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.

51. Chapter 51 5 Dec 3049

Chapter 51

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

5 Dec 3049 Xi second mission

New Circe.

Admiral Xi was absentmindedly fingering the data drive in her jacket's inner pocket. It was a new jacket that had come out of the Colonials city state. They had already become the center of the fashion industry on the planet. Mostly they were copying things that were in the few fashion periodicals that made the trip out of Colonial space, or what they had in their suitcases. But on a planet full of warriors worried about being wiped out by the rest of the Clans? They were fresh and new, besides there were a few females and almost as many males that liked to look nice when they were off duty. These new clothes also were a lot more expensive, compared to military issue garments. She had been able to add to her limited closet on the Governments dime thanks to this mission. This thought brought a small smile to her face and her off hand ran down the side of her new jacket.

She had to shake her head and pull both hands away from her body. She was on the dropship White Skies this time. Xi was going to be running her mission out of this craft, instead of the way smaller K-1 that she had used before. The Monarch was a lot bigger than the updated K-1, and it would draw a lot less unwanted attention than what she had used on the last run. She knew that this mission was going to need every bit of that room that the larger ship offered. This ship had just come out of the refitting hangar on one of the outlying support bases on New Circe. That job was not high enough of a priority to use one of the major fulltime military bases to do the work.

With the last run almost intercepted by forces that had been identified as coming from their old friends in ComStar, and with the Clan on the move. A major power shift had happened at the senior leadership level of Clan Wolverine. Some of the moves they were making seemed strange to her, but it was like they had one of the Colonial Oracles working for them in a back room somewhere. The bad part was that it seemed to be working out very well for her people. But how long would that last, before Demon Murphy came back and bites them on the back side? There was one thing that she knew, and it was that Murphy always had a card to play that would frak you up.

New Circe was at a breaking point, support wise, and it would remain there until the Colonials, friendly Cylons, and the Victorians were able to make a major production shift. Right now, they were only just keeping up with the losses of personnel and equipment fighting the Cylon Empire. Thankfully, they had been able to pull enough major end use equipment from around the local space, to stay a head of the maintenance and repair game this war was generating. But how long would that last? They had found out that ComStar was working hard to keep any high technology under their control, decades ago. This was going to be the first test run, to push the Inner Sphere to a higher tech base than even what the old Star League had been able to put into the field.

The Enhanced Extended Range Particle Projector Cannon had been around with Clan Wolverine going all the way back to 2823. It was just a different way to look at the older Star League era H class ER PPC. It was a simple adjustment to make a more powerful weapon, in hindsight, which had made a huge number of PPC experts hitting their heads with their Palms. The heat output per shot was the same as before with the H class, but the damage threshold was 20 percent higher than the older weapon. The rest of the clans had taken a different route, and they had come up with their own ER PPC that went into production in 2826. Her people had kept their version of the ER PPC in production for almost a hundred years, before they had started production of the Long Ranged PPC that was still in production around New Circe today.

If she could swing the right deal? Then MMM would be making those new particle cannons to be sold by them to the rest of the Inner Sphere one way or the other. That was why they needed the passenger liner for this mission. She was carrying some Techs that had been trained in how to modify a production line for Star League level of H class ER PPCs, to make the new and more powerful Enhanced ranged weapon. That was the plan any way. The plan was to kick ComStar …..in the planning area. And for her crew to pick up a lot of the needed items for the military to fight this war and any upcoming wars, that might be against the rest of the clans. It was just going to be a matter of seeing if MMM thought the price was right or not.

There would be two jumpships going on this mission to the Inner Sphere. They were the freshly repaired Zephyr, and smaller Astral Queen. Rear Admiral Xi was going to be dropped off in Dunianshire while the other two ships and their load of dropships went back to Cate's Hold to check on Jess's toybox. When her mission was done? She would meet the two Colonial made ships there on a local rented jumpship.

Another change that would be different for her mission, besides the number of jumpships. This time they would not need to have an HPG on the dropship, to keep in touch with the teams over in Jess's Toy Box. They were going to be testing what was basically a radically updated K-series transmitter, for faster than light communications.

One of those old devices had been found in a cache along with those first sets of Nighthawk battle suits. It had taken years for her people to find out about a tiny fraction of Project Transient. Even though this was a break threw for Clan Wolverine and the SLiE. They had not had the time, energy, money, or personnel to pursue this project. Not for a group, that was trying to hide and not communicate with outsiders.

That all had changed with the Colonials, or more to the point the growing number of Cylons that had joined their cause in this war had changed the communication equation. The people with big brain pans had used a mix of technology and skills to make a black box that could have a range of eight hundred light-years. Along with a propagation speed of one hundred and fifty light-years per day. It can "only" send up to thirty-five pages of text, but one system would send it a huge distance without needing a chain of HPGs to cover that same distance. That was not bad for something the size of your average office briefcase.

