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.

69. Chapter 69 18 Aug 3051 Fourth run

Chapter 69

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

18 Aug 3051 Fourth run

Dunianshire System

The main recharging station at the jump point picked up the E-wave of the incoming interstellar ship with ease that you would expect of lovingly rebuilt and updated equipment. With a quick check against the arrival chart that the command center on this station had posted to the traffic control Center, and it was updated seemingly at random every few hours. The operator reached over and sent an alert to both the on-duty CAP and the newly finished and commissioned Bastion class defense space station not that far away. Well, it was not that far away as things were normally measured in space. That huge space station was the newest big hammer in this part of deep space, it was just too bad that her crews were still very green.

The Olympus recharging station had been the first deep space asset in this system to be brought fully back online in the sudden revitalization of the MoC. The work had not been done just because they could, and they had the money and equipment to do the job. The fully operational Olympus class station had been badly needed to support the rebuilding and then expanding of the space support assets, and most of those new assets belong to MMM. They had become the new owners of those dropships and jumpships thanks to the increased income coming into that military based company. Those were not the only assets that MMM needed protecting, and protection sometimes starts very far from the location of the at risk target.

Everyone in this day and age knew that weapons factories were prime targets and rebuilding and expanding ones were even more prone to attack from all comers across known space. It would not take long before word had spread far and wide about the rebuilding of those weapons' facilities despite any security that might have been active. So, after the most needed fixes to the repair bays and other areas on the huge Olympus space station had been complete. But before the first I beams or metal plate had been added to do anything else at the jump point, and that was including more of the much needed work to bring back the Olympus station into fully operational status. The Bastion class defense station construction loan had been signed, and the first metal of the Bastion was then cut. It had started life in those newly repaired bays on the Olympus. While the opening cuts to make the bones of the Bastion were being done, the rest of the needed and more detailed work on the Olympus was started. By the time that the outline of the globe of the Bastion was finished, so were all of the needed updating and needed repairs to the Olympus.

It also would not take long before word would leak out about the new system's defenses to start to spread. Just the rumor of a battle station, in operation, would be enough to deter some attackers in this part of space. There was no way to stop all of the attackers, but the Bastion would make it way more bloody than it would without having a battle station and the added aerospace fighters she could carry. Oh, and it also helped that this new construction was packing enough updated weapons tech to make a house lord's bank accountant cry in distress.

This incoming E-wave said that a jump ship moving faster than light was on the way. It also said that the new arrival was coming within a ten minute window of an expected fully loaded Tramp class ship that was coming in from only 7.9 light years away. The alert information that she sent would keep most of the fighters in their support and launching bays. Now, if the commander on either of the space stations did want to test her people? They could have authorized a launch as an attack drill of some kind. Then again there was a big difference between a drill and a combat launch no matter how you disguised it. The massive number of gun crews could also use the arrival of this jumpship to get some training in, and one that was not a hit to the operations budget of the station.

#########

Jess was elbow deep in working with her HPG intercept team as the Styx "arrived" into this star system. That team was producing reams and reams worth of data long before they had arrived into the Dunianshire star system. Now that they were here, that job had not slowed down one little bit. The Styx had been in this system a few times in her past, and Jess had not expected there to be that many changes to have happened in such a short amount of time. It was only when a low whistle had come from someone on the other side of the bridge, did she look up to see the main display screen. Soon her own jaw was swinging open like everyone else's in the room was doing as more and more data was added to the display from the light speed limited sensors.

Robert leaned a little forward and his nose was about an inch closer to the screen than Jules's was a few seconds earlier. They both were lost in thought as more and more radar and other data was coming back to the command center of this mission. Robert looked over to the jumpship's Captain and he was about to say something to his longtime friend. Jules saw the movement, and he turned a little to look at his friend a little better. But for now, all Jules could do was just raise an eyebrow at the convoy commander and wonder what Robert was thinking. Normally the two men didn't need to say that much, but that was not the case as both men were at a loss for words.

Robert gave a reply to the look coming from his friend more to break the shock than any real need to pass worthwhile information. "Looks like someone invested in some defensive assets around here while we were gone. The recharge station looks to have had an upgrade in both the Radar and in the fire control system's department. You would not do something like that, if you did not also upgrade the weapons at the same time. Then there is all of that skin work that she looks to have endured recently. I would say that they have both brought her fully back online and upgraded her while they were at it. Then there is that Bastion sitting over there, and she is something totally new. Also, it looks like a second one is about halfway done with the hull. I would bet it will be as updated to be as capable as possible for the MoC. I also would not bet on that first Bastion station being just a plan Jane hunk of metal with only Age of War tech."

Robert pointed off to one side of the main screen as he kept talking. "What do you want to bet, that this is the starting of the hull of a new Olympus class and not another Bastion class sitting on the Dropship exit lane for this jump point."

Robert stopped talking for a few seconds and his head tilted to one side as he went into deeper thought. "And look at all of those fighters and dropships on the outer ring line. They are on the planet side of the jump point. I bet that they are there just in case someone makes it past the first defensive line, after all it's not like they can fire into a jumpship. Someone broke out the paycheck book while we were gone." Robert had an idea of how expensive and time consuming it was to build this amount of deep space infrastructure, and that was a frightening number for Robert to think about.

Jules made a face that was not sour, but it showed that he was concerned with this new information on many different levels. "You think they started putting all of this in place after our last visit?"

Robert did a slight head shake in the negative. "No, this cost too much for that. And it would take a lot of pre-planning and effort to get this far so fast. All from no visible hint to this level of building in a very short timeline. We knew that they were working on bringing this recharging station back online, but not this much in the way of modifications. I would bet that they have been working on this idea for at least a few years. What I wonder, is how big their plans are and how long they think it will take for this work to bare any fruit for them?"

Now that Robert had some time to think about the data, and he had said the words out loud. He had a good idea of why they might have invested so much money into a planet that was not a capital world, but it was still a major world for the MoC. "Yes, the SLiE had been helping MMM along and that has helped the rest of the MoC. But the main Houses had access to the Helm's data core, and they have huge amounts of money and talent to do the work. You have to wonder what those other Great Houses would be capable of, if the MoC has been able to pull something like this off."

Robert was making some mental notes. This amount of new space infrastructure could not have been done in the higher tech New Circe system this quickly. The main reason for that was that the MoC had dozens and dozens of planets and their population, to call on for support. But New Circe was alone, and with a lot smaller population base to do all of the needed work. New Circe might have a higher tech base, but it was very much alone in this universe.

Robert turned, so that he was not yelling into his friend's ear. "Communication! Please pass the package of messages to the local Traffic Control office."

Robert looked back to his friend, and he had a sly smile on his face. "Time to get our game faces on." Robert had a little twinkle in his eyes that showed he was having fun. All Jules could do was shake his head at his friends low and very odd sense of humor.

##########

They had to wait for four hours after the E wave had dissipated into the surrounding space, before the Styx was cleared to launch up to three dropships toward the planet. Robert didn't want to do that, at least not at this time anyway. Something was up, and Robert had decided to keep the carrier and her heavy fighters back with the jumpship. It was a risk, but with a company of mechs and two full battle armor squads along with the rest of the 2 platoons of infantry. It was less of a risk than an outsider might first think. Robert felt that it was worth the risk, and right now it was important to make sure that the Styx was well protected.

The burn to the only life-giving world was when Copeland's command had their first issue with the locals. Robert's ships were sent a message asking why the pair of dropships were in such a hurry to make the landing or taking orbit over the planet. When the two dropships had done a shift change on the third day of traveling towards the planet. A pilot had pushed the engines up to almost their maximum rated thrust, and the information had not been passed on to the later and current duty shifts. The young pilot had only pushed up the speed to avoid an ice/rock or other wreckage, which was going to come very close to them but had not caused an alert by its close approach. With the artificial gravity plates in operation on those two dropships, no one had noticed the change in speed. At least no one on the two dropships had noticed the change in the feel of gravity they should have.

The Traffic Control center on the planet did notice it, and they were a little concerned at what they were seeing happening. You didn't want a Lion class dropship and whatever was in the Mammoth class rushing towards the planet. The Mammoth could be packing a full mech regiment or more of combat units into her hull alone, and it was coming at your head at over 1.4gs. The math was going to get ugly if they kept up that rate of acceleration all the way to turnover. And if they kept that speed up and not done a turnover? They would go past the planet at such speed, that even the fastest aerospace fighters on the planet would have a hard time intercepting them.

Robert had been called in after the message from ground side traffic control had been received on the Bad Kitty. He was told that the dropship's captains had already sent a reply. It had said that they were doing engine checks, and that they would be pulling the power back down after the dropship's engineers said that the tests were done. Then he had apologized for not informing the Traffic Control about the engine tests. Robert would be the one to punish the off-shift pilot, which was under his purview to handle in this rare case. The two dropship's captains would deal with the two on duty ship's pilots as was their right. They were the ones who had not caught or reported the course change to their captains when they took over at shift change. The rest of the bridge crews would be having to endure a lot of retraining in the near future.

