1. She pulled up sharply on the controls and then pushed them down just as hard, but before the craft had cleared the red and orange stone ridge. As her cockpit field of view came back down, her eyes got big. She did not even realize that she pulled her craft hard to the right, without looking where she was going. She shot up a side canyon at high speed. When a massive cliff wall came rushing towards them, way too fast. She pulled up hard and her craft started climbing in the contaminated atmosphere. She was still going faster than the local speed of sound as she climbed higher and higher.

Crank was looking at the screens displaying a nightmare. "Holy Frak! That is not a ruin! More Cylon transmissions and more buildings south of us! I count a dozen of them! It looks like they are built right on top of the old domes. They have to have millions of tin heads down there!" As the craft climbed higher the scouting systems pulled in more data. Even the SLiE probe was sucking in a massive amount of data, now that they had a larger field of view.

Lips was not talking. She was too busy making sure that nothing was closing in on them. Just as they cleared the atmosphere, she hit the button and they jumped. It was all over in less than 30 seconds, and besides the heat from her engines and the jump signature. She had been completely passive. As long as any Cylons were not looking her way. They should not know that she or her EO had ever been there.

A few hours later at the anchorage

The meeting room on the Boreas was very nice. It had been left over from her time as a luxury liner. Lips and Crank were sitting on one side of the table and the commanders for this mission were on the other side. On a screen that separated the two groups was playing the data taken by the Raptor on split screens. One side held data from the DRADIS and the other one held data gathered from the Star League Beegle probe. The data did not look good no matter what side of the screen you were looking at. It looked like a massive expansion of production had been added to that one area of Troy alone. And that expansion had not been done for humans.

Peter looked at his two young officers. "Do you have any more to add to your report?"

Lips shot Crank a look and then looked back at the Captain. "I think I saw some ships that were on the dark side of Troy, just before we jumped out but I'm not sure. I don't know if the recon systems picked them up or not."

Captain Phipps nodded. "Thank you, and you both may go. Report to the deck chief, he will have instructions for you."

When the two Raptor crewmembers had left, he looked over at the Colonel. Charles Bellamy was going to be in charge of the Ragnar Anchorage when he left. With this information, there was no choice that Peter and the liner were not going to have to leave. After some cross talk between the senior leaders of the mission, a time was set for the modified liner to leave. The Boreas needed to get this data back to the fleet. If they could take out this base? It would have a major impact on the war effort. A positive one for Humans and a negative one for the Cylons.

When the converted liner left the station, she was short two dozen of her normal crew load. They had all volunteered to stay behind and help the security and maintenance people on the anchorage. Not surprising, most of the volunteers had been from the engineering and launch bays staff. The Raptors would also stay behind at the anchorage. The jump fighters and other small combat craft could not use the stations access ports to board their craft. At least not without having to go full EVA to first get into the cockpits. Maybe after Section 6 of A deck was done, that would change. Until then that was not an option for those crews.

As soon as the liner had left the Tunnel, it activated its jump engines and left this part of space. Its jump point was almost exactly the same one, which she had used when she had last left this area under the protective fire of the old Battlestar. Thanks to her upgraded computers supplied by the SLiE. She would be able to make the trip back to New Circe a lot faster than the last time this ship had left this anchorage.

Canopus IV

Igarashi Miya was alone in his cabin, and he was not on "his" command Overlord. It had been re-tasked, not long after he had reported the failure of his last mission. After his return to Canopus, he had been slowly frozen out of field operations outside of his area. He knew that the White Hand's and the Sundogs were being rebuilt but he had not been given an update, after he finally found out about their changing status.

His one last chance of redemption had been launching that attack on Copeland when he landed on Dunianshire. ROM had tracked down the bugs that he had been able to get smuggled onto Copeland's ships. Then some of his people found out the time that Copeland was expected to arrive at the minor planet. He had called in every favor he had left to get the attack launched. All he knew was that the unit had run into heavy fire and had been pushed back off planet, before they could torch the three targeted dropships of Copelands. He did not know how badly it had gone, but he knew it had not gone to his plan.