The device she was packing was one from the first full-scale production run of those new devices. They were going to be hand built by the City-State at a rate that would have made Ford want to shake his fist at the builders. But if they worked on this mission? It was going to be a game changer technology for the Colonials, Cylons, and SLiE. They would be able to read anyone's HPG messages, just like they had been doing for the last few of these supply runs. But no one, not even the clans, knew about this "little" black box that had a working name of Tac Fax or Tactical Fax. If they worked out? High command was planning on putting one of these Tac Faxes on every ship that traveled between the stars. There were four of these Tac Faxes going on this mission alone.

She didn't know, what the most important part of this mission was going to be. Was it the long-ranged test of the Tac Fax? Or was it the possible Dropship port and naval support base hidden in Jess's Toy Box? Or was it the spreading of the new tech PPCs and the income and support it would generate to help fight the Cylons? She had a lot on her mind, this trip was not going to be cut and dry. MMM might not be game to trade with her people, not after what had happened last month.

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8 Nov 3049

Unknown system on the edge of MC patrolled space,

Maureen Farren sat in the hard metal chair with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were red rimmed, and she had huge dark bags under them. It might have been from crying, her workload over the last week, or the anger she felt burning deep in her soul. At least her captors had kept her in a private room, after they had pulled her off of what was left of the jumpship she had spent most of her adult life paying for.

She still didn't know what was going on in this god forsaken star system. All she knew was that someone had been throwing around warships, and she had been caught in the "crossfire". It was not long after the fourth warship had shown up that the first group that had been made up of three warships had fired into her vessel. She had been trying to hot load her jump drive and not really keeping up with the battle going on around her. After all jump ships were not fired into today, not even by a pop gun. It was a crime to do something like that! And as far as she knew, it had not been done in over a hundred years.

Maureen had a flash back of some kind of projectile that had slammed into her beautiful ship. One second, she was looking at the gauge as the charge climbed on the jump core. And the next second, she was pulling her helmet down as the air rushed out. It was only through years of training that she had not joined almost all of her bridge crew in death. Only one person had gotten their helmet sealed, even close to be being fast enough to save their lives. Still even he had sucked to much vacuum into his lungs and eyes.

She had spent 12 hours trying to save her crew and what was left of her ship. First, she had tried to reach the Trojan Class dropship Rob Roy. About the only good news from that contact was that the lower and cargo areas of that dropship held atmosphere. The rest of its dropship's bridge crew was dead, maybe by the same weapons fire that had broken her ships back, killed the jump core, and holed her bridge. It was only after that time, that she had felt a bump that she knew was a dropship attaching to her hull.

A crew of people had flooded onto her ship dressed in the oddest-looking space suits that she had ever seen. She had thought that they were pirates going to kill the rest of her people, to hide the crime they had just committed. Instead they had flowed through the mangled metal of her command, and they had finished finding the rest of her crew. Then they had helped all of them to the wrecked but mostly airtight blockade runner. They even had set up an aid station for those hurt. It also just happened that it also acted as a makeshift prison. Because after it was set up, no one was allowed to leave the damaged dropship unless they were going to the hamster wheel.

Maureen's head snapped up as the door to this room opened, and in walked a man that one part of her mind noted was about 2 meters tall and Tri-vid star good looking. Both of those notes brought her fully back into the moment, as he walked around her and took a seat in a matching metal chair across from her.

#############

Captain Mark Artemev took his seat across from the jumpship captain. He had to fight to keep his "game" face on. His people had been jumping through hoops like frakking crazy, because of how this mission had turned sideways out of the blue. They had just been lucky that higher command had been quicker than normal to have contingency plans, that errored on having very heavy back up on this mission. The idea had been that besides transferring the weapons, that this ship would start spreading the word about the Zephyr. There were long term plans that SLIC had for this information, and now they had been blasted apart like that Lola III.

Mark took this time and set up the props, that he was going to need to try to patch up those plans. He had only been in this system for a few dozen hours, but that was all the time he had to work with. No one knew how long it would take before the Frakking Telephone Company would come looking for their lost warship squadron. He knew that a large number of jump fighters and Raptors were scouring the nearby space to give them any advance warning they could. No one knew how much time they had, so this was going to be a rushed job. If that failed? Well, they always had plan A. After all it had worked before with pirates and the Pheidippides.

Mark could see the heat of anger coming off the woman in waves, and he smiled just to see her anger go up one more notch. "Captain Maureen Farren, late of the Merchant class jumpship Pampanito. It seems like we have a problem."

Maureen about came out of her chair at seeing that smug smile on the handsome man's face. The only thing that stopped her, was the fact that he out massed her almost 2 to 1. "Who are you people? What have you done with my crew and how is my ship!?"

Mark let his smile drop to a thin-lipped look that he knew made his face non readable. "Who we are is not important at this time. All of the crew that was alive when we boarded your ship, are still alive and receiving the best medical care we can provide. You know how your ship is. Do you really want me to rehash what you already know?"