The rest of the trip down to the planet's high parking orbit was without any other large or small issues for the crew and commander having to handle. That is except for the now relieved and demoted third pilot on the Bad Kitty. While Robert and his dropships were in orbit high over the planet, data flooded into the command center of the Lion as they waited in a standard parking orbit. Robert made note of the number of dropships in the area, in space around them, and the ones they could see sitting on the main drop port below them on the planet's surface. Robert ran the numbers against the data that they had collected on their other visits to this planet and compared it to what Robert and his staff were seeing this time.

The number of dropships he was seeing was up, way up, from the base line that they knew about this planet that stretched back many resupply runs that had been launched by the SLiE. The numbers were just a little lower than the largest number of dropships that Robert had seen on and over Canopus on these new styled resupply runs to the Inner Sphere. That was an impressive amount of change in such a short amount of time, almost more so than that they had seen at the jump point. The review of the data showed that there had been a steady growth after the first trip that Robert and his ships had made to this planet. It was only the sudden change at the jump point that had caused Robert to look at and compared the historic data with what they were seeing today.

When Copeland's dropships were told that they could de orbit, the pair of dropships were directed to a new landing area and not the main drop port at the capital. It was still near the capital of the planet, and the rest of the key locations that might be of interests. But even from high orbit it was noticeably off to one side of the growing city. It was odd enough that Robert had almost called off the landing, but after seeing that other dropships were in the area. Robert cleared his ships to land on the planet.

When the two dropships came to a stop, then Robert knew where they were without needing to be briefed by his staff or the locals. This was, if not a new landing area, it was one that had only recently been expanded to its current size. It was a private and restricted access spaceport all covered by the local MMM's security force and the mercenary units that they hired to augment their firepower. Robert had to smile when he read the updated notation data on his display. It had just been passed to them by the landing tower's crews. And well, "Private drop port" was how this area was listed on the maps that had just been updated on his dropships. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good, or maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

The Bad Kitty and the huge Hercules were not alone in this secure landing zone for dropships. There were a pair of Unions, one Leopard, one dropship that looked like another Lion, and a massive Overlord that was way off to one side of the special drop port all by itself. This whole area was blocked off from view by larger buildings or a tall and thick looking wall that was almost as high as the Overlord that was sitting near it. It was a very private drop port, even if there were four empty landing docks that Robert could see from his spot near the top of the Bad Kitty.

########

As soon as the ground was cool from the plasma throwing engines on the two dropships, and the water dosing system had cycled to speed up the turnaround of this docking point. A hover car was soon waiting for Robert outside the flame trench built into this part of the drop port. Jess, Robert and one of the infantry soldiers, which was acting as an escort, meets the driver at the base of the Bad Kitty. The driver was a woman, but she had the build and from the way that she was carrying herself just standing by the hover car she was a lot more. She was packing at least one weapon and she had a "do not Frakk with me" attitude or I will break you, and that attitude was the size of the just landed Hercules. It also screamed "I am a bodyguard, and I will shoot you just for fun" at the same time. Robert would have bet that she was an ex MoC special forces or maybe even MIM trained.

The driver of the hover car pitched her voice to carry just far enough when she saw a person that matched an image in a file she had reviewed. This was the hallmark of someone who had spent many years in special operations or whatever you wanted to call your dirty tricks unit. "I'm to take Commodore Copeland and side party to meet with the Senior President of MMM." It was a complete waste of oxygen and energy, but forms must be maintained. And it would be her butt, if the wrong someone was picked up and then was carried to see the local head of the MMM. It was something that had happened a hand full of times over the last few hundred years. This driver was doing her best to make sure that she was not going to do something like that.

The tone that the driver/escort/minder had just used towards Copeland had set Jess's nerves on edge, and she shoots Robert a look. She was only a little surprised that she met him with eye contact as he was shooting her a knowing look back towards her at the same time. But when Robert spoke, it was directed to the driver that now was a dozen paces away from them. "Thank you."

The drive to the meeting office was very fast, and it was not because of the speed of the hover car used to convey Copeland and his people. The building they were going to, was an integral part of the huge outer wall of the small drop port. Robert could tell that this was in a different building than he had been in before, just from his remembered floor plans of his last visit to the main offices of MMM on this planet. But it was the carpet that told Robert that this was the home of the power players of this massive and still growing defense company. They were taken to the top floor according to the light panel on the very ornate elevator that looked to have cost as much as a light battlemech.

Robert was taken aback when the elevator finally opened, and he saw that almost the whole floor was one huge office. It was so bright in that one huge room, that it took him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the brightness coming through the huge floor to tall ceiling windows. The whole time he was following behind the driver/escort out of the elevator and deeper into the room. Robert was fighting very hard to keep his head from whipsawing around to see the opulence of the office as it spread out before him.

##########

Just as Robert's eyes had adjusted to the bright and hyper natural light, he suddenly came face to face with the outstretched hand of Mike McDonogh. "Robert! Good to see you again! I was very pleased to get your notice that you were on the way to Dunianshire in the near future. I must say that it was good timing." Mike was almost bubbling with excitement.

Robert took the hand and tried to smile a smile that would not look too forced or fake. Robert could not help but thank that Mike would make one frakking good used hover car salesman. "Good to see you again Mike. And why was my timing so good?"

Mike pointed to the long wooden table near the huge expanse of so clear windows that they seemed to be missing from the frames. "Well, one was the helping out of one of my primary off planet ammunition suppliers from one of the largest attacks outside of an attack on a major world in the last few decades. The one supplier that just also happens to have hit currently the status of being the fifth largest ammunition supplier for the whole MoC. That loss would have had a direct impact in the whole MoC. When she was able to get a message out, and I'm not going to ask how she was able to do that. At least with her and my Company's standing issues that we have been having with some of the members of our local office of the interstellar communication company."

Jess looked around and then she quickly decided to take some of the pressure off her boss. She made her voice pitch a little high, to sound more girlish and thus of little value, if they chose to take it that way. "That was just luck. All we had to do, was help her by taking up the job of backup air superiority for her ground forces. The attackers folded up and pulled out not long after we hit them with our aerospace fighters. They were just in support of attacks from Duke Terry's ground and space forces. She was the one that kicked the pirate's butts off the planet after reducing their numbers." She was doing a very good job of amazingly downplaying the job that the convoy's military support had been able to pull off.

Mike just smiled, but it did not reach his eyes, and he looked from Jess and back to Robert. He was not buying what the woman had been trying to sell, but he was not going to push her on this narrative. "I'm just glad we had a combat unit getting ready to go to Cate's Hold when her message came in. That is the other reason that you had good timing, from my point of view. I am taking over the MMM's new Aerospace Division that we are standing up out that way. You will get a kick that the new division will be headquartered on a special base on Cate's Hold."

Robert let a sly smile come to his own face. "So, you have been able to capitalize on what my old boss sold you from the support and interview team. That is good to know." Robert was using a tone that was hinting that he was hoping to use that contact with Mike in the future. Robert shot Mike a quick and telling look.

The head of MMM felt his jaw drop open before he could stop it out of years of trained reflexes. He saw the look coming from Copeland, and he knew that the looks had both been seen and understood between the two men. Mike quickly provided some cover to those shared looks between them. "I see that she has brought you fully into this little deal that was set up. That is good, and it helps me out of an uncomfortable situation. I was never cut out to be in the spy business, but I can whistle the tune when I need to. There were some things in the spy world that had applications in the corporate world, but not that many." Mike shot Robert a hidden eye wink that said more than a little was shared between those two lines of work.

Robert could not help but smile back at Mike. "I think you did a good job with the spy stuff. But now we can make sure I can get what my people need, all without staying too far in the shadows. I trust that I do not have to ask you to keep some of the things that we talk about close hold. That is a lot of money we are talking about. And it would paint an even larger target on our people than we already have, if this became widespread public knowledge. All of the paperwork has my name plastered all over it, but I would like to keep the "real" numbers kept out of the public knowledge base for as long as we possibly can."

Now Mike got a serious look on his face. "That might be a little late to expect something like that to last much longer. But MMM has always kept most of your company's numbers out of the light of public scrutiny with the help of the MoC and maybe some of the MIM. I don't think that this has helped that much in concealing the kind of bank that your company might be able to access and who might have access to some of it."

Jess caught the tone and look coming from the local, and her internal alarms started going off. "What do you mean by that?"

Robert looked first at Jess and then back to Mike, but it was Mike that spoke. "Your factor, Lora, had her office firebombed and her hover car had its braking and traffic avoidance software fail on her a few weeks later. With her having such a close connection to you? My security teams were keeping an eye on her, at some distance. She had a private security platoon at her mother's old place, and they were very good at their jobs. They stopped six "someone's" that tried something on that property. After some weapons fire the "vandals" pulled back with unknown casualties."

Mike adjusted his seat, but this was going to be uncomfortable to talk about. "Now whoever did the work on her home? They were good enough that my people did not catch them while they were doing it. The local law enforcement department could not find anything that did not point them to anyone other that it was just being a pair of very odd accidents with her home and car. My people did find a few items after the law enforcement investigators had left the area that was….odd."

Mike held his hand up to stop Robert from asking any questions just yet. "Before you ask. She is okay. I offered and she accepted an invitation to move her offices into this building. It is a small office space for this type of building, but it does have a nice little apartment on the 9th floor that goes with it. This working office space was totally a gift to her. She has been paying rent on the apartment, just to make sure that we don't break any of the local laws. It is a very fine line we have been walking, but our legal department has been keeping an eye on things."