That was why he was sitting here in a ComStar flagged liner spinning a disk in his fingers, that held his orders recalling him to "one of the lost worlds" for consultations. He knew that it was going to take a long time for him to patch up his career within ROM. ROM was not known for forgiving failures, and he had a rap sheet full of them lately. His brooding was interrupted by a pounding on the hatch to his private cabin. Before he could say a word, the hatch opened without his command or his authorization.

Igarashi was about to berate the intruder, when he saw the one red eye. As the Head of ROM in the MC let his eyes drop, to see more of the figure standing in the open hatch. He saw the metal arm that was sticking out from under the sleeves of his ComStar robes. This stayed his tongue, from the comment about to launch off of it. This was a member of the slowly growing in power group infesting parts of ROM. This was one of the sects that worshiped metal as much as it did the Word of Blake. The term hyper zealot was thrown around, but only where these monsters could not hear it.

In a very mechanical voice. "He wants to talk to you. Follow me." The tone was so flat that even if it was delivered by a normal person, it would have been leached of any sign of emotion or humanity.

Igarashi gave a curt nod, rose from his bunk, straightens his robes and walked out of his room. He knew were the bridge of a ship like this was, and he didn't need to be led around like a wayward child or someone that was learning impaired. He was still wondering how a merchant captain had gotten the best of him, and he put the half machine half man out of his mind. He was so lost in thought, that he did not notice the open hatch.

He did feel the metal arm grab the hood of his robe and throw him into the open hatch. Igarashi was so stunned. That it took him a few seconds to realize, that he had been touched by the lowly Adept. He shot to his feet and threw the hood of his robes back to give the adept his best withering look. He just got the look right, when the once open hatch closed without making a sound. Now there was a thick metal hatch between him and the subject of his ire.

One of Igarashi's last visions was of the one red eye and one blue eye looking at him threw the Ferro-glass window of the closed hatch. Now Igarashi realized where he was, and he quickly looks around. Before he could do more than form words, the hatch behind him opens. The sudden movement of air pulls the ROM agent out into the black of space. He was clinically dead within a few seconds, but that didn't mean that he still did not feel a lot of pain for some time later.

The one red eyed adept looked at the black hole in the hull, and then he flips a switch to close it. "Your reeducation can now begin Igarashi. It is just too bad you were so frail. That was a good one. I need to remember that one. Frail, that has a ring to it."

The frozen body of a white robed Igarashi made it to the jump point 8 days later, and it kept on going. It would not escape this star, but it would be in a very odd orbit that would have him seeing the deepest parts of the Ort cloud. His body would not return to the warmer parts of this star until sometime in 3195. Only then it would be pulled into the close orbit around the star, were it would be burned into atoms before it could start another trip out into the deep cold of the Ort cloud. He would not be missed, and he only would be remembered as a foot note as a member of ComStar before the great wars with the Clans and the Cylons.

Notes:

Fake SOP. It is not unknown for someone to sell fake treasure maps and documents to the unwary. Why not let one of Robert's crew get a little extra spending money. Or it could have been made by a third Party like the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry.

The Ostscout: it had come up on the MUL for the FWL. It was not my first choice, but it is going to replace a mech in a scout unit.

ComStar forces: Upgraded Fortress with 12mechs, 12 heavy tanks, 3 platoons INF. Condor with 18 light tanks and a dozen highly trained infantry platoons (330 troopers). Upgraded Triumph 4 mechs, 24 heavy tanks, 12 light tanks. Why so many infantry personnel? They were planning on being needed as boarders on the dropships. One of those same dropships, which had already beat off a dozen battle armor suits and a hundred skilled boarders.

MMM Clints. MMM is making three different versions of the Clint. The old standby, one that replaced the old AC-5 with an ultra, and one that uses an ER-PPC in place of the AC-5.

Colonel Victor Crutchely of Crutchely's Crackers. Commands a mix battalion of a medium mech company, a heavy tank company, and a medium tank company. They were gifted a 35ton Ostscout OTT-7J and a Dragonstar to keep their mouths shut.

Igarashi Miya. Now Word of Blake has lost one of their prime leaders, before there is a WoB. Got to love a butterfly.