Maureen sat a little deeper into her chair and she seem to almost shrink. The smug bastard had a point. She knew that her jump core was shot in half, and her ship was as good as dead. "Okay, so what do you want with me?"

Mark made his face go very still. "You are the only officer besides your chief of engineering, that somehow lived when the jump core was hit. Besides you? There is only one other person on any of the bridges of your ship or the dropship at is left alive. It is unfortunate that he will never see a sunset again. Vacuum can quickly overload the body's ability to repair certain parts. So that leaves you as the only person that knows what happened the other day."

Mark waved his hand in the air, the hatch opened, and two very large women entered. Quicker than she could think, one had pushed Maureen down into the chair while the other attached first four sets of metal cuffs on her wrist and ankles. Then the two women went about attaching a huge number of leads all over her body. They had started at her head and feet, before working their way to the center of her body. As they were working, she was screaming at them and at the only man in the room with them.

"By the maker what are you doing to me!" She tried to thrash around, but she could barely move a centimeter in any direction.

Mark let an easy smile come to his face, and he used a calm and level voice. "Calm down, it is only something from the old Star League that we have found to be very useful in situations not unlike this one. It is an old Star League lie and truth detector. Trust me, it will let me know if you are lying to me or not."

Part of what he had said was even true. One of the things attached to her was a lie detector that would feed him data directly to his PADD. The rest of the crap hanging off of her, was just field dressing. He was betting that she would think that anything connected to the fallen Star League was next to magical in its abilities.

The jumpship captain deflated and her voice was as weak as a kitten. "What do you want with me?"

Mark kept the same smile on. "Why Captain Maureen Farren, if you answer all of my questions truthfully? Then we might have a job for you."

#############

It was only a few hours later, but it felt like days since she had been strapped to that damn chair. She had lost count of the questions she had been asked, but it felt like millions. They had come at her rapid and at a steady rate. She had not even tried to lie with that damn thing strapped to her body. Before she even went to get some food after being released, she made one stop. She wanted to see the only person on this ship that knew what was going on.

She was told that she was allowed onto the new dropship, as soon as the two huge women had removed her restraints and sensors. When she gave a funny look to her interrogator, he had put on a sad little smile. She was told that was where all of her survivors had been moved to, before they could move all of the medical cases to her new ship.

Maureen could not help but be impressed with the medical bay, as she floated in to see Dougie. He was the only one that had lived through the bridge hit, that killed the rest of her staff. She could see that the young man was in a better mood, even with white wrappings still covering his eyes.

As she pulled herself to a seat and strapped down so that she would not float away, she started talking to the younger man. "Hey kid, how are you doing?"

Dougie turned toward the sound of his captain's voice. "Oh! They are great. They asked me if I wanted to go to their world for medical care a few hours ago. When I told them that I didn't have anyone back home, and I had no problem with going. But I had no way to cover the cost of a trip like that or the medical costs. They said that good warriors don't have to pay for body repairs. Captain! They said that they can fix my eyes!"

Maureen made a sour face. She had seen cybernetic eyes before, and she was not impressed with them. But if it was the only game in town? Then you took what you could get. Then she stopped mid thought. A few hours ago? She was still getting grilled only ten minutes ago. They had offered him free medical care, before she had "passed" their test. Maybe things were going to work out. She mentally kicked herself after tempting the God Murphy.

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Captain Artemev looked out the jump carrier's bridge window at what was going on. He could not see anything, but images were displayed on the window so that he could see the action going on around the Olympus class vessel. He knew that in a few hours, they would be able to start the next phase of "his" operations. He just needed for most of the ships in this system to leave. Then it was going to be time for SLIC's part of the operation to kick into high gear.

Star League intelligence command or SLIC had not been too concerned with the families moving in small groups back to the Inner Sphere. They had helped train them and even covered some of the cost of them being set up. They were only supporting the resupply missions, that would run between every 10 and 15 years. Not a big deal as far as the Intel agency was concerned. Then came the Colonials and the Cylons, and something else that very few within SLIC talked about. When the Copeland missions were cleared, SLIC had been very concerned about someone else playing in their yard.

When he had returned from his first run, it was decided that SLIC needed a bigger call in operations in that part of space. No longer would they just run a few missions to check on the Jarnfolk or other groups. SLIC had taken the time to plan out what they wanted to do, and how they were going to do it. They were going to take all of the lessons learned from Copeland and add a few details they had learned over the decades. They had started with a "project" Tramp, that was fitted with Lithium-Fusion Batteries. Fitting the HPG had been no small task to arrange and keep it quiet from certain groups within the government. But training the crew had been the hardest part of the whole planning phase. They had to take agents and train them into being very good spacers. Spacers that were good enough to pass an inspection by long time people with those same skills.