Mike could see that Robert was getting ready to argue the topic with him. "Now Robert, after all that you have done for my company? That was the least that I could do, by looking after one of your people that is basically at my doorsteps. I know she was only…."your factor", but she was working in your name on a planet that should be at least safeish from these kinds of things. The way I look at it, is that if they can get away with attacking her. Then how long would it be before they go after someone that works for me?"

Robert was both mad and thankful at the same time with what happened to Lora. "Mike, I don't know how I will be able to repay you for taking care of someone that "works" for me. I know how you feel about people targeting your people." Robert was alluding to the set up that he let MMM fall into with the ComStar tracking devices his people had found. "If you get a lead on who attacked her? I would soooo love to hear about it. Actions like that needs to be dealt with quickly, or those people will think that they can get away with acting that way on a regular basis. Do you know what local laws I might have to work around,…..if I happen to decide to exercise some visible action of my displeasure to "those people"?"

Mike McDonogh tried to keep his face calm before giving up and letting what he was thinking show on his face. This man was talking about going after ComStar with firepower and in public. Then again? These people have been having a small-scale war with them already and for who knows how long. So, would this really be any different than what Copeland and his friends have been doing already vs ComStar? Besides MMM, read Mike, still wanted to give a little pay back to the phone company of his own. Could this be two or more birds with one stone?

Mike removed the shocked look from his face, and he gave the off worlders a slight head nod. "I will see what I can do. But I have to keep an eye out for what is best for my company, no matter how much you have helped us in the past for something this big. I would like to change the subject a little, if you don't mind. Your Factor is out running down some leads for you as we speak. But do you mind talking business without her being in the loop?"

Robert smiled his business smile, and without looking to his side, he used his left arm to point to Jess. Jess stepped forward and handed over a thin plastic information sheet that was just short of a Verigraph for security. It held the list of items that Copeland was looking at selling and what he was looking at buying while they were on this planet. For once, this was an almost complete list of items that Robert had been asked to bring back to New Circe. Robert was hoping that Mike would pass along this list to some other highly placed people within his company.

On this run, Robert had the widest selection of late Star League weapons than on any of the other runs in the history of the Star League in Exile. The three of them worked out a deal, right in that room with the huge windows. Robert had been half expecting that someone else would enter this room while they worked, and he had not been surprised when a woman joined them. Robert noticed but he also ignored the new arrival, until official introductions were made.

All of that work was more of a productive delaying tactic so that Mike's bookkeeping people could come up with a copy of the books referencing the King Crab and then the Cate's Hold payments. The meeting went on for about an hour before they had to break up for other schedule business that Mike had to deal with. The highlight was the introduction of Mike's local replacement to Copeland and his company when this meeting had broken up. It was like someone had thrown huge blocks of dry ice into the room when those introductions were made.

Robert didn't know what to think about this Nancy Wake. Jess seem to take right to the hard-faced woman, but you never know about someone trained by SLIC. For all Robert knew, Jess wanted to keep the other woman close so that she could slip a blade into her ribs just that much easier. Robert had more of a wait and see attitude about how Nancy was going to try to use them to make a bigger name for herself within MMM if not the rest of the MoC. Robert had the feeling that Mike's replacement was not thrilled to be involved in this meeting. It was something hard to put his finger on why he was feeling that way about the new president of this part of MMM. Robert was experienced enough to trust when his gut was telling him something.

#######

The rest of the day was handled by the dropship's captains and their cargo masters buying, selling, and moving cargos seemingly at random. Robert had just kept his noteputor active so that it would show him the updated information as it changed on both dropships. It was around the time for the afternoon meal that Lora showed up to the drop port. When Robert offered to take Lora out to eat a nice sit down meal, she almost had a visible panic attack right there in Robert's working office. Robert was surprised and shocked at this physical response, and it took him some time to react to her near public panic attack. Then it took him almost ten minutes to get Lora to calm down enough for her to explain what was wrong.

"Robert, after my hover car accident and with the firebombing of my home before then. I have not been out in public without a dozen armed escorts ever sense. I have not been out, socially, since then even with those same armed escorts. I only leave my office in the MMM building when I have to, like today and with heavy escorts. Oh, and I have been using an armored car. It is almost like what I think that being in prison might be like." Her voice went a little higher and it took on a little hysterical tone to the human ear.

Copeland made a snap decision right there on the spot. "Your cover is as good as blown, even if "they" just think that you're just our factor. They think that you are a worthwhile target enough to try to kill you at least twice. To me, that falls into your cover being blown by people that have ill will directed towards "us". That is not a showstopper for your work to support our people. I was hoping that you would join us and take over a special mission that needs doing over on Canopus. One that I think you would be very good at. But I have to know.''

Robert stops talking and he let the silence propagate around the room. Then he stopped playing games and he let his face hold a very serious look without looking fake. "Are you ready to leave this planet, and if you want, never to return to this rock again?" He didn't need to actually say that she would be returning to New Circe.

You could see the feeling of relief coming off of the younger woman as she heard and more importantly, she understood Robert's words. "Commodore Copeland! I am ready to leave now. I have sold all of my family's lands and holdings. I had started looking for buyers when we talked on your last run, but I would only sign the paperwork when I got a good price. By the time that I had to find a new place to…. live? I was almost done downsizing with only the family farm and my home left to put on the real-estate market. I can be ready to leave this planet when you are ready to light the fires under your dropships. I am willing to do whatever job you have for me Commodore, but I am looking forward to seeing "our" home. I hope it lives up to half of what I have imagined it might look like."

Robert raised one eyebrow as he worked threw her words. Then he focused down on one idea. "You sold everything?"

Now Lora gave her own sly smile to the mission commander. "Sold, and then I picked up a few things that I can trade…..later with the money generated from those sales. I was planning on doing that when I get to a new place to live and then…..to sell those trade cargos onto a new local market."

Lora suddenly got a worried look on her face. "I would like to have a nice place to stay, when we stop traveling. I have no idea what your shipping rates are, so I do have some cash left over, to pay for some cargo cubage on the Hercules." She had no idea if this was allowed or not, but she did know that Robert was buying items out of his own pocket on his runs to this part of space. So, she should be able to do the same, especially if she was paying shipping rates for those items to be sent to this possible new…..market.

Robert could not help but laugh, and he let his face relax in front of one of the Families. "Oh! I think that you will find my shipping cost will be pretty low, at least compared to what is the normal going rates between short haul routes. Besides, each of my crewmembers gets a nice sized cargo space allowance for no additional charges as part of their pay rates on these runs. I think that we can make some special compensation and expand that set cubage size for someone who has been working so long for her people."

Robert could see Lora relax a little, but she was planning on jumping into the unknown. He could only think of one way to help defuse some of that stress. "If you don't want to move "your cargo" all at once when this trip is over? I know, that if your trade goods don't need to be climate controlled. They will take a few shipping containers out to my property instead of keeping it on the space port grounds and paying those higher rates. It will cost you a few dozen scripts per container load with the friends and family discount that I can get for you. If your cargo does need to be climate controlled? It is going to cost a bit more than that." Robert raised an eyebrow to let her know that it might not be worth the cost to move those types of containers.

Robert saw that Lora was understanding what he was saying, and he went for the next step in his little song and dance routine. "Now is as good a time as any to work this out between us. The Lord Protector has authorized the recall for all of the families, and that includes any of the lost ones, that might have been found. But she understands that we will pull them out, but only if they want to come home. That was the project that I was wanting to move you over to, when I sent you the message that we were on our way back."

By now Lora was back on her mental feet and she was ready to do some heavy mental lifting with Robert. The only break that they took was when the food trucks came by to feed the two dropship's crews. The three of them went out for the hot food that had not come out of a sealed bag, but they brought the meals back into the dropship to eat and do some more work. It was not all work for the three of them; they also took the time to talk about…..other things that were important. Lora had a lot of questions and any information that Robert and Jess could give her about where she was going to move to would make her mental life that much easier. Robert and Jess had to walk a fine line to make sure that they didn't release too much information, just in case Lora leaked it to someone from the Inner Sphere.

Robert did not bar or restrict anyone who wanted to go out on the town this first night, at least that was not more than was "normal" for this mission crew. They only had to stay in the pre-planned groups for safety according to the "protocols". Jess did not join the off-duty crew groups leaving that first night, as she had been planning. Jess spent most of her time working with Lora to get her arranged cargos, and what was left of her small family's worldly possessions moved out of protective storage and into the Hercules. First thing in the morning, Lora's loads would be picked up and then brought to this specialized part of the drop port.

It was quickly worked out that it would be better if Lora stayed on Canopus to get everyone together, instead of traveling with Robert after launching the recall mission. Then she would be better situated, when she needed to ship the families out to a collection point. It was nice to have a local confirm what had been Robert's idea in the first place. But many within the planning groups on New Circe had not agreed with Robert's idea. On the face of it, Robert had to agree with them, but only to their faces while he had been on New Circe. Robert had to at least look at the idea when they were getting ready to launch it. He knew that when he got back to New Circe, no matter what, there would be some Monday morning quarterbacking going on.