Mark was going to be the mission commander, but SLIC was going to have to work with the SLDF Navy to get "a Real ship's captain" for the mission to spy on the Inner Sphere. Now it looked like that might not be an issue. One of the Colonial ships had brought out the Tramp, after SLIC had a few hours to think about how to use this mess to meet their goals. They had jumped onto an idea like a dog on a three-legged cat.

The Tramp had some last second visual modifications done to the outer hull before and while it had been moved here. The ship now looked "old", and if anyone looking at her or even walking down her corridors would see the age. SLIC still did not have enough crew for this mission, but with only 2 officers, 5 enlisted, and 3 bay support personnel surviving the ComStar attack. As far as the rest of the crew knew, besides the captain, all of the rest of the merchant crew had been killed in the surprise attack.

If that Captain turned out to be a risk to New Circe? He would kill her, and he had two ways to do it. One was the "normal" type of work with a lead round behind the ear. The other way was more subtle. While she had been getting a medical checkup? They had put a small device into her body that would dump a little Botulinum toxin into her blood. It was not a "great" way to die, if there was such a thing. But it was clean, and it would be hard for anyone to point to as foul play.

He was going to be the XO on the "new" jumpship, but also the mission commander. Soon SLIC would have their own Intel network within the Inner Sphere. "His" people would check out the rest of the survivors, thanks to the Tramp being wired for sound in all of the crew quarters. Mark would have to tread carefully to remove any "threats" from the local born remaining on the ship. He was not going to like that, but that was part of the job.

Mark kept looking out the "glass" and waited. Soon he would have to give the order, and the surviving jumpship's crew would be moved over to join "the freed slaves". The cover story was that "someone" turned over, some recovered slaves along with the jumpship they had been using as payment for the lost Merchant. The "Free Slaves" angle had been part of the story that SLIC had been planning to use for this mission, so all of the data had been set up and studied for many months before today.

The finer details of the modified cover story had taken some last minute work. Mark had heard about dealing with the Casper, but until he had to deal with the thinking machine. He had only thought people were pulling his leg or had issues with AIs. Mark had to shake his head and he had almost physically thrown up his hands in remembering the details.

What he was asking of them was far outside of their normal jobs. By rights and laws, they had every right to say no to him and they had. When he noticed the little hacker looking at his feet, Mark had picked up on the hint. So, he had asked what it would take to get them to invest their off time to help him. The memory of that black eye hologram looking at him with that shark's smile sent chills down his spine.

As it turned out Nike did want something, that she could not get. She referred to her Colonial made jump drive as trash from a junk yard wonder. She understood that he and SLIC could not just give her a new drive of that type. After some time, she and the little hacker had agreed to help him. But only if he would send a message back to his boss, and they would "try" to help her get a new built Colonial tech jump drive. They wanted a copy of that message, and they would make sure that SLIC would at least publicly try to get that special work of technology for the Nike to use.

He had been able to get EWO Sheffield Binkley and Nike to get the job done, and it had only taken three days for them to do it. Even the people who had been in this battle could only tell there had been changes, because they could not "see" any of the SLDF's warships. It was some amazing work, and Mark made sure that his reports made it back to the right person about the pairs work.

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While Captain Mark Artemev was reliving his dealings with the bondwoman Nike, Commodore Drake was looking at his holo display. It showed the whole system in vivid detail. He was running his flag off of the mixed crew on the SLS Kaga, a Samarkand Block II warship. The carrier had an almost even mix of Colonial and SLDF in her crew. He was this ship's master and the mission commander for the mission they had been working up for over the last few months. They were going on a long-ranged mission to collect high value ships that had been remapped on the last pilgrimage. He had rushed his flagship and the 6 most well-trained of his Colonial craft out here.

The Casper had been ordered to stay around to help out, incase other enemy warships showed up. The Yukon had taken a lot of damage in the space battle against 3 enemy warships, and all of her docking collars were still out of action. They even had to use the built in HPG to get some more supply ships out this way to make some of the needed repairs. Most of them had been Colonial ships making high speed runs from New Circe.

This new mission was to clean up the local battlefield. A battlefield that was at the edge of the star system that had combatants moving at up to 5gs during the battle. He had first sent out some small craft to collect the damaged or hulked fighters. While they were out chasing down both SLDF and ComStar aero fighters. The Yukon transferred the recovered and surrendered ComStar personnel to the Kaga.

Only 90 of the total 530 crews on those three warships had survived and had given up to the victorious SLDF Navy. He was just holding them until they returned to New Circe, and then the right people would take control of them. The enemy had launched 30 fighters at their people in this one battle. Only a dozen had been recovered and still only as at best hulk status. Bits and pieces had been recovered from the area, but they were only being collected as to "hide" the battlefield from any future visitors. No one wanted a data recorder or cockpit battleROM falling into the wrong hands. That detailed cleaning was going to continue for some time, and others would stop by to just see if they could find anything that was missed over the next months and years.

They had been able to quickly recover what they now knew as the two Dante class frigates. One was the worst for wear, but the second one was also damaged but not as bad as the one hull. The Lola III was a different story, damage wise. The only thing that was recovered, besides a lot of metal, was the engine block. Having a large nuclear warhead going off while in contact with a ship's hull had a tendency to do that. The testing of the unmanned Colonial jump Raptor as a guided missile with a nuclear warhead had seemed to work. It was expensive, but it had worked to kill a more expensive enemy warship. The last ship that needed to be recovered was the very battered Merchant class jumpship. He was looking forward to leaving this system as soon as they got that old Tramp out of here. Then again, this had been a great training event for his small fleet.

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Just before Captain Farren was about to get into her bunk that was one of 8 in this room. She was hailed over the room's speaker, and she was ordered to prepare to leave the ship. Not 3 minutes later the hatch had open and she was escorted to her ship's boat bay. One of her own pilots was sharing the duties leaving what was left of her home. She made a check around the cargo area and found that it held the contents of her personal cabin.

The whole ride had only taken a few minutes to leave the wrecked jumpship and to make it to one that was almost twice as long, but only carried one more dropship. She didn't have a family but her crew, and she had no home but her Pampanito. If she stuck to the deal, and her new partner stuck to his. Then this massive Tramp class vessel would be hers in only 5 years of working. All she had to do was run her business like she had always done, not tell anyone about warships or these people, and be aware that sometimes her XO was going to be giving her some orders on the quiet side. She had been told that it would be rare, but sometimes he would have to give her orders. Mostly it would be that she would need to take her ship to a certain part of space by a set time.

As soon as the small craft had been unloaded and the other pilot had taken the craft back to its mother jumpship. Maureen floated to the bridge of her new home. Her few boxes could wait until business was done and logged. She had to "take command" of her new ship and its expanded crew. She was not surprised when she floated on to the bridge and saw the person pulling her strings, Mark Artemev. She had been on a few Tramp class ships over the last few years. They were coming off the lines in the FWL over the last few years, and their extra spare parts had gotten more of them off of the sidelines out at this end of occupied space.

The ship was slowly coming alive, but they were starting with internal systems only. She picked up the hand mic and activated for a ship wide broadcast. "To the Crew of Pampanito II, this is Captain Maureen Farren. Some of you are new to my crew, and some of my crew do not know you. To my old crew hands. Your new crewmates were pressed ganged by pirates for the last many months. Those pirates ran afoul of who just took out the warships that took out our old home. That group has given us this ship and a full load of droppers. We are to leave this system and never return. We now are one crew. If anyone wants to review their contracts? I will entertain those reviews, but only after we get back to Dunianshire. As always, I have an open-door policy."

Mark looked over to one side and gave a nod at the radar operator who started powering up her system. The system would not "go active", but it would look odd if they didn't power it up for a test. It also was the signal that the Tramp was about to leave from this system.

Captain Maureen Farren floated over to her "XO". Mark grabbed hold of an overhead bar when she was close. "Captain, the jump sail is locked down. We are ready to jump at your command."

Maureen gave a slow nod of her head towards her new XO. She had found herself getting more excited, as she had watched her new crew work. She was looking forward to seeing what this Lithium-Fusion battery would do. She had read a lot about them, but she had never used one. She was expecting that Karen Whot, the ship's engineer, was about to vibrate out of her space suit wanting to do the same thing.

Maureen gave the first real smile in a long time. "Okay Mark, let's go before the locals get trigger happy again." With those words the Pampanito II left this system. In less than two days, she had moved 59.8 light years. She had a long way to go, and she was late. But now they were making very good time.

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7 Dec 3049

Dunianshire

Mike was at the space station that both guarded and supported the nearby jump point. He had come out this way for a few reasons. One was that it had just made a major upgrade to this system, second was that one of his key missions was late. They were not that late, not when you think about how far they had to travel to do the job. Third, the "repair" company at this location was buying a lot of dropship parts. All three of the repair docks were fully booked and turning out happy customers. The local company had even started training extra repair crews. They would move out to visiting dropships, to repair Leopards, Unions, and Fortresses. They also were working on the increasing number of Lions that seemed to be coming out of the woodwork without needing a repair bay. In short, this area of space was pumping a huge amount of cash into "his" part of the company. It also just happens to let him be that much closer to the jump point his late mission should use. He was mildly concerned, when his intercom wanted his attention.

Maureen Farren could not help but give a real full on smile at her XO. They had been pushing the ship… hard. They had pushed it hard enough that her engineer had threatened to put ice/hot cream in her underwear. That had gotten Maureen to stop using her fusion generator to charge both the jump drive and the batteries at the same time. They had been able to make up most of the time, that they had been delayed. The outside of her ship might look like crap, and her weapons turrets and fire control systems were totally crap, but her engine was ready for prime time.