The only thing that the three person planning team did know at this time, was one key bit of information that was not known to anyone else in this whole star system. It was, that it was not going to be likely that Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale was going to come back to this planet any time soon or in the near future. There just was not that much of an advantage to keep bringing them back here, at least now that Lora and Mike were out of the local picture. Robert, Jess, and Lora now thought that it would be better to deal with the Main MMM office at the capital system. And there should be a lot more general traffic in that system than what even this improved system could support. Besides maybe it was time to change the places that this company would frequent as the attack on Lora had proven. Some bad people knew that Robert liked stopping here, and they might just be strong enough to do something about it if he kept being predictable.

##########

Robert was watching as the last of four complete 1,800ton power plants that were a perfect fit for a Lion class dropship that the SLDF used were being loaded onto his ships. Between the loading of those huge power plants, Robert saw a high-end hover car heading his way, but he didn't think much about it at the time he first saw it. There had been more than a few transports just like it moving around this private drop port all day over the last few days. When it came to a stop about a hundred meters from him? Robert became more interested in the vehicle, and what it might be doing. Robert had to put his work face on when he saw who was getting out of the back of the jet black, name brand, and luxury hover car.

Nancy Wake was not happy to be out here in the middle of the company's private drop port. It was hot, smelly, and way to exposed for her liking. She was not some common spacer or mercenary hired gun; she was a senior member of one of the most powerful companies in the whole MoC. She also did not think that dealing with a trading company that only had two jumpships to its name was worth her time. Granted that they were larger than average jumpships normally seen in this part of space. But still it was only two jumpships connected to this Copeland character.

Oh, she had read all of the reports that this traveling trading company had generated by her company. Well, maybe not really reading every page, and not even had she done that to all of the generated reports before a few days ago. It was only after she sat in the meeting with "the man" she was going to replace had she started to realize that she might have just made a major mistake. Mike might be related to the CEO for the whole company, but he was "only" a man in her eyes. And she had not taken his advice to heart.

Nancy knew that Mike was leaving this position to take up the leadership of a new, but very small division on a barely third-rate planet. Who would leave this level of leadership of their own free will for something like that? The new division was "only" currently making or repairing about 70 percent of what was being done on this planet. That was a lot, but it didn't count the numbers of mechs, tanks, fighters, and other weapons that were pouring out of the factories on this planet.

Nancy had thought that the man must had royally screwed up, no matter what the water cooler said about how he was the person behind all of the major improvements of MMM for almost the last half decade. If those rumors had been true? Then why was he still on this planet and then take a step down in the near future? Then she had met the man, she had been surprised at his possible competence. She had gotten use to him only to be slapped with the reality of dealing with Copeland Supply Salvage and Resale Company soon after.

She had been their when Mike had received the message about this supply company being on their way to this planet. And Mike had seemed like it was his birthday or some other event of importance or for major celebration. She had not needed to press Mike at all, to find out what was so gratifying for him to act this way in the middle of the workday. It was an impressive story that she was told while having a pair of drinks supplied from Mike's personal stocks. She had listened as Mike had regaled her with a story that she felt was best reserved for an entertainment show in the trashy category full of overused tropes. She wondered how much of this story was true, and how much was just so much make-believe.

Then the day had come, and Copeland had shown up. Then she had been called away from an important meeting, all to meet them in Mike's private office. Nancy had to work very hard to keep her work face on during this meeting, that she got her first surprise like a cold fish to the face. She had seen how Copeland had talked about hundreds of tons of the most high-tech weapons known to man like they were loaves of bread. She had never seen the likes of this before in her whole life. She was thinking that maybe this was like how the Grey Death had felt after Helm.

After the meeting, she had made the time to see the private books and reports that were held only by this office. Copies of these books that had not been sent to the main office on Canopus due to issues with ComStar. They were the same books that Mike had shown this Robert Copeland, like he was some House Lord and not just a small shipping company. Those conveniently made books had covered, in detail, about what was on Cate's Hold. It also had covered the mid-term plans for that location, along with the King Crab, funds for rebuilt and improved mech lines, on top of that the books had told who had supplied, and then help them build the Bear Slayer class improved ER PPC. All of those reports had Robert's name as the key player in getting them for MMM. Yes, there were other names on those reports like Mikes and Xi's, but at the bottom was always one Robert Copeland.

That was an impressive list of direct connections for anyone outside of a tri-vid novel. There were other connections with this company, but they were indirect, at best, like Duke Terry. It was hard for her to believe that this small group had been the reason that her people and "The Company" had so many of the updated weapons. Then there were the other items that were almost seeded around this part of the Inner Sphere by this Copeland person. Oh, and let's not forget about all of the jumpships that this group had sold over the last few years.

The classified notes had said that this small company had added almost 2 percent to the total dropship lift capability of the whole MoC. That put her deal with the FWL military to split the cost of developing and putting into production of an updated version of the 100ton Riever class fighter into a very small box in her company's affairs. It had been a shock to see that adding the production of an updated assault class fighter had been such a small addition to the overall company called MMM. The MoC's cut of her deal was a dozen assault massed fighters, the other eight were sold to the FWL for much needed trade goods as well as a small bit of cash for MMM. But soon the MoC would run out of pilots for the number of aerospace fighters they were buying, and more of their dozen would be sold on the open market to anyone with deep enough pockets to buy them.

Still, even if those reports held the total truth and not some fiction made up as a cover story by MIM for reasons she was not cleared for. She had not thought that getting on or maybe she should say more on, ComStar's bad side was worth helping anyone. Now more than ever, sense that ComStar had come out to helping the Inner Sphere to fight the clan invaders. At least that was what the legal notice had said and had been sent and had been signed by all of the Major Houses a few months ago. Then again, this group had done some amazing things for MMM and others without screwing over anyone. And those others had been noticed and then used by MMM to grow even larger and faster in this part of the Inner Sphere. Nancy needed to know what group was the golden goose, and what group was the fox trying to get into the hen house. She was leaning towards thinking that MMM should be supporting ComStar, but she was not willing to fully jump into that boat just yet.

Maybe ComStar had attacked one person who worked for Copeland, and it was accepted by MMM that ComStar had attacked this company in the past for unknown reasons. Now MMM had turned lemons into lemonade with the captured updated weapons from those attacks. MMM was now selling a list of copied updated weapons faster than they could make them. Most of the new items on that extended list were still in the "low" numbers of what was called low rate production. This level of production was called this even after the Star League had fallen, but MMM was making and selling them like hot cakes. There were not any of those items sitting in a store house waiting around, they were sold as soon as a date was set of say for a Beagle probe was known to be ready.

#########

Over the last few days, Nancy Wade had started to come around to the idea that the man she was replacing had been mostly right all along. If they, and she, could keep these people from such a small and mostly unknown company happy? Then this Copeland person would sell more stuff to them, and MMM would get a decent cost per weapon that they bought from Copeland. Then MMM could sell those late Star League weapons at a marked up rate to someone else. The war with the invaders might have seemed to have slowed down for this year, but that was only giving everyone more time to buy and field more and newer weapons for when the war started back up again. Either the invaders would start up again taking more planets from the House Lords, or the great houses would try to take back some of their lost worlds.

That was why she was here today on the private MMM drop port. She wanted to offer something that was very valuable to Commodore Copeland. Nancy lifted her chin to just the way that she wanted it, and she walked over to the person she wanted to talk to. She was a little surprised to find that Robert was standing outside of his "command" dropship as the new purchased massive dropship engines were being loaded onto the Mammoth class ship. Nancy also notices that he was watching her as she headed his way, and he had been doing that from the second that she had exited her hover transport.

It took her a few seconds to remember when she had seen this type of action before today. Then it hit her, like a bolt out of the blue. It had been when she was dealing with a certain mercenary leader from the famous Eridani Light Horse. For the first time she really looked at Copeland, and he reminded her of a bird of prey watching a rabbit. That had been like how the Colonel from the Light Horse had made her feel those few years ago. Nancy almost stumbled mid-step, at this realization. She was used to being the falcon and everyone else was the rabbit. The shoe did not fill so great being on the other foot.

She stopped at the base of the dropship ramp, and she used her perfectly trained voice to take control of this meeting. She knew this game and she was very good at it, or so she thought. "Commodore Copeland. I was hoping that I could have a little of your time."

Nancy was laying it on a little thick, and she was expecting to need to keep doing this for the opening parts of this meeting if not longer. She was not used to having to deal with men in any positions of power over her. That was something, which was very rare in the MoC and even rarer for her to have to deal with. And having to do so in public was almost scandalous for her, and that was saying something for someone that was born and raised in the MoC. But to deal in the kind of money that she was dealing in this week? She would do this every day and twice on Sunday to get a cut of those numbers.

Something in the tone that the soon to be leader of this part of MMM had used had caused Robert's ear to twitch. He did not know what it was, but something was there moving around in the background of her tone. It was like a salt covered slug. Robert quickly decided to play along with the woman and soon to be head of this part of MMM. "Miss Wake, what can I do for you?" Robert pointed off to one side of the dropship that was just a few steps away from the nearest other person on the drop port. It was not much privacy, but it was some.