"looks like we made it, Mark. Now it's time to see what kind of trouble we are going to be in with the paper holder. Would you please contact the system's traffic control? Let them know that we are back, and that we need to talk to our charter boss as soon as he has some free time."

Mark floated over to the right station and went about his job. He had to say that he was learning what it was like to be in the command structure of a "real" jumpship. He knew that working both jobs was going to take a lot out of him. But so far Maureen had been willing to teach him the ropes as she saw them. This was their first stop in a system that had people living in it, after leaving the space battlefield. If things went sideways, this would be the last day that he would wake up. His heart dropped just a little when he heard what Traffic control had to say.

"Ahhhhh Captain? The President of MMM is on the station. I think he might have been waiting on us." Mark made eye contact with his "captain". This was not something they had expected to have to deal with so soon.

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Mike could have taken "his" dropship over to see the Captain, if not the ship, that he had been waiting on. Instead he took over a small craft he borrowed from the station. He had ordered the craft to approach from behind the jumpship. He had been waiting for a 320m long ship, what he was about to land on was a 660m long ship. "His" Captain had not wanted to go into any details over the Radio, and she had offered the hospitality of her ship. He saw the damage all along the fat pipe like ship. He had no problem knowing what he was looking at. He even could tell that the weapons were missing on the weapons turrets this ship should mount.

Then Mike's eyes drifted over to the dropships being carried by the enigma of a jumpship. The first one was the MMM owned Rob Roy, and Mike could see that there was a hole where the bridge should have been. Next was a visibly damaged Mule, and a Jumbo class dropship that should have been in the junk yard and not be seen carried on a rare jumpship. Now he had no problem understanding why this charter had been delayed. The damage to the blockade runner also explained why he had not gotten any of the code words about the mission.

Mike McDonogh was led to the 140m rotating deck, and he was not surprised that he only saw one face he recognized. Not that he had a full file on the crew of the Pampanito, but he did have one on the Rob Roy and the command staff for the Merchant jumpship. Mike walked in like he owned the ship, and he took a random empty seat. It was rude and he had done this intentionally without asking the ship's master first. He noticed that he got more of a reaction from the tall man behind the jumpship's commander, than he had from the woman herself.

Mike kept his work face on, but he kept an eye on the tall man. "Well Captain Farren. It would seem like you have seen some excitement. Mind telling me what happened to my dropship, the cargo she had and what she was to pick up?"

Maureen had played this type of game many times in her career, and she had also noticed how Mark had reacted to the calculated insult she had been given. She thought that it was cute. But she hopes the stranger would keep his cool, and not do something that could go from not good to really damn bad for her and their crew.

"We were a couple days late getting to the meeting, due to an issue with my sail not pulling a charge correctly. When we got there, all hell was breaking lose. We had some kind of warship pump a few shots into my hull as soon as we jumped in and they noticed us." She stopped talking and gave the powerful man a level look.

Mike's jaw fell open and he lost control of his face as his mind worked threw a set of words that he had never thought to hear in his life. It was such a shock to hear, that someone had fired into a jumpship. It was like someone telling him, that the sun was about to go Nova by the end of the day. It just was not done by civilized people. No one in the room said anything for long seconds. "Okay, tell me everything Captain!"

Maureen sat back in her chair, and a small smile came to her face as she took control of the meeting. "There is not that much to tell. We had just recovered from the jump, and then bam. We are hit! It took me a day to find out that the command section of the Rob Roy had been taken out. The people you wanted to trade with found us, and they help save what they could."

Maureen pushes over a battered and scarred data drive. "This is all we were able to save from my old girl."

Mike reached forward and took the data drive from the desktop. If what she said was true? Then the both of them were in trouble. Maureen because, it was a good chance that she would not get paid for the loss of her ship. And him, because his company had just drawn someone's attention that played very hard ball and for keeps. When his back reached the high back of his chair, he was ready to find out how bad he was in trouble.

"So, they were my contacts? What happened after they boarded your ship?"

Maureen did not smile; she was seeing to many dead bodies on her bridge and in what was left of her ship's hull. She did a head nod to Mark. Mark for his part did not say anything, but he passed over a PADD with images and some text. When the power player started to look at the images on the device. Mark picked up the story, because he had the most time to practice the cover story. Besides, he was trained in intelligence.

"They pulled your cargo and left you 200 PPC class weapons. They are in what is left of the Blockade Runner Rob Roy."

Mike looked up from the PADD and gave the tall man a level look. "And who are you, and how do you fit in with all of this?"

Mark made his back go straight like he was offended by what the other man had just said to him. "Mark Artemev. I was working on a merchantman, when our dropship and jumpship were taken by a pirate band out of Tortuga a little over two years ago. I was press ganged into working with them, until a few months ago. A new group took out the leadership of the Blood Drinkers, and all of the support crews were put into cells. They played twenty questions with us for a while, and our group slowly got smaller. They really didn't like pirates."

Mark didn't need to say what had happened to the pirates. It was common practice to kill them by the easiest means possible. Normally it was done by blowing them out the nearest air lock, if they were in space. If they were caught on the ground? They would be lucky to get shot by a firing squad, but most of the time they got a little push off a chair with a short rope.

"We were a stable population of survivors, until we met what was left of Captain Farren and her crew. We were put on this ship; it was the one the Blood Drinkers CO was using as his flagship. I was told by my captors, that it was now "her" ship, and we were to get out of the local area and never to come back. The Captain wanted to finish this charter. Me? I wanted to head for FedCom space. She is the Captain, so here we are." Mark put a little bit of an attitude into his tone.

Maureen did a dismissive wave of her right hand. "The people you work with made sure to attach the Rob Roy to the hull, so that they could complete whatever contract they had with you. I have no idea where the half-wrecked Mule or the Jumbo came from, but I have claimed them as salvage. All of their computers have been wiped, just like this ship's has been. I don't think they want anyone knowing to much about them."

Mike has a slight grin on his face. "So, that is why you said that you are the Pampanito II." The head of the local chapter of the most powerful manufactory in the MC stood up from his chair. "My company will do whatever it can, to help you captain. I understand that MMM has another three years on our contract. I will put a note in your file with the Transportation and supply Division, that you are to only be used closer to the main supply lines. I think having a Tramp class vessel would be useful on the more heavily traveled routes. Do you mind if I keep this data medium? I will need to hand it over to my Legal department, to see if we can at least get the life insurance policy for the crew to pay out. I doubt we will be able to activate the damage clause."

Maureen put her Captain's face back on. "I have no problem with that. When I file my claim for my people and ship? I will let them know that you have the ship's data recorder." She was not going to say, and she did not need to say, that ComStar was going to want to look at the device. She was perfectly happy that MMM had it, and they could deal with that group and not her. She might be tempted to shoot the messenger, and she was very literal with the shooting the messenger if he or she showed up in a robe.

##################

Maureen was able to trade the damaged Mule and the damage Jumbo, not long after a secret cargo made up of a 100 H class ER PPCs had started their way to Canopus. They were going to be used for integration or sales as spare parts at the company's main headquarters. She was not able to get full price for the two hulls, but she was able to get a lot of money put into the bank. With the increase in traffic in this system over the last few years, having over 17,000tons more of easily repairable cargo lift was a welcome addition. MMM had recovered their damage dropship the day after the meeting with the President of the local company. That left her with three open collars.

She even had been able to get all of the insurance paperwork done, the only hiccup had been about her claim on her old jumpship. They had demanded to have access to the flight data recorder first. They had been a little upset when they found out that MMM had it already. She had no idea that the "Insurance Company for Spacers" was wholly owned by one department of ComStar, sometimes called ROM. Still even with ComStar pushing from behind the scenes, it would be weeks before they would get a look at that device. They were able to review the data twice before a program hidden by the Nike activated. It had been waiting for one of a list of old Star League programs to be detected trying to access the data. When one was "found"? The device more or less ate itself and physically destroyed the storage media they had been accessing.

Now ROM or any other group, would only get copies of written reports about what was on the jumpship's data recorder. Those reports would detail about how wave after wave of aero fighters attacked three warships, one that might have been an old Star League Lola III class warship. It was noted that the fighters were all generic, but with a large number of Thunderbirds mixed in. They had swarmed the three warships. With a liberal use of small and medium sized nuclear weapons, they had blasted the three warships into small pieces.

It was a bucket full of nothing for anyone looking into the events. It would not be for many years that anyone would look more closely at this data. The reason for that delay was what was happening on the other side of the inner sphere and the coming of the clan tidal wave. It was in those later years that it would be pointed to as one of the greatest intelligence failures for ROM in a century. The information about the failed drive was not even known by the members of SLIC, for almost a year. It was only after a parliamentary review of the battle, and Chief Warrant Officer Binkley let it slip during the behind closed doors grilling.

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29 Dec 3049

Hellespont

The commander of the Rimward Operation Area for the Explorer Corps was Precentor Saskia Dinelli. One of the latest duties and missions for that command was in support of Expeditionary Squadron Gamma warships. The warship squadron was a new addition to her mission statement. It had not been a "real" squadron, but a test unit. With it being a test unit, it had been assigned a support unit of "normal" jumpships from the massive ComStar jumpship fleet. Each of the support ships had been fitted with L-F batteries to help with rapid deployment.