Nancy nodded her head, and she took a few steps toward where Robert had pointed. When they were just out of earshot of anyone working in the local area. Still, she quickly looked around before turning her gaze one more time to the Commander. She was playing up the tri-vid spy tropes, and not realizing that it was falling as flat as a coin from your hand.

"I looked into that issue about the attack on your factor, like you asked of MMM. I talked to my security people, and they went to work on the problem. I was surprised to learn that our people were already keeping an eye on six suspected safe houses for ComStar or maybe people that work with them for some time now."

She didn't "know" if they were ComStar, but the people who wrote the reports had seemed to think so and had put this in writing. And that revelation had caused her to ask some more pointed questions to "her" soon to be internal security department. Questions that she quickly found out that she had not really wanted to know the answers to when the security department head had gotten back to her.

That was not a lie, which she had spoken to Copeland just now. She had been surprised at both items and how fast the answers had come back to her specific questions. She had not known that ComStar had a "safe house" for their special operations unit called Blake's Wrath or Delta/Epsilon depending on what report she reviewed. Much less that they had six of them on this one planet, and that her company was paying large sums of money in keeping an eye on all of them. She had been angry at both her security team managers and at Mike for not telling her about this before, and now she had only been a few short days from taking over as the official head of this division of MMM. After this Copeland character left the planet, she was going to have to do a lot more "house cleaning" of the local departments than she had first thought was needed.

Robert had to fight down a smile, and that was a little harder than it should have been for a person with his background. As she was talking, Robert could read this woman like a book, and he could tell that she was playing a game with him. Robert could tell that she was also mad about finding out about these safe houses and having to deal with him. She was the classic power player that had plagued mankind for centuries, and would continue to do so till the end of time. Robert was just glad that the Cylon Empire was also plagued by this disease.

"You don't say. …I have some firepower under my command. But I don't think that I can take out six safe houses. And they would have to be taken out at the same time to be very effective at lancing this boil that is growing on this planet." Robert was only a heartbeat away from saying "your" planet instead of "this" planet. "Do you know which one of these safe houses is connected with the attacks on my factor?" Robert felt almost dirty about how he was needing to deal with this woman. He had no idea how much easier and cleaner it was to deal with Mike, until now.

Nancy gave the other man a look and she had to do some quick mental recalculations. This man was not worried about ComStar in the least. He only cared about going after the group who had attacked his people. If it was a power that was second only to a great house that he was going to attack, then so be it. Those were actions that only people with very powerful friends or bosses would think about doing. But he was right about one thing. They needed to take down all six or the boil would only grow near the heart of her part of MMM. This she had agreed with Mike on, she had not liked it, but she had agreed with it. She was thinking that under her leadership, this would not have developed into so much of an issue in the first place.

Nancy kept her work face on, and she pushed her shoulders a little further back on her frame. "I could send my security chief over, and she can work with you. I have already authorized her to "reduce" the safe houses, if she can find a way." She again had not lied, but she was not saying the whole true. She had been planning on vetoing any plan that didn't have a very good chance of succeeding. Now that sticky ball had been kicked so far out of her court by Copeland, that it might as well be in orbit over the planet.

Robert held out his hand to the woman and he felt his skin crawl as she took it. "That would be nice…and thank you. I have been under the opinion, and I think I got it from my mother. That if you let people get away with attacking you, they will keep doing it. The only way to stop them, is to kick them someplace that they will feel it and periodically remember that pain every time they think about doing something dumb in your general direction."

##########

The new head of MMM on this planet spent the next hour talking with Robert in the shade of the Lion class dropship about everything she knew about these safe houses. Robert was not going to let her into "his" dropship just yet. Still, it was time well spent, and the two companies patched up some of the misunderstandings that might have developed at their first meeting. Both leaders did not "like" working with each other, but they could work together to complete this mission. At least they could work together right now.

It was not long after Nancy had left, that the head of the company's security unit drove out to the drop port to work out a plan to deal with the six safe houses. The first thing that was worked out, was that they were not going to be able to use battlemechs in the attacks on the Safe Houses. It would seem that these locations had been picked, maybe on purpose, so that local crewed battlemechs could not access those locations. Not at least without damaging a lot of homes or businesses while they "tried" to sneak in to get into weapons range of those spots on the map. That selection had been one of the reasons that MMM had been able to find them so quickly. There were very few locations in this city that allowed this virtue to exist, and MMM had years to work out where someone might launch an attack against them from.

The attacks against these safe houses would have to be soon. Intelligence like this had a very short shelf life, and it would quickly rot and start to stink up the place if you acted on it too late. The Security chief had been surprised that "only" a merchant commander had understood this. She had been also surprised at what "firepower" Robert was going to be able to bring to this very short notice operation in an urban environment. Then there was the size of support that would be joining some of her people in this attack. She was colored very impressed, and she knew enough not to ask too many questions about this company.

Midnight.

Mark looked over to Samantha standing not too far from him, and he gave her a slight nod of his huge metal covered head. This was a joint operation between Copeland's security forces and MMM's security teams. It was the first time an operation like this had been launched with SLiE support, just the locals had no idea about who they were really working with tonight. They hadn't had much time to work things out, but they all were professionals, and they had slipped into a groove that worked for them.

The only people that know about this joint operation with a remnant of the old Star League would be the leaders on far away New Circe. The high placed locals only thought that all of their partner's high-tech weapons and equipment had come from their reported prior conflicts with the company known as ComStar. Conflicts that had not turned out so well for the phone company or whoever had been using those high tech weapons. There also was a group of locals that thought they might have been units pulled from Solaris VII Class 1 arenas.

Mark had a full squad of Weasel/Tornado class suits working with him in supporting Samantha's MMM's direct action security team. One of the other of the local teams had a squad of armored suits to help take down these targets. The rest of the two "weakened" platoons of Copeland security forces were back at the drop port on alert while sitting in or near their dropships. Robert and the Security chief could not guarantee that while his teams were out attacking the safe houses, that a massive attack would not be launched against the small drop port holding two of Copeland's dropships. They just did not have enough information on what ROM of ComStar might be up to, or if there was another game at play in the local area. Robert could not be seen as risking his ships to these possible counter moves. Robert had full faith in his mechs and gun crews to defend his dropships, but he could not show that card in public. At least not again in such a public spot.

MMM had more people to deploy for this mission then what Robert could muster. And all six targets were going to be hit, all at once. The attack was launching in just a few seconds, in one massive wave of attacks by the locals. The MMM ground team commanders had been somewhat surprised that Robert's addition to operation were a pair of squads of stealth battle armor. That was something most planets could not hope to match, not even on a capital world of the Inner Sphere. Most now thought that Solaris VII might have some with all of the Class 1 arenas that used modified exoskeletons to fight with, but no one was for sure.

MMM did not know how many suits that this odd company might have on hand, and they were not going to ask. It was just one more addition to a growing file that held more questions than it held answers about Copeland supply and resale. If it had not been for the mass news of the battles between the Gray Death/FedCom forces against the Clans, and how they had taken test equipment from NAIS to fight the attacking Juggernauts. It might have drawn more attention than they did, and then there were the stories of the battle in the Bivouac system with released images of armored suits used by this company against space pirates.

########

Those public reports and images had let the FedCom break out the Sloth and Infiltrator suits a lot earlier than high command had planned. After the public release of information about these two suits the FedCom had. A huge amount of money had been publicly supplied to their production and fielding; this used more money than a black project could hide. There still were not many suits, but they were quickly becoming one of the major show pieces of the whole FedCom military.

Samantha gave Mark a slight head shake as she focused back on the job at hand. She shifted a little to adjust her heavy body armor and looked up at the ceiling of the nice apartment they were all standing in. It just happened to be below another apartment with the exact same floor plan. That apartment? It was the home of a recently found out safe house for ROM. The original renters of this apartment had decided to move to a nicer place when the two bread winners of the family had gotten surprise pay raises a few months ago. The new tenants were quiet and kept to themselves, but they seem to keep odd working hours. Just what you would expect, unless you knew that they worked for MMM's security department as part of the company's HRT.

In a perfect world, the security team would have picked an apartment over the top of the targeted housing unit or to either side of the targeted apartment. That way the team would just have to blast a hole in the floor and then drop down and deal with the hostiles, or they could have come charging threw a newly made side door. But thanks to a few centuries of holo novels and tri-vids, those two tactics had fallen out of favor with the people that would be making those breaches. So MMM security and their like, had come up with "other ways" to do the job.

Mike took a breath and tried to get his heartbeat back under control. He didn't need to use his targeting systems to mark a spot on the ground. It was round and very hard, but it was large and designed to handle something about 80 percent of what he was about to do to it. At least that was what the paperwork said when they pulled it out of the box. Still, he was about to have his first contact with something called an exercise trampoline.

########

Viktor Brack stealthily looked out of one of the windows of the safe house. He had already checked the hidden cameras that had given him a good view going up and down the corridor outside the door to this flat. Viktor had been an active member of the Blake's Wrath for almost a decade, and he had worked his way higher within that organization at a steady rate. He had done things, that if the rest of the Inner Sphere knew? They would have put his name and image on the most wanted list over the whole of the Inner Sphere. He had not liked his latest assignment that had been dropped into his lap by higher command. At first the mission had sounded like a good or even a fun mission to undertake, for someone with his experience and skill sets.