One of those support ships was the Tramp class ship Altmark. When the warships had not returned to the support fleet? She had made a double jump to the site of "the interdiction". When she had arrived at the target system, she had not found anything. It was an empty system, and there were not any signs of the three ComStar warships or any other man-made objects for that matter. The captain of that ship had quickly, a little too quickly, fled back to the rally point. The order to scatter the support ships was given, and the support ships headed for home as best they could. The Altmark had again quickly jumped out and kept right on jumping, until she was within reach of the ComStar HPG network with her own built in HPG system.

The message had only been sent to her from the Altmark. It was unfortunate, that it had not been sent towards Terra at the same time. Saskia was holding the full report in her hands. Now her name was going to be associated with the largest loss of ComStar assets, since Operation Silver Shield. She only had a vague idea of what the mission was about. She had a few ideas; you didn't reach her rank without having some of her own contacts. She wanted to throw the report out the window, but she doesn't. Instead she looks over to Demi-Precentor Alain Crosier.

"Alain send an exact copy of this message to Terra, and in care of the First Circuit. I want a second message sent with everything we know about Expeditionary Squadron Gamma and their mission, as well as all the support we provided and have as available assets if they are needed. I want a hold on all ships leaving this star system, until we get updated directions from Terra."

Alain was a lot more devout to the Word of Blake than his boss was. Still he could not find anything wrong with the orders he had just been given. "As you command. May the blessings of Blake be with the crews of those vessels. Maybe we will be sending a mission to better search that area, and we will find out what happened to our people."

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15 Dec 3049

Island 203 Detention Centre

New Circe

By Hotpoint.

"But I don't know anything about interrogation or debriefing anyone. I wasn't even recalled to active service when the Munchkins and Toasters turned up" the civilian protested. "I spent most of the last couple of years wiring up buildings in the City-State to our telephone network" he continued, as he followed the SLDF Intelligence officer along the corridor that led from the VTOL landing pad to the main complex. "Seriously I install frakking phones for a living man!"

The intelligence officer sighed. "You were with ComStar, they're from ComStar, we just want you to talk to them" he requested.

"About what? Switchboard repair?" the civilian replied sarcastically. "I wasn't an officer or anything, I used to help keep the HyperPulse Generator running on Pheidippides, my most important job was saying the words they made us recite before doing anything."

"There see, that's common ground to start with, you know how to pray to a fancy radio. That puts you one up on me" the intelligence officer maintained.

"It's been like twenty years since I did anything like that. The SLDF thought we were all nuts for doing that stuff when we got captured" the civilian noted.

"We still do."

"So, do I now" the former ComStar technician said. "That's why relating to those HPG worshippers isn't going to be as easy for me as you're hoping and vice versa" he explained. "I've gone native, married a local girl, I think my daughter is going to be taller than I am when she's fully grown."

"Well you are pretty short. Query Affirmative?"

"Negative. Only here, or on a low-gravity world, and those people don't look like they exercise two hours every day on a grav deck that's spinning too fast" the civilian responded.

"There you go again, seeing things from the same perspective as our guests. You're perfect" the intelligence officer persisted. "For a start can you explain the bondcord to them."

"If they were guests you wouldn't have stuck a bondcord on them."

"We stuck one on you."

"I was captured by a frakking warship, I wasn't invited to visit sunny New Circe for a pleasant vacation" the civilian retorted sardonically. Describing New Circe as 'sunny' was a massive joke in itself.

The intelligence officer chuckled. "Compare notes with them about running into the SLDF Navy, your crew came off better than theirs."

"They're warship crewmen with the ComGuard, I was with the Explorer Corps, when we saw the Rickenbacker we just freaked out then surrendered. It's not the same thing."

"Look. They're suffering through a major paradigm shift. First they get their asses kicked by a navy they didn't think still existed, one that's equipped with technology that's basically science-fiction from their perspective" the intelligence officer began. "Then they get hauled a couple of thousand lightyears in a fraction of the time it would normally take, get told about the Colonials and Cylons and get stuck in a POW camp where there's only a fence between them and what look like a bunch of clones but they're told are actually humanoid organic AI's bent on the destruction of the human race."

"They didn't believe you."

"Of course they didn't frakking believe us. We're hoping they might be more willing to believe you."

"And what happens if they decide I'm a traitor and they kill me?"

"Then I guess we'll need to train another telephone repairman."

"Frak you."

######################

Notes:

Deep space Recovering team. The Kaga and 6 Colonial ships are cleaning up the area of the battle with ComStar. They had been on a training mission before being launched for a big clean up mission heading towards Barbados. They recover the 2 Dante's and the engine block from the Lola III. 12 identifiable damaged hulks of the 30 ComStar fighters were recovered. Of the 530 crew on the warships only 90 punched out. The ComStar survivors go to Cylon POW islands and get another shock down to their very souls. The hulk of the Merchant ship is recovered last, but she is more or less stripped of parts and then recycled on return to New Circe.

The Tac Fax. It is basically a K-5 black box. This is the first production model of that device. They would like a device that could reach from the IS back to their planet without any stops between those two locations, if possible.

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