The last three groups that ROM had sent from Delta/Epsilon had failed in their assigned actions in this part of space. Who knew that a farmhouse would be able to repel a full team of Blake's Wrath, that had been the third failure of mission? That was something that had been unheard of before the coming of these new attackers. Then after his team had gotten set up on this end of space, things did not look so rosy. They had been told to stand fast and to wait for more orders to come from Holy Terra. At least this gave Brack time to review the files that the third team had left behind about the mission that targeted a High Value Target (HVT).

Those orders had come in a month ago, that changed his target list from that same HVT. Viktor had been thankful that they were now working on planning an objective raid on MMM. He hoped that it would turn out better than the attempt to kill a HVT heretic, twice. The attack they were now planning, was to take out a factory and to capture a few examples of these Bear Slayer improved ER PPCs. They were to send any captured examples of this odd weapon, and other information on its manufacture as fast as they could back to Holy Terra. This was the type of mission that Delta/Epsilon would have called its bread and butter going all the way back to Holy Shroud I.

That was why Viktor was looking out of the apartment's main window right now. He had felt that something was going on around them, and it was just out of his line of sight. The feeling was making him a little twitchy but being a little twitchy was how he had lived so long in a young person's game. If the feeling didn't get any better? He was going to have to pull the plug on this whole mission and move all of his command one more time, by his own orders. He could always say that it was Blake's Will that had made him abort launching this raid. Maybe he would have to pull back all the way to the support base that was off of this planet and in FWL space. He thought that the ROM base on Jardine was nice this time of year.

When Viktor looked back into the room, he was glad that he had split up all of the teams to use all of the six different safe houses in this general area of the planet. He was a firm believer of not having all of your eggs sitting in only one basket. Also, too many people in one home could draw unwanted attention from the locals. And besides having too many people in a small home already made for some very cramped living. Extended cramped living conditions was just one of those combat stressors that humans had not found an effective way to combat even in the 31st Century. He had already passed along a few different plan outlines to those other safe houses if he did not pull the plug on the whole mission. As he thought about those plans, he made a sour face and thought again about just pulling the plug on this whole mission and then E and E off this world.

Just as Viktor was thinking about those other safe houses and passing the abort message? The floor a dozen feet in front of him erupted into a volcano of smoke and brown and gray dust. Then a familiar shaped apparition came flying through the newly opened hole in the floor like some kind of ghost. Viktor was an elite Special Forces operator with many years of training and experience under his belt. He dropped to his belly and was rolling on the floor before his brain knew what was going on. Viktor felt the heavy body when it landed on the other side of the breached floor. All of that was academic, to what was happening in his brain.

Part of Viktor's body had notice that the figure flying through the air without a jump pack was an enemy attacker. He was reacting by pure muscle memory, and he rose into an effective firing position on the enemy. His Sunbeam brand pistol was pumping burst after burst of light energy into the moving attacker all out of muscle memory. He even hit the battle suit twice out of three bursts of laser energy that he had fired from his position on the apartment floor. It was just too bad that he did not notice the top of the ladder or the person coming up it behind the huge person between him and the hole. Viktor did notice the flash as an odd-looking rifle fired a burst of projectiles at him.

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Some part of Viktor's mind might have noticed the ladder, which was why after firing a few bursts out of pure reflex toward the standing target. He was now working on taking aim at the choke point into his not so safe "safe house". He saw a flash and then he felt the bullets hit him like the sledgehammers of the god he called Blake.

Viktor had been wearing body armor, very good body armor at least compared to what anyone else in the Inner Sphere was making, issuing, or that ROM knew was being developed. It was just like a second skin to Viktor, and he only didn't wear armor when doing so would risk blowing his current mission. If he could have, he would have the armor surgically attached to or under his own skin. He had even said so on many of the after-action reports that he had filed over the years. Some of his peers had said, behind his back. That because of that body armor, he tended to stay more exposed to enemy weapons fire than what was good for someone who wanted to remain an active member of Delta/Epsilon.

This time that body armor did not do him any good. Projectiles that had been made to punch threw a Cylon Centurion at 100m had hit him square on to his exposed chest. The exposed chest, which he was giving to the attacks so that he could get a better site picture of his targets. Those specially designed projectiles had barely noticed the front armor plate or the soft parts of Viktor's body that they cut threw. Those impacts had just started to make the projectiles start to wobble thanks to no air keeping them stable inside the ComStar trooper's body cavity.

By the time that the projectiles went out of the back plate of Viktor's body armor. They had slowed down to the "only" being to the very dangerous level that kept them from breaking up as they now tumbled threw the air. It would have been better for the defenders if they had been moving fast enough to break up as they re-entered the air. Those projectiles then went into a couch and wall behind the furniture, and they were still a little above the speed of sound after they passed through those light obstructions.

#########

Mark hit the round device mounted on the floor at the full 10kph that his suit could run when the counter said 1 second before the breaching charge went off. He was on his way up towards the ceiling when the explosive charge detonated over his head. Mark's armored covered head pushed through the falling concrete ceiling and other debris between eye blinks as he was pushed into the targeted safe house.

Things were happening so fast that the human brain could not keep up with the changes, but that was why people like Mark and the rest of the team did a lot of very expensive training. The targeted room was filled with smoke and dust. At first only most of it was from the breaching charge, later a lot more of it was supplied from the below as a grenadier who was tossing smoke and the rare irritant grenades up through the hole. This was going to be needed for concealment from any enemy that might be close to the breaching point. It was not cover. Cover was the term used for something that could provide protection from at least light weapons fire.

When Mark first felt the "ground" under his metal covered feet, his knees automatically flexed to take the shock of his landing. Even before he could pull his weapon around from his back to cover the breach point, his suit told him that someone had hit him with a laser blast. The built-in sensors of his suit said that the hit was from a FWL headquartered Sunbeam Corporation Sunbeam class of laser Pistol. That was a powerful weapon to be used against an attacking person, and the hit registered on Mark's center mass of his armored suit.

"Someone was quick on their feet," thought Mark as his own rifle came swinging up into his hands to effectively cover the entry point.

Mark started to scan the area, and he was hit a second time by the same type of laser weapon, but the hits were coming from an area that was not his to cover. When the third shot had just missed hitting him in the helmet. That was too much, and Mark started to look for a shooter that was too good for this mission to succeed. Just as he was about to fire his rifle at the high prone man was when Samantha made it to the top of the ladder, and she took the lone gunman under fire. Mark knew what weapon the Number 2 person in the stack was packing. Threw the smoke and dust Mark could see the first projectile hit a tall man that had been near a window for this style of apartment. The gunman had not been moving enough to trigger the scouting systems the MMM security team had used. Now he would be moving, at least for a few seconds, before he died.

Mark returned to his assigned sector, then the door opened as his eyes took up the sector. A Mydron auto-pistol barked from the dark room, and a pair of sparks comes off his shoulder and neck armor. Mark fired his old Mauser 960 pulse laser at where the shooter should be standing. Mark's weapon had only differed from the old SLDF issued weapon in that the field kit and other items were missing to make the weapons easier to handle. Mark saw a shadow that was a little lighter than the dark room they had been firing from dropped in the boneless way only someone hit with weapons fire could do without looking odd.

Mark was about to head toward the dark room with a now slowly closing door, which was when weapons fire came from the kitchenette. Now Mark more felt than saw one of the breaching team fall against his armored legs of his suit like a 100kg battering ram. It didn't so much as bump Mark's aim, and a second pull of the trigger on his laser rifle. One part of Mark's mind did notice that the MMM security team member had taken a projectile head shot from the Kitchenette. The woman in the kitchenette was now two gunning at him with a Wolf M30 and what looked like a Yanjingshe. The targeting system in the suit put the aim point in the sniper's triangle on the woman, and Mark pulled the trigger on his pulse laser rifle.

When the upper chest shot woman dropped behind the counter with a hotplate and washing station fixed mounted on it. A second set of Tornado power armor rose through the hole in the floor thanks to the lift of the device at the base of the breaching point. More gun fire of both projectile and energy types crisscrossed the room and more and more attackers filled into the ROM safe house. It would only be a matter of time before the tide would turn against the defenders as more and more attackers came through the breaching point in the floor.

A half dozen suits of PA(L) and another dozen armored security personnel flowed out of the hole and swarmed into the apartment like army ants looking for their next meal. Viktor was not the only one, which had been armed in the safe house, but they all died. Without having a choke point to funnel the attackers threw. The pistols they could reach were not that effective in single shots to the heavy chest plates on the heavy body armor much less the light power armor. Each of the defenders had only needed a shot or two to work this out, and then they change their target selection on their attackers. Not one of the six people in this safe house at the time of the attack were taken alive, and more than a few had taken an attacker with them when their hearts had stop beating. It was a blood bath no matter how you tried to cut it, and the local press was not even going to try to cut down on the gory details they were going to cover.

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All around town weapons fire erupted in areas that had never been exposed to weapons fire of this level in the resident's average life span. People nearby to those "safe" houses would report the sound of combat to the local police in frantic calls in the hundreds. By the time those law enforcement officers had arrived at the different sites of battle around the city, the shooting would have stopped. They were just in time to help with the first aid and mark the dead bodies for later pick up by a soon to be over stretched ambulance service.

Almost to the person, the local law enforcement officers had been upset about not being brought into the planning of the attack on areas that were their patrol beets. Even after all of the Centuries of being in space, sometimes law enforcement agencies could be a little protective of what they thought were their domains. And they would not react well to any group that they felt was trespassing onto their territory.

At least they had been upset, until they saw all of the wounded or dead heavily armored and armored security personnel from MMM being stretched out on any handy mostly flat surface on the streets. The leadership, both within the City's law enforcement and elected local leaders of the City, took longer to come around to that line of thinking. Even when they had come around. There would be flare-ups of anger from those leaders, like when they found out that certain items were taken by MMM to be looked at by people in that company.

Some had felt like this was evidence for some crime that they had felt must have been committed, and the lack of said object would hurt the investigation on who was behind this group of "criminals". The head of MMM's Security would point to all of the "other gear" that was left behind, like almost a truck load of weapons. Weapons that they could use in any investigation the constables wanted to run to find out more about "these criminals". It was just too bad that the Security people of MMM already knew that these would be useless for the law enforcement labs to get any leads from. There were no guarantees of that assumption, so they might find something in what was left behind in the attack and not taken by MMM.

The Blake's Wrath or Delta/Epsilon only had weapons that could be traced back to the FWL or Confederation, which was true right down to the sneak suits hidden in the closets in all of the six of the safe houses. But the communications equipment and a handful of other items in the safe houses were pure Blake's Wrath and used by the old Star League. And MMM made sure that all of those items were collected and under the company's control before to many non MMM controlled eyes saw what they might be. Faster than you can say that possession is nine points of the law, those items had been removed from the wreckage of the safe houses.

Dawn the next day.

Robert, Jess, and most of the rest of the command staff on both dropships had not gotten any sleep while the two squads of their security units were out on the town. Everyone had been waiting to find out how the attacks had done. The Bad Kitty had been outfitted with a very good command set up, it was the likes that would have only been found on a command version of the much larger Overlord or Fortress class dropships. That didn't mean that it was a great help to keep tabs on what was going on around them in the physical world and the radio spectrum. Sometimes this was more a case of training and experience versus system capabilities that the dropship was outfitted with, and in other times it was not.

The Bad Kitty had been a main line SLDF/SLiE combat dropship unit just a few months ago, and she had more than a few bells and whistles hidden within her brightly painted hull. But those systems needed data input, that same data input that might have tipped off the ComStar Special Forces unit to the pending attack. MMM knew enough about some capabilities of the modified Star League equipment thanks to the failed attack years ago. That meant that MMM security was working under some strong rules of ECCM. That meant "Carl keep your frakking hand off that radio, or I will break your fingers…again".

About the only thing that the staff on those two dropships knew, before the sun was fully up on this part of the planet. It was that the attack had went in on time, and that not all of the entry teams had lived to see the sun rise today. Most of this was found out by the law enforcements radio intercepts. The two teams with the knock off Tornado suits had only been able to give short reports out of fear of someone else picking them up by other ears. Ears that might not be connected with MMM Security or the Bad Kitty. After all those two squads were in ComStar designed PA(L), and they would have close to the same radios.

Then word came down that the two squads from the dropships were going to be on the way back soon, and all noses and butts were accounted for. With this information on hand, Robert ordered the command crew to get some sleep, and that the rightful duty shift would be in charge of any further operations of the dropships.

Before Robert could take his own orders and make it to his cabin. He was passed a note that the head of MMM Security and Miss Wake would be coming around Noon to back brief Robert on the missions that his people had helped with. Robert folded the paper and passed it back to the messenger. This was so that the note could be logged into the official ship's records, and for the next shift to be aware of the coming VIPs that might be a little on the angry side for who knows what reasons.

One of the things that had taken the longest to work out for this joint mission, was where the first of the after mission or after-action reviews would be done. It had not been easy, but in the end, Robert had agreed that MMM Security would handle those first debriefings after the mission was declared to be over. After all, only two of the attacks would have Robert's people attached to them. If he let his people join the whole process of official scab picking. Then Robert would have insight into what and how the other attacks had gone. All without just having to rely on a report that might be censored by Nancy Wake or one of the people that worked for her.

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As it turned out, the Noon meeting on the dropship was delayed. It was not noon but two hours after that time, when the escorted black hover limousine made it to the private drop port. Six figures were ushered into the Hercules's briefing room from the overly long hover car that might have cost more than an older tech assault battlemech. Robert had passed along to the rest of his key staff where he wanted this official post mission meeting to take place when they had approved the plan for the attacks on the safe houses. This information was passed over to the local office tower when the room on the dropship was ready for visitors. It was a good way to make sure no one made a change of the agreed upon meeting that Copeland had signed off on.

Nancy did not say much even as the meeting started, the woman looked almost grey to Robert's trained eyes. If Robert was right? This was the first time that the new head of this part of MMM had ever been this closely involved in the loss of life of her people in a very long time, if ever. For some reason the word "bureaucrat" kept popping into his head every time he looked her way. The head of local law enforcement and her head of security were leading this meeting. This meeting, and like on most planets of the MoC, was being led by women.

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Ruth Elder looked around the room and she tried to get her mind back into the game. She was not happy about only being brought into this mission after it was all over, and then only after some of the locals had called in the gun fire and reporting a surprise planetary invasion. She understood why this happened, but that did not mean that she had to like the fact that it had happened under her watch. She had an idea that her office leaked, and it leaked badly on many topics to criminals on the planet. And she knew that it might not just be criminals that had their long fingers latched into some levels in her office, but it could be others that would sell the data to them as soon as they heard about this mission. With a cleansing breath, Ruth started talking to the metal walled room.

"The assault into the six terrorist cells safe houses was successful. We do know that they were cells, and that will not change unless we get some earth-shattering new information during "our" investigation. We have recovered information from the crime scenes, to confirm that they were getting ready to launch another attack into the local area. This one attack looks to have been aimed at one of the outlying MMM production buildings in the local area. Each one of the cells had different tasks for this attack that would not require that they know about the rest of the mission." This early in the investigation, she was making a lot of guesses, and she knew it.

She stopped talking for a second and looked down at her hard copy notes. After a dozen seconds of looking down, she looked back up to address the room. "The third targeted safe house is where we found images of your Factors home, office, and what had been her mother's old properties before she passed from this life. We have assessed that we took out the cell that committed the arson of her home and the failed attack on her mother's family estate home. We now can close the case on the arson and tampering with her car. Whoever was behind all of these terrorist Cells? They were very well financed, equipped, and the teams were highly trained in many forms of combat."

Robert nodded his head in understanding, and he let a deep frown come to his face that was not forced. He had personally seen the damage on his people's suits, and he had talked to a few of them while they cleaned up from the mission before sitting in on this meeting. This gave him an idea of the answer that he was about to get, but he went ahead and asked it anyway.

"What were the casualties, and do you have the results of any questioning your officers were able to perform on the survivors? Robert kept his voice very level and as leached of emotion as he could, given this situation.

Ruth did not need to look down at her notes for this next part of the briefing. The people who had been involved might not have been her people, but she still felt the pain of each of their losses deep in her bones. "There has not been any questioning, all of the cell members died in the operation. We have a total of 45 dead, and another 18 that are currently listed as wounded. We are just lucky at the state of medical care in our part of space. The only teams that did not have double digit casualties were the two targets that Commodore Copeland's people helped with taking down. And still four of our wounded still might not make it, despite the quality of our medical care."

She took another deep breath. "Whoever these people were? They did not go down quietly or alone when it was one on one combat with our best trained security people. We think at least one unsub (unknown subject) was able to get through "our" outer cordons without being spotted by MMM security or my people arriving on the scene. We have a ton of evidence, and it looks like they were caught flat footed by the taking down of those safe houses much less taking all six down at the same time. I have all of my evidence people going over every inch of all six sites with micron-scopes. This will cause some delays in other cases that we had been working on, and I have no idea how long these delays will last for my other active cases. I have all of the preliminary reports, but I have to warn you all that this is just the preliminary report. About the only thing that I know as concrete facts, is that I have 34 unsubs in my morgue."

Robert looked at Ruth for a little while, and then he looked over to Nancy. "Six safe houses, six unknown players in most of them. That would mean that there were 36 players. That is if two were able to do the bug out boogie out a back window. 35 seems to be an odd number to divide all of the required tasks with from six safe houses. At least without cross pollination of information to other operation or actions cells."

Robert was not going to say out loud that the only large organizations that used base 6 for their formations might be. He just left that line of thinking lay in the room and he closed his mouth. He just wanted to make sure that the locals were on their toes for two highly trained SFers types that might be on the loose. Ones that might have an axe to grind with the locals about the attack they had just lived through and had caused the loss of an unknown number of their friends last night. Those two should be going to ground or getting off planet, but then again. They might be angry enough to be up to doing something dumb. You know like going out in a blaze of glory or just a lot of blood and death for everyone to have to deal with.

That was not the last of the briefing about the taking down of these safe houses. They covered a lot of things that Robert did not care about. He did not say a word about not caring about what was being said around him. A lot of people had bled and died for the information on the displays today and in the handouts that were passed around. The least Robert could do was give them an hour of his time to acknowledge those losses. It did prove that PA(L) and anti Cylon designed ammunition was a game changer in the small unit tactics world.

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Robert walked Nancy to the hatch of the massive Mammoth class dropship, they had been the last to leave the metal room and both had made sure to shake a lot of hands as they exited the briefing room. Robert made sure that there was some room between the pair and the rest of the departing personnel as they walked towards the exit of the dropship. Just as they were almost to the exit hatch, Robert reached out his arm and he stopped her.

"Thank you for helping us take care of the people who attack one of mine. I am sorry for your losses that your people took in helping us. I cannot make up for their blood, but I did notice that my people had less issues with the incoming fire than some of yours." Robert kept his tone level, the last thing he wanted her to think about was him downplaying the price of this mission.

Nancy didn't say a word and just gave a level look towards the man. It said, please get to your point. I have other things to do that are not going to be pleasant because of getting involved with you. She had been both coached and listen to Mike for almost four hours the day before. It had been mostly about how she had almost screwed up the relationship just by looking like Robert was crap stuck to her 600 C-bill shoes. Then Mike had pointed out that the woman working with Robert had kept looking like that if she had a knife in her hands. It looked like she wanted to put it between Nancy's eyes and be done with her and then go have lunch.

Now Nancy was focused on one of the key points that Mike had talked about. It was that these people had an odd way of doing business, compared to what MMM was used to be having to deal with. The fine points of this new style of edict were odd to her, but it seemed to have worked for them for the last few years that she knew of. So, she was going to give it a try, just as Mike had been trying to pound into her head now that she was willing to look and think about it.

When Robert did not say something for almost half a minute after stopping her from getting on with her day. Nancy decided to risk something and went with the truth, it was some of what Mike had suggested in their last meeting together. "We noticed, and we have a few ideas on how to fix that issue in the future. But we are just one company Mr. Copeland. Now the MoC is doing better all the time, but she does not have the resources like the Great Houses have access to." She hoped that she was being open enough, but also while being vague enough and still not re poison the well with Copeland. This was almost like dealing with the Combine…well almost.

Robert let a sad smile come to his face that was not fake. He knew how he had felt, when his people had been hurt or killed in the line of duty. "I am sure you have, and yes the MoC is a smaller player compared to the Great Houses. I know that there are a few different types of powered battle armors that the major players have been playing around with. We recovered a few suits from a "pirate" attack on my people a few years ago. We think that they were from ComStar or at least they were made by them on Terra, but we don't have any "iron clad" proof of this. But as to why I wanted just a little more of your time. Let me start with, a deal was made by someone that had also worked with Mike in the past, but I don't know the details of this plan. But what if I told you? That we have been able to hand make a few more of those suits besides what we captured?"

As Robert was talking, he was watching the woman's face in as much detail as his experienced mind could possibly do. He knew that she had to have been briefed about the armored suits his people had used in these assaults. Robert and his people had not tried to keep them that much of a secret, and he knew that some of the images from the Bivouac system had been seen by now all across the Inner Sphere.

Robert also was betting that she would be a little surprised that they were making these types of armored suits back home, and the ones that her people had seen were not just repaired battlefield salvage. He also was betting that it would be a major shock that he was admitting that he had gotten the suits from ComStar in the first place. ComStar was not known to have a battle suit of any kind in production or otherwise. The FedCom were now publicly known to have a few suits in low to mid-rate of production, and everyone else was supposed to be at the "prototypes in the works phases" or at least that was what they were telling the public.

Robert waved to one of his people standing by the small hatch. "I cannot "give" them to you or even one of them for your people to check out for a few days. That would be a gross violation of my orders. But if you have, say four to eight million C-Bills worth of the right workmechs just lying around that are in good condition. I will trade one or two of the armored suits that our people went on last night's mission with, to your company." As he finished talking a container was opened not far away from the hatch leading to the outside world. Robert knew that he was being very vague about the sales price, just as a test to see what she would do.

Nancy could have been knocked over by a feather. The look on her face was a cross of "I just farted in front of the Royal family, and when did I get this tattoo". She knew that MMM had spent over five times that amount of hard C-bills just trying to get any one of the battle armor suits that the FedCom had been shown to use in slowly growing numbers. And still they had not gotten one or even parts of a damaged one to look at. Nancy saw the metal hatch of a shipping container opening, and she could not help herself. She walked almost out the hatch and looked down into the half-hidden crate. Her heart was about to beat out of her chest, and she was finding it very hard to breathe.

The small shipping container held two suits of Tornado light battle armor. About the only thing that she could identify were two helmets and two sets of armored gloves. Everything else was just a group of metal body parts that had a vague human appearance to her untrained eyes. They were dirty, dusty, and maybe blood covered parts. But they were right there in a shipping container at her fingertips. She could also see small dents and burn marks on the exposed armor. There was no doubt that they were used, and they had been used hard in combat. But she knew that those suits had seen combat and seen there people home afterwards. The smell of stale sweat and burnt things assaulted her nose told her this. That was something that could not be said for the best body armor that MMM had been able to buy or make for their own people.

Nancy reached down and rubbed her hand over what might have been a set of greaves for the PA(L) suit she had been briefed on this morning. She knew that just because her company had the pair of devices, that it did not mean that they could be able to make exact copies of them. It did mean that they could start working on some ideas that might let them work to make their own design from this advanced starting point. It would seem that this company from off the edge of the map, had just given her division a major leg up on entering the Battle Armor market. Soon they could be with the rest of the major players from around the whole Inner Sphere. Her voice was very husky as she kept moving her hands over the "gift". She was hoping that this was not some sort of a dream.

In that daydreaming a soft voice spoke in her mind that sounded like Mike. "Be careful when you work with this company for something new. They offer great opportunities, but the greater the opportunities they offer, the greater the danger is going to be. Dangers that you will not be able to see at the time of the offer, no matter how hard you look for them. But they will be there, and they will come swimming up to bite you down the road."

Nancy's brain slapped down the quiet voice in her head, and it was quickly forgotten as if those words had never been spoken to her. "I will have the machines sent over by the end of the day, Mr. Copeland."

Nancy jerked her head up and around to look at the man. "Would you mind if I left them here, and my people will pick them up when they drop off your payment? I don't think I have room in my car for them for all of its size. It could be cramped, and there are some things I would not want to have to explain to the rest of the people riding in it today." She had a soft chuckle in her voice as she started to get her mind wrapped around this series of unexpected events.

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True to her word a dozen new or like new machines of six different types of industrial workmechs were off loaded from flat beds before the sun sat on this private drop port. Robert had a good idea what the sales prices were for each of those machines being unloaded. And the totals were more than the four to eight million that Robert had asked for as payment for those two battered suits of PA(L). it would seem that Miss Wake thought that six workmechs each was what Copeland had been really expecting out of the deal.

Robert had not just pulled this trade out of his….pocket, or at the last second due to the body count MMM had sustained. This was a working idea that Admiral Xi had come up with some time ago after reading so many of Robert's reports and her own experience dealing with the Inner Sphere. It was thought that if MMM could come up with a suit of Power Armor that they could mass produce? Then it would be another case of many birds and one stone for the SLiE.

The first bird was that it would help the Inner Sphere in the fight against the Clans with the light suits that MMM would sell to those doing the actual fighting. The second bird was that it would most definitely get under ComStar's skin. Robert would love to have been a fly on the wall on Terra, when ComStar found out that one of the suits that they had made, now was on the open market or being used by others beside the interstellar phone company. It would get their goat on so many different levels, that the bookies were not taken any more bets on their reactions.

The third bird was that now Copeland or someone else from the SLiE could get more of the armored suits that MMM would be making. Suits that then can be used to increase the number of on hand suits available to fight the Cylons, and anyone else that might become a problem for the SLiE. The possible fourth bird would be if MMM could come up with a suit that could match or almost match the Clan Elemental armed suit in the 1-ton weight class. A possible fifth bird would be if MMM could get other types of PA(L) that had uses outside of just combat into production, like say the Tunnel Rat. Now some of those suits could be very useful for New Circe and its growing population.

The next two days were quiet as more cargos were loaded onto the two dropships and items of old Star League tech were moved off of them. The off-duty crews did not report any issues with the locals, and all seemed to have a good time while on the town. It was a good trading mission that was had by many people on the planet. Robert was almost sorry to leave this system when the Styx left for the next stop on their list.

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Notes:

Inner Sphere Battle Armor in this AU: Thanks to the battles with Copeland and ComStar battle armor is now known to intelligence agencies. Battle Armor is fully out of the bag and in the public domain after Copeland's last battle in Bivouac. Think about how Hanse Davion might have tried to use the news of a salvage company already having battle armor. IS "prototype" battle armor in OTL would have shown up on Pandora in early 3052, but they were in the field in 3050. Let's call it a butterfly of 8 or so months for the public to first see those two types of suits. Now they will not have to hide the money needed to make and develop these two and other suits and any improvements needed for real battle suits.

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